It’s Time to Flip Your Switch – Part 1 | Joyce Meyer

God is alive and well, and doing great things! On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer, be encouraged to share your faith with others more than ever before.

This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries.
You know, we need to stop waiting for god to do something, and we need to realize that he has already done something on the inside of us, we just need to wake up to the fact that we have got everything that we need living on the inside of us to make a major difference in our little part of the world if we’ll just get our minds off of ourselves long enough to realize There’s a greater purpose going on right now than just what I think I want and what I need.
And you might as well get happy because I’m not gonna shut up tonight until you do.
A rise and shine as rise and shine are words that call for a change.
Nothing in the world is gonna change if the individual people in the world don’t change.
And god has changed me so much, but I’ll tell you what I am not satisfied.
If you wanna know the truth, yes, Christians should be content.
But that doesn’t mean that we are satisfied to kinda just be okay and maybe media mediocre and just kinda you know, barely enough.
And long as we’re as good as everybody else, that’s good enough. I wanna keep growing.
And I wanna keep changing, and I wanna keep helping more people, and I wanna keep getting closer to god.
And I wanna know him better every single day of my life.
It’s one thing to be satisfied and content with god.
It’s another thing to be apathetic and think you don’t need to keep pressing on with the lord.
What what is it that you want me to do?
But one thing I don’t want you to do is nothing.
There’s a lot of things we can do, but nothing isn’t one of them.
Nobody can be happy and sit around and do nothing all the time. It’s just not possible.
In the amplified version, Isaiah 60, verse one says arise from the depression and the prostration in which circumstances have kept you.
I like that. Prostration means laying down. And I’m not talking about laying on your couch.
I’m talking about laying down on the inside.
You see, when I started feet on that wearing those It wasn’t in my body.
It was in my soul. And I had to get up on the inside.
That’s where we need to make sure that we stay on fire is on the inside and that every day we’re praying for god to use us and to let our light shine.
You know what? God has got his people everywhere.
There are some of us everywhere in every company, in every school, in every marketplace, in every neighborhood.
We are everywhere, and god has us strategically placed for such a time as this But what we have to do is turn the lights up.
You know, if it’s dark in my house, I can’t just pray the lights on.
I I I me, I have to go flip the switch.
And you know what? I hope I provoke a few of you tonight to flip your switch.
And get fed up was living in the darkness and having your lights on dim and say it’s time for me to get out in the world and shine brightly and let people know that I am not ashamed, that I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and I am going to do all I can to make a difference in the world.
Now that doesn’t mean that we have to be religiously obnoxious and that we’re going to just preach to everybody we see As a matter of fact, I don’t recommend that.
What I recommend is instead of telling everybody about Jesus, we get out there and act like him and let our lives be a summon.
I think the worst thing we can do is be hyper religious and have bumper stickers all over our car, and a pound of Christian jewelry hanging around our neck, and then get out in the world and act like everybody else out there.
We need to let our lives be a sermon.
Quit waiting for somebody else to come along and make you happy.
Decide you’re gonna be happy. Quit letting some other sour person steal your joy.
Make a decision that you’re gonna have joy no matter what everybody else around you wants to do.
We don’t have to let everybody else determine what kind of a day we’re gonna We cannot control all of our circumstances, but we can control ourselves.
Well, no, Joyce. I can’t help it. I just can’t help it.
I’m gonna quickly tell a story that I’ve told several times, but I can’t pass it by.
Many, many, many years ago, thank god.
He’s changed me, and I don’t do this anymore, but I used to just head temper tantrums.
I’d feel sorry for myself. I mean, I wasn’t abusive.
I didn’t hit my kids or anything like that, but I I yelled a lot.
Heat your toys out and play. Clean those toys up.
Why are you making a mess?
Why don’t you ever how many of you know when you’re unhappy on the inside, you usually take it out on somebody that doesn’t have anything to do with it.
And then I would feel bad because I acted that way. And then, oh, god, I’m so sorry.
I just can’t help it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just lose my temper.
Well, you know, one day I was in the middle of one of those temper tantrums and hollering at my kids for something that really wasn’t their fault.
And the doorbell rang, and I kind of peeked out the window because I really wasn’t wanting to see anybody and lo and behold.
It was my pastor. You never saw anybody get control over themselves as quick as I got control over myself that day.
I mean, I went from screaming at the top of my lungs to opening the door faster.
Praise the lord. It is so nice of you to stop by. Oh, yeah.
The kids are playing in their room. Well, that was probably an outright lie. They were probably in their crying.
But you know what the lesson was for me?
