Joyce Meyer - Walking In Faith And Living With Purpose (08/24/2019)
In this message from the "Sit, Stand, Walk, and Run" series, Joyce Meyer teaches that our spiritual journey begins with sitting in God's rest (Ephesians 2:6), then standing strong against the enemy, walking out faith daily through choices, and eventually running our race. Using the analogy of a baby's development, she stresses entering God's rest first, making deliberate choices to walk in faith, love, light, and the Spirit—not the flesh—and living with eternity in view, investing in right decisions now for eternal rewards rather than seeking instant gratification.
The Series Premise – Learning from a Baby's Development
We're doing a series called "Sit, Stand, Walk, and Run". And the premise is, is that if you think about a baby, the first thing they do is learn how to sit up. And sitting represents entering the rest of God. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. When he ascended on high, he sat down. That's actually very important. He sat down because he finished what he was sent to do, and he entered the supernatural, amazing rest of God.
Seated in Heavenly Places
The Bible says in Ephesians 2, 6, that we, you and I, are also seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now, what that means is, we actually live in two places at the same time. Obviously, I'm here on the platform, you can see me. But internally, in my heart, in my soul, I'm seated in heavenly places tonight because I am, I just really am trusting God and have entered the rest of God concerning everything that goes on here. So, my body's here, but my heart is seated in heavenly places with Christ, trusting him to do what only he can do.
Living from a Position of Rest
Now, you can live that way. You can live seated in heavenly places. You can parent from position of rest. You can be in difficult situations, do all the crisis demands, and still be in the rest of God internally. You know, your real life is in you. It's not what's going on around you. Your real life is in you. And you can have wonderful circumstances and know peace and be miserable. You can have lousy circumstances and have peace and have a wonderful life. So, let's don't look so much to our circumstances as to our heart. If our heart's right with God, then everything else is going to work. It's so wonderful to be in the rest of God.
The Progression – Sit, Then Stand, Then Walk
Now, the next thing we can do once we learn to enter the rest of God is we can stand strong in God. And we can stand against the enemy. And we learned about that this morning. And then we need to walk this thing out in our daily life. You know, going to church is great, but it basically does zero good if you don't go home and walk it out. Let me say it again. Going to church is great, but it does absolutely no good if we don't go home and walk it out.
I am wasting my time here tonight if all you did was come to see what I look like in person. You're here to learn, and I'm here to learn, how we can glorify God better. And we always need to listen, having already purposed that we're going to do what we learn. To be a hearer of the word and not a doer means that we're deceiving our own selves.
Running the Race in Proper Order
The Bible says also that we can run our race. And I think a lot of people get the order all mixed up. I think a lot of people get saved and they're trying to run with God and do some great thing. They don't know how to be seated. They don't know how to stand. They're not even walking in what they're being taught, but they're wanting to do some great thing. So we need to get it right and we need to realize that these things take time. Our relationship with God is walked out in a journey.
My Journey and the Importance of Walking It Out
And I, more and more I think, because now I've been walking with God for a long, long time. I think a lot about my journey. And it's amazing all the things that have happened over the 40 years that I've been in a serious relationship with God. I was saved a long time before that, but I wasn't serious. And I like to talk about that because I think a lot of people just kind of go to church and go home, go to church and go home. You say, are you a Christian while I go to church? Well, you know, that doesn't really mean anything. If it's not affecting your life and you're not living it out in your everyday life.
So tonight we want to talk about what the Bible says about walking. We walk in faith. We walk in love. We walk as Christ walked. First Thessalonians says, we walk to please God. Colossians 3 says, we don't walk as the heathen do. John said, we are to walk in the light. I love Ephesians 5, and we're going to look at that a little more deeply here in a minute. We are to look carefully how we walk. I love that one. Galatians 5 says, we're to walk in the spirit. And the Bible teaches us, we are not to walk in the flesh.
Walking as a Series of Choices
Now, walking is basically a combination of steps. I take a step. I take another step. I take another step. Another, another, another. And then I say, I'm taking a walk. Well, each step, as far as we're going to look at it tonight, is a choice that we make. To walk with God means making choices, using your free will to do the will of God. Yes, we have a free will. God's not going to manipulate us. He's not going to coerce us. He's not going to force us. He's going to show us. He's going to try to lead us and guide us. He's going to tell us. But he won't make us. We're not robots. We're his children.
He wants us to realize that we're free to live any kind of life we want to. And then out of love for him, choose, choose freely to live for him. So many people in the Bible days had been slaves before they came to a relationship with Christ. And then many times if their masters would set them free, they would then call themselves a bond slave because they would decide on their own that they wanted to stay with that master because he was a good master. So Paul said that he was a bond slave of Jesus Christ. In other words, he wasn't forced to go to prison for Christ. He wasn't forced to be beaten for Christ. He wasn't forced to go through fasting and hunger and peril and sword and be mocked and persecuted. But he made himself... He wasn't forced. He made himself a bond slave of Jesus Christ.
