Joyce Meyer - Celebrating You - Part 1

Well, it's so good to be here. And we are just gonna have a wonderful time. We're already havin' a good time. And I wanna talk to you, tonight, about celebrating you. Now, that might sound a little odd to you. You might even think, "We'll isn't it a little prideful to celebrate myself"? Well, actually, God celebrates you. And when I tell you to celebrate yourself, I'm not talking about oh, because you're so wonderful, and, you know, you do all these amazing things. I'm talkin' mainly about celebrating what God has created. And what he's done. And even like celebrating the changes that God has made in your life. We sure don't have any problem feeling bad about the things that we do wrong. But we sometimes have a hard time, celebrating the things, that we do right, or even, thinking about the things that we do right.

If you've never tried doing it, just try it sometime, and see how odd you feel. It's like the enemy wants us to count up, all the things we do wrong. Matter of fact, if you're anything like me, I'm not so much like this anymore, because I've grown in God. But I mean, years ago the first thing that I would do, every morning when I woke up, was think about all the things I did wrong the day before. Anybody do that? But see we also do things, that are right. And I believe that, God wants us to also think, about those once in a while. Not in a prideful way. But because God enables us, by his grace to do things, that are right. In Hebrews 12, I think it is. It says, "Looking away from all that will distract". Well, you know, when I do nothing, but think about my faults, it distracts me. It distracts me from my walk with God. It distracts me from what God has called me to do.

So, we celebrate everything except ourselves. We celebrate births, baptisms, confirmations, weddings, anniversaries, retirement, promotions at work. We celebrate good things that other people do. But somehow or another we never get around to celebrating ourselves. And so, I'm even gonna suggest, that after you hear this teaching today, that you take even if it's four hours, once a week, and just celebrate you, by just doing something that you enjoy. Whether that's just takin' a walk, or if you've got small kids at home, paying a babysitter, just so you can be by yourself for four hours. Or havin' a cup of coffee, with a great friend. You need to take time for yourself.

So, where are you on your list of people that you take care of? Hmmm... I'm kinda doing like a selah. Pause and think about that. 'cause I don't wanna go through that too fast, you know. I don't know, if you're anything like me, but I can get a false sense, of responsibility really quick. Like just recently, somebody told me about, a widow that needs help, with just a lot of things, in her life. And I mean, it only took me two days, and in my head, I was replacing her furniture, her car, and, you know, getting her new clothes, and buying her bed sheets. And, you know, it's like, "Wait a minute, Joyce, slow down. You don't have to rework her whole life. She needs some gift cards for groceries".

You know, sometimes we get, I don't know if you can ever help anybody too much. But sometimes, we have everybody, on our list, except us. And here's the thing, I want you to hear, and don't forget this. If you don't take care of yourself, it won't be long, and you won't be fit, to take care of anybody else. Because what happens, if you just take care of everybody else, eventually, you'll get like, a martyr syndrome. Or you'll start to get bitter. And a lot of times, we do it to ourselves. Because we become people-pleasers. And everything that anybody else wants, we run and do that. But then we feel guilty. The enemy makes us feel guilty, if we think about taking any time for ourselves. And I believe you'll see, before we're finished, that God wants you to do that.

Listen to Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a mighty one, a Savior [who saves]. He will rejoice over you with joy: he will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in his love", I love this, "He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins]". Wow. So, if you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you start hearing, is everything that you did wrong yesterday, it's not God. Once you have repented, asked God to forgive you, he forgets it, moves it as far as the east is from the west. And so, there's absolutely no reason to continue feeling guilty. And Satan steals so much time from us, with us feeling guilty and bad about the things we do wrong. But I really believe, that if you balance some of that out, by actually, having the courage to think about some of the things you do right, that it won't be so overwhelming.

Psalm 139:13-18, "For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother's womb". I want you to think about this with, God, having his hand, in your mother's womb, and actually, uniquely, carefully putting you together. You're not a mistake. The things that you think, are weird about yourself, are just unique. Because God makes everybody just a little bit different. I think he likes variety. What do you think? I think God likes variety. "He makes no mention [of past sins, are even recalls them]: he will exalt over you with singing". So, sounds to me like, God looks at each of us, and he celebrates us. He's not just thinking, about the things, we've done wrong. When we repent of those, they're gone as far as he's concerned. God's mercy is new every, single day. Now, "You created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made".

I'm telling you what, David, the Psalmist David, he was bold. I mean, he said some pretty good things about himself. So, he obviously knew, I mean, you know, he says here, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful". Well, I mean, that's equivalent to saying, "I am wonderful". But he's saying it because God created him. He is celebrating what God created. It's not a haughty, prideful thing, but he's celebrating what God created. I don't even know, how to begin to tell you, how much this can change your life, if you'll take to heart, what I'm saying to you, tonight. "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body: all the days ordained for me were written in your book before even one of them came to pass".

Every day of our life, was recorded in God's book, before one of them, even came to pass. "How precious to me are your thoughts". God thinks about you all the time. And can I tell you something? There's never one moment, in your life when God doesn't love you. And, how about this? God will never love you, any more than he does, at this moment right now. You know why? Because his love for you is not based on what you do or don't do. It's based on who he is. And love is not something God does, it's who he is. So, I'm sorry, but he just can't help himself. He has to love you.

Now, we looked up, some fun facts, about the body. So, when you think about, how fearfully, and wonderfully you're made, just listen to this, every second, the body produces, 25 million new cells. That means every 15 seconds, you will have produced, more cells than the us population. Wow. The only muscle that never gets tired, is your heart. The entire surface of the skin is replaced every month. Wow. In an average lifetime... Now, pastor Mike helped me get some of these. So, I'm just gonna tell you that, this one came from him. In an average lifetime, people spend an average of one year sitting on the toilet. At first, I said, "No, I'm not telling that". But then I thought, "Well, why not"? Like fingerprints, every person has a unique, tongue print. That's the extremes that God went to, in creating us so differently. My goodness. The acid in your stomach, is strong enough, to dissolve razor blades.

Every human has a unique smell, except identical twins. Humans are the only creatures, that produce emotional tears. The tooth is the only part of the body that cannot repair itself. Get this, the nose can remember 50.000 different smells. There was a woman, who gave me a bottle of perfume, probably 35 years ago. And I have some of it now. And any time I put that on myself, she's the first person that comes to my mind. Because my mind, connects that smell, to that woman. The body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes, to bring half a gallon, of water to a boil. Unless you have hot flashes, and then it's probably, a couple of gallons. The brain processes pain signals, but never feels pain itself. Isn't that interesting? Your brain never hurts.

I love this one, I think. The strongest muscle, in the human body, is the tongue. My, I guess that's 'cause we use it all the time. The body has enough iron, in it to produce a nail, three inches long. You have six quarts of blood. Your blood circulates through your body, three times every minute. So, every minute, all the blood in your body, goes through you. The blood travels, 12.000 miles each day, inside your body. I mean, honey, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I don't think it would hurt us at all, to celebrate a little bit, of what God has done. No wonder David said, "Wonderful are your works, o Lord". Sixty thousand blood vessels inside your body. Impulses travel from your nerves, to your brain at a speed of, 250 miles an hour.

The human eye can distinguish, 10 million different colors. I didn't even know there were that many colors. This is good. A person uses 17 muscles when they smile, and 43 when they frown. The human body contains nearly 100 trillion cells, and the average adult, takes over 20.000 breaths a day. And we do all that, and don't even know that it's happening. Somebody say, "I'm awesome". Now, I want you to say it, like you mean it. All right. "How precious are your thoughts toward me. How vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand". So, God has more thoughts, about us than all the grains, of sand on all the oceans. "When I awake, I'm still with you". Yes, you are wonderfully made, and God thinks about you, all the time. You know, God is pleased with you. Boy, that's a hard one to swallow, isn't it?

See, he's not pleased with everything you do, but he is pleased with you. And you've heard me say this, if you listen to my teaching. We absolutely must, learn how to separate, our who and our do. Because God sees us in Christ, if we've received him, as our Lord and Savior. Just like your kids. You get it with your kids. You don't like everything they do. But you never stop loving your kids. It's like, you can't. You just love them, and you can't help it. Even if they're bad, you love them. Two times a voice came out from heaven, saying to Jesus, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased". You say, "Yeah, but that was Jesus". Well, yeah, but we're in Jesus. And so, whatever he gets, we get. And you just, come on, you just try this in your home, saying, "God is pleased with me". Hmmm...

See, I couldn't even get a smile out of you, on that one. You know, why? Because we think that would be wrong. Why has religion made us think that, that would be wrong? I remember, years ago, when I was, I think, I was in Pennsylvania, somewhere. And I was just getting that revelation that I didn't have to hate myself, that I could like myself, that I was even supposed to love myself. And so, in this teaching that I did, I said, "I like myself". Well, the next day, there was an article in the paper that said, "Meyer says she likes herself," like that was a terrible thing. But see, if I would have stood up and said, "I'm a terrible worm, miserable human being. Oh, woe is me," then they would of probably thought that was very "Spiritual". But see, it's not. We've got it all wrong.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not talking about not facing the things that we do wrong. I'm not talking about having some kind of a haughty attitude that you're better than everybody else. Nobody here is better than anybody else. Whatever we can do, it's in Christ. And whatever we can't do, we're still in Christ, because he's the only one that can take care of it. I'm not at all talking about being proud and haughty. The Bible says, "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to". But it never says to think badly, see, about yourself. "Meyer likes herself". Well, isn't that terrible? And God wants you to take good care of yourself. Hmm... "Well, I just don't have time to do that. I don't have time to exercise. I can't afford to buy good quality food. I don't have time. I don't have time to rest. I'm too busy, killing myself, cutting years off my life working, because I'm a people-pleaser and I have to do whatever anybody wants me to, no matter what it is".

You know, you're never gonna be healthy until you learn how to say, "No". And I can tell you, when people wanna hear, "Yes," they don't like a, "No". So, you have to learn how to deal with that. How valuable are you? "Well, I dunno. Valuable? I dunno. Never really thought about it much". Well, 1 Corinthians 6:20: "You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made his own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to him in your body". Now, when we get around to the body part, you're gonna know that you need to invest some time in taking care of your body because it is the house of God.

Let me ask you, if you were looking for a church, because you are the home of God, if you were looking for a church to go to, and there was a church on this corner that was, you know, pretty beat-up: shingles falling off the roof, paint peeling off the walls, grass hadn't been cut, trash in the yard. Just really, you know, didn't look that good. And two blocks down, there was a church, not even super fancy, but it's painted, it's clean, it looks like a nice, friendly place. You all know without even thinking about it, which church you would choose to go to. So, if we are ambassadors for Christ, which 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ, his personal representatives, and that he is making his appeal to the world through us. Wow.

So, I think that we need to take what we have to work with, and do the best we can with it. And I'm not talking about what your body size is. I'm not talking about, you know, these specific things. I'm just talkin' about doing the best you can with what you have to work with. Even if you can't afford to have a lot of clothes, you still don't have to put something in the clothes dryer, and leave it sit there all night, and then, just go put it on the next morning and look like... You know what I'm talking about, you know. "Oh, that don't matter". Well, no, it has nothing to do with your salvation, but it does matter if we're gonna represent God. Amen? 1 Peter 1:19: "But [you were purchased] with the precious blood of Christ (the Messiah)". Wow. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life".

We need to meditate on things like this. What did it cost God to give his only son? And we know it was God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. So, he actually gave himself. There's so many great scriptures about our value in God. Let me just quickly do a couple of these. Genesis 1:27: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them: male and female". He didn't create you in the image of an ape. Monkeys are not your relatives. I'm sorry. It's no wonder the world is in a mess today. How can people possibly feel good about themselves? Well, what a difference it makes if you tell, "God's thinking about you. He loves you. He doesn't even mention past sins, his thoughts are more than all the sand on the sea. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Think about the things that God has created your body to do. God is pleased with you". And I've only been at this 20 minutes.

People need to be taught these things. They don't need to go to church week after week and be taught what a terrible, rotten, miserable sinner they are. They already know that when they come. And oh, I love this scripture. Isaiah 49:15 and 16: "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she might forget that," God says, "I will not forget you". How many of you have ever nursed a baby, anybody? Okay. You can be in the back of the house, and the baby can be out in the other end of the house, and if that baby cries, not to be crude, but your breasts will start to fill up with milk. To me, that's an awesome example. God says, "A nursing mother cannot forget her child. And even if she could, I cannot forget you". Whoo, God has you on his mind all the time. Somebody's gotta feel better. And I hope, those of you, that are at home watching this are doing some shoutin'.