Blog Archives
This Disobedience Of Unbelief
by Joyce Meyer – posted September 20, 2012
And Elisha said to him, Take bow and arrows. And he took bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it, and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands. And he said, Open the window to the east. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Syria. For you shall smite the Syrians in Aphek till you have destroyed them. Then he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Strike on the ground. And he struck three times and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him and said, You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had destroyed it. But now you shall strike Syria down only three times. —2 Kings 13:15–19
It’s easy to say, “I believe,” but the true test comes when we have to act on what we believe. In this story, the king came to Elisha the prophet to seek his help in obtaining deliverance from the Syrians. The prophet told him to strike arrows on the ground as a symbol of Israel’s attacks against their enemy, but the king stopped after shooting only three arrows onto the ground.
Unbelief is disobedience. Period. Had the king believed, he would have struck arrows on the ground many times. Because of his unbelief, he stopped before he’d even gotten a good start. It is not surprising that Elisha became frustrated and angry with him. Incidents of unbelief are recorded throughout the Old and New Testaments. Unbelief seems to be at work in nearly every direction we turn. Matthew 17:14-20 records the story of a man who brought his epileptic son to Jesus for healing. He said, “And I brought him to Your disciples, and they were not able to cure him” (v. 16).
This boy’s father was hurt and disappointed in the disciples’ lack of ability to emulate their Leader. We might have agreed with him had we been in his place that day. After all, Jesus had been traveling with these twelve men for several months. They had repeatedly observed as He performed miracles wherever they went. In Luke 10, we learn that Jesus sent out other followers, and they performed a number of miracles and healings. Why couldn’t the disciples do them in this instance? Jesus had constantly encouraged them to heal the sick and do the things that He did.
Yet they were unable to heal the boy, and Jesus said: “O you unbelieving (warped, wayward, rebellious) and thoroughly perverse generation! How long am I to remain with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to Me” (v. 17). Jesus cast out the demon, and the boy was cured. Unbelief leads to disobedience.
But here’s the end of the story. When the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t heal the boy, Jesus’ answer was clear: “Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust] . . .” (v. 20).
I feel sure that Jesus’ answer caused the disciples to examine their hearts and to ask what held them back. Why didn’t they believe? Perhaps they had allowed negative thinking to enter their minds. Perhaps they weren’t able to grasp the fact that Jesus wanted to use them and empower them to perform miracles.
Of course, we know from reading the book of Acts that once they were filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples demonstrated God’s supernatural power at work—but not in this story. He said to them, “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).
The promise remains valid to this day. Unbelief will keep us from doing what God has called and anointed us to accomplish in life. It will also hinder us from experiencing the sense of peace He wants us to enjoy as we find rest for our souls in Him (see Matthew 11:28,29 KJV).
When God tells us we can do something, we must believe that we can. It is not by our power or our might that we are able to do what He tells us to, but by His Spirit working on the inside of us that we win in the battle of unbelief.
Lord Jesus, forgive my lack of faith. I know that when I don’t believe, I am disobeying You. In Your name, I ask You to help me push away every bit of unbelief so that I may focus on faithfully following You. Amen.
From the book Battlefield of the Mind Devotional by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2006 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.
Speak Vision
Today’s Scripture:
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. – Proverbs 18:21, NIV.
Today’s Word:
Every word you speak matters. Something you say may seem insignificant to you, but to someone else those words can be life changing. When you use your words to lift someone’s spirit and speak words of vision and life over them, you are depositing seeds that will last throughout eternity.
It’s especially important to speak vision into our children. As a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher or friend, the children in your life need to hear on a regular basis that they can do something great with their lives. As parents, our words carry incredible weight. That’s why you should never put a child down. Don’t ever say, “You’re slow, clumsy or dumb. Why can’t you make good grades like your sister? Why can’t you hit the baseball like your cousin?” Those words are seeds. They can take root and affect that child many years later. Too many people have been crippled by low expectations. But today, all of that can change. Today, you can start to speak vision over yourself and over the people in your life. Today, you can call out the seeds of greatness in others and stir up the gift of God inside. Today, speak life, speak hope and speak vision!
Prayer for Today:
Father, today I choose to speak life. I choose to speak hope. I choose to speak vision. Let me see the people in my life the way You see them. Let me see the potential You have placed in them so that I can call forth their seeds of greatness in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Copyright © 2012 Joel Osteen Ministries
You Are More Than a Conqueror
by Joyce Meyer – posted September 19, 2012
Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us. —Romans 8:37
Some people believe the only way to victory is to somehow avoid having problems. But I have learned that real victory is not in being problem free. True victory for the child of God comes when there is still peace in the soul right in the midst of the raging storm—when tragedy strikes and one can still say, “It is well with my soul.”
This can only happen when you are looking at Jesus instead of your circumstances.
The key to having victory is understanding it only comes “through Him who loved us.” If you are facing problems that seem insurmountable, remember you are a conqueror through Him. Allow God to strengthen your inner man. When you are strong inside you can defeat anything that comes against you.
From the book Ending Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2004 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.
Live With An Eternal Perspective
Today’s Scripture:
…It is more blessed to give than to receive. – Acts 20:35, NIV.
Today’s Word:
So much of our culture is inward focused. People are conditioned to think, “What’s in it for me?” But the most rewarding way to live is not with the attitude, “How can I get blessed today?” No, if we are always self-focused wondering how we can benefit, that’s living with a shallow, temporary mentality. Instead of looking out only for your good, turn it around and say, “How can I be a blessing to others? Who can I inspire to rise higher? What seeds of greatness can I call forth out of someone?” Friend, that’s living at a higher level.
Today, I encourage you to be on the lookout for ways to be a blessing to other people. It’s amazing how one word of encouragement can change the direction of a person’s life forever. When you reach out and speak faith over others, when you speak vision and cause others to rise higher, something supernatural happens to your own life. It won’t be long before you see yourself excelling and rising up higher when you live with an eternal perspective!
Prayer for Today:
Father, help me to live with an eternal perspective. Help me to stay focused on meeting the needs of others. Let me be Your hands and feet, let me be Your mouthpiece and bring You glory in everything I do in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Copyright © 2012 Joel Osteen Ministries
Little Things Lead To Big Things
Posted by Victoria Osteen on 9/18/2012
Sometimes opportunities cross our paths that seem small or insignificant. Perhaps you don’t quite see how a seemingly little thing can fit into the big picture of your life. However, if you know in your heart that God is presenting you with an opportunity, He has a purpose for it. He can use that opportunity to increase you and promote you beyond your wildest dreams.
Long before Joel and I became Pastors of Lakewood Church, I spent many years helping his father get ready for the weekly services and television program. Now, it wasn’t something I had planned on doing, but it all came about when his hair stylist announced her resignation. I happened to be standing there when she did, and Joel’s father immediately turned to me and asked if I would take her place. I wasn’t a hairdresser. I didn’t go to cosmetology school. My first thought was, “If you’re bold enough to trust me, I’m bold enough to do it. It’s your hair!” And the rest is history.
Joel’s father used to tell us that he was going to preach into his nineties, and we had no reason to believe differently. I just figured I would be right there helping him. I remember one day, I was calculating how old I would be when he was ninety; and I can tell you, I would have been doing his hair for a long time! Nevertheless, I was committed. I said to God, “If this is what You have for me to do, I am going to be the most faithful person You can find.” And I was faithful even when there were many other things I would have rather done, given the choice. At the time, it was difficult to see how this fit into the “big picture” of my life or where this could possibly take me. But I just kept meditating on that scripture, “If you will be faithful in the little, God will trust you with much more.” (See Matthew 25)
What I didn’t know at the time is that God was preparing me for ministry through that experience. As I look back over my time with Daddy Osteen, I wouldn’t trade it for the world! He loved me and I loved him. Learning from him about ministry prepared me for where I am today. I believe if it were not for those years we spent together, I would not have the same opportunities.
