Joyce Meyer - Has Your Get Up And Go Got Up And Gone

Thank you Lord for the word today. We appreciate it so much and just pray that you'll help us today get the real message that you have here, in Jesus' name. "Has your get up and go got up and gone"? No matter who you are, no matter what you're doing in life, no matter what your occupation is, your station in life, there will be times when you get tired of doing it. See, we all think, "Well, if I could just do that. Well, if I could just do that. Well, if I could just live here". But I'm telling you the truth, I don't care what you do, there are gonna be times when you get tired of doing it. The only people who succeed in life are those who can do what they know they should be doing without emotion to motivate them. Did you hear me? The only people in life who can succeed are those who can do what they know they need to do without emotion motivating them.

You know, moms get tired of taking care of kids. It's not that you didn't want 'em, but you get tired of taking care of 'em. You get tired of cleanin' house. You get tired of cookin'. The kids get tired of going to school, they get tired of being kids, you know. Kids want to make more decisions: adults want to have a day or two where they can make no decisions. To be honest, we always think we want more of something, but the thing that people don't see is, the more you have of anything, the more responsibility that you also have. And people don't realize when they're asking for things that they're not just gonna get the fun part: they're also gonna get the work part, the responsibility part. You get a bigger house, you're gonna have more to clean. People in the public eye want to be normal and normal people want to be recognized and well-known.

So my point is, is that no matter what your station in life is and no matter what you're doing, please believe me today when I tell you that doing something else is not gonna make you any happier long term than you are right now. Now, yes, you know, if you got your dream job that might make you happier for a little while than what you are right now, but you will get tired of doing it. I mean, there are people who just think they've died and gone to heaven when they come to work at our ministry. It's like... And you know what? After about a month they find out it's a job, just like any other job, that we don't float around on a cloud all day and sing the hallelujah chorus. They work for Joyce Meyer, but they never see me. You see me more on TV than most of them do. And we expect them to get to work on time, we expect 'em to work hard, we have different guidelines at the office. And so after all it just turns out to be a job, a good job, but still just a job that you can get just as tired of... How many of you get tired of doing what you're doing? Well, praise the Lord. Only Mike and Dave didn't raise their hand.

Dave, do you ever get tired of doing what you're doing? He really doesn't, he's just like, I think Dave's from another planet and I just haven't figured out which one yet, but that's alright. All the emotion he doesn't have I've got it for both of us. When your get up and go has got up and gone you need to get up and get it back. You can't sit around and just, "Well, I wish I felt better". Or even worse, expecting somebody else to come along and make you feel better. God has given us a free will. We don't have to be the victim of just every feeling and weird emotion that comes down the path at us. We can make decisions about how we're gonna live and we can get up and live the way that God wants us to live, by his grace and by his mercy. Clearly let me say that we do nothing without God, but at the same time, anything that God has asked us to do he is ready to help us do it. Anything that God has asked us to do.

So yes, I do need grace to do what I'm doing, but there's another side of it which is I already have that grace because God would not ask me to do it and not equip me to do it. Anything that God has asked you to do in your life you are equipped to do it. So stop saying, "This is too much for me. I just can't handle this". I said, stop saying "This is too much for me. I can't handle this". I said, stop saying nothing dead praises God. Psalm 115:17, I want you to see that this is actually in the Bible. Psalm 115, verse 17, I love this scripture, it says a lot. "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any who go down into silence". So we're gonna talk for a few minutes about some dead things and learning how to discern when something is dead and when it's full of life. What about continuing to do things that God got finished with a long time ago? You know, there's kind of a rule of thumb, if the horse has been dead 10 years, it's time to dismount. God's always moving, he's flowing, and you know, sometimes something is perfectly right for this timeframe in your life, but now just out of habit or whatever, sometimes we don't even know why, you know, we're still trying to do this same thing another 10 years down the road. And it's just, it's dead. It's... "Well, I don't understand what's wrong".

