Joyce Meyer - Stop Stuffing Your Stuff, Part 3

Well, thank you for joining me today on, "Enjoying Everyday Life". And I pray that because you watched the program today that you will enjoy this day more than you would have if you wouldn't have watch it. I think it's gonna be a good investment of your time. Well, I started two days ago talking about not stuffing your stuff, or another way of saying it is, stop running from your problems and face them, deal with them. Remember, that whatever we run from is always chasing us. You don't really ever get away from anything until you face it. You got to face your fears to ever get rid of them.

When David was dealing with Goliath, he didn't run away from him. The Bible says, "He ran quickly toward the battle line". And that was when Goliath was threatening him. When you feel that your problems are threatening you, you need to face them and confront them, in the power of God. You may not be strong enough by yourself, "But all things are possible with God". And Paul said, "I can do whatever I need to do through Christ, who is my strength". Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You don't have to spend your life running. You don't have to run from your past. You don't have to run from things that have happened to you, or things that you've done. You don't have to run from your sin. You can talk to God openly about it and receive his forgiveness and go on. You don't have to stay angry all your life. You can deal with that. You can confront issues.

And so, we talked about different people in the Bible who ran and how God always took them back to the places they ran from. To me, that's so interesting. You know, Jonah ran from God and went through all that thing with being swallowed by the whale. And when he finally repented and went back to God again, and God said, a second time, "Go to Nineveh". He told him the exact same thing the second time that he told him the first time, and if Jonah would have done what God told him to do, he could have missed that whole trip in the whale's belly. Moses ran from God, and he spent 40 years in the wilderness, and God sent him back to Egypt, the place that he ran from. Hagar ran from Sarah, and God told her go back and submit to your mistress.

And I've had got deal with me in that way. You know, being forgiven for your past is one thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have to maybe deal with some things from the past. God forgives us instantly, when we ask him to. But there may be issues that we have to deal with. You'll know if there are. You don't have to go on a digging expedition trying to find if there's something there, you need to deal with. Just ask God and if there is, he will show you. Some of you know you're running from things that you don't do right. And one of the ways we run is by making excuses. Another way is by blaming our issues on other people. But yesterday, we ended the program by talking about the excuses that we make, and how Jesus was calling people to follow him, and they all had excuses.

And then, in Romans 2, the Bible says, "Don't judge other people because you do the same things they do". So, there's no excuse for judging other people. We don't have a right to judge, to critically judge other people. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, yes, if you're a believer and you know the word, you can see when somebody sinning. You can judge sin for what it is, but we don't know people's hearts. And so, we need to pray for people, not judge them and criticize them. I mean, Romans 1:20 even says that there's no excuse for not believing in God because even nature itself tells you that God exists. Wow, how many people make all these excuses for not believing in God? Galatians 5:13 says there's no excuse.

Don't use your freedom as an excuse to be selfish. Some people feel like they can just do anything they want to because they're free. "Well, I'm free. I'm free from the law. Jesus has set me free". Well, that may be true, but we're still not free to do things that are gonna be harmful to other people. The new law that we're to live under is the law of love. So, Paul said, walk in love and don't do things that are gonna hurt your brother or your sister. And so, we wanna be very careful about making excuses. We talked about that. How we make excuses through saying, "I couldn't help it". "It's too hard. I was abused".

You know, I made excuses for my bad behavior for so long because I was abused sexually by my dad. Well, if I just wouldn't have been treated the way I was treated when I was a child, then I wouldn't act the way that I act now. Well, and that might have been a reason. But God said, "It may be the reason why you are the way you are, but don't let it become an excuse to stay that way". And you know, maybe you weren't raised properly. Maybe you had parents that didn't treat you right, or didn't love you properly. And so, you've got some issues because of that. Well, that may be why you are the way you are, but don't let it become an excuse to stay that way. Open your heart up to God, and let him deal with you.

Blame is another thing that we use frequently to avoid situations. We run from our problems through blaming other people for them. Adam and Eve, in the garden, had been told what they could eat and what they couldn't. They could eat from every tree, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that one, God said, "Don't eat from that one". Isn't it amazing that they could do all these other things, but the one thing that God told 'em not to do, that was the one thing that Satan tempted them to do. And God had spoken to the man, but the devil came to Eve.

