Get Serious – Part 1 | Joyce Meyer

Are you in a serious relationship with Christ? Today on Enjoying Everyday Life, Joyce Meyer teaches on how to enjoy greater intimacy with God.
“God doesn’t tell you to do hard things so He can stand back and laugh and watch you struggle. He tells you to do things the things that He knows are gonna work out to your good in the end.”
― Joyce Meyer

Just as a lamp shines to guide our steps.
God’s word illuminates and guides the way for us in the world today to help direct you on this journey.
We’re offering you the everyday life Bible bound in black leather. Lucks with silver edge pages.
This Bible will make it feel as if Joyce is right beside you.
Personal victory over personal problems comes from spending personal time with God with its blend of amplified text and Joyce’s extensive personal notes and commentary.
The everyday life Bible is one of the most comprehensive and easy to understand Bibles ever published.
Get your copy today for a donation of $55 or more.
Go to Joyce Meyer dot org or call us at 1 807 092895.
This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer ministries and we need to get more serious about really turning our lives over to God and saying here I am, Lord do whatever you wanna do with me.

I surrender, I give myself to you completely and I want you involved in everything I do.
We’re gonna get right into the word this morning.
And, um, I just want to say before I start that I never go anywhere and just pull out a message.
I always try to say what I want, what I believe, what God wants you to hear because I do believe that God has a word in due season for each person that he brought here today.
I see. I, I believe our steps are ordered.
I don’t think that we just accidentally show up places.
So if I’m here today and you’re here today, then there’s a purpose in it.
And so I want to talk to you this morning about getting serious.
It’s time to get serious with God.
And of course, I’m not saying you’re not serious with God, but no matter how serious you are with God, I’m sure you could come up just a little bit higher just like I could.
And so I need this message even if you don’t.
And, um, I was in church for a long, long time before I got serious with God.
So you see, just the fact that you go to church doesn’t mean that Christ is the center of your life.
And that, that’s what he wants.
He wants to be the center of everything and he wants to be invited into and involved in everything that you do.
And so many people think, well, I go to church and you know, Jesus didn’t die so we could all have a religion.
He died. So we could have a personal, intimate, powerful relationship with God through him.
It’s about our personal relationship.
If you’re, if you’re looking to find out who’s spiritual, don’t look in the church because we all get spiritual when we get here, you know, that we all bring our church face.
We’ve all got one, I remember years and years ago when Dave and I would have then our three little kids and by then we were baptizing the Holy Spirit and going to a, you know, it was happening.
It was the word and faith movement.
And I mean, an hour of church service that was like it was, you didn’t hear of anything like that.
They were three hours long, at least. And uh we’d fight all the way to church.
Let me tell you something.
If the devil is gonna stir anything up, it’s gonna be before you get to church.
And you know why that is the Bible says in James that the word must be sown.
This is amplified in a heart of peace by those who work for and make peace.
That means I’ve got to get here in peace and you’ve got to get here in peace.
Otherwise we’re wasting our time.
And so Dave and I would, you know, spit and spat and argue and of course the kids would be having fits and he’d be swinging in the back seat trying to get them to shut up and, and uh, but let me tell you what, when we got to that parking lot, we got spiritual just like that.
Praise the Lord. Glory to God.
Well, Dave Joyce, how well we are just wonderful praise God.
And I can remember my seat was right where this lady is at right here.
See, we had our own seat because we were in leadership and that was very important to me back then.
It’s amazing how many things are important to you that you look back and you think, why did I think that was so important?
And uh so we were sitting right where this lady is, that was my seat.
And I would, and they would sit right on the outside like that.
And uh I can remember with my hands lifted up singing eyes to render all and thinking because, you know, you can sing and think at the same time you can sing what’s up there and think something totally different.
It’s amazing. And I would be thinking if he thinks I’m cooking him anything to eat today.
He has got another thing coming. He can starve as far as I’m concerned.
So I was spiritual.
I went to church every week.
We always tired on Dave’s income, believed in that very strongly.
And uh I was on the church board, went out each week with the evangelism team and I, I did love God, but he was not the center of my life.
And I was a Christian but I was not a serious Christian and I wasn’t happy and I just kept crying out to God, you gotta do something, you gotta do something.
And you know, when you get desperate enough, you don’t care what He does.
You don’t care if you get a Baptist miracle or a Pentecostal miracle or a Methodist miracle, you just want God to do something.
And uh so in 1976 God touched my life, there was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit around the earth and I was filled with the Holy Spirit.
And, uh I can honestly say that I have never been the same from that day until this, I didn’t just change overnight, but something changed in my heart.
And I really, really fell in love with Jesus really.
And, uh, that night that was a Friday and I bowled on Fridays on Friday night.
We’re in a bowling league. And, um, I wasn’t doing very good that night.
Nor was I accustomed to hearing from God because the church I went to at the time, they, they never talked about anything like that.
And, uh I heard this whisper in my heart.
Well, why don’t you ask me to help you bowl?
And I thought, well, God don’t care about that. That’s dumb.
And that was my first lesson in learning that God cared about every single thing that I did.
And I want you to remember that God not only loves you.
He is in love with you.
And I’ll, I’ll give you a little analogy that will help you here.
Dave. And I dated not very long, but we dated, um, we actually had five dates and got married, which I don’t recommend very highly.
But, um, I always say that Dave married me before.
He figured out what he was getting because I was really a mess.
I’d been abused by my dad, sexually abused by him for many years.
And, and, uh, I won’t get into that story, but let’s just say that I looked ok on the outside, but I was really messed up inside.
And, um, I thought when I got away from my mom and dad’s house, I got away from the problem and I want you to listen to this because somebody needs to hear this.
Well, I got away from the problem, but I took the problem with me and my soul.
That’s why we have to let God do a work on the inside of us.
And it’s not easy. I’m going to tell you right now that it’s not easy.
Pastor Franklin was talking about all the places he used to stay and people just don’t have any idea When you say you’ve been in ministry 45 years.
What, what you are now is not the way you started out.
I mean, my goodness, we’ve been through all those days too and I feel just like you do if you’re jealous of anything I got then take it up with God because I’m, I had many, many, many, many days that I did without and serve God for nothing and was happy to do it.
And, uh, we got too many people today that want to be paid for every move they make and we need to be willing to serve God and do it out of the goodness of our heart because we really love him, not just to, to get paid.
But, um, so Dave and I actually only had five dates and got married.
And, uh, he pulled up in front of my mom and dad’s house.
I was outside washing my mother’s car and I had on shorts, short shorts.
And, uh, Of course, I was only 23 and had that hair piled on top of my head like we did back then.
And uh, he was a born again spirit filled man ready to get married and he had been praying and asking God to give him a life And he was dating uh, three women at the same time.
And I said, Dave definitely believed that faith without works was dead.
He was going for it.
And, uh, so he’s, he saw me and he said, hey, when you’re finished washing that car, you wanna wash mine.
And I was a smart and I didn’t like men, didn’t trust men.
I mean, you know, I wanted, I wanted a boyfriend.
I like men in my life, but I didn’t trust him.
I had a distrust for men and I just looked at him and I said, buddy, if you want your car washed, wash it yourself.
And he said the thing that went off in him was that’s the girl for me.
And I’ll tell you what really God does make you to go together because Dave liked the fact that I was a challenge.
He likes it now, who would like that? But he liked that.
He loves my kind of sassy personality.
And, uh, so while I was dating Dave, I didn’t get his name.
Now, come on, we’re going somewhere with this and Dave had a car.
I didn’t have a car. Dave had a little money.
I didn’t have much money and, but you know, this wonderful thing happened the minute we got married, I got his name and all of a sudden I had a car and all of a sudden I had money.
And so I just wanna ask you today, are you dating Jesus or are you married?
See, we like to use the name of Jesus, but you better ask yourself first if you have a right to see that he’s been given the name above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow in heaven on earth and under the earth.
And Jesus said, whatever you ask in my name, I’ll do it.
I mean, there are some almost unbelievable promises and such power in that name.
But I don’t believe that people who are just dating Jesus have a right to use that name.
I mean, you can use it, but I don’t think there’s gonna be any real power released in it.
