Transcription
Live your life on purpose, for a purpose, and don't waste your time. One of the ways that we can waste our lives is doing things that really are not important to God, just to try to impress people. I was misunderstood; I was judged; I was criticized. And I'll tell you something that I have learned: it's like I'm writing right after Paul. I have learned that what people think of me is really not nearly as important as I used to think it was. [Applause] Your reputation and my reputation here on this Earth doesn't matter all that much; it's our reputation in heaven that we've got to be concerned about.
How many of you have ever put together a jigsaw puzzle? Anybody? Has anybody ever done a real big one? Okay. Well, God gave me this as an example a few years ago, and I just love it. You know, when God speaks something to your heart, gives you a dream or a vision to do something—whether it's business or ministry, or whether you need a complete overhaul and you've got a vision of being the person God wants you to be—you usually buy into what God shows you based on the picture you see. It's kind of like when you go out and buy a puzzle; nobody looks in the box to see what the pieces look like. You just get one that's got a good picture on the front of it. So I have another one at home that I forgot to bring; it's 5,000 pieces. So we bought this one; it's 2,000 pieces. And if you notice, most of this thing is green and blue, which means when you get into it, there's a lot of sameness in the pieces. However, if you don't give up and you keep at it long enough, you'll eventually get the puzzle put together. Then, usually after you do, it's not too long and you want to start something all over again.
So whatever vision and dream you have right now, let me just tell you: when you finally get to your destination, it won't keep you satisfied too long, and you'll be wanting to do some other thing. Because God has created us to want to reach and to grow and to do new things. So the first thing I want to tell you, and I want you to remember this: make sure that you enjoy your journey, because life is more about the journey than it is the destination. Now I want you to think about that: when you get to wherever it is you think you want to be, that's going to be a thrill, and you're going to be thrilled for a while—maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks—and it won't be long and you'll be reaching for something else. And so, if we don't learn how to enjoy the journey, we can literally spend most of our lives being frustrated trying to get to where we think we want to be, and it's really tragic when we don't enjoy the journey. Now, admittedly, some of it is a little more enjoyable than other things, but everything is for a purpose. And one of the things that's happening is we're getting experience. Just like you go out and apply for a job—they want to know what kind of experience you've got—God wants us to come with a little bit of experience, too. We get different kinds of experiences. We pray to love everybody, but we don't want to have to love anybody that's not lovely. Amen. And it's easy to tell people how they need to forgive until somebody just gut-wrench you, and then you have to try to do it yourself. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to tell other people what to do than it is to do it yourself? One time I was in some kind of a situation, and I was praying, "Oh, God, show me what to do, show me what to do, God, what do you want me to do?" He said, "Just do what you would tell somebody else to do, and you'll be perfectly fine." But anyway, if you get the idea, I'm trying to point out: God's giving you a picture of something that he wants you to do.
Like 40 years ago, when God called me to teach the word, all I really heard in my heart was, "You're going to go all over the world and teach my word and have a very large ministry." Well, that was really kind of ridiculous. I don't even know why it is we believe the things that God says to us, except when he—when he says something to you, he also gives you a gift of faith to believe it. Now that's why a lot of times you can believe things for your life that nobody else can believe. You get a gift of faith with it, and so it seems very reasonable to you, but other people are like, "You've got to be kidding. There's no way that you could do that," and they just—so it ends up being discouraging. And so what happens then is when you open up this box—oh my, what have I gotten myself into? Oh, Lord, have mercy. Do I really want to do this? You know, there's so many pieces to getting from where you are to where you want to be. And I want to see every one of you be somebody who doesn't just start, but you make it to the finish. John 17:4: Jesus said, "Glorify me, for I have completed the work that you have given me to do." One day, years ago, I read that, and I just started to weep, and I thought, "God, I want to be a finisher. I want to be a finisher." And so—so I just want to encourage you: it's good to be excited about starting, and I don't mean this to be discouraging, but you will get over being excited, and there may be a few people now that are excited for you; they'll get over it, too. And the day will come when it's going to be you and God and the enemy trying to aggravate you, and you're going to have to decide if you really want to go all the way with God and do everything that he's asked you to do, or if you want to take the easy road and park somewhere and just stay there. Amen. Are we going to go all the way through with God? I think there's probably—compared to the number of people that God gives a dream and a vision to—I think there's probably very few who actually finish and go all the way through. I think the greatest testimony I have—it's not surviving abuse, it's not this, that, or something else—I think the greatest testimony I have is I'm still here. Amen. And when you can say that after 40 years…you know, when I started this, there—there were not arenas full of women that wanted to serve God. There was me and maybe two other ladies, and it was not a popular thing to do. And so I went through a lot of things that you guys won't have to go through. And let me tell you something: by the time you get from where you start to where you end up, there's a lot of things that you don't even really fully know how to explain to people that have happened between you and God, but you will be turned into a totally different person, and God can use you in a great way if you just won't quit and give up. Amen. Let's all have a big praise for sticking with it.
Now, you know, normally—normally we—and God even lets us do that—he'll let us do the easy stuff first. And so we usually put together the pieces that have got flat edges first, and we get an outline. And then you start—and see, if you were up here, you'd see everything here looks blue and green. Now I don't know—you know, sometimes you ever get one of those pieces where you—you just—it just doesn't seem to fit anywhere? Has anybody in this room got a piece going on in your life right now that just doesn't seem to fit anywhere? Or maybe somebody's here—you're trying to make a piece fit somewhere, and it just won't go. Is anybody here so fed up with putting together blue sky that you could just scream? You know, I worked at a church for 5 years, and that was pretty good because the crowd came for the pastor, and I got to preach, and he believed for the money to pay the paychecks, and I didn't have to do that, and it was just a lot of fun. And then God called me to leave there and go north, south, east, and west—except nobody knew me north, south, east, or west. And so, trying to be childlike, I went to North St. Louis, East St. Louis, West St. Louis, and South St. Louis, and I did—and I started one—one teaching meeting once a month in each side of town. Well, for years and years and years and years, I did meetings of nine people and 12 people and 50 people and 60 people and 70 people. And, man, if we got to 100, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I got so tired of putting together blue sky that I could have screamed at the top of my voice. Does anybody here feel like you've been stuck in the same place doing the same thing so long that if God doesn't give you another piece pretty soon, you're going to feel like throwing the whole puzzle away? Amen.
