How to Deal with Fear | Joyce Meyer

well fear you know it's something that we all experience so the question today is how to keep it from controlling or even crippling our lives on this live webcast you are in the driver's seat I'm going to answer your questions and give you guidance based on the Word of God on how to deal with fear Ginger's joining me today so ginger how is this going to work well we are ready to take all the questions and all anyone needs to do who's watching whether they're with us on Facebook or on our website is begin submitting your questions and then I will be reading with with you along you don't know what's coming we're just going to let God take home and I can't operate in fear to answer your questions on fear it can be afraid I'm going to get a question on fear I can't answer I have to walk in faith we're putting this into action right now and I understand we should possibly look for a question coming through from one Dave Meyer they would say see man I was teasing me this morning he said I think I will send a question in and say this is Dave Meyer wanting to know why Joyce Meyer is afraid to submit to my authority that's pretty good and you know I guess that's what actually a lot of people would ask Jay which I general don't weigh in that but he was having a good time with it so the good news is as Dave probably doesn't know how to submit the question so I don't have too many problems he has a submitting problem today yeah exactly well you know we were thinking about what many people are going through right now with the hurricane that affected so much of the United States and sometimes we have fearful situations that we feel fear that they're kind of unsubstantiated but when you go through a situation like that that that's a real fear and that can stay with you for a long time and so what encouragement would you give to those people well you know the only way to overcome any kind of fear and I'm sure people are going to hear me saying this over and over and over today is with faith faith is the only thing I know of that stronger than fear yeah and so certainly people probably do have all kinds of fears especially if they were the one of the ones who was seriously affected by this storm how long is it going to take for me to have my home back how long is it going to take for the power to come back on some people like some 350,000 still don't have power what am I going to do about the things that I've lost time I going to get them back and so certainly we understand that and we want to pray for the comfort of those people and our we've been calling people that are partners of ours up along that area to see if any of them had a problem praying with them and that's been a real positive thing just to reach out to people but the only answer really is to trust God and to believe what's what Romans 8 says that all things although they may not be good all things will work out for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose keep loving God in the midst of your difficulty don't don't blame it on God don't even let it get you confused about what God I don't understand have I done something wrong why me just keep saying God I trust you and I believe you're going to work this out for good and I think we can also believe God to give us back double what we lost especially if we can manage to go through a situation with a good attitude I know sometimes even myself I'll have a test and I'm well aware that I need to go through it with a good attitude and if I do I see a much better outcome than if I let my attitude get bad because our attitude does really display if we genuinely have trust in God or not that doesn't mean is going to be easy on your emotions but it can be done yeah well that's good and just watching more our thoughts go very important here here's a question this is coming from Oklahoma and they ask how do I deal with panic attacks a lot of people dealing with panic attacks right now well panic attacks of course can be caused from chemical imbalances and things in your body that may need some type of medication or some kind of nutritional problem to help that but I think the best way always to defeat the devil when he's attacking us the Bible says to resist him in his onset so I think although I've not had a panic attack so I don't have the experience of knowing what they feel like having been told what they're like I would think that like with everything else if the minute that you feel something like that coming on the best thing to do is to start asking right away god please help me help me help me and then breathe try to stay as calm as you possibly can and I've even been told that when a person is having a panic attack to realize this too will pass it's not going I'm not going to feel like this forever and just you know the calmer that you can stay putting your trust in God the faster it will be over and also I just encourage people that have situations like that to take care of themselves nutritionally get all the help that you can be as strong physically as you can exercise do everything that you can possibly do to help yourself because often the fear after a panic attack comes from when will the attack happen again exactly exactly that can really control and you don't know where you're going to be some people get afraid to go out and you know the thing is is we can either confront fear and do it afraid or we can let fear control our lives and so the only way that I know how to overcome fear is to say God is with me he's going to help me and however this turns out God is God is in control I think you got to do a lot of talking to yourself and so you know I'm sure when people are having panic attacks there's a voice in their ear that's not God's saying well this is going to happen and it's going to be terrible and this and this and this and this and you know of course one of the things we teach people is that even while you're having a wrong thought you can open your mouth and say what God would say in the situation so I would suggest saying God's on my side he's going to take care of me he's here with me right now I'm going to be okay and the more you verbalize what the Word of God says the more it's going to help you to overcome the