God's Answer For Stress – Joyce Meyer

want to start by telling you something funny we get a little ride up every time we go out of town well sometimes a big ride up telling us who we're going to eat with what hotel and all this nothing and something else and so uh they took us to a restaurant yesterday called bog and barley and my husband read the write up wrong and he thought we were eating with bog and barley and he said these pastors names are bog and barley and I said no he said well that's what it says here finally got

it straightened out it didn't say we're eating with bog and barley it said we're eating at bog and barley so we have given Pastor John the name bog and Leslie is now Bailey so if know Jesus barley not Bailey barley anyway you know make sure in your life that you laugh and have a good time because it makes the devil mad when you laugh and it helps you father thank you for the word this morning I pray that it will help people with something that we all have an issue with today and need your help

God's answer for stress you know we live in a stress ful world don't we it's I mean things are just they're so crazy all you can do is just kind of shake your head but I'm in the world and you're in the world but I live in Goan I don't know where you live but I live in Goan you see when all of the plagues were coming on Europe the Israelites all lived in a little place called Goan and none of the plagues affected them none of them touched them when the firstborn were all killed

that's when Passover was instituted and they put the the blood on their doorpost and the angel of death passed over them and I just want to encourage you we are believe that we're living in the last days and if we are what a privilege to be that generation right it gets to be here when Jesus comes but even if he doesn't come even even if things are going to get worse I you're God's child and don't but we can play into the devil's hands if we get into fear and one of the things that we

have a tremendous amount of today is stress and in Daniel chapter 7 in the Amplified Bible it says that Satan will seek to wear out the Saints and you hear that I'm just worn out I'm tired I'm tired of life I'm tired of the government I'm you know tired of mean people I you know you just it's easy to let yourself get weary just just weary weary of going to work every day weary of never quite having enough money you know just weary of mean ignorant people that don't know how to act decent and weariness

means exhausted in strength endurance Vigor or freshness having one's patience exhausted we all understand that don't we having your tolerance for something exhausted you know sometimes we feel like we can put up with something for a while but it's like if you push me one more day you are now on my last nerve so you better stop it but you know God doesn't want us to live stressed out and he's made a way for us to live in peace but now listen to what I'm going to say we have to do our part and that's

what I want to talk to you about today about maybe deciding to make a few changes in your life that may take away some of that stress because if you're if you're like me at all I spent a long time praying for God to change my circumstances change the people around me and I finally figured out that that wasn't going to happen and that I was the one that was going to have to change and sometimes just changing your attitude toward the way things are you know maybe maybe you don't like your job so much

but maybe you could change your attitude and be happy you have a job you know um and if you're really unhappy there look look for another one don't work somewhere all your life that you hate I hate my job I hate my job I hate my job no find something that you'd like to do even if you make a little less money it's better to be happy and to enjoy what you're doing than it is to have a large bank account having a good attitude can make all the difference in the world in your life

and maybe there's 10 of you here today that you came just to hear that just maybe you came in here this morning just to get a little attitude adjustment I I have a little spiritual screwdriver that just adjusts people's attitude CU believe me I I need mine adjusted plenty but I talk to myself sometimes and I'll say to myself all right Joyce knock it off just straighten up everybody has trouble don't sit around and feel sorry for yourself because you got a problem anybody here ever get into self-pity one of the reasons why we get

stressed out is because we're too proud to ask for help and in in Exodus 17:12 when Moses's hands grew tired you know as as long as he was standing with His Hands Up In Worship they were winning the battle but if he put his hands down they started to lose well he had his hands up so long that it was wearing him out and it says when Moses's hands grew tired they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it Aaron and her held his hands up don't you love the people

that hold your hands [Music] up some of the people that I appreciate the most are the ones you never see the the people behind the scenes the girl that does my laundry the man that takes care of the repairs on our house all the people that make it possible for me to do this and we all need help I don't care who you are or how strong you are everybody has got a ceiling everybody has a place where they have to eventually say I can't do anymore and if you won't say that you'll end up

falling apart from stress do not be too prideful to ask for help all the people were coming to Moses at another time he said why do you sit here alone he said well the people come to me well see you you got to learn to understand and and this was a hard one for me you you got to learn to say no I just I just made a decision the last two days I was well Monday Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Dallas and I worked really hard those three days I've got a new book

coming out in the fall called what About Me The Little Robot book and um because our people are so selfish and self-centered and you know that's the root of all the problems in our society that selfishness tends toward greed and then greed makes people dishonest and then they start really not caring about each other except for what they can get out of one another and it it's all the root cause of selfishness and so I was there at TBN and day start doing stuff for my book in the fall and when I came home home

