Grace Filled Life | Joyce Meyer

Unlock profound insights into the essence of freedom from the Old Testament law in this enlightening talk by Joyce Meyer. Gain a deeper understanding of the transformative message of Galatians and discover how Jesus’s sacrifice liberated believers from the burdens of legalism, inviting them into a life guided by grace and faith. Join Joyce as she shares personal anecdotes and biblical wisdom, empowering you to embrace a deeper, more authentic relationship with God.

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.

All of Galatians is really about the fact that when Jesus died, we were set free from the Old Testament law.
Not the moral law, not the civic law, but all of the, uh, the the ceremonial laws, all of the sacrifices that had to be made.
I last night, I read just a handful of things, and we just saw that it just, you know, when when a legalistic person gets a hold of something that’s even a truce and they start turning it into, a law.
It just like the 10 commandments, I’ve been told, the legalists eventually turned it into 22100 rules and regulations.
That people had to follow.
I we cannot there’s no way that we can fully understand what Jesus did for us when he was on the cross, and he said, it is finished.
And he meant that old, whole, old system was finished, that we no longer had to serve god under the law.
We didn’t have to be afraid, uh, every time we made a mistake that god was gonna punish us that we didn’t have to live under guilt and condemnation that something new was happening now called the dispensation of grace and that we’re saved by grace and grace alone, not by keeping the law.
Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to keep the law, not the ceremonial law, but we, you know, we we still can’t kill people and we can’t lie.
We can’t steal. And there’s lots of things that the law said that we’re really good, but the problem was was they had no ability to keep it.
No matter how many they kept, under that legalistic system, if they missed it in one thing, they were guilty of all of it.
And so no matter how hard they tried, they could never really have peace with god through keeping the rules and the regulations.
So this should have been like unbelievably good news to them.
And it was for many people that Paul was preaching to had been idle worshipers, they were gentiles, not Jews.
And so, you know, sometimes if you haven’t learned something, it’s much easier to learn the new thing than if you’ve got to unlearn the old thing first and then learn the new thing.
You know, for example, if you grew up in a really legalistic religion, denomination.
How many of you did? You grew up in something that was just very legalistic. Okay.
Well, you know that all those things that you were told for years years years that you couldn’t do that you’d be punished if you did them, that god would be mad at you’d done them.
You didn’t just get over that overnight. It took a long time to get over that.
I grew up with a tremendous amount of guilt, and my dad was always angry because he was angry, he took his anger out on everybody else, and you never knew what he was angry about.
He was just angry. So the whole game in our house was to keep dad from getting upset.
And so I went into my relationship with god like that.
And I felt guilty every single time that I didn’t do everything exactly the way that I thought it should have been done.
Many of you know what I’m talking about?
There’s well, here’s the one thing I wanna say to you this morning.
I wanna get you to the point today where you can be completely comfortable with god.
I mean, like, when you’re hanging out with god like you put on your women probably write to this little bit better, but your most comfy, fuzzy PJs, and you’re snuggled up in your most comfortable chair.
And, you know, we we can just be ourselves with god.
We don’t have to be rigid and legalistic and follow rules and regulations.
Uh, you know, most people, if you get down to the laws that we create for ourselves, we make a lot of reading the Bible, You’re telling, read your Bible, read your Bible every day, read your Bible every day.
Well, I think it’s better to say, study the word every day.
And sometimes the word that you need to study comes from a different book that’s got the Bible in it, but also explains some things about it.
Well, last night, I said, you know what? I didn’t read my Bible this morning.
And you should have heard the silence in this room.
Here, I’m coming to you didn’t read you didn’t read your Bible?
Now there would have been a time when I would have made myself do it, even though it really wasn’t what I wanted to read, but I would have made myself do it because if I wouldn’t have done it, I would have felt guilty all day, if I didn’t do it.
But instead, I’m reading a book right now that I’m really enjoying about how to hear from god, and that was what I felt led by the Holy Spirit to study yesterday morning.
Now I did get around to reading my Bible later in the day studying for what I was gonna do last night, but I just thought it was interesting.
The reaction I got when I said, I didn’t read my Bible this morning.
So we get these things. We we need to read the Bible every day.
We need to go to church every week.
We need to maybe do a few good works, you know, be nice to somebody, whatever.
And if we get our 3 or 4 check marks on our god calendar, then god’s not mad at us.
But the whole thing is is we miss the whole thing because he doesn’t want us to be yes.
I’m not telling you not to read your Bible, but I am telling you that if you don’t do it every single day, as long as you get the word of god in you in some farmer fashion, then you’re still okay.