All right. Now, having said that, I want to read you something. I've kept journals for most of the 40 years that I've been in ministry, and usually one of the first things I do every day is write in my journal. And you know, you'll tell your journal things that you don't want to tell anybody else, and then sometimes you go back and read them 20, 30 years later—they're actually pretty hysterical. And so I found this about a year ago, and I just decided that I would share it with a few people because it's—it's—it's just interesting. So, on December the 26th, 1987—so that's been 29 years ago—I said, "Christmas is over. God is good. From a spiritual standpoint, I've been having a very rough time. A lot of things for a while that I've been saying, 'Oh well, cast your cares,' 'Joyce, everything's going to be okay,' but today everything just blew up in my face. Dave and I had a discussion that wasn't good. He feels I have to control everything or I'm not satisfied. I feel he's wrong and being unfair." Anybody got an entry like that anywhere? We have a hard time communicating when we differ in our opinions, but this was the last straw, and everything I've been feeling but casting my cares about has now come tumbling in on top of me. So here it is: I've been having a hard time getting my messages—at least much harder than usual. I've been having a hard time hearing from God. I've been feeling very little anointing. It seems that the more I've pressed in in the spirit, the more God hides and requires me to go strictly on faith. I've just had a breast removed because I had cancer. Now I have two more surgeries to go for plastic surgery. Our meetings—at least the attendance—have fallen off because of the holiday season. I've had a lot of weird feelings: lazy mind, bored, discontent, etc. All of this has come at once. I also feel that I just don't know how to pray anymore. I've really had a hard time praying. How many of you could tell I was having a bad day? Well, today it just all seems to be too much. God help me. I feel like I'm going to go under, but I guess I won't. I trust he's doing something, and that's in big letters, but I don't know what it is. He's probably—I guess—wanting a greater degree of abandonment out of me. I'm not sure I can do it, but I'm willing to let God do it if he can. Dave always feels I'm at fault, and it's never him, and to be honest, that's just really hard on my flesh, but I don't suppose it matters much; it's all pride anyway. Now here—this is where it gets really funny: "I am really sorry to have to report that I have had to tell the Lord tonight that I have gone as far as I can go. I have been telling him for 2 years, 'Take me deeper if you want to; I'm willing to do whatever you need me to do,' but I really don't want to go on like this. I feel I've gone as far as I can go. I want the pressure to let up, and I would also like a few feelings." Come on, anybody with me out there? I don't—I don't know for sure if God's going to let me out of this; he may not let me out, but I never really thought I would back down. So now, on top of everything else, I now find out that I'm a spiritual coward. You know, it's good sometimes to just be led into the real things that are going on in people's lives sometimes, because if all people ever tell you who have victory is about their victory right and never tell you what it took to get there and how many times they wanted to give up and quit, then you begin to think that there's something wrong with you. But let me tell you something: everybody that's going to do anything amazing with their life is going to have to go through some of the similar things. Everybody. There's nothing wrong with you; you're just in training.
Now, 11 years later, I saw this entry—somebody say 11 years—11 years. And this was December the 20th, 1998, and I said—while I was reading this old notebook and thought I would give you an update on how my life is now. See, this is—this is what you got to look at: things have changed drastically. I'm now on 375 television stations, 250 radio stations. Our ministry is very successful. I've changed drastically. I enjoy peace almost—almost continually. I've continued all these years to have some health struggles, but in the midst of it all, God has given me grace to do all he's called me to do. It's been hard at times, but I can report that God is faithful. I now have four grandchildren, which now have become 11 plus one on the way. My youngest son was getting married in six weeks; he now has three sons of his own. Dave and I love each other very much, and we get along really good almost all the time. And in January, Dave and I will be married 50 years. Now that's been 19 years ago, and I won't bother to give you another update, but things are just really good now. What happened during those years? It's good to get a report here and then another one 11 years later, but what happened in those 11 years, and then what happened during the next 19 years? One main thing: I grew. My ministry didn't grow all that much, but I grew. See, God is much more interested in changing us than he is in giving us what we want. I must repeat that: God is much more interested in changing us than he is giving us what we want. Now you will eventually get what you want if what you want is what God wants, and you'll even come to the point where if what you want is not what God wants, you won't even want it—at least you'll tell God, "I want this, but if it's not what you want, then I don't want you to give it to me." I beg God, please don't ever give me anything that I ask you for if it's not your will, because I've been in the will of God, and I've been out, and I can tell you: in is much better than out. We all want to have a lot of fruit, but however much fruit you have, you've got to have roots that go just that deep. And some of the stuff that goes on behind closed doors that nobody else knows about and nobody else would even understand—that's you getting rooted and grounded in the things that God wants you to be rooted and grounded in—like his love, confidence, knowing who you are as an individual, not needing to compare yourself with somebody else, not being a people-pleaser. Come on, now.
I hope to get around to it later if time permits, but if not, I just want to say this now: if you don't learn how to say no when you know that God is saying no, you will kill yourself trying to keep other people happy all the time. Amen. We need to live deeper lives. And what I mean by that is we have this carnal level—your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions—and it doesn't tell you anything about God; it only tells you about you. My mind tells me what I think; my will tells me what I want; and my emotions tell me how I feel. But God wants us to live much deeper than that; he wants us to learn to live in the spirit and to always be willing to go with God, no matter what we want, what we think, or how we feel. I want to go to Luke Chapter 5 and show you a great scripture verse. Verse 1: Now it occurred that while the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the message of God, he was standing by the lake of Genne-saret, the Sea of Galilee, and he saw two boats drawn up by the lake, but the fishermen had gone down from them and were washing their nets. And getting into one of the boats—the one that belonged to Peter—he said to him, "Draw out a little bit away from the shore." And then he sat down, and he continued to teach the crowd of people. When he stopped speaking, he said to Peter, "Put out into the deep." Everybody say, "Deep." Deep. "Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a haul." How many of you would like a haul in your life of whatever it is—whether it's a haul of peace or joy or success or whatever it is—we all would love to have a giant spiritual dump truck back up to our house and just dump out everything on the driveway that we want. Come on, out into the deep and get ready for a haul. And in verse 5, Peter said, "Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing in our nets." So what's he basically saying? He's saying, "You don't get it, Jesus. We've already been out there; we didn't catch anything; we don't really feel like doing this; we don't think it's such a good idea; and we don't believe it's going to work." But on the ground of your word, I will lower the nets again. Now, right there's the turning point: I don't want to do this; I don't feel like doing it; I don't think it's a good idea; I don't think it's fair; I don't think it's right. But if you say to do it—come on, are you there?—if you say to do it—if you say to do it—then it doesn't matter what I want, what I think, or what I feel. Your will be done, and not mine, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it hurts. Has God ever asked you to do anything that just seems so totally unfair—fair—I mean, like so totally unreasonable? Most of you, if you're married, you know that men—men are not very good at saying, "I was wrong." Matter of fact, some of them really stink at saying, "I was wrong," and they're not too quick to come and apologize. And every time Dave and I would get into—to a tiff, God would tell me, "Now go make peace. Go make peace." And I finally said to the Lord one day, "This is just not fair. It is not my turn. He—I apologized the last time. You need to talk to him." But you know, I could not find any scripture in the Bible that said, "Make peace if it's your turn," and it just seemed to me like God was constantly dealing with me about something, and Dave was just happy and, you know, just going along. And I remember one day—I actually—I still remember where we were standing in the house—and I said to him—I thought, "Well, maybe God's dealing with me with him, and he's just not saying anything." So I said, "Is God dealing with you about anything?" Because I really wanted God to be dealing with him about something. Do you know anybody in your life you really are hoping God's dealing with them? And he looked kind of puzzled and he said, "Well, I don't think so." And I would think, "God, how can you not be dealing with him? He's got all these problems that you need to fix." And by the way, he is—over there—he lets me pick on him all the [Applause] time. And uh, let me tell you something: Dave is just the best guy. I mean, he—you know, real love is letting somebody be all that they can be, and Dave has definitely done that in my life, and he loves me just the way I am, including all my spice. And so I like that, too. But anyway, man, I wanted God to deal with him and not just me, and it seems so unfair. I mean, I wanted him to come and say, "You know, God's really been dealing with me that I need to treat you better," and "God's really been dealing with me that, you know, I'm a little stubborn sometimes," and "God's been dealing with me that I've got a problem with pride." But I never heard any of that—never—never. I would just be getting my flesh crucified, and he'd be out playing golf having a good time. And I remember murmuring to God one time because it seemed like I knew all kinds of people that did all kinds of things that I didn't feel like God would let me do, and I thought, "I mean, really, I mean, God, are you really not dealing with them? Why do they—why do they get to see movies like that, and you won't let me see them? Why do they get to do this, and you won't let me do it?" And you know what he said to me—and somebody here today needs to hear this—he said, "Listen, Joyce, you've asked me for a lot. Do you want it or not?" That's right. So here's the thing: and if you don't remember anything else I say today, please remember this: if you've asked God for a lot—if you've asked God to do a great work through you—then guess what? You don't get to compare yourself with what God is doing in anybody else's life. This is between you and him, and there's probably going to be a lot of things that you're going to see other people get to do that you're not going to get to do. If you've asked God for a lot, do you want it or not? Amen.
