Why Is It Hard to Finish What You Start? – Part 1

In what area of your life would you like to make progress? On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer, be encouraged to follow through with whatever God leads you to do!

Can your faith be seen? Can anybody notice that you’re expecting to go to a new level? Are you talking like it’s going to happen, thinking like it’s going to happen, acting like it’s going to happen? God is passing by, but if you’re negative, “I don’t see how it can work out. I’ve been this way a long time. I never get any good breaks.” You may brush up against Him, but you’re not going to touch Him. You have to show God that you’re ready to be healed, ready to be free, ready to go to a new level. There should be an expectancy, “It could happen today.”

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Any time you want to do good, you might as well just figure that opposition is going to come just because we decide to do something good.
That doesn’t mean the enemy is going to roll out a red carpet and say, oh goodie, let me help you.
I’m Joyce Meyer.
I’ve seen God’s power transform my own life and he will do it for you.
I’m calling this message. Why is it so hard to finish what we start?
I want to start by telling you something that happened to me and I should know better after all the years that I’ve been in ministry and all the teaching I’ve done.
But this will just prove how we can be deceived by the enemy and hopefully give us a good lesson.
So I wrote down in my journal that I keep pretty much every day.
I wrote that I was making a commitment, everybody say commitment to be more generous than ever before in my life.
And actually I really do enjoy giving. It’s one of the things that I enjoy.
I really enjoy making people happy.
I enjoy I enjoy maybe knowing something that somebody wants and then surprising them with it.
I’ve kind of been like that since I was a kid.
And so I just believe it’s one of the gifts that God has given me.
And um so I just decided I want to be more generous this year than I’ve ever been before in my life.
And I got off to a good start.
I’ve even wrote back here a lot of, I mean, I, I wrote down all kinds of scriptures about giving and all kinds of thoughts.
Matter of fact, I’ll just right here. This, this was my commitment.
I am reaffirming my commitment to God to be generous and to help as many people as I possibly can.
The world is filled with hurting and needy people and nothing is better or more powerful than helping them.
I’m excited to abound and excel in giving and to watch God work in my own heart and life as I go forward.
And then I wrote all kinds of things about when you’re selfish, you’re unhappy.
And the best way to fight greed is with generosity and Satan hates generosity.
And I’ve got scriptures to be generous is to be more like God.
So, you know, like most things, you make a commitment for a little bit, it’s on your mind and you’re pressing forward and everything is going good and you’re excited and then, you know, we tend to get busy with something else and we kind of forget about it.
You, you can, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?
It’s like, well, I’ll give you enough examples if you don’t know. Now you will.
And, um, so then I went into this period of several months where I just felt more greedy than I had felt in.
I mean, I was worrying about money.
I was thinking about retirement and what are we going to do then?
And what’s gonna happen if I get to the point where I can’t do this anymore?
And just prices are high and on and on and on and on.
And I mean, it was even like aggravating me when I felt like I needed to do something.
And I’m thinking what is wrong with me?
This is not me, this is not what I’m like at all.
And so I would kind of beat it down for a while and get it out of my brain.
And then pretty soon I’d find myself again, you know, just being concerned about money, which it, it was stupid.
I’m not, that’s just not what I normally do.
And uh so then on, um August, the first of August this year, God reminded me of my commitment to generosity and he showed me so clearly that the whole thing had just been an attack from Satan to keep me to get me off my commitment and get my mind on something else.
And so as usual with me.
God gave me a great message that not only helped me but now I can preach to you and he took me to Romans 7 21 where Paul said, well, he starts out in Romans 7 15.
He said, I don’t understand myself. The thing I wanna do. I don’t do the thing.
I don’t want to do. That’s what I always end up doing. What is my problem?
What’s wrong with me? Why would anybody do what they don’t want to do?
You know, if you’re familiar with those scriptures, you’re like, man, I can relate. I, I get it.
You know, you lay in bed in the morning and make your plans for holiness that day and it works until you put your feet on the floor and then it’s over and uh it, it can be really frustrating when you really want to do good and somehow or another, you just don’t get around to it or if you do you, it’s only for a short period of time.
And so listen to what Paul said, Romans 7 21.
