Joyce Meyer - Don't Believe These Lies - Part 2

TOPICS: Lie

Well, thank you for joining me, today, on, "Enjoying Everyday Life," where every day, I teach the Word of God. And I believe very much that the Word of God has the power inherent in it to heal us, to deliver us, to set us free from bondages that Satan tries to put on us. Today, I'm continuing a teaching that I started yesterday, "What the devil doesn't want you to know". Yesterday, we talked about how the devil doesn't even want you to know that he exists. He wants you to think he's a myth, or a fairytale, or just a story, or a Halloween character, but that's a lie. Satan is and represents all evil. There's so many bad things going on in the world, today. I mean, our world is in such a mess. And it's not just one place, it's every place. And the devil's behind all the bad things.

Yes, he works through people. But it's really the enemy working through the people. Long as we stay mad at people, the devil wins. But once we can look beyond that, and know that Satan is the source, and begin to deal with that, then we can become winners in life. He's a liar. The truth is not in him. He doesn't want you to know that he exists. He lies, and he lies, and he lies, and he lies. And, today, I wanna talk to you a little bit about how Satan is also the destroyer. He wants to destroy everything that God has in mind for you that is good. God is good. The devil's bad. If you don't learn anything but that today, it would be worth listening to the program. God is good. The devil is bad. Good things, come from God. Evil things, come from Satan. But the Bible says, in Romans 12:21 that, "We overcome evil with good". Good is stronger than evil. That's the way that you defeat the devil.

No matter how many bad things he tries to do to you, you be good. You do what God wants you to do. You do the good things God wants you to do, you be good to people, and you will just beat the devil up. You overcome evil with good. The Bible says that we are to be alert at all times. Well, I guess, we wish it said some of the time, 'cuz nobody wants to feel like they gotta work all the time. But this is something we can't be sleepy, lazy Christians, some of the time, and hope that on those days, when we want to be lazy, that the devil will just leave us alone. Those are the days he'll take advantage of us. "Be alert at all times, for your adversary the devil roams around like a lion, seeking someone to devour". Well, here's the good news. It doesn't have to be you. He's looking for somebody to devour, but it doesn't have to be you.

For example, in Ephesians 4, the Bible says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger". Interesting enough, it doesn't say don't ever get angry. Anger is an emotion that's going to come up from time to time. But the Bible says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't give the devil, any such foothold". If we let him have a foothold, then he can get a stronghold. So, that's very simple. Don't go to bed mad. Whoever you're mad at, work through it. Get it settled. Pray, get God to help you. Study the word. Do something to get over it before you go to bed. Because if you don't, it opens a door for the enemy. You know, now, the enemy causes problems in our life. God doesn't cause our problems, the enemy causes problems. But to be honest, sometimes, we're the ones who open the door. The Bible says that we're to forgive. Anybody, that we have anything against, we're to forgive 'em. If you don't forgive 'em, then God can't forgive you. And then, that causes all kinds of problems in your life. Boy, what would happen if we would just decide to believe the Word of God and do what it says. Wow. "Well, that's hard". Well, it's not as hard, as living in misery, all the time.

Now, 1 Peter 5:8, in the Amplified Bible, I love. It says, "Be well-balanced for your adversary the devil roams about like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking whom he may devour". Balance, in our lives, is so important. That means that you do enough of everything, but you don't do too much of anything. One of the things that Satan wants to do is destroy your health. Believe it or not, the devil wants you to feel bad all the time. He cares about your body, and he wants to make sure that you are miserable and feel bad, so God can't use you. You see, you are, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are now the hands and feet of Jesus, and he wants to work through you. Jesus went to heaven, he's not here in an earthly body anymore, but he lives in believers. Your body, my body, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Get this, you are the home of God. God lives inside of you.

Now, it's very possible that you've been a Christian for 30 years and never heard that. But that's what the Bible says. That we are the temple of God. That we've been purchased with a price. That price was the blood of Jesus. The mystery of the ages, Colossians 1 says, is Christ in me, the hope of glory. Well, it is a mystery. Why would God pick human beings: weak, flawed human beings to live in? Because he has to have a body to work through. If you're gonna do anything in the earth, you gotta have a body. When your body dies then you're gone. Well, the church is the body of Christ. He is the head, and the church is his body. God works through people. God's working through me, right now, to teach you the word. God, may wanna work through you, two hours from now, to encourage somebody, or to cheer somebody up, to pray for somebody. God has to have a body to work through.

Well, Satan comes against your body, he comes against your mind. The mind, actually, is the battlefield. That's where we win or lose the war with Satan. He tells you lies. You have to know the truth. If you don't know the Word of God, you're not gonna have any victory in your life. I was a Christian for a lot of years, and I had no victory. And that is a big problem in the world, today. People are not too impressed by Christians because so many of them go to church, they are sincere, they love God, but they don't know the word, and so, therefore, they don't behave the way they should behave. They are Christians, but they don't act like Christians. And the world needs to see Christ. And the only way they're gonna see him is through us. You have a job to do. You have a job to do. I have a job to do, every single one of us, have a call of God on our lives, and we are to help reconcile people to God. Be a good example.