Now, apparently, Adam had either told Eve what God said, or God had told her himself, because when the devil began to lie to her, and say, you know? "Did God really say that you couldn't eat from that tree"? She said, "Well, you know, God said, we can eat from all the trees, but we can't eat from that one". So, she knew what she was supposed to do and wasn't supposed to do. But he showed her the fruit and told her how good it was, and tried to tell her that God was trying to keep something good away from her. "God knows if you eat it, you're going to become like him". And so the Bible says that she took it and she ate. And then she talked Adam into eating it too.

Well, I don't have time to get into a long discussion on it. But, you know, Adam was supposed to be the head of what was going on there. God spoke to him, and Eve tempted him, and he did what Eve said. And I mean, he should have told her right then, "No. That's not what God has told us to do. We're not we're not gonna do that". But he did what she told him to. And then, they both hid. They ran. See, that's what happens when we do things that are wrong, and we know it down deep inside then we find some way to hide. We think we're hiding from God, but you cannot hide from God. There's no place you can go and hide from God because he is everywhere, all the time. And trust me if you're trying to hide from God, right now, God knows where you're at.

And I don't know, maybe you think you accidentally turned this program on, but you didn't. This is no accident. God wants to speak to you today. I've heard some very funny stories about people who think they accidentally turned their TV on. One man told me that he was high on drugs, one night, in the middle of the night, and turn the television on, and I was on and he didn't wanna listen to me. He thought I was stupid. He tried to change the channel. And the channel wouldn't change. He thought the batteries were out of his remote, they were no good. So, he changed the batteries and still the channel wouldn't change. He said, "The only thing that worked was the button to make the sound go higher". And he said, "As soon as your program was over, my remote started working again and everything was fine". He said, "It scared him. He knew from that, that God was trying to deal with him". And he ended up getting right with God.

So, I don't know why you think you might be watching the program today, but don't be wishing that somebody else that you know, that's got these problems, would be there with you. Let God speak to you. If there's anything God wants to say to you today, let him say to you. Who are you blaming for your problems? I've told you, for a lot of years. I blamed. I blamed my past. I blamed Dave. I blamed everybody else, but I didn't take responsibility for my behavior. We have to take responsibility. The Bible says in Romans 14 that, "Every man will give an account of himself before God". God's not gonna to ask me about Dave. He's gonna ask me, about me. And I need to make sure that I'm doing what God is asking me to do without blaming and making excuses.

We won't have time to go through all of this today, but it's so interesting because when God came to Adam and Eve and said, "Why are you hiding? Who told you, you were naked"? Well, right away, Adam blamed Eve. "God the woman that you gave me, she ate, she gave it to me, and I ate. And it's the woman you gave me". He not only blamed Eve, he blamed God for giving him the woman. He didn't take any responsibility. And then God turned to Eve and she said, "Well, the devil made me do it". Everybody was blaming everybody else. But when God got around to dealing with everybody: he dealt with the man, he dealt with the woman, and he dealt with the serpent. Everybody had responsibility. We all have responsibility. We have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Abraham and Sarah's another great example in the Bible. I told you that story earlier this week, how God had promised them a child, and the child hadn't come around. And they got tired of waiting. So, they made up their own plan. And Sarah gave Hagar, her handmaid, to Abraham as a secondary wife. And she got pregnant and she despised her mistress once she got pregnant. You know, I'm sure it's kinda like, "Neh neh neh nah nah nah, I'm pregnant and you're not. Abraham's gonna love me more". Well, they were people just like us. And so, Sarah wasn't gonna put up with it. So, Hagar ran out into the wilderness. And God told to go back and submit to her mistress. And then, Sarah blamed Abraham, "This is your fault". Well, she's the one that suggested it, but now all of a sudden, it's Abraham's fault. And then Abraham said, "No, it's your fault". And everybody was blaming everybody else.

We see the same thing when the Israelites were out in the wilderness. They just had such bad attitudes and they were impatient, and they were murmuring, and they were complaining, and they weren't satisfied with the manna, and they didn't like this, and they didn't like that. I mean, every time they had problems, they blamed Moses, and they blamed God. It was never, "We've got a bad attitude and we need to change it. Oh, God forgive us. We have a bad attitude". No, it was always Moses and always God. "Why did you even bring us out of Egypt? You should have left us there. We didn't want to come out to start with," and that wasn't true. They'd been begging God to get out of there. And so, they wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years trying to make what the Bible says, "Was an 11-day trip". And a large part of it was because they wouldn't face the things that God was trying to deal with them about, they kept blaming somebody else.

