Joyce Meyer - Not in Your Own Strength - Part 1

Well, thank you for joining me today on, «Enjoying Everyday Life,» where I teach the Word of God and my prayer is that it changes your life. I do believe that we can hear things from the Word of God that will start us on a path that will be life-changing for us. I’m teaching on «Temptation,» something that we all have. The last couple of days I’ve been teaching on temptation and I’m gonna continue it today. And one of the things we have to be very careful of when it comes to temptation is that we don’t think that we can resist it in our own strength. We have to understand that we need God’s help.

So, the first thing you wanna do when you feel tempted to do something that you know you shouldn’t do is to pray, «God, help me. Help me resist this temptation». Matter of fact, I think every day when we pray, we should pray, «I don’t know what kind of temptations are going to come my way today». Don’t just assume they won’t come, but I don’t know that you have to plan on being tempted, but more than likely something’s gonna come during the day that’s going to tempt you to be impatient or tempt you to be angry or maybe tempt you into some worse sin. So, pray that God will help you to be strong and to resist temptation. The weaknesses in the believer or even the unbeliever is what satan uses to work through.

James 1:12–16. «Blessed (happy, to be envied) is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation, for when he has stood the test and been approved, he will receive [the victor's] Crown of life which God has promised to those who love him». So, he’s telling us that we’re gonna have trials and that we’re gonna have to stand up and not cave in because of them, not give in to them. «Let no one say when he’s tempted, 'I’m being tempted by God: ' because God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] Evil and he himself tempts no one. But every person is tempted when he’s drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desires, (lusts, and passion)'».

Now, in a little bit we’re gonna look at what some of these words mean, baited, lust, passion. «Then the evil desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it’s fully matured, brings forth death». So, it’s kind of like a progression, you know, if you get tempted and you don’t resist it then you will eventually end up sinning and sin brings death. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gonna stop breathing and die physically, but it brings a type of death to your spiritual life and your soul. Thank God we can repent for our sins and be restored. Jesus is our redeemer and I love that.

So, let’s remember this. «Then the evil desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it’s fully matured, brings forth death». Satan baits us and draws us into his well-laid plan. We’re going to look at what some of these words mean: bait, to place bait in a trap, to lure in by trickery, used in the taking of animals. We had a rash of raccoons this year and they were just tearing the yard up and so we put some traps out for them and we put bait in the traps, we put food. Well, the food was what the raccoon went after.

There’s probably not much of a chance that he would have just went in a cage if there was nothing in there to bait him and draw him in. And that’s kind of the way sin is. A person is not just gonna go sin on purpose if they love God, but if there’s the right kind of bait and that raccoon had a weakness for food, then if we have a weakness in an area, we will take the bait. And the bait means, to lure in by trickery. It’s used in the taking of animals and the flesh is often considered the animal part of man, the lower nature of the believer. Bait is an enticement to torment, especially with persistent insults, criticisms, or ridicule. To tease, some of the synonyms are to heckle, to hound, to needle, to badger, to taunt, or to riot.

And you know, if somebody just, you may be a pretty patient person and not easily angered, but if somebody would just keep insulting you and keep insulting you and keep insulting you and keep insulting you, no matter how strong you are, there’s a pretty good chance you may end up getting angry. And so certainly we need to pray for God’s help in all of these areas. Lust, is an intense and unrestrained desire, an overwhelming craving, or to be obsessed with. And we can have lust in many different areas, you know. Lust is not just relegated to sex. People can have a lust for food, for material things, for money, for power, for promotion, for fame.

There’s a lot of things that people can be lusting after. And passion is a powerful emotion such as love, joy, hatred, anger, or greed. And passion, if it’s placed in a good area, is a good thing. From the day that God spoke to me about teaching his word, I’ve had a passion to do it that has kept me going for 48 years. And during those 48 years, I mean, we have worked really hard. We’ve done conferences and conferences, and traveled out of the country, and traveled and packed, and unpacked and packed, and unpacked, and been in hotels, and out of hotels. And I didn’t particularly care for all that part of it, but I had such a passion to teach the word that I was willing to put up with the uncomfortable part to do the part that was good.

So, good passion is what drives you and motivates you to complete a project or to keep going with something even when you get tired. But bad passion is what can get you into trouble. Passion is necessary to accomplish things in life. The stronger the passion, the more the individual accomplishes. But then there’s wrong passions, like maybe you have a passion to impress people, or for money, or to be number one in a sport, a passion for food, or sex, or material things. Those things can be bad. James 4 talks about our wrong desires and how trying to get things the wrong way, trying to get them ourselves for ourselves, causes so many problems in our life. When what we should do is if there’s something we want, we should ask God for it and he’ll give it to us if it’s the right thing and he’ll give it to us the right way and in the right time.