wrong feelings that I have right this I don't know of a better person on the planet to ask than you for this question because you will have the answer then Brenda from Oklahoma is asking I am afraid to speak in front of people how should I get beyond this you have experience with speaking in front of people all you have to do it afraid you know and obviously I have a gift but you know what the first time that I stood up in front of a large crowd of people I've been teaching smaller groups home Bible studies 100 here 100 there a couple hundred here but then I got in front of a group of 900 people and although I've been praying for that opportunity I what was so nervous were you so scared because the enemy just kept telling me who do you think you are you are out of your league I mean I always tell the story and it's kind of funny I won't take the whole time to tell it here but all the other speakers were dr. so-and-so Reverend so-and-so Bishop so-and-so they all had these big long titles and I was just plain old Joyce Meyer and so I thought this is just going to be a nightmare and I actually was so nervous than when I opened my mouth and tried to say something my voice just squeaked oh oh it's just like and nothing came out it was like I had a second really to make a decision am I going to take my Bible run off this platform go back home to Fenton because I was in Florida at the time and never go out and try to do this again why am I going to dig down as deep as I can open my mouth again and trust God and you know the Bible never tells us not to shake not to be nervous you know not to feel afraid it tells us to not be afraid so even though you may feel afraid you can still do what you believe you're supposed to do and every time you do it even if you do it afraid a little bit more that fear feeling of fear will dissipate until now people say to me well doesn't it make you nervous to get up in front of these big crowds of people and I can honestly tell you I believe through God's grace I can stand in front of a million people not it wouldn't make me nervous at all because I've had the experience of seeing God never failed me and so if you won't step out and try you'll never have the experience of seeing God come through for you so you never really gain the courage that you need to go ahead and do what God wants you to do right right yeah it's sad when when we're not able to have what God wants us to have or help people the way that he wants us to because we let fear stop us yeah and you can't always wait for the feeling of fear to go away you know one of the things that people are going to probably hear multiple times today is because you feel fear that doesn't mean you have to bow down to it or give in to it yeah all right this is a question from from Washington State I'm watching America changing in ways that scare me and I feel that we are losing our Christian freedoms and I feel out of control how do you suggest I combat this fear well the thing that God has really spoken to mine and Dave's heart and it's really one of the greatest comforts to us personally because we certainly understand this question and why even people would feel that way we believe if we do our part if we do what's right which is to pray pray for our leaders pray for the country to vote in every election to cast our vote because that is very important and then when we feel that God wants us to to speak out against unrighteousness rather that's to write a company that's got ungodly advertisement and say I don't appreciate this coming into my home and I'd really prefer not to get your magazine anymore our whether it's to go to a school where your kid goes and says you know you really don't have the right to tell my child that they can never say say the word god or the word Jesus in school it's unconstitutional for you to tell them that people need to know their rights and be willing to stand up for the rights but then here's the the best answer to that question is this if you do nothing then you have a reason to be afraid because nothing only just opens up the door for evil to take over more and more the best way for evil to control is when righteous men do nothing so the last thing we want to do is nothing but if we do our part even if our part doesn't change anything in the world God will still take care of us we have to remember the Israelites and how God even while all the plagues were going on in Egypt they were in a place called Goshen where none of those plagues affected them so I believe that we can live in the midst of evil and still have a good life because we trust God to meet our needs and take care of us that doesn't mean maybe everything is going to be perfect for me my whole life or that I might not be affected in some way by the things going on in the world that God is going to take care of his people and I really firmly believe that God is always on the throne no matter what the situation around us sometimes feels like this is a question from Quebec and it says I've been consumed with fear of authority what do I do a lot of people have that fear don't think a lot of people have that fear you know I deal with people with that sometimes people will get around me and they'll just be nervous or they'll they'll shake and I'm like you know I'm not a fearful person why you know you don't be afraid of me I'm not going to hurt you why are you like that I'm just I'm just afraid of authority and you know I understand that because I was mistreated by my father who was an authority figure in my life and so I wasn't necessarily so afraid of authority as I was rebellious toward Authority especially male Authority I didn't want anybody telling me what to do people who obviously are afraid of Authority are afraid that they're going to be mistreated are they're afraid that this other person is so much greater than they are that they feel very belittled in their presence they don't think very highly of themselves and we need to realize that the Bible says it in Christ all distinctions vanish there's no more Jew nor Greek male nor female you know slave nor free but we're all one in Christ and so here again God is going to take care of us and we really don't have to be afraid of anybody you need to see yourself not