Wow. I think I just need to pause for a minute, and let some of you think about this. Who are you blaming for your problems? Are you deep in debt and you're blaming your boss for not paying you enough, when really, you're the one that has overspent? Are your children unruly and out of control, and you're blaming them? When the truth of the matter is you have not taken enough time with them to even teach them how to behave properly. You're too busy doing all the things you wanna do. Now, I know none of you are like this, I know I'm talking to other people that probably aren't watching the program today. But I'm just giving you some insurance to keep you from getting in trouble in the future. Don't be blaming other people when you have issues in your life that need to be dealt with. Blame is a deception. It helps us avoid and evade dealing with the real issues in our lives.

Some people run from their problems through staying busy, through work. It's amazing how many people hide from their problems in work? Or they hide from themselves, they hide from their own behavior in work? They just stay so busy all the time, that they don't have any time to listen to God. They have no time to pray, they have no time to study the word, they have no time to go to church. Oh, they believe in Jesus. They believe that they're saved, they'll go to heaven when they die, but they don't have any time for God here. We have to take time to, not just tell God what we want, but we have to take time to let God deal with us. And it's a good thing. It's a healthy thing. It's not a bad thing.

I think part of the reason why we have such immorality in our world today, is because people just want to be patted on the head and told how wonderful they are, and they want all their prayers to be about telling God what they want and need, and have God just give them everything they want. But you know, there was a time in society, when the teaching of the Word of God took people deeper than that. God is not just like a celestial Santa Claus that wants to just give us everything that's on our list all the time. We need to go to him and say, "God, what can I do for you"? Not just, "What can you do for me"? But, "What can I do for you? And is there anything in my life that you want to deal with me about". Have a tender conscience toward God. Live a holy life, and make sure that you have a clean and a clear conscience before God.

The apostle Paul said that. That there's nothing bothering his conscience. He said, "I have a clear conscience before God". He felt right in his heart that he was doing what he should be doing. If your marriage is not good, don't just see how busy you can stay and ignore it all, and hope it'll just go away. If you have children that are misbehaving and not doing what they should be doing, don't just stay so busy that you don't have to deal with them, but take time to find out what's really going on. Do you know, you can even run from God in church. I'm all for going to church and I think you should go to church, but maybe, some of you have got problems in your family, and you're in church seven times a week.

Well, maybe, you need to cut it back to twice and spend some of that time with your family. You can't have good relationships with your marriage partner or with your kids if you don't spend time with them. Relationships are built on time. Not just giving 'em money and putting them in front of a television set or buying them another game. People are so busy today. Everybody's busy. "Wow. I haven't heard from you. I haven't seen you in a year. Where you been"? "Oh, I've just been busy". You know, it seems like that's our only, if our testimony is, "I'm busy". That's pretty sad. God never called us to be busy, he called us to be fruitful, to bear good fruit. We need to make sure that what we're doing with our time is the most excellent thing that we can do with it.

You know, we need to work. We need to make an income. We need to have a salary to pay our bills and to live in life, but maybe, you're working way too much because you're putting things above what's really important. And you know, when you're on your deathbed, you're not going to ask to see your bank balance. You're gonna want your family. You're gonna want your friends with you. Don't let things become so important to you that you forget what's really important. In Philippians 1:10, Paul prayed that the people would really, "Learn to sense what was vital, and to approve and prize what was excellent and of real value". Make sure you spend your time on things that are really valuable. Of course, you need to work. But you also need to tend to the things that are important.

Are you taking care of yourself? Are you taking care of your health? Are you too busy to even drink water during the day? Are you too busy to spend any time exercising? Are you too busy to call your friends? Be very careful that you don't let busy become your excuse. Another way that people run is through procrastination. And I love this one. Wow. In Isaiah 1:23 it says, "Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves: everyone loves bribes and runs after compensation and rewards. They judge not for the fatherless nor defend them, neither does the cause of the widow come to them for they delay or they turn a deaf ear".

You know, the Bible says that we should be helping the poor. And that's just not somebody else, that's each one of us. We need to be involved in helping the poor either through giving to our churches, financially and making sure that we're in a church that is doing outreach and reaching out to the poor and doing missions. Some way, shape, or form, we need to be helping those that are less fortunate than we are. I'm sure you work with people that need help, that are less fortunate than you are. Are you doing anything to help anybody else, or is your life all about you? You say, "Well, I know I should be giving, but right now, I've just got some bills I need to take care of. You know, when the time's right, I'll do it".

You know in Ecclesiastes 11-4, it says, "He who observes the wind and waits for all conditions to be favorable will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will never reap". How many times do we put off doing the right thing until it's a more convenient time? I love that scripture. And in Haggai, chapter 1, oh, there's such a great story here. "Thus says the Lord of hosts: these people say, the time is not yet come for the Lord's house to be rebuilt even though Cyrus ordered it done eighteen years before".

Eighteen years these people have been putting off building God's house. And God goes on to tell 'em, "You stay busy building your own house while ignoring mine". Well, how many times do we stay busy doing our own thing, building our own life, while ignoring what God has called us to do or told us to do. Don't put off doing the right thing. Now is the time. Some people run from their problems by just physically removing their presence. They just leave. They leave a marriage. They quit a job because there's people there that are difficult for them to deal with. They leave a church. The pastor didn't shake their hand, or I don't know, maybe they got corrected about something, maybe they wanted to be the worship leader and somebody else got chosen, and so they get mad and they just leave.

Well, you know, if you leave one church mad, you'll go somewhere else and still be mad when you get there. We have to learn how to stay until God tells us to go. That's not always an easy thing to do. I heard a story, the other day, about somebody that had been married nine times, nine times! You'd think after at least two or three, that somebody would get the revelation that they're the only common denominator in all these relationships and stop blaming it on everybody else. Nine times. Leave a marriage 'cause it's hard, quit a job because it's hard. There are times to leave and there are times to stay. And then one of the ways that people run is through substance abuse: drugs, alcohol. Let's just deaden the pain. Let's do something to deaden the pain.

Maybe, you become a gambler, or you shop all the time, or you hide in tv all the time. I'm just asking people to let God into your life. Take the time every day to sit before God and spend some time with him and say, "God, is there anything you want to deal with me about"? Don't just spend all your prayer time telling God what you want and what you need. "I need you to change my husband". "I need you to change my kids". "I need a raise at work". "I need a bigger house". "I need a better car".

It's great to tell God what you need. He loves you, and he wants to meet your needs. But at least, somewhere in your prayer life, I think every day is a good, but if you can't handle that, do it at least a couple of times a week. Just sit quiet in God's presence and say, "God, is there anything you wanna deal with me about"? "Oh, you know, I shouldn't, yeah, you're right, God, I shouldn't have said that yesterday. Oh, you want me to apologize. Oh, okay. Well, I don't really want to do that, but I will".

Oh, but everything that God shows you is only something that's gonna make you better. It's not a matter of condemnation, going before God and letting him tell you what the issues are, so you can feel condemned. No, be excited, if God cares enough about you to show you something that needs to change in your life, because that means he cares about you and wants to make you a better person. You know, that's really why I've taught these messages the last three days. I want you to be free. I don't want you to have things chasing you all the time. I want you to face your issues, face your problems, and let God deliver you, and set you free.

You know, good habits are a wonderful thing to have. And today, we're offering you a book called, "Habits Of a Godly Woman". Wow. I want to be a godly woman, and I know that I need to have the right habits. And also, we have a study Bible. And in that study Bible, of course, like in every Bible, there are https://joycemeyer.org/shop/Books%3djoycemeyer_usa-books/WisdomandVirtuePackage%3d013920. And so, we made a special book, it's a beautiful book, it's silver, make a great gift. And we have the "https://joycemeyer.org/shop/Books%3djoycemeyer_usa-books/WisdomandVirtuePackage%3d013920" from "The Everyday Life" study Bible in this book. That's a great thing to carry with you. That's a great thing to take to work with you. Boy, you can study a little bit on your lunch hour. Take every opportunity you can to get the word. So, you get these resources today, and you know, your purchase is gonna help us. It's gonna help us keep preaching to people. And you know, we appreciate all your gifts, your financial gifts. We're not on TV free. We need people to give, and be generous to help us keep paying these TV bills. And even more important, to keep reaching out to people that are hurting all over the world. God bless you. God loves you. He's got a good plan for your life. And I believe that because you watched the program today, you're gonna deal with some things in your life that are gonna set you free and help you be a better person. God bless you.