Trust in God, don’t worry, think about what you’re thinking about, maintain peace in your heart no matter what is going on in your life.
Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.
With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.
it’s important to maintain a peaceful
heart
something that god speaks to me really
often and i need to hear it often
is stay relaxed in your soul
even like our physical body you know you
could
right now you could say
well let’s just try it like
see i don’t know maybe because you’re
here in the studio and you know you’re
likely to get on tv you may you know
and i could be the same way here because
i’m i’m preaching and this has got to be
good and i got to pull it off and i got
timing and everything is just like
so i could be like and that is our
temptation
but really we can choose to relax
and i have found for me i really need
god’s anointing which is his presence
and power
in my life the more we have of god’s
anointing
the easier everything is going to be and
the more we’re going to be able to enjoy
it and the greater
god can use us so let’s just say for
example like whether it’s what i’m doing
today
or if i’m doing a big conference
somewhere if i get all
tense god is not going to be able to
flow through me
like he could if i stayed relaxed
because staying relaxed proves that
we’re trusting god to do what needs to
be done
rather than us trying to make it happen
i think as soon as we start trying to
make something happen
we just tense up all over the place and
so it’s important
to learn how to relax
breathe relax in your soul
relax in your body and guard your heart
now i’m not going to sit here and tell
you that you’re not going to have a
fight on your hands
because the bible tells us in first
timothy that we are to fight
the good fight of faith and what that
means is we have an enemy satan
he’s going to come against us the enemy
roams about like a lion roaring in
fierce hunger
seeking whom he may seize upon and
devour
and we’re to resist him steadfast in
faith
he’s always going to try to get us upset
about something but listen this
everything that the enemy tries to do to
us
jesus has given us an antidote for that
so it’s like satan wants to poison our
minds and poison our souls but
everything that comes against us
there’s an answer in the word of god for
that
and so there’s tr in the world you will
have tribulation
it’s a promise there’s no point in
praying you’ll never have trouble
because i can tell you that is a prayer
that will not get answered
you can pray that god will help you
navigate your trouble
that he’ll give you wisdom in your
trouble that he’ll guide you that he’ll
show you what to do but it’s useless to
pray that you’ll never have any
and it doesn’t matter how spiritual you
become matter of fact i might even just
say that the more
spiritual you become the more you grow
in god the more the enemy is going to
try to come against you to stop you
because you have to understand if
there’s anything satan despises
its progress any kind of progress
in our life he’s going to come against
us the thief
only comes to steal to kill and destroy
but jesus said i came that you might
have and enjoy
your life well we can’t enjoy our life
if we’re worried all the time and
stressed out so
you have to guard your heart and that
means you have to pay attention to what
you’re thinking
one of my biggest problems in life was i
never thought about what i was thinking
and so for years and years and years i
mean even something like
the next time you feel depressed or
discouraged
don’t just talk about how you feel but
stop for a moment and ask yourself
what have i been thinking and i can
promise you that you cannot get
discouraged
without thinking thoughts that don’t
line up
with the word of god you can maybe maybe
you’re just
under pressure and you ask you kind of
think well what’s been in my mind well
maybe you’re worrying too much about a
mistake you made yesterday
that now only god can fix
and so there’s no point in being
stressed out over something that
you did that you can’t undo
even like you know my past and all the
abuse that i went through and
other people have gone through a lot of
things like that you know we can spend
our whole life
wishing that wouldn’t have happened but
the truth is you can’t wish it away
it already did happen you can’t do
anything about that now but what you can
do is learn from it
and you can be determined that you’re
still going to have
a good life but you will have to be
careful
about your thoughts as a man thinks in
his heart so does
he become and i think i said this in
another show but i believe that the
enemy
i don’t know if it’s because we’re not
fully awake early in the morning or
i don’t know maybe it’s just me maybe
i’m the only one that has this problem
but i have to be really careful about my
thoughts
when i first get up because it’s almost
like
there’s a there’s a little bidding war
going on
for who’s going to have you for the day
and i think especially when you first
wake up you’re a little tired
you’re not fully awake you got the whole
day in front of you
and maybe a lot of things you’re not
really looking that forward to and
and you know if if you’ve got a few
years on you
your body maybe is not wanting to
cooperate with you so well
a few things are stiff you don’t feel
real good just yet
and so especially early in the morning
i want to encourage you to guard your
heart the bible says keep and guard your
heart
with all vigilance or diligence and
above all that you guard
so we are to guard what we let into us
more than anything else in our life
if our physical heart is unhealthy it
affects many other areas of our body and
life
and if our spiritual heart is unhealthy
it also affects pretty much every other
area
in your life now one of my favorite
scriptures is from john chapter 14.
