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I’m Joyce Meyer and I believe that God can heal you everywhere you hurt.
We’re actually going to use the S word today, sacrifice.
We act like it’s almost a dirty word these days. Everybody always wants to know what they can get, not what they can give. To be self-centered means to be concerned solely or chiefly with one’s own interests, welfare.
To be engrossed in yourself, to be selfish, egotistical, independent, self-sufficient, and centered in yourself. Now, let me repeat what I said on Thursday night. When we talk about not being selfish, we don’t mean that you’re to never do anything for yourself.
You need to do things for yourself. You won’t be a healthy you if you don’t. It’s good to do things you enjoy.
It’s good to get some things for yourself that you really like. You work hard. You need to take care of yourself.
It’s good to laugh. It’s good to rest. It’s good to play.
Please take care of yourself. Invest in yourself. Invest in your health.
But don’t be totally absorbed with yourself, selfish and self-centered. So like I said, we always want to find the balance. Now we need to live a life where we’re not trying to please ourselves, but we’re trying to please God.
Let’s look at Colossians chapter 1 verse 10.
Maybe I should just ask if anybody here ever has a problem with being selfish.
About two dozen people. Well, I guess the rest of you are going to be kind of bored today then.
That you may walk, live, and conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things. Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking God to give you something you want. But if what you want or what I want is not what God wants, then we need to immediately let go of our plan and take hold of His.
Even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it hurts, even if it means sacrifice, it’s a momentary sacrifice that will lead to much greater joy. Is there anyone here that God’s really been dealing with you about letting go of something that means a lot to you, but you know God’s telling you to let go of it, and you just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet? Okay, well, then guess what?
This is for you today. Can I just say that God won’t change His mind? It’s always nice for us to realize that He won’t change His mind.
No matter how long you put it off, it’ll be the same. Bearing fruit in every good work, and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God, with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition. Fully pleasing to Him, and desiring to please Him in all things.
Now, I want to read you a little short story called How to Be Miserable. Just in case anybody’s, you know, wanting that, I can tell you how to get it. Think about yourself constantly.
Use I as often as possible. Mirror yourself continually by the opinion of other people. Listen greedily to what people say about you, and if it’s not what you want to hear, get angry.
Expect to be appreciated by everyone. Be suspicious. Be jealous and envious.
Be sensitive and easily offended. Never forgive a criticism. Trust nobody but yourself.
Insist on consideration and respect at all times. Demand agreement with your own views on everything. Sulk and feel sorry for yourself if people are not grateful to you or for what you do for them.
Never forget how much you’ve done for other people. Think about it at all times. But always remember what they have failed to do for you.
Shirk your duty. Seek at all times to entertain yourself and do as little as you possibly can for other people. Now, the thing that occurred to me while I was reading this, right in the middle of reading it, is this is exactly the way I used to be.
I mean, there’s probably not one of these things that I wouldn’t have been guilty of when I started my journey with God 38 years ago. And I’m just here to tell you today that this is a very important issue. Jesus died so that we might no longer have to live to and for ourselves, but to and for him.
He died to forgive our sins. He died so we could go to heaven. He died so we could have a relationship with God.
But he died so we would no longer have to live to and for ourselves. The greatest thing that God has set me free from is me.
It is quite wonderful to not have to get up every day and do nothing but think about myself all day long. Self-centered people are self-deceived people. They think the more they do for themselves and the more everybody else does for them, the happier they will be.
But the exact opposite is true. Luke 9, 23 through 25. And he said, if any person wills to come after me, let him deny himself, disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself.
The simplicity of this is he’s saying, if you really want to follow me, then you got to get yourself off your mind and take up your cross daily and follow me. The cross that Christ asked us to carry is not disasters and disease and every kind of misery that you can come up with. You know, sometimes when people are having trouble, they say, well, you know, it’s just my cross to bear.
Well, that’s really not the cross that Jesus asked us to bear. Yes, we may have to go through things, but he came to give us victory over those things. Of course, the cross he’s asking us to carry is to make a decision to live unselfishly in a world where people need to see Jesus.
And Jesus is love, God is love. It’s not just something he does, it’s who he is. He pours his love into us so we can receive it, be healed, and then let that love pour out of us to other people.
