Holiness – Part 1 | Joyce Meyer | Enjoying Everyday Life

Holiness is frequently mistaken for legalism, yet the two are distinctly different. Today on Enjoying Everyday Life, Joyce Meyer highlights the difference between pursuing holiness and merely adhering to strict rules.

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.

Did you know you can live a supernatural life?
Learn how to experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your day to day living with Joyce’s practical guide, knowing God intimately.
Joyce’s book explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit found in First Corinthians chapter 12.
Also included today is the the the Holy Spirit.
Here, you can learn how to be filled with his spirit and to experience his supernatural presence in every part of your life.
So you order your copies of these resources today and get ready to add some super to your natural live.
Visit online at joycemeyer.org or call 1807092895.
This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries.
I think one of the most challenging things that we do is to be holy and yet not be legalistic.
To live a life of freedom, but not a life of sin calling that freedom.
I do what I do because I’ve seen god’s power transform my own life and he will do it for you.
The key to everything is found in god’s word.
I’m Joyce Meyer, and I believe that God can heal you everywhere you hurt.
Thank you for joining me today on enjoying everyday life.
Today, I’m gonna be teaching on holiness. Actually, I’m gonna teach on that for today.
And then the next 2 days, a little different than what I’m gonna teach on and how important truth is.
And I think holiness is something that we need to talk more about because god does call us to live holy lives.
And it’s not something that we hear from our pulpits as much as I think we need to hear from it because people really kinda makes him a little nervous, you know.
Holding us is not legalism, and I wanna make sure that I make that clear.
Because a lot of people who think about holiness, are they try to live a holy life?
They think that means that They have to be perfect, and they can’t do anything, and they can’t have fun.
So let’s be real open minded, and by the grace of god, get into this and learn some things that are gonna help us live a life that is more pleasing to god.
And represents him well. What is holiness?
Well holiness defined in Vine’s Greek dictionary is the state It’s predetermined by god, far believers.
Now when something is predetermined, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically gonna happen.
It means god has already decided that that’s what he wants for us, and he’s made it possible for us to have it, but we have to do our part.
It’s a state in which in grace he calls us and in which we begin our Christian course, and so pursue it.
Now the word pursue is very important. It means growing towards perfection.
We think about holiness, and we think that means we have to be perfect.
But it really means growing, always having an attitude of pursuing and striving, far holding us, As long as we’re in these fleshly bodies, we’re never gonna manifest 100% perfection.
You say, well, then what’s the point in going after something that I know that I’m never gonna have because god expects us to be pursuing it and always making progress.
You may not have 100% arrived when Jesus comes back to get us, but he won to find us pressing toward it.
That needs to be our goal.
We need to realize that the call on our life is to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a little ways to go.
So I need to keep pursuing that and pressing toward it. The Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the main agent in holiness.
And he is the one who works with us toward this goal.
Actually, you are holy, When you’re born again, if you’ve received Christ as your savior, when the Holy Spirit comes to live in your spirit, our father, the son, and the Holy Spirit because they’re all 1.
If one’s there, they’re all there.
But when the Holy Spirit comes to live in your spirit, He has to make everything holy because god cannot be anywhere that’s not holy.
So we have all these wonderful things in us that need to be worked out of us.
They need to be worked into our soul and then into our actions where they can affect other people and make them hungry for god in their lives.
Now I just wanna say right up front, that being a Christian, a real Christian is about a lot more than just going to church every week.
A lot of people, you’ll ask, are you a Christian while I go to church?
Well, I say this all the time, but I’ll say it again today because it’s a little funny.
I can go sit in a garage my whole life, and that’ll never make me a car.
So just sitting in church does not mean that you’re a Christian.
There’s a lot of people that go to church because they grew up going to church or it’s a habiter.
They may even do it for social reasons.
But we should go to church to learn, to fellowship with other people, to be accountable to other people, to have a place from which we can be involved in serving god and doing things that will help the kingdom of god grow.
Holdliness is not legalism. I wanna make sure that I make that clear.
I think One of the most challenging things that we do is to be holy and yet not be legalistic.
To live a life of freedom, but not a life of sin calling that freedom.
To live a holy life does not mean that we have no fun, never go to parties.
You gotta remember that Jesus first miracle was done at a wedding party. So he’s obviously not against parties.
