Now look at Romans 5:1: Therefore, since we are justified acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God: Through faith, — now watch this — let us grasp the fact that we also now have peace. First we get the righteousness settled, then through that comes peace because we begin to have peace with ourselves. When you have peace with yourself, then things around you start to get peaceful. The things people do don’t bother you as much and when things don’t happen the way you want them to happen, it doesn’t bother you so much because you’re not looking to your circumstances for your peace and joy, you’ve already got it.

If you want to have a miserable relationship, you assign somebody else the job of making you happy. Most people come into a marriage relationship that way. It may not be something said out loud but people think, “I’m expecting you to make me happy.” Yes, I think that in a marriage relationship we should do our best to try to give joy to our partner, but I can’t depend on Dave to make me happy every day because some days he doesn’t make me happy. I’m not depending on him to dictate whether or not I’m going to be happy today.

I think a lot of people get up and they wait to see what somebody else is going to do before they decide if they can have a decent day. Since we’re justified declared right, given a right standing with God:, now we can [get hold of the fact that we have the peace of reconciliation to hold and enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah, the anointed one:. One more verse and one sentence: vs. 2: Through him also we have our access entrance, introduction: By faith into this grace state of God’s favor: In which we firmly and safely stand.

God never puts you in a situation where he’s not able to keep you. Stop being unhappy about where you’re at. I just believe god’s told me to stay with this man and just try to ride it out, but i tell you, i just don’t have any joy and I’m so miserable. You know what? If god has told you to stay in the situation, then god is going to give you the grace to be there and he’s not going to call you to be miserable and unhappy.

Personal obedience is the only thing that will fix our lives. And when we make mistakes, we have to admit it; we have to confess. If we need to apologize to a person, we need to do that. We need to swallow our stinking pride and do whatever we need to do because we need to be determined:  I am not going to live in bondage! I refuse to live in bondage one more day of my life. Whatever it takes to be free, I’m going to find out what it is and I’m going to do it.

And here’s the thing: if you make the right choice, god’s grace hooks up with you and enables you to carry it out. God’s grace is not an excuse to live a sloppy life and get by with it. His grace is the power not to have to sin. God’s grace is the power that enables me to live a resurrection life that lifts me out from among the dead, even while I’m in the body. Paul said:  I am determined to know him and the power of his resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead, even while I’m in the body. We don’t have to be like everybody else. We don’t have to go with the crowd. We don’t have to live in the mud with all the other pigs.

You know what’s going to fix our lives? Well, let’s start here: you know what’s messed our lives up? Disobedience to god. At least let’s take a little responsibility today. You know what’s messed our lives up? Disobedience to god. It may be out of ignorance because we didn’t know. We’ve all had years when we didn’t know. Maybe we were just doing what we were taught to do by some other sinner who didn’t know.

I can tell you, it’s not going to help your life just to come to one of my conferences. It’s an event and you know what? We need to be process-oriented, not event-oriented in the body of Christ. We all love events but when you leave here, the event is over and you’re going to have to go home and do the process. If you don’t do that, nothing’s going to change. What a lot of people do is they live from event to event to event, from prayer line to prayer line to prayer line, from exciting thing to exciting thing: a prophet’s coming to town, a miracle worker is coming to town, another prophet is coming to town, a great singer is coming to town, Joyce is coming to town. We go from event to event to event but what’s happening in our daily lives? You have to go home and do the process.

Do you know what a walk with god is? We talk about our walk with god. Let me show you what a walk is: decision. Decision. Hard decision. Whew! “I’m the only one making the right decision. People are accusing me of being fanatical because I’m making the right decision. I lost my reputation because I’m making the right decision. I didn’t get invited to the party because of the decisions I’m making. My own family turning against me because of the decisions I’m making, but I’m gonna keep on walking the walk, making decisions according to the word of God.”

Joyce: I have to every day lean, rely, cling, depend, put my faith in, believe in, let God know that I know that I’m nothing without him.

Announcer: Coming up tomorrow.

Joyce: Welcome back to the program. John Maxwell and I are talking about ways to simplify your life. John, we were talking about this little book that God has enabled me to write called “100 ways to simplify your life.” I’ve been kind of testing this out at home. I keep it up on my shelf and some mornings especially maybe I feel a little overloaded or I’ve got something on my mind that’s kind of pressing on me, I’ll just go get it and open it up somewhere. I’m testing it to see if what I’m telling other people is going to work. So we’re going to try just a couple here and then I want us to talk about what’s in your book “today matters.” Let’s just see what we’ve got here. Oh oh — here’s a way you can simplify your life: Be merciful.

John: Now, you’re the writer. You’re going to have to teach this one to me. I’m going to sit here and take notes with the viewers on this one. Talk to me about it. What do you say in that book?

Joyce: A way to simplify your life is when somebody does something that you could make a big deal out of, you could get upset about it, you could be angry about it, you could let it frustrate you all day — you could do all that — but you have another choice. You can say, “I’m just going to be merciful. I’m going to forget it, drop it, leave it, let it go. I’m not even going to mention it. I’m just going to act like it never happened.” So often when we do that, we get into this thing of, “well, why should I do that for you?”