God works through people.
Joyce, thanks for sitting down with us for a candid conversation today.
I’m glad I’m sitting down.
We want to talk about a hard one today, and that is forgiveness. Now, you’ve taught on forgiveness a lot, we’ve learned so much about it, but I think of friends and different situations who have just been hurt so badly, have lost a child to an unnecessarily tragic accident, or what you went through, of course, talking so much about your father. And when there’s that type of scar tissue on your heart from a wound like that, sometimes even that first thought of forgiveness is almost like, no, you know, I can’t even go there.
It’s like it’s not even reasonable to ask me to do that.
Right. How can God even want that for me? And yet we know that that is such an important step of healing.
So we have a lot of people who are asking. Yeah, you said that, how do I even begin?
That a lot of people had questions about this.
Exactly. When people, when we ask people if they could sit down with you and have a chat, this was one of the main topics that came up. They would like to talk to you about how can they forgive?
I recommend that people look up all the scriptures in the Bible about it because the word of God has power in it. And when you, when you look at the scriptures, I still, like if I’m having an issue with something, let’s just say that I’m, for some reason I get jealous of somebody. You know, I won’t just think, oh, I shouldn’t be jealous, I shouldn’t be jealous.
If I’m not getting rid of it, I’ll look up scriptures because there’s power in the word. That’s why it’s important for people to go to the word and to study the word on a regular basis.
I love that because it’s deeper than this is where you find answers.
Right.
You’ll find the answers but in that there’s power to help you actually do it.
Yeah, the Bible says that the word of God is quick and powerful and alive. And the Amplified Bible says it’s operative. And I always say the word will operate on you.
God will, you know, use it to cut things out of you that don’t belong into at the same time heal you of old wounds and things that need to be healed in your life. And so, I don’t think a person can forgive unless they really, really want to do what God wants them to do.
And now what you said there is different than wanting to forgive.
Right.
They have to want what God wants them to do.
Right. Because you may, you know, you may not want to forgive, but you want to please God. You want to do what He asks you to do.
You want to be obedient to Him. And so, if He says, He wants you to forgive, then that’s the end of it. One way or the other, with God’s help, I’m going to learn how to do it because I’ve already set myself to be obedient to God.
And when you forgive somebody that’s treated you unjustly, I don’t know that it’s ever going to be fair in the way we look at fair. But if you want to go there, I mean, what Jesus did for us certainly wasn’t fair.
That’s a really good point.
To Him. And so, if people will think about that, that will help them. John 10, 10 says, the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.
But Jesus said, I came. And just those two words, I came. It amazes me that He came down here.
I mean, there’s no, there’s no real correlation we can make that even makes any sense. It would be like me giving my life for an aunt. You know, it’s like, He’s, He didn’t have to do this.
I mean, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, Father, if you can remove this cup from me, nevertheless, your will be done and not mine. And actually, He didn’t just take our sin, He became sin. He that knew no sin became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.
So what was it like for this holy one to actually become sin? I heard someone say a few days ago, that He absorbed our sin, and I thought that’s a great way to put it. So in the Old Testament, sin could be covered by sacrifices, but under the New Covenant, it’s completely removed, and the Bible says that God moves it as far as the east is from the west, remembers it no more, He never mentions it to you, or brings it up.
So first thing that helps me is to really think. You know, sometimes people need to take the time to just sit and do some contemplative thinking, to just think about, okay, God is not asking me to do something that He hasn’t done. You know, He forgives me.
So is what that person did to me any worse than what I do to God? You know, so…
Now, let me just be kind of the other side of this and say, well, I’ve never done some of these things. You know, I’ve never killed anyone or physically abused anyone. So some people would say, yes, there is a difference between what I’ve done.
And yet God is taking all of that sin. Yeah, you know, God took the weight of the entire world, past, present and future sin. Right.
And you think about what that would feel like. You know, there’s no way for us to understand that. But to take that step that you’re saying of how vast that is and how there is no fairness in any of that.
So the fact that it applies to me at all, whatever I’ve done, is overwhelming. Exactly.
