What? You can’t do it? Nope, I can’t do that. It’s not me. How wonderful it is when we no longer have to compare and compete. How wonderful it is when the world is no longer our standard, when I don’t have to do it just because the latest fashion magazine said I should do it. The great thing about Jesus was he knew who he was.

In John 13, it says that knowing where he came from, knowing who he was, knowing where he came from, knowing where he was going… You know what? You have a secure future if you’re a born-again Christian. We have more security than anybody. Somebody could be in a fortune 500 company with this massive retirement and they think they’ve got security. Let me tell you something: You’ve got more security than all of them have because you’ve got eternal security. My, my, my, my, my. Knowing who he was, knowing where he came from, and knowing where he was going, he took off his garment, wrapped a servant’s towel around his waist and began to wash feet. We need more people in the body of Christ who are willing to wash feet.

But here’s our problem: We think that doing what the world thinks is lowly things makes us a slave and once again we have it backwards because Jesus said: No, if you’re free – if you’re free, you don’t have to struggle to have a job in this world that impresses people. You’re free to do what the world might call a menial task or a low task but it’s not low to you because the most high has called you to do it. Everybody can’t be in charge. And trust me, please trust me, if God has not called you and anointed you to be in charge of something, you don’t want the job.

It really does make us miserable when we can never be happy for what other people have. It’s a freedom to be able to look at what somebody else has even if it’s something you want and don’t have yet, and say: I trust god so much with my life that I’m happy for you. It’s miserable to always do want what you don’t have and wanting what other people have and being mad at them because they have it and you don’t. That’s not a freedom.

That is bondage. To not be satisfied with what you have for the day you’re living in is bondage. Free from sin. Just imagine a life free from worry and fear. Imagine a life free to be yourself and free to be all you can be. Free to confront people when you need to confront people instead of letting them walk all over you and not doing what’s in your heart and always wishing you had the guts to speak up but being afraid to do it. Free from caring about what people think. Free to try and fail. Free to have limits. You’re free to have limits. You don’t have to be able to do everything all the time that everybody wants and never feel like you can’t say: that’s it!

Free from shame. Free from guilt and condemnation. Free from legalism. Free from the need to impress people. We have no idea how much of our time we spend trying to impress people with everything from the way we look to what we know. Free from addictions. Free from negative emotions that try to control you, like self-pity, resentment, bitterness, anger, rage, being offended. It means freedom from struggling and frustration. Free to love. Free to live without the fear of being taken advantage of. Paul said he was free to do anything but he would not become the slave of anything.

I think that we think if anything should be free, then freedom should be free but freedom is actually not free. Freedom is being free to choose. I want to talk a lot about your ability to make choices and how you’ll never experience freedom just because you’d like to have it or you wish you had it or you think you ought to have it but you’re going to have to make choices. Freedom is being in control of your emotions in your mind. Freedom is knowing God’s will and making choices that keep you in agreement with god. Freedom is not being bound by any bad habits.

Freedom is self-control. I want to stop right there and have you think about that a minute because I don’t think we ever think like that.  We think: oh, discipline, ew. Self-control, ew. But see, god has given us self-control so we can do what we know we should do, not necessarily what we feel like doing, and self-control means self-control. It doesn’t mean somebody else is going to come along and do it for me. It is self-control. It’s not god-control, other people control, or angel control. It’s self-control.

I’ve got a list of definitions for freedom that’s about that long and they’re typed. I’m not going to give you all of them but just to skim through here, it says free means in Webster’s dictionary: not imprisoned or enslaved; at liberty; not controlled by the will of another; not affected or limited by your circumstances. I like that one. It’s free from want. That’s a real freedom when you don’t have to just all the time want something else and want something else and want something else and no matter what you have, you want something else. That’s bondage. It’s freedom to be content. The actual Webster’s dictionary says freedom is to be free of jealousy. I thought that was kind of unique because of all the things you could be free from, Webster put in there: free from jealousy.

Joyce: These two beautiful little girls’ mother is part of the red-light district but the sad thing is she actually abandoned them and now they live in our feeding center. Someone just told me they’ve never been able to celebrate a birthday; they don’t even know what that’s all about. Thank God, we’re being able to feed them and help them. The truth is they didn’t come knocking on our door; we had to go out and seek them because the bible tells us that we need to seek to do good. And you know what? You can help us find them and you can help us help them.

Ginger: Thank you, partners and generous friends! Because of you, Kajol and Kavita are growing up in a safe and loving environment, and children like them in many places around the world are no longer lost and alone. You’re helping us to find them and to give them the love and care they deserve.

