You Need God’s Grace More Than Justice | Steve Harvey

This is what life is. Life is hard work, life is faith, and life is grace. Success is like really hard, but everybody can do it. God created you to be successful. You can protect yourself from negativity. And that's what stops most people, negative thoughts. You can coat your mind from negativity. It's a real simple exercise to do. I do it every morning before I walk out the door. So I walk out as a positive person. You know, I get tired sometimes. That's different from being negative, because I get mentally drained from my job at times. But to coat your mind from negativity, the way you can put a coating around your mind is with one simple thing, gratitude. Gratitude erases negativity. I'm gonna show you how this works. If you wake up in the morning, you start having negative thoughts. Man, this ain't my day. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I'm tripping, I just don't feel myself. Every time you feel, in the middle of the day, if you feel yourself doing that, stop. Just stop for a second. And start going over in your mind everything you have to be grateful for. Not everything you want. Everything you already have. Because what you have is substantial. You just haven't gone over the list and taken inventory in a long time. But the fact that you can walk, that's a blessing. The fact that you woke up, that's another blessing. The fact that you can see, think, reason, that's another blessing. The fact that you can go somewhere and get yourself something to eat, that's another blessing. The fact that you can go and turn the key and call some place home, that's another blessing. The ability to dream is a blessing. The fact that you have an opportunity to get it right is another blessing. The fact that you're beautiful, that's another blessing. The fact that you have any measure of health, that's another blessing. And I'm just talking to you, I don't even know you. I could give you 50 things you ought to be grateful for right now. I don't even know you. Start coating your mind with gratitude. It'll change everything for you. God is good, man. You ought to give him a chance to work in your life. Thank y'all for coming. Life ain't luck, man. Life is, this is what life is. Life is hard work. Life is faith. And life is grace. If you can get, if you understand that you gotta work hard, faith without works is dead. You just keep the faith and work really hard and then ask God for as much grace as he can give you. Grace is God's unmerited favor. He gives you stuff you don't deserve. That's what you want out of life. You want God to do something for you that you just don't deserve it. That's what it is. Somebody, I was playing golf with a guy that owns Mayo Clinic one time. He told me, he said, justice is when you get what you deserve. Mercy is when you don't get what you deserve. Grace is when you get what you don't deserve. And you hear old people say, all I want is a little more grace. I just want some grace. I want God to give me a house that I don't really deserve. I want him to give me a lifestyle I don't really deserve. See, that's the problem with people. They think they deserve something. No, you don't. I work really hard. Everybody work hard. You just need some grace, man. You need God to just give you something that ain't on the vision board. You just need God to give you something that you didn't even ask for. That's when life get real special for you. All I want is a little more grace. Like I got a vision board, right? But I ask God that his will be done in my life. Because what I can want, it can never compare to what God can give. You see what I'm saying? So you can want all you want. But if you line up with the will of God, what God has planned for you is way better than anything you could ever plan. You can't outthink him. That's how you get the life of your dreams, man. You set your goals and your aspirations, but then you leave the open end to your thy will be done on earth as it is. It's the Lord's prayer. Man, it's not, you know, when your mama teach it to you as a little kid, it's like really the dopest prayer, man. Give us this day our daily bread. Don't ask for nothing else. Just quit worrying about tomorrow. Just help me make decision for today that let me live the best day. When you worry about tomorrow, you're off into something you have no say so in. You have no control. So why would you worry? By worrying does not add a single hour to a day. Not one hour. So what you gotta ask God for is your daily bread. Just for today. It'd be amazed what would happen to you if you quit tripping about tomorrow. Just today. Today is plenty. Today is so adequate. That's why he gives us 24 hours and he breaks it up into day and night. You know why? Because he know 24 is too much. So he lets you stay up during the daytime, lets you go to bed at night so you can recover. You think I'm lying. Stay up 24 hours, see what happens. Just stay up 24 hours and see what happens. You ain't gonna believe, it's too much. You know what you should do? Every time you get a chance to experience first class, you should do it. Because it plants a seed. It's like the next time you buy an airplane ticket, just ask for an upgrade. Pay a little extra money to fly first class. What it does is it conditions your mind. Once you get in first class and you see how wide the seats are, and you find out why they shut that curtain, see, because they shut that curtain because they can't let you see what the going on up there. They passing out hot nuts. Everybody get a washcloth. They got a menu. You get to decide what you want. All the drinks is free. Once you sit in first class one time, the next time you get on a plane, it's very difficult to walk past them seats. And then your mind starts thinking of ways to get back to first class. And guess what? That's what you start attracting to your life. And you start behaving and producing stuff to get you back into first class. That's how you move up. You just, like, buy you one really expensive outfit. Just see how it fits. That ---- is high for a reason. Don't think they down there just putting prices on ----. Buy a really expensive pair of shoes, ladies. Buy a really expensive purse one time. Just go on down there, buy the real ---- from Louis Vuitton that ain't ever on sale. Louis Vuitton don't even have sales. Just get you one. When you carry it, it changes your life. It will then cause your mind to subconsciously produce thoughts to get another one. And next thing you know, you attract the thing you need to produce the outcome that you want. Life is all about the law of attraction. That's how you do it. You gotta just try it. I was making enough mistakes. Nah, I didn't need that. It took me a long time to get here, but God had me on the route he wanted me on. I didn't always agree with the route. But the thing about when you ask God for something, my mama used to say it all the time. You can't tell God how to bless you. See, you can't tell him what you want and then tell him how to do it. Because it ain't gonna ever be the way you want it to. Because if where you at today, if God had showed you what you would have to go through to get to where you are today, you would turn back. You would go, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want that part. I don't wanna do that. I don't want that part. And you would have missed who you are today. Because in order to get to who you are, you had to go through every single thing you went through. You wouldn't even know what you know. You know, you hear old people say all the time, you can't have a testimony without a test. You gots to have some test, partners. That's the only way to have a testimony. I used to be a little upset, man. I didn't understand how God had me go that route, man. If you was gonna make me famous and well off, you could have just did it a lot quicker. But he said, no, I'm gonna make you homeless. I'm gonna leave you in a car for three years. You're gonna think about me often. I'm gonna let you decide who you want to marry. I'm gonna let you do that. Then I'm gonna show you who you should marry. I'm gonna let you make all these mistakes. I could not understand why I kept making all these mistakes. And then it became evidently clear after I became successful and several years after that. He needed all of that to happen to me. So when I talk, not in comedy, but in terms of motivation, I know exactly what I'm talking about. I can tell a person how to get up cause I've been down. I can tell you how to win cause I lost. I can tell you how to get over cause I've been under. I can tell you how to get to the front cause I've been in the back. And so that was everything I needed, man. That's why when young people ask me questions or tell me stuff, I got answers for it cause man, I've been through it. I can't, I took the long way round and it was difficult, but you know, I'm glad it worked out.