The Keys To Peace - Joyce Meyer

If you want to have peace and calmness of mind and heart in your life, you may have to learn how to do a lot of things a different way than the way you have been doing them. You see, we always want our circumstances to change. Well, if you wouldn't, then I wouldn't. And if this didn't happen, then I wouldn't respond this way. And I did that for a long time. Well, if you would do something different, then I'd be happy. And if you would do something different, I'd be happy. But God told me to stop giving everybody else the responsibility for my peace and joy and to take responsibility for it myself. And I really hope you're getting this today, because some of you could have peace. You could calm down if you'd be willing to trust God more. Our strength, spiritual and physical, is dependent on it. Do you know that getting upset, like getting really emotionally upset, is hard work? It absolutely wears you out. And it's much easier to not get upset than it is to get upset and try to calm down. When we're upset, it's the worst time in the world to be making decisions. We say things that we shouldn't be saying. We do things we shouldn't be doing. It's not a good time to make decisions. The Bible tells us that we are not to be intimidated by anything. But if we stay calm, now listen to this, if we stay calm, it's a sign to the devil that he can't control us and that he's going to lose this battle. And it's a sign to God to come and deliver us. Here's the scripture, Philippians 1, 28 and 29. And do not for a moment be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries. For such constancy and fearlessness will be a clear sign, a proof, and a seal to them, your enemies, the devil, of their impending destruction. You see, when a person has circumstances that should upset them and they stay calm, it's a sign to the devil that he can't control us and that he's going to lose the battle. But it is a sure token and an evidence of your deliverance and salvation and that from God. I love that scripture. Stay calm. Calm. It's a beautiful word. You can just sit in a chair and close your eyes and just say, calm. And it just feels good. Verse 29, for you have been granted the privilege for Christ's sake, not only to believe in, adhere to, rely on and trust in him, but also to suffer in his behalf. Wow. You know, a lot of times we read verse 28 and don't even bother with 29 because nobody wants to talk about this suffering thing. But sometimes in order to stay calm, let's just say, for example, maybe you have to not have the last word in an argument, or maybe you have to let somebody think you're wrong when you're pretty sure you're right. But you know, if you keep going back and forth, it's going to cause an argument. It's going to cause strife. And so you may be better off just to let them think whatever they want to and trust God that if you need to be shown to be in the right, that God himself will take care of that. And that way you can stay calm. But you may suffer a little bit during that process. And when I say suffer, I mean in the flesh, you know, your flesh has feelings. And like, if you don't get your way, your flesh suffers. Well, there were many years in my life where if I didn't get my way, I got upset and said things I shouldn't have said or wouldn't talk at all. And I acted foolish. Well, now I don't, I don't want to do that anymore. It's not, I'd rather adjust myself to the situation rather than get upset. I'm committed to staying calm and being peaceful, but that doesn't mean that my flesh loves it. Sometimes I suffer in the flesh in order to do what God wants me to do. When we have a problem, we usually rush to action. It's like there's a little demon that sits on our shoulder and says, well, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Why do we always think that we have to do something? And yes, there are things that we are to do. In Ephesians six, I believe it's 12 or 13. It says, having done all the crisis demands stand firmly in your place. So there are things that God wants us to do, but we need to know what those things are before we just start doing a bunch of stuff. You know, you could do something that somebody else does and it might not work at all for you because we have, we need to have God's direction. And the only way you can get that is to calm down and be quiet so you can get that sensing inside of what direction you should take. Psalm 46, 10 says, be still and know that I am God. Well, what does that mean? Well, I think it means that if we will wait on God and you'll see in a minute that waiting on God is not like a passive, you know, if we will be still and wait on God, then we will see his miraculous workings in our life. Be still and know that I am God. Let God prove himself to you by being willing to wait on him rather than trying to take matters into your own hands. Let me give you an example because I just feel like somebody needs this. If you're really angry at somebody right now and you're planning ways that you can get them back, why don't you make a decision right now that instead of doing that, you're going to let it go. You're going to forgive them and forgiveness is not a feeling. It's how you decide to treat somebody and you're going to pray for them and then God can move in and take care of the situation. God is our vindicator. He's the one who makes wrong things right in our life. If you stay angry all day today, if you are angry and you stay angry, it's only going to hurt you. It's not going to hurt the person you're angry at, but it is going to hurt you. Before we do anything else, we should wait. I always like to say, let emotions subside before you decide. Let me say that again. Let emotions subside before you decide. You know, sometimes like in an argument, if your emotions are all just by being quiet, they'll start to calm down and you can have emotions that are overly excited, our emotions that are extremely depressed, and either one can get us in trouble. You say, well Joyce, why would being really excited get me in trouble? Because sometimes when you're really excited, you do things that you wouldn't ordinarily do or you do things that you regret later. I'll give you an example from my own life. You know, women generally like to shop and this is something that happened many years ago, but I had a little money saved. It wasn't a tremendous amount, but I had a little money saved. Let's say it was $200. I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't a lot. I had been wanting a new watch, but I like things that sparkle and shine. I don't even wear a watch now, but back then we didn't have all the cell phones that told us what time it was all the time. So I wanted a new watch, but I wanted something that would be really pretty. So we were at the mall and went in this jewelry store and sure enough, they had a beautiful watch that had a lot of rhinestones on it and the salesman told me it was on sale, but I had to get it today if I wanted to get the sale price. So you know that pressure of get it now, get it now, get it now, or lose the opportunity is part of the enemy's tactics to get us to take action without really thinking about what we're doing. But I'd been learning some things by then, like I'm teaching you today about the importance of waiting and because it was going to take almost all the money that I had saved. And then the salesman pressured me even a little bit further and said, and you know, if you'll take it today, I'll give you an extra 10% off. Oh my, my emotions are just, you know, up here. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but anytime you look at a piece of jewelry in the jewelry case in the store, it always looks better than it does when you take it home. And I finally realized what it is. It's the lighting that they have on it at the time. Before you buy anything like that, take it out of the case and look at it in regular lighting so you can see what it's going to look like. But anyway, I'm learning some things by now. So I decided that I would take a little walk, think about it a little bit. So I'm walking, you know, up and down the mall and lo and behold, I saw a suit in a window that I really liked. I mean, it was little at the waist and then it kind of flared out and it just was really pretty. So I decided to try it on. That was, that was a mistake. I tried it on and oh, it looked so good on me and Dave just loved it. And he said, you should get that. Well, that also was going to take all my money. So now I had a real problem. I couldn't get the watch and the suit and I had to decide which one I wanted. So once again, I said, I'm going to take a walk and think about this and I'll come back if I want it. So I took another walk for a little while and I know you're anxious to see which one I bought. Well, you know what ended up happening? I thought more than I want the watch or the suit, I don't want to be broke because I liked having a little bit of cash. So if I wanted to take somebody to lunch, I could, or if I wanted to buy somebody a little present, I could. And so I decided I'm not going to get either one. Well, you know what? In due time, God provided both. Dave actually ended up buying me the suit a little bit later and I don't remember how I got a watch that I liked, but I eventually did. God gave me both of them because I waited and didn't act emotionally. Give God an opportunity to lead you. Take a little bit of time to wait.