Getting Your Day Started Right

In a message by Joyce Meyer, she highlights the importance of making the most of each day, as time is a precious resource that cannot be regained once it’s lost. She emphasizes the need to start each day on the right foot, especially by spending time with God, as this can set the tone for the rest of the day.

Joyce shares anecdotes of people hitting the snooze button, rushing through their morning routines, and experiencing frustrating situations, all of which can lead to a difficult day. She argues that the devil tries to fight people on their time with God, as personal time spent with Him is the most valuable aspect of one’s spiritual life.

She asserts that merely attending conferences or listening to sermons is not enough for personal growth and victory; individuals must also study and spend time with God on their own. Joyce encourages her audience to learn from their experiences, engage in personal study, and strive for a deeper relationship with God to live life to the fullest.

The following program is paid for by the Friends and partners of Joyce Meyer ministries.
How many of you have ever had a bad day?
If you ever wished I would have gotten this day started different than what I did.
You know, don’t, don’t ever waste a day.
What you, you know, you think about time differently as you get older, I think when you’re in your twenties and maybe even thirties and maybe even forties, you don’t, you don’t think too much about time.
But a few years ago, it occurred to me that two thirds of my life was over and I just became much more aware of time and how, how foolish it is to waste any day that you have.
You know, there’s something really interesting about time.
We all get the same amount in a day, every day is 24 hours.
And some people are very, very fruitful and effective and some people just waste their time, day after day after day.
And that’s a choice that we make.
But there’s one thing about time, once it goes by, you never get it back.
So how tragic it is to waste any day.
Of your life.
I think we need to live every day like it was our very last one and live it to the absolute fullest that we can live it.
So I want to just give you a few things that I think will help you.
Maybe get your day going in the right direction and maybe affect the whole rest of your day.
And I hope it helps you every single day of your life.
What are some of your mornings like, do you go to bed intending to get up and spend time with God?
But then when the alarm goes off, you hit the snooze, then you hit the snooze again and then you hit the snooze again and then you’ve laid in bed too long.
And so then you get up and of course, now you have no time for anything and you’re in a frenzy and you’re in a rush and so that makes you grouchy and of course, the devil will play the game with you and he’ll make sure that that’s the day you can’t find your car keys and that’s the day nobody does anything.
That’s right. And then you, you know, you’ve yelled at the kids and now you’re feeling bad about that and your mom gave you a call to say good morning, you grouched at her because you didn’t have time.
So now you feel bad about that and you get in your car and you get down almost to the entrance to your subdivision, you realize you left your cell phone at home.
And so that adds to your frustration. Now you gotta hurry up and go back and get that.
Then you get in the house and you can’t find it.
Then you get on the highway and the traffic is bad and you know, you’re going to be late for work.
So you’re thinking of all the excuses you can give and you finally get there and you’re basically frustrated, upset, got this little weight of condemnation on you because of the way you acted.
You know, you should have spent time with God. You didn’t do it.
And the whole day basically just becomes a nightmare. Anybody been there done that.
Now, if you’re honest, you know, that more than any other thing, the devil will fight you on your time with God.
And the reason He does that is because that is more valuable to you than any other thing.
Your time, your personal time with God is more valuable to you than you being in this conference.
It is the most important thing.
And any time we think that we’re going to get it all just through listening to somebody’s cds and going to church once a week or twice a week or going to a couple of conferences a year.
You’re totally wrong because I’ll tell you what you get when you do that, I’ll tell you what you’ve gotten here.
This weekend and you’ve gotten pieces of great stuff.
And now if you’re smart, you’ll go home and you’ll take the notes that you have, or you’ll buy the C DS from the conference or whatever session really meant a lot to you.
And then you’ll really get down to doing your own study.
Hearing somebody else is not good enough. You gotta study.
If you want to be victorious, you have to study and, well, Joyce, you mean to tell me just listening to you every morning isn’t enough.
Not really, I’m not God, I’m a teacher and I believe that I’ve got a lot of good information and a strong teaching gift.
But what I found in my own life was I got all this information.
I mean, I was like, you know, when I really got serious about my walk with God, I mean, I was in a conference every time I turned around and C DS and everything I could get my hand on and TV programs and radio programs and it just seemed like why isn’t it working?
I mean, I’ve been there, done that, had the T shirt, had the C DS.
I knew everything you could possibly know about spiritual warfare and yet the devil still had the upper hand in my life and none of it really began to fall into place for me until I started really spending time with God every day.
Now.
It probably will be a little quiet because probably a lot of you aren’t doing that.
And so that makes you feel a little like by a lot of people watching by television, you’re like thinking maybe I’ll see what else is on this morning.
The Holy Spirit is the one who puts it all together for us.
