God, What Should I Do?

Joyce emphasizes the importance of seeking God’s guidance and trusting in His plan rather than attempting to control everything ourselves. Through lessons from John chapter 21, where Jesus instructs his disciples to cast their nets on the right side of the boat, she demonstrates the value of following God’s guidance for an abundant catch. Joyce encourages her audience to be open to God’s presence in their lives, asking for His direction in their decisions and actions. By maintaining faith in Jesus during both good and challenging times, believers can experience the blessings that come from aligning themselves with God’s plan. Additionally, she stresses the need for compassion towards those still facing challenges and self-reflection to assess whether one’s approach to life is effective. Through these teachings, Joyce aims to help believers develop a stronger connection with God, trust in His presence, and benefit from His wisdom and guidance.

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Can I tell you there is nothing, nothing that you do that God is not interested in and there is no place that you go, that God is not there.
You’re never alone.
It amazes me.
I continue to be amazed at how much is in just one chapter of the Bible.
But if we just read through it many times, we miss a lot of what’s there.
And so today I wanna share with you this morning out of John chapter 21 in John chapter 21.
There are nine different lessons just in that one chapter of the Bible.
I won’t stand here and promise we’ll get through all nine because I know how I am, but we’ll do the best that we can.
Right? John chapter 21 verse one after this, Jesus let himself be seen and revealed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberius and he did it in this way.
I just try to kind of get a picture of this.
There were together Simon Peter and Thomas called the twin and Nathaniel from Can of Galilee and the sons of Ze and two others of his disciples.
So they’re all sitting around in a group, I guess, kind of thinking about what they want to do like we do some days and Simon Peter said to them, I’m going fishing exclamation mark.
Now that always caught my attention because, because of the exclamation mark that’s there.
So he must have said it with some emphasis or maybe, and I don’t know this for sure, but maybe Peter and some of the disciples were just a little bit, I don’t know, frustrated, you know, they, they had these thoughts about Jesus and what was gonna happen and, and here he died and he’s gone now and I, I don’t know, maybe they thought he was gonna come back and do something and they haven’t seen him in a while and nothing’s happening.
And so Peter was a fisherman before Jesus called him.
And so now it kind of seems like he’s just decided he’s gonna go back and do what he used to do.
You know, you gotta be careful if you feel like Jesus hasn’t shown up in your life for a while that you don’t decide to just go back and do what you used to do.
Amen.
Now, see the lesson there that we wouldn’t have got if we wouldn’t have slowed down and really looked at that second thing here is, and they said to him and we’re coming with you exclamation mark.
Well, I like that too.
Do you know that a leader or the head of a family they have, uh, there’s a certain gift on them for persuasion and, you know, it’s bad enough to send yourself, but it’s doubly bad when you drag other people into it.
And so it, it’s, it’s just interesting, whatever a leader does without even really telling other people to do it, people will follow them years ago.
When I first started, what was a women’s ministry? At that time?
I had, my hair was a little bit longer and I wore it pulled back on the side with combs.
I pulled it back with combs and they had a little decoration on them and I never told anybody to do it, but it wasn’t long.
And almost all the women in the church were wearing combs in their hair with their hair pulled back.
So you need to realize if you want to lead something that you better be leading people in the right direction because now you’re not only responsible for yourself, but you’re going to be responsible for some of the things that you lead and guide them to do.
Same way with parenting. Your kids are gonna do a lot more of what they see you do than what you tell them to do.
Amen. See what we’re learning already. No.
So they went out and they got into the boat and here comes the next message and throughout the night they caught nothing.
See what happens when you just jump up and make your own decision and do your own thing.
Oh, nothing else has happened. I’m going fishing. Yeah, we’re gonna come with you and guess what?
They caught nothing. Some of you haven’t caught anything in a long time and you don’t understand why God’s not blessed in your plan.
Come on now, God doesn’t have to bless our plan.
His plan is already blessed. Come on.
Maybe somebody this morning could just make a slight turn and things will get so much better for you.
Now, you know, I’m not suggesting that you have to have a three day prayer meeting to decide if you can go fishing or not.
