Bearing Fruit During Hard Times – Part 1

Do you want to be able to thrive even in hard times? On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer, spend time getting rooted in God’s Word for greater peace, joy and purpose!

God’s Messages 💌

Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

Several of the most important keys to simplifying your life are not what you might think.
In today’s offer, 100 ways to simplify your life. Joyce shares effective principles to make the most of each day.
Not adding more activities to your overloaded to do list, but giving you doable tips that are clear cut and, well, simple, bringing balance to your busy schedule.
Along with today’s offer, you’ll receive this adorable tote bag that says Smiles for days because you can never underestimate the power of a simple smile.
Both the book and the tote bag are available for your gift of $25 or more.
Use the Joyce Meyer Ministries app or go to joycemeyer.org or call us at 1800 709-2895.
This program has been made possible by the
friends and partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries.
You’re not gonna hold unforgiveness in your heart and see the things that you wanna see happen in your life.
If we want and have what god says we can have, we have to do what god tells us to do.
I do what I do I’ve seen god’s power transform my own life, and he will do it for you.
The key to everything is in god’s word.
I’m Joyce Meyer, and I believe that god can heal you everywhere you hurt.
This morning, I wanna talk to you about bearing fruit in hard times.
You know, it’s not hard to be nice. when everything’s going pretty good for you.
When you’re feeling good, you don’t have any big problems. You just got a nice raise at work.
You get to go shopping tomorrow or to go on a vacation next week.
It’s it’s not hard to be nice to people during those times, but it gets a lot more direction for quite a while.
Yep. Amen.

And I firmly believe that one of the things that the Holy Spirit wants to work with us on, and it takes time I doubt that there’s anybody in the room, including myself, that’s perfected this.
If my husband was here, he probably has.
I have never seen a human being as steady and stable as that man is.
He does not care what people think of him. He’s not gonna worry about what they think of him.
He’s He’s just stable. I don’t care what’s going on.
He’s just the same where I was always like, You know, I mean, if things were good, I was, hey, praise the lord.
yoyo Christianity up when our circumstances are up and down when they’re down.
And I’m telling you what it is exhausting Is it not?
It just is absolutely exhausting because then we’re almost like a puppet, and Satan’s got the strings.
And so all he has to do to throw us in the toilet that day is to just come up with some something we don’t like.
And, boy, we’re just nope. Right down there with it.
And I you you have to get to the point where you don’t wanna live like that anymore, and you’re not gonna live like that anymore.
And you and you have to get to the point and you have to get to the point where you you stop waiting for your circumstances to change and you decide, god, you change me.
That’s what has to change. Not your circumstances.
Jesus said, in the world, you will have tribulation. cure up.
I have overcome the world. Amen?
John 16 27, he said, my peace I leave with you.
Stop allowing yourselves to be upset and disturbed.
John 16 33, he said, in the world, you will have tribulation, cheer up. I’ve overcome the world.
So I say the way that you went against the devil is the 12 knockout punch, stay calm, and be happy.
Now, but we don’t feel like it.
I have a book for that.
It’s called living beyond your feelings.
In other words, you can have feelings, but you can’t let them have you.
if we keep letting our feelings rule our behavior, then the devil has just got us on the run all the time.
Jeremiah
17,
beginning in verse
5.
thus says the lord, cursed is the man who trusts in and relies on mankind, making weak faulty human flesh, his strength, and his mind and heart turn away from the lord.
for he will be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see prosperity when it comes, but he will live in the rocky places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land.
So looks to me like those who put the trust in people, the world.
Even today, you know, it’s like, Well, they need to do something about that.
Who is they? They need to fix everything, and we don’t even know who they are.
We are they. Amen? Where do they? that needs to fix things.
We look too much to the government, depend too much on them, to provide for us, and you know, we we we need to get our eyes.
People are gonna disappoint you. Can anybody say amen to that? people will disappoint you.
You’re gonna disappoint yourself if you rely on yourself.
But god said, if you follow me, you will never be disappointed.
That doesn’t mean that that doesn’t mean that you’ll get everything you want all the time, but you will get what’s best and what’s right.
So that’s the future of the man who puts all of his trust in the world system and people.
Blessed with spiritual security as the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the lord.
and whose hope and confident expectation is the lord.
For he will be nourished like a tree planted by the water.
that spreads out its roots by the river, and it will not fear when heat comes, but its leaves will be green and moist and it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought nor will it stop bearing fruit?
Now I love that scripture.
I I learned that scripture started a pastor that I had way back in the beginning of my walk with god.
Use that scripture a lot. And we have to understand that a tree, its branches can only be as wide as its roots are deep So we have to be deeply planted in the things we believe about god.
We have to the Bible says be rooted in Christ Jesus.
Be rooted deep in his love for you.
When you have deep roots, the storms of life don’t blow you over.
A little twig of a tree out in the yard may get destroyed in a storm but we’ve got some giant trees in our backyard that have been there for probably 100 years.
And they don’t move. No matter what kind of storm comes, they don’t move because they have deep, deep, deep roots.
But what a lot of people want is they want a lot of fruit in their life They want a lot of stuff.
They want a lot of opportunity. They want a a, uh, to be well known.
They wanna make a lot of money. They wanna have a bunch of stuff.
they want that kind of fruit, but they’re not actually bearing the right kind of fruit.
They’re going after things that really have no ability to ever keep them permanently happy.
And so I love this scripture that a tree that is planted in god, deeply planted in god.
And let me just say that I think we need to go deeper deeper.
I’ve started doing a series of books and their bible commentaries on we’re starting with the epistles and I’ll see then where I go from there.
Because I don’t think I don’t wanna tell people anymore, read your Bible. I’m saying study your Bible.
We need to more be more deeply rooted in the word of god.
We need to know it to the point where no storm in our life can take it away from us.
Amen? Don’t ever when things are going bad for you, say, god, don’t you love me?
You open your mouth and you you you tell the devil, god loves me.
And I will come out of this.
I’ll come out of this on the other end, and this is going to end well.
We all have storms in life.
You’re not gonna live and have a perfect life and never have problems.
but we wanna grow to the point where even during the worst times in our life, we are so deeply planted in god that we can still bear good fruit.
Amen? Does anybody need to hear this today? Saum
113.
blessed, fortunate, prosperous, and favored by god is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked.
following their advice, an example, Nars stands in the path of sinners, Nars sits down to rest in the seat of scoffers.
I’m just gonna make this quick. It is important who you spend your time with.
That’s exactly what they’re saying.
The man who sits down in the midst of sinners and takes their advice is gonna end up in trouble because you do become what like, what you’re around if you’re around it long enough.
Amen? You listened to my teachings day after day after day, and you’ll start to sound like me.
You’ll start to say things like I say.
But if you spend all your time with a a complainer and a gossiper, then it’s not gonna be very long, and you’re gonna be doing the same thing that they do.
Some of you could immediately fix some of your problems if you would just get a new batch of friends.
Hey, man.
Get around some godly people.
His delight should be in the law of the lord.
And on his law, his precepts and teachings, he habitually meditates day and night.
And this man will be like a tree, firmly planted and fed by streams of water, which yields its fruit This fruit thing is everywhere in its season.
Its leaf does not wither. And whatever he does, He shall prosper, and it shall come to maturity.
So if I’m seeing this properly, When you bear good fruit, the result is, god prospers everything you lay your hand to.
But we want to avoid the fruit and just get the prosperity.
You’re not gonna go you’re not gonna hold unforgiveness in your heart.
and see the things that you wanna see happen in your life.
If we wanna have what god says we can have, we have to do what god tells us to do, the very simple formula.
I will repeat it again.
