Joyce Meyer - The Anchor of Hope

TOPICS: Hope

This afternoon, we're gonna talk about "The Anchor of Hope." "For when God made his promise to Abraham, He swore by himself, since He had no one greater by whom to swear on." God didn't have to swear on a stack of Bibles. He looked around and thought, "Well, there's nothing here greater than Me, so I guess I'll just swear on myself that this is gonna happen." "Saying, blessing I certainly will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you."

Now, God has sworn on Himself that He will bless you and multiply you. Every one of you, God has said, "I will bless you and I will multiply you." You know, multiplication happens a lot faster than addition. God didn't even just say, "I'll add to you." He said, "I will multiply you," and that gets into some "And so it was that he Abraham, having waited long and endured patiently". You know, we inherit the promises of God, not just by faith, but by faith and patience. You know, waiting is part of what we do, and if you don't know how to wait well, you're gonna be really, really miserable. You need to learn how to enjoy the journey. Not just endure the journey, but enjoy the journey. You know, we all kind of wish go back to the beginning, and know what we know now. And I just wish that I would have known back then what I know now, because I could have enjoyed my journey so much more if I would have.

I finally got around to it about 15 years ago, but my hope now is that I can save you a lot of the pain and agony that I went through by just simply saying that we are not gonna make God do things any faster than would be the exact right timing. God knows the exact right time for you and I to have what we think that we want, and he even knows that some of the things we want are not really what we want. We just think they're what we want, so he doesn't give 'em to us until we realize that we really want what he wants and not what we thought we wanted. And no, I'm not saying that again. I don't think I could. You know, I really want you to get this today. You know, we talk about being patient and enduring and waiting, but do we really get it that that's just part of it?

You don't get around that, and what I'm asking you to do today is have a new mindset that, "I'm gonna enjoy it." You know, really, our destination, we think it's the most important thing, but it's really not. You know, the journey is really much more important than that destination. Do you know that? "And so it was that Abraham, having waited long and endured patiently, realized and obtained in the birth of Isaac a pledge of what was to come and what God had promised him." Verse 18, "This was so that, by two unchangeable things his promise and his oath in which it is impossible for God ever to prove false or deceive us." What God says has to come to pass. There's nothing else that can happen. It has to come to pass. The only thing that stops it is if we stop believing. If we give up, then we break the power of it, but God never! "We who have fled to Him for refuge might have mighty indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope appointed for us. Now we have this hope as a sure and a steadfast anchor of the soul and it cannot slip and it cannot break down under," here comes the key, "Whoever", say, "I'm a whoever," "Steps out on it."

Now, the stepping out part is important. Thought I would tell you something interesting. You know, we lean so much on feelings and we always want to know, you know, what's going on. When it says that hope is the anchor of our soul, you know, your soul is not your spirit. Your soul is not your body. Your soul is that inner part of you that really stands between your spirit and your body. Your soul doesn't really tell you anything about God, but it tells you a whole lot about you. Your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions. Your soul, my soul, tells us what we want, what we think, and what we feel. It doesn't tell us anything about God. If you want to know about God, you gotta go deeper than your soul. And sadly, the largest majority of people never get out of that soulish or that wilderness living to really begin to walk in the Spirit. Do you know how much we let our mind, our will, and our emotions run our lives? Come on, now. Just think about it. How much do we live by what we want, what we think, and what we feel?

Last night, when I sat right over there where I always sit, waiting to come to the pulpit, the worship was so good and I knew it was getting close to the end of the worship, and I didn't feel anything particular from God. Didn't have any idea what I was gonna do. Didn't feel especially anointed. I was kind of like, "Well, God," and I just, you know, sensed the Lord saying, "I'm in you. I'm here." And you know, as I walked from over there to up here, I didn't have one clue what I was gonna do. This is what faith is, folks. I didn't have any idea, see, some of you are not really experiencing the power of God in your life because you're waiting to feel before you step out, and God's wanting you to step out believing that he'll meet you where you're at.

And I want to tell you something, this is one of the most important things that I want to say to you this afternoon. Although I did not plan for it to be the most important, I know in my heart that this is very important for some of you to hear. Hope is what causes us to step out. It's the anchor of our soul. That stepping out is the thing that puts the promises of God into action in our life. Now, I'm not suggesting we just be fanatical and stupid, but you know, I'd rather be a little fanatically stupid than to be dead and cold and just do nothing and never try anything or never find out what God is saying to me.

You know, you pray about what you believe God wants you to do. You do your best to hear from God, then you gotta step out and find out. I have never, one time, in all these years that I have been doing this, I have never, one time, not once, ever had God fail me. Not one time, not ever. And there are times when I do feel things, but last night wasn't one of 'em, and you saw God just show up and show out. But I wanted you to know that I didn't feel a thing. It was actually kind of scary "Well, God, looking at 27,000 people who are expecting a move of God, and I'm feeling just so ridiculously normal."

I want you to get that, that it's in the stepping out. And I believe that this room is absolutely full of possibilities. I mean, I'm telling you, this room is full of possibilities, and God didn't bring you here just so you could have a good time, although God is capable of doing that. He likes us having a good time and He will do things just to refresh us, and maybe for some of you, that's what it is, but I believe that God has brought some of you here to really provoke you to begin to step out. It may be little things. It may be something big, but God wants you to live an exciting life where He shows up in your life and all you can say when it's done is, "Amazing."

I mean, it was so funny last night because when the service was over, must have had a hundred people say to me, "That was amazing." And the thing is none of us even really know for sure what really happened. I mean, we just know, "That was amazing," and God wants your life to be that way. I said God wants your life to be that way. This anchor of the soul, I think it's very important to unpack this a little bit and let's not just look at it like this, "Yes, He's the anchor of my soul." What does that mean? So here, we know when you want a boat to stay a certain place in the water, you drop the anchor, because if you don't, it's gonna float away. But when you drop the anchor, although it can still go it can only go so far. And so then maybe, you know, you try to go over here in this direction a little bit, and oh, it only goes so far.

And God has given us hope as the anchor of our soul. What does that mean? That means when I've got the promise of God and I'm believing, and my mind goes crazy because I'm tired and worn out and I've waited a long, long time, and my mind says, "You're not ever gonna get it. This is not for you. Everybody else gets blessed but you don't. You might as well quit and give up", oh, wait a minute. There's that God of hope again, pulling me back to say, "Nope, this is for you." When your emotions go wild and you say, "I just can't do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm just so upset, and I"... See, when you have hope, your soul may get out there and drift around a little bit, but it ain't going too far because you've already dropped the anchor of hope in your life.