hey thanks for watching Joyce's YouTube channel we pray you find encouragement and exactly what you're looking for here did you know that these videos that you watch for free are available with the help of our Joyce Meyer Ministries partners as a result people are learning how to apply God's word to their lives and come out of some really dark places if God's using these teachings to bring you closer to him let me encourage you to join us and become a partner today join the team that is sending his word around the world you can do big things together with us scan our QR code now and begin sharing the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ everywhere hi everyone Joyce is coming right up but first we want to invite you to something brand new and very exciting battlefield of the Mind is Joyce's best-selling book and for the first time ever she's dedicating an entire conference to help you think differently and in line with God's word there are so many more insights to overcoming negative thoughts and more strategies to learn how to win those battles that have been raging in your mind it all happens April 24th through the 26th in Charleston South Carolina also joining Joyce's John Maxwell who's influenced leaders and thinkers around the world pastor Robert Moo of Social Dallas Church who is passionate about helping people to reach God's full potential and worship with Brian and Katie Tarwald don't wait go to joycemeyer.org/battlefield to register today if you want to be who God wants you to be you're going to have to quit running away from the hard stuff you can't give up on God every time it doesn't go your way i'm Joyce Meyer i've seen God's power transform my own life and he will do it for [Music] you you may be in the darkest place in your life right now you may be going through things that make my story sound like a party believe me no matter how bad you're hurting there's always somebody that's hurting worse than you are somebody going through something harder than what you're going through and there's a beautiful scripture in Isaiah 45:3 it says "And I," it's God talking "and I will give you the treasures of darkness." There's treasures for you in these dark places so while I was pregnant with this boy sitting right down here on the end of the row darkest time in my life and now he's the child who has after almost driving me crazy while I was trying to raise him because our personalities were just really alike and I'll be honest and he knows that I told him I was going to talk about him i loved him because he was my kid but I did not like him and he will admit he was not very likable you know this p this personality test we took is not that popular anymore but cherics are the type A strong willed you know go get them type people and there was like 40 points on this test and I was 38 points collar and he was 40 and we're trying to get along and I didn't know what in the world was wrong with him because I wanted to control him and he wanted to control me and oh gosh we had a hard time don't give up on people do not give up on people i cannot tell you how many times that I wanted him to just get out of my life when he went to Florida to go to Bible college I was so glad when he left home and left town well he knows it and uh I [Music] mean then I called him and asked him to come to work for me and I thought how dumb can you be and breathe and I must have threatened to fire him 20 times over the years but now finally praise God now we're really good friends and uh he'll call me in the morning sometime and say "I just needed to hear your voice love you." And he's the boy that all these all the missions we have all over this world he has personally had part our been the one responsible for starting that he's over our world missions program and so you were my treasure in the dark places it took a while to see it and you don't you have no idea how many times I wanted to give up on him and I am telling you tonight don't give up on people i'm so glad that Dave didn't give up on me so that's the first [Applause] thing i mean in one way I can say if I had it to do all over again I wouldn't do it but then I got the treasure so see and I I want you to understand that if everybody say if if you trust God no matter what kind of a dark place you're in God will bring something good out of it if Say it again if if you trust God and I That is so hard to understand how you can just have such a terrible thing going on and God works something so miraculously good out of it and only God can do that nobody else can do that so there are treasures hidden in the dark places the next thing that I would have changed is if I could go back and do it over I would start facing the truth about myself a lot sooner than I did and you know what facing the truth about yourself is probably the hardest thing you'll ever do in your whole life it's so easy to blame somebody else for our bad behavior and how many years did I say "Well if I just wouldn't have been abused and I wouldn't behave this way." And all it was was just an excuse because no matter what has happened to you in the past God can teach you how to behave and act right if you take responsibility for where you're at [Applause] you cannot get to where God wants you to be if you don't take responsibility for where you're at and it may be somebody else's fault that you're here now but it's your fault if you stay here come on did you get that and you probably heard me say this a million times but all I did was sit around and feel sorry for myself and God said to me you can be pitiful or you can be powerful take your pick but you're not going to be both and so if if you want to experience the power of God in your life then tonight you have to make your mind up that you are finished feeling sorry for yourself no matter what has happened to you in the past you do not get to feel sorry for yourself because God is telling you that he will take the mess and make a miracle out of it if you'll give it to him amen faith in the truth about yourself if you continue my word then are you my disciples indeed and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free but it's only if the truth is applied it's not some magical thing that if you read the Bible it's just all of a sudden you're going to change you have to apply it and I'll tell you it's only pride that keeps us from admitting our faults and when God convicts you about something he's not asking you to go change it he's asking