Joyce Meyer - The Good Samaritan

This is probably one of my very favorite because it's what we call, "The story of the good Samaritan". And so I get to teach you this morning about love, about walking in love and doing the things that God asks us to do. And I can tell you that no matter what we know, if we're not doing it, it's useless. No matter what we know, sometimes we get so proud of what we know. We feel so spiritual when we open up our Bibles and we've got it underlined in pink and blue and yellow and highlighted and check-marks and stars. I mean, we just look like, "Man, we have studied the Bible so much. We know so much". But none of it does us any good at all if we're not doing it.

So I'm gonna start with a question, not to be insulting, but just to make you think. And I direct this to myself too: what are you doing to help somebody else? What are you doing to make somebody else's life better? You know, even for me, I have to be careful. I spend so much time teaching these things and studying to teach these things, I have to kick my own self in the tutu every once in a while and say, "Now, get busy. Make sure that you're not just telling somebody else what to do, but be sure that you're doing it". And, yes, well, I'm helping people with my teaching, and we're helping people through our outreaches, but what I'm interested in today is what are we doing in our everyday life? I wanna tell you somethin'.

Before you get out of this building today, if you stay for the afternoon session, driving home, when you get home, before this day ends, you will have several opportunities to apply what I'm gonna teach here today. But it's entirely possible that you could hear all this, a lot of people are gonna clap today. You're gonna agree, "It's great, yes, yes, amen, amen". But it's all useless if, when you have the opportunity to do something, whether you do it or not. And I'll tell you what, there's a word that we should just think about for a few minutes, the word "Excuse". We have so many excuses for why we can't do it, even though we know we should do it, or we're going to do it, but we can't do it now.

You know, there's a scripture in Proverbs that says, "If you wait for all conditions to be favorable, you will never sow". And how often do we think, "Well, when I have more time. When I'm not so busy. When I have more money. The next time, I'll do that". But now is the time when we need to start taking action. Let me tell you what the world needs to see, and I mean this with all my heart. I really believe if every person who calls themself a Christian was out in the world acting like a Christian, I don't think we'd have the mess in our society that we do right now. The main reason why the world disrespects Christians and Christianity is because we preach a lot, and don't do nearly as much as what we preach, come on. And when I say, "We", I mean every single one of us.

So, Father, I thank you for the word today, and I pray that it will be received graciously and that it will be life changing, in Jesus' name.

Luke 10:25 through 29: "And then a certain lawyer arose to (test, and tempt) him", him being Jesus, "Saying, 'teacher, what am I to do to inherit everlasting life that is, to partake of eternal salvation in the Messiah's kingdom?' Jesus said to him, 'well, what is written in the law? What have you read?' and he replied, 'you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind: and you must love your neighbor as you love yourself'".

Love God, love yourself in a balanced way, love other people. If you've never heard me talk about loving yourself, it's not a selfish thing to love yourself. God loves you. You need to receive his love and you need to have a respectful, good attitude toward yourself. We don't all do everything right, but you need to have a healthy relationship with yourself because if you don't, you're never going to have a good relationship with people. You know why? You can't give away what you don't have. For years after becoming a more committed Christian and studyin' the word, I'm tellin' ya, I wanted to love people. I wanted to be at peace with people, and I just could not. And God had to show me that I could not give away what I didn't have. I was not receiving his mercy, so I couldn't give it. I wasn't receiving his love, so I couldn't give it.

And so you've gotta think about your relationship with you. What kind of a relationship do you have with yourself? If you don't like yourself, then you're not gonna like very many other people either. That's all the time I have for that. That's a good subject to preach on, but can't get into that too much. But so he said, I mean, the guy, he knew what the law said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength". Well, I wonder what that would really look like. I mean, what would we really be like if we loved God even as much as we do dinner? Come on, I mean, do you know how far people will go just to get something that they want to eat? I mean, have any of you ever gotten a craving for somethin' sweet and gotten up and gotten dressed and go get in your car and drive somewhere?

Come on, all right. But, you know, when it comes to, not everybody's like this, of course. I mean, you people made an effort. You're here in this conference. You took your Saturday to be here. But I'm not just talkin' to the people in this room. I'm talkin' to lots of people from all over the world. And I'm just tellin' you, you can have as great of a relationship with God as you wanna have. It just depends on how much time you're willing to put into it. I'm gonna say that again. You can have as great a relationship with God as you want to. It just depends on how much time you're willing to put into it.