So I find it to be a law, a rule of action of my being that when I want to do what is right and good evil is ever present with me and I’m subject to its insistent demands.
So in other words, any time you want to do good, you might as well just figure that opposition is going to come just because we decide to do something good.
That doesn’t mean the enemy is going to roll out a red carpet and say, oh, goodie, let me help you.
Anybody relating to this already? Ok. How about making a commitment to?
I’m gonna spend time with God every morning before I go out of the house.
Well, the devil does not mind at all if you start something, but he hates it if anybody ever finishes.
Matter of fact, I don’t think there’s a lot of people that ever really finish what I would call God’s destiny for their life, their purpose coming all the way through and really fully being what God wants them to be because we live in the age of distractions.
There’s so many things to distract us and to grab our attention and today more so than ever.
But I think that hearing this today is going to help you realize that it’s all Satan’s plot to keep you from being the person God wants you to be and from having what God wants you to have.
How many of you think it’s time that we not just start things but that we finish them.
Thank you.
So first Corinthians 16 9 for a wide door of opportunity of effectual services opened under me.
A great and a promising one. And there are many adversaries. I love that scripture.
Paul said, ok, I’ve got an opportunity to do more good, but with it, I also got a lot of opposition.
I got a lot of stuff coming against me and you know, Satan may come against your mind, you might come against your physical body.
He may do something to get you rattled and upset.
So you get your mind off what your commitment is.
I mean, his ways of distracting us are limitless and you know what we have the wisdom of God and it’s time for us to wake up and start really doing what God wants us to do.
Amen. All right. Are you ready?
First Peter 4, 12, beloved.
Do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal, which is taking place to test your quality as though something strange, unusual and alien to you in your position were befalling you.
Why are we so surprised when opposition comes?
Well, I just don’t understand why this is happening.
The devil is saying, do you really mean it?
How sincere are you about doing this? Let’s talk about distractions.
Mark chapter four, beginning in verse 14, the sower sows the word.
Well, you know, that’s what I’m doing today.
The Holy Spirit working through me is sowing good seed into your heart that will produce an amazing harvest in your life.
If you can hang on to it long enough to let it take root, you know, there’s a really good chance that anything worth doing is going to cause us some opposition.
It probably won’t be smooth sailing all the way through because Satan doesn’t love it when we accomplish great things.
So we need determination. Hang in there and remember God is for us and you can do anything through Christ, who is your strength.
So, whatever you’re going through right now, don’t give up our offer today is really to help you in that area too.
Because when I have a time like that, I love to dig into the word and find out what God says about me and how He will help me.
Joyce’s book called Never Give Up is a wonderful way to just be inspired and encouraged and to hear more about what the Bible says.
You can get this book today for any amount.
That means when you make a donation to Joyce Meyer ministries, anything you want to give will go toward all of our outreaches.
I believe God will use this book to challenge you to live up to your God given potential.
It is filled with examples of people who pursued their goals relentlessly and prevailed against all odds, how encouraging and it includes Joyce herself and a lot of the things that she’s been through never give up provides practical tools to help you meet life’s challenges.
And it reminds us that with God, nothing is impossible.
You know, one thing that no matter who we are, we all have in common is pain.
We have differing backgrounds and circumstances that have led to that pain. But we all understand the hardship of it.
Another very important thing we have in common is a creator who loves us and wants to help us.
And sometimes part of our healing process includes helping others.
Even if we don’t understand their specific situation, we know the pain and God can use us to alleviate some of that hurt for someone else, even if you haven’t been in their shoes.
Here’s a story that many of us can relate to because we love our families and God is giving us the opportunity to bring relief in their time of need.
And it will make a difference in your life too, prayerfully consider taking this opportunity to reach out with the love of Christ.
What would you do to protect your family?
What would you do to safeguard the lives of your Children?
Well, today, we are at a very special place where people have been through tremendous trauma, but their courage and their tenacity and their hope in difficult times is nothing short of encouraging.
This is a place where many, many migrants are fleeing violence in their own home countries from all around the world, literally and coming here, hoping for safety and a better future.
What we are able to do is meet the needs at this place.
At this time, we can’t fix all the problems. This is not a political issue.
This is about a huge influx of people who now have nothing but the clothes on their back.