Choices Define Our Walk
How many of you know that we can do whatever we want to with our life? You know what? Congratulations to you. Because you could have been anywhere you wanted to be tonight. And you're here. My goodness, you could have been in the best tavern in this city. I mean, you could have been in jail. You could have been... At a party doing all kinds of things that were going to make you sorry tomorrow that you did them. But you made a choice. You walked out some of the things that you've been learning. And you made a better choice.
You know, I'm here tonight by choice. You can hear, if you know my voice very well, that... I'm having a problem with it. I just got a little cold. I don't even really feel that bad now. I felt bad this morning, but I think you guys prayed that off of me, so... You made a choice. Many of you had difficulties. You had things that were opposing you, trying to keep you from being here tonight. But you made a choice. I just, I want to impress on you tonight how many choices we make all day long. We make literally millions of choices in our life. And every good choice that we make eventually brings a good result.
Now, I said eventually. And I want to stress that because actually, sometimes you can do the right thing. And it seems like you have worse conditions than you had before you did it. You know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they told the king, We're not going to bow down to you. If our God can deliver us, he will. But if not, know this. We are not going to bow down to you. And they threw them in the furnace. And then, they made a right choice. And the king turned the furnace up seven times hotter than it was before. Have you ever made a right choice in your life and then felt like the furnace got turned up seven times hotter than it was?
Living with Eternity in View
But I'm telling you what, folks, in the end. In the end. We're going to talk about some things tonight that I don't... I don't know that I've ever taught on. I'm going to talk to you some tonight about eternity and heaven. And how we need to do some of the things that we do just looking forward to the end. We don't need to be so right now, this minute, instantaneous oriented that we have to have immediate gratification for every decision we make to be satisfied. We live in a society today where people don't want to wait for anything. They want instantaneous gratification. But that's not God's way.
And so many times we will make right decisions and we will have to wait a while to get the right result. Sometimes you make bad decisions and you wait a while to get the wrong result. Sometimes it seems like you're making bad decisions and getting by with it. Sometimes we look at other people that are not really living the way they should live and you may even think, well, why should I make these hard choices? They're not doing the right thing and they're getting by with it. But in the end... Come on. In the end, can I tell you that eternity is one long time. Time without end are no time. In eternity, there is no time.
And you know, the early Christians, they allowed themselves to be eaten by lions simply because they had such a strong faith in the afterlife and eternity. And you know, I want you to be blessed right now, but more than I want you to be blessed right now, I want to spend eternity with you in heaven. Amen. And I have just really been feeling this in my heart lately and I think I've taught enough that I have to trust my heart and what God's putting in it. I really believe this is something that God wants me to talk to people a little bit about here and there and I'm going to try to work some of this into some of my messages because I think we need to really realize that we're just strangers and aliens passing through here and the Bible tells us not to get attached to the stuff here. We don't need to live for what's going on here. We shouldn't sell our souls or even part of our souls for fame or fortune or to be well known or to get anything or to get a promotion at work.
We need to make sure that we are being careful how we walk and that we're walking as God walked, that we're walking in faith, walking in love, walking with God and that means that I am making decisions all day long. It's more than me just having a church that I go to and a list of spiritual things that I do every week. Christianity is a lifestyle and it's walked out in a walk. Amen? And each one of us only needs to be concerned for our walk. We don't need to look at other people and say, well, you're not or you are or I'm the only. Let me tell you something, if you're the only, then let your light shine brighter than ever before. Guide somebody else that's walking in darkness.
Be an Investor, Not a Gambler
I think a lot of you are maybe at the point of making some even serious decisions. And I'm just urging you not to make the decision that feels good right now, but make the decision that you really believe God wants you to make. Be an investor, not a gambler. An investor puts money into something believing that eventually in the future it will pay great dividends. No investor expects to invest and reap tomorrow morning. This is the reason why a lot of people don't ever really save money and they end up being unprepared in later years in life because they want an immediate result right now. They don't want to tuck this money away and let it work for the future. So then the future comes and they're sad and they end up having to depend on other people to take care of them.
The best way to handle your finances is to give some, spend some, and save some within your borders. And when you do that, then God will stretch out your borders and you'll be able to give more, spend more, save more. But we need to do all of that if we want to be well prepared for the future. A gambler, however, will always make the wrong choice hoping that they'll get by with it. You think any young girl that has sex before marriage does it thinking she's going to get pregnant? No. She hopes in that moment of decision that she'll be the one that won't have a problem. Do you think that anybody who starts taking drugs starts hoping they'll get addicted to those drugs? No. They've heard all the horror stories, but they think, oh, it won't happen to me. I'm just going to take a chance that it won't happen to me. Come on.
