Joyce Meyer - Where Is My Miracle? (08/24/2019)
When obedience feels too tough, honor parents anyway—even if they hurt you—because love is a choice to do right for God, who rewards it and cares for you. Rely fully on His strength daily, as God works through submitted people like Abraham to restore and bless.
When obedience to God is too hard, what do I do?
Children, obey your parents and the Lord as His representative, for this is just and right. Honor, esteem, and value as precious your father and your mother. Father, this is the first commandment with a promise that all may go well with you and you may live long on the earth.
Now, I want to say a little bit about that. If you have parents you're no longer living at home with, and you don't ever pay any attention to your parents, you don't go see them, you don't call them, you don't ever do anything for them, then you need to really think over what God says about how to treat your parents.
And it's not a good enough excuse to say, well, my parents didn't treat me right. Mine abused me, and the time came when God said, I want you to take care of them and take care of them well until they die. And it cost a lot of money, and it cost a lot of time, and it wasn't something that I wanted to do, but we don't have to want to do everything that we do. We do it as unto the Lord. Amen?
And, you know, this is very important to me that you get this part. If your parents were dishonorable, you may not have all the gooey feelings toward them that you would like to have, but love is not about how we feel, it's about what we decide to do as far as how we treat people.
If you do what's right, because it's right, and because you want to honor God, now listen to me, God will always take care of you. He will always take care of you. We don't get to be good to people because they're good people.
Love Like God Loves – Even Enemies
We're going to look at Matthew 5:44 through 47 for a second. We'll put it up on the screens for you. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you to show that you are the children of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and He makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers.
For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that? And if you greet your brethren, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles and the heathens do that?
So he's saying, you don't get to be good to people just because they're nice people and they're good to be good to. You do it because of your love for God and to show that you're a child of God because that's the way He treats us.
How many of you, God was good to you before you were good to be good to? And still is. Okay, verse six. Not in the way of eye service as if they were watching you and only to please men, but as servants and slaves of Christ doing the will of God heartily and with all your whole soul, rendering service readily with goodwill as unto the Lord and not unto men, knowing that for whatever good anyone does, he will receive his reward from the Lord whether he is slave or free.
So you've got a reward coming if you're doing what's right. Doing what's right is a protection on your life. It slams every door in the devil's face. Did you hear me? It slams every door in the devil's face if you do what's right.
The Power of a Godly Family Witness
Verse 9, it talks about how children should submit to their parents. Parents should not take their angry, undue chastisements out on their kids. Any of you ever have a bad day and take it out on your kids? Yeah, well, four. That's good. We've got a lot of holy people here today.
Let me read you something that was in a commentary that I read on Ephesians. He said, you'll notice how these verses talk about submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. This is a principle of Christian living which applies to believers in every relationship of life.
And now that the Apostle Paul turns to consider the Christian family, he shows that it even needs to apply there. Now listen to this. Did you ever stop to think what a wonderful institution the Christian family is?
In reading a letter from a missionary who was working in a heathen land, I was struck by this paragraph that he wrote. This missionary wrote this letter. How we wish that some of our Christian people could come and settle down among us, even if not to engage in missionary work, there are different ways by which one may make his living among these semi-civilized people.
For instance, we would like to have a Christian dentist and his wife, or a Christian worker in leather, a shoemaker, a harness maker, and his wife and family. Now listen, it would mean a great deal to us to have a harmonious family here, for we can conceive of nothing that could so commend Christianity to our people as just to see a Christian family functioning according to the New Testament.
He's saying that there is no better testimony to the world of Christianity than to just witness a Christian family, moms, dads, children, husbands, wives, working together in society and behaving themselves as Christians. Isn't that amazing?
Strength Comes from God Alone
You know what the bottom line is? If we'd all get out and act like what we say we are, it wouldn't be very long and Jesus could come and get us and we could get out of this mess. So here's a question for you. Do your family, relatives, and friends, and relationships look like this? If not, what can you do to improve it? Nothing, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. All right. We're having fun today.
In conclusion, be strong in the Lord. In other words, you're not going to do any of this if you don't stay strong in the Lord. Be empowered through your union with Him. Draw your strength from Him that strength which His boundless might provides.
Let me tell you something. It is so super foolish to get out of bed and just try to behave. Let me tell you something. I can lay in bed and make all my plans for holiness. And they last until I put my feet on the floor and that's the end of it.
So even though your heart is right or my heart is right, you still have to have a boatload of help from God and you have to have it every single day of your life. I mean, I'm sure sometimes I sound like I've got something wrong with me. There's no telling how many times every day I say God help me. Help me, God. Help me.