better than anybody else but just as good as everybody else and a lot of these fears do come from how we feel about ourselves and so I would ask every person that's joining us on the webcast today to have a little meeting with themselves when the webcast is over literally sit down book an hour with yourself have a meeting and ask yourself how do I really feel about myself you know do I do I feel like maybe that I'm stupid do I feel like that I'm not capable do I feel like I don't have what it takes do I feel that I'm inferior to other people and you can never present yourself in a confident way if you don't have a decent relationship with yourself I mean you have to know that okay I'm not perfect but I'm not really any worse than anybody else I mean we all make mistakes and I can't really do it on my own but I can do anything I need to through Christ just realize that whatever you don't have if you have Jesus in your life you have more than enough and here again to overcome fear of authority you have to take baby steps while you still feel afraid let's just say maybe that somebody in authority is asking this person let's just say it's a boss and they're asking this person to do things that that they don't want to do that they don't feel is right I had a situation like that a long time ago a boss asked me to do something that I felt like was was immoral it was going to basically be helping him steal from somebody because I was the bookkeeper and he wanted me to write off some money that we owed them and I couldn't afford to lose my job I just made a commitment to have a lot of work done on my teeth and I worked downtown where Dave did we didn't need two cars a lot of reasons why didn't want to lose that job and I was very nervous very frightened but I would rather be more afraid of displeasing God than I am man so I did go in very nervously very sheepishly you know I know you don't agree with my beliefs but I'm a Christian and I don't feel like that I can do what you're asking me to do I feel like it would be wrong I expected all day to get fired he came out and told me to send the company a check and after that I actually got promoted and promoted and promoted so we have to really know that if we do what's right God is going to take care of us so take a baby step if you need to talk to your boss about something do it or what if I lose my job well you know if you do then you've done the right thing God will help you find another one right I remember that person in authority is far from perfect it's exactly right all right this comes from Ohio Debbie is asking how do I keep from fearing the worst especially with the health of our family I think when a lot of people go through a difficult situation especially with health or whatever it may be then we can get past it but we still have that fear of what if it comes back well you know our personal relationship with God and knowing that no matter what happens is always the key to overcoming fear now in I 1989 I had breast cancer and I had to have a very radical serious surgery and thank God the cancer had not gotten to my lymph nodes so I didn't have to take a lot of treatment but you know it's a lot of people know and you hear that you know once you've had cancer it can can come back so every year now for 22 23 years however long it's been I go and get my mammogram and I remember on two occasions one I went and they came back and said we're seeing something we don't like we want you to stick around to do an ultrasound well okay yeah so I had to just keep saying god I trust you I trust you I trust you well just last week well just this week actually I went and got my yearly mammogram and it took a long time for the girl to come back long time they're gonna bring me the results she wasn't coming wasn't coming wasn't coming so I started thinking uh-oh and but when I would think like that then I would just say God I'm in your hands and no matter what she comes out here and tells me we'll walk it out together and I'm in your hands then when she came out with the report she looked down the hall is anybody here looked down this hall I thought oh my gosh she's get ready to tell me yeah and so then again I'm saying you know okay god I can handle it whatever it is and so you know I basically say when the devil talks to you you need to talk back to him well then she said everything's fine I thought I don't know why that needed to be such a big secret but I kind of just thought later you know it was just a test it was just am I going to continue to hold on to what I say I believe even when things are difficult and you know I don't have an answer to tell anybody watching today how they can always keep a fearful thought from being presented to their mind because the devil is alive and well on planet Earth and he tries to control people with fear he's never going to stop trying to make people afraid so the thoughts will come so the thoughts will come but honestly the more you learn to trust God and one of the ways to do that is to think about all the times in the past that God has helped you and delivered you and how good he is and what the word says I love Psalm 27 14 what what would it become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living and so we need to know that no matter what happens in our life God is with us I mean the reasons that we find in the Bible for not fearing is trust God fear not for I am with you that's the big one right there fear not for I am with you first John Force's perfect love casts out fear and let's talk about the perfect love that God has for his people so we say God I believe you love me I believe you're with me therefore I don't have to know all the answers because I believe that you're going to work it out and no matter how long it takes or what has to happen I'm you're with me and you know even if somebody wants to get really radical and go far out what's the worst thing that can happen to us we die then what we're in God's presence so if I live it's for Christ and if I die it's for Christ and if the worst thing that happens to me is going to put me right with him face to face then I'm going to leave myself in God's hands and believe that he's going to take care of me it's really all about what we believe