Ways We Waste Our Time – Part 2 | Joyce Meyer | Enjoying Everyday Life Teaching

How can you discover your purpose in life and then enjoy the journey? Joyce Meyer shares practical answers from God’s Word to help you, on this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life!

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.

Free too. I’m Joyce Meyer.
I’ve seen god’s power, transform my own life, and he will do it for you.
Enjoy your journey.
If there’s any advice that I can give to anybody that has a dream in their heart to do something it would be enjoy every step of the way.
Don’t be so caught up in where you’re trying to get to that you missed the whole trip.
Life is a lot more about the journey than it is the destination. Did you hear me?
Life is a lot more about the journey than it is the destination.
And some of you don’t even know where you’re going yet.
You’re just trying to find out, and that’s okay too.
I tell young people a lot of times, especially ones that are just about to get out of school, so many young people everybody wants to know what are you gonna do with your life?
Well, how many people really when they’re fifteen know what they’re gonna do with their life?
I mean, I would have never thought this is what I would have been doing. I was a bookkeeper.
I was a waitress. I was a credit manager. I was an office manager.
I was a lot of things that didn’t seem to have anything to do with being a preacher, but when the time came and god called me, I still had a long way to go, but all of those things that I had done, I got experience in some way, shape, or form, that I’m able to use now.
So if you don’t know exactly what it is you’re supposed to be doing, just start doing some things.
One of the best ways to find out what you’re supposed to do is to do a few things and you’ll find out what fits and what doesn’t.
Like I tried working in the nursery at church, And it took about 2 weekends, and me and the kids both knew I was not a nursery worker.
Amen?
That was definitely a dead work for me. That was works of the flesh.
So dead works or works that don’t work. Many times we have a dream from god.
We get we get ahead of god.
It it’s god for us to do it, but we’ve got the wrong timing.
I tell this story sometimes, but My stories always seem to fit into more than one message.
So if you get tired of hearing the same ones, I’m sorry. You have to do what my husband does.
He laughs anyway. And, uh, I tried to go on television before god put me on television.
And so I we rented a little studio in Saint Louis, and I took a few of my employees, and I was gonna have a talk show.
Was gonna ask them questions and they were gonna answer, but the problem was, but I would ask the questions and then I would answer the questions too.
I So I had a talk show, but I wouldn’t let anybody talk, but me.
And in 6 months, I got one piece of mail and it had no money in it.
6 months. So god did want me to be on television, but it wasn’t time yet.
It wasn’t the right time.
So even if you’re out of god’s terming, it becomes a dead work, a work of the flesh that doesn’t work.
So you might say, yeah, but sometimes you’re just it’s just you’re just getting opposition from the devil. Yeah.
Sometimes you’ve gotta push in and not give up and keep pushing things, but here’s the way that I find out.
There’s certain things that if god doesn’t do them, then I can’t do what I’m doing.
So let’s just say this. I believe what god orders he pays for.
So I know that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, because god always pays the bills.
And there’s no way that we could do what we were doing if god didn’t provide the finances that we need.
There’s certain things, like there’s certain people we have to have to do what we’re doing.
And it continually amazes me the people that god provides even in the little things that it’d be too lengthy for me to get into trying to explain it to you, but if you’re doing what god wants you to do, listen to me, He will provide everything that you need for you to do it.
Good morning. So that’s the first thing I wanna say to you is if you wanna save yourself some time.
Just try to avoid works of the flesh, and you can if if you pay attention, you you can tell before you might you might have to step out and try, but you can tell when god’s working with you and making something happen and when you just feel like you keep trying to push a dead horse, up a hill.
You know what they say? If the horse has been dead for 10 days, it’s time to dismount.
K. Jeremiah 213 is a great scripture.
My people have committed 2 evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and they have carved out for their their own cisterns, broken cisterns can’t hold water.
A cistern is a well. So he said, there’s 22 ways that you can make a mistake.
Forget me. Stop seeking me.
And dig your own will and find out that it has no water in it.
It kinda goes like this. Oh, that’s that’s that’s what will make me happy.
So you go try to do that and you’re still not happy. Uh, well, this will do it.
So you dig that well and you’re still not happy.
We have to stop doing our own thing and take time to find out what god wants us to do.
How many of you have a little bit of an idea of what I mean when I say get away from dead works?
Okay. Now, The second thing we’ll talk about that’s a big waste of time is good works that you do, but they’re done with the wrong motive.
Motives are very important to god.
And matter of fact, I think why we do something is even more important than what we do.
