Displaying Christian Sermons by tag: 2019

Joel Osteen (December-20-2020) Daily Devotion: Your Secret Petitions.

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. Psalm 37:4, AMPC

TODAY'S WORD: God knows the secret petitions of your heart. He knows every hidden dream He's placed within you. He knows the things that you haven't told anyone about. Maybe you thought they would never come to pass, or maybe you buried them because they didn't happen on your timetable. Maybe, in the natural, you have every reason to give up on those dreams. Be encouraged today—God is still working behind the scenes! He still has a plan to bring those dreams to pass. Do what today's verse says and delight yourself in Him. The word "delight" actually means "to make yourself soft and pliable." It paints the picture of God as the Potter and you as the clay. Allow God to mold and shape your character today. Allow Him to direct your plans and ideas. Keep an attitude of faith and expectancy, and as you submit your ways to the Lord and follow His leading, He will fulfill those secret petitions of your heart!

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Father, You said the path of the righteous gets brighter and brighter. You said no good thing will You withhold because I walk uprightly before You. You said because I delight myself in You, You will give me the secret petitions of my heart. Thank You for being in control of my life and for the good things You have in store for my future in Jesus' name. Amen.

Joyce Meyer (December-18-2019) Daily Devotion: Positive Minds.

Sometimes when I stand behind the pulpit, and before I speak, I pause and my gaze sweeps across the audience. I look at the faces of the people. I love to see the bright smiles and expressions of anticipation, but there are always a few who look downtrodden and discouraged. I don’t know anything about them and I don’t want to judge them, but their faces look sad. They look as if they have lost hope and expect nothing positive to happen—and too often, they get exactly what they expect.

I understand those discouraged people; I was once one of them.

Here’s a simple fact I’ve learned: Positive minds produce positive lives, but negative minds produce negative lives. The New Testament tells the story of a Roman soldier whose servant was sick, and the soldier wanted Jesus to heal him. That wasn’t uncommon—many wanted Jesus to heal them or their loved ones in those days. 

But this soldier, instead of asking Jesus to come to his servant, expressed his belief that if Jesus would just speak the word, his servant would be healed (see Matthew 8:8). Jesus marveled at his faith and sent out His word to heal the servant. The soldier’s positive mindset—his faith—brought positive results. He expected healing, and that’s exactly what happened.

Too often, we cry to Jesus to heal us, to take care of our finances, or to deliver us from problems, but we don’t fully expect the good things to happen. We allow our minds to focus on the negative aspects. Doubt and unbelief war against our minds and steal our faith if we allow it.

As I wrote in my book Battlefield of the Mind, many years ago I was extremely negative. I used to say that if I had two positive thoughts in a row, my mind would get in a cramp. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but that’s how I saw myself. I lived with the same philosophy that other people have: If we don’t expect anything good to happen, we won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t.

I could have excused my negative attitude by telling everyone about my disappointments in life—and I had many. It wasn’t just my lack of expectation. It was more than that. Because I thought negatively, I spoke negatively. When people told me of their spiritual victories, I’d think, That won’t last. When people spoke of their faith, I’d smile, but inwardly I would think that they were gullible. I could always figure out ways that plans would go wrong or people would disappoint me.

Was I happy? Of course not. Negative thinkers are never happy. It’s too long of a story to explain how I came to face that reality, but once I realized what a negative person I was, I cried out to the Lord to help me.

I learned that if I kept studying the Word of God, I could push away negative thoughts. God’s Word is positive and uplifting. My responsibility was to become the kind of believer who honors God with her thoughts, as well as with her actions and her deeds.

I understood the remorse David must have felt when he wrote Psalm 51 (AMPC): Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love... is the way he starts. I especially meditated on verse 9: Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities. I hadn’t sinned the same way David did, of course, but my negative thinking and bad attitude was sin. It wasn’t just weakness or a bad habit. When I focused on negative thinking, I was rebelling against God.

The Lord had mercy on me. As I continued in His Word and in prayer, He freed me from Satan’s stronghold. Freedom is available for all of us.

Prayer Starter: Gracious God, thank You for every deliverance in my life. Thank You for setting me free from negative and wrong thinking and for defeating Satan in this area of my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Andrew Wommack (November 5th, 2019) Live Bible Study - Ron Luce & Andrew Wommack. Join Andrew’s Live Bible Study to interact in real time and gain a deeper understanding of the Word. The Live Bible Study is held at 6:00 p.m. MT every Tuesday.

Joyce Meyer (November-01-2019) Sermon: Press Past Guilt and Shame - Part 2. Guilt and shame can keep us from making progress. But we don't have to let them. Learn more about the love and forgiveness God has for you!

Steven Furtick (October-01-2019) Sermon: Stop Worrying About What You Don't Have. You have a choice today: focus on what you don't have or recognize the provision God has already placed before you.

Heavy Anointing falls on Pastor Benny and his family

Joyce Meyer (September-16-2019) Daily Devotion: Let Peace Be Your Umpire.

I try to run my life by finding peace. If I am shopping, I don’t buy something if I don’t have peace about it. If I am involved in a conversation and find myself losing my peace, I become quiet. When I make decisions, I look at the options before me and see where the peace is. When I am trying to discern between the voice of God and the other voices that compete for my attention, I listen to see which voice or message brings the peace of God into my heart.

I have learned that maintaining peace is important in order to maintain power in our lives. When we don’t have peace, we may very well be making a serious mistake. I would go so far as to say we should never act without peace. We might say that peace is an “internal confirmation” that God approves of the decision we have made. God leads us by peace.

The verse for today says peace is like an umpire that decides what is “safe” or what is “out.” If there’s no peace, it’s “out”! We are to let the inner harmony in our minds and souls rule and act as an umpire continually in our hearts, deciding and settling with finality all the questions that arise in our minds and the decisions we must make in our lives.

We must learn to obey our own sense of right and wrong and resist doing things our inner conscience is uncomfortable doing. God gives or takes peace from our conscience to let us know whether or not we are on track.

Prayer Starter: Father, thank You for leading and guiding me into Your perfect will. Help me to be more sensitive to Your Holy Spirit and follow Your peace in all of life’s decisions. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Joyce Meyer (September-14-2019) Motivation: Growing Up. Are we the mature sons and daughters of the Most High that He desires for us to be?

Joyce Meyer (September-03-2019) Sermon: What Is Sin? - Part 2. God's grace empowers us to become mature believers. Learn how God can help you become a more loving, generous, faith-filled believer.

Steven Furtick (August-23-2019) Motivation: For all the list writers...