So he said, "Come on out in the deep and get ready for a haul." Well, "Master, we don't think it's going to work; we're exhausted," but on the ground of your word, I will lower the nets again. And verse 6 is so beautiful: and when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, so many their nets were about to break, and they signaled to their partners in the other boats to come and take hold with them, and they came and filled all the boats so that they all began to sink. So what's the message there? If we do what God wants us to do and we live a deeper life and we don't live according to what we want, what we think, and what we feel, then we will have a haul of blessings in our life—not only for ourselves but so much that we'll be able to help all the people around us that are needy. Is that what you want? All right. Well, what happens when we begin to grow? Well, we learn to live deeper; we learn to seek God for who he is and not just what he can do for us. Man, was that ever a big transition in my life! One morning when I was praying, the Lord challenged me to take a real good look at my—at how I was praying and compare how I was praying to the way the Apostle Paul prayed and the way Jesus prayed. And by the time I got done, I was quite embarrassed because all I did was ask for stuff for the flesh. And I don't know if you know it or not, but in all the prayers that Paul prayed for the church, you can't find one where he asked God to give them a thing or to relieve them from any of the things they were going through. He prayed that they would be able to endure whatever came with a good temper. I've never yet had anybody come and say, "Joyce, would you pray for me that I can go through whatever I need to go through and still stay sweet and happy?" Never once in 40 years has anybody asked me to pray that, but we need to be able to pray, "God, I want your will in my life, and if it's not comfortable, then keep me sweet and keep me happy, because I just want to do this the way you would do it if you were here." Anybody know what I'm talking about? All right. So we have to stop seeking God for just what he can do for us and seek him for who he is.
During those years, my motives were purified. And you know, I don't know about you, but I think most of us, if we were really gut-level honest, we would have to say that when we first start—first start wanting to be used by God—our motives are not all that stellar. I had been abused by my dad, and so I was very insecure. And to be honest, although I had a call on my life, part of me wanted to do it because I felt like I was being called to do it, but part of it wanted me to do it because I just wanted to be successful at something so I could feel good about myself. I can't stand here and tell you that day one all I wanted to do was help other people. I wanted to be successful; I wanted to be in leadership; I wanted to be one of the important people at my church; I wanted to have my name on a seat; I wanted to have an office with my name on the door; and I wanted all of those things for the wrong reasons. Now that didn't mean I wasn't called, but it did mean that God had to do a work of purification in my life to get me to the point where—where everything I was doing was being done number one in obedience to him and number two to help people. And that takes a while. How many of you know what I mean when I'm talking about motives? Let me—let me just give you a homework assignment. I'll never know if you did it or not, but just pretend like you're going to—sometime when this is over and you have some quiet time at home—write down everything that you spend your time doing, and then go back and ask yourself why you're doing it. Everybody gets quiet at this point. I mean, it is amazing how quiet people get when you start talking about motives. You know why—our motives are not what we're doing; it's why we're doing what we're doing. And guess what? That's the only part God cares about. He's not impressed by our big ministries or our friends on Facebook or this or that or anything else. The only thing he's concerned about is, "Why are you doing what you're doing?" And you know, 1 Corinthians 3:13 says that the work of each one of us will become plainly and openly known—shown for what it is—for the day of Christ will disclose and declare it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test and critically appraise the character and the worth of the work that each person has done. And it goes on to say that if what we've done is a pure work, we'll get our reward, and if not, all the works will be burned up, even though we ourselves will still be saved. I don't know about you, but I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to spend my life with some misconceived, deceptive idea that I'm doing everything I'm doing for God when really a lot of it is just for myself. I read this the other day, and I thought this was a great statement: "The biggest thing to be afraid of is not failure; the biggest thing to be afraid of is that we will succeed at something that's useless." I think we could say that again, right? The biggest thing to be afraid of is not failure; the biggest thing to be afraid of is that we…
Might succeed at something you useless? I just wrote a book, released last fall, called *Sees the Day*. And in that book, I tried to share with people how important it is to live your life on purpose, for a purpose.
I don't think any of us can realize how valuable time is until you get old enough in life to where you're not having too much of it left. You think totally differently when you're 20 and 30 and 40 and even 50 and 60. And I can tell you, when I was in my 60s, I realized one day two-thirds of my life was over, even if I lived to be in my mid-90s. Two-thirds of it was over, and I only had about a third left. And I tell you, I really have a passion to tell people, don't waste your life and don't waste your time. And one of the ways that we can waste our lives is doing things that really are not important to God, just to try to impress people. Amen.
Now I know that talking about motives gets people kind of somber, so we'll go on and talk about something else now. Thank you.
During that period of time, we also have the privilege of having a lot of humility worked into our lives. The Bible says, "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God." But I can tell you that if you don't humble yourself, God will do it for you, and it's much more painful when he does it than if we go ahead and do it. I don't know if you're willing to admit it or not, but I think most of us, when we start, are pretty full of ourselves. Anybody? Come on, don't look so innocent. I'm here; I've only been a month since I had my hip sawed in half. I'm here to help you, so look like you're being [Applause] helped. See, I like to get into the deeper stuff because I just don't think we've got a lot of time to mess around. Amen.
Nebuchadnezzar the king, Daniel 4:1 through 4. This is such a good story. Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the people, nations, and languages that dwell on all the Earth, "May peace be multiplied to you." Verse 2: "It seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the most high God has performed toward me." Now I want you to notice that in the beginning of this chapter, he's given God all the credit. Look what God's done! How great are his signs and how mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. "And I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house and prospering in my palace." You see, as long as we're giving God the credit, we have rest and we have peace. Now I don't know what happened to poor Nebuchadnezzar, but somehow in 26 verses he fell completely apart. And I don't really know how long 26 verses takes in the Bible, but it didn't take me very long to read it. And by the time we get around to verse 30, the king said, "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built as the royal residence and the seat of government by the might of my power and for the honor and the glory of my majesty?" Wow. You see, success can be dangerous. Yes, I said success can be dangerous because there's always a danger that we might begin to think that we actually had something to do with it, or even worse than that, and I think God hates this the most: we might begin to think that we're actually better than other people. And then, if we're not very careful, we'll begin to mistreat other people that we don't think are quite as important as we are. We're not very useful to God if we don't beg him to work in our lives to keep us humble. No matter what, nothing hurts worse than having God deal with your pride. I used to have a series on my table called *Pride and Humility*. I finally realized that nobody was going to buy that, so I have gotten very good at hiding my messages under other titles: *How to Succeed with God*, *Five Ways to Find Promotion*. And I do that; I really do.
While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from Heaven: "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you." Let me tell you something: it takes a lot longer to build something up than it does for God to tear it down. We all beg God for big things. I did, and I love to share this with the people that are in leadership. I remember when the Lord spoke to my heart, and he said, "I just want you to remember that however many people you can help, that's exactly how many you can hurt." That's why leadership is such a huge responsibility, not just a privilege but a responsibility, because people watch everything you do. Amen.