If we wanna have what god says we can have, we must be willing to do One time I was murmuring because I felt like there were things that god had told me that I couldn’t do that I saw other people doing.
One of them, for example, was like the kinds of movies that I feel like I can go to.
And there’s a lot of things I’d like to see that I just don’t feel like I can go see because of some of the stuff that’s in them.
And yet, I know many people, even people in ministry who have no problem at all, seeing those kinds of movies, but you’re not responsible for what everybody else does.
You’re only responsible for what you do.
And so I was complaining one day to God, well, I don’t know why you’re so strict with me, you know, they, you know, they can do it.
And, you know, why can’t I do it? And you know what? He’s you know what?
God said to me, look, you’ve asked for a lot. Do you want it or not?
I’m the one praying that god will let me reach the whole world with the gospel And so the more you wanna do for god, the narrower your path is going to be.
Is anybody hearing me? You gotta you gotta get off the broad path.
It’s easy to walk on the broad path. You’ll have lots of company on that path.
But Jesus walked a narrow path, and anybody who wants to end up with the kind of life that god says that you can have I mean, life beyond anything that we can imagine.
And to me, part of that life is to have every kind of problem imaginable and it not bother you at all.
How many of you think that’s a good life to have?
How many of you would love to just not care what people think about you?
You know, it just doesn’t bother you at all because you know your heart and you know what god thinks of you, so you’re not gonna ruin one more day of your life by being said about what somebody else thinks of you that doesn’t even know you at all.
These are the real things that god wants to give us.
It’s not just more money or a bigger career or, you know, more fame or to be more well known.
those things come and go. And let me tell you something.
No matter how popular you are, the day will come when somebody will come along that will be more popular than you, And so you you gotta you gotta have yourself to live with.
And you need to know who you are and know who you are in Christ. Amen.
The devil’s got me mad this morning.
He shall be like a tree planted by the water.
Then in a whole year of drought, will continue to bear fruit.
It’s not enough just to bear a little fruit when things are going good.
Maybe we could be honest and ask ourselves a few questions this morning.
How difficult is it for you to keep an even temper when you’re under personal pressure?
Just just drawing some stuff out.
Just whatever.
How hard is it for you to keep being good to other people when it doesn’t seem like anything good is happening for you?
What level of peace do you maintain during personal trials?
Are you able to remain joyful when you’re going through something really difficult?
You know, something somebody told me one time Joyce, you never really know anybody until you see them in all kinds of situations.
And you know what? That is so true.
You never really know very much about a person until you see how they react.
when things are not good for them.
I’m so grateful that god put me with my husband because I grew up in such a pathetic situation.
And to me, turmoil was normal. I lived in the middle of turmoil.
I didn’t know that anything else even existed.
And nobody could have told me about peace and me gotten it.
I had to have somebody show it to me.
and I had to see just continued to love me no matter how I I acted.
And and that didn’t mean he didn’t confront me, but he would love me.
He he stayed calm no matter what was going on in our life. And I finally thought, I want that.
And see, that’s what god wants us to do out in the world.
He wants us to be like that so other people can act actually see that you have something worth having, and they’re gonna say, I want that.
Then you’re not gonna be trying to cram something down their throat all the time.
they’re gonna be wanting to know from you. How can you be that way? What is different about you?
Let me tell you something. The world is hungry. They don’t know what they’re hungry for.
They keep trying to fill up that hunger with things, but they are hungry because when you don’t have god in your life, you’re never gonna be satisfied because you’re created for him.
You aren’t created for anything else, and without him, it’s impossible to be permanently happy.
You never see the real person until you see them under pressure.
Then pressure That shows what’s on the inside, doesn’t it?
Now in colossians 3, 12 through
15,
The apostle gives a very detailed list of acceptable Christian behavior.
Everybody say behavior. See, of course, the first thing that’s important is what we believe.
But faith without works is dead, James said.
Faith always comes first, but good work should follow.
Now if you just have good works and no faith in god, then that’s useless because we’re not saved by our works.
But if we’re saved by faith and you become a new person in Christ and he’s living in you, It should be a very natural desire then to want to do good things, but we have to grow in that.
We have to learn new habits. We have to learn new ways to respond.
Literally, the moment that you are born again, you enter the school of god.
And you will be going to school until the day he comes back to get you.
ever learning and relearning and going over and over some of the same things so we don’t let them slip away.
That’s why I’m proud of you for taking the time to come out and fit in something like this today instead of just being out doing some of the other things that you could be doing.
Now I’m gonna make it very clear that we cannot behave the way we should without God.
This is not just something that you can jump up and decide to do.
I’m gonna leave here, and I’m gonna be nice. Well, probably not. You know?
I u I could be nice all day when nobody was home, was when the people came home that I got in trouble.
I mean, if there were just no people, I could be so godly.
But they are everywhere. Everywhere.
We’re gonna talk more about that this afternoon. So here’s this list.
Colashians 3 12.
So as god’s own chosen people who are holy, set apart sanctified for uh-oh, his purpose.
Oh, and who are well beloved by god himself, let them put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, which has the power to endure whatever comes are whatever unpleasantness comes with good temper.
Don’t you wish that wasn’t there?
God, I don’t wanna have to endure it and have a good attitude.
I want you to get rid of it.
Now I don’t know if he noticed or not the words put on.
Let him put on a heart of compassion kindness, humility, that word put on has found several places in the Bible.
And for me, it became a very, very, important phrase for me because I learned by that that that means that I have to do these things on purpose.
Not one of you went and stood in your closet this morning and had your clothes just jump off the rack and look at your body.
you had to choose them and put them on.
And some of you put on one thing It didn’t look right. You took it off.
You put on something else. I did that this morning. My goodness.
I had silver on the back of my pants, and I had gold on the front of my shirt.
Well, because every woman knows that won’t work, I had to match.
So then I had all my suitcases locked up and closed up, well, then, because I had on gold earrings, and now I’m then I had to open up the suitcase and I had to get the stuff back.
I it’s amazing what we do to go out in front of people and say, look how put together I am.
Well, if we would spend the same amount of time getting ready spiritually, How about if you get up in the morning and you put on an attitude that doesn’t look good on you?
What if god says that, nah, they don’t look good on you.
that’s not for you, then you change it just like you would change your clothes.
Is everybody with me today? You put on Christ. You put on love. You put on peace.
You put on righteousness. These are things that you do on purpose with god’s health.
Verse 13, bearing graciously with one another, and willingly forgiving each other.
If one has a cause for complaint against another, just as the largest forgiven you, so should you forgive.
Aren’t these fun to read?
I put up brackets around this, and I wrote out there, Wow.
I better read that one again, Lord.
Beyond all these things put on, and wrap yourselves in unselfish love, which is a perfect bond of unity for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others.
Let the peace of Christ, the intercom, the one who walks daily with god, be the controlling factor in your heart deciding and settling questions that arise.
To this piece, indeed, you were called as members of one body Oh, and by the way, be thankful to god always.
Now these are not just given to us for good times, This is the way the this is should be our goal.
I’ve not arrived. I don’t imagine you have either. But it’s my goal.
What I want is not more money my name to be more well known.
What I want is to be able to get out in the world and act like Jesus.
Amen?
Several of the most important keys to simplifying your life are not what you might think.
In today’s offer, 100 ways to simplify your life. Joyce shares effective principles to make the most of each day.
Not adding more activities to your overloaded to do list, but giving you doable tips that are clear cut and, well, simple.
bringing balance to your busy schedule.
Along with today’s offer, you’ll receive this adorable tote bag that says smile for days because you can for your gift of $25 or more.
Use the Joyce Meyer Ministries app or go to joycemeyer.org or call us at 1800 709-2895.
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