Joyce Meyer - Run Your Race To Win

I have a series of teachings that I do called "Sit, stand, walk, and run". Well, each one of those things are something the Bible instructs us to do.

Now, pretty much people just want to get saved and run their race. "What's my ministry? What can I do? I want to get a promotion. I want to have more money. I want to do something great. You know, what's my ministry, what's my call"? And it doesn't work that way.

Think of a baby. They're laying in the crib. They don't all of a sudden jump up and start running across the room. Now, just think with me. The first thing they do is they learn how to sit.

The Bible talks about staying seated with Christ in heavenly places. The Bible teaches us that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. Doesn't talk about Him standing in heaven. It always says that He's seated, He who sat upon the throne. And we are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Well, being seated is talking about entering the rest of God.

Let me tell you something. You don't want to try to run a race if you don't know how to enter the rest of God while you're running that race. Because things are going to happen, you're going to have more responsibility, there's going to be more darts thrown at you, more demonic attacks. And in the process, you have to learn how to trust God and enter His rest, otherwise you'll never, ever, ever be able to do it without having a nervous breakdown three times a week.

People want promotion, but when you get a promotion, you always get more responsibility. So, it takes a long time, honestly, to learn how to stay seated in Christ. That means when your kids are going through problems, you still stay seated. And I'm talking about spiritually.

That means when you hear a threat at work that you're going to lose your job, you stay seated. That means when you didn't get picked for the worship team at church, that you stay seated in Christ. That means when you find out that your best friend told your secret, you stay seated in Christ. Amen?

There's 1,000 ways that we can lose our peace if we want to, but we don't have to if we learn how to rest in God. Those who have believed do enter the rest of God. We can be seated in Christ and not have to work, work, work, work, work, work, work at trying to be a christian all the time.

Then the next thing we have to learn how to do is stand. We have to learn how to stand against the devil. We have to learn how to stand strong when things are coming against us. You can't run before you learn how to stand. Because while you're running, there's going to be things come against you, and you're going to have to stand strong against the enemy.

And then we got to learn how to walk. Before you can run, you have to learn how to walk. We walk with God. We walk in love. We walk in the Spirit. We walk in the Word. And a walk is all about a step. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, dishes, grocery store, clean the house, go to work, go to work, Monday, Tuesday, go to church on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. It's about learning how to do this thing in everyday life to walk with God.

And then finally, God will release you to run your race. And tonight, we're going to talk about how to run the race to win. And not only how to run your race, but how to finish the race.