Tag Archives: Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Equipped for Hard Things

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For this commandment which I command you this day is not too difficult for you, nor is it far off. —Deuteronomy 30:11

“This is too hard” is one of the excuses we hear most frequently. But we are equipped by God’s Spirit to handle hard things. We are anointed to press through and see victory. The next time you are tempted to say something is too hard, look at Deuteronomy 30:11, which says, “It is not too difficult!”

Anything God leads you to do, you can do. God never leads you to do something unless He gives you the power and the ability to do it. Prepare yourself for right action with power thoughts. Think, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, I don’t feel like I can do it, but God is leading me to do it. And I believe if He is leading me to do it, then I can. Because I believe I can do whatever I need to do through the power of God that resides in me.

Power Thought: Nothing God asks of me is too difficult.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – An Overcoming Attitude In an Imperfect World

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In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. —John 16:33 NKJV

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the world is not perfect. You don’t have to live long to figure that out, but something within us as human beings still seems to want to experience perfection in our lives. We want the perfect family celebration, the perfect marriage, the perfect friends, the perfect job, the perfect neighborhood, the perfect salary, the perfect vacation, and the perfect church. Or at least we want what we think would be perfect.

But the truth is: perfection is a completely unrealistic expectation. It simply doesn’t exist on earth. As long as we live, we will deal with imperfection. We can be miserable about that, or we can be gracious toward ourselves, others, and our circumstances, and respond with faith and flexibility.

The enemy often uses unrealistic expectations concerning our circumstances as a tool to bring discouragement and despair into our lives. For example, he knows that if he can get us to focus on the imperfections in our spouse, our marriage will be filled with frustration and disappointment instead of peace and joy.

I urge you to expect good things to happen in your life. But I also urge you to be realistic and realize that we all have to deal with difficult things. Our attitudes will make the difference between whether we live with continual frustration and disappointment or whether we can accept imperfections and enjoy life in spite of them.

Love Yourself Today: Be determined to never again allow yourself to be discouraged or disappointed by the normal imperfections of life.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – From the Inside Out

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They tie up heavy loads, hard to bear, and place them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not lift a finger to help bear them. —Matthew 23:4

You and I pressure ourselves and other people when we have unrealistic expectations. We often expect more out of people than they are able to give us. Continued pressure on people we are in relationship with will ultimately cause the collapse of that relationship. God does not want us or others to live under this kind of pressure.

I remember the years I furiously tried to change my husband, Dave, and each of our children in different ways. Those were frustrating years, because no matter what I tried, it didn’t work! We cannot change people by pressuring them or by nagging them. Only prayer and God’s love will work.

As humans, all of us require space, or freedom, to be who we are. We want to be accepted and loved as we are. We don’t want people giving us the message, even subtly, that we must change in order to be “in.” I am not saying that we must accept sin and wrong behavior in other people and merely put up with it. I am saying that the way to change is prayer, not pressure! For change to be lasting, it must come from the inside out. Only God can cause that type of heart change.

Lord, I have tried to change loved ones, and it’s always failed. Show me how to pray for them and to release them into Your hands. Amen.

Joyce Meyer
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Joyce Meyer – We Need a Guide

For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide [even] until death. —Psalm 48:14

It thrills me to know that God is our guide through every day of our lives. How wonderful to know that we have Someone to guide us and ensure that we get from one destination in life to the next.

Sometimes when Dave and I travel, we hire a guide to show us the best and most important sites to see. One time, we decided we would explore a certain place by ourselves; that way, we reasoned, we could do what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. However, we quickly found that our independent trip was nearly wasted. We often spent large portions of each day getting lost and then trying to find our way again. We have learned from our mistakes and we now know the best use of our time is to follow a guide rather than wandering aimlessly to find places ourselves.

I believe this example from our travels relates to how most people are in life. We want to chart our own courses, be our own guides, and do what we want to do at our convenience. But we typically lose our way and end up wasting our time. God has promised in today’s verse to guide us through our lives. He does this through the Holy Spirit, who will speak to us and tell us where to go and what to do if we will simply ask Him to lead us.

God’s word for you today: Logos + rhema = wisdom.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Learn to Receive

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I will bless you [with abundant increase of favors] . . . and you will be a blessing [dispensing good to others]. —Genesis 12:2

Nothing frustrates me more than people who don’t know how to accept gifts. It’s a joy to express my love or appreciation to someone by giving them a gift I know they’ll like. But if the response is, “No, no, I can’t accept that,” or “Really, you shouldn’t have,” or “No, take it back,” then that drains all the joy out of it. It becomes downright embarrassing if you have to force a gift on someone. You may even wonder if you should have offered the gift at all.

