TD Jakes - How to Encourage Yourself and Claim Your Own Victory
Some of you heard me tell you about the time I walked into my house, and my lights were off, and my water was off, and they repossessed my car. I walked into the house, and nobody was there with me, so I started talking to the house. I told the house, «I told the house, and now you want to treat me differently, don’t you?» But I talked to the house like it was a person. I said, «You’re a liar! The paint was coming off the walls, the gas didn’t work, the water was off, and the phone was off. I said, 'You’re lying on me! I do not accept this! I’m better than this! ' I told my sister, 'I’m getting up! ' When you make up your mind to get up, no devil in hell can hold you down. I don’t care if it’s racism, sexism, or government oppression; I don’t care what’s going on. When you make up your mind, 'I’m going to get up! '»
I feel like I’m talking to somebody in this room. Encourage yourself! Encourage yourself! Encourage yourself! Stop blaming everybody else who didn’t encourage you. You ain’t got time to be bitter; you got to make it to better! You got to get to better! If you have to crawl on your belly, you got to encourage yourself. Notice that it was only when he encouraged himself that he got high enough to hear from God. Oh, you can get so low that you cannot hear from God. He does not seek the Urim before he encourages himself because he has to encourage himself to get high enough to receive a good word. Once he got through encouraging himself, you have to do this. I found out it’s too much weight to put on your mate to expect the person you married to lift you. You’re too heavy!
You know the pictures where the husband brings in the bride and carries her over the threshold? He can only do that if she’s a size five. When she’s a size 50, baby, you got to walk across the threshold yourself! I’ll hold your hand or something like that, but a brother can’t be busting his back trying to be romantic when you weigh 50. The girl on TV was a 5! Come on in, baby! You got to encourage yourself; you are too heavy for anybody else to carry. You’ve been through too much drama; you’ve been through too much hell to put the full weight of your recovery on another person. I don’t care whether it’s a man, a woman, a dog, or a cat; you got to encourage yourself! God, I feel like I’m talking to somebody! God wouldn’t have me preaching like this if something wasn’t about to happen in your life.
Something that you lost is about to come back! Something that slipped from under your feet, you’re about to get it back again. This is your boot camp that’s giving you step by step by step by step by step how to get back what the devil stole from you. If I’m talking to you, give God 30 seconds of crazy Holy Ghost praise! You got 10 seconds, you got 5 seconds, you got 3 seconds, you got 1 second! If the kids don’t bring you any roses, get yourself some roses! If they don’t send you a card, get yourself a card! Encourage yourself! You can’t spend another year talking about what you did wrong.
Why don’t they love me? Why don’t they respect me? You are losing life! You can’t spend another year trying to make somebody love you. You can’t make anybody respect you; you got to encourage yourself! I release you! You can only apologize for so long. If I said anything, if I did anything, whatever I did, I’m sorry. I want you to understand I was going through something. You can only explain for so long; sooner or later, you got to make up your mind, maybe that their no is no to them, but it’s still yes to me. If you don’t want me, I still want me! The house is on fire, smoke everywhere, everything’s burning up, but I still want to do my happy dance. Don’t you know demons tremble when you start talking like that?
Hell gets nervous when you start talking like that! The devil thought he had you in a full Nelson, thought he had you locked down and that you weren’t going to get up. And then you just jumped up and hollered, «I still want me!» Demons tremble; hell gets frustrated; witches lose their power. Somebody shout out, «I still want me! I’m still on my side!» If you ain’t on my side, I’m still on my side! If you ain’t got my back, I got my own back! If you don’t stand up for me, I’ll stand up for myself! When he got through encouraging himself, Pastor Michael, then he asked God, «What say ye? Shall I go get them?» And let’s see what the Lord is saying. «Shall I go out? Should I overtake them?»
I’m not going up if I’m not going to win! Hey! I feel the Holy Ghost! I didn’t come this far to lose. I can’t take another loss! «Should I overtake them?» And the Lord said, «Pursue!» Somebody shout «Pursue!» In the military, pursue! In the spiritual battle, pursue! If you’re under attack, pursue! If you’re going through a divorce, pursue! «For thou shalt surely overtake them!» God said, «Thou shalt surely"—not maybe—"surely overtake them and without fail recover all!» I don’t know why you ain’t dancing! I don’t know why you ain’t praising! I don’t know why you’re not rejoicing!
I don’t know why your belly ain’t leaping up and down! Because when God said it, now I got permission! Hey! Up until then, all I had was encouragement. You can get encouragement from a motivational speaker, but you can only get permission from God. And the Lord said, «Oh God, I feel like preaching! The Lord said, 'I’ve given you permission! '»
Who am I preaching to? I got permission! I was in Florida, and the news reporter was interviewing me. He said, «You’re a pastor, yet what are you doing making blockbuster films? You’ve got all these books—12 books on the New York Times bestsellers list! One of them has been there for 16 weeks! But you’re a pastor; you’re dabbling in real estate. Why are you doing it?» I said, «Because I can! If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it. But if God gives you the grace to pursue, then you ought to go for it! I release you to go after your dream! God said you have permission!»