Stop making excuses, Joyce, and saying you can’t control yourself because you can if there’s somebody around that you want to impress.
We got a lot more self control than we think we do.
We just don’t always want to use it. Amen?
We need to get up on the inside.
There’s a man in John chapter 5, which I’m sure most of you’ll be thankful I’m not gonna preach on tonight because I’ve worn this guy out, but he’d lay by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years waiting for a miracle.
38 years. And the Bible says, Jesus Jesus noticed him lying there in that condition, and said to him, how long have you been in this condition?
And in the amplified Bible, it says that that he did it to shock him into realizing how long he’d been there.
And sometimes we need to have a shock.
How many days this year have you wasted feeling sorry for yourself, maybe?
How many days this year have you spent the whole day angry?
How many days this year have you been full of unforgiveness?
About something that you should have just let go of along.
How many days have you spent being offended over something minor that you think somebody did to you, that they don’t even know that they did.
I’m gonna tell you something, and this is the truth.
The older you get, the more you realize that you don’t have as much time to waste as you did when you were twenty.
And if nothing else, I would like to provoke you tonight to say, you know what?
I’m not gonna waste another day of my life being upset over something silly that I can’t do anything about.
Amen? I’m not gonna waste any more of my time being upset because everything didn’t go my way.
I’m not gonna spend my days angry I’m not gonna spend my days mad at somebody who did some little thing to me.
I don’t have any time to waste. I’m a soldier in the army of god.
And I’m gonna get out of my house.
And if I can’t do anything else, I’m at least gonna put a smile on my face and let somebody know that Jesus is alive.
And then he said to him, how long have you been in this condition?
The Bible says he had a a deep seated and a lingering disorder.
So that means that he had been really sick for a really long time.
And I’m sure he was really, really very tired of it. But you know what he was doing?
He was laying there waiting for somebody else to come along and solve his problem.
And Jesus is the epitome of compassion.
Nobody was more compassionate than Jesus is, and he didn’t look at man and say, oh, you poor man.
I feel so bad for you. You’ve laid here 38 years, and nobody has come to help you.
Jesus looked at him and said, and there is an exclamation mark after this in the amplified Bible.
Jesus looked at him and said, get up exclamation mark. Get up. I love that.
And he wasn’t really necessarily talking about getting up physically, although the man do that, did that, but he could not get up physically until he got up spiritually.
He had to get up on the inside And I want you to listen to me tonight no matter what kind of a circumstance you have, no matter what your history’s been, no matter what somebody has done to you, no matter how much the devil picks on you or how many people don’t like you, if you decide tonight, I am not going to live like this anymore lying down on the inside, being miserable, I am gonna get up and make something out of my life nobody can hold you down.
Nobody can hold you down.
And I know that for a fact because you know my background.
And I laid around for a lot of years, not physically.
I was always a hard worker but I was always laying down on the inside, feeling sorry for myself, angry about my past.
And you know what? It’s time for you to walk away from that and realize that the glory of the lord has risen upon you.
Your life has come, and it’s time to do something with your life that’s worth doing.
God’s a fan of light. It’s the first thing you made.
Darkness covered the face of the earth, and god said, let there be light.
Jesus is called the light of the world.
The Bible says that those who sat in darkness when Jesus came saw a great light.
When we’re born again, we’re filled with light.
When the light comes, things that have been hidden in darkness are exposed.
It’s amazing the things that you don’t see before Christ that you do see once you receive Christ.
It’s wonderful to have the light of god on the inside of us.
And then Jesus said, because whatever he gives to us, he expects to go through us. Did you hear me?
God loves us. He wants that love to flow through us to other people. He helps us.
He wants us then to help other people. He fills us full of light.
Now look what he says in Matthew 514. You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a peck measure, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Verse 16, let your lights so shine before men that they may see 2 things.
Don’t wanna miss these 2 things tonight.
Because you say, well, how can I let my light shine?
Well, you know me, I like the practical side of the word.
I’m not just gonna preach I’d like to kinda say to you, let your light shine and have you leave here to not have a clue what you’re supposed to do.
Here’s the way you light your light shine.
Let your life so shine before men that they might see number 1, your moral excellence.
Everybody say excellence. Say it again. Excellent. Say it again.
We do not live in an excellent world today.
It is very difficult to find anybody today that is excellent or does anything with excellence, but we cannot be like everybody else.
I want you to make a decision tonight that because you serve an excellent god, you are going to be excellent in everything that you do.
And an excellent person is not somebody who does everything perfect But whatever they do, they do it the very best that they can do it.