ginger it's good and it isn't the the first fearful thought that that's not a sin no absolutely not see I was I thought for many years well I got it too just got to get rid of this fear you know if I could just get rid of this fear if I just didn't feel afraid if I you know and then I realized that feeling afraid is not is not sin actually when God said to Joshua fear not for I am with you when he had asked Joshua to lead the Israelites the rest of the way into the Promised Land when Moses died he said fear not for I am with you he was basically telling Joshua you're going to feel fear but I'm telling you not to give in to it because I'm with you and then he said every place on which the sole of your foot shall tread that have I already given unto you so God has already planned your deliverance he's already planned your victory before you ever have a problem you already have the victory but you just have to walk it out and that requires a step of faith you take a step God is there many times when I go to the pulpit to speak I don't know what's going to happen everybody thinks you know well surely she's got all the answers man you know she's every time she gets up you know like I mean I didn't know what was gonna know what you're gonna ask me next and I could get really scared by it if I wanted to but you know I guess the worst thing that can happen to me here today is somebody asks a question I have to say I don't know well that's not gonna be the end of the world so god we get these things in our head that we don't need to have there and the bottom line is is take a step God will meet you take a step God will meet you take a step God will meet you alright here's another question this comes from Toronto and Jessica asks how do you handle fear that comes with repeated rejection well first of all you want to always remember that God never rejects you and maybe you're just hanging out with the wrong kind of people maybe you're hanging out with people that that's been a pattern in their life with you also I think if you're afraid of rejection you're drawing it to yourself over and over and over again I experienced a lot of rejection in my life and part of it was just I wasn't hanging out with the right kind of people and I was afraid of being rejected so when you're afraid of being rejected you actually produce behavior that kind of turns people off so it kind of goes back to what do you feel about yourself you know if you're going overboard trying to get people to accept you then sometimes you just smother them and that drives them away so I would suggest that this person once again have a meeting with themselves find out how they feel about themselves and if they need to get some new friends then get rid of all the people that are trying to control you by making you do what they want you to do otherwise they reject you and say well God I believe that you accept me and I'm asking you to give me divine connections wait for God don't be going making your own friends I want to be friends with you I want to be friends with you only friends with you well you know you're a big shot that were picture on reason I want to be friends with you right and just trust God to bring the right people into your life and you you know you might have to wait a little while might have to spend a few evenings alone but God will God will come through if you trust him to do it you know you guys are sending in such great questions I'm just really impressed with all of your questions this is a good one coming from Virginia and she says how do I overcome my fear in doubts when it comes to my salvation well first of all you can't base anything that you receive from God on feelings you know I've had kind of a tough couple of days just because of dealing with some personal family issues not not my husband or my kids but some things with other family situations where I'm involved and need to take care of something and it's not an easy thing to take care of because the person is not being easy to deal with and so right in the midst of needing to come and do all this today you know I'm taking phone calls and doing all this other stuff and so you know I actually said to God right before I came out to the studio well I don't feel too connected today I don't feel your presence much but I know that you're with me and I trust when I go out there and sit down that you are going to give me what I need so we don't always feel that we're saved we don't always feel that God is with us we don't always feel that our prayers are getting answered but you know what I said to God I don't feel it but I am assured I have assurance by the Word of God that you are with me and sure enough God is giving us the answers you know this tells us this Bible this wonderful Word of God tells us that we can have something greater than feelings and you know the thing that's greater than feelings is to know that you know that you know that you know way down deep inside that God loves you and that he has a good plan for your life and he's going to take care of you and if you turn your head off for just a minute and stop thinking about what you think and stop thinking about what you feel you're going to find that way down deep inside is a faith that God gives us as a gift that says I care about you and I'm going to take care of you and then we course you know I'm big on verbalizing and I'll never get over it because you know the Bible says we're to meditate on the word and that means to roll it over and over in your mind to mutter it under your breath to speak it out loud and so even when you feel like you're not saved I would say out loud I have given my life to Christ and he is faithful and I don't care how I feel I am born again I'm a child of God that's good that's good all right this comes from New Jersey and they asked how do you know the difference between fear and just being wise and cautious well I think there is a certain amount of fear that is healthy you know you should be afraid to step out in the middle of traffic I mean there's certain things that that you do want to be afraid of and I don't think that that's all that difficult to understand because one of them is going to be a tormenting feeling and one of them is going to just be yeah I