Living with Reverence and Godly Purpose

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game Well, with the nameame Your prrice tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills Try it at progressive. com. Progressive casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states Welcome to fififteen Minutes in the Wd with New York Times bestselling author, Joyce Meyer. On today's program, Joyce will be teaching from her series how to succeed at Being Yourself God created each one of us to be different He knows all of our faults and weaknesses, yet still loves us exactly as we are When we begin to understand God's unconditional love and who we are in Christ, then we can stop trying so hard and just enjoy each moment as it comes Now, here's Joyce with today's teaching He was on up in years by the time the movie started, let's say it was maybe in his sixties or something and He worked at an amusement park and it was the last place in the world he wanted to work because His mom and dad had once owned the amusement park And he always just felt like his dad just kind of wasted his life and The last thing he ever wanted to do was be like his dad or do what his dad did. And so he had these big illustrious plans to get away from there and go have this other great life that he had planned for himself. But just some different things happened and he never was able to get away from there. And so his parentsed up ended up dying and somebody else bought the amusement park ended up working for these people and working at this amusement park literally all of his life. Well, he was very unhappy on the inside, but you might not have known it to be around him. He was actually a very nice man and helped a lot of people and was generous and would help different people that worked there that may were having financial troubles and things like that. But he just felt like a total absolute failure Well, something happened on one of the rides and a little girl was about to be killed and he actually in the process of trying to save her, got killed himself and died, and he went to heaven But when he got there, of course, this being in a movie, you know, it wasn't exactly along the lines of scricripture. when he got there, he was told that He would meet five people in heaven and that each one of these people that he would meet would be very important in helping him make a final decision that he had to make, which was what did he want his heaven to be like? Everybody that went to heaven in this movie got to choose what they wanted their own heaven to look like and be like. So if you wanted your heaven to be you know, an island in Hawaii, you could live on the beach the rest of your life, you know, or if youed whatever. know if you wanted to live on the mountains in the Swiss Alps, You could be there. You got to kind of just create your own existence. And so as the movie goes on, he meets these five people and at first he didn't understand what was going on. and to be honest, it took me a while to understand it too. I almost turned it off twice because it was kind of slow moving. I'm like, this is really goofy. But then I kept thinking I needed to finish watching it, by the time I got to the end of it, it was one of those movies you think about for days and days and days because it had a real message in it And so I don't remember the order, but first he met a man that he'd been in the Vietnam War with. and it turns out that he had saved this guy's life. And so this guy proceeds to tell him what all he meant to him and you know how because he'd saved his life, what he had gone on to do and all the different, you know things. And then he met a little girl when u When she was just like about seven or eight years old, He saw her in the street playing and a car was coming and he quick ran and grabbed her and got her out of the way saved her life and then showed you know what she went on to do and how she wouldn't have been alive if it wouldn't have been for him. And so they go through, you know these five different people, each one telling a story like that, and the emotions are mounting and you're beginning to get the point. And so when it comes time for him to pick his heaven, he realized by then that where he had been all of his life That although he hated it the whole time he was there and always felt he was in the wrong place, that that indeed was the best place for him to be. And so he chose as his heaven, that amusement park that he lived in all those years, but always felt like he was on the right in the wrong place and always despised his life. And the message that I want to try to get across to you tonight, of course, when I record messages in a conference like this, it's also largely for our television audience I wantanna get the point across to you need to not only love yourself, but you need to love your life And you need to stop wanting somebody else's life. You need to stop wanting to look like somebody else, have somebody else's gifts and talents. and you need to stop wanting somebody else's life, and you need to embrace your life. and you need to realize that the real power in life is in the little things The little things Now what I'm saying tonight, if you will embrace this and go home and contemplate this and concentrate on it, it can be life changing for you. Please, please, please, for the sake of Jesus, do not go through your life, always wishing for something you don't have Make the most of where you're at right now, be a blessing right where you're at, be the best you, you can be right where you're at, and you can be assured that if God wants you somewhere else, that He will put you somewhere else. and there will be promotions, there will be different levels. But let me tell you something. if you don't get happy here, I'm telling you you won't be happy over here I know because I have lived this It's not about how much money you have, It's not about what kind of house you have. It's not about your position at