Joyce Meyer - Spiritual Maturity, Part 2

Everything that God asks us to do, he also gives us the power to do it. He gives us the grace to do it. So, whatever God is dealing with you about right now in your life, how many of you, God is dealing with you about something? Anything at all, something? Okay, two things maybe, you know, okay. All right, the biggest mistake you can make is to try to do it without God's help. The first thing you got to do is say, "I hear you, God, but I cannot. However I'm willing to let you do it through me. I'm willing if you'll help me".

Now, we're partners with God, he does not do everything for us, but we can't do anything apart from him. So, one of the biggest mistakes we make is, "Well, I need to do this, and I need to do that". See, let's just say, for example, I mean, a lady came to our church years and years and years ago, she got up every morning at 5 and she prayed till 9. Well, she seemed real spiritual to me, so I thought, "Well, I'm going to do that". Well, you already know where the story goes, I'm not going to labor with it. I mean, I lock myself in a room, got my clock, got my coffee, started praying. I mean, in 5 minutes, I'd prayed about everything I knew to pray about, and you know. But I had told everybody, "Well, bless God, I'm going to pray 4 hours every day now". Well, I wasn't doing it because I was being led by the Holy Spirit to do it.

So, anything we try to do because we're trying to keep up with somebody else, that's becoming a law to us, and God's not going to help us do that. Because he doesn't want you to try to be somebody else, he wants you to say, "God, what do you want me to do"? And then whatever he shows you to do, he'll help you do that. Now, I don't mean that we can't learn from other people. We can learn from other people. Other people can be examples. There's not anything wrong with discipline. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Well, I'm going to, you know, I feel like God wants me to pray the first hour of every day". But if I'm going to get up and pray the first hour of every day, I better feel like that that's what God wants me to do because I'm going to need his help. And if I'm just doing it so I can brag to my Christian friends who do that every day, then it's not going to work. Are you with me?

All right, got to make sure. So, if I read this like the law, none of it is going to work. What we need is intimate relationship with Jesus. And when we have that, then everything works. The law, everything becomes a have to. I have to go to church. I have to pray. Have to read the word. Have to confess the word. Got to memorize the word. I have to tithe. Everything becomes a have to. But see, have to is dead. Jesus gave us a want to. If we follow the Holy Spirit, we've got a want to. If you have that mindset that you have to do these things to keep God happy, then it just sucks all the joy right out of it. You don't do anything to get God to love you. He is love, he already loves you perfectly. And when you know that, then you begin to respond to that by wanting to do what he wants you to do. I want to be the kind of person God wants me to be. If he tells me that I need to give up some more selfish habits, then I want to do it because I want to please him, not because I think he's going to be mad at me if I don't, or I think he's not going to love me if I don't, or I think I'm going to lose all my blessings if I don't. I want to do it because that's what he wants me to do, amen?

So, I hope you see that when you begin to do things because you want to, there's a joy in them rather than a feeling like, "I have to do this, have to do it". Okay, now we continue to behold in the Word of God as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and we're constantly being transfigured or transformed. Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed, completely changed by the entire renewal of our mind. So, that little teacup started out a lump of clay. And after all that stuff it went through, it became this beautiful teacup. It was transformed from one thing to an entirely different thing. And I can tell you from my standpoint, I am certainly not the person that I was 40 some odd years ago. And you know, that glorifies God. It glorifies God when people see you change and they see what God does in your life. And when you change from an angry person to a loving person, or a stingy person to a generous person, the world needs to see us not just go to church, they need to see us change and represent Christ to them.

Romans 8:29, "For those whom he foreknew [of whom he was aware in love beforehand], he also destined them from the beginning [foreordaining them] to be molded into the image of his son". So, we have been foreordained by God, that means he made this decision a long time before, before we ever showed up on planet earth, those that belonged to him. They were not going to just get left alone to live their own little life, and do what they pleased, and act however they wanted to. He predetermined and foreordained that we would be molded into the image of Jesus Christ. That means, here's the simplicity of it, any person who will not let God do what he wants to do in their life, you will not ever be happy. See, if you don't let God do what he wants to do in your life, oh, you may limp along and have some kind of a life, and I'm not, you know, you go to heaven because you believe in Jesus, not because you do everything exactly right here. But you won't be happy.