mean that's you're going to feel comfortable in that you know I'm healthfully afraid to spend money that I don't have and to step out in traffic like I was thinking today about maybe what some of the questions would be well you know I'm not a good swimmer so I would be healthfully afraid to dive off into the deep water and that's not so when I feel that that's not a tormenting oh what's going to happen right that's just a wise thing that probably wouldn't be a good thing for me to do because I probably would drowned if I did so I think that you know there's wisdom that we should be afraid in certain situations and not do certain things you know we tell people not to be afraid we're not suggesting that they do foolish things and step out into the middle of things that make no sense or where they could actually get hurt we're talking about not letting a demonic type of fear control you and steal the destiny that God has for you we're talking about if you really feel in your heart that God is leading you to do so thing then you need to step out and do that but we're not talking about just doing all kinds of crazy stuff just to say well I'm not afraid right right alright Carly is asking how can one deal with the fear of disappointing god others and ourselves just the fear of being a disappointment well first of all you know we all have weaknesses there's no doubt about that but I found a couple scriptures couple of places where a voice came out from heaven at Jesus's baptism and again on the Mount of Transfiguration saying this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased so we could start out by thinking way out but that's Jesus well sure he was pleased with Jesus but you know what Jesus came got in an earthly body just like us and he had to live by faith just like we do and so when he received that voice by faith God is pleased with me it gave him the courage to do what he needed to do and you know I also saved by faith now I believe that God is pleased with me he's not pleased with everything I do I think that probably sometimes the things that we do and the ways that we behave may be a little disappointing to God but he still loves us and he's committed to seeing us through to the very end of things and you know I have friends disappoint me from time to time and I'm sure that I disappoint them there's all kinds of it's impossible to have relationship with people and never be disappointed but let me say this if the relationship is really a real relationship then it will make it through disappointments and become even stronger well we can get through things with people our relationship actually becomes stronger and stronger probably what this person is experiencing is they have an unrealistic expectation of themselves they expect themselves to never disappoint and to always do the right thing and you're just perfect yeah you're just putting a pressure on yourself that is unrealistic and so when you take that pressure off and realize I probably am going to disappoint people from time to time and even trust God with that God if this is a a real genuine relationship then you can give them the grace to get over that and bear with me and my weakness is just like I bear with others and their weaknesses and sometimes those those fears and even those disappointments do become blessings to us in ways that we learn and you know guy can take those things and make good out of them all I know is that I am very grateful that I don't have the pressure on me to be perfect yeah I don't have to be perfect for people I don't have to be perfect for God I don't even want to have a relationship with anybody that's expecting me to never ever ever show a sign of weakness or ever make a mistake that's just too much pressure and I don't want to have it so I think that this individual can actually take the pressure off of herself before this webcast is over today by simply saying oh I get it yeah I don't I'm not perfect and really everybody knows that we all know that nobody's perfect there's no perfect job no perfect church no perfect pastor no perfect friend no perfect marriage if we were perfect we wouldn't need Jesus so the very fact that we have him in our lives is proof that we're going to have imperfection there's a lot of freedom in that letting that sink in Laura is saying I'm recently born-again and all Christians keep telling me it's going to be a hard road and I'm going to suffer and this is giving me a little bit of anxiety so is it really going to get worse and how should I handle with the the fear that I'm facing well first of all I think that if if they're telling her that without giving her the balance then they may be missing for ourselves you know I think it is good to tell people when they're born again this doesn't mean you're never going to have a problem again because some people are told erroneously oh if you receive Christ and everything comes up roses after that and that's not true I remember one time ministering in a prison and telling the people I'm not telling you that life is going to be perfect or easy but I am Telling You that God will always be with you and that he'll always enable you to do what you need to do and I remember one man coming to me and saying thank you that you didn't just tell us a bunch of fluffy stuff about how life is going to be so wonderful because what happens is preachers come here and tell us that and then half the people have prayed the prayer of salvation backside the next day when they have a problem so I'm just basically telling you the Bible says in the world you will have tribulation but jesus said cheer up I have overcome the world so here's the thing that I say you know your your worst day with Jesus is going to be better than your best day ever was without him so you may have some things come up in your life but God is always going to be with you he's always going to help you he's always going to get you through them and everything that he does allow you to go through is for a good purpose in your life and you'll learn something from that that's going to help you with the next phase of your life so we do not have to live in fear yeah all right this is coming from Florida and Louise is asking if we are not supposed to fear why does