you to agree with him to repent take responsibility for it and say "Now God where and how do we go from here if I could go back and do it all over again I would enjoy the journey a whole lot more." You know part of the reason why I couldn't enjoy my life was because after God called me into ministry everything was taking so long and I was so stinking impatient and I didn't know that i want you to listen to this god had something prepared for me but he had to prepare me for it [Applause] and so I want to show you what it's like have any of you ever put together a a big puzzle this is 6,000piece puzzle now if you buy a puzzle you buy it because of the picture on the box look at that beautiful beautiful you think "Oh yeah that's that's the one I'm going to buy i'm going to buy that and I'm going to put it together." That's that's like your dream and then you Oh I didn't know there were that many pieces this is going to take a long time so the first thing we do is we turn all the pieces over and then we do all the outline pieces you know we always pick the easy part first we'd really be better off if we did the hard stuff first and if you ever notice on these boxes there's more blue sky and green trees and grass than anything and I tell you what sometimes you you put together blue sky so long you think you're going to go crazy now you got to be in the spirit with me or you miss that in other words you do the same thing same thing same thing same thing same thing i was being faithful to that little Bible study little Bible study little little little little and then more little and I was so sick and tired of blue sky pieces and then God will give you a little he'll give you a little something you know a little surprise a little and so maybe you'll get together you'll get to put the steeple on the church here or something and then you start on green trees and then it's green green green green green green green green and then don't you love it when you you you get to this point where you're man I to me this is the best example it's like God I've walked through all that and I finally got it put together it's finally together i'm not missing any pieces i don't think i hope not but what we know what Have you ever done when you're working on a puzzle and you've got a piece and it looks like it goes here and it almost does you ever try to [Applause] And that's what we do a lot of times you know we get in a hurry and we're like you are going to work i'm tired of putting this thing together this is going to work those of you who've been through I mean Lisa's sitting here like she gets it you don't fully get this unless you've been through it if you're one of the giveups you gave up when you were 1/4 of the way through the blue sky well you know what you can't skip ahead you're going to have to go back to the blue sky [Applause] everybody's got to go the same way you got to let God do what he wants to do in you before he can do anything through you and the more you let him do in you the more he can do through you amen if I could go back and do it all over again i would work hard but I wouldn't work as hard as I did i believe in hard work and I think if you're going to have anything worth having you're going to have to work hard at it but the thing that I wish I would have done that I didn't do was I wish that I would have said no to the things that I could have said no to that really wouldn't they were not things that would make or break the ministry you know when when you get just a little bit well known everybody wants you to do them a favor and you know when you come from nowhere it's hard to say no to big things but I had to learn that no matter how mad it was going to make somebody else that I had to do what God was telling me to do not what they wanted me to do amen and some of you are so stressed out because you're running all over the place trying to keep up with what all your kids want you to do and running them here and you know there and you like a taxi cab service it won't kill your kids if they don't get to do everything that everybody else does they won't [Applause] die and you don't have to work three jobs so they can have the $150 pair of tennis [Applause] shoes my kids grew up just fine they still love God and I got their shoes at garage sales cuz I didn't have any money come on so I made myself sick and then I got okay and then again I made myself sick and I got okay the last time I made myself sick I didn't get okay not for three years and finally about five months ago I finally started feeling normal again i got adrenal fatigue really bad and Paul Ostein was one of my doctors he put me in the hospital in Houston and they ran every kind of test imaginable and said "You are for your age you are extremely healthy." And I thought well why do I feel like I'm dying and they said you have severe adrenal fatigue and I said what am I supposed to do and Paul looked at me and he said I want you to rest for 18 months i said the first thing I said I said "What do you do what do you do when you rest for 18 months well it's pretty obvious what my problem was i didn't know how to rest come on some of you have had the gas pedal to the floor for so long it's stuck there come on i'm talking to everybody here and so many people in ministry get themselves in trouble we hear all these stories this one's on drugs that one's on alcohol this one's done this this one's having an affair and you know a lot of it is caused because of just what I'm talking about right here they get so tired that they cannot hear from God anymore and they're hurting so bad because they're not having any fun they're not enjoying their life they're not resting and so then they're weakened and it's easy when temptation comes along to fall into sin and I tell you if you don't get the right amount of rest and fun and enjoyment as well as work and worship you will one day pay for [Music] it amen but you know what and I can honestly tell you even the abuse included even if I could go back and do it all over again I really wouldn't you know why because all of that is what's made me who I am amen and I'll just tell you if you want to be who God wants you to be you're going to have to quit running away from the hard stuff you can't give up on God every time it doesn't go your way when you go through those times where you feel like you just can't stand the pain if you just stand still God's digging out a deeper place in you for more compassion and more love and more