James 4:1-3. «What leads to strife»? Well, first of all, to make sure you all understand what strife is. Strife is bickering, arguing, heated disagreement, and an angry undercurrent. And that angry undercurrent is what’s so dangerous about strife. It’s when we’re all smiling at each other, but yet, underneath there’s this strife going on. It might be like everybody says, «Praise the Lord,» in church, and then they gossip about the pastor when they leave and go home. So, he says, «What leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels, and fights) get started among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires», your fleshly desires, «That are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and you want [what other people have]».

You know, when you want something and you don’t have it and you see somebody else with it, that will cause you to be jealous. And it’s especially challenging if the person you see with it is somebody that you don’t like very much. That’s hard. It says, «Your desires go unfulfilled,» you’re not gonna get what you want that way. That’s not the way God gives you what you want. «[so] You become a murderer because [to hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned]». And sometimes, we can become so jealous of somebody that we hate them, we dislike them. «You burn with envy and anger and you’re not able to get what you want, so, you fight and you war».

And isn’t that what a lot of fights and arguments and wars are caused over people not getting what they want? «I want something, I’m not getting it, and I’m gonna stay mad at you until you give it to me». But this next sentence actually really was a very life-changing one for me. «You do not have, because you do not ask». You know, I was at a time in my life when I was trying to do a lot of things that only God can do. It’s called «Works of the flesh» in the Bible. And works of the flesh will just wear you out and frustrate you, and they will accomplish nothing. They’ll frustrate you because you’ll be working, and working, and working, and putting out all this effort and nothing is happening. And then we end up saying things like, «Well, God, I’ve done everything I know to do and nothing’s working».

Well, maybe what God is asking you to do is trust him. But I was like trying to change myself. I could read in the Bible and see that I had plenty of things wrong with me. I was trying to change my husband because I didn’t like some of the things that he did. He was a sports fanatic and was involved in all kinds of sports, and I didn’t like 'em, and so I didn’t want him to like 'em. That was rather selfish and self-centered, but we had not gotten around to that in my life yet. What I mean by that is God was still dealing with me about some other things, and I was trying to change my kids. When you have multiple children, they all end up with different personality, and they’re not all like you. They’re not all gonna do everything the way you would do it. And we have to learn, if we’re ever gonna have peace, we have to learn to love people the way they are, not the way we would like them to be.

Now, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need to change some things, but we can’t change them. I was trying to make my ministry grow. I couldn’t do that. If we would put the same effort into prayer that we put into trying to work these things out ourselves, we would see a lot more success. «You have not because you ask not». If you want something, pray about it. I’ve learned now if there’s something that I would really like my husband to change, I pray about it. And sometimes it changes, and sometimes it doesn’t. And I’ve come to the point that I just believe that if God can’t handle him, I certainly can’t. And so, I’d rather have my peace at this point than to have my way in everything.

And you know, we assume that people are wrong if we don’t like what they’re doing, but that doesn’t mean that we’re right about what we think. Just because I think that somebody’s doing something the wrong way and they should change it doesn’t mean that God thinks that. We always have a tendency to think that everybody should do things the way we do them, but that’s not even scriptural. We’re all different. Every one of us is different. I mean, if God took the trouble to give us all a different set of fingerprints and different DNA, we all have different temperaments and personalities. And we cannot get along with people if we don’t learn how to adjust and adapt to different people. Actually, Paul said that to the Jew, he was a Jew, to the Greek, he was a Greek, whatever it took to win them to Christ.

And in Romans 12, it says that we are «To adapt and adjust ourselves to other people in order to keep the peace». Now, that doesn’t mean you take that too far and you just always give everybody else their way because you don’t wanna start any trouble. Sometimes you have to stand up to things. Sometimes you have to resist things or you have to talk to somebody about something. But I think, by and large, you know what I’m talking about, we need to let God do what only God can do and we need to wait on him to do it. That’s the only way that we’re going to have any peace. He says «You do not have, because you do not ask. [or] You do ask [God for them] And you fail to receive, because you ask with a wrong purpose and an evil, selfish motive. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] To spend it in sensual pleasures».

Now, I know that we all would think, «Well, no, that’s not me. That’s not me». But, you know, so often, even in giving, we give something to somebody, but there’s an ulterior motive. We give expecting to get something in return. We give expecting a «Thank you». We should give with no expectations just to be a blessing and then let God take care of the rest of it. Can we overcome these things? Can we overcome the temptation to be this way? Well, of course we can because the Bible says, that «There’s no temptation that comes to us that God will not provide a way out». An independent spirit or attitude prevents us from receiving the help that we need from God. We need to be dependent, not independent. We need to be like fruit hanging on a limb from a tree. It’s only the limb that holds it up.

