Displaying Christian Sermons by tag: 2018
Joseph Prince Stronger Through Every Trial And Battle.
Are you going through a difficult and trying season in your life? Find hope again as Joseph Prince gives you a God-perspective of your struggle—that you will come out of it with His strength in you and His blessing on you. Be comforted and encouraged as you learn from the Word of God how:
- God wants to turn every battle around for your ultimate victory and for His glory.
- You’ll be made strong as you walk closely with Him through the fights of life.
- He is building lasting character and stability in you.
Take heart, beloved, for your God fights your battles with you. With Him, you can face every challenge with hope and strength!
Joseph Prince - How To Be Blessed God's Way.
Did you know that God has given us the answer to experiencing His blessings more and more each day? In this revelation-packed message by Joseph Prince, see God’s deep desire to bless you and deliver you from every hopeless situation. Through an exciting study of Abraham's journey of faith, you'll learn how you can receive:
• Supernatural provision for all your needs
• All-encompassing protection from harm and evil
• Divine health for you and your family
Experience God’s power in your life as you begin to walk in the abundant blessings He has for you!
Joseph Prince - Hesed Wisdom To Live Skillfully. Want insight and discernment to do the right thing at the right time, stay out of trouble, and experience success? Joseph Prince highlights why we need divine wisdom now more than ever, and shows you how you can tackle daily challenges with God’s hesed wisdom. See how God willingly gives practical wisdom to those who ask so they can see right to the heart of a matter, act as wisely as a serpent, and yet be as harmless as a dove. Don’t just accumulate earthly knowledge—get wisdom from above and live with skill and enjoy good success!
Joseph Prince - Break Free From Addiction And Shame. When the guilt goes, so does your addiction. In this powerful message, Joseph Prince shows you how guilt and sin-consciousness perpetuate the sin cycle in an addiction, whereas knowing you have total forgiveness through Christ’s shed blood breaks that cycle. Understand why your past, present, and even future sins can all be forgiven once for all, and how knowing this frees you from captivity to sin. Get a fresh revelation of the efficacy of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice in perfecting your conscience, and break free of any bondage to be all that God has called you to be.
Joyce Meyer Sermon: Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit - Part 2. God is here to help you find your way. Today, Joyce shares on the importance of being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The main way the enemy speaks to us is by putting thoughts in our mind. That's why we definitely need to know the Word because if you don't know the Word, you won't recognize the lies of Satan.
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Amen. When you know the Word, let's say you've done something wrong and you've prayed, admitted it, confessed it before God, and asked to be forgiven, and then tomorrow you still feel guilty. If you really know the Word, you'll know that that's the devil trying to make you feel guilty because if the sin's been forgiven, then there can't be any guilt attached to it. But if you don't know the Word, then you can just waste most of your time feeling guilty about stuff that God's already forgotten. Amen. I don't mess with that anymore. I spent years feeling guilty. I didn't feel good if I didn't feel bad. When I first started experiencing peace, I was bored. I thought, you know, you can get addicted to being upset, being intense. So the devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God," so the first thing he does is attack His identity. "Who do you think you are? Order this stone to turn into a loaf of bread." So what was the temptation here? One, His identity, and two, he tried to get Him to move independently of God. "If you're hungry, just tell that stone to become bread." But that's not what God had told Him to do. We need to follow the leadership of God and not let the devil move us in the flesh to just do what we want to do when we want to do it, even sometimes when there's something we could do to get out of something but maybe inside we sense no, God wants me to stay even though this is a hard place. God wants me to stay here; He doesn't want me to run from this. And you know, when Jesus was in the garden, one of the soldiers, Peter, got a sword, whacked off his ear. Jesus picked his ear up and put it back on his head, and He said to Peter, "Don't you know that if I wanted to, I could call 12 legions of angels, 72,000 angels?
He said, 'I don't have to do this, but if I do that, the will of God won't be done." So there are times when I don't have to put up with something. Hello, there are times when you don't have to put up with something; you can say, "I'm putting up with you," but is that what God wants? Come on. I said, is that what God wants? Is that going to be the best for your children? It's so easy to run, but David stood and confronted Goliath, and Jesus went into that wilderness, and He confronted the devil. And we don't have to be afraid of the enemy because God's given us power over him, but wait a minute, before you clap and cheer, if you're going to stay mad at people, you might as well not shout about your power because you just threw it away. This is why we have so much available to us. Jesus has provided for everything, but it's time. There's one big word I want to give you tonight: full surrender. Come on. I mean, don't look at me like a little doe at a new gate. You know, full surrender. What do you have going on in your life that you know full well is against the Word of God, but you just won't give it up because you say, "Well, I'll probably go to heaven anyway." Well, you may, but you may have a miserable trip.
