What is Love? Part 2 | Joyce Meyer | Radio Podcast

What is Love? Part 2-1

A 15-minute teaching applying practical principles from God’s Word to everyday life.

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.

Welcome to enjoying everyday life with New York Times best selling author Joyce Meyer.
On today’s program, Joyce will be teaching from her series 1 is love.
Anytime we are loving someone, god is there because love is not something god does.
It’s who he is is. God is love. Wherever love is? God is. Now here’s Joyce with today’s
teaching. 546 is if you only love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Even tax collectors can do that, and he picked on tax collectors because they were among some of the most hated people.
Back then. So Jesus is saying, I don’t want you just to love the people that love you back.
I want you to love the people that are hard to love. Yeah.
You don’t sound too interested in that. So, um, what is love?
Well, god is love, and many times when I have my thank you session in the morning, which I’ve made a habit out of doing it every morning now, first thing when I get up And, uh, I don’t even start trying to pray or asking god for anything till I first tell him everything I’m thankful for.
And So I’m I’m thankful for him. Really thankful for Jesus.
Why am I thankful for the Holy Spirit that he lives in us I’m thankful for conviction.
I’m thankful when I sin that god convicts me of sin, that he loves me too much to just leave me alone and let me be in a mess, but he’ll correct me, those whom god loves, He chastises.
But we talk about love a lot.
We love everything from ice cream to god, and I think we have to really know what the god kind of love is.
I said last night, there are 4 Greek words that are translated love in the Bible.
So They don’t all mean the same thing.
But agape, which is the god kind of love, divine love, the love that can love people that are hard to love, the love that can love enemies and people who have treated you unjustly.
That’s from the Greek word agape.
Valleo is a friendly kind of love Eros is a romantic kind of love and storage, I guess, is how you say it, is love for your family.
But we specifically want to talk about this god kind of love and I read a definition last night that I want to start with again today what agape is.
It could be defined as charity.
However, we often think of charity nowadays as giving away money or things which doesn’t even begin to encompass all that agape is about.
Agape love, please Listen, these words, is unconcerned with self and concerned with the greatest good of another person.
Wow. Agape is not born out of emotion.
Loving somebody has nothing to do with how you feel.
You cannot like somebody and still love them.
Because love is really how you treat a person.
It’s not how you feel about them or what you think about them.
Has nothing to do with what they’ve done to you. It’s how are you gonna treat them?
If they’ve been mean to you or you’re gonna be mean back, no, that’s the world’s way.
But we’re called to a higher life.
You gotta let go of the lower life, and then you can have the higher life.
And god tells us gives us the formula for loving our enemies. Pray for them.
How many people really pray?
Last night, I asked how many people were mad at somebody and at least 65% of the people raised their hand.
Now, you know, that sounds funny, but it’s really very sad.
And it it it has me very concerned because as long as I’ve been preaching, I can go anywhere at any time and I can ask that same question.
And anywhere from 65 to 90% of the people in the room will raise their hand that they have unforgiveness in their heart.
This is a huge big, big problem.
And it is shutting down the power of Christianity It’s keeping us from changing the world, and the devil has us holding on to something that does not bother our enemy.
They don’t care if you’re mad at them.
They are out having a good time and could not care less if you’re mad at them.
So you’re only hurting yourself. You’re playing right into the devil’s hands. And why don’t you forgive because you feel?
We have to learn to live beyond our feelings, and you can.
You can separate how you feel from what you’re supposed to do.
So if you start praying for your enemies, it is very difficult to keep hating somebody that you pray for all the time.
And so You know, it says bless your enemies.
You think, well, I don’t want them to be blessed.
If you pray god to bless your enemies.
That doesn’t mean he’s gonna get him a new car.
The first thing he may bless him with is some truth and reality about their behavior.
You know how to pray.
They don’t. As believers in Christ, we not only have a privilege of knowing him.
We have a responsibility to show the world who Jesus is. Come on.
If you are gonna be a Christian, be a real one.
Don’t be somebody.
It just has a bumper sticker on your car and a cross around your neck and a big Bible and go to church once a week and live like the devil the rest of the week.
An unbeliever maybe can’t forgive, but you can because you’re full of god.
And he’s put his forgiveness in you.