I went to a store the other day, and of course, being on television, I get recognized a lot. And not that I have any desire to do this, but I absolutely cannot afford to get out in public and not live what I preach. And I was actually pretty tired the other day because of the hip thing, and I was out doing a little bit of shopping. I just wanted to get out for a while, and it happened to be a heavy—everybody knows Joyce—day. And so, and I mean, and probably the thing I like the least happened: a man ran up and, "Oh, can I call my sister? Will you talk to my sister?" I'm like, "I, I really don't like to do the phone call thing." Oh well, and he wasn't going to take no for an answer, so he got his sister on the phone. I remember one person who did that, and when I told the person on the phone, "Hi, this is Joyce Meyer," they're like, "Who's that? Please don't make me call people that don't even know me." And so, so here—but here's what I said to somebody that was with me: "I said, 'You know what? I just need to go home.'" I said, "Here's why: this is obviously going to be a busy day, and I don't feel good, and I'm likely to be cranky, and I cannot afford to do that, so it's best if I just go." Amen.
See, when you're leading other people, if it's a—if it's a church, if it's a Bible study, whatever it is—if you're the president of some club at school, whatever it is, the minute that you're in a place of leadership, people look up to you, and they expect and need you to be the real deal. Now that doesn't mean we don't make mistakes, but it does mean that we must press in and continue growing and not just make excuses for bad behavior because we can get by with it. Amen. However many people you can help, that's exactly how many you can hurt.
Anyway, I went to the store the other day, and a guy working behind the little deli counter—he's probably waited on me at least seven times—and never said one word, I mean, that you know that he knew me. And that day he said, "My wife watches you all the time. You think you could sign something for her?" So I had somebody bring a couple of books back to him, but I thought, "Now, what about in those seven times if I would have been cranky, if I would have been rude, if I would have said anything that would have not made him believe that I was the real deal?" There's a lot of responsibility to leadership.
We were in a restaurant one time after I taught a whole seminar. I'd done four or five different sessions by myself, and we made a plan to go to this certain restaurant and eat. We had a bunch of people with us, and we called and made a reservation, only to find out when we got there they didn't take reservations. I'm like, "Well, why didn't you tell us that when we made the reservation?" "Well, you must have just talked to somebody that didn't know, and we're sorry; that made a mistake. And so you're going to have to wait about 45 minutes to an hour." And I was like, "God, I have worked all weekend; I don't want to wait 45 minutes to an hour." But praise the Lord, so we finally get seated, and it's very crowded in the restaurant that day, and we've got about 12 people at our table, and the waitress is balancing this thing of drinks that we had ordered—coffee, tea, all kinds of stuff—and she tripped on something and dumped the whole thing on my husband. Well, Dave, you know, he doesn't have the challenges that I do in personality, and he just said, "That's okay; don't worry about it." He even called the manager over and said, "Now, I don't want her to get in trouble; it wasn't her fault." And so she comes back about 20 minutes later with another tray of drinks, and she sets them on the table, and she leans across the table, and she looks at me, and she said, "I was just so nervous because I know who you are." And I thought, "Oh, thank you, Jesus! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" That I didn't act like an idiot. Come on, somebody is always watching, and if it's not a person, it's God, and we need to learn to live under that one all-seeing eye and realize that we are not hiding anything from him. We may hide from other people, but we're not hiding anything from him. Amen.
Now something else that happens to us is we have what I find I call silent years. You know what those years are? Those are the years when you've got this thing in your heart; not much is happening; nobody's really far—you—nobody really believes you; it's just kind of a thing between you and God. And somehow or another, in these silent years when nothing's happening, you're supposed to hang on to this dream. Anybody in those times right now, maybe in your life? It's good to know I don't have the wrong crowd. Well, let me just tell you that everybody has them: those years when God hides you, and all he does is work on you. Amen. All he does is work on you.
Moses spent 40 years in the desert. He went in running ahead of God and came out with reverential fear. Joseph spent 13 years from the time he was sold as a slave until he became the Prime Minister. He was 17 years old when he was sold and 30 when he became prime minister. During that time, he was repeatedly, repeatedly tested. You talk about somebody that had some unfair things happen to him. See, God never told us that life is fair; he just said that he is a God of justice, and that means eventually God will—will make all wrong things right. Amen.
David spent 20 years after he was anointed to be king before he wore the crown, and the whole time he was tormented by Saul, who kept trying to kill him. John the Baptist was in the wilderness 12 to 15 years. And I don't have time to read all this, but it goes all through it, starting in verse—verse 76, and at the end it says, "He grew." Really? He grew. But you know what? If you've been there and done that, then you get it. It's like I can feel the pain in those two words: "He grew." All those years out there. Matter of fact, I've got the statistics: 30 years of preparation for a ministry that lasted a few months. John the Baptist: 30 years of preparation for a ministry that lasted a few months. And then Jesus was born. At eight days old, he was brought to the temple for dedication. He wasn't heard from again until he was 12 years old. Kind of sounds like my journal. You don't hear—don't hear anything again from the age of 12 to 30. And all the Bible says is, "He grew. He grew." Then suddenly, after that, he was baptized; the Holy Spirit came on him, and he started his public ministry with power. Let me tell you something: if you will let God do what he wants to do in your life, your day will come, and you won't be promoting yourself; God will be promoting you. And what God lifts up, no man can bring down. Amen. Don't ever try to put yourself in a position; wait and let God put you. Something the Lord spoke to my heart many years ago: "Whatever you start in the flesh, you will maintain in the flesh." So we don't want to be trying to start stuff just because we can; we want to make sure that what's going on in our life is God.
I want to encourage you that everything—everything that I've been through, which is a lot—has been so worth it. And even though I tell you these difficult things that you're going to have to make it through, it's not meant at all to be discouraging; it's meant to encourage you not to quit and not to give up because God needs you, and he's preparing you for something amazing. And I compliment you for being hungry for the word of God and for being willing to step up and live a sacrificial life. Don't you dare quit! Don't you give up! When you don't understand, just remember that God's always got a purpose in everything. And I don't mean this just to be glib, but all things do work together for good to those who love God and really want his will in their lives. Come on, you're going to make it, and you're going to do great things for [Applause] God.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for what you are doing, what you have done, and what you will do. And, Lord, we are excited about revival, but we don't want it to be over when these 10 days are over. It's exciting to come and be part of this, but we all have to go home. And so I want a revival in me, and I want to help put a revival in them, so everywhere they go and every day of their life they're in revival. And we thank you for it, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, thank you. You can be seated. You guys are just amazing. We've got all kinds of beautiful, wonderful, anointed, powerful, awesome people here tonight. And uh, I want to start by giving you some really good news. I know that the ladies are going to be really excited, and the guys will probably be excited too. Thought somebody was behind me. Whoops! Ladies, a new store has opened up in New York City, and it is the Husband Store. And if you want a husband, you can go there and shop for [Applause] one.