Well, maybe God got finished with it a long time ago and you're not finished with it yet. Maybe God's trying to do a new thing. I tell a story sometimes, and this is actually a true story about a guard at a castle that stood in this one spot. Twenty-four hours around the clock they had a guard that stood there guarding, what? Nobody knew. So somebody got curious enough to check into, "What is this guy doing here"? Well, as they checked back far enough into history, at one time one of the queens had planted a rosebush there and she didn't want it to get trampled until it got well-rooted, so she put a guard there to guard it. Now, like 100 years later a guard is standing there 'round the clock guarding nothing simply because that was what they had always done. I don't care how long you've been doing it, if it doesn't have life in it you need to learn to know when you're touching death and when you're touching life, amen? Because nothing dead praises God. Our dead works don't praise God.

The Bible talks a lot about dead works. What's a dead work? It's a work that's not working. It's me trying to do God's job. It's me making my plan, expecting God to bless it. He's the author and the finisher, and if he doesn't author a thing he has no obligation to ever finish it. You start it, you finish it, amen? Acknowledge God in all your ways and he will direct your path. And it may be okay somethin' that we're doing, but God gets a little insulted when we leave him out. One of the wisest things to do is to just consider God, to consult him, "Is this the way that you want me to go"? Now, depression is a type of deadness. I think we can all say that. Anybody here who's ever been depressed for even half a day, you know that there's no worse feeling. You have no desire to do anything. Thoughts are dark and negative.

And you know, when David was depressed, the Psalmist David, king David, when he was depressed he didn't just lay there and be depressed. Let's look at Psalm 42 and 43 and just see some of the action that David took. Now, let me just preempt what I'm gonna say about depression by saying this: I know that many people suffer from depression. I'm not at all being insensitive. If it's something medical that you cannot help, then keep looking for the help that you need until you get it, but almost everything that I read on this subject says that even if depression is caused from something in your body or something medical, you still have to fight it on several levels. And so, maybe you can't do anything about the medical part, but a lot of people's depression really has nothing to do with something wrong with them. It's the way they're thinking.

Come on, does anybody know you can think yourself right into a fit? It's the way they talk, it's their outlook on life, it's not being grateful, it's not being thankful, but largely it's just by having your mind on the wrong stuff. And that's what David talks about here. Psalm 42:5, I love the way he talks to his own soul, "Why are you cast down, o my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for him, for I shall yet praise him, my help and my God". Now, if you read the first part of this, David remembers, like, look at verse 3, Psalm 42:3, "My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, where is your God"?

So he was apparently going through a really rough time and even people are taunting him, saying, "Well, where is your God"? "These things I earnestly remember". I love his response, "These things I earnestly remember and pour myself out within me: how I went slowly before the throng and led them in procession to the house of God like a bandmaster before", and so I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but there was a time when he was bringing the ark of God into the city and they threw such an outrageous party and David got so unbelievably happy that he stripped down to a loin cloth and danced in the streets. And he said, "I'm crying, but here is what I'm gonna think about".

Come on now. See you can think about anything you wanna think about. You don't have to think about every bad thing that's ever happened to you in your life. You don't have to just think about all your problems all day long. You can choose to remember some good things in your life. And so can i. You know, when I'm feeling a little bit off in the morning, and that's usually when you can tell things are about to go the wrong way. When I'm feeling a little bit off in the morning one of the things that, well, there's a couple of things I'm gonna share with you today, but one of the things that I found that really, really helps me is just to get thankful on purpose. I have a mission this year so you're gonna hear me say this over and over and over and over and over and over, but that's the way we get it. I really wanna get people to understand that they can't be passive. And a passive person wants something good to happen and they're just gonna sit there and wait to see if it does, but that we must be purposeful people. We must be people who live on purpose.

And by that I mean we decide what we're gonna do and we get up and do it. We don't wait to have to feel like it or to think it's a good idea or to have a whole bunch of people clapping and cheering for us. Just because my get up and go has gone up and gone, that doesn't mean that I have to lay down with it. I have greater power than how I feel. I can actually say, "I am gonna get up off of this couch and I am gonna do something with my life". You know, there's a law of activity that I heard recently, and this is simple, but I love it. The more you do, the more you're able to do: the less you do, the less you're able to do. And if you wanna get old quick just go retire at 65 and go sit in a chair and see what happens to you. People ask me all the time, "Are you thinking about retirement"? No, no. I'm thinking about refirement, not retirement. I feel better than most of you do at 30 and 40 and a lot of it has to do with attitude and a lot of it has to do with the fact, yes, that, you know, we try to take care of ourselves, but even more than that is the way we think and our outlook on life and putting ourselves into something that's bearing good fruit.