Joyce: Welcome back to the program. Author and Pastor Jentezen Franklin is with me today to help give us the tools that we need to hear from God. Jentezen, we were talking about a situation at the break that you had in your family where you thought one of your five children lied to you and you were positive it was the oldest one — very positive — even gave her some punishment,

Joyce Meyer Online – A little paddling, and then found out later you were wrong. Now here you are, a man of God, a minister, you know the word, you’re supposed to know how to hear from God, what went wrong in that situation?

Matt the simple action of love — some of the most valuable things mentioned were just giving your ear to listen.

Joyce I think a lot of us are afraid of people who are that much different than we are, so automatically because there’s that much difference there’s a big wall that goes up and we may even think

– and the enemy would love to have us think this — “they don’t want anything to do with me. They would not be comfortable if I tried to talk to them.” and that’s not true because all they really want is somebody to pay a little bit of attention to them and make them feel like they’re a human being. Anything from either one of you guys in closing?

Paul to go off of that, it was like 12 o’clock at night when we were at the dream center and we decided to go to the tunnels and visit these friends we met that day. We were scared because they lived way down in the tunnels, it was dark, and we were afraid but we got there and they gave us so much hospitality! Brandon, the guy who kind of heads it up, gave us each our own shirts, clothes, they gave me this bracelet that his girlfriend loves.

Joyce when you say heads it up you mean heads up the homeless community in the tunnels?

Lance in that section, yes.

Paul he’s running his own little dream center there.

Joyce so they have their own little system?

Paul they do.  They have electricity and stuff. They take anybody in they can. Even if he doesn’t have it, he will find it just to give it to somebody.

Joyce Meyer  I was using my backpack to sleep on and he were like: “no, no!  If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to have a pillow,” so he got a shirt and tied it up and put like bears and clothes in the shirt and made me a makeshift pillow.

Joyce Meyer says that today we want to talk about a very important subject, and the subject is love. Love is something we all need, but it’s also something we all need to give away. Joyce Meyer Ministries says that  a lot of times people don’t really know what love looks like, so I want you to stay tuned because we want you to understand love so you can walk in it and receive it better.  (music)

Joyce Meyer says welcome to the program today.  I’m so glad that you’ve joined me.  You know, love is something that affects all of us but do we truly understand the meaning of love?  Do we really know how to recognize it? Do we know when we’re flowing in it?  When we’re not? Is love always just “gushy” and giving people everything they want?  Is there such a thing as “tough love”? Well, I’m going to address many of your questions that have been sent in by our website. Joining me today to help me is our executive producer, Ginger Stache. Ginger, thanks for being with us today.

Ginger Stache: thanks for letting us ask the questions. We appreciate it.

Joyce: I love it when you’re on the show.  It just makes it real easy.  Besides that, you’re so cute!

Ginger: I think you’re cute! Well, you know, this is one of those topics that we can study and study and study and hear about from you and learn, and still need to do it again a week later.

Joyce Meyer Online right.  I study it all the time.

Ginger: it really is vital for our walk with Christ and for relationships with other people, so we have a lot of good questions. I think this is a good one to start with.

Joyce Meyer Ministries – It says, “when somebody wrongs me, I immediately get upset with him. Or rather than dealing with the situation, I get angry. Do you have any tips to help me change the way that I react so I can walk in love?”

Joyce Meyer says that a lady came to me one time for counseling and she had just attended one of my meetings and she had received Christ at the altar.  She asked if she could come in and talk with me about some things. Back then my ministry was pretty small; I could talk to everybody there for a long time laughing: — a couple of times each! So I said yes, she could come in and I gave her an appointment. Joyce Meyer Online says during the course of the conversation she was telling me about her life. In the course of this conversation… Now remember, she had only been born again about two days and she just aggressively mentioned that she’d been living with a man for a long time whom she wasn’t married to.

Joyce Meyer Ministries says that you could tell that she didn’t have a clue that that was a problem, wrong, she shouldn’t do it — nothing. So I’m thinking right away, “well, I’m going to have to straighten her out. The first thing I’ve got to do is tell her that she’s got to change that right away.” I know I may get some letters from some Theologians who tell me that I was wrong in the way I approached this but I sensed the spirit of God say to me, “you keep your mouth shut. I’ll tell her myself. I’ll tell her myself once I’ve got her prepared to hear it.” You see, Jesus even said to his disciples, “I have many things to say to you but you are not ready for them.” How many things do you think Jesus could have told them was wrong with them?

We better be thanking God that he’s not giving us a list of everything that’s wrong with us every day or we just would not bother to get out of bed.

Joyce Meyer Online – I knew enough about God by then to realize exactly what he was saying to me — that of course what she was doing was wrong but she’d just made the best right decision she’d ever make, and she was so excited and thrilled about that; why did I need to go throw a bucket of cold water on the fire that God had just lit by now throwing a bunch of fear and confusion into her life about all these things that… Jesus said: There are many things that I want to tell you but you’re not ready.