I don't know about you, but I want to enjoy the journey. Amen. And not only that, I love God, and if we love Him, we should obey Him. You know, Eve was deceived by the lies of Satan in the garden, and by the way, the devil has a special hate for women, and that's proven all throughout history. And that's because he was told in the garden that a woman would bruise his head by giving birth to the Savior. So he doesn't like us, and I bet he's especially mad now that women are really rising up and being used by God. But you know, Eve wasn't deceived because she was evil or bad. You know why she was deceived? Because she loved God so much that when Satan said to her, "If you eat this, you'll be like God," well, she wanted that. She wanted to be more like God. She loved Him, so she did what God had told her not to do, but the intent of her heart... Do you know that most of the people that get really weird and off into a spirit of error are people who really love God, and the devil takes advantage of that, and he starts telling them stuff that's really not scriptural, and they start doing it and get into trouble? That's right. I don't care if you're quiet all night. Then the devil, like, okay, verse whatever it is, the next one, five, then the devil took Him up on a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the habitable world at a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, and he said to Him, "To you, I will give all this power and authority and their glory, all of their magnificence, their excellence, their preeminence, their dignity, and their grace because it has been turned over to me, and I give it to whomever I will." Well, how'd it get turned over to him? In the garden. Adam gave the power that God had given him to the enemy. And if you read that and understand it, don't think for one minute that the devil can't make a wicked man rich. Prosperity is no sign of spiritual maturity. Amen. The devil can give people stuff, but he can't make you happy. He can't give you peace. He can't give you joy. You know, your life is like a blip on gravestones. Let's say I live to be 100. I was born in 1943, so let's say it says, "Here lies Joyce Meer, born 1943, died 2043." Dash, died 2043. The only thing that really matters is what happened in the dash. And so I want to ask you, what are you doing with your dash?
And that's about it. I mean, I can't believe that I'm 80. I can't believe that I look back at my life, and I think, "I've given birth to four kids. I've had a miscarriage. I've had 12 grandchildren. I've preached all over the world. I've made 67 mission trips out of the country. Been married today for 57 years." Just, I'm like, and I don't know how much is left of my dash, but I know what I'm going to do with it. Amen. Come on. I want you to wake up tonight. If you're living in some kind of sin, and you know that you are, you know that what you're doing is wrong, get it straightened out before your dash is over because eternity is a long, long... How long is forever? Wow. Is it worth staying mad at somebody? Is it worth it? Of course not. So, I think that's interesting to see that the devil can give people stuff. And then I love this, in verse 7, therefore, the devil says, "If you will do homage to and worship me, just once, it will all be yours." The just one slide, just one time, "It won't hurt. It won't hurt. Just this one time. Everybody else does it." Well, you ain't everybody else. We're supposed to be separated. Sanctified means set apart for God's use, holy and set apart for God's use. This is my glass right here. I'm supposed to be the only one that uses it. This is set apart for me, for these little lips right here. This is my Kleenex box that needs to be shined up. You understand what I mean? You belong to God. You are not your own. You're bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
You don't get to just do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. I mean, you can if you want to, but you will pay a price for it, and many of you are paying a price. Well, Jesus had His stuff together. He replied to Satan and said, "Get behind me, Satan. Hit the road. It is written, 'You shall do homage to and worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'" Then He took Him to Jerusalem, set Him on a gable of the temple, and said, "If you are the Son of God, cast Yourself down from here because He will give His angels charge over you, and they'll..." He can even quote scripture. The devil knows the Bible. He can quote scripture. And Jesus replied, "You shall not tempt, test, or try the Lord your God." And I love this part. When the devil had ended the complete cycle of temptation, he temporarily left Him to wait for a more opportune time. So, guess what? Truth be told, he's never going to completely leave you alone. I know that's not very good news, but the Bible says you got to fight the good fight of faith. Remember, we're just in the dash. It won't... So what if you never get what you want? It won't last that long, and the day will come when you'll have everything you could have possibly ever wanted. You can put up with a little something now if you have to. The thing that the devil loves more than anything is a passive Christian, somebody who just, "Well, God will protect me." Well, we work in tandem with God. We work in partnership with God. I bought this book and read it, and I don't call my office Monday and ask what the name of this book was. If you want to know, you write it down now. "Power Lines" by Leona Choy, C-H-O-Y. And this is what great evangelicals believed about the Holy Spirit from 1850 to 1930.