of everything to give to everybody else and really don't just live for yourself that's such a small life if the only thing that's in your life is you you are to be pied above all people amen make room for everybody everybody needs to be loved amen okay now listen to me just for a minute before we finish for tonight it's very important to me if you have not received Christ that you don't leave and go home still in that lost condition and you know maybe you've heard the term born again and you don't understand that obviously you don't get back in your mother's womb and come out again we're talking about being born again insight see you could you can be one of the what I call the walking dead you know you're walking around you're alive and breathing but you're dead inside and I don't care maybe you've gone to church for 30 years that doesn't mean that you're born again jesus didn't die so we could have a religion he died so we could have a personal relationship with him a personal intimate relationship with him where he's your best friend our high call is to enjoy God not be afraid of him and you know it's so simple jesus has already done everything all we all all he's asking us to do is believe it i'm going to make this simple if you're here tonight and you've never surrendered your life to Christ maybe you go to church but you've really not surrendered you're still trying to run your own thing do your own thing you you signed up to get God to give you what you couldn't get for yourself but if you're not truly born again and you're ready to really give your life to God see we don't just receive Jesus we give oursel to him it's not just a one-way thing here and a lot of people do this like receive Jesus and all your problems are over no they're not i'm not going to lie to you and tell you that but your worst day with Jesus will be better than your best day ever was without him amen so just close your eyes for a minute let's give people some privacy if you're here tonight and you say "Joyce I'm ready to surrender my life to Christ i want to be born again i want to live for God i want to be a Christian." Will you raise your hand nice and high so I can see where you're at thank you bless you bless you bless you bless you come on all over the place all over the place it's time thank you god bless you up here in the balconies let's see i want everybody that leaves here tonight to go home with your heart full of Jesus okay now listen i'm going to ask you to do one more thing for me not to embarrass you but I'm going to ask you to stand up not going to bring you down to the front but I just want you to stand up and I'll tell you why if you won't take a stand in here you'll never go out in the world and take one so if you meant what you said come on if you meant it let's stand up come on amen all over the building tonight it's time to stand up for Jesus amen come on up in the balcony let's stand up don't let this time pass you by if you know you should stand up don't keep sitting there all right I'm going to pray a very simple prayer and I want you to pray it right after me matter of fact let's just all pray the prayer make them comfortable and boy something wonderful is going to happen you may feel something you may feel nothing but I tell you your life will never be the same let's just pray this father God I love you father God I Jesus I believe in you jesus I believe in you i believe you're God i believe you're God i believe you came to earth i believe that you went to the cross and paid for my sins i believe you went to the cross you took my penalty you took my punishment i'm sorry for the way I've lived i've lived forgive me forgive me i receive you Jesus i receive you Jesus i want to live for you i want to be a follower of Christ now I surrender i give myself to you take my life and make me what you want me to be now just think about it for just a minute your names are being written in the Lamb's Book of Life right now everybody shout out "I'm saved i'm on my way to heaven and I'm going to enjoy the journey." Amen come on give these people a [Applause] praise have you ever wondered what you're going to do with the rest of your life are you following your dreams when God calls you to do something it's important to step out in faith and trust that he will support you faith is one of those words that is commonly used but not always easy to understand so what is faith faith is a complete trust and confidence in something or someone as Christians faith goes so much deeper our confidence and trust are secure in God and his promises but you might say "I don't feel God." Or "I don't see anything he's doing." We get it but that's what faith means and let's be real it isn't always easy joyce's book Unleash Your Faith is today's offer and it's going to help you increase your faith it's filled with beautifully illustrated scriptures because faith comes as we hear the word of God joyce also shares three practical ways to put your faith into action today's offer Unleash Your Faith also comes with Battlefield of the Mind New Testament which contains Joyce's commentary both of these resources are available to you for your gift of $30 or more call us today at 1 80079-2895 or visit us online at joycemeyer.org most of the time if you're going to live by faith if you want to really find out what God can do for you you are going to have to so to speak take a chance living by faith means you'll often have to take step one before you know what the next step is living by faith requires you to take risks because God's plan for you are always bigger than what you could ever accomplish or even imagine on your own faith is your fuel as you read Unleash Your Faith you will be fed by the beautifully illustrated scriptures in it Joyce will help you to understand the power of faith that God has put in your spirit and how to release it and remember your financial gift will not only provide the help you need through this resource but it will also help reach the lost feed the hungry and help women and girls find freedom all around the world your gift today makes it all possible put your faith into action learn how with today's offer unleash your faith along with Battlefield of the Mind New Testament with commentary by [Music] [Music] Joyce we hope you enjoyed today's program we are so grateful to our Joyce Meyer Ministries partners who make this and all we do possible including sharing God's word and offering help to people in need all over the world