They don’t have fresh water, they don’t have food for their families. They don’t have medical care.
But what we can do is come in with the hope of Christ and provide those things.
So hand of hope. Our outreach arm, working with many other wonderful organizations is here doing just that today.
They have three good meals. They have clean water and they are getting medical care and their stories will amaze you in Colima.
There are drug cartels. We have a food business and they wanted our money when we said no, they started sending pictures of our four year old daughter saying they were going to kill us and take her for themselves.
My daughter used to love painting, going to school and playing with her friends.
But now she’s very sad and it’s hard to get her to eat, but at least we are safe.
Now, here in this place, I am a single mom and I have five kids.
I had to leave three of them at home with my parents because of the threats.
It’s so difficult that I can’t be with my other Children.
I pray every night that God helps me make a home somewhere and I can be with all my Children again.
Were you afraid for your life all the time?
If they weren’t happy with what you were doing, what would happen?
Well, it was awful because they took me everywhere.
They, they went one time when the leader um, his, um, best friend got shot in the head and I went and he told me help him and I was like, I can’t do anything and he put out his gun, but he was mad and I thought I was gonna die that day, but I’m here now.
So, who’s that?
Yeah, my wife and I didn’t know how we were going to do what God called us to do.
But God has taught me to have faith that he will provide for us. Right now.
We have about 1500 people from all over the world that have a place to sleep and are being fed.
But there’s a lot of people outside just waiting for their turn to get in.
When I first met Pastor Gustavo, there was basically no, nobody helping him.
He was working three jobs, his wife working two jobs just so they could just trying to meet the needs, meet the needs, you know, feeding one meal a day if they could as much as they could, rice and beans really simple and put a roof over their heads, give them a place to sleep.
And I knew this is way bigger. This is way more than Bethy. Global response can do.
The only way to actually help is to have this collaborative approach where the body of Christ comes in its fullness and so mission mercy chefs coming in and helping with the food Bethel Globe response hand of hope you guys were the first ones to really say yes, we’re going to champion that and pour resources into a time effort.
And thousands of families, literally thousands of families have come through here and encountered Jesus.
It’s transforming their lives, it’s transforming their family’s lives. These little kids are encountering hope for the first time.
You can’t put a price on that.
We can’t, we can’t kale walk us through just quickly.
What people will receive when they come, they first go and get triage and from there they will go on to the doctors and we have some pediatricians.
We have a chiropractor. We have nurses, two dentists, which is amazing because they’re doing fillings cleaning. Wow.
A girl came through yesterday and she was in the worst pain and we were able to extract the teeth, clean it up, get her started on antibiotics and so many different things.
We have psychiatrists here. So I would think with the trauma that people are coming here with, that would be hugely beneficial, very beneficial.
And what you’re seeing right behind us, the prayer area. The prayer is a huge of that. My goodness.
Yesterday, we had 30 salvation. And amongst that, we had four people who walked out of here healed in different ways.
We can’t necessarily change someone’s whole life, but we can meet an immediate need and we can share the love of God and the gospel and it’s huge.
So it’s been, it’s been wonderful and the people are so thankful speak.
Could you know there is nothing better in this world, nothing that warms your heart more than putting a smile on a child’s face than helping people.
When God opens the door for you to do so, so don’t sit back thinking that you can’t accomplish anything major in the world.
One smile on one child face is something major and you can do it through your special gift to Joyce Meyer ministries.
It provides food and water and medical care and love all over the world, just like in this situation and so many others.
So please go to our website, give us a call today and do what you can.
You winked. It was the cutest thing ever that we win.
You just, you just something you are here on a regular basis.
How do you see people responding to the love that they receive?
You have such a revolving door of people here that people arrive every day and they actually arrive on the hour, every hour.
And so there’s always a constant need and just to be able to have this many doctors as medical team that affirm them, that God has not left them.
God has not forgotten them. Instills a lot of peace and a lot of hope and the stories will just break your heart.
Yes, I mean, what people will sacrifice for the love of their families.
I myself didn’t have like a good concept of what was actually happening on the ground.
It wasn’t until I came here, started visiting every month, sat with the people started actually hearing their stories.
The one on one, the testimonies of the pain, the suffering of them leaving their place being in this, being here on a trajectory somewhere else.