Always remember, when you are faithful with what God has called you to do, no matter how big or small, you are planting seeds for your future. If you want to grow and increase in any area of your life, you have to use what you have been given, and then God will multiply it. Stay faithful. Give your best to whatever you do because you never know what door God will open when you are faithful in the little things.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24, NIV)
Copyright © 2012 Joel Osteen Ministries
Our Daily Bread – Standing In The Fire
Read: Daniel 3:10-25
Wrapped in blankets in my grandparents’ pickup, I watched as fire consumed our home. My father says I slept soundly as he carried my brother and me and our puppies out to safety. When I woke up and saw the huge blaze, I was already safe. I was too curious and too young to be scared.
I remember several things from that night. Even inside the truck, the heat was intense and the fire was mesmerizing. I remember too the fear on the faces of everyone else, checking and re-checking to see if loved ones were safe. Later I learned that in the chaos my father raced into the fire to look for my grandfather, which prompted my grandfather (who was not inside the house) to race in to get my father. Their courage affected all who saw it that night.
I’m reminded of that fire every time I read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. When challenged with the decree to bow to the king or face execution (Dan. 3:10-12), these three bravely faced the fire for the One they loved (vv.16-18). And the Lord stood with them in the flames (v.25).
When life’s “flames” test us, may those who observe our choices recognize our love for each other and for our God.
Read more of Daniel and his friends in Daniel 1–3.
How do their lives encourage you to stand firm for God?
Ask the Lord to help you make courageous choices today.
When God Is Silent
When David prayed he wept, “Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent” (Psalm 22:2).
Do your prayers ever seem to suspend between your desperate heart and a silent God? The silence of God is like a thick mist, cold and clammy, blurring your surroundings says Leighann McCoy, author of Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt.
Praying Through God’s Silence
The Bible is full of stories about men and women who experienced God’s involvement in their lives. In most all the stories these “heroes of the faith” suffered seasons of God’s silence. If you want to learn how to pray through God’s silence, read David’s prayers from the Psalms. As you do so, you will discover some surprising things about prayer (and about David). Consider Psalm 143.
Expect Spiritual Opposition When You Pray
Don’t forget that we invite God to rule and reign in and through our lives when we pray. For this reason, the enemy of your faith is diametrically opposed to prayer. Expect spiritual opposition when you pray. In Psalm 143:3 David listed three ways the enemy was attacking him: The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead.”
The Enemy Pursues You
The enemy pursues you. He is aggressive. He will get up and in your business. The enemy crushes God’s children as often as he can. His ideal way of crushing you is to cause you to question God’s goodness and to challenge His wisdom. He is most effective at doing this when God seems silent. Once he crushes your spirit, the enemy will make you feel as if you are dwelling in darkness like those long dead. To dwell in darkness with those long dead is to live without hope, without faith, without light, without God.
When Your Prayers Seem Ineffective
Leighann McCoy writes in Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt : “When God seems silent and your prayer ineffective, take time to remember. David said, ‘I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. (Psalm 143:5) When God seems silent and your prayers ineffective look around you! Consider the sunrise, the dew on the grass, the birds that greet the morning and the rushing water of the river. When God seems silent and your prayers ineffective look behind you, remember prayers you were desperate for God to answer, and the answers He delivered.”
There Is No Shame In Begging
When God is silent, there is no shame in begging. If there were God would have edited David’s prayer. There is nothing gained by doubting, but there is no shame in begging. David determined to turn to God for relief, then he begged God to give him relief quickly, “Answer me quickly, O Lord…let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.” (Psalm 143:7-8) David didn’t want to wait forever for God to answer his prayer. He didn’t pray for perseverance or patience; he prayed for God to give him relief.