Now there are some guidelines to shopping at the store. There are six floors in the store. Once you visit a floor and leave that floor and go to the next floor, you can't go back down. So there's none of this like looking at all the merchandise and then deciding what you want. So a woman went to the Husband Store, and on the first floor the sign read: *These men have jobs*. She thought, "Wow, a man with a job; that would be really good." She thought about it, but she thought, "Well, I have to see what's on the second floor." So she went to the second floor: *These men have jobs and they love kids*. She thought, "Wow, this is—this is getting sweeter by the minute." But she had to see what was on the third floor: *These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely good-looking*. Well, I don't know; maybe I just better find somebody on this floor, 'cause that sounds good. But still, she felt compelled to keep looking. She went to the fourth floor, where the sign read: *These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, and they help with the housework*. Come on, ladies! Now this, I mean, I mean, I tell you, I've been married to my guy 50 [Applause] years, 50, and he does dishes, he does [Applause] laundry, he gets the bed ready at night, and he plays all the golf he wants to. She thought, "Wow! Jobs, loves kids, good-looking, help with the housework. Oh, mercy me!" She thought, "I can hardly stand it!" And yet she had to go see what was on the fifth floor: *These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, and they have a strong romantic [Music] streak*. Come on, housework and romance! But she thought, "Well, it keeps getting better—better, so I just have to find out what is on the top floor." The top floor: the sign read: *You are visitor 31,446,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please*. However, to avoid gender bias, the owner thought he best put a new Wife Store across the street. So once again, there were six floors, and same rules: you can only visit one floor one time. Floor number one: *This floor has wives that love sex*. Floor number two: *This floor has wives that love sex and they have money*. Floors 3 through 6 have never been [Applause] visited. Now Stephen is going to want my joke, aren't you? You're going to say, "Could you leave me a copy of that?"
All right. Now you know every Bible teacher, I think, is kind of bent in some direction, and uh, mine, I guess, is always going to gear a little bit more toward spiritual maturity and just growing up in God and being what he wants us to be. And uh, I love meetings like this. I've attended many of them in my life, but I meant what I said in the prayer: it's more important that you have a revival in you than that you just go to one. Now wonderful things can happen in a time like this that can actually change you permanently. So when God touches you, you know you've been touched, and you never are the same again. But at the same time, having lived quite a while and been in ministry now 40 years—this is my 40th year of teaching the Bible—and I have been to—I've been to multitudes of meetings like this, especially back in the 70s and 80s, and I saw lots of people that got extremely excited along with everybody else's excitement, but then nothing ever changed. And to me, that's tragic, and not in any way, shape, or form to put a damper on your enthusiasm because I love it, but I want to make sure that I can deposit something in you, I'm sure as well as all the other speakers wanting to do that, that when you leave the atmosphere and the lights and a different speaker every night and—and the wonderful music and everything that's happening here, when these 10 days are over, I want you to go home and still have a revival going on in you. So if some of your circumstances at home don't change, you can still be happy and still be joyful and still be stable and still be peaceful. Amen. 'Cause see, the world is in a desperate condition, really, really, really, really bad, and they're looking for some hope, just any glimmer of hope that something might change for them, and they can't—there's nothing worse than being a speaker and having your throat—a stupid—I think it was your oil, Stephen; he made me smell the oil, and now it all went from here down to [Applause] here. There's nothing worse than a phony Christian, and if there's any one thing that's important to me in my life, I want to be the real deal. I don't want to be one way up here and then another way when I go to McDonald's or another way when I'm out shopping and somebody crosses me the wrong way. I want to really represent Jesus in a way that can make a big difference in somebody else's life.
Matthew 21:18: "In the early dawn the next morning as he was coming back to the city he was hungry." Jesus was hungry. Can I tell you the world is full of hungry people? There's hungry people where you work, and I'm not talking about physical hunger; I'm talking about they're hungry for joy, they're hungry for peace, they're hungry for hope; they're hungry, many of them, for—for some reason to even want to stay alive. By the way, a special hello to all the people at all the other locations; we don't want to forget you; we're glad you're there. Amen. And all the people watching online. So, "In the early dawn the next morning as he was coming back to the city he was hungry, and as he saw one single leafy fig tree above the roadside he went to it, but he found nothing but leaves on it. Seeing that in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves, and he said to it, 'Never again shall fruit grow on you,' and the fig tree withered up at once and died." Now I used to feel sorry for that fig tree. I thought, "Well, that's kind of bad to get cursed just because it wasn't the season for fruit." I—I kind of felt like, well, it—it wasn't the fig tree's fault, but it didn't have—you know what Jesus wanted. But God has given me one of the best lessons out of those messages, and something that I love to share on. You see, that fig tree was like a lot of Christians: it had leaves but no [Applause] fruit. You know, even Adam tried to start out with leaves, and it didn't work for him either. And uh, what I mean by leaves are actually on the fig tree when you see—when the leaf comes, there's supposed to be fruit under the leaf. So you see, when we have any kind of advertisement about our Christianity, whether it's a bumper sticker or you wear a cross around your neck or you carry a Bible to work or you—you know, whatever the case might be—back in the days when—when I first started, women wore these big Jesus rhinestone pins. Anybody ever remember one of those dudes? See, now that's telling your age right there. But I mean, they were—dudes were big, and they—Jesus and rhinestones, and we all thought that was the coolest thing, so we wore our Jesus rhinestone pin and had our Bibles and our bumper stickers, and we're Christians, and we go to church four times a week, and I underline in my Bible that looks like a coloring book. And so, you know, you—you can—you can have half the Bible underlined in four colors, and that doesn't mean you know a thing. I mean, it just doesn't mean that we know anything. And um, so it's very important to me that I don't just have leaves but I have fruit. And so I want—I want to talk to you tonight about the value of experience. Yes. You see, the longer you live, the more experience you have, and so that means the longer you live, the wiser you should get. Now that doesn't work with everybody; some people are still dumb at 85. But um, we live life forward, but we understand it backward. Yeah. I don't want you to ever forget that because many of the things that some of you are going through right now that you think are just the most awful thing in the whole world, you give it 20 years, and you'll look back and say, "Man, did that ever change me! Boy, did that bring me closer to God! Man, I learned a big lesson out of that!" Amen. And at my stage in my journey of life now, which I'm in the last third of it, I would not take anything for the experiences that I've had. They are some of the most precious, most treasured memories, and some of the hardest, most gut-wrenching things—yes—that I have ever gone through, but they have helped make me who I am. And to be honest, if you don't have those, you don't really have very much to say. You just don't have very much to say because you can—it's one thing to preach; it's another thing to preach with God's anointing on it. And let me tell you something: don't forget this; noise is not anointing. [Applause] Just because somebody comes in and makes a lot of noise and can shout and yell, that doesn't mean that your life is going to be changed this time next week. And that's what the anointing does: it changes us; it breaks bondages off of us, and it leaves a deposit in our [Applause] lives. Amen. I'm sorry about the throat thing; you'll just have to bear with me; you'll listen to me in between the throat clearing.
So Proverbs 3:13 says, "Blessed, happy, fortunate, enviable is the man who finds skillful and godly wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, drawing it forth from God's word and life's experiences." That's the Amplified. We have that one up. Yeah. Yes. And life's—and life's experiences. So I want to just say to you, "How much experience do you have?" Right? Well, you know, we have people here tonight that are teenagers; we have people that are younger than teenagers; we have people that are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s—I don't know—I maybe the oldest person in the building; I have no idea. And if I am, then I'm supposed to know more than the rest of—of you. Now that doesn't always work, but chances are, if you're 20 and I'm 73, I might know a few things that you don't know. That's right. And one of the things that we need today desperately is we need the younger generation and the older generation to work [Applause] together. Because here's—here's what we have: I have never seen a time when young people are so talented as they are today. I mean, it is almost scary what you guys can do with all this media stuff. I mean, it is amazing. I mean, my grandson, my little tiny grandson, can do more with his phone than I can do with mine. That's right. And so you—you have gifts, you have talent, you have zeal, you have enthusiasm, but now don't get mad at me when I say this: you don't have as much experience as some people that are older than you. And there's nothing that I hate worse than to see somebody who's young act like somebody has no sense just because they're older and don't get all the technology today. Amen.