the Bible say to fear God well fearing God is a different thing entirely than being afraid of people and circumstances in our life the fear that the Bible is talking about when it says fear God is a reverential fear and awe more like a holy respect that when we have a proper fear of God we know that God is powerful we know that he's right that he's holy and a fear of God also says I know if God says something that he means it and it would be very wise for me to do it the way that God tells me to do it because that's going to be the best thing that's going to work out for my it's a totally different kind of fear than a wrong kind of fear that's a that's a righteous kind of fear that's a holy fear that says you know I respect God I'm in awe of God so fear of God doesn't keep us away from him fear really helps us understand him more but it also actually helps us obey Him one of the reasons why we see such looseness and morals today even among some Christians is because they don't have a proper holy fear of God and so they've kind of got what God's my buddy and he's my friend and he understands and you know he always forgives and you know all those things may be true but he also means business and he you know well we know not to do something and we do it anyway they were going to have to have some kind of of results from our behavior otherwise we never learned anything it's like I you know I always say you know when my kids were little I really wanted them to do what I told them to because of my word but when they didn't my love was so great for them that I would touch their circumstances and so even even chastisement from God is not a bad thing correction the law that says that he chastises those whom he loves so we never ever ever have to be afraid of God in a wrong way well here's a good question that kind of goes along with that Susan asks how do you convey a message about fear to young children or teenagers who don't know God's goodness so helping them to understand what they do need to respect what they do need to be afraid of like going out in traffic but but not having fear of the world understanding that God is good well I think maybe you you have to teach them just through through training them in different situations and that's where correction would come in for a child you know you tell little Johnny you know don't touch that don't touch that if Johnny keeps touching it then eventually you're going to put Johnny and time out or you're going to take away a privilege or whatever it is you know that you feel is the right way for you to correct your children you have to sometimes deal with them through their experience then pretty soon when little Johnny doesn't want to get stuck in the corner anymore being timeout he'll stop touching what you told him not to touch and so he learns a type of respectful reverential fear through that you know there's a there's a right way to teach children to be afraid of something that could hurt them but not to be afraid to be bold and to do things that would be right for them to do like you can teach them you know you don't have to compare yourself with anybody else but that's a different thing than teaching them to not go out in the middle of traffic there are two totally different types of things that I think you can easily draw that analogy and just teach them a little bit at a time so how do we help children not to be afraid because God is with them help them be a part of their DNA as they're growing up for instance if they're afraid of storms and things like that well I have one grandchild well actually probably more than one but that has has manifested you know some fear of this and fear of that fear of something else and his parents have done such a great job of helping him say I am brave and I'm not afraid God is with me and I've watched him overcome the fear of being in an airplane by doing that and overcome the fear of learning how to how to ski by doing that and so we just have to keep working with them the same way that I'm here working with people today are how I work with people through my teachings or how God worked with me when he was trying to help me get over the fears that were embedded in me because of the relationship that I had with my father it's just something that you got to keep at it and keep at it and you that's what parenting is training and so the way we train them is by teaching them God is with you he loves you he's living in your heart you you read them Bible stories you read them stories that they can understand you give them examples that they can understand and you don't be afraid that you can't teach them not to be afraid that's right will you trust God to give you examples and ways to teach them yeah all right Kathy from Texas is saying I'm currently separated from my husband and I pray everyday for my marriage yet I'm still very fearful that it weren't that it won't work out how can I best deal with this fear well I don't think that I can promise her that it will work out because you're dealing with a couple different people and their will so she may be willing to do her part but if her husband is not then I can't guarantee her that that marriage will work out but I can guarantee her that if she will put her trust in God that even if it doesn't work out God has still got a good plan for her and there's still something wonderful that's in her whew sure and so I like to just say god this is this is what I would want and this is what I would like to see happen and I really hope that it does but I think if you know that even if it doesn't on the other side of that is still God then you don't have to be so afraid that if this doesn't happen it's kind of like what I shared about you know going to the doctor and to get my mammogram every year and then it took him a long time to come and you know then she's looking to see is anybody listening before she gave me the report I yeah I was there was a little bit of like well you know what's the answer going to be but I didn't have any desperate fear because I knew that even if they gave me a bad report I could still make it through whatever I had to go through because God is still there God doesn't run away because of our problems yes he's not afraid when we are so yeah