People get in relationships and they mistreat other people. They try to control people. They talk wrong to them. They treat them wrong. Thinking that that person will always be in their life. But let me tell you something. The day may come when they're going to say, bye-bye. I don't want to be treated like this anymore. So I'm asking you to live now for the future. I'm asking you to make decisions now that you're going to be happy with later on. I don't want to be an old woman and have nothing but regrets. I want to look back and say, thank you, God, for helping me make some right decisions.
Choices and Free Will – Deuteronomy 30:19
Choices and decisions are the result of free will. Possibly one of the most important scriptures in the Bible is Deuteronomy 30, 19. I set before you life and death, good and evil. Choose life that you and your descendants might live. Amen? I set before you life and death, good and evil. Choose life that you and your descendants may live. God gives advice, but he won't force us.
The Narrow Path vs. the Broad Path
The Bible teaches us that there's a narrow path and a broad path. You can find these scriptures in Matthew 7, 13, and 14. We're not going to turn there tonight, but Jesus actually spoke about this, and he said that the broad path is an easy path. That's where you get instant results. That's where everything feels good. You got lots of company on the broad path. You're never lonely on the broad path, but there's also a narrow path. And I'll tell you who else is on that narrow path. Jesus. And if you want to walk with him, that's the path you got to walk on. On that path, there's no room for all of our fleshly baggage. There's no room there to hate people and be bitter and resentful and angry all of my life because I didn't get a good start. There's no room there for me to feel sorry for myself all the time and murmur and grumble and complain. If you choose to live on the narrow path, the Bible says it leads to life. If you choose to live on the broad path, it leads to destruction. Be an investor, not a gambler. Amen?
Rewards in Eternity – Revelation 22:12
Now, let me tell you some good news. Well, first of all, let me read you this. Let's put up Revelation 22, 12. Behold, I am coming soon and I shall bring my wages and rewards with me to repay and render to each one just what his own actions and his own works merit. Now, we're not saved by works. We're saved by grace. But we do get rewards or we lose rewards based on how we live here in the earth. Do you understand that? So, you can be satisfied if you want to with just barely squeaking in the back door of heaven. But I don't want to live like that. I'm kind of a spiritual hog. When I get there, I want everything I can get. Amen? And so, I just got this plan, man. I want to preach. I want to do a seminar with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. I mean, I... You know? And I'm praying that in heaven, Dave doesn't get to drive and I do. I'm in charge of the chariot in heaven. Amen?
How many of you understand what I'm saying when I say that we need to make some decisions now that we may not reap on until... I mean, so what if you live 100 years? Big deal. What's that in light of eternity? Honey, we're just passing through here. Do you know that everything that you own, every single piece of clothing you have, every piece of jewelry, your car, your home, everything you have is currently decaying. And if you don't believe it, just take an afternoon and go visit a junkyard. What's in there used to be somebody's dream. People ruined their marriages for what's in that junkyard now. People didn't have any relationships with their kids for what's in that junkyard now. People sold their soul to the devil for what's in that junkyard now. No. I'm going to live for later on. I got a long time to be with God in eternity.
Falling Down – But Getting Back Up
Good news is, is even when we're walking, we sometimes fall down. Especially a baby when they first learned to walk. So we can kind of relate this to being a baby Christian. You know, to be honest, when I was a younger Christian, younger in the Lord, I made a lot more mistakes than I do now. I still make mistakes, but I don't make as many as I did then. And... But the thing, this is so important for you to realize. And that is, is that anytime you fall down, you can get back up.
But now listen, you make a mistake, you do something you shouldn't do. We'll call that stumbling and falling. That's what the Bible says it is. I have a bad day, I lose my temper, I, you know, maybe something worse, I don't know. Tell a lie, whatever, you know. Tell your boss you're sick and you're not. Then the next day you're like, oh man, I know I shouldn't, I shouldn't have done that. So now you're feeling bad. Okay, so, you've fallen. You're not walking anymore, you've fallen.
The Cycle – Sit, Stand, Walk Again
But you can go back to sitting. You can't go from laying down to walking. You can't be laying down and start walking. You have to go back to sitting, which means you repent, you enter the rest of God about your mistake. Come on. You get back into the rest of God. Okay God, I'm not going to fret about this, I'm not going to feel guilty and condemned. I am sorry. I repent. I don't want to do that again. Thank you for your forgiveness. So now, you're seated. Now you're going to stand up again and be strong in the Lord, strong against the enemy who tries to come and say, well, you're not a good Christian. God's mad at you. Who do you think you are to try to do anything for God? You stand against Him, then you go right back to walking in the kingdom. So that's the good news. When you're taking this walk, you're going to fall down sometimes, but you can always go back to sitting, then to standing, then to getting right back up in your walk.