Let me say it again. Why we do something is even more important than what we do.
Now I’m gonna tell you, if you start talking about motives, a room gets quiet.
Because a lot of times we don’t stop or get still long enough to actually say, why am I doing this?
Am I doing this because I really believe God wants me to do it?
Or am I doing it, uh, to be well thought of?
Am I doing it to get in with the right crowd?
Am I doing it because you want me to do it?
And I’m afraid that you won’t like me anymore if I don’t do what you want me to do.
Am I doing this because I’m nosy and I don’t wanna miss out on something and not know what’s going on?
Hey, I’ve done that.
Got involved in things that I didn’t even wanna do just because I didn’t want something going on that I didn’t know about.
Come on. I’ll tell the truth if you will. Alright.
Matthew 6 verse 1, be very careful not to do your good works publicly in order to be seen You know how you know how hard it is to do something good in secret and keep your mouthjot about it?
You know how hard it is even to pray for somebody and then see god do the thing that you prayed for, not to tell them I prayed for that.
Now I’m not saying it’s always wrong, but we don’t always have to do that.
Why not just let god get all the credit? Amen?
Otherwise, you’ll have no reward. So this is scary.
It says, if what you do, you’re doing with the wrong motive, then you lose your reward.
All together, you lose your reward.
So whenever you give to the poor and do acts of kindness, don’t blow a trumpet before you to advertise it.
Like the hypocrites do, like actors acting out a role in the synagogue and in the streets so that they might be honored and recognized and praised by men.
Can I just throw this out?
We still care way too much about what people think of us.
We still spend way too much of our time trying to impress people, and we should be a lot less concerned with what people think in a more concerned with what god thinks.
Amen. I think the great say in the world would be to be completely free of what people thought.
Amen?
I assure you most solemnly, I tell you, you already have your reward in full, but when you give to the poor and do acts of kindness, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
Given complete secrecy. One of the things that means to me, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing is if god does give me the grace to be involved in something really great, I find that I even need to be careful about going home and just reliving it over and over in my mind and thinking about how awesome it was.
Because if we really believe that god did it through us, then we need to give him the credit for it.
And be very careful that we don’t start thinking we’re wonderful. Come on.
Because we did it. So that your charitable acts will be done in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you in the open.
I love that. Whatever we do, god sees it, and we don’t have to blow a trumpet and announce it to everybody.
God sees it and god is the only one that really can give us our true reward.
And so whatever you’re doing, if you’re doing it with the motive of serving god and being a blessing to somebody, nobody has to know it, but god, but your reward will come.
What you do in secret, god will reward in the open.
When you pray, Don’t be like the hypocrites, but they love to pray publicly standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets so that they may be seen by men.
I assure you and most solemnly say to you, they have their reward in full already.
And so it goes on and on and on, and there’s many other scriptures like that that what we do, we need to make sure that our motives are right.
There are some scriptures in the Bible that tell us that on judgment day, all of our works will pass before the eyes of god.
And only the ones that were pure works will be lasting.
Everything else will get burned up in the fire. My my my.
So I think it’s kind of important that what we do, we do for the right reasons. So homework assignment.
I haven’t given you a lot of homework this weekend. Just a few things.
But I would challenge you to go home, spend a little time, have a little meeting with yourself, and just think about all the things that you do maybe committees you’re on or things you’re doing at church or things you do for other people, and just ask yourself, why am I doing this?
And if you can’t say one of 2 things, either God told me to do it or I’m doing it to be a blessing to someone, then maybe you need to rethink whether it’s something you need to be doing or not.
Because if you’re doing it just to impress somebody, it’s a waste of time because you get no reward.
Well, if we want to invest time wisely instead of wasting it, let’s begin with checking our motives and personal efforts.
What are some steps that we can take to overcome those dead works that waste our time?
Ginger joins me to discuss this and other questions that you’ve submitted. Well, good morning, Ginger.
Good morning. Thank you for letting us pummel you with questions today.
Yes. Well, I pray god that I can answer them.
Amen. You always do. God is always there to help.
And a lot of these questions are dealing with those things that you were talking about that our big time washers for us works of the flash, uh, wrong motives, and also being too concerned with what other people think.
That’s a big one. And worry and reasoning. So
Those are all time moisture.
They are. Here comes the first question from Connie from Illinois.
I seem to have fallen in an endless cycle that is preventing me from choosing god over compulsive behavior.
I can’t even say it’s the devil when I believe it’s simply my own flesh.