I'll tell you the thing that impressed me about your pastor the first time I met him, and I don't even know if you remember this, Stephen, but we were in Australia at Hillsong, and from the minute I came into the Green Room, he and I were in there, and he started talking to me, and I mean, he asked me every kind of question that you could ask me. He hung on to every word that I said; he would have sat there and talked to me for a week if I would have talked to him. But you know what that said to me? This is a young man that's not full of [Applause] himself. He did not one time try—try to tell me what he knew. Come on now, most of us are so busy trying to tell everybody else what we know that we don't even listen to anybody. Not one time did he try to tell me anything he knew; he only wanted to know what I knew from my years of experience. Amen. And so I would recommend that anytime you get around anybody that's maybe—let's just say—30 years older than you are, that the first question you ask them is, "What can you tell me? Can you tell me one thing about life that will help me live mine better?" All right, just one thing. And then, if they—if they are a believer and a Christian, just say to them, "Can you tell me one thing that you've learned in ministry? One spiritual principle that will help me live better for Jesus?" Amen. I tell you what, if we can get together, if we can get the wisdom together with the gifts, whoa, watch out, devil, because the revival will be on! Amen.
There was actually a time in history, and it still is this way in some cultures, where when an older man—woman—I'm talking about what they would call an elderly man or woman—walked into the room, everybody stood up. I kind of wish sometimes we had some of that respect back. And you know what they were respecting? Their wisdom, their years of experience, and their wisdom. What all does somebody go through by the time they're—yeah, you get it, don't you, honey? Yeah. What all does somebody go through by the time they're 50, 60? You're going to have lots of fun in your life, but you're going to go through some stuff too. Amen. And if you've got personal revival in you, you'll make it through. You know the Apostle Paul said, "I've learned how to be content." I've learned—there's pain in that word—"I've learned." I've learned how to be content. It wasn't something that just got downloaded into him from a new program; he learned how—
To be content, you know, when the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20, "It's no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." That's right. That's such a great statement. Do you know that that was 20 years after his conversion? Wow. It's very difficult to say that a week after you're born again. Oh yeah, you might be able to quote the scripture, but to mean it, to mean it, is another thing entirely.
Now, I have way more message than I've got time, and I pray that God will really help me bring across to you some of the most important things. Because one of the things that I want to share with you is how what I thought was important when I was 30 and how utterly unimportant it really is now. Amen. Just how ridiculously unimportant it is now. In Deuteronomy 11:13, Moses couldn't handle everything by himself, and he was about to anoint some helpers. And he said, "Choose wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men according to your tribes, and I—I will make them head over you." You notice that he did not mention talented. He didn't even mention talented or gifted. He said wise, understanding, experienced, and respected. You know why? I think a lot of times we just ruin somebody because they've got talent, and we put them on a platform, and they have no spiritual maturity, and they can't hand the—they cannot handle the attention, and it just absolutely destroys them, and they end up making a fool out of themselves and doing damage to the name of Christ. No wonder the Bible says, "Do not promote a new convert." Let's trust God with the timing of when he selects to use us.
Is anybody in for that tonight? Maybe, just maybe—and I don't know, this may not be the case at all—but just maybe if you're out there tonight and maybe you wanted to get picked for something in the church and you didn't get picked, what do you do when God doesn't pick you? You trust God. You trust God that it's not time yet, it's not right yet, and you might even be willing to think, "Maybe I'm not ready." Cuz see, when we think we're ready is not necessarily… Oh, let me tell you, when God spoke to me about the ministry that I was going to have, I thought for sure I would fall out of bed the next morning and be traveling around the world. You know, yay! I say unto you, that can sound really exciting. Oh yes, in—in due time, at the appointed time. What is that? Nobody knows what that is. It's like until God's good and ready. And so, for six years I taught a home Bible study that had 20, 25 people, and maybe if we got blessed, 30. And I did that for five years—not five days, not five weeks, not five months—five years. Did not get paid for it. Had desperate financial needs. People would come and enjoy the party and leave; I'd have to clean the mess up. And in the midst of all that, God was teaching me, or trying to teach me, a little something about attitude and servanthood. Come on now.
And uh, I remember just a couple of things that—that happened, and I'm just going to try to be really practical with you. I was just learning about faith back then, and boy, we just all thought we were going to believe God and get everything we wanted, cuz we were part of the Word and Faith movement, and you know, whatever you believe for, you'll get. And so, I didn't—I didn't have the slightest idea what to really use my faith for. And so, I was always trying to use it for things—stuff that I wanted, or promotion that I wanted, or I believed God for Dave to change, and that didn't work. I believed God to change my kids, and that didn't work. And you know, we're all—we're always believing for something. It never occurred to me to ask God to change me, cuz, of course, I didn't think I had anything wrong with me. I was like, you know, the perfect specimen of everything, you know. And you—we really don't know anything until we know that we don't know anything, and then we have learned the first thing that might help us towards someday learning something. Amen.
So, just a couple little stories, I want to kind of show you how you'll stay at a place, and God will test you in that place, and then when you finally pass those tests, then you'll move up here, and then you'll go through tests on that level, and then when you finally pass those tests… Now, sometimes we're not real smart about this test-passing thing, and so we just get to take them over and over and over and over and over. Come on. So, of all the most—I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this—but I was believing God big time for a fur coat, cuz I went to one of those big Word and Faith churches, and I'm telling you what, we would have camp meetings, and all the speakers would come in, and all the wives of the Reverend and the this and that and something else, they had on their fur coat, and man, I just thought if you had a fur coat, you were the in—with the In Crowd, you were it. And so, I was believing for a fur coat. And uh, one day my neighbor came over; she was a—a Christian girl that went to my church, lived right next door to me and attended my Bible study, and I loved her with the love of the Lord, but I didn't like her. How many of you know about that? Well, I love you with the love of the Lord, whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but I've decided I can do without a lot of it. And um, so I really just didn't like her; she just downright annoyed me. And uh, the minute that I opened the door, I mean, I could tell without her saying a word that she was extremely excited, and I'm already thinking, you know… And she had this big box in her hand, and she said, "You are not going to believe what God gave me. You are not going to believe it." And so, she came in, and she opened this box, and it was my fur coat—my fur coat. And I tell you what, I honestly thought the angel brought that to the wrong house. I mean, I'm telling you, I thought, "There is no way that God gave her that coat because she's not nearly as spiritual as I [Applause] am." Well, I did—did what I was supposed to do. "Oh, praise the Lord, I'm so happy for you. Thank you, Jesus." And I'm inside now—inside. Come on, because what's important is inside. Come on. There's a message here—inside. I mean, God don't care about, "I love you with the love of the Lord." What He cares about is, "Do I really love you? Am I going to be there for you when you have a need?" And He didn't care about my, "Oh, praise the Lord." You know, what was coming out of me was jealousy and gra—rage and greed and judgment. I thought, "She doesn't give nearly as much money to the church as I do. I fast and pray all the time; she eats all the time." Do not tell me—do not even begin to tell me that God gave you that coat. [Applause]
So, a couple more years go by, and I get to take a test again. Now, I'm still at my house, you know, with my 20 people, still got my big Vision. See, you're going to stay right where you're at until you learn the lesson that God wants you to learn on this level. You might as well preach, cuz it's good—clap, cuz it's good. Anyway, and I think my throat is finally okay. So now you're in for [Applause] trouble. So then my pastor came by one day, and he was 26, I was 36; we both thought we knew everything, neither one of us knew anything. And uh, he was believing for a big Ministry, I'm believing for a big Ministry, and you know, we're all believing. And um, he'd been off to some big camp meeting in Texas, and—and while he was there, they gave him a $2,500 honorarium, and he was so excited. And a couple of people had said they wanted to partner with him in his ministry, and he was so excited. So he came to my house to tell me the good news. How many of you know sometimes you just don't want to hear somebody's [Applause] testimony? I'm—we're just talking real stuff here, okay? And so, but I've had a couple of years since the fur coat, and so we've moved along a little bit. And uh, so he's telling me, "Oh, I can't believe it, they gave me this honorarium, and a couple of people wanted to partner with me; it was so awesome, it was amazing." And then all of a sudden it was like he kind of realized what he—how this might be hitting me, and he said, "Is it okay that I'm telling you this?" And I said, "Oh yeah, praise the Lord, I'm so happy for you." Well, I wasn't as unhappy as I was two years ago, but I still wasn't totally thrilled. And so, when he left, I went and threw myself across my daughter's bed, I remember, and I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried, and I said to God, "I am going to tithe and give offerings from now until the time Jesus comes back if I never see one penny from [Applause] it." And after that day, our finances started to turn around and change. [Applause] You see, it's not—it's not just about giving; it's about the attitude that we live with in the rest of our lives. And you see, sometimes God's going to run some tests by you; He's going to run some people by you that aren't as spiritual—are you—as you that are getting what you want. Come on. [Applause] Now, and you're going to have to learn to be happy for them, and the only way you can be happy for them is if you trust God so much that you absolutely do not want anything that He doesn't want you to have—not now, not ever. Amen. I don't pray anymore for God to give me what I want; I pray that God will give me what I can handle. And I pray, "God, please don't give me anything that's going to make me think I'm more important than what I am. Please don't give me anything that's going to ever take me away from You. Right? And please don't—and if I try to get anything that's not Your will, slam the door in my face." [Applause] Amen. [Applause]