You hang out with dead stuff all the time and it's gonna get off on you. You even gotta get away from some of these dead people you're hangin' out with all the time that have nothing but some sad story to tell you all the time. But don't want to do anything but talk about how bad everything is out in society and how miserable they are. Hello? That felt good. Nothing dead praises God, amen? Not a dead attitude, nothin'. Psalm 42, verse 11, "Why are you cast down, o my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me"? Now, hang onto this, "Hope in God". I'm gonna tell you somethin' a little bit later about hope, watch this, "And wait expectantly". Woo, I love that. I'mma talk to you in a little bit about expectancy.

Some of you need to get your expectors out of the back of the closet, dust them off, and get 'em activated again. Because you've gotten into a habit of just sittin' around, "I don't know what's gonna happen. I guess we just wait and see". Well, I can prophecy, nothin'. Nothing. God said to Jeremiah, "What do you see"? Amen? After abram had lost everything God took him up, told him to climb a mountain. And he got him up there and he said, "What do you see"? And so I don't want to talk about what you've lost today. It's not that I don't care, but that's not what this is about. I don't wanna think about what I've lost. I don't wanna think about the fact that I lost my childhood and I was abused by my parents and, you know, now, you know, there's nobody left but me. And I have no good memories from that, but you know what, I'm gonna talk about what I do have. I'm gonna think about what I do have and all the benefits and the good things that God has done for me. Amen?

Please take what I'm getting ready to say okay. Some of you have sang the same old song for so long that people are so tired of hearing it. What do you think the Bible means when it says, "Sing unto the Lord a new song"? That's not just making up some, "Oh, I love you Lord". That means just get something coming out of your mouth beside the same old thing all the time, "Poor me, what about me? I've had a bad deal in life. You know, I didn't get a good start. My parents didn't love me". My parents didn't love me either. They didn't know how to. They were all messed up, dysfunctional. I survived. I'm still here. I raised four brilliant children. I'm helping people all over the world. It's our attitude. It's the way we look at what's happening to us. "Why so downcast, o my soul? Put your hope in God and wait expectantly for him". You wake up in a bad mood? Change it. "I'm in a bad mood".

Well, most of the world is about two minutes after they get up. It's called fight the good fight of faith. And man, you gotta fight for yourself sometimes. Your moods belong to you, don't just give 'em to the devil. And then again in Psalm 43 he says the same thing. I'm not gonna go read it but, "Why so downcast, o my soul? Put your hope in God". Now, the interesting thing is sometimes you gotta talk to yourself more than once. A little self-examination helps. "What is my problem? What is the root of my problem"? When you're in a stinky mood, don't just look out here at everything. "Well, you, well you, you. My boss, and my job, and my house, and my bank account". How about a little self-examination? "What is my problem? Not being thankful, not looking at what I do have".

You know, last week I had to spend a couple days in the hospital not for me, but being with somebody that was sick and, you know, I didn't really want to be there. I mean, I wanted to bless them, but, you know, that was supposed to have been my day off. But you know how I got over it? I thought, man, thank God I'm not the one in the bed. How many of you would rather be visiting somebody in the hospital than be the one in the hospital? How many would rather visit somebody in jail than be the one in jail? Whoo, hallelujah. And I'm telling you what, the way the world is today, it can just vacuum all the joy right out of you and it only takes a few minutes. That's why you gotta fight to keep a good attitude and to be thankful and appreciative. And some mornings, I make a list of things to be thankful for. If I got a real bad case, I don't just try to, I get out my, "I am thankful for".