Well, stress, wow. The devil certainly creates enough stress, doesn't he? The world is such a stressful place. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Noisy, pressure, people want, everybody wants something else. Multitasking, try to do five things at one time. You know what? I can't do it anymore. I mean, my brain won't take it. I used to think it was a good thing to be a multitasker. But I think, maybe, God wants us to do one thing at a time, and keep our mind on it, focus on it, do it, right. And you know, I found if I really keep my mind on what I'm doing, I can sense God's presence. But when I get all divided up, and I'm trying to do five things at once, all I get is frustrated. People don't get enough sleep. They have poor diets. There's too many choices of junk to eat, today. And boy, I don't know about you, but I wanna feel good. Is anybody listening to me today? Are you tired of feeling bad?

Well, you say, "I'm praying about it". Well, you know, it's good to pray about it, but you gotta do something about it. I think that's one of the places where we make a mistake. God tells us to pray. He says, "Having done all the crisis demands, stand firmly in your place," Ephesians 6 says. But do you have a crisis in your life, and have you done what you can do? You know, God helps us do things. He doesn't do everything for us. And many times, when you're feeling bad, and you go to God, and you're praying for healing, he may show you something, you need to do. Well, if you don't do it, then you're gonna keep feeling bad. Maybe all you need to do is go to bed a little bit earlier and get some rest. Stop multi-tasking. Stop arguing with people. Quit looking at all the negative stuff on social media.

If you're gonna listen to the news, find something decent to listen to. Don't just listen to all the craziness that's going on in the world, today. God wants you to feel good. I want you to feel good. I'm doing everything I can, in my life now, to feel good. I wanna feel good emotionally. I wanna feel good mentally. I don't want to worry and be anxious about things. "This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad," I am determined to enjoy every, single day that God gives me. Because you know what? We're all assigned, a certain amount of days, and when one is gone, you can never get it back. And you can either waste today, or you can invest today. You can do something today, that's going to count for eternity, or you can throw the day away, feeling sorry for yourself, being angry, being mad, being all stressed out and frustrated.

C'mon, I want you to think about what you're doing with your life. Satan is a destroyer. He wants to destroy your health. He wants to destroy your body. Your body and your health are very important. God works through you. He built an ark through Noah. He killed Goliath through David. He preaches through the lips of men and women: he encourages people through other people. Without your health, Satan may rob the world of the gifts that God has placed in you. Think about that. Wouldn't that be tragic? When Satan comes against your body, he is attacking the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 20, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own".

I love that. I hope you're listening to me. You were bought with a price, therefore, honor God with your body. Well, it doesn't honor, God, if I'm just broken down and falling apart. Now, I'm not saying it's your fault if you're sick. Maybe, you have some disease, or something has attacked you. But I am saying that for some of us, it is our fault if we feel bad all the time because we're not doing the things that we should do. In December of 2017, I got very sick. Something happened to my voice. I was nervous. I just had all kinds of problems. I couldn't eat. I started losing weight. I felt absolutely terrible. And you know what it was? I didn't want it to be this, but it was just stress. Stress, from too many years of working too hard, and not taking enough breaks, and trying to be there for everybody. And I can't even tell you how many people that happens to. I'm not the only person that happens to. Well, I had to make some decisions that if I was gonna be around for the long haul, I had to make some changes.

Now, I believe, I'm talking to some people, today. And some of you need to make some changes. And you know who you are. You're thinking, right now, "Joyce, you're talking to me". And God's been telling you the same thing. Other people have been telling you the same thing. You know what? You don't have to please all the people, all the time. It's okay to say, "No". I said, it's okay to say, "No". It's better to say, "Yes," to God, and, "No," to people, than to say, "Yes," to people and say, "No," to God. Many times, people will ask us to do something and we know that is not something we're supposed to do. We're already overcommitted. And yet, now, somebody wants us to do one more thing, and boy, we don't want 'em to get mad at us. We don't wanna hurt their feelings. And so, we say, "Yes," to another thing, while our heart's screaming, "No". "The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy". But Jesus said, "I came that you might have and enjoy your life, and have it in abundance [to the full, until it overflows]".

Never underestimate the importance of taking care of yourself. The Christian, who is careless about his health, is playing right into the devil's hands. Satan's weapon is suffering. He wants us to suffer. He plans to destroy us with suffering. And sometimes, God permits suffering, not that he did it, but sometimes, he doesn't deliver us from it as fast as we'd like him to, because since we've gotten ourselves in trouble, we might as well learn a lesson. We might as well, learn something that will help us in the long run. 1 Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, don't be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality". Sometimes, suffering comes into our life, or trouble comes just to test our quality of faith. It's easy to trust God, when everything is going the way you want it to.