When you Beg, Beg With Resolve
Just as David begged God to answer his prayer quickly, his tone shifted from one of desperation to a tone of submission. Feel free to beg God for answers but when you do, resolve to trust Him, to wait on Him, to hide yourself in Him, to follow Him and to serve Him. This is what David did (see Psalm 143:8-10). In between the time that you pray and the time that God answers, walk in God’s ways. Be a diligent student of God’s will and follow Him on level ground. To walk on level ground is to let God’s Word lead your way. Don’t let emotions pave your path.
We Pray For Change
Much of our desire for prayer is motivated by a desire for change, and most likely the change we are looking for is a change in someone or something else. We want our husbands to be more loving or our children to be more Christ-centered. We want our work to be more productive or our bank accounts more cushioned. We want health and wealth and the list goes on. David prayed in Psalm 143 for change, or more specifically for relief. As David asked God to change his circumstances and his enemies, God in turn changed David. He was consumed with what was happening around him, but God turned David’s attention to what was happening within (and above) him. And that is what prayer does.
Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt
In his book, Leighann McCoy examines the doubts we face when we pray. As we learn to pray through God’s silence, we also learn how to pray through our doubts of His power, His concern, His wisdom and His plan. Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt is published by Freeman-Smith, a division of Worthy Publishers.
Our Daily Bread – The Lure Of A Message
Read: 1 Samuel 3:1-10
You’re sitting in a darkened theater enjoying a concert, a play, or a film, when suddenly a smartphone screen lights up as a person reads an incoming text and perhaps takes time to reply. In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,Nicholas Carr says that in our connected world, “The sense that there might be a message out there for us” is increasingly difficult to resist.
Samuel was a young boy when he heard a voice call his name and thought it was Eli the priest in the tabernacle where he served the Lord (1 Sam. 3:1-7). When Eli realized that God was calling Samuel, he told the boy how to respond. When God called his name a fourth time, “Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for Your servant hears’” (v.10). This attentiveness to God’s voice became the pattern of Samuel’s life as “the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (v.21).
Are we listening for God’s voice in our lives today? Are we more drawn by the vibration of a smartphone than the still, small voice of the Lord through His Word and His Spirit?
May we, like Samuel, learn to discern God’s voice and say, “Speak, Lord. I’m listening.”
As You speak to us today
Through Your Spirit and Your Word—
Help us follow and obey. —Sper
Find Truth
by Joyce Meyer – posted September 18, 2012
And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. —John 8:32
If you lose your temper easily, you will never enjoy your day as God meant for it to be. Seek God with your whole heart and find out what is wrong. The way to get free from things that upset you is to find truth—the truth will always set you free.
We don’t always want to face truth because sometimes it is painful. Sometimes it shows us that we need to change. If we are behaving badly, we make excuses for our wrong behavior. But excuses will never make us free.
Let God get involved with your day; when you feel your temper flare, ask Him to reveal the truth of that situation. The truth will always set you free to enjoy the rest of your day.
From the book Starting Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2003 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.
Push People Up
Today’s Scripture:
Two are better than one…if either of them falls down, one can help the other up… – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NIV.
Today’s Word:
We all need somebody to believe in us more than we believe in ourselves. We all need people who will push us up, so to speak. After all, there are enough people trying to push us down in life. There are enough people telling us what we can’t become and how we don’t have what it takes.
I know in my own life, I wouldn’t be half of who I am if it were not for Victoria. She has spoken so much faith into me. She has called out the potential on the inside.
I believe we all have the responsibility to do this for others. Let’s push people up. Let’s look with our eyes of faith and see their potential and tell them what they can become. If you will be that person for somebody else, God will make sure somebody will be that person for you.
Friend, every person has seeds of greatness inside. You can cause your children to rise to a new level. You can be the catalyst for your family to do things they never thought possible. Your words have creative power. When you speak vision, that can be the seed God uses to thrust them to a new level.
Prayer for Today:
Father, today I commit to push people up. I choose to speak life and call forth the seeds of greatness within. Thank You for using me to help others fulfill their destiny in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I Am Lady Fab 