right that's good okay that's a good way to put it Jinger God's not afraid when we are he's still got everything under control and one of the things that I say all the time even about the conditions in the world is God is still God yeah and God is still good and I've already read the end of the book you see we already know how it is Psalm 37 says in the end the meek will inherit the earth don't be afraid of evildoers even when it looks like that they're benefiting from their evil while you are not doing so good in the end the meek will inherit the earth so we just have to hold on and keep believing God and you know really I don't even want to say we have to it's a privilege what a great privilege it is to trust God I told my husband the other day I said what an amazing privilege what a benefit it is to not have to worry about all the stuff going on in the world and just say I trust God that he's going to take care of it yeah yeah it that was a great transition for one of these questions because you said you've read the end of the book and Levi is saying I have a fear of the end of days of the horrors described in Revelation how do I do with that fear well first of all I don't believe that God is ever going to let us to go through anything that he doesn't equip us to go through and I don't know what's going to happen at the end either you know there's a lot of different theories you know that we will be here for the tribulation we'll be here for part of the tribulation we won't be here for the tribulation you know as a lot of people believe in the rapture which I do a lot of people don't believe in the rapture but I believe that whatever happens whenever Jesus comes back it's going to all work out good and you know we could have been born in any generation I don't believe that people just kind of look and show up on earth at some random time we are hand-picked yeah for the time that we live in history and so if we are alive in these days which we are obviously have you noticed we're alive ginger we're alive in these days then God has hand-picked us for this time in history and he has a purpose for us being here now and God is going to give us what we need if we will trust him Satan wants us to be afraid God wants us to trust ya you don't need to know answers to something until it's time to know them this other little situation I mentioned that I was dealing with with the family member you know I'm a person I love to make decisions and I want to make decisions get it off my plate so I can go on I have to bother with it but this morning I thought okay I teach people how to make decisions and I have a decision to make here so what would I tell somebody else in this situation if they said I just I don't know what to do you know because there doesn't seem to be a good solid answer right now you know what I'd tell him well then only make the decisions you have to make right now and this is a decision I don't have to make right now so I'm praying about it I'm going to wait and see what God does and many times I find that over the next few days then God does I said let's just wait and see how this plays out let's just give it a few more days and see how this pans out well this person doesn't have to know what's going to happen in the end of days yet because they may not even be here then and if they are then God's got a plan one day at a time enjoy the day don't worry so much about what's going to happen in the future focus on the right things folk find something good and focus on it don't focus on all these disaster reports you know what people say are going to happen first of all they don't know what's going to happen nobody knows exactly the day or the hour when Jesus are going to come back and anybody who says that they do doesn't know what they're talking about because the Bible already says no man knows the day and the hour all I know is the Bible says I can do whatever I need to do through Christ who strengthens me so I believe I'm up for whatever and I don't have to know what it's going to be before the right time yeah very reassuring all right we have a question here from Florida does doubt and fear or lack of complete faith prevent God's blessings in my life or or prevent him from answering the prayers that I have asked him for well you know the one man who got a real outstanding miracle from from Jesus said I believe lord help my unbelief and so I'm not I'm not big on faking faith you know I think if you you say well God I believe but I'm going to be honest and tell you I'm having a little problem with doubt a little problem with fear and I'm asking you to be merciful to me and the more experienced then that you have with God's goodness the easier it's going to be to trust him if if God only helped people who had perfect faith I think we'd all be in pretty big trouble so I just think you got to not not fake it be honest with God and He will meet you where you're at the Bible pretty much tells us that God will meet us where we're at and help us get to where we need to be and so you be honest with God he'll meet you even right in the midst of some of your doubt and unbelief now it's different if you're not even trying to overcome it in the midst of having doubt and unbelief study faith study courage listen to good teaching about the subject continue to pray about it continue to make good confessions and you will overcome it but I think that honesty with God just really gets us a lot further than trying to fake something he knows anyway knows anyway so why not be honest yeah we can be real with him he loves through it that's right yeah you know god I I mean I took out different situations you know I'm really pretty aggravated at this person but I know you want me to forgive them and I'm kind of having a hard time with it I'd really like to go smack them but if you help me god I'll be willing to do it your way I just find being honest with God gets me a lot more help than trying to pretend yeah yeah all right are there tangible verses that I can say aloud daily to combat fear what are what are some of your favorite verses to use I will not fear for God is with me fear not for I am with you God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind there's no reason to fear because