And I want you to listen to what I’m gonna say.
They always do what’s right, especially when nobody’s looking, not just doing what’s right in front of people to get their praise and appreciation.
I believe what we do when nobody’s looking is who we really are.
How many of you agree? I I believe this.
I think if every Christian because there’s a bunch of us. Let me tell you something.
There is more of us than them. I mean, there is.
There is a bunch of us.
We are an army, but it’s it’s about more than just going to church and going home and going to church and going home and going to church and going home.
We talk so much about going to church, going to church, going to church, and I’m all for going to church.
But what we need to do is go to church and then what we learn, take it out with us everywhere that we go.
And I really believe if every believer would get out in the world and just really just shine,
Just shine. Just be excellent. Just get busy, being good to people.
Because it says, let your life shine before men that they might see number 1, your moral excellence, and 2, your praise worthy, noble, and good deeds.
Two things. How can you let your light shine? Find somebody to help.
Be good to somebody. And make a decision tonight that you’re finished with sloppiness, you’re finished with mediocrity, You’re going to be an excellent person, and you’re going to do it for god because he is an excellent god and you are not gonna be anything other than the very best that you can possibly be.
You know, I told you that I was gonna talk about something tonight that I have talked about a lot and you know, for some reason, if I’m not careful, I can always feel like when I get up here, especially in some big thing like this, that I need to bring some brand new revelation thing that nobody’s ever heard and just kind of, you know, blow the roof off the place.
Well, when you’ve been preaching as long as I have, you just kind of eventually run out of that.
Amen? And so sometimes for me, if I’m gonna preach something that I’ve preached a fair amount on before, I can let the enemy kind of play with my mind and think, well, maybe that’s, you know, not gonna be the best thing.
But I’m smart enough by now in the spirit to know that if I don’t preach what god wants me to, I don’t care what I come up with it is not gonna be any good.
So I’m gonna talk to you a fair amount tonight, part of the time, at least, about this thing about excellence, because I’ll tell you the truth.
A lot of people don’t even know what it is anymore.
I mean, I really don’t it’s it’s kinda like and I even kinda feel that just a little bit in here tonight.
It’s like, Do we even know what that means to be excellent?
It’s not perfection, but it does mean that If you have a job, you’re gonna do the best job that you can.
It means little things like you’re not gonna sit at work and do all your personal stuff on the computer when nobody’s looking.
And then when the boss works in, you’re gonna walk in, you’re gonna act like you’re working.
You may not you may not like everything I say tonight, but if you’ll apply it to your life, you’re gonna love it later.
Because see, here’s the thing. Your boss may not be looking, but god is.
God is. Somebody said to me,
what was Christine Caine? We were
lunch the other day, and she came in a day early, spent some time with me.
And because about 25 years ahead of Chris in age and experience.
She likes to pull everything she can out of me every time she gets an opportunity and That’s a wise thing to do, to be honest.
It’s always good to get what you can from somebody who is at least supposed to know more than you do.
And, She said to me, what do you think has kept you on the the straight and narrow kept you in the place that you’re in all these years that you haven’t you know, you you stay the same.
You just keep doing what you’re supposed to do. And it didn’t take me about a minute to answer her.
And I said, because I have the fear of god in my life.
And you know what? That’s something else.
A lot of people don’t even know anything about anymore.
It’s not a very popular message today to get up and preach on the fear of god.
I’m not talking about being afraid of god, but I’m talking about loving him enough and respecting him enough that you will do what’s right even when you think no person is looking because you know that god is everywhere all the time, and he’s always looking, and we live for him, not for people.
I have I have a reverential fear of god I can promise you that I will never get in this pulpit and preach while I’m at the same time mad at somebody.
I won’t do it I have too much respect for god and too much respect for what I believe is a holy call to get up here in that condition and act to you like everything is perfectly alright when I know in my heart that I’ve got something that I need to go straightened out with somebody.
And and I you wouldn’t know it, but god would know it, and I would know it.
And that’s what that’s where we have to get to.
And that’s where I had to get to in my life.
In order for me to see the kinds of things happen that I’m happening today.
That’s why I’m still here after 42 years, still doing what I’m doing because I’m not gonna play games with god, and we have to realize that we cannot care what everybody else is doing we have to go the extra mile and do what god is telling us to do if we are the only person on the planet that does it.
Come on, I’m not gonna be mad at my husband and get up here and preach.
I don’t care how mad he made me, or if I’m 100% for sure he’s wrong.
I would apologize to him and make it right no matter what I had to do before I would get up here and do that.