And not only that, it offends God when we leave him out.
He’s more important than anything else until you learn that you’re going to be in sad shape.
I love Psalm 27 4.
It says one thing if I desire and that will I seek after that, I might dwell in his presence, behold his beauty all the days of my life.
You need him a whole lot more than you need me.
You need him a lot more than you need any of your friends.
And I know we get all funny about this time with God thing.
Well, what do you do? I don’t think it matters so much what you do as it does just that you’re giving God the time just by giving him the time you’re saying I need you.
Now, every morning is a fresh start in our life.
Mornings are really wonderful and you might say, well, I’m not a morning person, but I suggest you pray to get over it and stop saying that and the reason why a lot of you are in a morning person is because you don’t go to bed at night.
However, even if you’re a person that sleeps till two o’clock in the afternoon.
Then two o’clock in the afternoon is your morning?
So I can’t dictate to you. How do you do? How you do it?
I personally like to go to bed early and get up early.
I’m in bed every night by nine o’clock. Unless I’m out preaching.
And a lot of times I’m asleep somewhere between nine and 9 30.
I get up almost every day, between five and 5 30 I will, I would fight a bear to protect that time that I have with God in the morning because I know that I absolutely 100% for sure, cannot be the kind of person that God needs me to be, to glorify him and do what I’m doing if I don’t have that time with God, but it took me a long time to get there.
I was no different than anybody else.
I made every excuse I got distracted, you know, on and on and on and on and on.
And God finally got it across to me.
You are not going to stay alive if you don’t spend time with me.
And I think for me, he kind of meant it physically, you know, that I needed that protection because of what I was doing.
And so I’ve studied and studied and studied and studied a lot about seeking God’s face and not his hand.
And I just know that mornings are very important.
My favorite time of the day is the first two hours of the morning. I want it quiet.
I want to be left alone. The only person that I let get near me is my dog.
She weighs £7 and sits on the end of my recliner.
And sometimes Dave will come in and say good morning, but that’s about it.
Other, otherwise we’re just like, Dave goes to his place. I go to my place.
And if you want to know why this ministry is successful, I can tell you that that’s probably the most important foundational thing that we do because we know from the get go that it’s God and not us.
I don’t know how to get the money that I need to pay the bills for this ministry.
So I just go seek God and I don’t even seek him for money.
I just seek him, but every day is a fresh start.
I love the way God’s arranged it that in these 24 hour periods where we’re up about 16 hours and then we sleep eight hours.
And then it’s amazing how much better things sometimes feel just in the morning, isn’t it?
You’re tired by the end of the day.
You need the rest, your mind needs the rest, your spirit needs the, you know, everything needs to rest.
One of the first things you need to do every morning is take care of every mess from yesterday by repenting and receiving God’s mercy.
Let’s go to lamentation three 19 through 23.
Oh Lord, remember earnestly, my affliction and my misery, my wandering and my outcast state, the wormwood and the gulf my soul has them continually in remembrance and has bowed down within me.
But this I recall and therefore have I hope and expectation.
It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving kindness that we are not consumed because his tender compassion fail not.
They are new every morning, beautiful, they are new every morning.
Great and abundant is your stability and faithfulness.
I kind of say just in fun that I guess God makes a new batch of mercy every morning because we use up all of yesterday’s receive God’s mercy.
Don’t stay mad at yourself. Whatever you did wrong. God knew you were gonna do it before you did it.
You’re no surprise to God. He’s not shocked about what you do.
Ask for forgiveness, receive mercy and go on. You cannot have a good day.
If you’re under condemnation, it not possible.
That should be something that you do every morning. We’re talking about how to get your day started, right?
Make some decisions early in the morning.
The decisions that you make early in the morning are like getting dressed spiritually.
I’m gonna talk to you about that.
You not only have physical clothing, you have spiritual clothing and many people go out naked in the spirit.
Look at revelation 16 15, behold I’m gonna come like a thief.
Blessed, happy to be envied.
Is he who stays awake alert and guards his clothes so that he may not be naked and have the shame of being seen exposed.
Now, surely he’s not talking about sitting with a rifle in front of your closet and guarding your clothes.
But he says, guard your clothes and make sure that you’re not seen naked and you end up embarrassed and he’s talking about spiritual nakedness.
We literally get dressed spiritually as we make decisions.
This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad.
I usually say that before I ever get out of bed.
I start this regimen this program that I’m talking to you about today.
That’s not a law to me. It’s not a burden to me.
I’ve just finally found out how to get the upper hand over the devil.
And I know if I don’t do something, he will empty space is still a place.
And if all you offer is empty space, then the devil will be happy to fill it.
So you better start thinking something on purpose before he starts thinking for you.
This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad.