Receiving a gift graciously stems from inner security. Those who are uncomfortable getting gifts usually have some deep-seated insecurity that prevents them from accepting others’ kindness. They feel so low that they can’t imagine they deserve anything. Or they worry that the gift burdens them with reciprocation. They would rather reject the gesture than have to engage in a relationship.

In my life and work, I have opportunities to give many gifts, and I also get some. When I do, I genuinely appreciate it and tell people so. Be a giver and expect God to bless you through others. When they do, say thank you and graciously receive their offers.

The greatest gift that can be given is offered to each of us every day, yet few of us have the faith and self-esteem to accept it. God offers us His love. All we have to do is open our hearts and make the decision to receive it. Then we in turn get to pass it on to others.

Receiving God’s love is an important step because we can’t love others without it. We cannot give away what we do not have.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Still, Small Voice

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And He said, Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire [a sound of gentle stillness and] a still, small voice.—1 Kings 19:11-12

Someone once told me of a one-act play with three characters—a father, a mother, and a son who had just returned from Viet Nam who are sitting at a table to talk. The play lasts thirty minutes, and they all get their chance to talk. There’s only one problem: No one listens to the others.

The father is about to lose his job. The mother had once held just about every office in their church, and now younger women are pushing her aside. The son struggles with his faith. He had gone to war, seen chaos and death, and now is bewildered about life.

At the end of the play, the son stands and heads toward the door. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” is his parting remark, as he walks out of the room. The parents look at each other, and the mother asks, “What did he mean?”

What the parents didn’t get and the audience obviously does is that the son struggles to believe in a loving, caring God. Every time he tries to explain, one of the parents interrupts with something they want to say. The soldier needed to hear from God. Hoping his mother or father would be the channel through which God would speak, he went to them. However, they were not available for God to use because they were not quiet enough to hear Him. All three of them were so distraught and noisy that they all left the same way they came. What might have happened had they really listened to one another, and then quietly prayed and waited on God? I am sure the outcome would have been very different and much more rewarding.

In the opening scripture, I quoted part of the story of Elijah to make this point clear. That deeply committed prophet had defied the wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel for years. The big moment came on Mount Carmel when Elijah destroyed 450 prophets of Baal. Later, when Queen Jezebel threatened to kill him, he ran away, apparently in terror.

He must have been worn out by the powerful events. Then suddenly the man was alone, with no crowds, no one trying to kill him, and no one to talk to. Just before the two verses mentioned above, Elijah had gone into a cave to hide out. When God asked him what he was doing there, he spoke of his zeal for God. Then he told God that the children of Israel had gone astray, killing prophets, And I, I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away (v. 10).

God brought strong winds, falling rocks, an earthquake, and fire. I think that was the way Elijah expected God to appear in the miraculous and powerful. But the writer tells us God wasn’t in those things.

This is really the spiritual principle of God at work. We can find the devil in the noise and the shouts. We can find the devil with big attractions to lead us astray. But God likes to speak in the still, small voice the voice that not everyone will hear the voice that only the committed will listen for.

As long as Elijah sought the dramatic, he wouldn’t hear God. But when he pulled back and listened for the inner voice, the soft, nondemanding voice of the Holy Spirit, Elijah could communicate with God.

What kind of voice from God are you listening for? Will you recognize the still, small voice when you hear it? Do you take time to be quiet and just listen? If not, there is no better time to begin than right now.

Wise God, like Elijah and many others, I often look for the loud, the exciting, and the showy. I know that You sometimes use healings and miracles, but I ask You to help me listen most of all in the soft stillness for the quiet ways in which You speak. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Peace in the House

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Fill up and complete my joy by living in harmony and being of the same mind and one in purpose, having the same love, being in full accord and of one harmonious mind and intention. —Philippians 2:2

When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to do miracles, signs, and wonders, in essence He said to them, “Go and find a house and say, ‘Peace be unto you.’ And if your peace settles on that house, you can stay there. If it doesn’t, shake the dust off your feet and go on” (see Mark 6:7-11).

-One day God showed me what Jesus was really saying to them: “I want you to go out with the anointing, but to do what you need to have peace in the house.” You need to do whatever you can to maintain peace in your home because it dramatically affects the anointing and power of God that rests on your life. Keep the strife out of your life!

 

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – How to Deal with Disappointment

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Does your happiness depend on everything in your life being just right? If you think you can’t be happy until all your circumstances are right, you will never be happy!

We all experience times in life when we feel down for various reasons, but we can’t allow our circumstances to control our emotions. Satan seeks to fill our minds with negative thoughts that eventually cause us to lose our joy and feel negative. He is a discourager, and he wants to pull us down emotionally, spiritually, financially, and in every way he can.

But Jesus is our Encourager, and He came to lift us up! He came to give us righteousness, peace and joy. He wants us to expect good things for our future and fill us with hope.

Everyone experiences times of frustration and distress over unfulfilled plans or dreams. When things don’t go the way we hope, it is normal to feel disappointment. But we must be careful how we deal with that feeling, because if we remain in a state of disappointment for too long, it can turn into discouragement, despair, and even depression.

I’m not talking here about some depression that can be the result of a chemical imbalance in your physical body. I’m talking about situational depression dealing with our circumstances or disappointments.

Psalm 30:5 tells us that …Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Things may make us feel sad temporarily, but we must not stay sad. If we do, Satan takes advantage of the open door and pushes his way further into our lives, bringing more serious problems. However, with God, when we get disappointed, we can always make a decision to get reappointed. We can choose to look to Him for new hope and renewed strength to go forward.

The Way You Respond Makes All the Difference

I’ve often said emotions can be one of our greatest enemies. It’s easy to be led by how we feel, but we must realize that feelings are fickle—they change from day to day! We shouldn’t follow every thought that comes to our mind because they can often contradict the truth of what God says about us.

For many years of my life, I experienced regular depression. I would awake in the morning with a little voice in my head saying, “I feel depressed.” I believed this was my own thought, not realizing the enemy was attempting to speak lies to my mind.

Later, when God drew me into a closer walk with Him and I began seriously studying His Word, I learned that I didn’t have to follow every feeling and thought that I had. I began to speak aloud and say, “I will not be discouraged or depressed.”

Isaiah 61:3 tells us to put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. (NKJV). We may not always feel like praising God, but taking a few moments to talk to the Lord and thank Him for His goodness is one of the most powerful weapons we have to fight discouragement. We literally invite God’s presence into our situation, which brings us His strength, peace and joy.

We’ll never be able to completely avoid disappointments in life, but we can choose how we react to them. The next time you encounter a situation that threatens to pull you down, make a decision to turn to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to fill you with hope. Choose to believe what God says instead of your feelings. As you do, you’ll soon find yourself enjoying life…and looking forward to the good things ahead.

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – A Godly Testimony

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Acts 8:26-40

Christians have adopted a narrow definition of the word testimony. But sharing Jesus is much more than telling our conversion story or talking about God’s work in our life, although these things are important. We need to be prepared to meet unbelievers at the point of their spiritual need, even if our own story is very different.

Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch can teach us quite a lot. While young Israelites had friends and family to disciple them in their faith, a foreign convert often had to work alone to discern the meaning of complex scriptures. So by asking, “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip showed that he understood the Ethiopian’s disadvantage. That one question enabled him to discover that the man had a genuine thirst for God’s truth but did not know of the Messiah.

Philip used that information to tailor a gospel testimony for his particular listener. Consider how easily the Ethiopian could have become confused or frustrated if Philip—whose Jewish background was so different from the foreigner’s—had told only his own conversion story. The evangelist wisely avoided any extraneous information and instead used the power of God’s Word to introduce the man to Jesus Christ.

Philip’s testimony began with the passage the Ethiopian was reading. He effectively spoke to the man’s spiritual interest in general while specifically answering his questions about Isaiah 53. We, too, must be sensitive to unbelievers’ concerns so we can explain how God will meet their needs.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – God Chooses the Weak

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[No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.—1 Corinthians 1:27

God gives us His power (grace) so we can do what is needed in spite of our weaknesses. In fact, God purposely chooses the weak and foolish things of the world to work through so we will give Him the glory for what is being done. God wants to amaze the world, and one of the ways He does so is by accomplishing great things through people who are weak and don’t have the natural ability to complete the task at hand (see 1 Corinthians 1:25–29).

Relax; don’t be afraid you won’t be able to do what God has given you to do. Step out in faith, and God will meet you where you are and give you His grace (undeserved favor and power) to complete the task. Through Christ you can do all things!