You don’t have to you don’t you don’t have to pray 1 hour every day, so god’s not mad at you know, people can take that, can you not pray with me 1 hour?
And at one time, there was a whole big movement that went all across the the the world about everybody praying 1 hour a day.
Well, if any of you are like me, you really didn’t have an hour’s worth of anything to say.
But you made up stuff and bored yourself and talked in circles and anything just to say that you got in your hour because then you’ve come on.
Is anybody with me? You know, know what I’m talking about?
I remember an intercessor came to our church one time and talked about how she prayed 4 hours every day from starting at 4 o’clock in the morning.
You know, that woman seems so spiritual, and she seemed to have such a strong anointing on her.
So I decided that if I did what she did, Come on now.
If I did what she did, then I would have that same anointing that she had.
But that’s not true. God doesn’t want you to do what somebody else does.
He wants you to do what he wants you to do for you.
And then his anointing and power comes on you because of your obedience to him.
But you know what? When you start being led by the spirit, it gets a little bit scary because you’re gonna be led outside those lines of just following rules and regulations.
And that’s when you’re gonna be free, and that’s when you’re gonna be comfortable with god.
I spent years where I felt guilty all the time.
I mean, I didn’t I didn’t even know what I felt guilty about.
I just felt something’s wrong with me. I just I felt guilty.
And if I didn’t feel guilty, I felt like that was a sin because surely I should have been feeling guilty about something.
And Can I tell you something right now? I’ll never feel guilty.
That’s worse than not reading my Bible yesterday morning. Right? What?
You never feel guilty? No? Not really, you know, why?
Because god has taught me, and it took so long for me to get this, but he’s taught me that it’s a total waste of time.
And all our feelings of guilt are is us trying to pay for what Jesus has already paid for.
When you sin and god convicts you of it. You agree with him. You don’t give excuses.
You repent. Which means you’re not only sorry, but you wanna turn away from that and not do it again.
You realize that you’re not gonna succeed by yourself So don’t ever promise God. You won’t do this.
I’m do this again. God, god, I promise. If you’ll just forgive me God, I’ll never do this again.
Yes, you will. You will.
The only way that you might not do it again is if you say God, I’m gonna do this again unless you help me because I cannot do this by myself I need you to work through me.
Amen? So Paul had his hands full because he was trying to teach these gentiles that they everything came to them through faith.
Not through works of the law, but they were saved by grace through faith.
Everything that we get from god is by his grace through our faith.
So all this good stuff can be there, but if you don’t trust god for it, you still won’t get it.
Gee, we don’t need Jesus to go do anything else for us.
He’s already done it all, what we need is to believe in what he’s already done and learn how to receive it through following the leadership of the Holy Spirit and being promptly obedient to god.
Just because we’re not under the law doesn’t mean that we’re still not required to be obedient to god, but now he’s given us a heart of want to, not of have to.
Let me read you a little story.
This is this is what Hopefully, I find my story quick.
And if not, I’ll find it slow and you’ll wait.
Here it is.
Bill was a man who lived and especially wicked and sinful life.
A friend of his said, Bill, I feel so sorry for you having to give up all those things that you enjoyed.
Now that you’ve become a Christian them. And Bill replied, oh, I can get drunk anytime I want to.
I can see any kind of movie I want to. I can gamble.
I can treat people bad anytime I want to.
His friend looked at him very puzzled and said, well, how can you do all those things with me a Christian?
And Bill said, Oh, you don’t understand. I don’t do them anymore because I don’t want to.
God gave me a new want to.
And see, god god doesn’t want me to go to church every week because I’m afraid I’m gonna get in trouble with him if I don’t.
He wants me to go because I want to.
He doesn’t want me to study his word because I’m gonna get in trouble with him.
If I don’t, He wants me to do it because I want to.
Well, the truth is, as god has given you a new want to, But if you keep living in the realm of have to, you’re never gonna get around to finding out what you really want to do.
And the truth is you want to do everything right. You want to please god. You want to be good.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be taking a Saturday morning sitting here listening to me all day.
So you don’t have to feel bad about yourself. God is proud of you. He’s pleased with you.
You’re not where you need to be, but thank god. You’re not where he used to be.
You’re somewhere in the middle. You’re on your way, and that’s okay.
Here’s the good news. It’s okay that you haven’t arrived.
It’s okay that you haven’t arrived at the place of perfection yet.
And I don’t wanna depress you, but as long as you’re in a fleshly body, you never will.
Sorry.
You’re always going to make mistakes until Jesus comes and gets us out of here.
But none of us or a surprise to god. He knew what he was getting when he took us on.
Amen? All he cares about is that you’re making progress. That’s all he cares about.
All he cares about is that you care about what he thinks.
And so because you care and you do or you wouldn’t be here, he’s pleased.
What must I do to please god This is the work that god requires of you that you believe in the one whom he has sent.