And let's just add this, how much you're willing to do of what you know. How many of you know that you know, that you know, you've read it enough times, you know that you should forgive people quickly who hurt you? How many of you know that? All right, but how many of you are sittin' here today mad at somebody? Okay, well we'll just move right on past that, I guess. But it does make a good point. We know it. Well, this religious guy, this lawyer, he knew. He was able to answer Jesus right away. Jesus said, "What does the law say"? "Oh", I mean, he had the answer. I'm sure he felt so proud of himself. "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength: and you shall love your neighbor even as you love yourself'. And Jesus said to him, 'you've answered correctly: do this'".

You've answered correctly: do this. You know, somethin' that I've learned about love, and I'm glad that I'm teachin' this today because I need to hear it again. Nothing makes you happier than getting your mind off yourself and focusing on being a blessing to somebody else. I mean, it's really true. There's an actual physical energy that I can feel when I purposely think, "What can I do for somebody else today? How can I make somebody else's life better today"? There's somethin' about just havin' your mind on yourself. It just drags you down and your focus is all just on you.

I think one of the things that I hate worse than anything else about feeling bad or being sick or havin' pain somewhere is it causes you to just focus on yourself and how you feel all the time. And I don't wanna live my life like that. I don't wanna live my life just all focused on me and wrapped up in me. Because, honestly, the more you think about yourself, the more miserable you become. It's really true. The more you think about other people, the happier you're going to be. "Do this, and you will", look at the promise, "Do this, and you will live and enjoy active, blessed, endless life in the Kingdom of God". So he's basically sayin', "Look, if you'll let love be the center of your life, loving God, loving yourself in a balanced way, loving other people, you are gonna be one happy Christian. You are gonna have a life worth living. You're gonna have joy".

But actually, this guy who asked Jesus this question, he really didn't even want an answer. He was actually trying to find a way to tempt him or to test him or to tie him up with words. And so the man said, in verse 29, it says: "And he, being determined to acquit himself of reproach", 'cause already, this is startin' to bother him. "He said, 'and who is my neighbor'"? And I guess that's the big question before us today. When God says to love everybody, just who is he talking about? I mean, is everybody everybody? Surely that doesn't include the people that are not like us. Surely that doesn't include people from other churches, especially one of those weird, strange churches. "Oh, no, I can't love them".

And let me say here from the beginning, love is not a feeling. It's not an ooey-gooey feeling. It's a decision about how we're going to talk about people, come on, how we're gonna talk about people. We don't need to be talkin' about how wrong this other church is, or how many things we don't like about, you know, just find something you can agree on. Do you all believe in Jesus? Do you love God? Now, there are false religions and things that we do need to speak up about, things that don't agree with the Word of God but I'm just talkin' about all the division that exists in the body of Christ over all these petty little differences that people have, many of which are not gonna make one bit of difference to anybody's salvation.

"Oh, well, I heard that you speak in tongues. Well, whoo, I can't have anything to do with you. Well, do you baptize in the name of the father, son, and the Holy Ghost? Or do you baptize in Jesus' name only"? I mean, whole denominations split in half over stuff like that. "Well, do you believe in baptizing babies, or do you think that you should be baptized as an adult"? Well, you know, if it really confuses you that much, then just do both. You know, I don't, I mean, honestly. It's like, you know, we're strainin' to the gnat and missin' the whole point of what God wants for us. We have to stop finding things to fight about and start finding things to agree on. "Well, surely, surely, he didn't mean to love our enemies". Well, if you survive this long enough, at the end, I'm gonna end with a scripture that should leave us all goin'... "You have got to be kidding". But I want you to remember that loving somebody is not how you feel about them. It's how you decide to treat them because of your love for God.

Now, we established last night that loving people does not mean that you never confront bad behavior. It doesn't mean that you overlook a sinful lifestyle and you never confront them. But you can love somebody even that you don't hang out with very much and don't even feel that you could hang out with very much because their lifestyle would prevent you from spending a lot of time with them. But you can still love them. Well, what does that look like then? Well, you pray for them.