I mean, we all do a lot of things that, that we’d like to do, but there is a principle here that we don’t want to miss and that is that the Bible says in Proverbs and I love this in all your ways, acknowledge Him.
So I just think it’s good to start your day.
And Lord, this is what I have planned today.
But if what I have planned is not what you want, then you’re welcome to interrupt me and give me the grace to go in whatever direction you want me to go in.
Amen. James 4 13 says, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and we’ll make money yet.
You do not know the least thing about what might happen tomorrow.
What is the nature of your life? You are? Really?
But a whisp of vapor doesn’t make you feel too important, doesn’t it?
A puff of smoke? A mist?
Sometimes when I share this scripture, I will bring a can of hair spray up into the pulpit with me and just spray it once and just kind of watch it float off and just say, there we go.
I mean, in light of eternity, our years that we have here and our importance compared to who God is.
So it’s not that we’re not important to God.
He assigns great importance to us, but he’s just making a point here.
You know, you’re not in charge, you’re not as important as you think you are.
You’re not as smart as you think you are.
So instead of just making all your plans for the future and expecting me to bless them.
How about just slowing down here and saying this, you ought instead to say verse 15, if the Lord is willing, we shall do this thing or that thing.
But as it is, you boast false in your presumption and your self conceit and all such boasting is wrong.
So they had their own plan, their plan didn’t work. And throughout the night, they caught nothing.
Verse four morning was already breaking when Jesus came to the beach and stood there.
However, the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Wow.
How could Jesus be in our midst and us not know that it’s Jesus, but it happens all the time.
You know what we need to.
And I’m not trying to be overly religious here, but I don’t think believers need to use the word luck.
But, well, I was just lucky.
No, God gave you favor. Are you a blessed?
But luck is for the world. We’re not just lucky.
Well, wasn’t that a nice coincidence?
No, I don’t think so because God busies himself with our every step.
And you know, this wasn’t the only time that the disciples were standing right with Jesus and didn’t know that it was Him.
You’d think that those men who were literally with his physical presence day in and day out would have recognized Him.
So, one of the things that I like to pray is God, any time that you’re doing something in my life, please don’t let me miss it.
I don’t want to miss the things that God does in my life because I think that’s part of what makes every day of our life special is to know that God is concerned with every little teeny tiny detail of our life.
Can I tell you there is nothing, nothing that you do that God is not interested in and there is no place that you go, that God is not there you’re never alone.
I’m actually preparing a message right now that I’ve just gotten into. You’re never alone.
I read something last week that impressed me.
A certain preacher had accomplished a great deal in his life.
Just a phenomenal amount of work.
And somebody said to him toward the end of his life, how in the world have you accomplished all that you have accomplished?
He said, well, you have to remember. There’s two of us. Isn’t that good?
There’s two of us. We’re not alone.
We have a constant companion. Now, verse five is just actually really cute.
So Jesus said to them boys, Children. Do you have any meat? Any fish?
Have you caught anything to eat along with your bread?
In other words, he’s not calling them sons representing maturity. He’s calling them boys Children representing that.
It’s obvious they’re still quite immature because they’re still just jumping up and doing their own thing. Come on.
Is anybody getting anything out of there?
And so I just love this chapter because it’s like Jesus is saying, OK, is it working?
I tried for years to change my husband and make him be what I wanted him to be.
And finally, one day, honestly, Dave has always loved, love, love sports.
Well, I never grew up with any of that.
My dad didn’t like sports and the way I was raised, what he didn’t like, nobody got to like.
And so I didn’t have any love for any of the sports.
And so because I didn’t like it, I didn’t want Dave to do it. Now.
I know none of you other ladies had that problem, but I did, I didn’t like it and I didn’t want him to do it.
And so he played golf. Do you watch football? You watch baseball?
He watched basketball, he got into tennis, he got into bowling, anything that rolled or bounced.
They liked it. And then, and so I keep trying to get him not to like this, not to like this, not to like this.
And one day he was watching a football game listening to a baseball game and shining the driver for his golf clubs at the same time.
And my lightning fast brain after many years of misery finally thought, you know what, what I’m doing is not working.