You know, there may be a few people who just wake up happy and they're that way every day of their life. I'm kind of married to one of those but I'm not one of those. Dave wakes up every mornin'. ♪Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day.♪ And I'm like, shh... Let me get my caffeine level up before you make any noise. You know, David felt, now listen to me, David felt down, down, down. But, here's what I love, he was spiritually active. See, no matter how I feel in my soul, there's a deeper part of me that I can activate by faith, and that's my spirit. And with our spirit, we can fight all this nonsense that comes against our soul and you will win if you will get up and do the part that God is asking you to do. You gotta be a fighter in life. It's really easy to give up. You don't need the anointing of the Holy Ghost to give up.

Christianity is not a passive religion. I want you to listen to this. I find this very interesting. There are 1,542 references to the word "Go" in the Bible. There are only 64 references to "Stay". So when your mind says "Stay in bed all day," "Stay on the couch all day," that's when you can say, "I don't think that's what God wants me to do. I think I'll get up and go do something for somebody. I'll go clean my closet. I'll..". Now, you know, I mean, there's days to plan to stay on the couch all day. We need that once in awhile. But at least if you're gonna do it, do it with a little bit of zeal and enthusiasm. Don't be like... Just say, "I'm laying on this couch and I'm enjoying it, woo"! Praise God.

Alright, are you with me? Nothing dead praises God, and dead religion certainly doesn't praise God. Eww... Most of the people that have judged and criticized me were pharisaical, religious people who weren't doing anything. It's amazing how many people who don't do anything find fault with the way somebody who is doing something is doing it. The Bible teaches us in Romans 12:11 that we are to be full of zeal, enthusiastic, and on fire. Can I tell ya that God just seems to like fire. Matter of fact, the Bible says that our God is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12:29. He appeared to Moses in a burning bush, not a stagnant pool of cold water. He followed the Israelites with a pillar of fire at night. Sacrifices had to be offered by fire. On pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell and tongues of fire settled on the people. Jeremiah said, "His word is like fire shut up in my bones".

2 Thessalonians, "He will be revealed from heaven in a blazing fire". In revelation, he's depicted as having eyes of fire. And I love this one. Psalm 97:3, "A fire goes before him and burns up all of his enemies". So here's what I have to say. Maybe if we had a little more fire, we'd have a lot less trouble with the devil. Come on, that's good. If we had a little more fire, maybe we'd have a lot less trouble with the enemy. You know, one of my favorite stories in the Bible, I tell it so much it's embarrassing really, but I have to tell it again. In John 5 the crippled man that lay by the pool 38 years... 38 years he's laying there, waiting for an angel to come by and stick his finger in the water and make it bubble. And once a year, only once a year, whoever happened to get in the pool first got a miracle. And Jesus came by and saw the man. And he said to him, trying to shock him into realization, and amplified Bible says, "How long have you been in this condition"?

So maybe I'm gonna say that to you today. How long have you been in the same condition? How long have you been stuck in the same spot? How long have you been mourning over something that you lost that you're never gonna get back, but that doesn't mean there's not something brand new. How long are you gonna mourn over what your parents didn't give you, or the education you didn't get, or the opportunities you didn't have? How long are you gonna be jealous of other people who have what you want, but maybe you don't have it because you weren't willing to do what they did to get it? I'm trying to be nice. "How long have been in that condition"? "Thirty-eight years". And here's what he said. This guy, you gotta read it in John 5, verses 1 through 8, he said, "Well, every time I try to get into the pool, somebody else gets ahead of me, and I have nobody", I love this, "I have nobody to put me into the pool".

Do you get it? And you know what Jesus said to him? And there's an exclamation Mark in the amplified Bible after it, so I'm assuming that he got a little emphatic. Jesus said, "Get up"! And sometimes that's the best advice that somebody can give you in the middle of a pity party for the 9th day in a row. "Oh God, you gotta help me. You gotta help me". And the word of the Lord came unto him saying, "Get up"! Amen? Now, obviously when we're talking about being full of enthusiasm and fire and zeal, we're not talking about just raw emotion. Just operating in emotion can get you in a lot of trouble. There was a new vacuum cleaner salesman who knocked on the door of the first house on the street, and a lady answered the door, real tall lady.