And I believe that it’s time for everybody to make a decision and it is a decision.
So this is the decision Sunday about getting serious in your relationship with God.
And if you’re going to be serious, it’s going to require more than just coming and sitting and listening to somebody else preach who’s done all the work all week.
And then sadly, sometimes leaving and judging everything they didn’t said amen.
We have gotten to the point in the church.
And of course, this is not every person, I’m not throwing stones at anybody.
But when I was not a serious Christian, I asked judge people and I, I didn’t think anything about my thoughts or my words or hurting people’s feelings and, or jealousy or unforgiveness.
But I went to church and somehow or another, we get the idea that going to church makes up for everything else.
That’s why if I was looking for somebody spiritual, I wouldn’t look in the church, I’d look at home behind closed doors because it’s what you do and what I do when nobody is looking, that really makes a difference.
And I remember when God first started training me in ministry, I wasn’t able to go to Bible School.
I already had three kids when God told me that he wanted me to teach his word.
And I was the least qualified, least likely person in the whole world to be doing what I’m doing.
So please believe me, when I tell you, if God can use me, he can use you.
And then, and I, I didn’t, I didn’t think anything about I doing those things and God started, I always say I, I went, I didn’t get to go to bible school, but I went to the school with the Holy Ghost and that’s the best school to go to.
And I’ll gonna share some more of those things in the second service which I know you can’t all state.
But, um, I think that we have gotten to the point where there’s certain sins that are just acceptable sins.
Do you know that there are more people who call themselves Christians that are angry at somebody?
Matter of fact, I just wonder how many people if I asked and said, how many people are in here today that you can honestly say that you are not mad at anybody.
You have no unforgiveness in your heart to anybody.
And we all need to be able to say yes right away and not even have to think about it.
And Satan gains more ground in the lives of believers through unforgiveness than through anything else.
And I believe it is one of the biggest problems that we have today.
People are mad and half of them don’t even know what they’re mad about.
And the Bible tells us in Matthew 24 talking about the end times, There’s a little sign at the end time there that you rarely hear preached on.
We hear about the wars and rumors of wars and the famines and the earthquakes and all those things.
But in Matthew 24, starting in verse 10, it says verse 10, it says that many will be offended and it is people get offended so easy today.
It’s just, it’s ridiculous. The stuff that people get offended over.
And it says, and I want you to listen to this, the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the wickedness and lawlessness in the land.
Well, we’ve got the wickedness and the lawlessness that’s going on.
We all know without even having to think about it that our world today is in worse shape morally than it has ever been in.
And this is our time. This is our time to shine.
Do you hear me?
You didn’t just happen to be born in this time frame?
You were picked and chosen by God to be alive at this time in the earth.
And what an honor that is what a privilege that is.
And see, I, I have this belief that if we would just get out in the world and behave like Christians and really walk in love.
I mean, real love that it wouldn’t take long and we’d be setting little fires everywhere and, you know, every person that accepts Christ, they affect numerous other people.
I mean, I have people tell me all the time.
I started watching your program got saved and now my mom’s saved, my dad’s saved, my uncle’s saved.
My cousins are saved and you are gonna win more people.
One on one than we ever will from these pulpits because most people who need Jesus aren’t gonna come here to find him.
Now, there’s some here today that need to surrender your life to Christ, but most lost people aren’t watching Christian TV.
Now I’m on so many stations, it’s hard to get away from me in the morning.
You switch the channels, all you want to and you’re gonna keep running into me.
And, uh, yeah, I’ve had some funny stories about that.
1. 1 man told me that he was high on drugs one night and he said he flipped his button and my program came on and he thought I don’t wanna watch this stupid junk.
So he flipped it again and nothing would happen. He couldn’t get it to go anywhere.
He said the only button on my remote that worked was the one that turned the sound up is that I couldn’t turn it down.
I couldn’t turn it off. So he said I went and got batteries, changed the batteries in the remote still didn’t work.
And he said the minute your program was over, my remote started working. Perfect.
But most of the people that need Christ are working next to you, they’re in the grocery store with you.
They drive in traffic next to you and they see your bumper sticker and they see that Bible you carry to work and they see your Christian jewelry and all of our paraphernalia says, look at me, I’m a Christian.
