Living a Life of Excellence | Joyce Meyer

[Applause] you can be seated boy you obey better than the first service I couldn't get them to sit down well it's so good to be here with you I say this is my yearly visit I if they don't call me I just call them and say how about these dates Dave would you stand up and let everybody see how good-looking you are Dave and I've been married 52 years let's just say it's been a journey God has changed me quite a bit over those years and he says sometimes he feels like he's been married to 20 different women because I changed a little bit and then he gets used to me then God makes me a little better and then he's got to get used to me so the good news is is God's always changing us and making us better if we want to cooperate with him amen then we have our 12th grandchild is in the womb right now and so we have four children - son-in-law - daughter-in-laws about to have 12 grandbabies - great grandbabies and all I can say is it's expensive I mean I have to buy something like 24 or 25 just birthday cards every year of course you know when they all get to a certain age then they want money just just money so I hope you're all doing well and what I want to share with you tonight I'm gonna be bold enough to say that it may be one of the most important messages you've ever [Music] and it's going to be probably one of the simplest messages you've ever heard if you're listening and you know you can sit here and not listen but if you're listening if somebody asks you tomorrow afternoon what a Joyce preach on last night you will be able to tell them don't you feel kind of foolish when somebody asks you what the message was and you don't well it was good I don't really remember what it was I want to talk to you about something tonight that radically I mean radically affected my life and actually I'll say that if I would not have learned this or let God teach it to me I don't think I would be here today when we first started our ministry I say our own ministry it's not our own it belongs to God but if I've been in ministry 42 years I've been teaching the word but we've had Joyce Meyer ministries for 32 years plus five years I taught home Bible studies and about 20-25 people average each week came to that and then for five years I worked at a church in st. Louis and learned a lot there and then we had a word from the Lord take your ministry now and go north south east and west well the problem was nobody knew us north south east or west and so we were just obedient to God and we went to North st. Louis East st. Louis West cent was the south st. Louis literally you can find a way to obey God and so it's been a long journey and we had a big vision but everything was little and God spoke to my heart three things I'm going to tell you to do and if you do them I'll bless your ministry and when God spoke these three things to me I'll be honest and say that I probably didn't fully comprehend or understand what they were but he taught me or the next several years and still continues to teach me he said I want you to be a person of integrity be honest don't ever play games with any of the money that I put through your hands use it for what you say you're going to use it for be a person of excellence to do what you do with excellence and that's the part I'm going to talk to you mostly about tonight because an excellent person doesn't just do what they have to they always go the extra mile they always do a little bit more than what they have to do and we don't have a lot of that in the world today it's very difficult to get a quality job I don't mean to go get a quality job but to get somebody to do a quality job it's it's almost getting to be commonplace that people don't keep appointments don't you just love it when you have to take off work to meet a repairman and then he doesn't show up doesn't show up doesn't show up and doesn't even bother to call and tell you that he's not going to show up and then you call the place and ask where he's at oh he got behind he's not going to make it today and here you've taken off work for a whole day and still don't have what you needed well I lived in times when people didn't do that I was a teenager in the 50s and and those were pretty good times good in that people had morals they still considered honor to be something that you wanted to have people had manners and I'm talking about even people that weren't so-called Christians had manners men didn't curse in front of I mean if they cursed a blue streak everywhere else when they got around a woman they didn't do it and if they did they apologized and I'm glad that I lived in those days but it really makes me sad to see how far from that we have fallen and when I say we I'm not just talking about the world I'm talking about Christians as well and not all obviously many of you are committed to excellence you're great you keep your word you do what you say you're going to do but there's a lot of Christians that don't and I think it would be pretty safe to say there's probably more that don't than those that do and so we have to learn that we have to set the standard not follow the standard that's already out there we're supposed to be leaders and examples not followers you know what Jesus said you're in the world but you're not of the world in the world but not of it in other words you're gonna live here but you can't be like everybody else and so we all want to be liked we all want to be accepted and I can just pretty well tell you if if you make a really full wholehearted commitment to God and to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit you are going to have some people that are not going to want to be your friends anymore but I'd rather be popular in heaven than to be popular here [Applause] so it's a be a person of integrity do what you do with excellence and keep the strife out of your life out of your ministry and out of your life well we have really worked hard at maintaining those things over the last 30-some odd years and I think that we have a really really excellent ministry and an excellent staff but I'm going to read you a story that I didn't get to read in the first service just just to make a point because I believe what's on the head comes down on the body don't you how many of you believe if you go in a bathroom at a restaurant and it's filthy that it's not really a problem with the person who's assigned to clean them it's a problem with the management because it's up to them to make sure that things are done right and if they don't set that example then people under them won't call now remember an excellent person always goes the extra mile well we got this letter into the office and it just blessed me so much I mean for a long time I couldn't read this without just crying like a baby and I very rarely do that but it said Sarah wrote into the ministry via Facebook and said I was sexually assaulted and now I'm pregnant and I'm trying to decide whether to carry the baby are aborted the ministry replied by email with prayer and scriptures to encourage her we then followed up a couple of days later with another email letting her know we would like to physically call her to pray with her and ask if we can have her phone number Sarah's one-sentence reply before giving her number said I'm stunned that you care enough to email me back and are even willing to talk to me God works through that phone call in a miraculous way and Sarah gave her life to Christ now I want you to keep in mind that whoever it was that answered this email really was not required as part of her job to do anything other than answer the email she wasn't going to make any more money if she went the extra mile but because we've taught people this and we have people who well what we try to get into our people is we're here to help people not to just be a big well-known ministry every person that calls in here is somebody that God cares about and I want every piece of mail that comes into this place answered in some way shape or form and if we tell somebody we're going to pray from them then I want them to be prayed for and so there's a lot of stories I could get into but I this just one really blessed me I'm stunned that you care enough female me back well God worked through that phone call the miraculous way Sarah gave her life to Christ when we followed up again by email to celebrate her new life and provided links to every day answer section on our website and other online resources she responded by saying I had been suicidal the night I felt compelled to click on your Facebook link to prayer I had my death all planned out then you emailed and you emailed again for the first time in my life I felt loved as they the here's the thing we've got to understand you are around people all the time out in the world you can reach people that the few of us on the platform can't reach and most of the people who need Christ are not coming to church to find them but they are looking at people who claim to know him and love should be our main theme in the church above everything that you study and read on you should study on love because when it all comes right down to it that's really what we're called to do is love God love ourselves and love other people not love yourself in a selfish self-centered way but love yourself because God loves you because if you're against yourself you're not going to really show any love to other people you cannot give away what you don't have so to receive God's love means that you learn to accept and love yourself and so she said for the first time in my life I felt loved now that's just sad but the world is full of people like that after talking to you I couldn't I could not go through with the suicide I had planned I was still confused and certain I would be aborting the baby but after you sent scriptures emailed again and called my world changed forever this is cool as I prayed on the phone to become a Christian I felt what I can only describe as a blanket of peace in my room I know that sounds crazy but a heavy feather like blanket descended on me then when the lady who called prayed for me to receive the Holy Spirit a cool breeze swept him through my room I have no idea what it was but literally a breeze came in and my hair was moved by the breeze the windows weren't open and it's 95 degrees here yet a breeze came over me with the blanket It was as if God was with me in the room is that crazy question mark because I've never experienced anything like that before okay so she couldn't have been making it up because she didn't even know what was happening but these are the things that the Holy Spirit can move in miraculous ways if what we're doing is really being done out of love and with the right motivation we have to stop living to impress people and really genuine they care about them well she said now I feel like I can live and my baby will live you showered me with love and acceptance and honestly saved my life of my baby's life thank you so much I ask that you'll continue to pray as I learn Who I am and begin to be a mama Joyce Meyer ministries has since sent Sarah a Bible and we are providing her with tickets for the love life Women's Conference in September in her last email Sarah wrote I'm so excited to get my very own Bible I've never ever had one before I'm reading the scriptures that you sent and I can't get enough them I'm even reading them to the baby too [Applause] [Music] now I tell you that just as an example of what it means to go the extra mile you see if she didn't really care about those people contacting the ministry then she would have just done what her job required and she would have gone no further like I said she wasn't gonna make any more money for doing all that extra stuff I wouldn't have even known what she did if somebody wouldn't have sent that in and then somebody by somebody by somebody by somebody got it to me and I believe that God let me see that just to show me that we do have an excellent staff who genuinely care about people you got some tree here that's called a choking tree and I think that's like all right so what is strife strife is an angry undercurrent it's bickering arguing heated disagreement but you can have strife and nobody be yelling at somebody and sad to say in many churches there's strife underneath people may come and listen to the pastor and then go eat him for lunch come on the worship team sings pretty songs but several of them think they have got a better voice in the worship leader and they should be leading the worship and so they talk about the worship leader to other people and I'll tell you what happens if something like that is not stopped it'll end up killing the anointing on church and you can put on the greatest show in the world but if there's no anointing nothing is going to happen in the people's lives [Applause] you know you're not changed because we have a great media presentation and a light show and I'm gonna send