That interested me because there are so many different opinions and theories about all this. There are 24 different great men of God that talk in here about what they believe about the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, baptized in the Holy Spirit. And shockingly, I know, but they don't all agree. There are probably at least eight different, very strong and reasonable-sounding opinions. Some say that when you're born again, you receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Some say it's a second blessing that you get later after you're born again. I've always said when you're born again, you have the Holy Spirit. I don't think that's the problem. The problem is, does the Holy Spirit have you? And after reading all this, and I've come to the conclusion, at this point (could change my mind later, you know, we do change our mind the more we learn), that I believe when you're born again, you do receive the full power of the Holy Spirit because you can't... you know, if you get the Holy Spirit, He doesn't come in slices. But until you're ready to yield, or surrender, come on, we're going somewhere, until you're ready to surrender... See, if you look in on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out, it says, "On when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place when suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which was separated and settled on each one of them. And they were all filled, diffused throughout their souls." Now, I want you to see that, diffused throughout their souls. You have, if you're born again, you have the Holy Spirit in your spirit, but when you are, if, if you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you have to let Him have control of your soul, and that's your mind, your will, and your emotions. You have to let Him fill you completely, not just keep Him kind of off in this one little room that you go to when you have an emergency. We live in an emergency.
And I look back at my own life, and I say, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit when I, in 1976. There was a move of God going on basically all over the Earth. Thousands and thousands of people were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. But if I really want to be doctrinally correct, which, believe it or not, I do try to be, uh, I had the Holy Spirit. And I don't think I just had a little bit of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit only had a little bit of me. And so, half of these guys say what I'm saying now, that you receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, but you can lose some of that. You don't... the Holy Spirit never leaves you; He's there to abide, but you can lose the full power of the Holy Spirit by living the wrong way. So, I'm asking you to make a decision tonight. Do you... What's more important to you, to do what you want to do when you want to do it, to say what you want to say when you want to say it, to think what you want to think when you want to think it, to watch stuff that you know you shouldn't be watching, listen to stuff you know you shouldn't be listening to, gossip and laugh at dirty jokes, and what... you know, whatever you... whatever? Or, do you want to have the full power of the Holy Ghost in your life? I'm going to tell you something, and I sure don't mean this to sound any way but just, I'm trying to tell you the truth. I believe that I carry an anointing on my life. Yes. That's the only thing that helps people. It's not my great speaking ability; it's God's anointing. But I pay a price to keep that, and I spend a lot of time by myself because sometimes you just can't get involved in all of it. You know, it's just... I mean, the devil will get you. How easy is it to start gossiping about people when you sit with other people all the time who gossip? How easy is it to start murmuring and grumbling and complaining about every little inconvenience if all you hang out with is other grumblers and murmurers? Come on. How easy is it to compromise just a little if all you hang out with is people who always compromise just a little? And I've got some good godly friends, but I like to hang out with positive people. I like to hang out with generous people because I'm a giver. Come on. Which do you want? Do you want this temporary self-will, or would you be willing to walk away from any... I'm calling people to decision tonight. Would you be willing to walk away from anything if God put His finger on it and said, "You know, that's wrong"? Would you be willing to walk away from all your friends if God showed you they were all poisoning your life and keeping you from God in order to have the full power of the Holy Spirit in your life? I have got to have all of God. I cannot do with any less. I cannot do with any less. And we need the gifts of the Holy Ghost. And some of them say they left with the early church, and some of them say they didn't. You know what I think? People do.
I think people make a doctrine out of their own experience. However, they got something; that's how everybody's supposed to get it. Or if they didn't get it at all, then nobody's supposed to have it. You know, the Holy Spirit is like the wind. You don't know where it's coming or where it's going, but you sure know when it's been there. And the Holy Spirit does different things in different ways in different people's lives, and we got to just let Him have His way. You say, "Well, what about this speaking in tongues thing?" Well, okay, what about it? People have fought more over that, and it's the last gift on the list, and whole denominations have split and parted ways over that. "Well, I speak in tongues, but if you don't want to, I can love you anyway." You know, some of them say God doesn't give everybody that gift. Let me tell you something. I know some Christians that are meaner than snakes that speak in tongues, and I know some people that I believe are godly and full of the Holy Ghost that don't speak in tongues. So, get off it. I mean, just get off it. I mean, I want everything God will give me, so I begged Him to give me. I opened my mouth. I tried. I did everything. And 'cause if anybody can have anything, I want it. I'm a spiritual hog. You know, you know what's getting most people? They want to be religiously respectable, and it's our deadly respectability that's keeping the power out of the church.