Why do I do this when I really want to do the opposite and how do I change it?
Oh, you know, it’s like the Apostle Paul said, he said the things I wanna do, I don’t do the things I don’t wanna do.
I end up doing a wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death.
And then later on, he gives he answers his own self and says, oh, thank god, he will through Jesus Christ.
And, really, this woman, she has to turn to god to deliver her because sometimes we do just get in such bad habits of doing things.
And, you know, all this comes down to, do we trust god or don’t we trust god?
And that’s not anything to make anybody feel bad.
I had to, this morning, in my prayer time, I had to face something in my own life that I knew I was creating a problem simply because I was trying to make sure that everything went the way it was supposed to instead of trusting god in an issue, and trusting god.
Oh, we all do that. I do
that all the time.
Trusting god is just taking that step of faith to believe, you know, I really so strongly believe in the power of prayer, and I really believe that If we pray and ask god, he cares about everything that concerns us.
He will do what needs to be done, but, you know, it’s like, my situation was a situation of impatience.
And but then as I thought about it, I thought, you know, impatience is rooted in fear.
We’re afraid that we’re not gonna get what we want. And so we don’t wanna wait on god.
I was looking at I looked up a bunch of scriptures on faith, and Psalm 4610 was in there, be still, and know that I am God.
And I think that’s just a great scripture for our topic today.
It’s like, you be still, and then you can see me work.
Be still and know that I am God. But first, we have to be still.
And so, you know, my advice is just Start going in the right direction.
Every time you fail, don’t get condemned and feel bad and just throw the towel in and say, this is never gonna work.
Just keep asking god to help you and be happy about the progress that you make and Eventually, you’ll get to where you need to be.
Yeah. That’s that’s good advice and it’s very true for all kinds of different situations where we’re trying to do it on our own.
Here’s a question from Sabrina in Texas.
I’m angry with myself because I get anxious in almost every social situation and have trouble communicating because of it.
I find myself not even listening to what others are saying because I’m too focused on what they are thinking about me.
How can I break this pattern?
Well, the first thing I would recommend is to not be mad at herself.
Yeah. She says I get angry with myself because
Because that only just makes it worse.
I mean, now the best thing to do is just say, God, I’d I’d admit that I’m doing this.
I know it’s wrong, and I need your help.
And she obviously needs to learn more about who she is in Christ and what her worth and value is in him as his child.
She’s dealing with some areas of insecurity and looking to get that security from other people.
And, you know, god won’t let you do that.
Mean, the situation that I use as an example a lot, but it fits here is there was a woman that was coming to some meetings when I used to have weekly meetings here in St.
Louis, and somebody got the word back to me that she was hurt and offended because I never took time to talk to her.
And I told god, I said, I don’t even remember seeing her.
And the lord put on my heart.
He said, I hid her from you because she’s trying to get from you, what she needs to get from me.
And so we always need to go back to god when we’re insecure And like she says, she’s so focused on what people think of her, that she can’t even have decent conversation.
And so she needs to learn who she is, not what people think of her, but who she is.
You know, the apostle Paul was being judged and criticized And he said, I couldn’t care less what you think.
You know, I I’m I don’t care what you think. He said, I don’t even judge myself.
Only god can really judge my heart. And it’s you’re really free.
I like to say it like this.
You’re not really free until you no longer feel the need to impress people.
And I think if she can just go into social situations, just being herself and not trying to impress people or do things to make them think well of her, she’ll find that she has the gifts and abilities that she needs that are god given.
Yeah. To be good in social situations. Yeah.
And you’re right. What a waste of time that we all spend Mhmm.
Worrying um, comparing, thinking about what other people think that if we were spending that time thinking about what god wants to tell us about who we are and and what he wants for our future, then we make so much more progress.
And those are all the things that steal our peace Yeah. And steal our joy.
Karen from South Carolina asked this.
Deep within, there is a strong desire to become all that guy created me to be.
He’s dealing with past wounds, and I have this realization that controlling my emotions plays a part in the healing process how do I keep emotions in their proper place and not respond out of flesh?
Well, it’s there again, it’s something that happens a little bit at a time, you know.
And, um Which that’s very consoling.
Yeah. Just to think It’s not all gonna happen.
I mean, oceans are if you listen to people, most people tell you how they feel.
I was thinking this morning, you know, probably it’s one of the biggest problems that people have as they lean on their feelings.
Instead of on what the word of god says, either their thoughts or their feelings.
And so Satan uses those things against us. But feelings, I like to say they’re fickle.