my conferences we have smoke machines we've got it all you know it's like whoo but that's still not what changes people's lives the only thing that changes life is God's anointing and the only way we're going to have that is if we keep the strife out of our life if we're people of integrity and people of excellence amen now to be a person of integrity means that you're going to keep your word Wow do we ever have a lot of that lacking today I'll call you back in 30 minutes haven't heard back in six months hey I'll call you next week and we'll go out to lunch you don't even intend to call and you don't even want to go to lunch it's just something to say that sound nice well when God first spoke these things to me as I said I wasn't really educated in what any of them were and so God had to teach me I wasn't able to go to Bible College but I went to the school of the Holy Ghost and honestly I think that's the best one to go through and I tell you what God ran me through the ringer so to speak you said what do you mean by that God's a good gun yes he's a good God and he's good enough to spank your little royal holy bottom if that's what he needs to do amen and so God taught me a lot of lessons one I remember we were in Jacksonville Florida visiting a couple I've been preaching at their church and you know we kind of hit it off with him I still remember their names were well I better not say that well you know it won't go on TV here well they might you you get everywhere so they might hear it anyway so I better not say I'm getting wiser in my old age and so we'd had a good time so when we got ready to leave I said hey you guys ought to come to st. Louis sometime and we'll spend a-- several days or a week together and we'll take you to see all the sights you know we'll go to the arch we'll go to the zoo go out to eat we'll just have a great time well to be honest I didn't want them to come to central it I mean I didn't have time to spend the week with anybody I barely knew what my name was I was so busy back then trying to get the ministry started I liked him but I didn't like them that much that I wanted him to come and stay with me that long and so I didn't think anything about how you guys come you know you know you know how we are how many now and so about two weeks went by and the man called and he said well we're ready and I said ready for what he said well you know to come to st. Louis like you said neither oh my god what am I gonna do and so when I pretended to be happy and hung the phone up I said to God what am I gonna do and he said I'll tell you what you're gonna do you're gonna bring them to st. Louis and if you don't want to keep them in your house you pay to put them in a nice hotel and you spend the week with them you take them wherever they want to go you sightsee with them you take them out to eat and you will learn not to say things you don't mean anymore and I'll never forget that because it really did teach me a lesson now obviously I didn't have to do what God said but something else we're missing today that we need a lot more of as a reverential fear of God I would venture to say that there's a fair number of people that have never heard a message on the reverential fear of God I mean I've I've even had people say well I don't understand that I thought you know God was good and he loved us and you know we've got grace and forgiveness and I don't understand what you mean I don't think I should be afraid of God I said it's not that kind of fear it's a reference it's an all for God that you know he's God and that he knows everything and can do everything and he sees everything and see everything we do when nobody's looking God sees I'm gonna say that again because getting that revelation in your life will change your behavior I mean it honestly will if we can realize that everything we do God sees it come on everything we do God sees it and if we can learn to live before an audience of one realizing that we're here for his glory and by the way you know what the word glory means it means the manifestation of all of the excellencies of God so when we say Lord I glorify your name what we're really saying is I behave with such excellence that I am making you famous amen people are watching us and we need to realize that no strife be a person of integrity be a person of excellence the thing that frightens me today is we live now in times when one and maybe two are going on three generations are hearing the earth who never grew up with these principles they're not teaching them in school I mean if when we were in school when I was in school if I would have done some of the things that kids do in school today yeah that is right yeah but then what do you expect from the kids if you've got a teacher cussing in the classroom so to be honest we have a mess and God is the only one that can unravel it but we're partners with God and he gives us a part to play and I'm hoping that the message that I'm speaking here tonight well in some way shape or form convict every person here and all the other places that you're watching to come up higher in at least one area of your life this is one area they're gonna we're gonna set the standard not follow the standard several months ago on one of my conferences I taught a version of the message that I'm teaching here tonight and one of our speakers stayed to hear me speak and he came to me afterwards and he said now I mean this is a well-known speaker that's been in church all of his life and he's a man that's probably close to 40 and he said I have never in my life heard anything like that and I just thought a pretty simple message on being a person of excellence gave a bunch of practical examples which I'll do here tonight and he said can I come home live with you for a while one of the reasons why I believe we do have a ministry of excellence is because we taught that to our children and our two sons are the two CEOs of the ministry one of them runs the world missions and one runs all the other business aspects of the media and the operations and so on and so forth don't tell your kids one thing and then let them see you doing something else amen don't tell them not to lie and then when somebody calls it you don't want to talk to tell your kids tell them I'm not home you say oh come on I came here to hear something deep well I'm sorry this is about as deep as it gets but it's deep enough to change your life if you're willing to go there I think half the time we want