And I’m not saying that to brag on me.
I’m telling you things that you need to do at home behind closed doors to really have the anointing of god on your life and to have, let the glory of god shine through you, we can’t We can’t play games.
This is serious business. We are soldiers in the army of god, and it is time for us to get up and act like We are sons and daughters of the most hygung.
Amen?
And you have to decide this for you. For you.
You have to decide it for you, and you listen to god for you and you do what you believe god is telling you to do and you don’t go get somebody else’s permission and you don’t let them pull you down and you don’t let them water down your hitman because when it all is over, you are gonna stand before god, and you are gonna answer for you, not somebody else.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate today?
Well, whether you’re having a good day or not, Joyce Meyer wants to teach you 20 ways to make every day better.
Practical advice that you can apply right now to make a big difference no matter how your day is going.
Pick it up for you or to brighten someone else’s day.
Then with god’s health, turn bad days into good, and good days into great.
Today, we’re offering Joyce’s book 20 ways to make every day better.
Plus her 31 day desktop calendar today is a new day for your gift to the ministry of $30 or more.
Go to joycemeyer.org or call us at 1807279673.
Well, every year, comes with its own challenges and 2022 was no different.
This past year, our world was still recovering from the pandemic.
When suddenly a war broke out in Eastern Europe affecting millions of people.
Natural disasters of all kinds impacted millions more including major hurricanes and flooding right here in America.
However, with every new challenge, god gives us new grace passion and strength to face these difficult situations and to help others with their struggles.
Through our mission’s armed hand of hope, Joyce Meyer Ministries was able to help meet the immediate needs of food, water, and supplies for war refugees in Eastern Europe.
And right here at home following natural disasters with debris removal, food, water, and restoration services.
You know, we always want to be prepared for whatever opportunity comes up to help other people.
Whatever the future holds, we wanna be prepared.
So I’m asking you to prayerfully consider wrapping up this year with a financial gift to Joyce Meyer Ministries.
So that when these needs arise, we are ready to help here in the United States and around the world.
With your support we can provide food, water, medical care, education, safe shelter to those who otherwise would go without.
Together, we can reach more people with the truth of god’s word through our daily broadcast of television, a radio program, and online in over 100 languages.
You know, I also wanna say that giving is so good for us as people as we do this.
It’s good for you. Nothing really brings us more joy than to get ourselves off our mind for a little bit and reach out to somebody else that’s hurting.
All over the Bible, it talks about how powerful it is to help the poor and the needy.
So please consider prayerfully making your donation today.
To help people in desperate need and provide the opportunity for lost individuals to receive a new life in Christ.
Go to joycemeyer.org or call us and take this opportunity in this year by reaching out to others and move into the new year knowing you’re making a difference.
I’m encouraging everyone watching to do something.
You know, this is just kind of a side note, but you do get attack break.
And at the end of the year, sometimes that’s a good thing to think about.
But I want you to give because you love people, because god loves you, and because you really appreciate everything he’s done in your life.
You know, some of you can give a larger offering. You’re capable of doing that.
But If you can only give a very small amount, I really just feel strongly that if everybody watching will just do something that we can really together be prepared to meet whatever needs come up in the future.
And I just wanna tell you that we love you I love you. God loves you. And god bless you.
And I pray that you have the greatest new year that you’ve ever had in your life. Thank you.
Watch episodes of enjoying everyday life. Read daily devotionals. Follow a bible study plan. Here. Here.
Here, and here.
The same great teaching from Joyce that you know and love now on the palm of your hand.
With the new Joyce Meyer Ministries app, Think of it as your daily dose of encouragement. Right here? Right now.
Search Joyce Meyer in your app store and download the new Joyce Meyer Ministries app today.
We have 4 boys. So our house is very busy. Never a dull moment.
See, my two older boys, they get along most of the time, but there was a season where they were just getting on each other’s nerves and just there was, like, battles I felt like all the time.
Well, I know in my own life the importance of god’s word and what a difference it makes.
So when we started school this year, I decided that that’s what I want our day to start with is being in the word of god.
And so we’ve tried a bunch of different devotionals.
I feel like a lot of them were either written more for adults or for really little kids until we got the best day ever.
The boys understand what it’s saying, and it’s very, like, easy to apply whatever is happening in our daily life.
I would say probably after a week of doing it, I noticed I’m like, wait.
There’s not is much bickering going on. Like, they’re being kind to each other.
And so just being in the word of god made a huge difference.
We hope you have enjoyed today’s program. For more information, visit joycemeyer.org.
This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries.