PREPARING FOR CHRIST'S RETURN - JOYCE MEYER

Get out into the world and show off your holiness.

Who can I be an example to today?

Joyce Meyer at Lakewood Church Thursday 11/13/14

Word of Encouragement:
Hebrews 10:36 For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and [a]carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

Some are weary. Came out to Lakewood to see if Joyce has a Word. God has a good life planned for all of us, but it takes patience. It takes doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Testimony video
Dave Meyer
America’s Providential History [Book]
Most don’t know the nation’s history.
We have historical amnesia.
We have to know our rights in order to protect them.

Joyce’s new devotional is on thankfulness.

PREPARING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN
Do you think it’s possible Jesus could come back in your lifetime?
Believers have believed that since Jesus died.
Believing that keeps us on the straight and narrow.
This past year God has called her attention to how many things New Testament believers endured.
They stood against selfishness because “the Lord is coming soon”. [Rev 22:12]
They lived with this intense feeling/hope/expectation that the Lord was coming back soon and they wanted to be ready.
We forget that and can get too casual in our walk with God.
How many things would change if you thought Jesus was coming back tomorrow?
Joyce wants us to get to the point where we can say nothing.

There’s a difference between making occasional mistakes, and living wrong on purpose and not really caring.
When she asked God what to preach 3 times God told Joyce to preach on sin.
Before you teach on it refresh people on what it is.
The lines are getting blurred about what’s right and what’s wrong.
God has not only called us to be happy; He’s called us to be holy.
You won’t be happy if you’re not holy.
We all need a good word occasionally on letting go of sin.
The Apostle Paul complimented the churches on their good but said I want you to do even more.
You’re doing great. The fact that you’re here means you’re doing good.
But let’s all have an attitude to do better.
Hebrews 12:14 Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see the Lord.
We don’t go to heaven because of our holiness but because of Christ.
But if we’re not pursuing holiness then we won’t see the Lord.
People who are serious about Christ strive to be holy.
If you’ve been saved 10 years and there’s been no change in you there’s a problem.
Pursue is the operative word here.
It doesn’t say that you have to have arrived.
No one has arrived.
That means crave and go after it with all your heart.
Are you wholeheartedly 100% chasing after God or is Jesus just a little sideline for you?
That’s not the way to happiness and the best life God wants for you.
Holiness is not legalism.
It doesn’t mean we never have fun or go to a party.
Jesus loves a party.
In the Old Testament they were commanded to have parties; parties that were days long.
We need more parties.
Holiness doesn’t mean that you can’t wear makeup, or go to the movies, etc.
Holiness is not about whether or not you color your hair.
In all those things we make choices.
If we go to a party we go to a right party.
We are choosey about what movies we see.
We don’t dance in a sexually perverted way that will tempt others.
It’s about making a choice in everything we do and how we do that.
If you’re a Christian you’re already holy.
You may not be living holy; but you are holy.
We’re given a status of holiness imputed to us in Christ.
I can have something and still not walk in it.
I don’t have wrongness anymore – I have rightness.
The reason why God gives us holiness is to live a holy life.
That’s why God gave us the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit comes to make us holy and to keep us living a holy life.
Understand we’re here to be a light in a dark world.
The dark world can’t see what’s in my heart; they only see what I do.
That means making good choices even when everyone around you is making wrong choices.
Be who you are over and over until they become hungry and thirsty for what you have.
When Joyce married Dave she had lots of problems.
Dave didn’t preach to her all day.
He invited her to church & she went but they weren’t teaching about how to really live holy.
Dave was consistently an example of peace for at least 3 years before Joyce noticed he was different from her.
Sometimes you have to get full enough of God to be what we say we believe on Sunday morning.
When you go home or to your job to the same grouchy people the best thing to do is be who you are over and over.
It may take years but keep showing Jesus to the world.
Not just to hear about Him but to See Him.
Holiness doesn’t mean you can’t any fun.
Holiness defined: the state predetermined by God for believers, into which in grace He calls them, and they begin their Christian walk, and pursue it growing towards perfection. [From Vines definition of holiness]
Joyce has a package of pepper seeds.
How dumb would it be to plant pepper seeds and command the seeds to become potatoes?
So why would God command us to be holy if we didn’t have that seed/possibility within us?
Show off what you’ve already got in you.
We don’t want to wear our new outfits at home.
We need someplace to show off.
That’s usually what we do; trying to impress our Christian friends with Christian gibberish.