work or your position in the church You know something There are relatively, of course, there's more than a handful, but just for the sake of making a comparison There's a handful of people That are the People that everybody see and admire and all these things. And most of us are just plain old common folks In our little niche in life doing our little thing, and the devil loves to make those kind of people think that they're nothing That's the stuff life is made out of Me being on this platform tonight for these two hours and two hours tomorrowing T tomorrow night and Tuesday You know, this is my call, this is my gift, and I'm doing this to help you. But this is not my life. I have a life. I have kids. I have grandkids. I have a husband. I'm a person same things that you do and I've learned, let me tell you something. I've learned that it's not what I do up here that's that important to God It's what I do behind closed doors at home. and it's how I treat people when I go out into the marketplace. It's how I treat people that are in need. It's what kind of a giver I am in my everyday life 'Ccauseuse this is a gift I do this by gift. I can stand here and do this. I mean, I' never run out of something to say Never I mean, I'm just like a wind up mouth, you know? I mean just I mean, I just never run out of anything to say. You know, You just stand me up and I'll talk. And you know I believe in hope and pray, a lot of it's helping you. But the point is is this is a gift. I don't have to think about this. I just, I mean, I study and I study hard and I pray and I don't take it for granted, but it's a gift But my character is developed in my everyday life My character is developed in the trenches right where everybody else is at. And I believe I will be judged a lot more by how I handle myself in those places than anything else. And some of the so called big shots think that that gives them the right to go around and mistreat the common ordinary person And this is just a personal thing, so I'll just tell you, it's just the way I feel. There's nothing. I mean I just can't stand a mean preacher I mean, nothing aggravates me worse than somebody who has this position They think now because of their place of importance, that gives them a right to walk all over other people. And nobody should do that. Movie stars shouldn't do it. Music stars shouldn't do it The president of the company shouldn't do it The higher up we go, the better we should treat other people. We need to remember where we came from This man hated his life He wasted his life in that he is Do you know that it is a tragedy to be alive and not enjoy your life That's a tragedy Worry will suck the life out of you. Reasoning will suck the life out of you Trying to do something about something you can't do anything about will suck the life out of you You need to learn what you can do and learn what you can and what you can't do, God will do, do what you can, Don't try to do what you can't Ting to make things happen out of God's timing will suck the joy out of your life Whatever it is that you want God to do, if he's not going to do it until two thousand seven, then he's not going to do it until two thousand seven. And you might as well not hate your life from now until two thousand seven Be it won't make God hurry We need to know our purpose. We need to know our main purpose in life and we need to know our specific purpose in life. and our main purpose in life is to Far and revere God to know that He is and to obey Him In Ecclesiastes twelve thirteen, it says that absolutely beautifully. I'm not going to turn there just because of time, but I love that scripture. It says when Solomon had tried everything, he'd gone through everything and he'd messed up things so badly, he said the end of the matter is this If you read what Solomon wrote, I mean he just basically just Ted everything Wen, money, excess in every area Nothing could make him happy permanently When it came down to it, he said, hereere's the end of the matter Fear God, and we do need to have a reverential fear of God. We do need to know that God is God and that He means business and that He's not just our buddy, but he's God. Almighty God All powerful, all knowing, all seeing. You know what? We're not getting by with anything. God sees everything He knows everything, He sees everything Just because we go home and close the door and our religious friends can't see, that doesn't mean God doesn't see. Come on now I'm preaching good tonight. And o, let me tell you something, when we start living before God. And we come to the point where we'll pick up a piece of trash off of the ground, just because we felt like God told us to When we start doing things under the Lord, and we don't have to have somebody clapping and cheering for us because we did it We do everything undernt the Lord because we love Him And we know that hisis eye is always on us. We live in the fear of God. The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God We don't even begin to have any sense at all until we know how to fear God And we must know that He is. There's nowhere where you can go where God is not Nowhere He is. Think about that for about a week Jesus said, I am. Well now. Oh huh He is the ever present, all knowing, all seeing, all powerful Almighty, everlasting Wh you And he loves me And he says, love yourself. free gift of my love and let it heal your wounded souls And get about my business which is loving other people. Jesus said, one new commandment I give unto you that you love one another just as I have loved you. By this shall all men know True joy and freedom comes from knowing we're totally loved and accepted by God. Although we'll never be perfect, we have right standing with God because of Jesus. Therefore, our confidence must be in Christ. Jeremiah seventeen seven says, Most Blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is By faith and our confidence in God, we can succeed at being all He wants us to be.