Now, the Bible says that although He was a Son—talking about Jesus in Hebrews 5:8 and 9—"He learned active, special obedience through what He suffered." Now, listen to this verse: "And His completed experience," Hebrews 5:8 and 9, "making Him perfectly equipped, He became the author and the source of eternal salvation." Wow. In other words, you might have a calling, but you need to be equipped with some experience. A lot of people have a gift that can take them somewhere, but they don't have enough character to keep them there once they get there. And so, I want to say something to you, and I want you to remember it: Don't be in such a hurry about getting what you want and going where you're going. Don't—don't be in such a hurry. Take time to learn the things you need to learn, so when you get where you're going, you'll be able to stay there and not just get somewhere and then lose that place. You know, the first years of my Ministry were so stinking hard. Oh my gosh, they were so hard. There were so many things that I had to go through. And I had cancer 25 years ago. I was betrayed by friends. I was attacked by the media. I was so stinking lonely when I got out on the road and started traveling, because you just—your life is just different when you're gone from home all the time. It's just totally different. I was misunderstood. I was judged. I was criticized. And I'll tell you something that I have learned—it's like I'm writing right after Paul—I have learned that what people think of me is really not nearly as important as I used to think it was. I mean, it just really doesn't make all that much difference. Cuz you know what? Haters are going to hate, and judgers are going to judge, and criticizers are going to criticize. And I guess we can think, "Well, at least if they're bugging me, they're leaving somebody else alone." [Applause] Amen. And I—you know, I really don't care all that much what people think anymore. That's why I can get up here and just have fun now. If it's somebody in my close family and I think they're thinking bad of me about something, that will still bother me. But honestly, I've learned the world out there wants to have an opinion about all kinds of stuff that they don't know anything at all about. They don't know nothing about it. They don't know me. They don't know what I've been through. They don't know anything about me. They don't know what a price I've paid to do what I'm doing. They don't know. And it's none of their [Applause] business. And I want to encourage you: Don't let what somebody thinks about you ruin one more day of your life. Now, one more day of your life. Because I'll tell you what's important: Your reputation and my reputation here on this Earth doesn't matter all that much; it's our reputation in heaven that we've got to be concerned about. And God has told me that He likes me, and so that's all that matters. Amen. I want to make a deposit in you so you can stay in Revival when these 10 days are over. Amen.
You know, I—I've actually really learned—learned by experience—that if we love God and we trust Him, that there is no painful, unjust thing that can happen to us that God won't some way, somehow work it out for our good. [Applause] And I mean, I'm not—I'm not just—I'm telling you, I know that—I know that by experience. I know it because I've been through it. But it is important how we go through these things that happen to us; that's the important thing. You can go through things and go through things and go through things and go through things, but the thing that's important is what is our attitude while we go through it? How do we go through it? Amen. I—I just—a story comes up in me. We were on a big television station one time—once a week—and I was just getting started in television, and the station was doing really, really, really good. And uh, they called and said they were canceling our time. Well, we've got a contract. Well, that didn't matter; they decided they were going to do some kind of program change, so they were canceling our time. Well, it was devastating to us because it was a good station; it was bringing in some income which we desperately needed. And so, man, you know, you—you—you have a temptation when somebody does something that's unfair to you—oh, man, it's just so hard. And I was upset about it. I was in church one night, and they were receiving an offering, and I felt like the Lord said, "Put that station in the basket as an offering." Wow. Wow. In other words, I mean, I couldn't physically put it in there, but He wanted me to like give that to Him—give it to Him, okay? Well, long story short, now I'm on that station every day and have been for a long time, and they came back to us and wanted me to come on every day. I'm telling you what: You keep a good attitude, and the devil cannot steal from you. Did you hear me? If you keep a good attitude, I said the devil cannot steal from you. Amen.
Now, most of you know, if you know much at all about my Ministry, you know I'm a little mixed up about that clock. It started saying I had 20 minutes; now it says I have 41. What is that telling me? Huh? Well, I mean, I don't want to stand up here and preach for five hours. How much [Applause] time? No, you would not put up with that anyway. I uh—now I forgot what I was going to tell you. It's almost there. I'm having a—I'm having a senior moment. On that station every day—yeah, every day I was on that station. But there was something else I was going to tell you, and I forgot. Anyway, I got—I got plenty of other things I can tell you, so it doesn't matter. Oh, I know what I was going to tell you. See, there it is. I still got it; it's just a little slower. So—and so—uh, you all know that—most of you know that I was abused when I was a child. And uh, I mean, it's tough when you go through something like that. I mean, my dad sexually abused me for years and years and years—repeatedly, repeatedly. And I—I'm not going to get into the nastiness of the story, but it just was very, very, very bad. And uh, my mother was afraid of my dad, and she was afraid of the scandal, and she knew what he was doing, but she didn't—didn't help me. And I had uh—a relative—an aunt and—and uncle that I went to for help, and they didn't want to get involved. And you know, so somewhere along the line, I just decided I was going to survive. Well, I was born again when I was 9 years old. I snuck off to church with some relatives and received Christ. And um, I never knew anything after that. I actually cheated in a game of hide-and-go-seek the next day, and I thought I lost my salvation. I—I remember had my head leaned against the building, and I peeked, and yeah, the devil told me I lost my salvation. So, but a few years back, I started saying, you know, I don't know what it was, but when I was about 9 years old, this determination came into me that I was going to overcome. Well, then all of a sudden I realized, well, that was when I was saved. Yeah. And so, see, when you receive the Spirit of Christ, you don't receive a give-up Spirit; you receive a go-through Spirit. You receive something that's going to bring you through things. And now I want to share this with you: I prayed for God to get me out of that situation. I prayed prayers I probably shouldn't have prayed. I prayed for my dad to die. I prayed for my mother to leave—anything to get me out of that situation. And He did not get me out of the situation, but He did get—He did take me through it. He did take me through it. And uh, you know, it's kind of up to God whether we get out or we go through. And I had no idea what God was going to do with my life, but I'll be honest with you, what I went through is helping millions of people around the globe. And now listen to me: Sometimes God will allow you to go through something—He doesn't do those things—but sometimes He will allow you to—to go through something just for the sole purpose of equipping you to be able to help somebody else later on in life. So, if I said tonight, "How many of you want to be used by God?" Every hand would go up, but then I have to say, "Do you really?" Amen. Cuz see, Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered, and His completed experience equipped Him to become the author of our Salvation. Every—any place that you go to look for a job today, one of the first things they're going to ask you is, "Do you have any experience?" And I'm going to tell you the truth—this is my opinion, and I don't disrespect education; I'm grateful for what I have, which is not probably as much as most of you have—but experience is much more valuable even than education. I mean, it really is. And so, I went through a lot of things and um—left home as soon as I was 18, married the first guy that came along because I thought nobody would ever want me. That was another five-year nightmare. And I thought because I left home that I left the—that I no longer had the problem. That's right. But I took it with me; it was in my soul. And see, some of you are still walking around with things from your past; it's in your soul. You may be physically away from it, but you might still have it in your soul, and that's where Jesus wants to heal us. He wants to get down in our souls, and He wants to heal us. Amen. And so, there's way too many stories to tell you, but I can tell you this, and I don't know how I know this—does not even make any sense to me—but I will tell you this, and I mean it with all my heart: I cannot say to you that I—that I'm sorry that I was abused and that I wish it wouldn't have happened. I cannot say that anymore because some way, somehow, I know that God has worked that out for my good, and He has used it in my life to help—the people—I know that—I know that—I know that—I know that. And I want to tell you something: He will use everything that you're going through, too—everything.
Now, along the way, I had to learn to stop blaming. I had to learn to stop feeling sorry for myself. I had to learn to stop being bitter. I had to learn to truly forgive. And boy, the biggest test of that came—the biggest test of that came when my mom and dad were elderly and not well, and God began to put on my heart, "I want you to take care of them." The first time I heard that, I was praying; I rebuked the devil. I thought it was a devil. I did. I said, "I rebuke you, Satan." I mean, I thought there is no way that God would ask me to do that. Let me tell you something: God will ask you to do things. Come on. I mean, look at what He asked His only Son to [Applause] do. So, here again—long story short—after much wrestling with God, we brought them to our city, we put them in a nice little house, got them a car, had somebody mow the grass, got the groceries—did everything. When they got older and older, we put them in nursing home care. And so, my mom, my dad, and my aunt, who happens to be part of the aunt and uncle that didn't help me—I'm—I now have to take care of her. And so, between my—my mom and my dad and my aunt, we've now been paying nursing home bills for 15 years for people that all hurt me. But now let me tell you something: My dad received Christ as a result of us reaching out to him. You see, I thought—I thought when God told me to put them in a nice little house and take care of them, I thought I was buying a house, and I wasn't happy about it because I took what little bit of money we had. And I didn't realize He was in that house three years, and He called me over one morning—my mother said, "Your dad wants to see you"—and he was crying. And I went over, and after—he's now 80 years old—first time ever, he apologized to me for what he did to me—first time ever—80 years old. And he said, "I—I just want you to know that I'm sorry for what I did to you when you were a little girl." And I said, "Daddy, would you like to be saved?" Come on. And he's crying; he's on a walker, and he says, "Yes." And I prayed the Prayer of Salvation with him, and he asked us to baptize him. Ten days later, we baptized him. I thought I was buying a house, and I was buying a soul. Come on. That's why—that's why God wants us to be generous with what we have. Let—let me give you an example—example. Let's just say that you work at a place, and a lady there—maybe a supervisor—just treats you like dirt, and it is really hard for you to be there, but you feel like that's where God has told you to be. Okay? Now, let's say that you've finally grown past gossiping about her, and you've even gotten to the point where you can pray for her and you know—do all those things Christians are supposed to do. And uh, now let's say that you happen to hear that her car is in the shop, and it's going to be in there for a month, and that she has no proper transportation. Now, let's just suppose that maybe God put it on your heart to go by and pick her up every morning and take her home every night, even though it's way out of your way. Now, all of a sudden you got fruit under your leaves. Come on. Cuz see, she's been making fun of your leaves; she's been making fun of your Christianity, but now you show up with the fruit. You see, you can't argue with fruit. And what we need in the church is more fruit. We don't need to just get together in our buildings. See, this is an awesome time in your life, but take it with you. You got to take it out of here and take it with you. That's right. It's no good if you don't take it with you. That's right. Ten—Psalm 105:18—I have to show you this scripture. Maybe you have to have gone through a few things to get this scripture, but I love it. I wish I knew what was going on with that clock, but I just don't know what I'm doing, and you guys won't tell me, and that's not fair. [Applause] What are you doing with the—is that how long I've been preaching, or how long I have to go? Is that how long I've been preaching? Thank you. All right. My gosh. So, okay. How many of you know the story of Joseph and what all he went through? His feet—they hurt with—feets. We got this up because I want you to see it. He was laid in chains of iron, and his soul entered into the iron. Now, you know what that really means? He hurt so bad that those chains that were on him became like part of his soul. Let me tell you something: I've been through hell, but I am one strong lady. Amen. And that's what we need—we need that strength. We need courage. We need confidence. We need to personally know who God is because we've been in some situations and know that He never left us nor forsook us. Amen. You can't know God through your preacher. You can't know God through listening to somebody's CDs. You can't know God through having somebody's books or CDs. You got to—you got to get on to God in your Midnight Hour when it's nobody but you and Him. Amen. That's—that's when you got to get with God and get your Victory. Amen. You know, more than anything, I want to see people glorify God. I could tell you a million more stories, but let me just end this up tonight by saying, God knows right where you're at. You may feel invisible, but He knows right where you're at, and He knows what needs to be done in your life. God never does bad things to us. Amen. But sometimes He takes a little longer to get us out of them than what we'd like, and He's got a purpose in it. So, instead of just, "Get me out of this, get me out of this, get me out of this," you got to—get me out of this—how about praying a new way? "God, I know that You'll bring me out of this at the right time, but while I'm in it, let me get what You want me to have. Let me get something out of this that You want me to have." The situation may stink, but God is still good. Amen. And I tell you what: When you get a little more iron in your soul—yes, devil better watch out—because then he can't mess up your day because somebody talked about you at work, and then he can't destroy your joy because somebody gossiped about you. Listen, I had one of those big media blast attacks like Steven and this church did a few years ago, and I felt for you when you were going through that, but I'll tell you something: You're a better man now. You may not think you are, but you are. Cuz I'll tell you one—one thing: The next time it happens, if it does…
You won't care nearly as much. Amen. And then you'll get to like me. I I wouldn't. I would not even take my time to read that junk. I don't read it. I don't look at it. You know why? They don't know me. And I feel a little bit like the Apostle Paul did when he said, "From now on let no man bother me because I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ." Amen. Come on, give God a PR. Lord, we love you so much. We worship you, and we praise you.
Let me pray for all of you. Father, I don't know what each person's going through, but I know we do go through things, and we don't have to be afraid of them. We don't even have to run from them. What we can do is say, "God, I know you'll get me out of this at the right time. I know you will, because I know you love me. And if there's something I need to learn while I'm in this situation, then I want to embrace it, and I want to learn it, and I want to pass this test because I don't want to take it over and over and over." Help me be the person that you want me to be. I only want to be what you want me to be. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for having me tonight. [Applause]