Get out into the world and show off your holiness.
Who can I be an example to today?u
Not who can I be religious to today.
If we really have a right relationship with God then nothing will stop us from wanting to improve.
Understand how important this is.
God wants us to live right and be happy but He also wants us to make Him happy by being a blessing to others.
This sainthood is not an attainment – it’s a gift of God’s grace
None of us could do enough right things to call ourselves holy.
We need to learn what we have, who we are, and then go after it with our whole heart.
I want to be a God chaser.
Haggai 2:11-12  Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask now the priests to decide this question of law: If one carries in the skirt of his garment flesh that is holy [because it has been offered in sacrifice to God], and with his skirt or the flaps of his garment he touches bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does what he touches become holy [dedicated to God’s service exclusively]? And the priests answered, No! [Holiness is not infectious.]
Holiness is not infectious
You can’t catch holiness.
Haggai 2:13 Then said Haggai, 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 priests answered, It shall be unclean. [Unholiness is infectious.]
Unholiness is infectious.
You can catch the flu from someone but you can’t catch health.
Health you have to work on.
We can catch unholiness by hanging out with the wrong people, watching the wrong movies, etc.
There is a ton of compromise in the church today.
More Christians get divorces than non-Christians.
Joyce isn’t throwing stones, she got divorced in her twenties.
We can’t just be like the world and still be an example to the world.
The Apostle Paul said it never bothers me to tell you the same things over and over.
Even preparing to teach this refreshed Joyce’s walk with God.
1 Corinthians 5:9-11 9 I wrote you in my [previous] letter not to associate [closely and habitually] with unchaste (impure) people—
10 Not [meaning of course that you must] altogether shun the immoral people of this world, or the greedy graspers and cheats and thieves or idolaters, since otherwise you would need to get out of the world and human society altogether!
11 But now I write to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of [Christian] brother if he is known to be guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater [whose soul is devoted to any object that usurps the place of God], or is a person with a foul tongue [railing, abusing, reviling, slandering], or is a drunkard or a swindler or a robber. [No] you must not so much as eat with such a person.
You can’t avoid everybody’s that’s wicked – you’d have to leave the world altogether.
But don’t hang out with people claiming to be Christians [and living like the devil].
Don’t even eat a meal with a person like that.
Doesn’t mean you can’t be around Christians living wrong if you’re trying to counsel/help them.
But you can’t habitually spend time with them.
You can’t live a double standard.
I don’t want to hang out with a compromiser all the time.
We’ve gotten too good at putting up with stuff in the church.
Let’s say your best friend is a Christian who is constantly critically judging people, gossiping, complaining, greedy, immoral behavior…
It’s not good for you or them to think that’s OK.
We have to love people enough to say “It’s not OK”.
Please don’t do that.
Please don’t do that to yourself.
The word sin means to miss the mark, but it also means to sacrifice and to miss reward.
People are just forfeiting their rewards.
It’s very dangerous to have a casual attitude towards sin.
There are many things the world approves of that God does not.
The courts can pass a law and say [this] is OK but if God’s word says it’s not OK then it’s not OK for us.
Just for Joyce to see what’s happened to the world since she was a teenager is scary.
People will believe wrong is right and right is wrong.
Joyce is having a blast and she’s pursuing God with her whole heart every day.
A whole hearted believer who says “I don’t want to be like this. Help me and deliver me from [this area where I struggle].”
What He can’t deal with is people acting like it doesn’t matter.
Young people have an opportunity to make an impact today.
Boy have you got a job on your hands.
When Joyce was in school chewing gum in class was the worst thing.
The world is so angry.
We weren’t built by God to live without God.
People are trying to take God out of every thing.
They’re taking away the solution to their problems.
We need to show them that there is an answer.
Don’t preach preach preach to people.
Get out there and BE a message.
We have to be the message.
Just because they do it on TV doesn’t mean that it’s permissible for us to do.
Hebrews 12:10 For [our earthly fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness.
God deals with us to make us holy.
I don’t ever want Him to leave me alone.
I don’t want Him to let me get by with anything.
Examine me.
Look me over and let me know if there’s anything You see that You don’t like.
What is sin?
It’s what God says it is.
Read the book.
Just because it’s Old Testament doesn’t mean it’s passé.
It means Christ is the fulfillment of it.
God gives us His grace so we can do what He asks us to do.