Power Thought: God uses my weaknesses to show His strength.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – God Knows

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May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing . . . that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope. —Romans 15:13

You cannot have true love, joy, hope, or peace without believing in God and His promises. According to today’s scripture, joy and peace are found in believing. So when you lose your peace, check your believing.

Let your timing be in God’s hands (see Ps. 31:15). You’ll lose your peace if you try to make things happen out of God’s timing. Avoid rea¬soning, and stop trying to figure out what God is doing in your life and trust Him. Stop thinking so much and start simply believing.

Believe God loves you. Believe God has a great plan for your life. Believe God always has your best interest in mind, and that He is work¬ing all things together for your good (see Rom. 8:28). You might as well just get in the flow and go with God. Getting frustrated is not going to make God change His mind.

I have been through a lot of difficult things and have come to know through experience that God is faithful and worrying does no good. We don’t have to understand everything that occurs in our lives, because God does understand them and He is in control. You can choose to believe in God and His promises, or to continue in worry and reason¬ing. But if you choose to believe, your joy and peace will be abundant.

Love God Today: “Lord, I believe that you know all things and you are in control, so help me be comfortable, ‘not knowing.’ “

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Cooperation Required

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For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord,thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.— Jeremiah 29:11

The most important thing is not how we start but how we finish. Some people get started with a bang, but they never finish. Others are slow starters, but they finish strong.

God has a plan for each of us. It is our destiny. But it is a possibility, not a “positively.” Even if someone prophesies over us wonderful things in the name of the Lord, what is being prophesied is the heart, the will, and the desire of God for us. It doesn’t mean it is positively going to happen, because if we don’t cooperate with God, it is not going to come to pass. We have a part to play in seeing that plan come true.

I challenge you to cooperate with God every single day of your life to develop your potential. Every day you should learn something new. Every day you should grow. Every day you should be a bit further along than you were the day before. We must each discover our God-given gifts and talents, what we are truly capable of, and then put ourselves to the task of developing those gifts, talents, and capabilities to their fullest extent.

Lord, I am thrilled that You have a plan for my life. That I have a destiny is amazing. I want to cooperate with You today and make that a reality. Amen.

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Perfection in faith

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“For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14

Suggested Further Reading: 2 Timothy 2:20-26

We could not have access to God unless on the footing of perfection; for God cannot walk and talk with imperfect creatures. But we are perfect; not in character, for we are still sinners; but we are perfected through the blood of Jesus Christ, so that God can allow us to have access to him as perfected creatures. We may come boldly, because being sprinkled with the blood, God does not look on us as unholy and unclean, otherwise he could not allow us to come to his mercy seat; but he looks upon us as being perfected forever through the one sacrifice of Christ. That is one thing. The other is this. We are the vessels of God’s temple; he has chosen us to be like the golden pots of his sanctuary; but God could not accept a worship which was offered to him in unholy vessels. Those vessels, therefore, were made perfect by being sprinkled with blood. God could not accept the praise which comes from your unholy heart; he could not accept the song which springs from your uncircumcised lips, nor the faith which arises from your doubting soul, unless he had taken the great precaution to sprinkle you with the blood of Christ; and now, whatever he uses you for, he uses you as a perfect instrument, regarding you as being perfect in Christ Jesus. That, again, is the meaning of the text, and the same meaning, only a different phase of it. And, the last meaning is, that the sacrifices of the Jews did not give believing Jews peace of conscience for any length of time; they had to come again, and again, and again, because they felt that those sacrifices did not present to them a perfect justification before God. But behold, beloved, you and I are complete in Jesus. We have no need of any other sacrifice. All others we disclaim. He hath perfected us forever. We may set our conscience at ease, because we are truly, really, and everlastingly accepted in him.

For meditation: Being accepted in Christ enables us to serve God acceptably.

Sermon no. 232

15 December (Preached 2 January 1859)

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Make It Personal

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You are My friends if you keep on doing the things which I command you to do. —John 15:14

In today’s verse, Jesus tells us we are His friends if we obey Him. In the following verse, He says He no longer calls us His servants, but His friends. Clearly, He wants a personal relationship with us and He wants us to get personal with Him. He proves this by the fact that He lives in us. How much more personal can anyone get than to live inside another person?

If God had wanted a distant, businesslike, professional relationship with us, He would have lived far away. He might have visited occasionally, but He certainly would not have come to take up permanent residence in the same house with us. When Jesus died on the cross, He opened up a way for us to get personal with Almighty God. What an awesome thought!

Just think about it: God is our personal friend! If we know someone important, we love to have an opportunity to say, “Oh, yes, that person is a friend of mine. I go to his house all the time. We visit with one another often.” We can say the same about God if we do our part to fellowship with Him, listen to His voice and obey what He says, and stay in His presence every day.

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – God’s Royal Seal

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In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.—Ephesians 1:13

What does the Bible mean when it says that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit? In the apostle Paul’s day, when goods were shipped from one place to another, they would be stamped with a wax seal, imprinted with the signet ring of the owner. This was a unique mark of ownership. People could look at the crate, see its wax seal, and know they had better not open it.

The same was true for a document from a king. It would be sealed in wax and imprinted with the royal seal. People knew that if they opened it and weren’t the intended recipient, they would be endangering their very lives.

In the same way, God has put His royal seal on us: “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). The seal is the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. Upon our conversion, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Let’s say that a thief wanted to steal a briefcase. Then he notices a nametag on it, bearing the name of a famous boxer. Most likely, the thief wouldn’t steal that briefcase. Why? He would be afraid of what would happen. He doesn’t want to suffer bodily harm.

In a similar way, the Devil wants to come and destroy us as Christians. He wants to wreak havoc in our lives. But he sees our ID tag: “Owned by Jesus Christ. Sealed and insured by the Holy Spirit.” So he backs off because he fears the One to whom we belong.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – The Lord Is Our Refuge

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I love You fervently and devotedly, O Lord, my Strength.The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my keen and firm Strength in Whom I will trust and take refuge, my Shield, and the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower. I will call upon the Lord,Who is to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies. —Psalm 18:1-3

A rock is a type of a sure foundation.When the waters of trial threaten to rise up and overwhelm us, we need to do as David did and climb up on the rock that is higher than we are. David also called the Lord his Fortress. A fortress is a castle, a fort, a defense, a place into which we go when we are being hunted or attacked. It is not a hiding place in which our enemy cannot find us. It is a place of protection in which we can see and be seen but cannot be reached because we are safe in God’s protection.

David also called the Lord his High Tower—another lofty and inaccessible place—and his Shield and Buckler—which are part of the protective armor that surrounds the believer (see Ephesians 6:10-17). God is not just above us and around us, He is even underneath us, because the psalmist tells us, The Lord upholds the [consistently] righteous (Psalm 37:17).

God is holding us up by His powerful right hand and is surrounding us as the mountains surround the holy city of Jerusalem. The devil is against us; but God is for us, and over us, and with us, and in us. Because He cares for us, He watches over us and keeps us so we can find rest and peace under the shadow of His wings as we cast all our care upon Him.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Mind-Binding Spirits

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He sends forth His word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction. —Psalm 107:20

I knew God had called me to a powerful, worldwide ministry. I didn’t brag about it and didn’t feel that I was special. I knew I was just a woman from Fenton, Missouri, whom no one had ever heard of. Yet I believed I would have a national ministry. I believed God would use me to heal the sick and to change, lives.

In fact, instead of being proud, I was humbled. Who was I that God would use me? The more I meditated on that idea, the more I rejoiced in the goodness and sovereignty of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:26-31, the apostle Paul pointed out that God’s choices often appear mysterious. He chooses the foolish to dumbfound the wise, the weak to shame the mighty. Paul concluded, Let him who boasts and proudly rejoices and glories, boast and proudly rejoice and glory in the Lord (v 31).

I felt no cause to boast. I believed God’s calling and promise to me. That’s what I want to stress. And then I waited for God to open the doors that no one could shut. When He was ready, it would happen.

Although I don’t know when the problem began, one day I heard myself ask, “I wonder if God really does want to use me?” Instead of holding on to the promises of God, I looked at myself and my lack of qualifications. I started to compare myself with other servants of God. When you compare yourself with others, that’s always a mistake, because you usually end up on the negative side.

Doubts began to creep in. Maybe I just made that up. Maybe I wanted something like that to happen, but it probably won’t. The longer the predicament went on, the more confused I became. I questioned God and the promise. I realized I no longer had the bright vision God had given me. I was filled with doubt and unbelief.

I began to pray and plead with God to help me. “If I just made up the things I have believed that You called me to do, then take the desire away. But if You’ve truly called me, help me. Restore the vision.”

When I paused, I heard God speak in my heart, Mind-¬binding spirits. “What’s a mind-binding spirit?” I asked. I had never heard the term, so I didn’t think anything more about it.

The next day when I prayed, I heard the same words. In fact, every time I prayed for the next two days, I heard, mind-¬binding spirits.

I had already done a lot of ministry and I had long realized how much trouble many believers had with their minds. At first, I thought the Holy Spirit might be leading me to pray for the Body of Jesus Christ to stand against a spirit called Mind Binding. I prayed and I rebuked that spiritand then I realized those words were for me. A mind-binding spirit had tried to steal my vision, destroy my joy, and take away my ministry. A tremendous deliverance came over me.

The oppressiveness was gone; the questions had vanished. I was free, and the vision of the national ministry God had given me was central in my thoughts again. I read Psalm107:20: He sends forth His word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction. That was it!

An evil spirit was attacking my mind and preventing me from believing the promise of God. I asked God to help me, and He set me free.

That mind-binding spirit attacks many today. They know what God wants and are eager to serve. Sometimes they even announce God’s plans to their friends. When nothing happens immediately, the mind-binding spirit sneaks in. It is as if a band of iron snaps around their minds and they find it hard to believe that their dreams can come to pass. Satan whispers, “Did God really say that? Or did you just make it up?”

Hold fast. If God has spoken, God will perform it. Remember that Abraham waited twenty-five years for God to give him Isaac!

True and faithful God, forgive me when I allow doubts and confusion to creep into my thinking. Those are not Your tools. Through the powerful name of Jesus, enable me to break the power of every mind-binding spirit. Amen.

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Letting the Holy Spirit Work

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When He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. —John 16:8

Why has the Spirit come into this world? What does God’s Holy Spirit want to do in the life of the unbeliever? The Holy Spirit is very involved in the actual work of conversion. You see, before we were Christians, it was the Holy Spirit who convicted us of our sin (see John 16:8). Another way to translate the word convict in John 16:8 is “convince.” Notice this verse doesn’t say that He will convict the unbeliever of a specific sin. Rather, He wants to convince him or her of sin in general, the root cause of all sins.

Now, we can try to produce in someone a sense of guilt and wrongdoing. In an effort to help the conversion process along, we want to make them feel really bad or guilty about something. (Mothers seem to have an unusual ability in this area.) But only the Holy Spirit can effectively produce a guilt that will bring a person to their senses.

Sometimes we get in the way of someone’s conversion. We get impatient, or we try to assist the Spirit. We can be telling someone about the Lord, maybe a friend or a coworker or a family member, and as they become interested and start asking questions, we start trying to convert that person in our own strength. We try to complete the transaction while the Spirit is still working.

The best thing we can do after we have shared the Word of God with someone is to simply pray that it takes root. We should just do our part and leave it in the hands of God. We don’t need to force the issue. He will do the convincing. Let God’s Spirit do His work.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Enter His Rest

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And He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together [giving us joint seating with Him] in the heavenly sphere [by virtue of our being] in Christ Jesus.  —Ephesians 2:6

There are many places in the Bible where Jesus, after the Resurrection, is described as being seated. We might think standing would be more powerful. But being seated has special significance.

Under the Law, when a priest entered the Holy of Holies to make sacrifices for the people’s sins, he could not sit. He had to keep moving and working the entire time. If the bells on his robe stopped ringing, that meant that he had done something wrong and had fallen over dead.

That is why it is so awesome that Jesus ascended into heaven and sat down as our high priest. He entered the rest of God. As joint heirs with Christ, we can sit too. We no longer have to work and strive to atone for our sins. Choose to rest in His presence tonight.

 

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Start Something

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[Let your] love be sincere (a real thing); hate what is evil [loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror from wickedness], but hold fast to that which is good. Love one another with brotherly affection [as members of one family], giving precedence and showing honor to one another. Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor; be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord. —Romans 12:9–11

If all of us started having a godly attitude, it would catch hold and spread like a virus. Wouldn’t it be great if we could spread a good virus?

Imagine the whispers: “Have you heard? There’s something wonderful going around. Have you caught it? It is running rampant all over the place. Everywhere you look, people have a new attitude!”

Let’s start something today! Let’s decide to think like Christ. Let’s decide to love everyone we meet today, and pass the word so that everybody catches on to it.