Why Is It Hard to Finish What You Start? – Part 2

What you focus on is what will develop in your life. On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life, Joyce Meyer shares how to stay committed to your goals so you can reap the rewards.

The name of Jesus is one of the most powerful gifts we have been given, and with it, we can hold back the forces of darkness!

You know, if I wanted to take a picture of anything in the room, I can’t just go.
I’ve gotta focus on something, and then take the picture.
Well, what we focus on is what develops in our life.
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 heal you everywhere you hurt.
You know, many, many, many years ago.
I mean, it’s been 30 some odd years ago now.
When I taught my very first women’s meeting at the church that I went to then and started, which has been now actually 37 years ago.
When I asked god, what he wanted me to teach on? He said, I want you
to tell my people that I love them, and I thought, well, that’s silly.
Everybody knows you love them. And he said, no, they don’t.
If they did, they’d act a lot different than what they do.
Well, Then he had to show me that I didn’t have any revelation on how much he loved me either.
Well, you don’t get revelation overnight. It’s something that you gotta stick with.
And so for 1 solid year, it wasn’t the only I studied because I needed to study to teach those weekly meetings
I was doing, but for my own personal study, for 1 solid year, I read books on.
I looked up scriptures on. I studied and
I meditated on how much god loved me.
And I can remember even going and standing in front of the mirror and
looking at myself and saying, god loves this woman right here. God loves me. And you
know what? I got it. I mean, I got it as a revelation. It’s part of me.
It’s down the inside of me. And I don’t care how much trouble I have
or what happens something you’re not ever gonna hear me say is, well, god, don’t you love me?
You see, when you don’t have that revelation, the first time trouble comes, you think, well, God, don’t you love me?
Well, god,
if you love me, how could this be happening to me?
It’s the same thing about knowing that god is good. If you know that you know that
you know that you know that god is good, then you’re able to trust god because no matter how bad a situation is, you know that a good god can take that thing and
work it out for your good.
We need roots.
We need to be rooted and grounded in the things that we say that we believe.
And they need to become such a part of us that
the devil cannot take them away from us.
In Romans 8, it says, let nothing separate you from
the love of god. Not things impending, not
things to come, not things that have been, not sickness, not death, not anything to let nothing separate using
the low of god, which is in Christ Jesus.
And that’s the first revelation we all need, is god loves me.
He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. He’s never gonna stop loving me.
He loved me while I was still yet living in sin.
And he will never stop loving me no matter what I do.
And, boy, when you get that, you start to get some confidence and the fear in your life begins to go.
Go home write down what you remember.
About anything I’ve said this weekend, write
it down. When you write things out,
it helps it become part. Of who you are.
You know, it is so easy now to study and I’m not I’m not sorry that we have the convenience that we have today.
But the way that I study now compared to the way I had study when I started 42 years ago.
You could ask the web any question.
And up will come and answer. Hopefully, they’re right.
But, you know, you can say, scripture’s on anger. They all pop up. Give it to
me in all translations, and they all pop up.
But see, when I started this, and I’m so glad for those years that I had because I would I would sit down on a couch and I would have
books surrounding me. All these translations of the Bible and concordances and dictionaries on and so forth.
And I mean, it was work. But let me say again.
What you don’t put any effort into does not seem very valuable to you.
Amen? You’re all looking at me kinda like,
Well, how much effort am I
gonna have to put in? Well, how mature do you wanna be?
How victorious do you wanna be?
Do you wanna finish what you’ve started? Amen.
There are some things that nobody can just pray for you and you just get it instantly.
Discuss the teachings that you’ve heard this weekend with a friend.
If you’re driving home with somebody, don’t get in your car and start talking about all your problems.
Come on. Don’t talk about how bright
the lights were, how cold the room was, or, you know, How crowded the parking lot was.
Just don’t, you know, just tell somebody with you if I complain that they slap me.
Come on.
Talk about what you’ve heard. Just say
to somebody, tell me what all you remember about what you heard this weekend.
Talk about it. Talk about how you can apply it to your life.
And then I’m just gonna make a suggestion.
Out of these 3 messages that you heard this
weekend, if you were here the whole time, whichever 1 meant the most to you or seemed to resonate with you the most spend at least 1 week in your Bible on that subject.
Did you hear me?
Spend at least 1 week studying
for giving people who hurt you.
I really believe with all my heart,
this is part of the reason why people don’t get the breakthroughs that they say they want and they need.
You are not gonna get muscle because you go out and buy a set of weights.
You are not gonna lose weight
because you
buy an exercise video. Okay.
Well, praise the Lord.
Moving on.
Satan works to distract us by because in by causing cares, anxieties, trouble, persecution, are tempting us with worldly desires are just that same silly old excuse that we gotta get
rid of. Well, it’s just so hard. I mean, exercise is so high.
I tried and I got so sore.
