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.

Aphasian 6 says lift up. The shield of faith.
It doesn’t say dragging along with you. Doesn’t even say this. Yep.
It’s got a shield. Yes, sir.
Got that tree of the face. Whoo. I’m a faith woman. Yeah.
Well, Are you lifting up the shield of faith when one of those fiery darts?
My father, we thank you for the word today.
Just appreciate you and letting us be here today.
Thank you that we still have the freedom to do these kind of things in this nation, and I pray that we’ll never lose those freedoms.
Impact us with the word today in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.
Well, back to mark 11 22, we’re gonna talk today about the shield of faith.
You know, we Christians talk about faith a lot, but it’s one thing to believe in Jesus as your savior that’s one thing that we exercise our faith for.
And then there’s many other things that we need to release our faith for that maybe were missing, like, there’s all kinds of people who believe in Jesus that live under condemnation all time.
So if you really wanna use your faith for something, why don’t you really use your faith to live free from guilt and condemnation?
I mean, if you believe when you ask god to forgive your sins that he did forgive your sins and he removed them as far as the east is from the west, then what’s to still feel guilty about?
So I’m just trying to make the point that although we have faith.
And we say, well, I believe in Jesus. That that’s not where faith ends.
From there on, we’re supposed to learn to live by faith.
The just man shall live by faith.
We’re made right with god by faith. We’re sanctified by faith. We’re redeemed by faith.
Our provision comes by faith.
I went to church for many, many, many years, and I believed in Jesus, but that was pretty much the end of what I believed.
Didn’t even really know that I could believe god for other things.
I remember running into a woman in a store one day who was a clerk, and we got to talk.
And I found out she was a Christian and So I was just asking her questions about how the business was and, you know, are you on commission?
Do you get a salary? You know, just we’re just chatting.
And she said, well, thing things have not been very good.
She said, I have a quota that I have to meet, and and she said, honestly, I haven’t been meeting it, and I’m kinda concerned that I’m gonna lose my job.
I said, well, don’t you just pray for god to give you favor and cause people to wander over here into your department to shop?
Well, see, that was very normal to me because I had learned that could exercise my faith for things like that.
But she looked at me and said, well, no. She’d been she’d been a believer all the time.
She looked at me and said, well, You mean it would be okay to ask god for money?
So here she’s a Christian. She goes to church all the time.
She believes in Christ, but she did not know that she could exercise her faith for something as simple as provision or for god to move customers in her direction.
There is nothing that we cannot pray about no need that we cannot lift up to god.
I’m not saying we’re gonna get everything we want, but when it comes to our needs and our provision, we can release our faith.
But see, it has to be released. And sometimes, to be honest, we get a little bit lazy.
So today, we’re gonna have a few words for the lazy people.
And I know nobody here today is lazy.
My I mean, my goodness, you got up and got here, so I can’t say you were lazy.
But maybe there’s just somebody watching by television, somewhere in the world, in Europe, in Africa, in India, in Australia, in America, and you’re just a little lazy.
It’s just a little too much of an effort. Yeah.
Let’s take something simple like praying over our food.
We better pray sincerely because there’s a whole bunch of stuff in it that could kill us if we don’t pray merch.
But what do we do? And I’m guilty too.
Thank you lord for this food. Blessing my buddy and jeez, and amen.
Or then sometimes after we’ve eaten half of it, bless the lord on my soul and all that’s already in me, Well, you know, it’s one thing to do it as an obligation or just a habit of something we do, but The faith is really not working unless we take a moment to sincerely pray.
Father, I’m praying over this food, and I thank you for it.
And I pray god that if there’s anything in it that’s harmful that you won’t let it harm me in Jesus name.
Amen. So it’s one thing to have faith It’s another thing to actually use your faith and exercise your faith.
So the Bible talks about the shield of faith.
And in Mark Levin, 22, which is kind of our foundation scripture, it simply says, have faith in god constantly.
And Jesus replying said to them, have faith in god constantly. I like that scripture.
Not just once in a while, not just occasionally, not just until you’re tired of waiting for your breakthrough, that have faith in god constantly.
Now let’s learn some facts about faith. First of all, faith can grow.
Let’s look at 2nd thessalonians 13.
Faith can grow, but it only grows as we use it.
How many of you would like to have a greater muscle mass than what you have?
Well, you know what? You can’t pray that in.
I mean, I don’t care how much faith you got.
You can get a whole group of faith filled believers together, and they cannot pray muscle on you.
There’s only one way you’re gonna get it, and that’s effort.
Amen? You have to use that muscle.
And the more you use it, the muscle will start to grow.
And then to get it to grow more, you have to lift heavier things or do harder things.
So why do we think that we go through something and we finally get through that, and we’re like, how?
And then there’s something even harder than the last thing. And so okay. Go through that.
I mean, it’s like, and then another thing.
Well, you know, by the time we get way up here, these things down here don’t bother us at all anymore.
Amen? When I first started going to the gym and working out, I mean, I started with these little dog bone weights that weighed about £3 and I Well, you know, now £20 or £25 later, if I go back to something like that, it’s like, well, this is nothing.
Well, see, some of the things that you’re going through right now, as you continue to grow in faith, those things will be nothing.
You won’t even notice them. Actually, it amazes me the things that I used to get upset about.
I look about now and think, how dumb was that? To make myself miserable all day over something that ridiculous.
So second thessalonians 1, 3.
Your faith is growing and your love towards each other is in increasing and abound.
So Paul’s saying your faith is growing and your love is growing.
Your faith is growing and your love is growing. Do you know what? Faith doesn’t grow without love.
Right. Amen. You say, well, what do you mean?
Well, first of all, my understanding of how much god loves me and your understanding of how much god loves you has to grow in order for your faith to grow.
The more that you believe that someone loves you, the more you’re gonna be willing to put your trust in them and put your confidence in them.
So I would say if you’re having a trouble with faith, maybe just kinda lay that lesson aside for a little bit and go study how much god loves you.
Get rooted and grounded in his love, and then you’ll come back and it won’t be as hard.
To put your faith in him.
We’re supposed to receive the love of god, learn to love ourselves in a balanced way, Love god and then let that love flow through us to other people.
Galatians 56 has faith works by love.
That’s why in Mark Levin, he says, when you pray, if you have anything against anyone, leave it. Drop it.
Let it go. Forgive him. Why? Because faith won’t work without love.
If we’re mad at somebody, we’re angry at somebody, were all stopped up inside, and that love clamp flow through us, then our faith is not gonna work either.
So he said, I’m grateful that your faith is growing, and your love toward one another is also increasing and abounds.
I think in the church in the last 25 years, we have paid I’m gonna say that again.
I think we’ve paid a lot more attention to faith than we have love.
Maybe I’ll even say it a third time.
I think we’ve paid a lot more attention to faith than we have loved. Why?
Because we kinda learned what we could use our faith and get some things we wanted.
But although god may have started to introduce us to faith by teaching us that.
It’s for a lot greater purpose than just to get your own way. Yes.
There are things that we can believe for that we want and need, but faith is primarily to be used to help us get through things and remain stable and strong no matter what is going on.
Do you know what god wants more than anything?
He wants a whole worldwide church full of people out there shining like bright lights, making everybody else wonder how in the world can you be the way you are with everything that’s going on in the world.
More than anything, he wants us to be stable and walking in love, and having peace and having joy.
Simple little things. Psalm 100 verse 2 serve the lord with gladness.
So faith and love. Don’t try to pay more attention to faith than you do love.
Faith also another fact about faith. Faith can be heard out of our mouth.
2nd Corinthians 4 13. I know this one’s right because I looked it up this morning.
Says yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote.
I have believed and therefore have I spoken We too believe, and therefore, we speak.
If you really wanna know how much faith you have or anybody else for that matter, listen to them.
And especially listen in hard times.
Especially listen when you’re having to wait longer than you’d like to and especially listen when somebody else gets what you want and you don’t have yours yet.
And then especially listen when somebody mistreat you and god doesn’t come along and vindicate you quite as quick as you’d like him to.
Then we start finding out how much faith we really have.
Once again, I wanna make a difference between this faith that we receive Christ through.
We believe in Christ. We believe he died for us.
We believe he’s our only hope of Salvation.
And if you don’t, you certainly can get that settled right away by just inviting Christ into your life meant that you’ve been a sinner, that you wanna turn away from sin.
I’m sorry. God, please come and live on the inside of me and save me.
It’s so simple that people miss it.
So there’s that faith that we have, but then we’re supposed to learn to live by that faith.
To exercise that faith in every single area of our life, and that takes a little bit of concentration and a little bit of focus.
Faith dispels fear and worry.
Matthew 6:30 says don’t worry about your provision.
Each day has sufficient trouble of its own. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t worry about yesterday.
Exercise your faith each day. One day at a time.
You know, I have things just like you do.
I’ve got a couple of situations right now that are going on that are a little bit tense in some areas where I’m responsible to take care of some situations that I don’t even really know how I got into to start with, but you know how that goes.
It’s one of those YME things. You know, why why do I have to be doing this?
But, nonetheless, I’m in it and gotta see it through. So you know, things are going messy.
And so you get up in the morning and you start to try to pray, and then you start thinking, well, you know, what about this and that?
And then just like you, I have to say, nope. I’m using my faith to live today.
I’ll have what I need tomorrow when tomorrow comes. We all have to do it.
But you see, it’s something that you have to do on purpose.
You purposely have to exercise your faith in those areas and learn how to talk to yourself if need be and remind yourself of scriptures like this, I don’t have to worry about tomorrow.
Surely god loves me more than a bird.
And I’ve never seen a bird sitting on a branch, having a breakdown because he didn’t know where his next worm was coming from.
I mean, could you I mean, god says. The birds are fed.
There’s nothing more beautiful than the flowers, and god take care of them.
So we don’t have to worry. About god taking care of us either.
But although we don’t have to worry about it, we do need to release our faith for it.
You see, this is where I think sometimes we get lazy. It’s like, uh, oh, yeah.
Gotta take care of that well. Have you asked him to? Have you prayed about it?
Are you keeping your confession in line with what you say, you believe?
Those are our areas to exercise our faith.
And if we do our part, god will never fail to do his part.
Jesus even told the disciples when they were fearful in the storm, If you had enough faith, you wouldn’t be afraid of this storm.
If you trusted me, why does god let us go through things?
Because faith grows through experience with god.
My faith is so much stronger now than it was 36 years ago.
When I really entered into a serious relationship with god.
And I was a Christian a long time before I got serious. Hello? Come on.
I’m talking to some of you watching me right now by TV.
And don’t turn the set off either.
I was a Christian a long time before I got serious.
I had enough of god to keep me out of hell, but not enough to cause me to walk in victory.
Come on.
Don’t just have enough of god to keep you from going to hell.
Have enough to cause you to walk in victory so you can take somebody else to heaven with Well, I’m sure glad that I pressed through and let god grow me up a little just just last night.
We had 11 102 people receive Christ just last night.
I mean, I spent years as a not so serious Christian marching off to church every week and going back home.
As far as I know, nobody ever got saved because of my life.
But, boy, once you get serious with god, once you really begin to exercise as your faith to believe everything that he says.
Faith is a powerful force that can change many things in our life.
Faith heals the sick. No matter how much medicine’s available to us today and no matter how many medical treatments that we can get.
Let us not forget to 1st and foremost believe god to keep us healthy. Amen?
And if you’re not familiar with god’s desire to heal the sick, go read Matthew chapter 8 1st 17 verses, and you’ll see he was healing people every time he turned around.
But on belief, can keep god from being able to do what he wants to do.
Let’s look at Matthew 1358. And he did not do many works of power there because of their unbelief their lack of faith in a divine mission of Jesus.
So god is working all the time, but what he’s doing is received through the hand of faith.
We have to release our faith and say, god, I believe your word, and I wanna take that as my own.
So some of the things that faith does, faith receives provision Faith saves us from sin.
Faith can cause us to live completely free from guilt. Wow.
Faith fills us with the Holy Spirit.
By faith, we can believe that we are pleasing to god, even in our imperfect state.
Faith purifies the heart. It sanctifies the person. It brings revelation.
It justifies us it gives us access into the presence of god.
By faith, we’re made right with god. Faith gives us security and confidence.
It brings blessing. It brings hope. It produces good works. It edifies.
It keeps us true to god, and it quenches all the fiery darts of the enemy.
But Ephesian 6 says, lift up.
The shield of faith.
It doesn’t say drag it along with you.
Doesn’t even say just, you know, yep. Got my shield.
Yes, sir. Got that shield of faith. Whoo. I’m a faith woman.
Yeah.
Well, are you lifting up the shield of faith when one of those fiery darks is?
Here comes another lie. No. I don’t believe that.
Here comes another attack. No. I don’t believe that. Efasian 616.
I think I’ll just leave that there for you guys to see.
Efasian 616 in The amplified says, lift up over all the covering shield of saving faith upon which you can quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked one.
In the king James says above all. Can somebody say above all? No.
Above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith, you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
But once again, that that shield faith can do us no good if we don’t pick it up, lift it up, release it, let it go, and how do we release our faith?
Through praying, through saying and through faith filled god inspired action.
Not just any kind of action, but faith filled god inspired action.
What does the Bible say in James 1? Faith without works is dead. Not works of the flesh.
But the works that god tells us to do. So therefore, we see we cannot be too lazy.
Can I tell you it’s not enough to go to church and park your little bottom on a pew?
I don’t care. You can go four times a week.
And have somebody else who’s put out all the effort and hasn’t been lazy, feed you the word of god, spoon feed you the word of god and then you march out and go back home and march back the next week to get another feeding.
That is not gonna be enough. It’s a beginning, but it’s not enough. It’s good but it’s not enough.
Well, what do you want me to do?
Well, you can start by taking some notes or buying a recorded copy of the message that you hear and then go home and study some more yourself.
Hearing somebody else tell you something is one level, but when you study that information can become revelation to you, Don’t be the person all your life who needs to be ministered to.
Come on. Let me say it again. It’s time for transition for some of you.
It’s, you know, we wanna minister to people, but don’t be the person who all your life needs to be the one that’s receiving the ministry be the one who’s helping somebody else.
And not only that, I can say I think we get to a certain point in receiving, or we can’t even receive anymore if we don’t start giving out.
Faith without works is dead. Has no power.
No power at all. Faith should always come first before works, but we can’t leave out the works, and that takes an effort, doesn’t it?
How many of you know that doing the right thing takes an effort? Come on.
Don’t just have enough faith to keep you out of hell.
Have enough faith and start releasing it to walk in victory and to be a blessing to somebody else.
I don’t even really think that we should get through one day without being able to say, I’m so glad God that you allowed me to be a blessing to so and so today.
I was able to encourage. I was able to lift up.
I was able to meet a need. I was able to share my faith with somebody.
Lazy Christians will never stay protected from the plots and plans of Satan.
Lazy is a good word, isn’t it?
2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 5, says, employ every effort in exercising your faith, employ every effort.
For this reason, adding your diligence to the divide, adding your diligence to the divine promises.
So we have the promises of god, but he says now, employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue excellence, resolution, Christian energy, and then he goes on to say some other things.
But my point is is that have to make an effort to exercise your faith.
Hope is a good thing, but if hope is just kinda like I wish hope is a very close relative of faith, and I don’t think you can have faith without hope because hope is a positive expectation that something good is gonna happen.
So you have to have that before you’re even gonna release your faith.
But a lot of people don’t have any of that. They just wish.
I wish I had. We don’t need wishbone. We need backbone.
We need to be able to stand up and say, I’m gonna do my part through the power of god.
Give up every morning and take 10, 15 minutes to thank god for what he’s doing and to praise him and to release your faith.
For what you know you need that day and what may come up that you don’t even know that you need and release your faith to get out in public and act like a Christian.
Spend time in the presence of god, and they ask to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.
I love Ephesians 3 that says, Paul pray that they would be filled in their inner man that the Holy spirit would end well their innermost being and personality.
I don’t know about you, but I know some folks could use a good shot of the Holy Ghost in their personality.