Joyce Meyer Ministries: But the big thing is when you do that, it’s really not even so much what you’re doing for somebody else as it is what you’re doing for yourself. You’re greatly simplifying your whole day by deciding, “that’s just a battle I don’t need to fight.”

The devil hates all of us but he hates women because a woman gave birth to the savior. You guys need to help us! Together, we can do great things. My husband and I do this together. If you’re a secure man, if you’re a real man, then you don’t have to put your woman down. You can lift her up. You can help her to be all that god wants her to be. Proverbs 31 talks about the perfect woman and she’s many things. She’s a wise businesswoman.

She’s good with her household. She takes care of her family. She has businesses. But I love that the bible says that her husband is well known because of his fine wife. Well, my husband is well known because of his wife and that doesn’t bother him at all. Amen? People sometimes say to him: oh, are you Joyce Meyer’s husband? And because he knows who he is, he says right away: no, she’s my wife. Come on, give god praise for unity! It’s a new day and I see all of you beautiful young ladies out there and I see all of you fine young men. I see Daniels and Davids, I see Ruths and Esthers, and I see hell having a nervous breakdown.

The enemy has loved keeping this nation oppressed but you’re breaking out. The light has come to India. The truth is setting you free. But there will be opposition. You just try to do anything for god and there will be opposition. If you decide tonight to make Jesus the lord of your life, there will be opposition. But if you have some fire in your belly — if you have some fire in your belly, I thought I’d stop by India and just fan your flame. I believe the wind of the holy ghost is blowing on your flame tonight. Paul told timothy: stir yourself up! Stir up those gifts within you.

Be on fire for god. Be determined that nobody is going to shut you up, nobody is going to put you down, nobody is going to get you to quit and give up. We will never give up! I really hope that your hearts were touched today by what you’ve seen and that you can actually feel compassion rising up in you. There are so many wonderful stories here of people who have pain in their lives but thank god, we can reach out and relieve that pain. Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted and I want to Thank you for being part of it. God bless you.

Jentezen Franklin: I think you let your emotions — if you allow your emotions to override you, you can convince yourself that God is in your anger or your frustration. Usually when God speaks, there’s a great — well, always when God speaks, there’s a great peace, and he usually speaks the best when we are at peace. One of the things we talk about is the nod of God, how Balaam kept insisting to God in the old testament story; he said “I want to go curse those people” and God said three times to him: no, don’t do it. No, don’t do it. He was wanting to do it without the nod of God. Don’t try to force things. It’s like a puzzle; if you force one piece of that puzzle in — I can remember when I was a kid — if you force one piece and maybe you can get it to kind of fit, but all the other pieces will be messed up. So, if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it and just wait on the peace of God.

Joyce Meyer: What should you have done in that situation? What do you think you should have done? You had five children. Obviously somebody messed with the candles. Somebody had to be not telling the truth but everybody was denying it. You felt for sure in your — you thought your “spirit” that it was your oldest daughter. It turned out not to be. How do you think you could have handled that differently?

Joyce Meyer stated that i’m saying will you let Jesus come in and be the center of your life and will you learn what his word says and will you make a decision that if the holy spirit will help you, you will learn how to live by the word of god and let your life glorify god. If you do not know Christ as your savior, if you want to be sure your sins are forgiven, if you want to have the assurance of heaven, if you want to have a friend, if you want to have a future, if you’re not born again, I want to pray with you tonight.  If that’s you, would you slip your hand up and let me see where you’re at? Come on, nice and high all over the place. Put those hands up. Joyce Meyer Ministries  want to see them nice and high.  Come on, up-up-up-up. I see lots and lots of hands up. Okay, listen to me a second. Now listen just a second.

Joyce Meyer Online says that if you raised your hand and you meant it, I’m gonna ask you to take a second step, not to embarrass you, but I’m gonna ask you in just a minute when I tell you to, to leave your seat, bring your things with you if you’re by yourself; if not, you can leave them with somebody or if you want to bring somebody with you, you can.  I’m gonna ask you to come down here and let me pray with you.  Why do we ask you to get up publicly and come? We don’t always do it that way but we do always ask people to stand.  There’s no point in starting out trying to be a sneaky Christian. (laughing) that’s just silly!Joyce Meyer says iIf you won’t take a stand in here in front of people like this, you’re not gonna go out there and take a stand. If you want to be a Christian you’re gonna have to take a stand because you may endure some persecution. (applause)

Joyce Meyer Ministries – So if you really meant business and you really want to serve god, I want you to get up out of your seat and come down here so we can pray for you. Come on! From the balconies I want you to come.  Come on. Come on down. Yeah! Come on! Come quickly.