God's got a good plan for my life there's all kinds of scriptures about fear they say and I have encountered them so I have to say they they say that there are 365 places in the Bible where it says fear not one for every day of the year so surely if it says fear not that many times in the Bible that must mean that God knew ahead of time that we were going to be attacked with the opportunity to fear all you have to really do to get a good answer to that question and it's really better than me giving you the answer is get a concordance and look up the word fear and you'll find reference after reference after reference after reference and if you really begin to read them you'll find out the Bible says I'm thinking of one and Isaiah fear not there's nothing to fear for I am with you I will harden you to difficulties I will deliver you when you go through the fire you won't be burnt when you go through the waters you will not drown so the Bible is never promising us that we won't ever go through yeah but it does promise us that God will always be with us he said I will never leave you I will never forsake you God is not just with us as born-again believers in Jesus Christ he lives in us he sent His Holy Spirit to indwell us to live in us and you can't get any closer than that and he sent the helper the Holy Spirit who is here to help us to strengthen us to enable us to do whatever we need to do and then you can't please don't come back and say well I feel or I don't feel you have to get beyond your feet and say this is what the Word of God says and I believe it because God said it yeah a man from Canada wants to know why do you believe that fear is so prevalent in our society today well because Satan wants to control everything that's going on we have an enemy the devil the Bible tells us that the thief comes only John 10:10 to kill to steal and destroy and he does that mainly through fear just like the Bible says that it's impossible to please God without faith and we need to have faith in God to receive his plan you know faith is not the price that buys the blessings of God it's God's grace that's provided blessings but faith is the hand that reaches out and receives it by grace are you saved through faith so God's grace has already provided salvation for me but I reach out with faith and say I believe it I receive it so just like we received from God by faith we can receive the enemy's plan by fear so the devil wants us to fear he wants us to be afraid he'll put a fearful thought in my head but it's up to me whether I take it or not so that's why there is so much fear and you know the Bible tells us that in the last days men's hearts are going to fail them for fear got to keep your eyes on Jesus looking away from all that will distract unto Jesus who is the author and the finisher of our faith you know what you've heard me say on this webcast today that that I have things fears presented to me I need to do the same thing I'm encouraging you to do you make a choice to put your trust in God the only way I've got a whole series that I taught right here overcoming fear with faith you that's the only way that we can overcome fear it's the only thing that's stronger than fear is faith so like they say when fear comes knocking on your door send faith to answer fear will come knocking on our minds but we have to say nope I'm going to put my trust in God you only have two choices you live in fear you can live in faith and living in fear only produces torment first john 4 says fear hath torment but the perfect love of God casts out fear I want to end today by just telling you God loves you so much you not just everybody he loves everybody but he loves you and I want you to receive that today God loves you you start by believing that I don't care if you have to speak it out loud 100 times a day you say God loves me he loves me he loves me God has got a good plan for my life and I am NOT going to live in fear you have to keep in mind if you've been giving in to fear for a long time it's not going to move out just because you say go one time you're going to have to convince it that you mean business and you're not going to live in fear you may feel it but you can't ill still take steps of faith in every little tiny baby step that you take in faith it's going to drive fear out of your life till eventually you can basically say yes I have fear presented to me once in a while but I'm a courageous person that lives on the other side of fear and you know courage is not the absence of fear it's making progress in the face of fear and God has enabled every single one of you to do that so I really hope that you have enjoyed this today you remember that God loves you he loves you he loves you he's got a good plan for your life if you receive Christ as your Savior God is dwelling on the inside of you the power of the Holy Ghost is dwelling on the inside of you and you know what the simple truth is you've got what it takes you can do whatever you need to do through Christ who strengthens you but if you don't believe it then it's not going to manifest you start believing today that God's got a good plan for your life that he loves you and that you do not have to bow down to fear thank you so much for joining us and when we close I would love to hear more from you about this on Facebook I think we can go a long way to encouraging one another in this fight so right now I want you to share the difficulties that you face in regard to fear and tell us how God is helping you conquer those fears your story may inspire others so be sure to share with us god bless you you

Channel: Joyce Meyer Ministries

Views: 151,373

Rating: 4.8935227 out of 5

Keywords: joyce meyer fear and worry, joyce meyers ministries, joyce meyer sermons, how to not let fear control you, how to stop letting fear control you, faith like a muscle, joyce's bootcamp, how to release faith, christian encouragement in difficult times, joycemeyerministries, faith over fear, Faith during sickness, Come together coronavirus, Be Strong and Courageous sickness, Let Your faith be greater than your fear, gods destiny for your life, conquer fear with God

Id: SpCoQG723yk

Length: 51min 16sec (3076 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2013