There’s not big, little, small, large. Now, there are sins that will have greater repercussions, you know, than other sins. But sin is still sin.
And the Bible talks about that we sin in thought, word and deed. So, like for example, those thought sins. Yeah.
In Matthew, when Jesus was teaching the Sermon on the Mount, he said, you know, that if the Old Testament says, if you commit adultery, but he said, I say, if you think about it, that is no different to doing it. So is there any human on the earth that can say they’ve never sinned in thought? No.
Jealousy is a sin. Lying is a sin. You know, so sin is just sin.
And there’s, we all sin. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Therefore, all are justified and made right through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So we’ve all sinned and we can all be forgiven. And so therefore, I have to first look at that. I have to want to obey God.
And then I look at that. I look at the Word. And then I make a decision that even though it’s not fair, and even though it may seem unreasonable, that God’s not asking me to do anything that He has not done himself.
And forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation of the relationship. I think a lot of people think, well, if I forgive, then I have to take that person back into my life. God’s not asking you to bring somebody back into your life that was abusive to you, or that’s just going to continue to talk down to you, or, you know, verbally abuse you on a regular basis.
That’s not what He’s asking you to do. But He’s asking you to maybe understand that hurting people hurt people. That was very helpful to me with my dad, because he wasn’t raised properly either.
And there was incest in his family bloodline. And so, I don’t know what all he saw or what all he experienced. And it’s not my job to know.
It’s not my place to know. I’m not…
That’s a big statement there.
Yeah, we’re not God, you know. And God is asking me to forgive, and I don’t really need to even know why. That’s the way He wants it done.
But I don’t want people to go to hell. I didn’t want my dad to go to hell. I wanted him to be forgiven.
And through loving him, learning how to love somebody who really didn’t deserve love, he did eventually see the goodness of God and receive Christ and is in heaven now. And that’s much better than hating him my whole life and, you know, actually lowering myself to the same position that he was in. And not only that, if people could just get this, when you forgive, you’re not really doing the other person a favor.
That’s the thing people have to understand. It’s like, well, they don’t deserve that, and I’m not going to do that for them. And that’s not right.
You’re not doing it for them anyway. You’re actually doing it for yourself. When God tells you to forgive, he’s telling you something that’s going to help you, because there’s nothing worse than carrying that bitterness and resentment and hatred around on the inside of you day after day and year after year, when you can let go of that and put the person in God’s hands and pray for them, that they will come to know Christ as their Savior and be blessed.
I think another thing that really helps in the area of forgiveness is to stop talking to other people about what so-and-so did to you. Because the more we talk about it, it’s like picking a scab off of a wound and we just keep making… I mean, if you have a wound and you get a scab and you pick it off, you’re actually just going to make the scar bigger and bigger and bigger.
And so, the thing to do is to forgive as quickly as you possibly can. Because the quicker you do it, the easier it’s going to be to do it. And then I also believe that if you pray for people that have hurt you, it is very difficult to pray for somebody and hate them at the same time.
Now, I know it’s not easy. But, when we get around to, but it’s so hard, we’re talking about our feelings, not our decisions. And you can forgive people and be around them and not feel any different.
You know, my mother asked me one time, how did I feel about her? Because she knew my dad was sexually abusing me and she didn’t do anything about it. And I was honest with her.
I said, you know, I don’t, I can’t love you like I would love a mother who protected me and took care of me. But I said, you are God’s child. And he sent Jesus to die for you.
And I love you because I love him. And I will always make sure that you’re taken care of because I feel that’s what God would have me do. So I never had any, I can’t really say that, I mean, I went to the nursing home at least every other week to see my mom.
I paid the bills there for many years, made sure she had clothes, made sure she went to the doctor. I made sure she was taken care of. And I did that because of my love for God, not because of a gooey feeling I had about her.
And I can’t really say that there was ever a time when I went to visit that I was like, oh boy, today I get to go visit my mom because she never really was my mom. I didn’t have bad feelings toward her, but I didn’t have loving feelings toward her either. So people, I think get mixed up maybe about how they’re supposed to feel if they forgive somebody.
And it’s…
And almost like how will I live without this anger and hatred? Because those feelings are so strong.