excuse me when I came home the next morning I was so tired I hardly knew what my name was I'm not 20 anymore I'm 81 and so in order for me to keep doing what I'm doing which I fully intend to do I have to manage my life well and so I knew I was coming here and I normally don't do that much in one week but it's just the way it fell this time I knew I was coming here so I knew that I needed to rest those two days but on Thursday morning I

started getting text messages phone calls people asking me for dates people people asking questions and so by noon I'm almost starting to get mad at everybody why don't you leave me alone well see here's the thing we have to realize we really honestly don't have to take every phone call that comes in and I have never done this in all these years but I made a decision when I come back and I'm tired I am going to go on phone silence for at least the first half of the day because the the thing that restores

me more than anything is quiet just just to be somewhere and just be quiet and uh I'm glad my voice wants to act stupid this morning um and every text that comes in you don't have to answer people right away you know if it's important you can answer it but you got to you have to protect yourself is what I'm trying to say you don't have to be available for everybody in the world that want you to be available for them we get into people pleasing all right and we want to do everything that everybody

wants us to do and the problem is is everybody wants you to do something else and it's all what's going to make their life better and some of you are so tired and so worn out and if you let yourself get too tired it starts making you think goofy you you start getting mad at people you get cranky you get crabby you lose your gratitude attitude which we need to have all the time and believe me I've been through all that I've worked so hard I've made myself sick I don't know how many times and

I finally had to make a decision for me because I want to keep doing what I'm doing until jesus takes me home because I believe it's helping people but I have to manage the rest of my life well in order to do that Jesus died that you might enjoy your life life that's what it says in John 10 the thief comes to kill steal and destroy but I came that you might have and enjoy your life have and enjoy your not just survive right not just barely get by not just make it through each day

not wake up in the morning dreading the day and so I think today should be a day of decision ision making do you have a balance between work rest play and worship 1 Peter 5'8 very interesting scripture in the Amplified Bible it says be well balanced for your adversary the Devil roams about like a lion roaring in Fierce hunger seeking whom he may devour so he's basically saying that if we're out of balance it opens a door for the enemy to get into our lives and do you know that keeping your priorities straight in maintaining

balance is something that you you have to do on a regular basis right P one of the questions that people always want to ask me in an interview is how do you keep your priorities straight with everything that you've got going on right and one day I heard myself saying well I'm always straightening them out you you don't just make a decision and they stay straight because there's always stuff coming at you that tries to get you to change it and Satan will try to get you out of balance and some of you desperately need

to hear this today not to be offensive but just to tell the truth you have have to keep God first in your life and you know sometimes who is the most guilty about not doing that is people in Ministry you know why because we think working for God is equivalent to spending time with God and it's not one morning I was going to work at my job that I had at the church and I just felt so proud of myself cuz I was working for God and the Lord spoke to me and he said you're

so proud of yourself that you work for me but the only problem is Joy you're not spending any time with me and see I found out that before I study to get a message for you I've got to study to get a message message for me because if I'm messed up what do I have to give you and you know you you hear preachers probably say all the time start your day with God but I'm going to tell you the best habit that you can form is to spend the first part of your morning even

if you can only manage five minutes which I hope you can manage more than that but start by saying good morning to God I I love you thank you for loving me help me with everything I do today Psalm 17:15 such a beautiful scripture it says I shall be fully satisfied when I awake to find myself beholding your form and having sweet communion with you isn't that beautiful I will be fully satisfied when I wake up thinking about you when I wake up and you're the first thing on my mind I love that seek first

the kingdom and his righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you so I get up every morning I get my coffee I tell you caffeine is great until the anointing kicks in and uh so I hope Jesus likes coffee because we have it every morning and uh so anyway back to Moses he was he was getting weary because everybody that came to him he felt like he needed to do what they wanted him to do right and God said you're going to wear out yourself and all these people coming to you you

need to appoint other men of wisdom and experience and let them help you say I need help I need help people that are proud don't know how to do that I want you to close your eyes and listen to this scripture Isaiah 40:28 through 31 do you not know have you not heard the Lord is the Everlasting God the creator of the ends of the Earth he will not grow tired or weary and his understanding no one can fathom he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak even youths grow tired

and weary and young men stumble and fall in other words no matter how young you are you still need God just as much as somebody old but those who wait or hope in the Lord will renew their strength they will Mount up on wings like eagles they will run and not be weary they shall walk and they shall not faint you can open your eyes now Watchman the a Wonderful Chinese Minister who's no longer on this Earth said the world is indeed a wearisome place I want to read you a couple of things out of