Joseph Prince Healing of the Leper in Matthew 8 Animation Video. Will God hear us when we come to Him as we are with all our failings and disqualifications? Find certainty as you hear Joseph Prince reveal how God truly sees you through the cross, and why you can always approach Jesus just as you are for help. See from the story of Jesus healing the leper how God does not just have the power but also the heart to supply your area of need.
Joyce Meyer - Sermon: Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit - Part 1. Hope, peace, comfort, adventure… You have all of those things when you follow the Holy Spirit! Learn how to listen for His voice.
So, I want to talk to you tonight about the Holy Spirit because I don't think He gets enough attention.
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I just don't. We talk a lot about God the Father and a lot about Jesus, and we should, but I went to church for many, many years and, of course, I heard of the Holy Spirit in the benediction, but I never heard a message on the Holy Spirit or how important He was to me in my daily life. And so, we want to dig in tonight, and hopefully, everybody can leave here knowing how important the Holy Spirit is to you.
Well, who is the Holy Spirit? We usually refer to Him as the third person of the Trinity, but "third" doesn't mean that He's any less than the other two. It's not like one is the most important, two second important, and three is kind of on the bottom of the ladder. We serve one God in three Persons. Of course, that doesn't make any sense to us. We can't figure that out mathematically in our heads, and one big favor you could do yourself right now is if you would just make a decision to stop trying to figure God out because you're not going to. He just doesn't do things the way we would do them.
I'm just going to read you two scriptures I think that will verify the fact that the Bible talks about all three persons of this one amazingly wonderful God that we serve. "God said, 'Let us,' Genesis 1:26, 'Let us—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—make mankind in our image, after our likeness, and let them have complete authority.' Wow, everybody say 'authority.' Authority—that's something else I never heard about. I never knew that I had any authority. I just thought, well, whatever happened, good or bad, was God, and I just had to put up with it. There were so many things that I just didn't know because nobody was teaching them to me.
'And let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame beasts, and over all the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth,' including the chief creep, the devil. In creation, Father God always refers to us in 'our' and not 'I.' Matthew 28:19, 'Go then and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.' When Jesus left the Earth, He sent the Holy Spirit to represent Him and to act in His behalf.
And in John 16:7, Jesus said, 'However, I am telling you nothing but the truth when I say it's going to be better for you when I go away because if I don't go away, then the Holy Spirit can't come.' Now, I'm sure that the disciples just couldn't make any sense out of that at all. How could anything be better than having Jesus right there with you? Well, the thing that's so much better about it is because Jesus was in a human body, just like I am, and I, if I'm here on this platform, can't be across the street, and Jesus couldn't either. But the Holy Spirit is not confined to a body. He's in every believer. If you've received Christ as your Savior, you're the home of God now. That just blows my mind.
You're the new temple of God, not one made with human hands. But see, we—that won't go in—that we're the home of God. If we really believed that and if we really believed that God was with us all the time, we wouldn't do some of the things we do. Wow, I hope somebody in this building tonight really wants to get on with it and be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Like I said, I want you to feel good, and I want you to know how much God loves you and how awesome you are, but I also really want people to understand that we have got some serious problems, and they're not just in the world; they're also in the church. Church, and I—there are great churches; I'm not picking on any church. When I'm talking about the church, I'm talking about all of us, everywhere, all around the world. There are millions of us, and if we could ever stop fighting long enough, we might get something done.