But then if we don’t behave like Christians, then that’s why they say you’re all a bunch of hypocrites and Jesus didn’t have some very nice things to say about hypocrites.
And, you know, I write books all the time. I write, write, write, write, write.
And I guess I’ve written now, I don’t know, 160 books, something like that.
And um my worst selling books have been the three that I’ve written on love.
Now that makes me mad because you know why people won’t buy what they need, they buy what they think is going to get them something and we need to get more serious about really turning our lives over to God and saying here I am, Lord do whatever you wanna do with me.
I surrender, I give myself to you completely.
And I want you involved in everything I do from how I dress the hot bowl to who I choose for friends.
You know, there’s people sitting in here today.
If you would just get a new batch of friends, your life would change.
So you just, you’re hanging out with people that are sucking the life out of you instead of adding life to you.
So I was a Christian a long, long time before I became a serious Christian.
And I want all of us to look at our lives today and just to ask ourselves, am I really serious about?
This is Jesus a part of my life all day long or do I just go to him when I have a problem?
Just as a lamp shines to guide our steps.
God’s word illuminates and guides the way for us in the world today to help direct you on this journey.
We’re offering you the everyday life Bible bound in black leather, lucks with silver edge pages.
This Bible will make it feel as if Joyce is right beside you.
Personal victory over personal problems comes from spending personal time with God with its blend of amplified text and Joyce’s extensive personal notes and commentary.
The everyday life Bible is one of the most comprehensive and easy to understand Bibles ever published.
Get your copy today for a donation of $55 or more.
Go to Joyce Meyer dot org or call us at 1 807 092895.
How many trips have you been on now?
This is my trip with and, and what, what was the main reason that you did want to do this.
You said you wanted to travel to help people?
Yes, it’s, it’s a total different work as a doctor here than back in my home country.
But it’s really, I feel like I really wanted to do that to just help people in poor countries who cannot have access to medical care.
I do that because I love Jesus and I hope that the patients feel that sometimes we just pray right at the investigation table with them.
So just to make them know that Jesus is the doctor all above us.
At the 2023 love life women’s conference.
I’ll teach you how to trust God and find calm in the chaos featuring Joyce and her guests, Bishop T D Jenks, Lisa, Bere Natalie Grant and Danny go October 19th through the 21st in San Antonio, Texas register today at Joyce Meyer dot org.
Watch episodes of enjoying everyday life, read daily devotionals, follow a Bible study plan with the new Joyce Meyer Ministries app.
Search Joyce Meyer in your app store and download the new Joyce Meyer Ministries app.
Today it is such a blessing whenever someone writes and shares what God has done in their life and encourages us.
And it reminds us all that God is working and that we can trust him.
We recently received a wonderful note from Sandy and I want to read it to you.
She says I watch the show every day and it has led me back to God after the unexpected death of my sister, who was my best friend and mother figure.
I was very angry with God.
A friend of mine who listens to Joyce would share some of her videos on Facebook.
I started listening just to regain emotional control and found the episodes on the mind and emotions. Very interesting.
I began to listen more often. And now 10 years after the loss of my sister, I love God.
I know that he loves me and loved me.
Even when I was very far from him, I watch every day.
And I am so grateful for the prayers of Joyce Meyer ministries and them for being the good Samaritan when I was the one in the ditch.
That’s really a beautiful example of how even at her most angry, even at her darkest hour, God still loved her.
It’s so encouraging and he will do the same thing for you. God still loves you as well.
And it’s because of people like you are partners that amazing things like this can happen.
If you want to join us in sharing God’s word around the world, would you please consider becoming a partner with us?
It’s so easy to do. Being a partner means that you are in agreement that you’re working together.
So when you partner with Joyce Meyer ministries, you’re praying for us and you’re giving ongoing gifts to help with the ministry to help share the gospel and to help people with their practical needs all over the world, you can make a huge difference as you join this big family of people who are just doing what they can.
All you need to do is go online. You can find out more about it there.
You can give us a call.
It’s an easy step to take and I think it’s one that will bless you for a long, long time.
We hope you have 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.