Right, and it’s just not fair. And you know, when are they going to get theirs? And there’s no telling how many people a day, Ginger, that are watching us that are angry at people for minor offenses.
Today, people get offended so easy and they’re so touchy. And then there’s horrible things that have happened to people that they’ve managed to work through and forgive. People far and it’s really a matter of desire.
I mean, if you really want to do what God wants you to do, you will find a way to do it. Yeah.
And like you were saying, the difference that it makes in your life is so much greater than anything you can imagine. The reasoning behind, there’s not only how to make it happen that God walks us through it and makes it possible, but the reason that he asks us to do something so hard is out of his great love for us, knowing what is best for us even in the most terrible situations.
We have to be careful about our thinking. I could think, well, that’s not right. My dad’s in heaven and he was mean all of his life and he made, I mean, he ruined so many lives, so many lives that, I mean, my brother ended up taking his own life.
And that was partially because of the way my dad raised him. And my mother’s life was destroyed. Part of that was her own fault because she wouldn’t get away from him.
But he just, he did so many bad things. And yet, he’s in heaven. Same place that I’ll go after preaching for 45 or 50 years.
But I’m not God. It’s really none of my business. You know, there’s a story in the Bible about laborers that were hired.
Some early in the morning and they worked all day. Some were hired at the 11th hour and they only worked one hour. And they got the same pay as the one who worked all day.
And they thought that was unfair. And the master said, Am I not able? Can I not be good to who I want to be good to?
And so God is good and it’s his business, if that’s what he wants to do. I think sometimes we have a few too many questions that we don’t need to be asking and we need to realize how powerful God is and have a little bit more of that reverential fear and awe and just be glad that he is good, and that he forgives us for our sins.
Well, I think there’s such a foundation in you sharing this story because you’ve lived it from both sides. So I do really appreciate having this conversation with you because you’re a person who understands how hard it is and the incredible difference that it makes.
And you know Ginger, every once in a while, I’ll think about something my dad did to me. And you know how our mind likes to drift off. And I’ll just think, how much I hated him.
Oh my gosh, I mean, I just, I hated him so bad. And to think that God is able to lift that out of us and take it away so I don’t have to have that horrible feeling on the end. I mean, for God to be able to give somebody the grace to love somebody that’s done that to them.
How amazing. It’s a miracle. How amazing that is.
And I know that there are a lot of people watching that you need to forgive somebody and you may be thinking, well, I just can’t. Well, that’s your first mistake. You don’t ever want to think that you can’t do something that God has told you to do, because God will never tell us to do anything that’s impossible.
It may be impossible with man, but it is possible with God.
I do not have one day of my life that goes by that I don’t confess the Word of God out loud. Well, the Word of God changed my life, and I absolutely love it. I’d be so lost without it.
You see, years ago, God revealed to me that I had so much negativity in my mind. It was not only affecting the way I thought, but the way I spoke about everyday circumstances. God showed me that I could exchange that stinking thinking for a more powerful and effective thought life.
All I had to do was speak his truths found in his Word. I was encouraged by what God’s Word revealed and could unlock in all areas. I absolutely had to write this book, The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word.
There’s so much power in speaking his Word. Find out what it can do for you.
So often times it’s hard to just go where was this in the Word? So with this book, you can just go to it and go, okay, I’m really going through the struggle of say temptation today, and you can look it up and there are the words right to pray. I go to courage a lot.
I go to the section on confidence a lot.
Things to pray over your husband, things to pray over your children. There’s all those scriptures, and then you can speak them out and meditate on them.
So that’s super helpful to me.
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Let’s just say you’re at work and you get really mad at somebody.
Help me God, help me, help me, help me, help me. Quick, get your purple book.
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Get into agreement with God and you will see amazing things happen in your life.
I can’t tell you how many days I wasted being unhappy because things weren’t going my way. It was all, what about me, what about me? I was miserable, and I made everyone around me miserable too.
In my book, What About Me, I want to help you get yourself off your mind and find a new level of satisfaction that you never thought possible. It’s time to get out of your own way and discover the power of an unselfish life.
What About Me by Joyce Meyer. Order your copy today.
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