Like just looking for peace and hope.
So this is, this isn’t a political statement by any means, this is being able to reach out your hand to help your brother to help your sister when they’re in time of need.
And so that’s what we want to do. We just want to help families in need.
What did it feel like for you to have to leave everything behind and flee for your lives?
Very sad. We lost everything.
You don’t think something like this is going to happen to you and then it does.
I thought they were going to kill me.
It puts a lot of pressure on you as the father and the leader of the family.
Yes, they call, call, call.
And if you don’t do what they tell you, they’ll go to your home and kill your family.
Why did you want to come here? And how has it helped your family?
Because we didn’t have any resources, no money. And the pastor, he’s a good person.
He supported us. He gives us food and a place to sleep. He’s a very good person.
There’s real desperation here. I’ve talked to.
So many people who said if I didn’t leave right, then I knew that I would lose someone I loved.
So the best way to respond to that is in real love.
That’s really the only thing that can counteract that kind of evil in the world.
It’s so amazing how even just a word, a hug, a smile, a word of encouragement will just turn their situation around.
A lot of these people are living in situations that are pretty hopeless. They’re living, they’re carrying trauma.
And so when you have a group of people coming in to hold them up and to also give them a word of encouragement, a word of hope and to be able to say what God is saying, like he’s here, he’s in this place.
He’s loving on these people. He’s caring for them. We thank you for the protection of this precious family.
We thank you that you have brought them here.
Let’s talk about the importance of clean water. Yes.
Before there was clean safe water available here, we were told there were a lot of sick Children.
Is that accurate? Yes, there was a lot of sick Children before they put in the water filtration system through water mission.
Yeah. Yeah. They were able to get the 10,000 gallons of water filtration in here to be able to just drink some clean water, to wash your clothes, to bathe in that.
So, yes, there was a lot more sickness here.
Prior to the water filtration system day.
Yeah. Pastor that is working in.
He, he told us that they didn’t have any good water source.
So people used to drink water from the pipe and, and that water isn’t safe, that water brings bacteria, virus and parasites.
So they get sick very often. They have many Children who got sick and so we collect good water.
It goes to these filters and then when the water is clean, it is sent to this big tank that is over here and this tank fits another neighborhood that is over there, probably 300 people that lives in the other neighborhood.
This system works and sends clean water to everyone.
And this is of course, a passion for you for water mission and you’re making a difference all around.
And it’s wonderful for us at Joyce Meyer Ministry’s hand of hope to be able to connect with you and do this together so that we can serve even more people.
What I know is that it’s been great to be together and the impact we are having together is so, so bigger.
It means so much to us at hand of hope to be able to partner with people like you with water mission with all these different people who are coming in and doing their part.
How would you encourage now all those viewers at home who are watching and they are thinking, what is my part?
Pastor Gustavo says it like this.
He says, well, these people are passing through my country through my city, then that’s an opportunity for them to encounter Jesus while they pass through here.
And we as the larger body of Christ really just get to come around and wrap our arms around him.
And kind of that, Aaron and Moses kind of moment of, I can’t do what Pastor Gustava does, but I can hold his arms up just for a little bit longer for him to continue to pour out and serve these people.
Thank you to Joyce Meyer and every person that makes it possible for this ministry to keep moving forward and may God bless you and multiply back to you everything you are doing for us here in this place.
You know, God says he is near to the broken heart and he is very close in this place because there are a lot of broken hearts, but God is working in amazing ways and you are here with us as a partner with Joyce Meyer ministries.
If you have not been a part of something like this, and you would like to join a great big family doing so much to help so many people, please do what you can right now.
A special gift to all of our hand of hope.
Outreaches will not only help in situations like this, but it will help people everywhere.
People who are hungry, people who are thirsty, people who are hurting and people who just need to hear the word of God.
We do that every day through Joyce’s teaching.
So please be a partner if you’re not just join us and say I would love to come with you and do these things.
Thank you for being the arms that wrap around the broken hearted here in Tijuana and all over the world.
Shit. We hope you enjoyed today’s program.
Please contact us or visit Joyce Meyer dot org to share your prayer request or partner with us in sharing Christ and loving people all across the globe.
This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer ministries.