Joyce Meyer: sometimes you don’t help somebody by continuing to do for them what they ought to do for themselves. That’s where this tough love thing comes in. To be honest with you, ginger, a lot of times I find sometimes one of the hardest things in the world as a parent is to let your children have the consequences of their actions when you know that you can do something to relieve that consequence.  And I think sometimes it takes a greater love than some of us have to be able to do that. God does that. Joyce Meyer Online says the bible says he chastises us because of his great love for us. Sometimes i’m like, “could you just not love me quite as much this week, god, because I have all I can take right now hearing what’s wrong with me!” but he does it because he loves us and he’s unwilling to leave us alone in our mess. Just harping at a kid, just giving him speeches is not… Joyce Meyer says  can only say so much and then sometimes you just have to let him have the consequences and say, “i’m here for you when you’re ready to make a change.” but I can’t say, “go this far. Don’t go any further.” that’s something that people have to get from god.

Ginger: yeah, but he will give guidance.

Joyce Meyer Ministries: he will give you guidance.  Each person’s different.  Each person’s circumstances are different. Each person’s situation is different. I had a situation with a very close relative, where I spent a lot of years, a lot of time and even a lot of money trying to help this person. After four years — four years — I realized that if he’s not helped by now, then i’m just being taken advantage of. Sometimes we want people to change more than they want to change. So, really, the program that she’s checking out on, what those directors are telling her is true. If he doesn’t want it for himself, no matter how much she wants it, it’s not going to do anything. So what do you do? I don’t know that there’s anything left to do but try to go on with your life. If somebody else is dependent on a substance, you don’t want to become codependent where the only way you can be happy is if they’re doing what they ought to do because now their decisions are ruining your life.

Joyce Meyer Online – So ultimately we have to all take responsibility for our own level of joy, and we have to take responsibility for our own actions.  And no matter how much you want somebody to do the right thing, everybody has a right to choose; god gives them that right.

Joyce Meyer wish the government would do this.” Well, you know, if all the Christians are going to ignore the government and stay away from it and get out of it and not even pray for them and won’t even go out to vote, how can we expect them to do anything? I hope I get around to my message — I haven’t gotten started yet. People used to be in the holiness movement. There was so much legalism, and it was right back to the fence laws. People could not enjoy anything. Everything was something you were not to do.

And then finally, which always happens, the pendulum swung but it swings all the way to the other side, and we started finding out that there was freedom in Christ and whom the son has set free is free indeed, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty and all these wonderful things.  Joyce Meyer Ministries states that now we’ve taken that too far and now our rights have just gotten so far out of line that now people think it’s their right to just do anything they want to, any time they want to, to anybody they want to, anywhere they want to. And then they think if they go to church on Sunday, that makes it all right. It’s pathetic some of the things people are doing and going to church every Sunday while they do them. Either get in, get out or get run over, but stop being a phony. It’s time to get off the fence. Jesus said, “I would rather you be red hot, on fire, hot or cold, not lukewarm because if you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth.”

Joyce Meyer Online: I think we regularly need to ask ourselves “is there any area of my life that I have not given God access to?” We want all of ourselves to belong to him and we want to make sure we’re approaching him on the right basis, not through an attitude of religion but one of appreciating the grace of God and knowing that there’s nothing we can do that can earn us a relationship with him; that it’s all by his grace and then we want to respond to his love by trying to do right things because we love him, not to get him to love us.

Today we have, Joyce Meyer think, a wonderful resource offer, one that I believe can really help you to not struggle in your walk with God; it’s my four-cd series called “religious attitudes.” It’s for your gift of any amount simply because we feel this is an important series for you to have. We ask you to do your best and as I always say, some of you can send more, please do and you can make up for the ones who can’t and that’s a way of giving.

Joyce Meyer  Ministries – We want you to get all this information down and then please stay with me because I have something at the end that I want to remind you about.

Joyce Meyer asks why do you think the bible tells a woman if she has an unsaved husband not to try to win him with words? It says plainly: You will not win him with words and conversation but he will be won over by your godly behavior. If you have an unsaved husband, stop preaching to him and start acting like a Christian, especially concerning the love walk. Acting like a Christian is not going around the house all day with your tape recorder plugged into your head, muttering in tongues. It’s not using all your “Christianese” around people who don’t have a clue what you’re talking about: Well, praise the Lord. Glory to God. Amen. Joyce Meyer Ministries states thank you, Jesus. Oh glory, glory hallelujah! Praise the Lord! People don’t understand that. They don’t understand that. Am I making sense to anybody today? Yeah!: Max Jukes was an unbelieving man and he married a woman of like character who lacked principle.

Joyce Meyer Online states among their known descendents over 1200 were studied: 310 of them became professional vagrants, 440 physically wrecked their lives by a debauched lifestyle, 130 went to prison for an average of 13 years each, seven of them for murder, over 100 became alcoholics, 60 became habitual thieves, 190 became public prostitutes. Of the 20 who did learn a trade, ten of them learned that trade while in a state prison. It cost the state one million five-hundred thousand dollars and they made absolutely no contribution to society whatsoever, and that was, if not directly, at least indirectly the result of generations prior – the Max Jukes family – the man and his wife who lived a horrible ungodly lifestyle and there it went from generation to generation to generation to generation.

Joyce Meyer Ministries -  I’ve learned that one of the greatest ways we can be an influence is by being a giver so today I want to talk to you about something. Would you sow a gift into the ministry to help me reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ?