welcome to 15 minutes in the word with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer on today's program Joyce will be teaching from her series on the book of Ephesians are you ready to go deeper in your relationship with God the book of Ephesians is foundational for every believer to understand their identity as a follower of Christ join Joyce today as she teaches from Ephesians chapter by chapter helping reveal to us who we are in Christ and just how much he loves us now here's Joyce with today's series on Ephesians God always has a long range plan for his people and God has got a long range plan for you I want you to know that and what's going on in your life right now is a far cry from what will be happening next year the year after the year after the year after no matter how good things are they can get better and no matter how bad they are they can get better so God only has one thing in his mind for your future and that's better amen and I want you to know that he says I know the thoughts and plans I have for you thoughts and plans for your welfare so now God had a great plan for his man from the beginning I mean if you go back and read Genesis 1 he had a great plan for Adam and Eve it was like hey here's this beautiful place here's all this eat all the fruit you want enjoy yourself take all these resources use them in the service of God and man there's only this one thing I don't want you to do isn't it amazing you can do all this there's only this one little thing I don't want you to do well that's the thing that Satan is going to try to play on so he tempts Eve through reasoning you got to be careful about reasoning you don't necessarily need to try to reason this out so much you just need to believe it and do it and I'm not saying that it's wrong to try to understand it but let me tell you something God sometimes can be very unreasonable it was fairly unreasonable when he went to Abraham and said leave every your family your family your home everything you're familiar with and go to a place that I will show you and he didn't even tell him where he wanted him to go until he first walked away from everything he had how many would be willing to walk away from everything they have not knowing where they were going that's kind of what God did to me when he told me to take my Ministry and go north Southeast and West and I left the job I had with a dented desk and an old calculator and nowhere to go I had no idea what I was going to do and I felt a great deal like Abraham but let me tell you something you always now listen to me you always have to give up something you've got to get what you want and if you didn't come for anything other than that that's worth being here far it follows the same principle of sewing and reaping you sew you give up something then you end up with more and the giving up is always hard we get excited with the getting more but it starts with the giving up and then there's usually a waiting period in between as long as the Earth remains there will be seed time and harvest well we're saying it too fast there will be seed time time time time and more time and too much time and a little more time and harvest now see not one of you clapped for [Music] time I didn't get a single clap for [Applause] time so just just follow me here for a minute you're going to get something out of this for your own life I believe so the devil tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam and I won't even get into it but let me just simply say that Adam was supposed to be the head of the house and he should have manned up [Applause] and so we'll just leave that right there [Applause] but after Adam and Eve sinned God all already had a plan for the restoration of his people let me tell you something God is never without a plan and I know that there's a lot of concern about what's going on in the world today and what's going on in our nation today but I want to tell you God's Got A Plan he hasn't told us what it is yet but he's got a plan and we're part of it amen and so he planned to get his man back and he planned to restore that man's Authority you see when Adam and Eve sinned they gave their authority to the devil The Authority that God had given them to rule and Reign and have dominion over the Earth they gave that to Satan and that can be proven if you look at Luke chapter 4: 6 when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted of the devil 40 days and 40 nights one of The Temptations was the devil said you bow down to me just this once and I'll give you all this and all this power because it has been turned over to me and I can give it to whoever I want to but see he didn't know as much as he thought he knew because he was talking to Jesus who actually the Bible says for this purpose was the son of God manifest to destroy the works of the wicked one so he was actually talking to the one that was going to destroy him God always works through people get that in your head God always works through people if you ask God for a miracle he may show you something you need to do yeah all my word is right that has become very big to me in the last year as far as teaching it's just like we are partners with God he works through people God can do anything he wants to and I'm not saying that he never works sovereignly apart from people but all you got to do is look at history he worked through Abraham Moses Joseph Esther Ruth Daniel the prophets the judges so on and so on and so forth and he wants to work through you and furthermore it is almost unbelievably astounding what God can do through one man or one woman who will be submitted and committed to him it is I mean mindboggling what God can do through one person one person one person [Applause] so God had a plan and he waited see God God's good at waiting we need to get better at it and then he found Abraham