And before she could even say a word, the enthusiastic salesman barged into the living room, opened a big, black plastic bag, and poured all the cow droppings all over the carpet. "Madam, if I cannot clean this up with the use of this new powerful vacuum cleaner, I will eat it"! The lady said, "Would you like chili sauce or ketchup with that"? And the bewildered salesman said, "Well, why madam"? She said, "Because there's no electricity in this house". Oh my. So you see, sometimes just emotion can get you in trouble. That's why I tell people all the time, "Let emotion subside, and then decide". Now, Colossians 3:23-24, we're gonna learn a big lesson right here. When your get up and go has got up and gone, you just need to get up and get it back.

This is not a complicated message today. I'm just saying, stir yourself up in the Holy Ghost. Stop waiting for somebody else to come along and do it. Motivate yourself, stir yourself up. "Whatever may be your task", whatever may be your task. If you're on the platform, or cleaning the toilets, "Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily," not "Hardly". Just to make sure we're not, you know, Paul said, "I buffet my body," but a lot of Christians think he said "I buff-ay my body". "Work at it heartily from the soul, as something done for the Lord and not for men". You know, one of the things that keeps me motivated is because I keep in front of me that I'm doing what I'm doing for God. That it's the call on my life, and that I wanna be able to stand on that last day and hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant". I wanna be able to say, "I have finished the work that you have given me to do".

I wanna be a finisher in life, not just a starter who started out with fire and somewhere along the way it got turned into cold ashes. Let me ask you, how many of you have a fireplace? The fireplace looks the best when it's full of a raging fire. Nothing exciting about cold ashes. "Whatever you do, work at it heartily from the soul". Now, let's look at verse 24, "Knowing with all certainty that it is from the Lord and not from men that you will receive the inheritance which is your real reward. The one whom you're actually serving is the Lord Christ the Messiah". Now, here's one of the places where I think we get in trouble. And we just don't even see this, but once you see it you're gonna get it. When I go to work and I work hard to get some kind of attention from my boss, and I don't get it, now I'm all discouraged and I lose my zeal, but it's because my motive is wrong.

Everything we do in life, we need to do it unto the Lord. If you're raising kids, you raise 'em for the Lord. If you're in a difficult marriage and you feel like you're supposed to stay there, then you do it unto the Lord. You say, "God, I'm doing this for you". And let me tell you somethin', if we stop doing things to get people to notice us, and we stop doing things to get a wordly reward, then we're gonna step into the area where we can get the reward that God has waiting for us. But we'll never get until we start living our life for him and not for people. Amen? Everything you do, even when you get dressed in the morning, do it for the Lord. "I wanna represent you well today, Lord". Learn how to carry on a continual conversation with God. That's what "Intimacy" means. God cares about everything that concerns you.

There's nothing that you can't tell him. He wants to hear everything that you're thinking. You can have that kind of relationship with him. Stop looking to people to give you what only God can give you. We talked about this a little bit last night when I said, "Stop looking to somebody else to make you happy. Stop looking at somebody else to make you feel good about yourself". Only God can do that. Know who you are in Christ, and then you'll be able to handle any kind of rejection that you get from the world. Did you hear me? When you know who you are in Christ, you can get over insecurity and extreme shyness that cripples you because once you know who you are in Christ, you don't pay that much attention to what other people think of you. Care more about your reputation in heaven than you care about your reputation on earth. I wanna be well-known there.

Another thing I wanna tell ya, and it goes back to what we saw in, about David, where he said, "Why so downcast, oh my soul, put your hope in God, expect God to do something". This is another thing that I've been talking about a lot for the last 2 months. Start to expect some great things to happen on purpose. The Bible tells us to put our expectations in God. Expect God. We get into trouble when we're expecting people. "Well, I expected you to do this. Well, I expected you to do that. Well, I expected you to act better than this. Well, I expected you to change". We need to put our expectations in God. And we need to pray more, I think. I think we try to do too many things on our own. We wait until we've done everything else, and then we pray. Let's be a people that pray immediately. Cover everything with prayer. Pray everywhere on every occasion, in all the spirit, with all manner of prayer. Because let me tell you something. One sentence of a whisper of a prayer to God can get more done in just a few moments than we can get in a lifetime of struggle.

God answers prayer. He does. A lot of times he answers prayer and we don't even see it. Psalm 27:13-14, I love these scriptures. I share them often. But, they're so full of hope. Let's take a look at 'em. Psalm 27:13-14. "What, what would have become of me". I can just see, it's like "What? What? What"? "What would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living"! Everybody say "Something good is gonna happen in my life". Something good is gonna happen to me and something good is going to happen through me. It's not just "To me". It's "To me and through me". I said this morning I'm expecting good news today. I'm expecting to go over there and have a good meeting. I don't wait to see until I get here how things are gonna be. I mean, yes, in reality we all have to kinda see what the outcome is. But, you know, expecting nothing gets you nothing. I'd rather expect a lot and get half of it, then expect a little and get all of it.

What are you expecting? Do you have any aggressive expectation in your life? I taught this at a chapel at the office, and I got a report the next day that one woman said, "Man, that really works"! She has a son that just really gives her a lot of trouble, a teenage son, and they're just always at each other. And she said, "I'd gotten to the point where I just dread to go home". But she said, "That night when I was driving home and I started to dread it, I decided to try your message. So I drove home saying 'I'm expecting my son to be in a good mood tonight. I'm expecting good things.'" and she said she went in the house that night, she was there a little bit, and her son came over and said, "Mom, I just want you to know that I love you".

Now, I can't give you an iron-clad guarantee that you're always gonna get results that quick, but you can't help yourself if you're expecting bad things, and you can't help yourself if you're expecting nothing. But you might help yourself, if there's any chance that we can help ourselves, why not do it? You might help yourself if you, every day, this is not a one-time thing because you're at the conference this weekend and I'm preaching on it, this is an every day thing. Form a habit every morning, early, "I am expecting something good to happen in my life today. I'm expecting something good for my children. I'm expecting something good for my friends, my husband. I'm expecting something good through me. I'm expecting good news". And I still got people sitting there going... I mean, at least... See, we need to get excited! We need to be enthusiastic.

And some people say, "Well, I'm not used to that in church". Well, get used to it! A little bit of noise is not gonna scare God. There's nothing wrong with being quiet either, but we need to be more enthusiastic. "Well, I just wish that I felt that way". You're missing the whole entire message. Let me tell you something. If you don't remember anything else I said today, remember this. Your feelings will follow your decisions. Did you hear me? Your feelings will follow your decisions. You don't see how you feel and then decide: you decide because you own your feelings. You decide what you're gonna do, and your feelings can catch up or not catch up, but I'm gonna do it whether I feel like doing it or not. "Well, you know, that's just not my personality". You know what? It ain't mine either. I mean, I lived in the pity party, the depression pit.

You know, I was always in some kind of pit. Has anybody here heard about the donkey that fell in the pit? Anybody never heard of the donkey that fell in the pit? Well, there's enough to tell it again. 'cause I feel like tellin' it anyway. Farmer's donkey fell in a pit. The farmer looked down, thought, "It's gonna be hard to get him out of there. He's old. I think I'll just leave him in there". Calls some neighbors and said, "I need you to help me bury this donkey". So they started shoveling dirt on the donkey. Everybody's shoveling dirt on the donkey. You ever feel like a donkey, everybody's shoveling dirt on you? Their plan, like the devil's plan, was to bury that donkey. The donkey stood there and cried piteously in the beginning... However they sound.

I'm not doing a good donkey today, but... Anyway, I bet it sounded really bad. And after he cried awhile and found out that wasn't doing any good. Come on, there's a message. "Oh, everybody's shoveling dirt on me"! That's not gonna stop 'em! He tried a new plan. They'd throw in a shovel of dirt and he'd shake it off and step up on top of it. They'd shovel in some more dirt, and he'd shake it off and get up on top of it. They'd shovel a little dirt, and he'd shake it off and get up on top of it. Pretty soon, he just walked right out of that pit. Well, you say, "Sister, my get up and go has just got up and gone". Well, how 'bout if you get up and get it back?