Welcome to 15 Minutes in the Word with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer. On today's program, Joyce will be teaching from her series, Right and Wrong Mindsets. We can learn to think positively about absolutely everything. It takes practice saying no to negative thoughts. But when we replace stinking thinking with the word of God, we'll start winning the battlefield of the mind. Now, here's Joyce with today's teaching. Now, this is the part that I really took me a few years to swallow this. For to this, you have been called. Now, I want, do I have the right crowd? Now, listen, you know, I'm all for dessert, but you can't live on dessert. I can give you all the sugar you want. I can tell you how wonderful you are and how special you are and how much God loves you and how many times he forgives you and how many new beginnings you can have in life and that you can never out send the grace of God and all that is absolutely true. But if that's what you have to have 100% of the time in order to believe God and to hang in there, then you need some vegetables. You need a big hunk of meat to chew on. And you know, Paul told the Corinthians and they were the ones that had all the gifts of the spirit. I mean, man, they look spiritual. He said, I can't, I keep having to give you the milk of the word. I can't give you the meat of the word because you're not ready for it. And he didn't, you know, he didn't want to just keep preaching dessert messages to them. He wanted to get around to something strong. And you know, only mature people can keep a good attitude when they're going through what to them seems like hell and it doesn't make any sense at all and they don't understand it and they can't figure out any reason for it and it goes on a lot longer than they think it should. When you can do that and still say, God, I trust you and I love you just as much in this valley as I do on the mountaintop. And I will tell you the truth. We have to have more of this kind of preaching in the days that we're living in. We are going to be in serious, serious trouble. And hey, it's not, I mean, there are wonderful, wonderful times. And one of the things that you can count on for sure is God will never allow more to come on you than what you can bear. But with every temptation, even the temptation to quit and give up, he always provides a way out. A safe landing place for you. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his footsteps. Now, let's talk about what kind of suffering I'm talking about. I'm not talking about disasters. I'm not talking about horrible things that happen to people. But let's just say forgiving and blessing somebody who really, really hurt you. Now, your flesh is going to suffer. All right, I'll sit down. I don't care. We can we'll just take this slow. All right, here's an example. Back when I was working at the church I worked at for five years and I had a weekly women's ministry there. There was a woman in the church that felt like God told her that she was supposed to be teaching the meeting that I was doing instead of me. And so the bottom line was, was she got after my job and she told lies about me. And the sad thing was, was she really thought she was hearing from God. She was an intercessor and you know, you got to be careful when you think you're hearing something from God that does not line up with Scripture. Amen. So long story short, I ended up eventually by God's direction, leaving that position and going out to start doing what I'm doing now. But a couple years after this happened, God put it on my heart to give that particular person my favorite coat. God, I'll give the coat away, but please let me give it to somebody I like. Come on, you know what I'm talking about? If you're going to have to give away your favorite thing, you at least want to give it to somebody that you like. But no, I had to give it to this person who had treated me unjustly. And let me tell you, every time I saw her wear that coat, I suffered. Amen. Now we talked this morning about obeying God, the importance of obeying God. And I could have disobeyed God and alleviated that suffering. But what I'm trying to say, and it seemed like an unjust thing to me, why should I give her a gift? She needs to come and apologize to me. It seemed like an unjust thing, but when we do things like that in obedience to God, that's when you're more like God than at any other time. Oh Jesus, I want to be just like you. Okay, we'll see. We'll just see if you do. And most of you have heard me tell the story about how after my mom and my dad had abused me for years and never took responsibility and hurt me so bad. And if it wouldn't have been for the grace of God would have destroyed me. And then when they were old and needed help, God told me to bring them to my city and buy them a house and take care of them until they died. And they lived a long time. Well, I'm sorry, but this thing that I thought would maybe be a while turned into 13 years. So anyway, I'm not going to tell that story again, but it was hard. But you know what made it enjoyable knowing that I was doing the will of God. Come on. I tell you, I feel in my spirit