Commandment #1 You shall have no other gods before or besides Me. Exodus 20:3
Commandment #2 You shall not make yourself any graven image [to worship it] or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Exodus 20:4
It doesn’t mean you can’t have a ceramic figurine – it means don’t worship it.
Anything that takes 1st place above God is an idol.
Commandment #3 You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely]; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. Exodus 20:7
Commandment #4 [Earnestly] remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God). Exodus 20:8-11
The whole point is I have to have time for God, and I have to have time to rest.
We worship work in our society.
Nobody is more driven than Americans.
Romans 14:5-6 One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike [sacred]. Let everyone be fully convinced (satisfied) in his own mind.
6 He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
Tithing is just practice for living the life of a giver.
God wants everything that we have to be available to Him.
He doesn’t want us to be owners; He wants us to be stewards.
Commandment #5 Regard (treat with honor, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you. Exodus 20:12
Joyce’s parents abused and abandoned her, but when they got up in their late 70s God told Joyce to take care of them until they die.
When we obey God because we love God we don’t need justification to do what’s right.
If you have elderly parents that you don’t check on it is not right.
Some may say, "You don’t know what my parents did to me".
Well I know what my parent did to me, and Joyce knows the power that came from obeying God by honoring them…
When we choose to disobey God we’re forfeiting the reward attached.
Commandment #6 You shall not commit murder. Exodus 20:13
You shall not commit murder, but Jesus takes it further in Matthew 5:21 You have heard that it was said to the men of old, You shall not kill, and whoever kills shall be [ac]liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court.
22 But I say to you that everyone who continues to be [ad]angry with his brother or harbors malice (enmity of heart) against him shall be [ae]liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court; and whoever speaks contemptuously and insultingly to his brother shall be [af]liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, You [ag]cursed fool! [You empty-headed idiot!] shall be [ah]liable to and unable to escape the hell (Gehenna) of fire.
If you hate your brother you committed murder.
Commandment #7 You shall not commit [a]adultery. Exodus 20:14
You shall not commit adultery, but if you look on a woman/man with lust… [Matthew 5:27-28]
You don’t need to stare at all the underwear ads on TV.
Commandment #8 You shall not steal. Exodus 20:15
How about if you get paid to work a 40 hour week but 10 of those hours you play on the internet and make personal phone calls?
Back in Jesus' day they stoned people for stuff like that.
But you’re not everybody; you’re a child of the Most High God.
You’re a representative of the Most High God.
Even if everybody else does it you don’t do it.
Not with a religious snooty attitude like you’re better than everybody.
Commandment #9 You shall not witness falsely against your neighbor. Exodus 20:16
You shall not lie.
Commandment #10 You shall not covet. Exodus 20:17
You can’t jealously want what other people have; we need to be content with what God has given us.
I feel us growing tonight.
We have to stop thinking “If nobody saw me [do it then] it’s ok”.
Because God sees everything.
All the things that are hidden will someday come out in the open.
What about “acceptable” sins?
There are things that we don’t even think are sin.
Self-pity.
Selfishness.
Laziness.
Do you think God really invested everything in you so you could lay on the couch and watch soap operas and eat donuts?
Get a little fire.
Gossip.
Joyce went to church for many years and they went out to lunch after service to gossip about everybody – including the preacher.
And she didn’t have a clue there was anything wrong with that.
Judging people adversely.
Unresolved anger.
Greedy and stingy.
Philippians 4:5 Let all men know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness (your considerateness, your forbearing spirit). The Lord is near [He is [a]coming soon].
2 Peter 3:9-11 9 The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will vanish (pass away) with a thunderous crash, and the [[a]material] elements [of the universe] will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are thus [b]in the process of being dissolved, what kind of person ought [each of] you to be [in the meanwhile] in consecrated and holy behavior and devout and godly qualities,
Joyce is convicted.
And hungry to do better.
Not because she has to in order to get into heaven but because she wants to.
Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Here’s what Joyce decided she’ll start doing every morning.
Stand before the Lord and say I dedicate myself to You and give You my mind to think good thoughts, I give You my mouth, use it to be Your voice, I give You my eyes, help me see what You want me to see, ears, hands, feet, I give You my stomach, help me eat what You want me to eat…
Let me eat to live – not live to eat.
I offer all that I have and all that I am.
I rededicate myself to you today.

PRAYER

ALTAR CALL