And I'm not even real sure what I need help with at that moment. It could be putting my contact lens in. It could be combing my hair. It could be getting up to preach. All I know is I am useless without Him. I can do nothing apart from Him and I need God's help in everything that I do. Amen?
Now you see, this is what keeps a lot of people from entering into a real full-on relationship with God because they don't want to depend on God that much. They want to have enough of God to stay out of hell but not enough to walk in victory.
And if you want to really have the kind of relationship with God that Jesus died for you to have, then you've got to let Him into every room in your life. No blocked off rooms. I mean, He gets to get in everything. He gets in your thoughts. He gets in your words. He gets in your sex life. He gets in how you dress. He gets in your money. He gets in your choices. He gets in your friends.
But I tell you, the trade-off is amazing. Yeah, it's a little hard in the beginning, but I tell you, it's not really that hard anymore. Once you understand that you're just not going to be happy if you don't do what God tells you to, that things are just not going to work out right if you don't do what God tells you to, has anybody learned that yet? You are not going to be happy if you don't do what God tells you to do.
God's Strength Renews Us Daily
Ephesians 3:16, may He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality. Paul said, I pray that you would be strengthened with all might and power in the inner man so you can get out there and have a spirit-filled personality and behave the way that you ought to behave out in the world. You can't do it without God's strength.
And then Isaiah 40:31, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and they shall not faint. We can't do it without help from God.
How do I get the immediate miracle I need?
After Adam and Eve sinned, God already had a plan for the restoration of His people. Let me tell you something, God is never without a plan.
And I know that there's a lot of concern about what's going on in the world today. And what's going on in our nation today. But I want to tell you, God's got a plan. He hasn't told us what it is yet. But He's got a plan and we're part of it. Amen?
And so He planned to get His man back and He planned to restore that man's authority. You see, when Adam and Eve sinned, they gave their authority to the devil. The authority that God had given them to rule and reign and have dominion over the earth. They gave that to Satan.
And that can be proven if you look at Luke chapter 4 verse 6. When Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted of the devil 40 days and 40 nights. One of the temptations was the devil said, you bow down to me just this once and I'll give you all this and all this power. Because it has been turned over to me and I can give it to whoever I want to.
But see, he didn't know as much as he thought he knew. Because he was talking to Jesus. Who actually, the Bible says, for this purpose was the Son of God manifest to destroy the works of the wicked one. So he was actually talking to the one that was going to destroy him.
God Works Through Obedient People
God always works through people. Get that in your head. God always works through people. If you ask God for a miracle, He may show you something you need to do. Yeah, all my word is right. That has become very big to me in the last year as far as teaching. It's just like we are partners with God. He works through people.
God can do anything He wants to. And I'm not saying that He never works sovereignly apart from people. But all you got to do is look at history. He worked through Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Esther, Ruth, Daniel, the prophets, the judges, so on and so on and so forth. And He wants to work through you.
And furthermore, it is almost unbelievably astounding what God can do through one man or one woman who will be submitted and committed to Him. It is, I mean, mind boggling what God can do through one person. One person. One person.
So God had a plan and He waited. See, God, God's good at waiting. We need to get better at it. Amen. And then He found Abraham. And He made a covenant of faith with Abraham.
And I... Well, let's look at it. Genesis 12:1 through 3. Now in Haran the Lord said to Abram, Go for yourself, for your own advantage, away from your country, from your relatives, from your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you with an abundant increase of favor. And I will make your name famous and distinguished. And you will be a blessing, dispensing good to others.
And I will bless those who bless you, who confer prosperity or happiness upon you. And I will curse him who curses you or uses insolent language toward you. And in you will all the families of the earth be blessed. And by you, they will bless themselves.
Well, that sounds to me like a pretty good reward for just walking away from a bunch of stuff. And what you may not know is that Abram's family were all idol worshipers. So, God had to get him away from that.
Letting Go to Receive God's Best
Okay, so now listen to me. Here's a man who walks away from everything in order to have the will of God for his life. And some of you won't walk away from a group of friends. God has said, get away from those people. They're poisoning your life.
Or it might be something as simple as, don't sit at that lunch table and listen to the gossip day after day after day. Get out, walk around the neighborhood and talk to me. Well, I want to be part of what's going on. Are you understanding what I'm saying?
He told Abraham, you got to let go of something to take hold of something. And some of you, there's something wonderful that God has for you to take hold of, but you're not doing the letting go of that God has told you to do. Amen?