That means whatever you have in you, you can give away to somebody else. Amen?
And I’m gonna have to talk about this some today because some way, somehow, I I feel I have to try to get it across to people how so desperately important all this unforgiveness is.
It it has to be dealt with because we are just Christianity is not impressing the world.
They think we’re half goofy and phony hypocritical, and but if we’ll just really walk in love, I mean, real love, the kind of love I’m going to talk to you about today, not just a word, not just something we say, but really get down to what it really is and start applying it, especially to people that are hard to love, Wow.
You know, there’s a whole bunch of us.
I mean, there are people like us all over the world, and it will all get ourselves off of our mind long enough to start really letting god use us.
I do believe that Jesus can change the world through us.
I mean, I like I really believe that. I’m not just saying it. I really believe it.
You heard just a couple of these testimonies this morning.
AJ in prison for murder. Hating god.
Now he works for the ministry. I mean, God is so amazing.
So agave isn’t born out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attractions, but from the will and is a choice.
So anyone of you can decide to forgive somebody And just because you still feel like your skin crawls every time you see them, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t love them, because love is not how you feel.
It’s how you decide to treat them. I’m gonna pray for them. I’m gonna bless them.
If they need help and god prompts me to help them, I’m gonna help them and I don’t care if I ever get anything back I’m gonna do this because I love god and because of what he’s done for me.
And this is not something that you just do one time 1 and done.
I mean, we better get really, really good at forgiveness because it’s only gonna get worse the closer we get to Jesus returning.
I mean, get good at it.
Like the minute somebody is even in the middle of offending you, just say, uh-uh, no, I’m forgiven them.
Been there, done that, not gonna live.
You know, e like I said last night, they may not deserve your forgiveness but you deserve peace.
So do yourself a favor and forgive you’re not doing your enemies a favor.
When you forgive them, you’re doing yourself a favor. So love God is love.
Jesus said in Matthew 25, I was hungry and you fed me.
I was naked and you closed me. I was sick and you visit me.
I was in prison and you came to see me.
And they said, well, Lord, when when he said, if you’ve done it to the least of these, my brother, and you’ve done it under me, Now if we really read those scriptures and take that in, what he’s saying is however you treat people is how you’re treating me.
Now I I maybe need to say that ten times, but I won’t.
Jesus is a people person.
And if I mistreat somebody, he takes it personally, and he doesn’t like it.
And then I got a little bit cranky yesterday morning with our pilot when he called me and told me they couldn’t get the plane out of the the hanger.
Yeah. The thing where they keep it because the the hanger door came off the track and So I got a little frustrated.
Wasn’t being patient like love is. And, I called him back and apologized.
You know, we’re not going to all be perfect at all this stuff.
We’re gonna make mistakes but the minute that you know that you have misbehaved and been rude to somebody or treated them wrong Be man or woman enough to humble yourself and call them and say, I was wrong, and I’m sorry.
It will not kill you. And I’ll tell you something.
People respect you when you admit that you were wrong rather than making excuses for it.
Amen? I told you last night that we had quite a day yesterday and it those days just they bring that impatience out of me that’s still there.
But the good news that I didn’t tell you And I thought about this last night was the impatience and the frustration that I felt lasted no more than 5 minutes.
And I was able to work it out with god and get over it.
You know, 40 years ago, that would have been like a never going away thing.
I would have ruined my day and my week. I would have been mean to people.
I would have been rude to people. I would have felt sorry for myself.
I would have complained and moaned and groaned. And so we are growing church. You’re growing I’m growing.
And as long as we’re growing, god’s happy about that. Paul said I’ve not arrived.
And I can tell you I’ve not arrived, but I have decided that I am going to keep pressing on.
Amen? Amen? God is love. And where love is.
God is. I love it. You gotta think about that for a while.
It takes practice loving people on purpose. But if we keep trying, we’ll develop a habit.
Today’s resource offering will help us learn how to walk in love at all times.
The loving people who are hard to love book and study guide are available now for a gift of $30 or more.
Order@joycemeyer.org. Or call toll free at 180789 0089.
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We have feelings, but we cannot let them have us.
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