Joyce Meyer - Don't Blow a Fuse

Well, welcome to, "Enjoying Everyday Life". I'm really glad that you've joined me today. I have a message for you that I think we're going to not only have a lot of fun with, but I think it's gonna really be beneficial to help you in your everyday life. The title of my message today is, "Don't blow a fuse". Now, some of you're probably thinkin' you already know what I'm gonna talk about and you may to a certain degree, but I think they'll be some elements in here that may surprise you. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear". Now, get this, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind".

Now, the Amplified Bible says, "Power, love and a sound mind, a spirit of discipline and self-control", but I'm sure you don't want to talk about discipline and self-control today, so, we'll just kinda leave that aside for a little bit. Actually, I'm only going to talk about the first part of the scripture. "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power". I don't know about you, but I love that power. I love the word, "Power". If you just, wherever you're at right now, just speak it out, "Power". It just sounds so good. I'm so glad it doesn't say that God has given us a spirit of weakness and wimpiness, and timidity. God has given us a spirit of power. That means that we can do whatever we need to do, in life, because God never... I want you to get this because I don't know what you're facing in your life right now, but I'm sure some of you are dealing with some pretty big things and the enemy is whispering in your ear that you can't do it, it's too much, you're not going to make it, you can't stand it, but God will give you enabling power, power, power to help you do whatever it is that you need to do.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. Job 36:26 says, "Behold, God is great, and we know him not"! I like that. Do we really have any idea how powerful God is? How great he is? Do we really have any conception of how much God loves us? And how much he's willing to do for us? Lemme tell ya somethin', we all make mistakes, we all do things that we shouldn't do, but if you have a heart after God, if you're repentant, God forgives you right away, he removes your sins as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers them no more. So, I don't want you to discount yourself, as I share this message with you. I want you to know that God has all the power that you could ever possibly need and he wants to give it to you. God wants to give you the power that you need to handle any kind of situation and still be able to really enjoy your life, and be calm and peaceful.

Isaiah 64:3-4, it says, "For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you". You did awesome things that we did not expect. Well, maybe God wants us to expect him to do more awesome things in our life. Why don't you begin today training yourself to believe that God is gonna do more than you could ever possibly imagine today, instead of thinking that he's... Maybe you can just barely squeak by. God is a God of more than enough, not the God of barely get by. "Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him". You know what? I would take a little bit of time every single day, every morning before you go out of your house, and just say, "God I need you today. I can't do anything without you. But I know that I can do all things through you".

You know, God just wants your faith, he wants you to be in that attitude of waiting on God all the time, waiting on him to show up and enable you to do whatever it is that you need to do. Now, Paul prayed some very interesting prayers for the church. And he not only meant these prayers for just the churches he was praying for, but he meant them for you and I today. And so Paul says, "I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened", this is Ephesians 1:18-19, "I pray that the eyes of your heart heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people", and now get this, "And his incomparable great power for us who believe. The same power as his mighty strength".

Think about that. Paul prayed that we would have power. The power of God, not just limited power, but unlimited power, the ability to do whatever we need to do. I keep feeling like I need to re-impress that on you today, because I sense that some of you are up against some really great struggles, and you've been meditating and thinking over and over, "I just don't think I can do this, it's just too much, I'm not gonna make it, God if you". We always are praying for God to deliver us from something, rather than praying that he will give us the strength and the grace and the wisdom that we need to actually go through it. You know, if you study the prayers of the apostle Paul, he didn't pray for people's problems to go away, he prayed that they would be able to handle them with good temper. How about that? I've never yet had anybody say, "Joyce would you pray for me that I'll get through this and have a great attitude"? No, they want us to pray that things are gonna go away.

Now, let's talk about grace for a minute. We hear a lot about grace and what is grace? Well, grace is God's undeserved favor, there's no doubt about that. By grace are we saved through faith, so we might say that faith is the plug into the grace of God. God's got all the grace we need, undeserved favor, but grace is not just undeserved favor, it's also enabling power. Enabling power, there's that power again. Let me read you a scripture, James 4:6, actually, this scripture was very life-changing for me, when God gave me understanding on it, probably 35 years ago. "But he gives us more and more grace". Not just grace, but more grace, if you need more grace, and if you need more than that, even more than that.

See, God is not in recession, he's not in danger of running out of things. He's got all the power you need, all the grace you need, all the kindness you need, all the forgiveness that you need, all the goodness that you need. But the Amplified Bible, which I'm very fond of, says, "He gives us more and more grace", and then the amplification says, "Power of the Holy Spirit to meet this evil tendency and all others fully", previously before this scripture, he'd been talkin' about the evil tendencies that we have and how can we deal with those? How can i, how can I not misbehave? How can I not have a bad temper? How can I not be jealous? How can I not sin and just do things that I shouldn't do? Well, not just by determination or self will or not just because I decide not to, I need God's help, and you need God's help.

Many of you are struggling with things, issues, behavior problems, habits, that you're really trying, "Trying" in air quotes to get over, but you can't get over these things just by trying, yes, you will have to make an effort, but it needs to be a Holy Spirit inspired and infused effort, not just a fleshly effort. So, before you try to do anything you go to God first and say, "I know I can't do this alone, I need your grace, I need your power, I need your help". So he says, "That grace is the power of the Holy Spirit to meet this tendency and all others fully". So let me remind you again, there is no power shortage in heaven. And let me remind you again, that grace is only received through faith. So, faith is our plug into the grace of God, or let's just say for the sake of talking about it today, that faith is your plug into the power of God. So, maybe I should say to you right now, are you unplugged?

I think a lot of times that's our problem. Now, I have a lamp here and so I'm trying to get this thing to go on, and I can't figure out is the bulb is out, I don't know why it's not working. And then I realize, "Oh it's unplugged". So, I plug it in and there we have light. Well, maybe you need to be displaying more light when you're displaying darkness. And your problem is, is you're not plugged in, you're not using your faith. You're trying to do things yourself, on your own, independently, without humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God, and going to him, and waiting on him and spending time with him. Let me tell you something, three of the greatest things that you can do is, spend time with God on a regular basis, ask him for what you need, and spend time in the Word of God.

If you wanna have a strong walk with God, you have to put some time into it, two or three minutes every morning is not gonna be enough. There's too many things going on in the world that drain the power out of us these days, we have to have more power. There's more problems in the world, than ever before and instead of just complaining about those problems, we need to realize that we need to have more power.

You say, "Well, okay Joyce, you know, I'm a Christian, I go to church all the time, I read my Bible, I pray, but I still, I've just got all these problems and I'm praying about it, I mean, I feel like I'm plugged in, like you're talkin' about but things still just don't seem to be working for me". Well, you know, sometimes you can be plugged in, but you blow a fuse. You ever have a situation in your life where the power goes out in some area of your house, and we've all kind of learned now if we can't find anything else, if it's plugged in, and you know, yep sure enough, it's plugged in, still not getting any, probably still not getting any power there. Yep, I'm plugged in but something's wrong.

Then the next thing, we would do, would be go and check the fuse box or the circuit breaker, and sometimes you learn that you have blown a fuse. So you got to put a new fuse in, or most houses today, have a circuit breaker box and you go and maybe they're all in the right position except that one that controls the area of your house where you don't seem to be getting power and you flip that back, and the power comes back on. Well, I looked up something that I thought was interesting, a circuit breaker is designed to trip or shut off the power when a fault is detected. Now, think about that. So here's basically what I'm saying, the power of God's available, we may have faith, we may be praying in faith, but we may be having misbehavior or faults, over and over and over the same thing, and God's been dealing with us and dealing with us, but we keep disobeying him in an area.

And so even though the power's there, and I know I need to spend time with God, so I spend time with God, I read my Bible, I pray everyday before I go to work, I go to church on Sunday, I even do a little church work. You know how many people do all of those things, but they have jealousy, and envy, and self-pity, and greed, and all kinds of other things in their life, that they just kinda put up with? And you know, we as believers in Christ need to realize that we're called to come out from among unbelievers and that doesn't mean don't have anything to do with them, but it does mean that we can't behave like them. We're in the world, but we are not of the world.

So, I have three things here that I think can cause you to blow a fuse or three things that could short-circuit your circuit breaker and you might need to reset a few things in your life. Now, I hope you're sticking with me today. So, the first one is complaining. Hmm, okay, we all have such a tendency to complain. You can ask God for something then complain about having to take care of it. The other day I got some unexpected income and I was real happy about it, and the next thing I heard myself doing was complaining about all the taxes I was gonna have to pay. Come on, anybody ever do that? Well, God wanted me to stay focused on the blessing, not start complaining about the taxes I had to pay. I mean, I guess he can arrange for me to have to pay no taxes, but then I would have no income.

And so, it's so easy to fall into that trap of complaining even about the blessings that God gives us. Maybe you wanted a larger house and God blessed you with a bigger house, and now you complain because you got a big house to clean and take care of all the time. Well, trust me, anything that you bring into your house is gonna need some kind of care and maintenance, so you can't just want things, things, things, and not expect to have to also take care of those things. Philippians 2:14, "Do all things", all things, that includes your thing and my thing, "Do all things without grumbling and fault-finding and complaining".

Wow, you know grace is intended to provoke gratitude and thanksgiving on the part of the receiver. Whoever receives grace should thank the giver, who is God, certainly not complain but be thankful. Matter fact, I think, "Thank you" are two of the most powerful words in the world. I've been thinking about just writing a book just on the words, "Thank you". We should be saying, "Thank you" to the Lord and probably to people, much, much more than what we do. Paul always was thanking God. He thanked him for his grace. He thanked him for his power. He thanked him for his blessings. He taught people to thank God. 2 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "The will of God is this, that we give thanks in all things. Thanking God for everything".

Let me just ask you a question. Have you been complaining? Have you been murmuring and grumbling and fault-finding? How about a little gossip? You've been getting together with your friends and gossiping? Well, maybe those things are causing you to blow a fuse and you need to go reset your circuit breaker today, and say, "Okay God, I get it, I love you: I really do love you Lord, but I've let the enemy sneak up on me and get me into a bad habit pattern and I realize now that it's not pleasing to you". God never stops loving you, but we can't expect to live like heathen and do all kinds of things that the Bible tells us not to do and still just go to God and get any prayer that we have answered. We have a responsibility to represent Jesus in the world in a way that people are going to want to have relationship with him.

And I hope you like my preaching because I like my preaching today. I like to preach about things like this. I don't know about you, but I need help. I need somebody preaching me a word that is going to keep me going in the right direction because the flesh is strong, and it can really try to lead you astray. Paul said, "Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift". Philippians 4:6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God". You know, thanksgiving, an appreciative heart, also provokes in us a desire to be good to other people. All over the Bible you find questions, I mean, scriptures about giving thanks. I've got a lot more of them, but I can't go through them all.

Here's another way that you can short-circuit your power. Some people receive God's grace, his power, power, power, power, power. Do you feel like you need more power today? And then they feel sorry for themself, or say and do things to draw pity from other people. Well, boy, I was like that, I was already teaching the word and believing God for my ministry to grow and believing God for all kinds of things and just, I mean, I thought I was a great woman of faith and I was teaching the Bible to other people and going to church services and working for God, and things still just didn't seem to be working out for me. But I also had another bad habit, which was feeling sorry for myself. I had a problem with self-pity. And God told me one day, "You can be pitiful or powerful, but you can't be both".