You know, you might even say they’re neither good nor bad. They’re they’re just there.
And sometimes they can be really good and be helpful.
And other times, the enemy can use them against you to really hurt you.
Right.
But the key thing she said is I have a deep desire in my heart to be what god wants me to be.
And so That’s really what god looks at. Her heart is right.
And so if she keeps studying in that area, And, you know, she’s working to overcome old wounds.
And that’s not something that happens overnight because when we’ve been hurt, we tend to respond instead of acting on the word of god.
We react to situations instead of acting on the word of god on purpose.
And I got there and she can too. Yeah.
But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t ever make mistakes because I do.
Yeah. And that, like you said, that first sentence, a deep desire in me to become all that god created me to be, That reveals remotives.
Right.
That that shows so much. That’s important. Here’s another question from Lewis in New Jersey.
How do you die to yourself?
Uh, that’s one that, um, you know, everybody needs to talk about, but nobody wants to talk about It is something is it something you do in your own strength?
Like if you feel anger rising in a situation, do you try control your emotions by not reacting?
Well, I would love to write a book on dying to self, but I just don’t think very many people would I think it would be a real dud.
It’s probably one.
Sit on the shelf too long because it says dying to self.
It’s one of the one of the things that people need to learn because Jesus said, if you wanna be my disciple, you have to forget yourself lose sight of yourself and all your own interests and follow me.
Well, you know, dying to self, I I like to say this because I’ve been through this.
I think God has a little toolbox that he uses to help us.
As soon as you pray and say, you know, I don’t wanna be selfish I wanna die to self.
I wanna be what you want me to be. Example.
I was not very interested in submitting to a man. When Dave and I got married.
I’d been mistreated and abused by men. And so I just didn’t have much interest in that.
And didn’t know how to do it, didn’t wanna do it, didn’t wanna learn to do it.
And when I finally got to the point where I wanted to learn to do it, regularly, I would have situations come up where Dave wanted me to do something that I did not want to do.
And I kept thinking, why does this just keep happening? But see, god has to set up situations for us.
To go through, to learn from, and to practice on.
For our own good.
For our own good. It’s like if you decide you’re gonna start working out, I mean, you’re not gonna get big muscles overnight.
You’re gonna have to keep lifting those weights and keep lifting those weights and you’re gonna get sore, and it’s gonna be hard.
And so why the Bible says in James one when you fall into various trials and temptations be joyful knowing that it work as patients and when patients is in full bloom, then you’re perfect in tire lacking and nothing.
Well, I said my trials brought a lot of things out of me before we ever got to patients.
But those are good too. So I can just tell her How do you die to yourself?
You tell god you want to, and then you just wait. Yeah.
For the situations that he sets up.
And then when they come, you pray that god will help you do the right thing in each one of them.
No matter how difficult it is.
You know, the flesh will stay alive as long as you keep feeding it.
So every time you give your flesh what it wants, you’re feeding it, it’s gonna stay strong.
Every time you take something away from it, it’s gotta throw a tantrum just like a little kid, but Every time you don’t feed it, it gets a little bit weaker and a little bit weaker.
So it’s a process.
That’s a great way to look at it. It it it gives you hope. Right.
That as I do this, I will see progress. I’ll learn, and it will become easier on
the way. To Dave’s authority. It was like, I can’t even tell you how hard it was in the beginning.
Yeah. I
mean, I sometimes I’d have to run out of the room and go lock myself in the bathroom and just and but if I was able to obey god and do what he wanted me to, then the next time it was just a little bit easier.
I’m not gonna say it was like, oh, wow. I’m free.
Was a little bit easier, and we went through that over and over and over until now, to be honest, If I don’t get my way, it doesn’t upset me that much because I’ve come to the point where I know it’s not worth it, Right.
The upset. And if god wants me to have it another way, he’s the only one that can make it happen, I can’t.
And So the the longer you go, the more you learn to trust god and turn things over to him.
Well, I love the way that we’re talking about these things because They’re very, very practical, and they are time savers.
We don’t think about it that way, but it spares us so much heartache and wasted time.
If we can really focus on these things with god’s help.
So thank you. We’re trying to do things that only god can do is a total waste of time.
So thank you for being with us today.
We love you, and we wanna remind you that god has got a good plan for your life.
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The mind actually is the battlefield.
That’s where we win or lose the war with Satan. He said all he gets to say Thank you.
Wow. Jesus will love it. Today’s mine. You start asking god to heal you, and he will restore.
Is the god of all come and I am so grateful that I know how to call on god.