So maybe I could just ask you today is what you’re doing, working.
Maybe some of you need to just get out of control and love it.
Come on a few of you will get that.
I think that would make a good book out of control and loving it.
In other words, how wonderful would it be if we could ever get to the point where we knew that we did not have the ability to run the world and make everybody in the universe do what we want them to do.
My goodness. I wonder what it would be like if we could just get through one day without having opinions about what everybody else is doing.
Boys, Children is your plan working?
No exclamation mark. And then he said to them, well, cast your net on the right side of the boat.
When somebody needs to today, today, you need to cast your net on the right side of the boat because you’ve been fishing on the wrong side of the boat and not catching anything.
Actually, the title of this motion today is God.
What do you want me to do now? Sometimes we say that in frustration.
Like when I’ve done everything I know to do and nothing’s working God, what do you want me to do?
But I’m looking at a more sincere question like God, what do you want me today?
I can say it again if you don’t all like it, John, what do you want me?
Two days? You know, sometimes when I’m in the middle of something, if I just stop and say, ok, God, I’m feeling really frustrated.
I’ve lost my piece here. What do you want me to do so often?
I’ll just hear him say, just leave it alone.
This is not something you can do anything about.
Just let me take care of this.
You know, there’s so many things in our lives that God wants to take care of, but he won’t unless we let him go cast your care on the Lord and he will care for you first.
We have to stop trying to do everything, showing that we trust God to do it.
So he said to them, verse six, cast your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
So they cast their net and now they were not able to haul it in because it was such a big catch.
I love that. How many of you would love a big dump truck to pull up to your driveway and just dump a hall of blessings right at your front door.
Amen. Then the disciple whom Jesus loves said to Peter.
It is the Lord great revelation.
When he saw the miracle, another lesson here, he believed it was God.
But you know, Jesus told Thomas who said, I will not believe unless you show me your sides and, and your hands, the scars and your side and your hand.
Jesus met him where he was at, which I love about him.
He will meet us where we’re at. And so he showed him so Thomas could believe.
But then he said, blessed are those who believe and have not seen, hey, it’s easy to get up and get excited.
If you’ve, if you’ve received your healing, it’s easy to get up and get excited if you’ve had your miracle, if you’ve had your breakthrough, but don’t forget about what it was like while you were still getting that testimony you’re now giving because the only way you get a testimony is to go through a test.
And like we said, last night, we need to love Jesus just as much when things are not going the way we want them to as we do when they are.
And I believe with all of my heart, if you cannot love God in the hard times, you will not love him in the good times.
And I know people think that doesn’t make sense, but it actually does because we are more inclined to seek God when we’ve got a need than we are, when we don’t have a need.
So if you love him just as much in the valley as you do on the mountain top, then you’re likely to stay in the right place and keep your priorities straight.
So you, you maybe you’ve got your breakthrough now and you’ve had your hall and everything is good for you.
But just a couple of things to remember, don’t forget to have compassion on those who haven’t come through yet and don’t forget just because you don’t need a miracle.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need Jesus just as much every single moment of your life because you know what, when he said apart from me, you can do nothing.
He meant it. Amen.
Then the disciples whom Jesus loved said to Peter.
And while I let you know, John wrote this book of John and he constantly called himself.
I am the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Now, I’m enough like Peter that I know that had degrade on Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loves.
Like who, who do you think you are?
What confidence he must have had more than any of the other disciples.
He was focused on not his love for Jesus, but jesus’ love for him and he outlived them all.
Amen. That’s another whole message.
The disciple whom Jesus loves said to Peter.
It is the Lord and Simon Peter hearing him say that it was the Lord put and guarded on his upper garment, his fisherman’s coat for, he was stripped for work and he sprang into the sea and the other disciples came in a small boat for they were not far from shore, only a few 100 yards away, dragging this net full of fish.
And when they got out on the land, the beach, they saw a fire of coals there and fish lying on it, cooking and there was bread.
Now, here comes another amazing lesson and Jesus said to them bring some of the fish that you have just caught.
So Simon Peter went aboard and he hauled the net to land full of fish.