Now, John 14:26, I want you to really look at some of these words with me. 'But the Comforter—see, when you need comfort, you really don't have to call up a friend and tell them your problem and say, can you comfort me? It's okay if you want to do that, but you have a Comforter living inside you—and so, when you're hurting, ask Him to comfort you. You have not because you ask not. He's your Counselor.' I'm not against people going and paying for counseling if that's what you feel like you need to do. Sometimes it's good to talk to somebody, but I didn't have the money for that, and I had a boatload full of problems, and I can tell you, the Holy Spirit was my Counselor and walked me out of the horrible mess I was in because of the dysfunctional way that I grew up. So, if you can't afford counseling, you don't have to be concerned. The Counselor—not a counselor, the Counselor—lives on the inside of you. He's our Helper, Intercessor—He prays through us and for us—Advocate; He's like our lawyer before the Throne of God; Strengthener—oh, does anybody need strength? I'll tell you one thing, I do—and our Standby. I love that the Amplified Bible says that. I love that it's like, you know, if you go on standby on an airline, it's like you don't have a seat, but you just stand by to get the first available seat. Well, the Holy Spirit is just standing by all the time, seeing if we'll let Him do something in our life. That's right, amen.
Now, you don't pray to the Holy Spirit; you pray to the Father in the name of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. He leads you and guides you. 'The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf, He will teach you all things.' So, the Holy Spirit is your teacher. I'm a teacher, but He is the Teacher, and He will cause you to recall and will remind you of, and bring to your remembrance, everything I have told you. Maybe you're young enough that your memory still doesn't need any help, but I'm finding I need a little more and more help all the time these days, amen.
John 15:16 and 17 says, 'You have not chosen Me, but I've chosen you, and I have appointed you, and I have planted you.' I drew a circle around that, and I just want to ask, has God planted any of you somewhere where you don't want to be? I mean, God puts us places, and He doesn't always put us somewhere that's really comfortable for us. You tell God you want to be used by Him, and then you cry because you're the only Christian where you work. You ask for opportunities.
I have planted you, why? That you might go and bear fruit and keep on bearing. God hasn't called us to be busy; He's called us to be fruitful, and that your fruit may be lasting, that it may remain and abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name (and here again, I love the Amplified Bible for this; it explains what it means to pray in Jesus' name), when you ask, when you say in Jesus' name, it says you're presenting to God all that I am. So, thank God I don't pray in Joyce's name. When I go to God, I'm not presenting all I am and my good record for the week; I'm presenting all that Jesus is. You understand that when you pray in His name, you're going through Him to the Father. Aren't you glad you don't have to try to get there because of your good merit? And verse 17, of course, is probably one of the most important verses in the Bible, and this is what I command you: that you love one another.
Very simple. I had 'love' tattooed on one of my ankles here, that one, so I remember to walk in love. Sometimes we need to be reminded, don't we? The Comforter, the Counselor, the Helper, the Advocate, the Intercessor, the Strengthener, and the Standby will not come to you into close fellowship with you. Can you say "close fellowship"? Close fellowship. And He said, 'I'll never leave you nor forsake you, but I'll be with you always, even to the ends of the earth.' And God is in heaven, Father God is in heaven on His throne in heaven, Jesus sits at His right hand, and the Holy Spirit lives in us, bringing us the presence of the Father and the Son, and we're to be in close fellowship with Him. You can talk with the Holy Spirit all day long. He wants to lead you and guide you. He's a wonderful friend.
Now, Jesus didn't actually start His public ministry until He was 33, so He trained 33 years for a three-year ministry. John the Baptist trained 30 years for a ministry that lasted four to five months. I wonder how many people would be willing to do that. We want to get born again and get a platform because we got a gift. Amen. And I'll just throw this out for good measure, why not? The Bible says not to put a new convert in leadership because if you do, they'll become puffed up with pride, and people do that all the time. Some kid will get saved, and they can sing good, so the next thing you know, they're on the platform, and then the next thing you know, they got a record deal, and then they're traveling all over the country, and then the next thing you know, they fall into sin, and another embarrassment comes to the name of Christ. And as leaders in the body of Christ, we should not do that to people. You got to have some preparation, you got to have some training, got to have some experience. Amen. Don't be in such a big hurry to get where you think you're going. Don't run out ahead of God. I mean, when God called me to teach or told me I was going to teach, I thought for sure the next day I was going to the world. Well, it didn't work that way. It did not work that way. We all, if you're going to be worth your salt, you're all going to have to have your own little wilderness experience. Thank you, whoever that is. Some of you are in training right now, and you don't like what you're going through, and you don't understand it, and it doesn't seem fair, but later on, you will understand. I look back at my life now, and gosh, there's so much that goes on in a life, but boy, we can learn from every single thing that we go through. And when you, when you get to my point, it's like I look back, and even the mistakes I made, it's like I learned from those. Instead of being so upset about where you're at, ask God what you can get out of it. What can I reap out of this? How can this make me a better person? Amen. Oh, and by the way, just so God's not alive to serve us, we're supposed to be serving Him. Just in case you didn't know that, I wanted to be sure that I told you that. He's not like this spiritual slot machine, you know, where you throw in a prayer and pull a lever and expect to get a download of everything you want. Matter of fact, why don't you just take a vacation from telling God what you want. Come on, I dare you. Just give it three months and don't ask Him for anything except more of Him. Come on, we're going for it tonight.