And you may have heard me say that before but I'm talking to people today that have let yourself slide into self-pity. You know what? There's probably nobody watching me today, that has a right to feel sorry for yourself, because no matter what kind of a situation you're in, self-pity is not the answer to your breakthrough. Praise and thanksgiving, putting your faith in God, reaching out and being good to other people, those are the ways to draw the power of God into your life. If you have a tendency to sit around and feel sorry for yourself, don't, it's idolatry. It's turning in on ourselves and having compassion on ourselves and what God wants us to do is be compassionate toward other people that are hurting.

Now, I'm not saying that maybe your life is not hard and maybe you've had a lot of unfair things happen to you, I'm just telling you that being full of self-pity won't help you. So, God wants you to go set your circuit breaker, you've blown a fuse, and you need to reset some things today. And I've had people tell me after listening to me teach on not feeling sorry for themselves, that they had a big problem with that and even while they heard me speaking about it on TV, they realized that they were just laying in their bed feeling sorry for themselves. And you know what you can do? You can shake that off, and you can go back to being powerful in God.

There's a man in the Bible that I love to talk about and I don't have the time to dwell on it much, but in John 5:1-9, we see a man who had a lingering disorder for 38 years, and once a year an angel would come to this pool called Bethesda and stir the waters up and when the waters were bubbling and stirred up, whoever got into the pool first would get a miracle. Well, this man had been laying by the pool for 38 years waiting for his miracle. Am I talking to anybody today that's been waiting for your miracle for 38 years, and 39 years, or 40, or 45, or 50? Some of ya think you've been waitin' two days and that's a long time. "Then Jesus came to the man and said, 'how long have you been in this condition'"?

Well, he already knew it was 38 years. I think he was trying to wake the man up to realize 38 years, "Yeah, that's a long time". And Jesus went on to talk to him about, "Do you want to get well"? Are you really in earnest about getting well? Do you want to get well? I mean, what kind of a question is that to ask somebody who's been sick 38 years? Do you want to get well? "And the man said, 'yes'". And right here it's recorded in verse 7, "The invalid answered, 'sir'", I want you to listen, "'I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool: while I'm trying to come in myself, somebody else always gets ahead of me'".

Now, I'm sorry if you don't see that, but I see self-pity. "I have nobody to help me". Well, he had God, and even if you feel like you have no human being to help you, let me tell you somethin', you have God and that's enough. I'd rather have a little teeny, tiny, tiny, tiny little bit of God, than all kinds of human help. "And somebody else always gets ahead of me, poor me. Somebody else always gets ahead of me". Well, you would think Jesus would feel sorry for him, but he didn't, instead you know what he said? "'get up!'", exclamation mark, in the Bible, "'pick up your bed and walk!'", exclamation mark, "And instantly the man got well".

And I always say, if I laid by that pool for 38 years, I think I could have wiggled in 38 years over to the edge of it and then ready to fall in next year when the angels stirred up the water. Come on, there may be a lot of things you can't do, but God wants you to start doing what you can do. And then the last thing that I'll mention I think can cause us to blow a fuse and I won't be able to say too much about this, "Is taking the glory that belongs to God". What about when things are going good in your life, are you going to then take the credit for it and begin to think, "It's, well, I've done this good, and I've done that, it's because I did this, it's because I did that". Or are you gonna say, "Everything good in my life is a result of the grace and the mercy of God. I don't really deserve anything good, but God is good and God has been good to me".

Don't make the mistake, of trying to steal God's glory, don't become a glory thief. Because the Bible says, "His glory he will not share with anybody else". And we have great examples in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, other places in the Bible, where people tried to steal God's power, his glory, and they just lost everything until they came back to their senses and began to give God the praise and the glory again.

Now, I've written a new book that I want you to have, and it's called, "Do It Afraid". God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. And I hope this little message has helped you reset a few things in your life today. And for your gift to the ministry of any amount, we would like to send you this book. This is one of my favorite all-time messages and one that I believe that we all need to have to refer to on a regular basis. So thank you for being with us today, I am thankful for you, God bless you.