um his book in just a minute but I love what David said in in the Psalms you know why I like the Psalms David was so honest with God I mean there was no phoniness about him you know I it's interesting with Christians we're always fine I preached a sermon on that recently that said quit lying you are you are not always fine nobody can always be fine how are you I'm fine and how are you I'm fine I mean if you got a headache why not say you know I'm doing good in the Lord

but I've got a headache and I'm praying that he'll heal me today am why can't we just tell the truth right David told the truth somehow or another we Christians get the idea that we have to be strong all the time in everything and never let on like anything's wrong I'm fine praise the Lord I'm fine David said in Psalm 388 I am faint and sorely bruised deadly cold and quite worn out I love that let me read it again I am faint and sorely bruised deadly cold and quite worn out I groan by reason

of the disqui and the moaning of my heart David always told it exactly the way it was but at the end of every Psalm he always go goes right back to but I will put my trust in you but I will put my trust in you I did a a yearly devotional on the Psalms and um that's the biggest thing that I got out of it was David was always very honest with God about how he felt even if he felt like God why are you not delivering me are you going to let my enemies

take advantage over me he was always told told God exactly how he felt but then he'd always go right back to but I will put my trust in you but I will put my trust in the Lord now God's answer for stress is rest but it's not just resting your body it's resting your soul and I want to encourage you to start paying more attention to what's going on inside you because that's where you get tired do you know that a day of anger is like 40 hours of hard labor unforgiveness will just suck all

the energy right out of you don't be mad don't be unforgiving the people that you're mad at are out having a good time and they couldn't care less that you're mad you're not you're not hurting them by being mad M at them or by not forgiving them it's just the devil's way of you continuing to hurt yourself just forgive them Let It Go when you're worried about something ask yourself is this going to really matter in five years you know it's not work that makes us tired it's what's going on inside of us while we

work and the Bible says we live in two places my feet are on this platform but I'm also seated in Heavenly places with Christ Jesus that the rest that God offers us is not a rest from work but it's a rest in work and it's all about your soul you know if you have a guilty conscience you keep doing something that your conscience condemns you're putting stress on yourself just get into ment with God cuz he's not going to change his mind it will be God's way or it will be no way amen I mean

you can do it your way if you want to but you're not going to like the outcome our soul is our mind our will and our emotions and so if you can keep your emotions calm and your mind positive and stay in God's stay in agreement with God's will it won't be your work that'll make you tired God didn't tell Martha not not to work he told her not to worry come unto me all you that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest yes wow take my yoke upon you and learn from

me because I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls rest wow you and you can come to him anywhere anytime my yoke is easy and my burden is light Wow we must learn to take his yoke upon us and learn the lesson he has for us in the current circumstance what what I don't want to learn anything from this I just want it to go away you know sometimes and you may not like this but sometimes you're better off to embrace the situation and say God this is the

way it is right now so I want to get all I can out of this I want to learn something from this something that I found out that is just about more valuable than anything is experience and the only way you get experience is by going through things I can truly say at this point in my life that I trust God I spent a lot of years trying to trust God but every time I've had a problem and God's been faithful and come through I've had a little more experience with God then it's easier for

me to trust God the next time you cannot grow up to be a mature Christian are to be transformed into the image of Christ without having some circumstances that you don't [Applause] like it is not possible and it's going to be part of our life on and off until Jesus comes back to get us two of our team members were put in rooms that were right underneath the bar in the hotel and it sounded like they were bowling all night now why would a hotel even sell a room that was underneath something like that I'm

so they offered to move them at midnight that would be a lot of fun wouldn't it thank God it wasn't me but I've cuz that would stress me out this yoke that Jesus talks about take my yoke upon you you know that's a that comes from two oxen being yolked together so they're pulling the load together and it's not just all on one of them and that Jesus wants us to say yoke to him so he's always pulling the load with us we're never pulling that load by ourselves and see I'm I'm working up here

today and I'm going to work again in the next service but I'm resting too because I'm not worried I'm I'm not concerned about what you think of me it's not my responsibility thank you but it's not my responsibility to make you like me that's between you and God I I'm free to be me and you know have have some security and some confidence I'm writing a book on rejection and I said my husband is so secure I don't even think he would know if anybody was rejecting him and even if he did he wouldn't care

you know what he'd say well that's their problem a yoke in the vines Greeks say serving to couple two things together and it's used metaphorically of submission to Authority it refers to balance or to balancing out a load now I want to read you this from watchman's book called a balanced Christian Life if you've never read any of his stuff it's I don't agree with everything he says he talks a lot about suffering but I learned a lot about it because the Bible talks about suffering we don't like to talk about it people don't like

to hear it but it's going to hurt and you you know what what do they tell a woman giv birth breathe breathe relax the more you fight it the worse it hurts come on and the more we fight the things in our life that we don't like that we cannot get rid of we might as well just settle down and embrace them learn something from them until God does what only God can do amen what God is leading us into today is for us to be willing to take up his yoke in the small things

of each day as in as well as in the big things of Life some preachers find it hard to labor with their fellow workers some sisters find it arduous to live with their in-laws some employees find it difficult to work with their colleagues and some students become weary of their relationship with their teachers and other students these are yolks to Bear you are of course tired of them you wish you could leave them or they would leave you you feel cast down and you have no peace please understand however that this is the Yoke which

