Is life challenging for you right now? Joyce has an encouraging word — You are stronger than you think. Watch now
you know i don’t know
what you might be dealing with
but i’m sure that there’s a lot of
people watching as well as people here
in the studio with me that
you don’t have a lot of difficult
challenging things
going on in your life right now
and when we’re going through challenges
one of the things that the devil loves
to tell us one of the thoughts that he
likes to keep putting in our head over
and over is
i can’t do this
it’s just too much for me it’s too hard
i can’t do this i can’t take it
and today i just want to tell you that
you are stronger than you think you are
and i’m going to say that a good number
of times so i want you to let that get
down on the inside of you
the enemy wants us to think that we’re
weak
that we can’t do it
it’s too much for us
it’s overwhelming
it’s too hard
but the truth is is that if you think
strong you’ll be strong
and if you think weak
you’re going to be weak
and so there’s obviously a lot of things
that we cannot do i would say most of
the problems that any of us have
we’re not up for it
especially if it’s a long-standing
problem you know it’s one thing to have
a short-term problem
it’s another thing to have a long-term
problem that you pray about and pray
about and pray about and you just don’t
seem
to see much of a change
it’s also difficult when you
have a problem and
you stand strong and
you see god’s deliverance and then you
get to breathe easy for about a day
and then here comes another one
and then another one and another one
and uh i’m particularly fond of
what the bible says that
that jesus said
in luke chapter 4 when he was taken out
by the enemy into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil 40 days and 40
nights
it finally gets around to saying and
when the devil had ended his complete
cycle of temptation
he went away to wait for a more
opportune time
so it seems like there’s times when
he doesn’t just attack once
but he’ll attack over and over and over
and over now just this past weekend we
did a conference and we were just
remarking before we started doing the
show here how many different things we
had in that one conference
that
were problem type situations equipment
that didn’t work just just all kinds of
different situations
and so i just want to tell you that if
you’re going through something really
difficult right now you’ve been
having to stand strong for a long time
and you’ve just got this thinking i
can’t do it it’s too much
you’re just the person
that i’m speaking to today because god
wants you to know
and he wants you to begin to think
i can do whatever i need to do
through christ
who is my strength
and i am stronger
than i think i am
i think all of us to be honest can do a
lot more than the devil would like to
have us think that we can do
and the truth is is if you think you
can’t you can’t
and if you think you can you can now
obviously we can’t just do anything that
we want to do because we decide to think
that we can
but anything that god wants us to do
anything that’s his will for us
any assignment that we have from him
we can do
whatever we need to do we have several
young ladies here today from the mercy
ministries home that we
support here in st louis and all of you
have been hurt pretty badly in some way
shape or form or whatever the situation
is
you’ve got your life pretty messed up
and so the enemy would love to have you
think that you’re never going to get
over it
i know for me because of being abused by
my dad one of the things that i just
pretty much settled in
and accepted and decided was that well i
mean i’ll do okay but i’ll always have a
second rate life
my life will never be what it could have
been
come on do any of you ever hear that my
life will nev if i only i wouldn’t have
if only well yeah we’d all like to go
back and do everything perfect
but the whole thing is is god is able to
take our worst mistakes
and actually
work them out for our good
and i can be honest with you and tell
you
those that are watching from home
because god is god it doesn’t make any
sense in the natural but because god is
god
actually whatever happened to you that
was hard
if you trust god
you can actually
end up being a better person than you
would have been if it would have never
happened
and so god really wants us to take a
real positive attitude toward things and
it’s hard
it’s hard when you’re hurting
i have a book that i’ve written that
we’ll be offering soon or it may already
have been offered depending on when this
show goes on tv but it’s about trusting
god and i said you know it’s much easier
to write a book on trust
than it is to do it
when you need to do it so all of us no
matter what the bible says no matter
what promise is here
we have to decide to believe it
we’re either going to believe it or
we’re going to doubt it
and the bible tells us pretty clearly
that all the things that god wants us to
have comes through
believing so you’re stronger
than you think you are can everybody in
here say that i am stronger than i think
i am how about one more time i am
stronger than i think i am and you know
i’m pretty big on making positive
confessions and verbalizing your faith
and so i would encourage all of you
especially if you’re going through a
rough time right now every time you hear
one of those i can’t thoughts
it’s too much for me
you open your mouth and say out loud if
you’re in a place where you can
i am stronger than i think i am and i
can do whatever i need to do through
christ who is my strength maybe right
now you’re dealing with a sickness a
long-term sickness maybe you’ve had pain
in your body for
quite a while
maybe it’s
financial situations maybe it’s