also you know we started with john 14 1
don’t let your hearts be troubled
you believe in god believe also in me
but then jesus continues
this point and in john 14 27 he says
peace i leave with you
my own peace i now give and bequeath
unto you
not as the world gives do i give to you
see there’s a type of peace that you can
have if you function on the world system
where if everything’s going the way you
want it to
there’s nothing to worry about you’re
good
but he wants to give us a peace that
functions in the middle of the storm
amen and i mean that’s your inherited
right he said this is what i bequeath to
you
this is what i give to you as a child of
god you
have a right that’s been purchased by
the blood of jesus
to calm down not have to worry
not have to try to figure everything out
no matter what is going on
in your life and i tell people
frequently and i think this is good to
hear
when you have a problem it’s okay for
you to go ahead and enjoy your life
i’m gonna say that again when you have a
problem
hmm see for some reason we think it just
wouldn’t be right
i mean if you if you got a kid that’s in
trouble
you can’t enjoy the day you got to worry
you got to figure it out you got to
you know my goodness if you’ve got a
financial problem
you got to try to figure this out i
remember in our
younger years when i first started
studying the word my husband of course
is not a worrier he’s calm about
everything
and it actually would make me mad
because
when you’re upset you want somebody to
be upset with you
and um so it seemed like every month we
didn’t have enough money to pay the
bills
and i would be with the calculator and
the bills and
you know i’d figure it all out and sure
enough we were short and then i’d figure
it all out again and sure enough we were
short i don’t know why we think if we
count it again and again
that something may change but it’s just
more to just keep irritating us
and i can remember dave would be playing
with the kids and watching tv and i
would get so
mad it’s like you need to come out here
and do something i remember saying you
need to do something he said what do you
want me to do
we tithe we give
we’re obedient to god to the best of our
ability
we’re doing the best we can god will
take care of it
and you know what how many things have
you worried about in the past
that now you look back and god took care
of it
and all of your worry and all your
stress
certainly didn’t do any good but it did
do harm
because all it does is hurt you
not as the world gives do i give unto
you don’t let your hearts be troubled
this is what i want you to see don’t let
your hearts be troubled neither let them
be afraid stop allowing yourselves to be
agitated and disturbed
and don’t permit yourselves to be
fearful cowardly and intimidated
so while i’m getting four big
instructions here right in a row
don’t let yourself stop allowing
yourself don’t permit yourself
now we can’t do it on our own
i mean i can tell you there’s nothing
that we can do
simply by willpower alone however
we do need to use our will god has given
us a free will
and it’s up to us if we decide to worry
or to trust god and i do believe the
longer that you’re in a relationship
with god
the more experience you have with god
the more you
see him bring deliverance into your life
the easier it becomes
to not worry it is more challenging for
a young believer especially one that has
a lot of problems
because you’re just learning about god
but boy when you know
god when you know god there’s a
difference in learning about god
and knowing god no wonder the apostle
paul prayed
my determined purpose is to know him
and the power of his resurrection that
lifts me out from among the dead even
while i’m in the body
so paul this great apostle who wrote
two-thirds of the new testament
he’s writing the philippians and he’s
saying this is more important to me than
anything else
to know him and to know that no matter
what’s going on in my life
he will deliver me from it