Then the next thing I do is I begin to thank God for everything that I can think of.
Everything I can think of from hot water to my kids, to my husband that I can walk that I can see and everything else receive God’s mercy and then start making decisions.
Every decision you make is like getting dressed spiritually.
In Ephesians six, the Bible talks about the armor of God and it says put on, put on the full armor of God, put on the breastplate of righteousness.
Now, I believe the way that we put on that breastplate of righteousness is by receiving the mercy of God and then making a decision.
I know who I am. I am the righteousness of God in Christ.
And I am going to be bold in the Lord today and act like the person that I am.
Now, when you do that, you put on something spiritually that begins to cover you from the enemy, you put on the shoes of peace and the way you do that is by making a decision.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life today, but I’m deciding before I ever go out the door that whatever it is, I’m up for it.
Now, I’m gonna stay in peace. I’m going to be adaptable and pliable and Moldable.
And even if I don’t get my way, I’m still gonna keep my peace.
Now, what I used to do was sit in the morning with my coffee and think if Dave goes to that golf course again, today, I am gonna be so mad at him and if this person doesn’t do that and if that person doesn’t do this, then if this happens, man, I am really gonna be ticked off.
And so I would prepare myself early in the morning to just have a horrible day, all day where your mind goes.
The man follows. So I take time in the morning to get spiritually dressed by making decisions about what I’m gonna do that day.
The devil’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. The world’s gonna do what it’s gonna do.
But here’s what I’m gonna do. This is the day the Lord has made.
I will rejoice and be glad. And sometimes I got to say that 156 times.
Sometimes it takes me a little while to start feeling happy.
Now, Dave gets up happy. But I, you know, I’m a little, I mean, he’s like, good morning.
How are you? And I’m like, he likes music.
I like it quiet. How do you go out of your house dressed spiritually?
Have you paid more attention to what you look like physically than what you look like spiritually?
All right. Did you spend an hour fixing your hair and getting your makeup on and just the right outfit and yet you’re spiritually naked and the devil is ready to just have your day.
Come on now play my little game this morning in Ephesians four.
The Bible says, put off the old man put on the new man.
Another scripture says, put on Jesus Christ, Colossians three says, clothe yourself with mercy and above all that you put on, put on love.
Well, how, how do I, I don’t, I don’t, you know, I know how to get these clothes on but how do I get them other ones on?
I believe it’s decisions that we make about how we’re going to walk.
And I believe it’s things that we say ahead of time by faith, faith speaks, faith is not silent, faith speaks out of the heart, the mouth speaks and I don’t just think this is the day the Lord has made.
I will rejoice. I say it. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice.
I sometimes I’m just like this is the day the Lord has made.
I will rejoice and be glad. Get out the toothbrush.
I am the righteousness of God in Christ.
Oh This is gonna be a good day.
I’m expecting something good to happen to me today. Now I’m just telling you how I live.
I have to do this. You can do it or not do it.
But I just believe your life will improve if you do the devil took advantage of me long enough wonder why I feel depressed.
Decide ahead of time.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
I’m ready for anything. I’m equal to anything through Christ to infuse his inner strength into me.
We have to learn how to do this.
You have to start thinking on purpose, not just thinking passively, whatever falls in your head.
But thinking on purpose, you get up and you decide that you are going to be in agreement with God.
You don’t get up and wait to see how you feel and wait to see what happens.
And if you do this, it will even help you feel better physically.
You’ll start to get energy.
How can two walk together unless they be agreed, start agreeing with God and disagreeing with the devil.
This is not hard. Everybody can do this. A 10 year old can do this.
Amen. This is not complicated what I’m telling you today.
It’s not deeply theological, but it will help you put on the helmet of salvation.
Think like a Christian don’t have a bumper sticker and think like the devil put on righteousness, put on peace, lift up the shield of faith, make a decision that you’re gonna go from face to face, to face, to face, to face, to face, start every day with Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is so important. The devil hates it when we’re thankful because he is a full time grouch.
Psalm 50 14 offer to God the sacrifice of Thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high psalm 100 verse four.
This is probably my favorite. Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and a thank offering and into his courts with praise.
Be thankful and say so, be thankful and say so say so let the redeem of the Lord say so if you’re thankful, open your mouth and say so if there’s somebody you in your life, you appreciate, open your mouth and say so, don’t just tell them everything they do wrong.
Tell them what you’re grateful for.
I was talking to a girl that travels with me this morning and we were talking about some husband stuff and I said, I said, you know what?
Everybody’s got some faults, but if we’ll just meditate on the good things and I just listed off about 10 or 12 things about Dave that I’m thankful for.