and he made a covenant of Faith with Abraham well let's look at it Genesis 12 1-3 now in heran the Lord said to Abram go for yourself for your own Advantage away from your country from your relatives from your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you with an abundant increase of favor and I will make your name famous and distinguished and you will be a blessing dispensing good to others and I will bless those who bless you who confer Prosperity or happiness upon you and I will curse him who curses you or uses insolent language toward you and in you will all the families of the earth be blessed and by you they will bless themselves well that sounds to me like a pretty good reward for just walking away from a bunch of stuff and what you may not know is that Abram's family were all Idol worshippers so God had to get him away from that okay so now listen to me here's a man who walks away from everything in order to have the will of God for his life and some of you won't walk away from a group of friends [Applause] God has said get away from those people they're poisoning your life or might be something as simple as don't sit at that lunch table and listen to the gossip day after day after day get out walk around the neighborhood and talk to me well I I want to be part of what's going on are you understanding what I'm saying he told Abraham you got to let go of something to take hold of something and some of you there's something wonderful that God has for you to take hold of but you're not doing the letting go of that God has told you to do amen anybody think maybe could come on help me I want to know if I got a right [Applause] message so then he told Abraham and here's how we're going to seal this Covenant I have with you you got to circumcise your flesh well circumcised means a cutting away of the flesh now this is Old Testament they dealt with things a little bit differently they now now God's not asking us to mutilate our flesh he's saying circumcise your heart in other words don't walk in the flesh cut away the fleshly parts of your heart serve me wholeheartedly without a bunch of mixture in your life so now follow this real quickly so Abraham Abraham experienced extreme blessings but he had no air to leave his blessings to and he wanted a child and him and his wife were too old to have children she was long past the age of childbearing after they made one big mistake by getting into works of the flesh which we don't have time to go into all that they finally had a child of their own and his name was Isaac so now listen to this ultimately Abraham who was God's man married Sarah they had Isaac Isaac had Jacob Jacob had Joseph who through a seemingly and I want you to get this through a seemingly very unfair circumstance ended up in Egypt where God had him uniquely placed there because of a seven-year famine that was going to come and while he was there he even was mistreated worse and he was in a house of a man named potier and his wife took a liking to Joseph and she wanted to have sex with him but he said no she lied about him he went to prison for 13 years for something he didn't do all these unfair things going on in his life God got him there through unfair circumstances more unfair circumstances continued to prune him and chisel away at any fleshly behavior that he might have he held fast his Integrity how many of you are somewhere and you don't know how you got there and you don't want to be there and it seems very unfair to you okay well you know what God had Joseph uniquely placed there for a specific purpose and he was using those circumstances to grow him up spiritually then when the time came Joseph ended up no longer in the pit but in the palace second in charge to Pharaoh in charge of everything in the land then 400 more years goes by and Moses is born and at that time they were killing male babies because the the Israelites were growing so fast that Pharaoh got afraid of them and let me tell you something I believe that Christianity is growing so fast that the devil's afraid of us too amen but God had a plan somebody say God's Got A Plan and he managed for Moses to be born The Midwives were more afraid of God than they were of pharaoh and so they let him be born and then his mother kept him as long as she could but he was just a few months old and she knew she couldn't keep him because they were going to find him so she wrapped him in a basket committed him to God put him on the river and guess who finds him Pharaoh's daughter so she brings him into the palace and raises him as her own and once again God has him uniquely placed I want to I want you to get the point tonight that you may not understand what God's doing in your life but God knows what he's doing in your life can you get that you don't know but God knows thanks for listening the Bible is more than just a good book it's God's instructional manual for life it's also the secret to experiencing true growth and change that's why God never intends for us to feel like time with him is a project or an obligation it's just the opposite his desire is for our time in the Bible to be simple enjoyable and full of life so are you ready make the choice to go deeper into God's word and discover how it's one thing you just can't live without for more resources from Joyce visit joyce.org well I'm sure a lot of you have difficult or challenging things happening in your life but God wants to renew your strength so you can experience the peaceful and joyful life he has planned for you in my devotion strength for each day you'll find uplifting insights and empowering Bible verses one for each day of the year it's your daily reminder that God is your power source and with him you are stronger than you think order your copy today at Joy meyer.org thank you for listening to 15 minutes in the word with joy [Music]