Welcome to Fifteen Minutes in the Word with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer. On today's program, Joyce will be teaching from her series, The Fear Some Four. When we feel discouraged, defeated, or overwhelmed by the pressures of life, chances are we're being hit by what Joyce calls The Fear Some Four. Fear, guilt, worry, and insecurity. The devil uses these obstacles to keep us from God's calling. While with Christ, we can defeat all of them and reach God's perfect plan for our life. Be empowered with today's teaching and learn to embrace God's Fearless Four. Peace, confidence, love, and courage. Now here's Joyce with today's teaching. See, when I was back in this situation where I just felt like that I was unloved and unlovable and I had all this shame-based nature because of what had been done to me. The only time I ever got any kind of compliment was when I accomplished something. So therefore I thought the only way I could get God's love was to work and earn and accomplish something. So I didn't really believe that other people loved me and I really expected them to reject me. The night that they proposed to me, I thought he was going to break up with me. I kept wanting to go home and he said, well, you know, I've got something I want to ask you before. Someone want to tell you before you go. He kept wanting to go sit somewhere and talk and I thought, I just get it over with. And how are you going to break up with me, just get it over with and they end up asking me to marry him. Well, but how many of you know what I'm talking about? When you have that kind of inferiority-based complex, you don't really expect people to love you. So you end up acting obnoxious because you believe that you are. You know, David, I only had five dates and he asked me to marry him. If he didn't own me very long, I don't think he would have ever asked me so. That was kind of a divine setup by God. And after we'd been married about three weeks, he looked at me and said, what's wrong with you? I thought, what's wrong with me, buddy? What's wrong with you? You got the problem, not me. And there the fun began. Dave always says he loved that fire I had. Every once in a while, I'll still get a spark and he'll say, there's that old fire I thought. So if I don't know that God loves me unconditionally, I use the world's standards, money status, clothes, etc., to prove to myself and others that I'm valuable. So I feel more valuable when I look better. I feel more valuable if I own the right things. I need strokes and feedback from other people to prove to myself and to others that I am lovable. Therefore, I need a fresh fix of strokes every day. Just to get through the day, feeling good about myself is anybody home in your little heads today. Well, I worked hard all day and cleaned this house and you walked in and didn't even tell me how nice it looked. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't compliment us, but our worth and value can't be based on that. Because then what happens is we end up putting pressure on the people that we're in relationship with to keep us fixed all the time. I don't feel like you love me. I just don't feel like you love me. Well, you know what? If you're all messed up inside, I don't care how much somebody loves you, you ain't never going to feel it. And you'll drive them crazy trying to make them make you feel like you're loved. And here again, I'm not talking about men need to give women affection. Guys get it. Just give it to us and get it over with. I can tell you how to fix most of your problems. Tell your wife four times a week, she's beautiful. Tell her every day you love her. Tell her at least three, four times a week, she's the most important person in your world. And so many of your problems are going to go away. On there's one more thing you need to tell her. When she's having PMS, tell her you understand. And I know you don't, but those are magic words. I understand. Give her a little pat. Oh, you'll be the king in your house. I tell Dave, I don't care if you understand or not, tell me you do. Women need to be complemented, but if somebody forgets to compliment me, I don't want my day to fall apart. I want to know enough about who I am in Christ and what my value is in him that if somebody forgets me, I'm still okay for the day. Hallelujah. So then it goes on and on and on and just finally gets down to saying people like that cannot really maintain and sustain healthy, loving relationships because everything is about getting people, everything becomes selfish and it's all about that person getting somebody else to make them feel good about themselves. So we're not able to give to other people. And so you can't even be happy when you're in that kind of a situation because true joy only comes when you know who you are in Christ and you can for all intent and purposes forget about yourself and spend your days reaching out to other people making their lives better. But we can't do that if we don't know who we are in Christ. We cannot give ourselves away if we don't know who we are in Christ. We can really walk in any kind of love. We have to love for the right reason. And then you know the next part is the trickle down theory of unconditional love. I'm just going to read a little bit of it. Jesus loves me. This I know He loves me unconditionally. Therefore His love for me is based on who He is. Therefore I don't have to earn His love nor can I ever earn His love. Therefore I cannot ever be separated from His love. When I obey Him He will bless me. When I disobey Him there will be consequences. It may not like my behavior but He always loves me. And since I know that God loves me I begin to feel lovable and therefore I can receive love from other people and on and on and on and on and on. Therefore I can sustain and maintain healthy, loving, balanced relationships. But it all starts with this knowing that God loves you and that He loves you unconditionally that God is not for sale and you can't buy His love with any amount of good works. You can read the Bible through four times every year and that's not going to make God love you anymore. You may have more knowledge of the word and that's a good thing but that doesn't mean that God loves you anymore. We wear ourselves out sometimes in spiritual activity that we don't even really want to do thinking that we're going to buy some kind of favor with God. One somebody over there got it I guess. We're going to look at about four scriptures about the love of God and even if you've