But Jesus, now I want you to get this, Jesus did not try to go out and do any mighty works until He was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, we're going to have to cross some denominational lines here.
Luke 3:21 through 23, "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and while He was still praying, the visible heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the bodily form of a dove, and a voice came from heaven saying, 'You are My Son, My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.'" Now, the next thing the Bible says after Luke 3:21-23, then we go right to Luke chapter 4, "Then Jesus, full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit—see, the only way that you can handle a wilderness fight with the devil is if you're full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit—He returned from the Jordan and was led in by the Holy Spirit for during 40 days in the wilderness, in the desert, where He was tempted, tried, tested a little bit exceedingly by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they were completed, He was hungry." Now, I want you to watch this. The devil waited until He was at His weakest, and he does the same thing with us. He waits until we're really tired, or like a lot of times for me, I mean, you would not believe some of the stupid stuff that happens to us when we're out on the road. And it's because I need to be able to keep my mind on what I'm doing, but the devil works overtime trying to get me flustered and frustrated. We got to the FBO today; we had been guaranteed four automobiles; they had one. Nobody knew where the other were. Here's what I want you to understand, I'm so serious about this message tonight, when we are frustrated, tense, irritable, upset, you can't sense what the Holy Spirit is doing or wants to do. And this is exactly why the world is so full of strife and stupidity. Anyone else, do you ever have a temptation to get upset about this little stuff? Oh, come on, don't give me that. You know, the devil was called Lucifer, and he was one of the archangels, very beautiful, but he had a problem with pride, and he decided that he was going to lift his throne above the Throne of God, and God said, "I'll show you what you're going to get." You got kicked out of heaven, and he took a third of the angels with him, which I guess proves that angels have free will, and so the devil can only be in one place at one time, but he has a lot of little helpers; they're called demons. I know this is like, but see, if Paul said, "I don't want you to be ignorant," he—we need to be informed. Now, I'm not big on just talking about the devil all the time, and everything that happens is not the devil, and you know, every time you do something wrong, it's not the devil that made you do it, but there are a lot of things that are the devil, and the Bible says that we war not against flesh and blood, Ephesians 6, but against principalities and powers and wickedness in high places, and all the stuff that's going on in the world today, even though the enemy works through people, it's the enemy that is behind it. And people just keep getting mad at people and talking about people and gossiping about people, and we need to get to the source of the problem. How do you overcome evil? With good, Romans 12:21. If we would all walk in love and really just even start by liking each other, I—well, I—you're one of those tongue-talking people. No, that's not right. Everything's not right until you do it. So, the devil waited until he was really hungry, really tired, and really ready to get out of that place. The main way the enemy speaks to us is by putting thoughts in our mind. That's why we definitely need to know the Word because if you don't know the Word, you won't recognize the lies of Satan. Amen. When you know the Word, let's say you've done something wrong, and you've prayed, you've admitted it, you've confessed it before God, you've asked to be forgiven, and then tomorrow you still feel guilty. If you really know the Word, you'll know that that's the devil trying to make you feel guilty because if the sin's been forgiven, then there can't be any guilt attached to it.
Joseph Prince Live Bold Without Guilt And Fear. What causes fear to come in and faith to go out? Joseph Prince shows from the story of Abraham and Abimelech how guilt and condemnation can open the door to fear, rob you of faith, and keep you in a cycle of defeat. Understand why your answer lies in a robust consciousness of your righteousness in Christ despite your failures, and discover how healing comes when you embrace His grace wholeheartedly. Start to live boldly in the Lord, experience greater health in your body and mind, and enjoy the intimate walk with the Lord you’ve always desired!
Joyce Meyer - Sermon: The Focus That Brings the Greatest Joy - Part 1. What are you really good at, and what brings you the greatest joy? Today, Joyce talks about getting used to the good works God is doing in you and through you.