God has given you this is the Yoke that he wants you to bear this is the portion God has appointed to you he want you to submit to such a circumstance because it is the best for you right now H how can you learn to love everybody if everybody has to be just the way you want them to be I got a tattoo When I Was 80 oldest person they ever tattoo I had love put on my foot so I remember to walk in love okay now listen to this pay attention to this sometimes God

puts a careful person and a careless person together [Laughter] are a strong person and a weak person he may put a healthy person with a sick person or a clever person with a stupid person or a quick-tempered person and a slow tempered person or a tidy person with a sloppy person or a Spender with a saver and he does it on purpose because the intent is is that we balance one another out right yeah see I mean I'm running 90 miles an hour got a new idea every five minutes and Dave is like well we'll

see I mean it used to drive me nuts we'll see I no I don't want to see I want to do it and I want to do it now and he said you're always N9 miles ahead of God I said yeah and you're 100 miles behind it and so the but the two of us kind of balanced each other out you know I put a little fire under him and he put my fire out a little bit and those of you that are just really fed up with the person you're married to remember why you

married them don't don't just look at all the stuff you don't like sit down and make a list of what you don't like and what you do like I actually did that one day and there was maybe two things I didn't that didn't like about Dave that drove me nuts but there was 50 things that I just adored about him see you're never going to find a perfect relationship because you're in it amen oh rest Hebrews 4:10 and 11 for he who has once entered God's rest can anybody feel how good that is for he

who has once entered God's rest has ceased from the weariness and the pain of human labors just as God rested from those labors peculiarly his own let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter the rest of God to know and experience it for ourselves that no one may fall by the same kind of unbelief and Disobedience into which they fell in the wilderness now as I said this rest that he's talking about is a spiritual rest it's not laying down and taking a nap it's not although that's good sometimes too

but pay attention to what's going on inside you when you start feeling stressed out pay attention to what's going on inside you what are your thoughts what's your attitude are you mad at somebody are you frustrated with somebody just because they are the way they are and you don't want them to be that way how many of you are in relationship with somebody spouse kids friends that you just really would like to change them well see we have to learn to love people the way they are and not the way we want them to be

God takes us the way we are and then because he loves and accepts us freely unconditionally that makes us want to do better for him but when we start trying to make people change they become resistant to that and will act even worse for years I tried to change Dave didn't work he's still the same except now you can't hear so that's the most frequent word in our house is huh huh he has two sets of hearing aids and he won't wear them one he says they itch his ears but Dave doesn't have a hearing

problem I mumble you know I knew that I married Mr Wright I just did not know his first name was always I don't know what it is with men but they have a very hard time saying I'm wrong I'm Mumble it's not that he's hard of hearing I'm Mumble do I sound to you like I mumble no or he says you talk too soft now one thing I don't do is talk soft it's a rest in work not from work work if your emotions your heart or your will is sent against a thing that you're

doing there will be no rest so like I said if you are going to a job every day that you hate you're going to be so tired when you come home that night and it won't be because of the work it'll be because of the attitude right is anybody learning anything today what would happen if just some of these things that keep you stressed out all the time if you would if you would just say you know what I'm just going to embrace that if God wants to change it he'll change it and I'm just

I'm going to be happy with what God's given me I tell you the stress would leave then the last thing I want to say not the last thing I want to say but the last thing I have time to say is we have to stop hurrying hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry that will stress me out and probably will stress you out also amen we take on way too many things we take on commitments without even thinking about all the commitments we already have we take on commitments without thinking through what it's really going to take

and then we hate it so we end up doing these things that we hate to do that we should have said no to but we didn't because we wanted to keep somebody else happy and now they're happy and we're unhappy amen am so father I pray in jesus' name for every person here today that needs to make some changes in their life so they can rest and not stress help them make the decisions they need to make and stop just wanting every problem to go away I pray for their joy for their peace for their

spiritual growth in Jesus name amen amen thank you for having me [Music] a [Music]