Now, I'm gettin' ready to say somethin' important here. You don't talk bad about them. This is really simple. "How can I love"? See, we think that if we don't have all these great feelings about somebody that we don't love them. But really, it has nothin' to do with feelings. Love is a decision about how you're gonna treat people, and we can do a lot of things for Jesus that we wouldn't wanna do for the person. And that's what we have to get to. I'm gonna use an example, and, of course, if you've heard much of my teaching, you know that I come from a background of being sexually abused by my father.

And so I talk a lot about my relationship with him, and, you know, how hard some of that was. But my mother was also a part of this because she knew what he was doing and she didn't do anything about it. And if you wanna know the absolute truth, I have had a harder time getting over that even than what he did because, to be honest, I still don't understand. I have no comprehension of how a mother could do that. I just, I don't get it, but I do know that she was afraid of my father, and fear will make you do a lot of really crazy things. And nobody heard of sexual abuse. There was no talk about incest back in the days when I was goin' through this. And finally, after 30 years after this happened to me, my mother finally apologized to me, and she said, "I just couldn't face the scandal, couldn't face the scandal".

So, God gave me a grace, really, not to hate her, but I guess I would have always thought, "But I didn't love her". But now I know that I did love her. I didn't feel loving toward her, but I loved her because when she became older and couldn't care for herself, we took care of her for 15 years in a nursing home, with visits, takin' her to doctors, makin' sure she had nice clothes, let her get her hair done every week at the beauty shop there. I mean, we did what Jesus would have had us do. I never had the feelings of wanting to. Actually, my mother actually asked me one time, and I hope this doesn't sound too bad, but I'm all about truth. And she just said to me, "How do you feel about me? Do you love me"? And I said, "Well", I said, "I don't love you as somebody should be able to love their mother, because you didn't take care of me. You weren't a mother to me". But I said, "I do love you as someone that Jesus loves, and I will always make sure that you're taken care of, and I will not mistreat you".

It just was on my heart to tell you about this today because I think, so often, we think because we don't feel a certain way towards somebody that we can't love them. God is asking me to feel all these wonderful feelings for somebody who has mistreated me or not been there for me, but he is asking me to pray for them, to not talk bad about them. "Love covers a multitude of sins". It doesn't expose, it covers, amen? Do you know how hard it is not to talk about people? Is anybody in the building besides me know how hard that is to not do that?

Now, you know, I share my story, but I have a purpose in what I'm doing. And there's nothing wrong with you telling something if you have a purpose in it, but just for the point of gossip, or to make somebody look bad, you can't do that. And then here's the last thing, and this probably gets to be the hardest. If that person has a need, and you can actually meet that need, whether it's some kind of care, some kind of time, some kind of help, some kind of money, I mean, unless you know from God that he does not want you to do it. See, a few years ago, I made a transition that was really helpful to me.

When somebody needs help, I don't pray like this anymore: "Now, God, if you really want me to do that. I mean, God, if you really, really want me. I mean, I don't wanna do this, God. I don't think it's fair for you to ask, but if you really want me to do this". And, I mean, I needed, like, a trumpet blast and three angels and two prophecies and four confirmations. You know, it's amazing how much confirmation we need when we don't wanna do something. And how little confirmation we need when we do wanna do something. I've never said that before, but that was good. I think I'll say that again. Well, I'm gonna make your life a lot easier. You don't need to do that anymore. From now on, you just say to God, "I'm gonna help everybody I can unless you tell me not to".

PART 2
Jesus regularly talked about this principle of loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Matter of fact, in Matthew, it's recorded that he said, "It is the greatest and the most important commandment in the Bible". Matthew 22:36: "Teacher, which kind of commandment is great and important (the principal kind) in the law? Some commandments are light, which ones are heavy"? This guy wanted to get deeply theological. "And he replied to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind (and your intellect). This is the greatest, (the most important, and the principal) commandment. And a second one is like it: you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself". And then in James 2, James said, "If indeed you really fulfill the royal law", now this is the law of the new covenant, "In accordance with the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, you do well".

So, you know what I've come to in my life? And one of the reasons why I'm so glad I'm preaching this again today is because we all need to hear this over and over and over again. Because really, what I'm talking about today, it's not natural to your flesh to wanna do it. You know, even if we give, we're not too big on getting into the sacrificial part. Once it starts to hurt a little bit, whether that's time or money or whatever it is. You know, we would much prefer to do something for somebody that deserves it, and especially we'd prefer to do something for somebody that we're pretty sure can do something back for us.