that this is going to really change some things for some people. I feel like some of you have just been avoiding so many things that are hard because you think it's not fair. It's not right. And I'll tell you, you can make a turnaround here. The thing that God gave me the grace to obey him and with my parents, I can tell you that that's probably the most, the single most powerful thing that I've ever done that really helped this ministry more than anything else. Let me tell you, when you start doing stuff like that, it increases the anointing on your life. And that's what we need more than anything else is God's power and God's presence in our life, because that's what opens doors and makes things work for you. Or let's say, how about being rejected by all your friends due to your faith? Yeah, that hurts, doesn't it? How about being fired from a job because of your morality? You choose to do the right thing and they find some reason to get rid of you because you wouldn't get into their sin with them or lie for them or help them steal or whatever the case might be. How about loving somebody that's hard to love? Come on. But you know that God has told you to stick it out and not run away from it. You know, we don't get to just leave because we feel like leaving, you know? And sometimes when God tells you to leave, you don't get to stay just because you feel like staying. God may tell you that you've got some friends that are poisoning your life and you need to get away from them. Well, just being disobedient to God and you know, we make up these silly, she's, well, I don't want to hurt their feelings. Well, do you want to let them poison you and steal your faith? And it doesn't matter what we think about it, whatever God tells us to do, that's what we need to do. And it's not all going to be easy. How about being betrayed by a spouse or a friend? Whoa. How about being sick and God takes a lot longer to heal you than what, you know, sometimes I don't understand this. Like God, if you could heal me now, why couldn't you heal me six months ago? I don't know. I don't have all the answers. And you know what? We're never going to have all the answers. It's not our job to have all the answers. It's our job to trust God when we don't understand. And listen, my Bible says that when we're suffering unjustly, you're a good person who doesn't deserve the misery you've got. And you keep a good attitude in it. And you keep saying, God, I trust you and I love you just as much in this hard time as I would in a good time. The Bible says that that's a good thing and it glorifies God. We're getting just a little bit too much today of, you know, we think every time we go to church, we've got to be entertained. And this may not be entertaining, but it's going to save your life when you get in a rough spot. Amen. That's why we had Natalie come and do, she entertained you. She did a great job of imitating Mahalia Jackson, didn't she? I mean, that girl's got some ranges in her voice all the way from way down here to way up there. When I open my mouth, you only get one thing and this is it. When I sing, they turn my microphone off because and this is true. I sing in a key nobody's ever heard of. Now, so Isaiah 53.7 says he being Jesus was oppressed and he was afflicted. And everything that happened to him, by the way, was unjust because he was suffering for our sin. He took our punishment and his heavenly father sent him to do it. We forget sometimes what God did to his own son out of his love for us. And then we whine around when some little something is inconvenient. Come on. He was oppressed. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. I used to wonder what that meant. I didn't get it, but I understand now through everything that he went through. He did not complain. He didn't blame God. He didn't question God. The only thing he did say at the very end when his suffering was the most is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So I mean, he got it as bad as you could get it. He felt, even though he knew that God had not forsaken him, he felt totally, completely abandoned and forsaken. And we don't even know what suffering means compared to what Jesus went through for us. Thanks for listening to today's message. What we think about matters and developing new mindsets takes time. Instead of wishing everything was easier when life gets hard, we can learn to say I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Looking for more? You got it. Each day you'll find more unique episodes of the enjoying everyday life program in the Joyce Meyer app and online at Joycemyre.org. The Bible, our instruction book for life. Spending time in God's Word will change our lives, but consistent and effective study can at times be challenging. That's one reason why Joyce is here to help. At Joycemyre.org slash Bible study, you'll find ways to make your study time come to life with helpful resources, study suggestions and encouragement from Joyce. Get the most you can out of your time study in God's Word with everyday study. Sign up today at Joycemyre.org slash Bible study. Thank you for listening to 15 Minutes in the Word with Joyce. .