I was a Christian for a long time, but I was not a happy Christian. And how many of you know there's a lot of unhappy Christians? "Well, it's the devil, it's my circumstances, it's this, it's that. I don't have enough money". No, don't stone me when I say this, it's you. Here's a little example I like to use. Clay, mine's not gray, anyway. So, we're going to be molded into the image of Jesus Christ. You remember the teacup? Rolled and patted and smashed and flattened and so? You know, you're just, I mean, obviously this clay doesn't have feelings, but if it did, I bet right now it'd be saying some stuff I wouldn't want to hear. So, this is a terrible example, but we're going to pretend like this is Jesus, so... Now come on, God knows my heart. So, this is you, this is Jesus, all right? You got it? So, all of this is supposed to go in there. Well, guess what? Uh oh, we got a problem. There's a bunch of stuff here that's going to have to go.

And boy, we fight that, don't we? It's like, "Ahhh, ahhh"! See, I'm glad I got a bunch of people that know what I'm talking about. "Ahhh, ohhh! Not that, no, not that, anything but that". Come out of there. We got it, we got it, we got it. Whoo hoo, finally, finally, finally. There you go, you made it. And how many of you want to be spiritually mature? Okay. All right, just a few things. There is no microwave maturity. See, we say we want to get transformed, but really we want to get zapped. Well, you know what I figured out with God? He's a lot more like a slow cooker. He's a lot more like one of these crockpots that takes all day, but boy are things tender when they finally come out. How many of you want a breakthrough in your life? Well, there's no drive-thru breakthroughs either. You know what it takes? It takes, number one, the word. Number two, and I can just tell you before you ever even really start trying to grow in God, you might as well take possibly a few years and learn who you are in Christ. You got to know you're loved. You got to know that your confidence can be in him. You got to know that you don't have to live under the law.

Here's the thing, I'll show it to you in Hebrews chapter 5, let's go there, Hebrews 5:13. Paul was talking to them about why they were still babies, babies. He told the Corinthians, he said, "I want to give you meat, but I still have to keep giving you milk all the time". So, honestly, when you come to church, sometimes you get milk, sometimes you get meat. Now, a lot of people, babies love their milk bottle, they love that. But Christians aren't ready to grow up, you start trying to give them meat, and they're going to spit it back at you. You say, "What are you talking about"? Okay, milk would be more like "God loves you, you're wonderful, you're awesome, you're amazing". We all like that, and we all need that. We all need that, we need to hear that. Anybody that's giving you a well-rounded message, you're going to hear some of all of that. But we also got to have meat, and meat confronts our behavior.

Meat says, "It's time to not act like the world". Meat says, "It's time to get yourself off your mind and do the things that God is asking you to do". Meat says, "It's time for self-control". And so, Paul said, "Not everybody is ready for meat. Now everyone who continues to feed on milk", and I love this, I hope you can get this, "Is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness". What does he mean? If you're still feeding on milk, why does that mean that you are unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness? You know what the doctrine of righteousness is? It means that, first, you know who you are in Christ. He has come to live in you at the new birth, and your identity now is who you are in him. That's where your confidence is, that's where your trust is. You know that he loves you, he's never going to stop loving you. And then you begin to work with the Holy Spirit to let what he's done in you be worked to the outside of you where people can see it. Well, that takes correction from God. That takes chastisement. That takes the meat of the word.

Now listen, don't lose me, but if you don't know who you are in Christ, every time you hear something that corrects you or confronts your behavior, it's going to condemn you. And I'm just going to take my time and make sure you get this because I didn't have anybody telling me this like I'm telling you. It took me years to get this figured out. And every time I would hear something that confronted my behavior or brought any kind of correction to my life, I mean, I would just feel so bad. "Nobody's as bad as me. Nobody's got as many problems as me. How could anybody need every message they hear? I need everything I hear". Come on, you ever feel like that? "I don't care what you preach on, lady, I need it. Just you know, could you just tell me tonight Jesus loves me"? Well, yes he does. He loves you very much, and you're wonderful, and you're talented, and God's got a good plan for your life, but grow up.