Uh-oh, I'm gonna go talk to these people. You guys are... Did you hear what I said? We don't mind giving to somebody if we think that they may, matter of fact, sometimes we like to give to people because now we feel they're indebted to us. So we gotta be really careful when we do give, if we're gonna do the Jesus kind of giving, that we don't have any ulterior motive. No wonder the Bible says in Matthew that when you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. In other words, don't sit and meditate on all your own goodness. Just do what you do because you love God and let God take care of your reward. It's easy to do things for people that we think deserve it, but it's another whole story to do this.

But if you can go out of here today, yeah, how many of you know that there, in Christianity, with all of our teaching, there's a lot of stuff to keep up with? I mean, a lot of different teachings, and you're: "We need to pray and we need to study the Bible and we need to", and all these things. We get into all these things that we think that we need to do. And sometimes, you can just get worn out from it. But you know what? If you focus on love, takes care of everything else. Honestly and truly, you may have some kind of bad behavior in your life and you keep focusing on trying to break these bad habits. If you just focus on loving God and loving people, it won't be long and you won't even know where those bad habits went to.

Too often, we focus on trying to fix something that's wrong, instead of trying to do something that's right. Yeah, I'm gonna say that again. Too often, we try to focus on fixing something that's wrong, rather than just doing something that's right. I wrote a book about habits called "Making new habits and breaking bad habits". And I didn't say, "Breaking bad habits and making new habits". I said "Making new habits and breaking bad habits". You know why? Because if you focus on doing the right thing, the wrong thing will have no room to operate in your life. But if you spend all your time trying to deal with the wrong thing, you never get around to doing the right thing. And don't we do that?

We're always trying to focus on what's wrong. Even in our dealings with other people. Sometimes, we're so intent on telling them what they need to fix about themselves that's wrong and maybe if we would pray about that more and build them up more concerning the things they do right, they might be more motivated to fix the things that are wrong. Well, this is better than I thought it might be, I don't know. You know, love is something that you can see. It's patient. Well, I could sure use a lot more of that in my life. It's generous. It doesn't just give something: it gives its best. It's kind. Love even has good manners. It says "Please" and "Thank you".

Love is humble: it doesn't think it's better than other people. If we don't think we're better than other people, then it shuts down a lot of the criticism and judgment. I love this one. Love always believes the best of every person. Oh my goodness, if I can walk in love, it'll help me get rid of all the suspicion. "Well, what did you mean by that"? Love never gives up. Love is something. It is something you can see and feel, and love does something. Love is active. It meets needs. "Well, who is my neighbor"? He thought, "Well, surely, this is not intended for the gentiles or the Samaritans or the heretics or the criminals. I mean, surely you're not asking me to love them".

You see, back in the days when this was written, and it's really much worse today, there was all kinds of dividing walls between classes of people, the rich and the poor, different nations. The Jews thought they were better than everybody else because God had chosen them to work through. And you know, in choosing the Jews, he was not shutting anybody else out. He wanted to use them to draw other people in. I did some study on this recently because I wanted to have a better understanding of what did that mean, they were the chosen people? What about everybody else? But you know, God always works through somebody to bring other people in. He worked through Jesus to bring us in. He worked through Moses to bring all the rest of the Israelites out of bondage.

And you know what? God is wanting to work through you to bring somebody else in. God works through people. And even back in the Old Testament when the Jews were the chosen people of God, there were strict instructions on how they were to treat the strangers and the temporary residents. God always taught them to treat them respectfully, to make sure they were fed and clothed and to treat them with respect. Why? He wasn't, like, choosing the Jews out and saying, "You're better than everybody else, and everybody else is gonna be shut out". But that's the way they took it. "We're better than everybody else".

So what they did then was they erected all these walls, these invisible walls, between them and everybody else. And so they knew the law, they could quote scripture. I don't suppose they had highlighters then, but if they would have had 'em, they would have highlighted in their, they didn't have a Bible like we do, but whatever they had that they could read, I'm sure they would have highlighted it and probably tacked it on the front of their door. Because they were really big about letting everybody know what they knew.

And I think we're a little bit like that today. You may have a huge Christian library, and you're so proud of it, people tell me, "I've got all your books". But I can tell by how they act if they've read any of 'em. Having a big Christian library doesn't mean anything. What do you do? How do you act? That's the important thing. And so, Jesus was trying to say the same thing to this guy that he's saying to us today. Now, Jesus said, "I'm gonna give you an answer to your question, but I'm gonna tell you a story". That's what he did. He told stories, which are parables, to teach people deep theological lessons.

Now, here we go. I love this. Luke 10:30 through 35: "Jesus, taking him up", meaning, really, that he decided to take this guy on and try to teach him something. "Okay, you wanna argue? Let's have a conversation". "A certain man was going from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him of his clothes", that means left him naked, "And all of his belongings and beat him and then went on their way, not concerned about him at all leaving him half dead, as it happened".

Now, let's not skip over that too quick. Let's think about this guy. He's going somewhere, and all of a sudden, robbers grab him. The road that he was on actually was a very dangerous road. It was a place where there was a lot of hiding places for robbers to hide, and they would then attack people. And so I don't think you wanted to be on the Jericho road unless you didn't have any other choice. And they beat him up so bad, they stripped him naked, left him laying there with no clothes on, took all of his belongings, and I'm sure he was bloody and beaten, laying off on the side of the road. "Now, it happened that a certain priest was going down along the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side".

Now, you know, if you would expect anybody to help the guy, you would expect a religious leader to help the guy. "A Levite likewise", who was another religious type of person, "Came down to the place and saw him, and he passed by on the other side". How many people are we crossing the street to get away from? C'mon, don't act like that you don't sometimes see the untouchables of the world, not that there really are any, we're good at avoiding people. I mean, if I really don't wanna talk to somebody, maybe it's even just somebody that just, I don't know, they're the kind of people you know if you say one thing to 'em you're gonna be there for 15, 20 minutes, and you don't wanna hear any of it to start with. And so it's: "Oh, no". And maybe you can't listen to the person every time you see them, but, if our hearts are really open to God, maybe God might say, "This time I just want you to listen, you can serve me by giving them 15 minutes". That's one of the ways you can give, just by listening to somebody, giving them a chance to talk.

I tell a little story about years ago when I knew a lot less than I do now, but I was trying to learn some things. I went to a doctor for something. I think my son had broken his arm and I took him there to get the cast off or on or something, I don't remember. And there was an older gentleman there and he had a cast on his leg and I brought my Bible. I wanted to read my Bible. I was gonna pray and I just wanted to be spiritual. And this elderly gentleman wanted to talk to me. He wanted to tell me how he fell on the ice and all about the cast and how long he'd had the problem and how he felt and on and on and on. And I didn't wanna listen to it. I didn't wanna hear it. I wanted to be spiritual.

Is anybody home in the house today? I don't have time for you, I just wanna underline in my Bible. And you know, the Lord spoke to my heart and, I mean, this is what he said: "If that was Billy Graham, would you have talked to him"? Well, I mean, I didn't need a three-part series. I knew exactly what God was trying to get at. He was, like, "Yes, you would talk to him because that would do something for you. I mean, an important person like that, you could give your attention to. You could talk all day. But this elderly guy that means nothing to you". Just because he meant nothing to me didn't mean he didn't mean anything to God. Oh my goodness. This is what it means to serve God.

Serving God is not perfect church attendance and underlining in your Bible. Serving God is getting out there where the people are at and actually showing them Jesus because you may be all the Jesus they will ever see. And me too. "But a certain Samaritan", now right now, this young lawyer, he's getting upset because don't tell me that you're about to brag on this Samaritan, because there was a big division between the Jews and the Samaritans. "But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled along, came down to where the man was: and when he saw him, he was moved with pity and sympathy". "Oh, I just feel so sorry for you, sister". "Well, are you gonna do anything to help me"? "I just feel so bad for you".

You know, true sympathy and pity, ask God, at least ask God, "Is there anything you want me to do"? Maybe there is nothing you can do and having that empathy is what you can do. You can pray, you can encourage, but maybe there is nothing else that you can do. But how about if we just start asking God in every situation, c'mon, I double dare you to do this, "God, is there anything that you want me to do"? Oh good, I'm getting one little patty-cake over here somewhere. I'll share one with you that God spoke to my heart a few years ago. You won't like it: I didn't like it either, but here it comes.

I was praying for God to help somebody with something. He said, "Why are you asking me to do it? You could do it". And I learned that we, you know, we don't need to be asking God to do stuff that we could easily do and just don't want to. I don't know, maybe you work with somebody that has had some kind of a difficult situation. The husband got laid off work, lost his job or whatever, and you heard from somebody else that now they're three months behind on their rent and may be getting evicted from their house.

"Oh God, send somebody to pay Susie's rent". Yeah, see, I can feel the... You should be up here and have to deal with this. I mean, if I say stuff your flesh likes, it's, like, "Whoo"! But now I'm saying, "Pay her rent", it's, like, "Well, why would I help her? She's not even that nice to me anyway. And she got that promotion I deserved. Why should I help her? She's been rude to me". So this man was moved with pity and sympathy. He didn't just feel it, he was moved with it. Actually, we can have true sympathy and not feel anything at all if we're moved to action. "And he went to him, dressed his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine. And then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him".

Now, some of the reading that I did said if this Samaritan bandaged his wounds, you might consider that he probably wasn't traveling with a bag full of bandages, which meant that maybe he had to tear up some of his own clothing to make these bandages to bandage this guy's wounds. And I would imagine if he put him on his donkey or horse or whatever he was riding, then that meant that he probably had to walk. So, boy, this guy's getting really inconvenienced here. "And the next day he brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, two day's wages, and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him: and whatever more you spend, I myself will repay you when I return".

Now, you know what I really like about this, is he did not put any limits on what he would do for the guy. That's the big thing I see here. He says, "Whatever, whatever it costs, I'll take care of it". One piece that I read said that the amount of money that he gave the innkeeper might have covered as much as 24 nights in the inn. It was two days of wages for him, but it was a lot that he was giving this guy. "I will repay you when I return".

You know, sometimes, we do a little something just to ease our conscience, but maybe we don't do enough to really get the job done. I don't know about you, but I'm really glad that Jesus said, "It is finished". He went all the way through and finished the job. He did everything that he was supposed to do. And you know what? My mom and my dad and my aunt, which we also took care of because she didn't have any children, my dad passed away, I guess, about maybe six years ago and my mom probably three years ago and my aunt a year ago, and you know what? I'm so glad that I saw it all the way through to the end. And I can say, "I did it. I did everything that God wanted me to do".

We need to be people that learn how to finish, not just people that know how to start. And that's kind of where I'm at in my life. I've come this far. Man, I get tired sometimes and, you know, this is not my first conference. I've been in thousands and thousands of these. But I wanna finish. I wanna finish what God gave me to do. I don't wanna just start something and then just give up because it gets hard. I wanna finish. And we need to be finishers in life, no matter what it costs us. Well, you know, the priest, I don't know, why didn't he stop? I mean, this is a religious man. Why didn't he stop? Well, maybe he was on his way to church. Or maybe he'd been to church and was on his way home for dinner. That would even be worse.

So let's just say that maybe when you leave here, and I hope I'm not prophesying to somebody, but maybe when you leave here, you see somebody out in the parking lot that has a flat tire. Well, you can pass by on the other side or, even though that wasn't your intention and you have your plan and you're busy headed somewhere and your stomach is growling with hunger, or you could stop your car and get out and say, "Is there anything that I can do to help you? Well, I mean, I couldn't change a tire, but I could make a phone call, I could, you know, I could do something. Is there anything I can do to help you"? Well, I don't know. Maybe the person's crying and they're, like, "I've gotta get this thing fixed, but I don't really have the money". Well, hey, maybe you could pay for it, wow.

"Well, I don't have time to stop. I gotta get home from the Joyce Meyer Conference and go home and eat". Well, it would be bad enough to do that on your way here. It would be double bad if you do it after being here and you're on your way home. We all have one of these that we wear. You know, maybe it's not a board that we hang around our neck, but the message is there. "Do not disturb me: I have my plan. I'm busy. I got plans for my money. I've got my time all lined out. Don't disturb me". Well, it's okay to hang one of these on your hotel door. Sometimes I'll even put one up on my door at home sometimes just to be funny. I got so many people and kids and grandkids coming in and out all the time, but you can't put one of these on your life and do the work that God has called you to do, amen? Okay.