I heard a lot of messages about loving people, and I could see that from the word that God wanted us to love people, and I wanted to love people and I wanted to be patient with people and I wanted to be merciful to people, and I just couldn't seem to do it.
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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. What is your attitude toward yourself? Do you like yourself? Well, we heard we had a few people there, but you know, I spent a lot of years not liking myself, probably even in some ways dealing with some self-hatred, certainly some self-rejection, because a lot of what happened to me when I was growing up I thought somehow or another was my fault. And so, first, let me start by saying if somebody has mistreated you, devalued you, abused you, criticized you, judged you, done something that has left you wounded, their ignorance is not your fault. Don't hate them; don't be mad at them because if you do that, that will just continue giving them power over your life.
The thing you want to do is just realize the source, shake it off, say "so be it," and go on with your life. Amen. And to be honest, I tried for so long to love people after I became a Christian and started really studying the word of God. I knew that I heard a lot of messages about loving people, and I could see that from the word that God wanted us to love people, and I wanted to love people, and I wanted to be patient with people, and I wanted to be merciful to people, and I just couldn't seem to do it, and it got so frustrating to me because I felt like my heart was right. I wanted to do the right thing, but I just couldn't seem to pull it off. And God began many years ago revealing to me that the reason why I couldn't love other people was that I didn't love myself. I couldn't be merciful to other people because I didn't know how to receive God's mercy for me. I was hard on myself, and if you're hard on yourself, you're going to be hard on everybody else too. Come on now. So, one of the things that I've learned over these 42 years that I've had the rare privilege of teaching God's word is that you can't give away what you don't have, so you might as well stop trying to give something to other people that you don't have yourself. And see, God equips us; He provides us with everything that we need to get out in the world and do everything that He wants us to do. You've got what it takes, but if you don't know it, then no matter what you have, if you don't know it, it won't do you any good, and if it's not doing you any good, then it can't get through you to do somebody else any good. And I know many of you have probably heard me teach this. I don't care if you've heard it a thousand times; if the devil can get you to not like yourself, he has already won the battle in your life. What is your attitude toward yourself?
What is your relationship with yourself? How do you think and feel about yourself? How much time do you spend thinking about everything that's wrong with you and what you can't and what you don't and what you didn't and what you should have compared to, or do you ever even purposely sit and think about what your gifts are and what your strengths are? See, we kind of think, well, it just might not be good to just sit around and think how good I am. Well, I'm not talking about how good you are in yourself; I'm talking about thinking about what God has done for you and what He's invested in you and what He's given to you. And the more you celebrate the good things, the smaller the bad things are going to become. And I'm going to tell you something: the more you focus on what's wrong with you, the bigger it's going to get. I said the more you focus on what's wrong with you, the bigger it's going to get, and the less likely you are to ever get rid of it. We're going to say that to this side of the room: the more you focus on what's wrong with you, the less likely you are to ever get rid of it, and the bigger it's going to get in your life. And if you think you're a mess now, you just keep focusing on what a mess you are and just see how much worse you are this time next year than you are right now.
Two of the most important relationships that you have are, number one, your relationship with God, and number two, your relationship with yourself. If you have your relationship with God right and your relationship with yourself right, you are not going to have any trouble with anybody else. That doesn't mean people won't be challenging for you sometimes or maybe a little bit difficult to handle, but you might as well stop trying to get along with everybody else out there if you can't get along with yourself. And I think a lot of people, to be honest, don't like themselves; they don't even know that's the root of their problem. I didn't realize until God taught me that that was why I couldn't really love anybody else. I didn't love myself, and I'm not talking about being in love with yourself; I'm talking about loving yourself in a balanced way. Your attitude toward yourself affects your relationship with everybody else, and although we are taught in the word of God not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, we are never, ever taught to have a low, demeaning opinion of ourselves. Matter of fact, I'll tell you, I think it's ungodly to do that. We should learn to see ourselves in Christ, to see ourselves the way our heavenly Father sees us in Christ. If we stay rooted and grounded in Christ, John 15 says, "If you abide in me and my word abides in you, you will bear much fruit." You know why? If you stay in Christ, if you abide in Him, what the root has, and Jesus is called the root, will come up through the vine and into the branches. You will become more and more like Jesus, the more you focus on what He's done in you, then you do what is wrong with you.
Pastor Steven Furtick Sermon: I'm confused about my calling. We all have an idea of what a "calling" is, but maybe it's time to shift our perspectives.