It’s just that you can have uh, a very unclean sinful party, or you can have a good Fun, godly, holy party, and that doesn’t mean that you have to be praying during the whole party, It just means that you don’t do things that you know god wouldn’t approve of.
Being holy doesn’t mean that you can’t see movies, that you can’t play cards, Are you not dent are you can’t dance?
It has nothing to do with cutting your hair, wearing jewelry or makeup, We’re not unholy if we change our hair color.
We’re a colorful clothes.
Pierce our ears, or get Botox contrary to many people’s beliefs, and I know some of you will fall off your chair when I say this.
We are not unholy if we get a tattoo. Religious people like, oh, they have a tattoo.
They must be this, that, or something else.
You cannot judge a person’s heart by what they wear or what color their hair is, or whether they have a tattoo or not, argue Botox.
We need to stop judging other people by outward appearance because god sees the heart.
Do you know that the Bible says that god has a picture of us tattooed on the palm of his hands?
Imagine that. Some people have tattooed on them.
In the old testament, it says this, and Isaiah 45, They have tattooed on their hands.
I belong to the lord. 1 will say Isaiah 40 45. I am the lord’s.
Another will call himself by the name of Jacob, and another will bright e will write even brand or tattoo upon his hand, I am the lord’s.
Well, you know, last year, The ripe old age is seventy nine.
I had tattooed on my left shoulder in the back. I belong to Jesus.
And I did it really just, I think, to kinda prove to religious people that You can be holy and have a tattoo.
Besides that, I wanted anybody that saw my shoulder to know that I belong to the lord.
Now not too many people see my shoulder, but there are a few times when they do.
Hebrews 1214. Now, this is a interesting scripture, one that we don’t probably use very much because it says something that is a little bit scary, and we don’t like to scare people.
But this is important. Hebrews 1214.
Strive, which means put out an effort, to live in peace and pursue which means chase after, go after with all your heart, that consecration and holiness Here it comes without which no one will ever see the lord.
Uh, and you say now, wait a minute, Joyce. I’m born again.
I’m gonna go to heaven. Well, you know, just saying a sinner’s prayer doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gonna go to heaven.
There’s a life that god expects us to live, and we’re not saved by our works.
But if we’re truly saved, we are going to want to live holy lives that are pleasing to god.
Let me say that again. We’re not saved by our works.
The Bible says plainly in Ephesians that it’s not by our works.
There’s no work that we can do that will save us.
We’re saved by the grace and mercy of god.
But if we’re truly saved And I say truly saved because I think a lot of people think just because they pray a prayer and repent of their sins one time that that means that they’re all okay now, and they go to church every Sunday, but they live like the rest of the world, all the rest of the time.
And I take responsibility for that as a teacher.
We are the ones that need to tell people that Your initial commitment to Christ is the very basic beginning of your walk with him.
But from then on, you need to grow and pursue holiness and I didn’t say it.
Paul said it recorded in Hebrews without which no one will ever see the lord.
That doesn’t mean I have to be perfect.
It just means that I need to be pursuing constantly walking in the will of god and doing what I believe he would want me to do.
It’s obvious from these words that we must make an effort in the power of the Holy Spirit, not a human fleshly effort, but an effort in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And I said the Holy Spirit is the main agent in sanctification because we cannot do it without the power of the Holy Spirit.
We all need to be filled with the Holy Spirit or baptized in the Holy Spirit are endued with power from on high, whatever you wanna call it, we can’t live the life that god wants us to live unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
And that’s something that I pray every day because we not only need to be filled once We need to be filled and refilled and refreshed and refueled.
And so every morning when I pray, I ask God fill me, full of the holy spirit so I can do your will today.
If you don’t pray that way, I wanna encourage you to start praying, that god will fill you with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that Jesus, John said, one will come after me He said, I baptize you in water, but one will come after me who will baptize you with the holy ghost and with fire.
And we need that Holy Ghost baptism and that spirit of fire in our lives.
Now what about this without which no one will ever see the lord?
Well, we should take this seriously and examine whether we are just merely going to church, are truly pursuing the life that god called us to live.
And I can say that for many years, although I do believe I was born again, I I loved god, but I didn’t love him with my whole heart.
And I had made a commitment to him, but I had not committed my whole life to him.
I didn’t live my life pursuing god and always wanting my behavior to change and come up higher and higher and higher.
If you wanna know the truth, I went to church on a regular basis, for many, many years, even worked on the evangelism team of our church.
I was even on the board of our church, and I do believe that I would have gone to heaven if I would have died because I did love the lord, and I was making some effort, but I would have probably still been in kindergarten when I got there because I was making rather a pitiful effort.
I didn’t understand what I’m telling you today.
And a lot of people don’t understand, and we can’t be responsible for what we don’t know.
But once we do know, then we do become responsible for it, So if you’re watching this program today, you better be ready to start getting more serious with god because after today, you’re going to know And when we know to do right and don’t do it, then it becomes sin.
We need to examine whether we’re merely going to church, are truly pursuing the life that god has called us to live.
Can you tell a difference between you and the unsaved people that you work with?
Can you tell a difference between you and your unsaved neighbors, or do you do all the same things they do except just go to church once a week and think that makes it okay.
Here’s a statement I want you to get. We are not merely called to happiness.
We are called to holiness. Let me say it again. We’re not merely called to happiness.
We’re called to holiness. And don’t let that scare you.
As I said, that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.
It just means that you need to do what you do the right way.
You can go to the movies, but you shouldn’t go to movies that are full of filthy things.
You need to go to ones that you would go to Jesus with because you take him with you everywhere that you go.
We shouldn’t be doing things that he doesn’t approve of.
Once again, holiness is not legalism, but it will require wise choices and what we do, and how we dress, where we go, what we listen to, what we watch on television, and what kind of movies we go to, how we talk, how we think, what we say, how we talk about other people, are you living your life far god daily pursuing holiness and the will of god, always wanting to do what he wants you to do.
Now the Holy Spirit is in us for many reasons. He’s our teacher, our guide.
He helps us pray. We don’t know how to pray.
But one of the things he does is he convicts us of sin.
Makes us a little uncomfortable if we’re doing something we shouldn’t be doing.
We have a conscience, and we should not do things that our conscience condemns.
You know, I like to watch television in the evenings. I like to disconnect.
And I particularly like mysteries. I like something I can get kinda lost in and, you know, be wondering what the end is gonna be.
Even like I’ve been watching these health shows about people that have these mysterious illnesses that nobody can figure out what they are.
And even something like that, it just intrigues me and I learn something at the same time.
Well, you know, if I’m watching a movie and I am very interested in this movie, And all of a sudden, there’s something in it that I’d know is not right.
People start taking their clothes off. They’re jumping in bed together every few minutes.
There’s a lot of filthy language in it.
I don’t need somebody to come and tell me you need to turn that off.
The Holy Spirit lets me know by just making me a little bit uncouth I’m just I know.
And you know. You know right from wrong, unless your heart has gotten hard and your conscience has gotten hardened to where you really can’t tell right from wrong, then you know what’s right, and you know what’s wrong, and you have a free will.
The Holy Spirit is in us to let us know when we’re going in the wrong direction, but god will never make us do the right thing He always gives us free choice.
What am I really trying to talk about today?
I’m really wanting to talk to people that are just kinda living a nominal lukewarm Christian life, going to church, thinking that’s all you need, but really not pursuing god.
You haven’t really surrendered your whole life to god.
You’ve given him enough of yourself to hopefully stay out of hell, but not enough to really be a witness for him and someone that he can really be proud of.
I want god to be proud of me, and I wanna hear what he said to Jesus.
This is my beloved, when my case daughter, in whom I am well pleased.
And I believe most of you want that.
If you love god, then you’re gonna want to please him in all that you do.
And thankfully, when we fail, which is pretty much daily, we can repent, tell god we’re sorry, Jesus already died for all of our sins.
The forgiveness is there. All we need to do is repent and receive that forgiveness.
EPhesians 5, 15 through 17, says, look carefully how you walk.
Live purposefully and worthily and accurately.
Not as the unwise and the witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people.
Are you being careful how you live, or are you just doing what you feel like doing?
Make the very most of your time buying each opportunity because the days are evil.
We are living in very evil times, and we need to take every opportunity that we can to affect the lives of those that don’t know Christ yet.
And one of the best ways we can do that is by living A Christian life, a real Christian life in front of them, not being religious and legalistic but just being like Jesus, loving, humble, kind, make, making right choices.
Therefore, don’t be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understand and firmly grasp what the will of the lord is.
Now there’s a very interesting scripture in the book of Hagai.
And I I love to use the scripture.
It only reads this exact way in the classic amplified Bible, but It basically says holiness is not contagious, but unholiness is.
Or you might look at it like this.
You know, I can catch the flu from somebody, but I have to choose health.
You can’t catch health That’s something you have to choose, and you have to live your life in a certain way.
You need to keep your hands clean and, you know, stay away from certain things, take care of yourself, eat right, be healthy.
Haggai 211. Thus says the lord of hosts.
Ask now the priest to decide this question.
If one carries in the skirt of his garment, flesh that is holy because it has been offered and sacrificed to god.
Back then, they offered meat in sacrifice to god, and then that meat became holy.
Well, when the sacrifices were over, they would carry it away in the skirt of their garment.
And portions of it would go to the priest and, you know, they take it home and eat it and use it.
And with the his skirt or the flaps of his garment, he touches bread or potty, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does what he touch touches become dedicated to god’s service exclusively.
And the people answered, no.
Holiness is not infectious. You can’t be infected with holiness. You have to choose it.
Then said, hi, Guy.
If one who is ceremonially unclean, because he has come in contact with a dead body, should touch any of these articles of food Shall it be ceremonially unclean?
And the priest answered, it shall be unclean because unholiness is infectuous. So get that.
You can’t be infected with holiness, but you can be infected with unholiness.
Well, that gives me good understanding for why Paul told us how important it is.
That we spend time with the right kind of people and that we don’t spend time with the wrong kind of people.
Let me ask you a question. Who do you spend your time with?
Do you spend your time with people that are pursuing holding us?
People who had the character of god in their life, or do you spend your time with people that are not living for god thinking that it won’t affect you.
It will affect you. You can be infected with their wrong behavior, if you’re around somebody that has good behavior, that will affect you too, but you’ll still have to choose it.
Paul said, don’t associate closely with those who are sexually impure, greedy, a thief, or a person with a foul tone.
1st Corinthians 56 through 11 gives us good understanding on this.
And I I’m not reading the whole entire thing, but Paul said, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immature, immoral people with sexually immoral people.
Not at all, meaning the people of this world who are immoral or greedy or winners or idolaters because in that case, you would have to get out of the world altogether.
So he’s saying, if you try to stay away from every worldly person, that is not living a godly life, you’d have to just get out of the world because you can’t avoid them all.
But he said, I’m writing to you that you must not associate With anyone who claims to be a brother or a sister in Christ, but is sexually immoral, are greedy, are an idolater or a slander.
Just a slander. He’s saying, don’t spend a lot of time with somebody who gossips about other people.
Well, how many Christians do that?
They now I remember when we used to go to church on Sunday, And then a bunch of us would go out to breakfast, and we would gossip about the pastor and everything we didn’t like about his sermon that day and everything we didn’t like about him, well, we weren’t pursuing holiness.
We weren’t living a godly life. We were acting no different than unbelievers.
But I’ll tell you one thing, once I got really serious about god, and this is where the dividing line is, and we’re gonna continue to tomorrow.
But once I got serious in my walk with god, I I couldn’t do that kind of stuff anymore.
Without being really uncomfortable. I’d been filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was in me, I mean, tearing me up inside.
Make I would be miserable inside if I tried to do those kind of things.
Now, today, we’re offering you a book that I think is very good that I wrote many years ago, but thankfully, the word never gets old.
It’s called knowing God intimately. And we’re offering you the Holy Spirit booklet.
If you’re interested in being filled with a spirit, this booklet is gonna help you a lot.
And I love this book about knowing God intimately.
It talks about all the gifts of the spirit, all the fruit of the spirit, and how important it is to seek god for who he is and not just what he can do for you.
Being as close to god as you want to be.
Paperback book, nice big book, a lot of good things in there that are gonna help you.
So I really want to encourage you to order your copy today.
And I wanna tell you how much we love you and how much god loves you and how we appreciate you.
And I wanna thank all of you who support the broadcast And I hope that you’ll tune in again tomorrow when we continue this message that I think is very important.
God bless you.
Did you know you can live a supernatural life?
Learn how to experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your day to day living with Joyce’s practical guide, knowing God intimately.
Joyce’s book explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit found in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, also included today as the booklet, the Holy Spirit.
Here, you can learn how to be filled with his spirit and to experience his super real presence in every part of your life.
So you order your copies of these resources today and get ready to add some super to your natural life.
Visit online at joycemeyer.org or call 1800 7092895.
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