relationship situation
but i can tell you that god will not
allow more to come on you than what you
can bear but with every temptation he
always provides
the way out the amplified bible says
that he he provides an escape to a safe
landing place
and i like that so whatever we go
through if we’re trusting god
now none of this works if you don’t
trust god
but if we’re trusting god
and doing the best that we know how to
do to learn and to grow spiritually then
we can be confident
that god never allows more to come on us
than what we can bear so when you feel
like
i can’t take anymore
another good thing to say is
i
will not have more than what i can deal
with god promises me
so instead of thinking i can’t take this
one more day
you know you can say well i’d rather not
have it one more day
but whatever it is i can do it so
philippians 4 13
very familiar scripture
i can do all things
which he has called me to do
through him who strengthens and empowers
me
to fulfill his purpose i am
self-sufficient
in christ’s sufficiency
and i love this part of the amplified
verse here i am ready for anything i’m
equal to anything through him who
infuses inner strength
into me
isn’t that wonderful
i’m ready for anything i’m equal to
anything and i think it’s wise to think
that ahead of time i think it’s wise to
think that on a regular basis then
you’re a little more prepared for
whatever comes
you are capable of amazing things
but if you don’t think you are
then you will let challenges defeat you
my mother
never dealt with the situation in our
home when i was growing up my dad was
sexually abusing me he was he
he was very mean to her he would
regularly
beat up on her he’d come home drunk and
smack her and hit her and
beat up on her and she knew that he had
other women all the time and
she just never
dealt with him and it was the hardest
thing in the world for me to understand
why she just would be so passive and let
him just keep mistreating her
and she never apologized to me for about
30 years
after 30 years after i left home when i
was 18. she finally said i’m sorry for
what i let your dad do to you and here’s
what she said
i want you to listen to this
she said i didn’t think
that i could support you and your
brother
and i didn’t think
that i could take care of you and make
it without him
so i just stayed
well what would have happened if she
would have thought that she could
see her own thinking defeated her listen
you have to be very careful what you
think when you’re laying in your bed at
night
i think it’s especially important that
what you think when you first get up in
the morning
i think that we need to
i mean at least for me i find the enemy
will make a bid for my mind early in the
morning
sometimes before i ever put my feet on
the floor and so one of the things that
you can do early in the morning
is say i’m going to have a good day
whatever i need to deal with today i can
deal with it because god is with me
he won’t let more come on me than what i
can bear
so if you think strong
you’re going to be strong we prefer no
problems and no challenges
that certainly would be my first prayer
god i’d love to have no problems today
but i think we all know that there’s
very few days
that are like that in reality so we’ve
got a
i don’t want this is our own we got to
toughen up a little bit
we have to make sure we’re not like
wimpy whiny christians where all we ever
do is pray for god to make everything go
away but we’re defeated by every little
thing that comes along now second
corinthians 12 8 and 9 is a good example
of this
not wanting to have a problem
and
it’s paul the apostle paul
who had what the bible calls a thorn in
the flesh and we don’t really know for
sure what that was if it was a person
aggravating him if it was
some kind of sickness he was dealing
with but you know no matter how what
package trouble comes in trouble’s
trouble isn’t it
and each of us
you know we can always say and you know
and i say this to people and and it’s a
good thing to say
you know when you’re having trouble
there’s always somebody that’s worse off
than you are
well that’s true and that’s good but
that doesn’t mean that your trouble
isn’t still very important to you
and god knows that
and he wants to help you so three times
paul said i called on the lord and
besought him about this and beg that it
might depart from me i think it’s
amazing that paul got it after three
times i mean some things i’ve been
praying about for years
oh god
so god said my grace
is enough for you
it is sufficient against any danger and
it will enable you to bear the trouble
manfully
so in other words he’s basically getting
ready to say i’m i’m not going to remove
it
but i will give you the grace
to go through it and to go through it
with a good attitude and a smile on your
face and still being ready to help other
people
if you’re like me when you have a
problem
it’s very easy to turn in on yourself
and do nothing but think about what
you’re dealing with and that’s one of
the worst things that we can do
he said for my strength and power made
perfect
in your weakness well paul apparently
got it because then right away he said
oh okay well i’m going to glory in my
weaknesses
and my infirmities
i haven’t got to the point yet where i
like them and i welcome them but i am
encouraged by this scripture you know
there’s some wonderful scriptures about
how god will strengthen us and i want to
encourage you every day of your life
depend on god to give you the strength
that you need you can’t just be strong
you have to depend on god to be strong
through you
i don’t even pray anymore god
give me strength i say god you are my
strength
he is our strength we hope you enjoyed
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