seen them I want you to see them again. First John 416 through 18. Actually these scriptures were quite life changing for me. The first message that I ever preached publicly when I say publicly I mean besides home Bible studies. Actually when my public ministry began I asked God what He wanted me to teach on. He said I want you to tell my people that I love them. The first book I ever wrote was called Tell them I Love Them. I argued with God because I really wanted to have a real powerful message and I said well God you know I don't want to just go teach like a little John 316 Sunday school message. I want to have a word of power. Let's say we don't realize that there's no message that's any more powerful than trying to get people to really fully understand what it means to say God loves you unconditioned and He's with you every moment of your life and He will never leave you nor forsake you and you do not have to live in any kind of fear or insecurity. You know we might think that everybody knows that but I remember a woman who said when you pointed your finger at the television screen and said God loves you. She said it revolutionized my life. People need to hear that. They need to know that. But I realized at the same time that I talked that first message about 30 years ago standing in a little tiny church building in St. Louis with about 115 women sitting in the room. I realized that I was seriously liking and a revelation about God's love for myself. And so for the next year, the first year of my public ministry God had me study His love for me. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is because if you're wanting God to use you, this is something that you have to know that you know that you know that you know before you're really going to be able to give anything to anybody else. Otherwise you're going to spend all your time trying to impress them. You got to get over all that before you can just minister to people with the right motive and out of the right heart. So I studied the love of God for me for a whole year and I spent a lot of time talking to myself. And I want to say to you today that you can talk yourself into believing what the Bible says. I don't want you to misunderstand this but I'm going to tell you that God loves you and I want you to talk yourself into it. You say what do you mean? Oh, I would go and look at myself in the mirror and say God loves me. I would drive down the road and say out loud God loves me. I would be in the shower saying God loves me. God. God. God loves me. Me unconditionally. And you know after about a year somewhere along there it just kind of sunk in. And I've never since that time ever had a problem and said to God, well God don't you love me? I've never said to God, I don't feel like you love me. Because when you know that you know that you know that you know, then you've got a revelation that nobody can ever take away from you. And let me tell you something, when you're having problems knowing that God loves you is a very valuable thing to know. If you get shaky on that then you've got a problem. When I went to the doctor about 22 years ago for a check up and found out within about 36 hours that I had breast cancer, it was a tough blow. Here I was running around preaching faith to everybody and laying hands on people for healing the kind of cancer that I had they said was an extremely fast growing type of cancer and that if I did not get the surgery they were suggesting I'd be playing Russian Relent with my own life. And so after prayer and seeking the wisdom of my family and my spirit filled doctor we all decided that I needed to have the surgery. And God told me there's only certain things that I'm allowing you to say during this period of time. I don't want to hear nothing else. I want to hear you saying God loves me. All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. I trust you God. There were some other things that are not just coming right to the front of my mind right now. But all through those weeks of waiting and getting the surgery and then waiting to find out how serious it was and waiting to find out if I was going to have to have any other kind of treatment after that. Thank God I didn't need any. I didn't have to have any chemo or any radiation or anything like that. I remember saying over and over God loves me. He's got a good plan for my life. This is going to work out for good. God I trust you and I want to encourage you whatever kind of trouble you might be in right now or whatever you might encounter in the future or those of you watching by TV or whatever's going on in your life right now. I want you to know and be assured that God loves you. God God God loves you loves you loves you you you you you. God loves you. Now first John 416 was one of the scriptures that I remember God showing to me and it says we know and understand we recognize and are conscious of by observation by experience. And we believe it here to input faith and rely on the love that God has for us. Well, I knew right then when I read that that I didn't really know about that kind of love. I'd heard some sermons about it. I'd talked about it. I'd told other people God love them but I knew that I was lacking a real revelation because see when you have that revelation of how much God loves you that's what makes you secure. You understand that. If you have any kind of insecurity in your life you're lacking a revelation in how much God loves you. You may know somewhat that he loves you but you need a deeper revelation and when you get that then you don't have to live in fear. So after listening to me today if you go out here and you think man I got a problem. And why don't you just do a college course in the love of God and just study that and study it and study it and study it and study it until you get it. Thanks for listening. Despite the challenges we may face in life when we put our trust in God we receive an incredible promise from him. Second Timothy 117 says that we have not been given a spirit of fear but a power of love and of a sound mind. This promise gives us the strength to look at our problems and know that God is on our side. He wants to give us his peace as we face whatever lies ahead. For more resources from Joyce visit joysmire.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 joysmire.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 studying God's Word with everyday study. Sign up today at joysmire.org slash Bible study. Thank you for listening to 50 Minutes in the Word with Joyce.