It's not hard to trust God, when you're not having any kind of problems. But when your whole life seems upside down, that's when you find out how much faith you really have. Suffering, occurs when we endure a thing, rather than running from it, or trying to avoid it. And there's a lot of different kinds of suffering. Would you let yourself suffer, and wait on God to be your vindicator, rather than trying to get somebody back yourself? What if you heard that somebody'd been talking about you, and boy, you wanted to go and tell them how wonderful you are. But God said, "No, let me take care of it. Let me be your vindicator". Well, it's hard to wait on God. But you know, you may make the problem worse, by trying to straighten it out yourself.

2 Peter... I mean, 2 Corinthians 4:8, Paul said they suffered embarrassment. They were troubled and oppressed in every way. Well, you know what? They could have avoided the suffering they were going through by leaving town, but they stayed. I never really saw that until I was looking at these notes, today. They could have left town. I mean, there were places that God sent Paul and told him before he got there, "You're going to suffer". And he could have said, "Well, I'm not gonna go then". But he didn't. He took the job, anyway. He took the assignment, anyway. There were people who wanted to follow Jesus and he said, "Look, I don't even have a place to lay my head". It's easy to say you wanna be in ministry, you wanna serve God, but are you willing to pay the price that you may have to pay? The Bible says that we will be persecuted for righteousness sake, and that when we are, we're blessed. Don't try to avoid everything in life that's hard. Hard things give you some spiritual muscle.

2 Corinthians 4:8, in the Amplified, says, "We are hedged in (and pressed) on every side [troubled and oppressed in every way], but we're not cramped or crushed: we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but we're not driven to despair". You know, when you love God, there's always a, "But," there. The devil may be trying to destroy you, but God is for you. God is on your side. You know, if you wanna serve God, I mean, really serve God, fully and completely, not just be a kind of a half way Christian, somebody who goes to church on Sunday and lives like the rest of the world, the rest of the week, then I will tell you there will be times when people are gonna make fun of you. You may lose friends. You may get judged and criticized. But wow, the Bible says your reward will be great in heaven.

And a lot of times, you don't even have to wait till you get to heaven. God rewards you, right here. All these things happened to Jesus. He went through all these things. I mean, my goodness. He was spit on, and beaten, and made fun of, and accused of all kinds of things, judged, and criticized, even by his own family members. But he didn't run away from the job that God gave him to do. I've been through a lot of things in my life. You might think, "Oh, I wish I had a ministry like yours". Well, you might not wanna say that until you know, the other side. There's more to it than just being on TV. "Well, it must be nice to be on TV". Well, yeah, when you're talking to a few million people every day, that's just a few more million that could judge and criticize you, if they want to.

Somebody called Dave, last week, and said, "Brother, I just want you to know, I've got your back". He said, "Somebody was saying some bad things about you and Joyce the other day, and I told him you don't know what you're talking about. I know them and that's not true". You know, why do people want to say bad things about other people? The devil. The devil. Well, you know, when I heard that, I first started thinking, "Well, I wonder who it was". And you know what? I don't care who it was. I'm not gonna to try to figure out who it was, because if it wasn't that person, it would be somebody else. The Bible tells us that we must be willing, boy, like, this scripture, I don't know. "We must be willing to suffer wrong and still be kind, peace-loving, and forgiving". Oh, my goodness. The Bible says in Acts 9:16, that God made it clear to Paul, how much he was going to have to suffer as an apostle. But you know what? Paul took the job, anyway.

And I'm asking you, today, will you take the job that God has for you, even if it means that you may not be the most popular person at school, or the most popular person on your block? Will you stick it out? Will you stick through hard things and not run away from everything that is difficult? Let me close, with this one scripture. Hebrews 5:8 and 9, "Although he was a son", speaking about Jesus, "He learned [active, special] obedience through what he suffered". We don't know what it means to obey God, unless we're gonna do it when things are hard. "And, [his completed experience] making him perfectly [equipped]".

It was his experience that equipped him. The experiences that I've had in life have equipped me to be able to stand here, and talk to you, today. "He became the author and the source of eternal salvation". Even Jesus suffered, but he didn't run away from the job. Will you trust God, no matter what's going on in your life, right now? Will you trust God? The devil is trying to destroy your faith, he wants to destroy your body, wants to destroy your mind, wants to destroy your finances, your marriage, your relationship with your kids. But be alert be cautious at all times. Even though, he roams around like a lion roaring in fierce hunger, seeing whom he may devour, make a decision that it's not gonna be you. God loves you. He's got a good plan for your life. And don't you let the devil take it away from you. Thank you for being with us, today.