Joyce Meyer Online says to be honest, sometimes I think people just prayed the so-called sinner’s prayer with us just to get us to go away because we were so obnoxious. The thing that was so ridiculous, which at the time I didn’t even fully comprehend, is I was going out telling other people about Christ… And my heart was right in doing it, but I didn’t have godly character in my own home behind closed doors. Joyce Meyer Online stated that I love what the bible says in Acts 1:8 that when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall have the power to be a witness in Samaria, Judea, Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth. So, I think we get too concerned about doing things and not being. And if you are something, then you don’t even really have to try to witness. I don’t go out and try to witness.

Zoro: Yeah, you don’t have to; it’s in you.

Joyce Meyer says yeah. It’s just that’s who I am, that’s what I do: If I can help you, I want to help you. If God opens a door for me to share a word, I want to share a word. I hope that people will think about what we’re saying and begin to realize how important it is that they live the life that their bumper sticker says they have, or their piece of Christian jewelry says they have, or their going off to church every Sunday says they have. By doing those activities, we’re basically telling the world, “now watch me — I’m a Christian.” And we’re not impressing the world too much because of that lack of love that we have shown.

Joyce Meyer Ministries says that the thing is, everything that we do flows out of our heart. To me the heart is the most mysterious, supernatural spiritual organ on the planet because it’s not a physical organ the way we talk about it, but it’s a spiritual organ; yet, you can’t see it but everything flows out of it. So it’s always a question of where is your heart in all those situations.

Joyce Meyer Ministries – What has been your best success story from witnessing?

Joyce Meyer says that welcome back to the program. Zoro is known throughout the music world for his talent but also for his love for Jesus Christ. He says if you want to show people Jesus, you need to show them love. We want you to stay with us today and hear what he has to say about how you can be a bold witness. I always tell people, even people who are non-believers when I meet them, I say: if you were ever sitting in the presence of God, you would never want to leave. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are so beautiful that all you would want to do is just lie there in his presence. Joyce Meyer Ministries says that when you feel his presence in another person, you will be attracted to it because God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are irresistible. Another great way that people can witness to people, one of the hugest things and one of the biggest problems in the body of Christ is forgiving people. Letting people off the hook is the greatest revelation that God has touched your heart and God is working in your life. There’s so much resentment, bitterness, anger, frustration and jealousy. If people would just… That could just melt like icebergs, just saying, “you know what? I’ve held this grudge against you for 3 years and I’m going to let it go.” And then people go: Wow. That’s godly. That’s divine. That’s heavenly to forgive somebody. But see, I think you’re right — people really just want to talk to people and say their quick little spiel and then be gone with it because the other stuff requires work.

Joyce Meyer Online I remember when I first got into a real serious relationship with God, the church that I was going to was really big on witnessing so they took teams of people out on the streets on the weekends to pass out tracts. We would even go to the shopping centers. Joyce Meyer says  I mean, you really had a goal to lead somebody to Christ because when you got back, you were going to be asked how many people you led to the Lord.

Joyce Meyer Ministries says that unlike baseball — nobody except the pitcher; he’s controlling the game. But the quarterback controls the game in football because he doesn’t throw the ball if he doesn’t get the ball, and now they want to know what he’s thinking next.  So it’s very important that he doesn’t have a lot of excuses.

Kurt: We’re a witness in the good times and the bad times. I think one thing that… I remember when I stood on that podium and said the name of Jesus, I thought, “there’s no way I’m going to have any more impact than I am today for Jesus, standing on this podium.” But then I realized over the course of my career as I had the highs and then the lows, Joyce Meyer stated that I had more people come to me and say, “you’ve witnessed more to me, you’ve had more impact on my life now that I’ve seen you high and low because your life has stayed consistent.” I think that’s what we need to understand, that we can’t just score a touchdown and then thank Jesus, and then when things are going bad, not do anything or not reflect him at all and expect to have a powerful influence.

Joyce: People do watch you in a situation like that.

Kurt: They watch you more, I think.  Joyce Meyer Online stated that because everybody can do it when things are great, but how you handle things when things are tough is your true character, is where your faith really shows.  That’s when I think you best represent or misrepresent Jesus is when things are hard. So that’s where I would encourage the viewers is to understand that it’s not just the good times, but it’s in the bad times that we can be the greatest witness for Jesus.

Joyce Meyer Online when we return, you’re going to meet Zoro the drummer who is bold in sharing his faith for Jesus Christ and he’s going to tell us how he’s been able to do it in the music industry.

Joyce: I finally decided that life was not going to change. I had to find ways to simplify my life.

Man: When I started reading this book, it felt like a ton of bricks were lifted off me.

Woman: This just teaches you to slow down and enjoy the moment.

Woman: There is just a joy inside.

Man: It’s a tool that makes life simple.

Joyce Meyer this lady knows what she’s talking about. Thanks, Joyce!