153 of them, which my goodness, I looked all over the place and nobody can give a reason for that 153.
The only thing that I found and they’re not even sure this is true is somebody said that there was 100 and 53 different species of fish at the time.
And part of the miracle was that there was one fish of each species.
But I think this, I think if for no other reason, those fish were counted and it was recorded in the Bible just to show us what great attention God pays to every little detail in our life.
I’ve been reading in Leviticus and numbers.
Well, let me rephrase. I’ve been trying to read Leviticus and numbers and I mean, the detail of the Ark, the detail of the Tabernacle, the detail of how the priests had to dress.
I mean, just everything was just these intricate details.
But then you get all the way over into the New Testament and the Bible says that he has numbered the very hairs on our head.
Now, I know for some people that’s not a biggest job for God as it is for others.
Amen.
Just think, think about that for a minute. I don’t know what we think.
You know, God is just not in our life for an emergency.
The, the great thing about being a Christian is you get a help or a companion, a friend.
There’s no longer one of you, there’s two of you.
And last night we had a fairly large number of people receive Christ and I pray that same thing will happen today because you don’t, you don’t want to go out of here and live your life alone, doing your own thing and spend your life catching nothing.
It’s so much better today to just surrender and just admit that you’re not doing a good job running your life and ask Jesus to take over.
Amen, ask him to come in and control and take over.
And then I love this verse 13, I, I shake my head every time I see this and Jesus came to, came and took the bread and gave it to them and also the fish.
Now in case you miss this, Jesus cooked them breakfast, what the resurrected Lord?
He had died, gone to hell.
Take the, take the keys of hell and death away from Satan rose out of that grave victorious, took his blood into the Holy of Holies.
Came back during the 50 days, revealed himself to his, the resurrected the king of kings, the Lord of Lords, the everything of everything and he cooked them breakfast.
What an example. And then we have to think about John 13 and boy, that’s so full of lessons.
Peter was talking this morning about, do you know who you are?
You know, the only way you can really serve other people with a good attitude is to know who you are.
Jesus knew who he was.
So therefore, he didn’t have to prove who he was.
He cooked the breakfast.
You know, I dave will ask me once in a while, you wanna cook me some eggs.
And I don’t, I mean, I cooked a lot when my kids were little, but I gave it up a long time ago.
And now at this point, my family is glad.
But let’s just say that when anybody mentions breakfast to me, I don’t have the good attitude Jesus had every day.
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If you’re going to fight and win, you gotta know who you are and you gotta know who you are, who you belong to and who you are in Christ.
Walk around your house when the devil is after you and say I am the righteousness of God in Christ, I am set apart and made holy by the blood of Jesus.
I am the head and not the tail above and not beneath everything.
I lay my hand to prospers and succeeds.
I didn’t thank God while we were growing so slowly.
That was very hard. But I look back now and I, and I, I’m thankful that God didn’t let me do what I wanted to when I wanted to do it because although I had a gift, I was still very much in need of developing more Godly character.
And that’s where a lot of people do make a mistake.
They get an opening to go out and do something because they’re gifted and you know, as leaders, we can even be guilty of putting somebody in a position long before they’re ready for it uh spiritually, and it really is just like a disaster waiting to happen.
So the things we’re talking about happened 40 years ago, 35 years ago.
And 30 years ago and, and it’s just like, it’s, it’s been a, it’s been a wonderful journey and yet at the same time, a very challenging one, I think a lot, you know, my motto was uh slow and solid, fast and fragile.
God gave me that years and years ago and uh I think many people would look at our ministry and say it’s been phenomenally fast growth and they only see, you know, the explosive growth the years after we won on television, they don’t see the pre years or the foundational years that created the foundation for the ministry to stand on.
And one of the things that we said in the very beginning was we don’t want our ministry to be cloned after somebody else’s ministry.
We want it to be what the Holy Spirit wants us to do.
We want to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit and let us let him show us exactly what we do, what we’re supposed to do.
We didn’t know what all that meant, but he did over the years, he would show us this, show us that show us something else and, and all of it put together, you know, has equal the ministry.
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