Now. There’s a couple of things that I could do without but, but the good stuff so far outweighs those couple of things and see what I used to do when I used to have lousy days was I would in the morning, even before I got out of bed, I’d be, I’m so sick and tired of Dave not doing this and not doing that.
He never brings me flowers and he never does this and he never does that.
I don’t do that anymore.
And now I think man, Dave is so easy to get along with. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
He’s adaptable. He lets me do anything I want to do. Dave is secure.
I can say to him, go somewhere.
I want to be by myself and he’s like, ok, after 43 a half years, you get a good system going.
You might as well keep the one you got because you’re going to have to work on the next one too.
So what are you thankful for?
Do you, do you thank God daily for even little things.
There’s so much to be thankful for and the more thankful we are the happier we get and the mad the devil gets, be thankful and say so say so that has to become part of every day.
I think every morning we need to dedicate ourselves to God. Let’s look at Psalm 25 verse one.
Talk about rededicate. We need to do it every day unto you.
Oh Lord, do I bring my life plain and simple. I get that Psalm out very frequently and read it.
I love Psalm 25 1 unto you. Oh Lord, do I bring my life?
It’s a great thing to do every morning.
Just sit or stand or kneel or whatever you’re comfortable and just lift up your hands and say here I am, Lord, I’m yours.
Use my mouth, use my mind, use my hands, use my feet, use my eyes, use my ears, my finances are yours.
I commit myself to you God and dedicate myself to you.
See, we spend too much time wanting, telling God everything we want.
I love what the Christians, what Paul said about the Christians.
He said they gave as much as they possibly could financially, but they also gave themselves to the Lord.
You know, it’s easier to give your money than it is to give yourself. Yeah.
This morning when I asked God if there was anything he wanted me to do today, I thought a couple of times before I said it because what if I don’t like what he says today?
I got a good one. Enjoy yourself. Yes. Who knows what I’ll get tomorrow?
Is anybody hearing me today? Now, come on.
This is, and you think now I know somebody’s thinking, well, I don’t, I don’t have the time to do all that good night.
What time would I have to get up to do that?
Are, you know, you’re gonna do what you want to no matter what I say.
But I’m telling you, you need to go to bed at night so you can get up in the morning.
I just wanna encourage you to begin every day talking to God and seeking his direction for your life.
And don’t let, don’t let that be an overwhelming thought.
You know, we think about prayer sometimes like, oh, like it’s this big thing, you know, it’s talking to God.
It’s just sharing with Him your heart. Thank you, Lord. I love you. Thank you for this day.
I trust you to keep me today.
Show me your will try to give God those first few moments of the day and I can promise you, it’s gonna make a huge difference in your entire day today.
We’re offering you the everyday life study.
Bible and my new how to study the Bible DVD, we want you to learn how to study and if you don’t know how, then you can learn.
So get these materials and learn how to do that.
And if you don’t have my study Bible, I think it’s something you’re really going to enjoy.
The Joyce Meyer conference is coming to Hershey, Pennsylvania, August 8th, ninth and 10th at Giant Center with worship by Matt Redman and Christy Knock.
Then Long Beach California, August 22 23 24 at Long Beach Arena with worship by Phil Wickham.
Admission is free and open to everyone for more information and a complete conference lineup.
Visit us online at Joyce Meyer dot org or call toll free 1866.
See Joyce, you’ve been watching Joyce’s boot camp, spiritual fitness conditioning.
Be sure to tune in throughout the month of August for essential teachings on foundational principles to get your walk with God in shape right here on enjoying everyday life.
Knowing where my money goes.
That is so huge to me and I know that when I give it’s helping those people, it’s going to witness to people, it’s going to bring them to Christ, it’s going to feed Children, it’s going to help these women get them off the street.
It’s going, that is just everything to me.
I mean, knowing where your money goes, knowing that when I give my money, it’s going to help these people.
I don’t have to worry about it. It’s there. I wanna be part of it.
I mean, I know she has a goal to feed a million kids a day.
I wanna be part of that.
I want to know that I helped and even if it’s a small way to feed those million kids a day to rescue those women off the street, knowing I’d love to rescue the million women off the street, not just them, feed the million kids.
I want to go, I want to be part of that and you know, I can’t do it.
There’s no way I can do it by myself. We need so many people and it’s great.
I mean, so many times there’s things you wanna do and you, you, you don’t know how to, you see that and you say boy, I wanna help.
But I don’t know, I don’t know how to do.
And so you don’t do anything but here there’s a way to help.
I can see the way to help and I can be part of that and know that I’m actually doing something instead of just saying, oh, well, I wish I could but I can’t this way.
I know I can do something. I can make a difference.
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Please contact us or visit Joyce Meyer dot org today to share your prayer requests, find out more about our resources.
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The proceeding was paid for by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer ministries.