Well, Jesus is like the vine that the fruit grows on, and it says, «Apart from him we can do nothing». If I get away from him, then I’m gonna wither up and die. So, we need to constantly be depending on God. «God, I need your help. I need you. Strengthen me, God. You are my strength». I probably spend possibly more time praying about God giving me the strength that I need to do what I need to do than anything else. I mean, the strength to behave in a godly manner, the strength to forgive, the grace to not stay angry. We need the grace of God because it’s his power coming into our life to help us do with ease what we can never do with any amount of struggle and effort. Grace is God’s undeserved favor. God can give you favor and make somebody want to do something for you that you want them to do for you, but you can’t get them to do it, but God can give you favor and cause them to do it.

James 4:5-7 says, «Do you suppose that the scripture is speaking to no purpose that says, 'the spirit whom he has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and he yearns for the spirit [to be welcome] With a jealous love'»? Now, that may sound funny that God can be jealous, but he’s jealous of your affection. He doesn’t want anything else to be first place in your life. He wants you to put him first, and if we put God first, then he will just show out and do some of the most amazing things in our life. It says that «God gives us more and more grace, (the power of the Holy Spirit, to meet our evil tendencies)».

I love that. I was trying to change myself. And my mouth always got me in trouble, and I was trying to be quiet, and I was trying to be this, and trying to be something else, and trying to be sweet like my pastor’s wife, and trying to be crafty like my neighbor, and just, you know, I was just trying all these different things, and God was never going to help me be somebody else. You might as well be yourself because everybody else is already taken. What a relief it was to me when I read that «Grace and more grace». God will give me grace and more grace to help me meet all of my evil tendencies. So, I was struggling and wasting my time trying to change myself when what I needed was to ask God. «You have not because you ask not».

You see, I would go to church and hear a message on, say, the mouth, and was, of course, convicted by that message. I needed to use more wisdom with the things that I said because I often said things that hurt people’s feelings or I would say negative things instead of saying positive things, and so I would get a plan on how I was going to keep my mouth shut and not get in trouble, and I would go home, and my plan would never work. I’d always fail, and then I would get frustrated because, «God, I’m trying. I’m trying so hard». But I was leaving out the most important step. The first thing I should have done after I heard the message and knew that it needed to be applied to my life, the very first thing I should have done is said, «God, help me. I cannot do this, but you can do it in me».

Now, this is so important for so many of you to hear because you may be in the same place that I was in all those years ago trying to do things yourself that only God can do. Do you have a child that drives you crazy? You can’t change 'em. Now, yes, we should correct our children, but you know that there’s things that you’ve tried to change in your children, and it’s just not changing. Well, love them where they’re at and pray for God to make the changes that need to be made. Or even if you’re gonna talk to them about making some changes, pray first that God will give you the wisdom and the right thing to say and the right time to say it.

There are times when I need to talk to my husband about something that I know is not gonna be an easy conversation, and I always pray for God to give me the right timing, and then I just wait until I sense in my heart that the time is right, and it goes so much better when I do that. «He gives us more and more grace to meet our evil tendencies. That is why he says, 'God sets himself against the proud and the haughty, but he gives grace [continually] To the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it)'».

You see, it’s showing humility when we say, «God, help me». We cannot do things in our own strength. We need God to strengthen us at all times. Before we started these programs today, we all prayed together, here, in the studio, that God would help us, that he would give us the right words to say to you that you need to hear today. I always pray that God will bring things out of me that I don’t even know if it’s what somebody needs to hear to help them. We prayed for the equipment to work right. We prayed for all the people operating the equipment to operate it correctly. I have no interest in doing anything without praying for God’s help, because I know if God doesn’t help me, it’s going to be a big mess.

Have you forgotten to include God in your efforts to get things done? If you have, you can correct it right away. Even right now, you can ask God, «I realize I’ve left you out and I need your help». That’s when God gets jealous, when we forget about him and think we can do things on our own. Then it says, «So be subject to God. Resist the devil and he will flee». Well, you know, we like to quote half of that scripture and say, «Resist the devil and he will flee». But it says, «Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil and he will flee». It’s in our submission that we find the strength to resist the enemy.

And you know, God put on my heart a long time ago, he said, «Resisting the devil doesn’t always mean to resist the trial. It means to resist acting like the devil in the midst of the trial». What God wants us to do is be stable and show the Fruit of the Spirit even in hard times. Be subject to God. Seek him. Seek his help. Humble yourself and realize you cannot be strong without him. Romans 8:37 says, «We are more than conquerors and we gain a surpassing victory through him who loves us». Through him. Our strength is found in him. «I can do all things through God who is my strength».