You know what?
We need to stop wanting things that were not willing to pay the price for.
Oh, now somebody’s thinking, well, I’m I can’t help it.
I’m just not disciplined. Yeah. You are. Yes, you are.
You may not be using the discipline you have, but self control and discipline as of the fruit of the spirit that god has put on the inside of you as a born again, believe me.
It’s in you. No, obviously.
You know, you can be undisciplined all you want to, and that doesn’t mean that you won’t go
to heaven. But if you wanna have victory in your life,
that we need to do more than just look at this stuff.
We need to start putting a little effort into it.
It’s really funny trying to talk to people about putting out an effort. I’ll tell you. It’s like
Alright. We need to know what our priorities are, and
we need to steadfastly stick with them above all else.
You might have an idea about something you wanna do. It may be a sincere desire.
But it must become a habit.
And the only way you can make a habit of something is doing it over and over and over and over.
What about time with god? Bible study, prayer time.
Luke chapter 10 verse 38, Mary and Martha.
Now while they were on their way, it occurred that Jesus entered a certain village and a woman named Martha received and welcomed him into her house.
And she had a sister named Mary who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and was listening to his teaching.
But Martha was overly occupied and too busy, and she was distracted with much serving.
And she came up to him and said, Lord, is it nothing to you that my sister has me to serve alone.
Tell her then to help me lend a hand and do her part along with me.
Now isn’t it interesting that people that are working get mad at people that are resting.
You need to get up
and do something. Alright. Now you know what? If you would have asked Martha,
which she thought was the most important?
Listening to Jesus or cleaning the house. She was said, well, no brainer listening to Jesus.
So she knew what was important, but she didn’t do the thing that was the most important.
She let the details of having Jesus there distract her from the priority of actually taking advantage of what he was there for.
And I wonder how many times in our life
We set ourselves to study the word on a daily basis, to take even 30 minutes every day to spend time with god.
And yet, we can’t make it past the beeps and the dings of the phone and the computer and all the other things that come up that we think that we need to do.
It is difficult if you’re going back to this part of the house to study,
to get through the house.
Without getting distracted by something else that you feel like you have to do
before you go do that. But the thing is is go do that first.
And then god will give you a supernatural energy to get the rest of it done. Come on.
Give God a praise. Jesus told Martha, you are overly anxious and too busy with things that are not that important.
You know, what we focus on is what develops in our life. Amen?
What we focus on is what develops in our life.
Everybody loves to take pictures today. My goodness.
I mean, this happens consistently. People are looking right at me.
Can I get a picture? I’m like,
cut 1 out of my magazine. You know,
I mean, you probably get 30 pictures of me a month and into your home.
But everybody wants that picture. Well, you know, if I wanted to take a picture of anything in the room, I can’t just go
I’ve gotta focus on something and then take the picture.
Well, what we focus on is what develops in our life. Come on.
So very easy to understand.
If you do have a problem,
with anger. And there’s a situation where you really need to forgive. You need to let it go.
You need to
get on with life. And that’s been an issue for you, then why just hear what I said last night?
And then he hears 7
or 8 other different subjects the rest
of the week, why not just make a college course
out of forgiving people until you have got it? Come on. Does anybody hear what I’m saying?
Well, I like my message anyway.
Kind of fond of it. Hebrews 12, 2, and 3 are so good looking away from all that will distract unto Jesus.
Who’s the author and the finisher of our faith.
Bringing it to maturity and perfection he for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him.
Come on. Whatever it is that god wants you to do no matter how hard it is, there’s a prize attached to it.
There’s a reward. There’s a
victory on the other side of it.
But watch. For the joy of obtaining the prize that was
set before him, he endured the cross. Despising and ignoring
the shame and is now seated at the right hand of god.
Just think of him who endured from sinners such grievous, what, opposition and bitter hostility.
You know, even for Jesus,
to die for our sins. What he had to go through to set us free is absolutely
mind boggling. The opposition, the pain, the hostility, even all the stuff
he went through before he ever
even got to the cross. The people that were against him, just all the stuff that happened.
But you know what? Jesus endured the opposition and he finished his race.
And because he did, we are here today, set free by the blood of Jesus Christ.
I wanna ask you to finish your race.
I don’t care if it’s something like you decided 2 months ago to clean the closet out And you still got part of the stuff you tried to get rid of laying in the floor.
Come on, are you there?
I mean, let’s finish some stuff.
It’s never too late to
go back and start again. Come on.
Matter of fact, I don’t care if you have to start 30 times.
You keep starting until the devil finally gets the idea that you’re not gonna get off of it, that you are going to be the person that god wants you to be.
Amen? You see a lot of times when you’ve tried something a few times
and you haven’t made it, then the devil will just tell
you, well, it’s useless.
