JOYCE MEYER SERMON THE POWER OF RESTRAINT : Pastor Joyce Meyer says, the foundation scripture that I want to use is James 4:7, which says submit yourself to God resist the devil and he will flee. Now a lot of people quote only the back half of that scripture for a lot of years resist the devil and he will flee but he won’t if you don’t submit yourself to God so we get mad at the devil because of all the things that he does to aggravate us and we talk about spiritual warfare and we should resist the enemy
The bible actually says in first peter resist the devil, that is on onset the minute that you sense the enemy coming against you, you don’t wait to see what he’s going to do, you resist him right away but obedience to God total complete obedience to God is still in the bible and it’s still a very important subject, not one that people get really excited about but one that they have to hear.
I can tell by what kind of books people buy where they’re at spiritually, it is very hard almost impossible to sell teaching on pride and humility, it’s really hard to sell anything on patients, sometimes people not everybody, but sometimes people don’t want to hear what they need, they want to hear what makes them feel good.
Pastor Joyce Meyer says, now the other scripture that i want us to think about tonight is the kingdom of God and we’re part of that kingdom and it’s the kingdom of God, it is in you but it’s also all of us and there are spiritual laws that govern that kingdom, one of those spiritual laws is you can’t have unforgiveness in your heart and function right in the kingdom of God but another one is and I want you to listen because this is you must believe before you receive.
That’s a little challenging because if you believe before you receive it’s a total act of faith because you can’t see anything yet, you can’t feel anything yet, the only thing you have is God’s promise in his word, seven thousand promises.
The bible says, if you have faith, you can say that this mountain should fall in the sea and it has to, then it says whatever you ask for, believe you have received, it doesn’t say believe you will receive, it says believe you have received and you will get it. first you believe then you receive. Sadly it doesn’t tell us how long of a period of time there is between this believing and receiving that’s where the test of faith comes in, that’s where we have to be faithful in doing what we know is right and keep believing that what you’ve asked God for is on its way and that it will come at the right time in the right way.
so this belief that you have received before you get it applies to every aspect of our lives, like how many of you have something in your life that you personally need to change, that you struggle with and you just can’t seem to get beyond it, you just have to believe that you have received and it will in God’s time come to you.