I’ve had a number of people tell me like when they’re on diets that they’ll they’ll do good for 2 weeks and then They have a weekday and they eat 3 pieces of cake.
And so then they just said, ah, well, might as well forget it. Just eat anything I want.
I mean, how silly is that?
I mean, if you ate 3 pieces of cake yesterday, get off the start again today.
You know, even those 3 pieces of cake won’t undo everything you’ve done in 2 weeks, just get started again.
Make the devil understand that you are not going to quit and you are not going to give up.
Woo. Come on. Come on.
I mean, after hearing that message says not, you should make your mind up.
I am not gonna live angry.
I am not gonna stay mad about something that happened to me in my childhood and be full of hatred and bitter and resentful, the devil already took enough for me.
He’s not taking anything else. And if you really needed the message that I spoke this morning about people pleasing, if you’re tired of everybody else running your life,
then it’s time to do something about it.
I can tell you right now. It’s not you can’t get everything you
need from just listening to somebody else who has a victory. You just can’t.
And god is not gonna do everything for you.
He has a part and you have a part. And I’ll
tell you what happens when you have a problem, you go to god and you ask him to help you, and I can tell you what happens.
Now I’m not saying that there’s not time as when god’s supernatural delivers people, But most of the time, when you pray for god to help you, he will show you what you need to do.
And then he’ll give you the grace to do it.
But somewhere along the line, you’ve got to do some doing.
There goes, let me say once again.
Nothing that you try to get without any effort is even worth having.
It’s true. Galatians 5 7.
You are running the race nobly.
Who has interfered and hindered and stopped you from heeding and following the truth. Alright.
I wanna go through a little bit of nehemiah with you.
Just as we finish up this afternoon because to be honest, 1 of the best stories in the Bible is found in the book of nehemiah.
You talk about somebody who stayed focused and stood against opposition I wanna encourage you to read nehemiah.
Here’s a guy, a young man who when he found out that the walls that protected Jerusalem had been torn down and that the people had no protection.
He decided that he was gonna do something about it.
Well, I wish we had more people that when they see a problem, they would decide I’m gonna do something about it instead of always thinking somebody needs
to do something about it.
And so it’s way too long for me to get into it in detail, but He got permission from the king to start rebuilding this wall.
He started a bunch of other people to help him. He got to work.
Got a plan from god. Got to work.
And immediately, enemies of the Jews who did not want to see them receive the help started coming against Myanmar.
Nehemiah 02:10, when Sanballot the Horonite and Tobaya, the servant
of the ammonite heard this.
So we’re just gonna call them the enemies. I’m not gonna read all those names every time.
It distressed them exceedingly.
Anytime that the devil hears that you’re gonna try
to do something good or something that’s gonna give progress in your life, something that’s gonna the kingdom.
Something’s going to help somebody else. It will distress him exceedingly. Thank you.
But Namaya just kept going.
Versus 19 and 20, but when the enemies heard about his plan they began to laugh at him and despise him and said, what is this thing that you think they’re doing?
Man, do I ever remember? When I first started trying to teach a bible study, the lies.
What do you think you’re doing? Who are you? You don’t have any training for this.
You don’t have the ability to do this. Who do you think you are?
Have you ever thought that maybe you might be able to do something great for god and the
next thing you hear is who do you think you are?
What makes you think you could do that?
You can’t do that. Well, let me tell you something. If anybody can do it, you can do it.
If god calls you to
do something, you can do anything god calls you to do.
God believes it, but do you believe it?
They laughed and said, what is this thing that you’re doing?
But verse 20, I love that nehemiah always came back with the right answer.
He said the god of heaven will prosper us. In other words, it doesn’t matter who I am.
God’s gonna make it work. Therefore, we, his servants will arise and build. He made a decision.
We will arise and build and you have no portion or right or memorial in Jerusalem.
In other words, devil, this is none of your business.
Then the enemies of Myanmar just continued to come against him, and he continued to build.
Nehemiah chapter 4. Versus 1 and 2.
But when the enemies heard that we were building the wall, they were angry and in a great rage.
And they began to ridicule us.
Verse 2, And he said before his brethren and the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing?
Now he’s belittling him. Will they restore things at will and by themselves?
Well, they weren’t trying to do it by themselves. They were doing it through the power of god.
Will they try to bribe their god with sacrifices? Will they finish up in a day?
And nehemiah’s response to all their nonsense and nehemiah prayed.
Oh, I love it.
Let me tell you something when the devil is telling you the biggest lie he can come up with and you pray.
Oh, he just gets so mad.
If you can see his face, I’m sure it’s as red as fire. Oh, he hates it.
When he throws his best shot, and we just say, I trust god and I’m gonna keep on keeping on.
The biggest thing that we need to do is learn how to think like god thinks, and the only way you can do that is by knowing the word of god.
In words to live by, Joyce Meyer shares how studying the word of god transformed her life.
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