to hear something that's so like over our head and then sounds so amazing that we can just go out and say wow but we don't even know what we heard well you'll remember this one and so how can somebody be in church 30-plus years and never hear a message on being excellent I don't I don't understand that I don't understand that at all if God wouldn't have taught me these things I honestly don't believe that I would be here today doing what I'm doing in first Peter 2nd Peter 1:3 the Bible says for His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that are requisite and suited to life and godliness through the full personal knowledge of him who called us you want to know what your calling is here it comes who called us by into his own glory and excellence so we are called to be excellent first Peter 2:9 says basically the same thing there's a man in the Bible named Daniel that was an excellent man in the very first chapter the eighth verse we see that he refuses to compromise he'd made a vow to God about what he wouldn't wouldn't eat and they wanted him to eat all these rich dainty foods and he literally could have lost his life by refusing to eat those things but he was willing to do even that rather than break his word to God and so God gave him favor see if you're willing to do the right thing the devil is going to try to make you afraid that you're going to lose your job you're going to lose your friends or something Bad's gonna happen to you if you do the right thing but the truth is is no matter what the devil tries to do if God decides to promote you you're promoted and if God gives you favor you've got favor and when you have the favor of God on your life mm-hmm some good things begin to happen and so Daniel also had excellent friends you've heard of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who would not compromise even if it meant their life and the thing is is who you hang out with is very important because if you're around somebody enough what's on them is going to get off on you amen and some of you probably could change your life drastically just by getting a new group I'll just leave that with you now because I want this to be very practical I'm going to get to some practical things if you're not handicapped don't park in a handicapped parking space and especially don't do it at church and I'll bet you that we've got people in here tonight that it pulled into this parking lot wait couldn't find a parking space and you pulled into a handicapped parking space I'm not going to ask for a show of hands because then you'd be tempted to lie and I don't want to be responsible for that well they got too many of those handicapped parking spaces anyway if we'd stop making excuses for our disobedience and just call it what it is by the way I love you guys [Applause] [Music] there's so many scriptures that talk about this if I had another two hours we could go through every one of them but the Bible the Bible not only says to walk in love it says to abound and walking in love so even if you are a fairly loving person we can't be content there we have to always want to grow we have to always want to be better Paul said excel in giving and he was talking to people that were givers but he said excel and go on and do even more in this area the more we do of what's right the more happy and peaceful we're going to be and the greater reward is going to come in our lives if you have a bumper sticker on your car declaring that you're a Christian please don't break the speed limit roll your window down and throw trash out of it and make nasty signs at people we won't explain that any further when you use the last to the toilet paper on the roll [Applause] you're like now you got to be kidding me lady I didn't I did not come all the way over here and fight this traffic to hear you talk about toilet paper well some of you need to hear this [Music] all the next person I'll get it well but don't you hate it when you go into a bathroom and there is no toilet paper on the roll so do unto others as you would have them do unto you and listen if you don't need this I'll preach to myself because I need it when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I am so sleepy and I realized that when I used a little bit of toilet paper on that roll that there's going to be none left for Dave when he gets up and because I love God I replaced the toilet paper [Applause] see instead of just telling God we love him we need to start acting like we do by being the kind of person he wants us to be when you use a public restroom do not tinkle all over the seat and not clean it up there is nothing that annoys me worse I have to use a lot of public restrooms because I travel a lot and I hate it when I go and I have to go in four or five before I can find one clean enough to sit down on come on is this okay don't let your dog go number two on your neighbor's yard I'm not cleaning it up when you open your car door don't throw it open and Nick the paint hmm you have an excellent attitude when the clerk at the store makes a mistake and has to go back and rear in your 45 items do you treat her like she's valuable and act like you think Jesus would act or do you do what I used to do well now I'm going to be late for my next appointment with my rhinestone Jesus pin flag [Music] now God taught me a lot for some reason in the grocery store I went to the grocery store about three times a week my kids were all little then and we were very very tight on money and so I clipped every coupon that I could find where I could get any kind of a deal well you know there's fine print on coupons but interestingly enough until I received the Holy Spirit I didn't read the fine print but when you get hooked up with God he will lead you to the fine print how many of you know the fine print can get you in trouble and so I noticed because ila I loved it when chickens were on sale and I it's settling the coupon which I never noticed before limit three per family not even three per person three per family please why did not want three chickens I wanted a bunch of free chickens not free but cheap chickens and so I would take my kids with me and we'd all get three chickens and all get different carts and all get in different lines and pretend like we didn't know each other come on is there anybody in the house that knows what I'm talking about yeah and so one day I was standing there and I thought I don't think I gave my daughter enough money for tanks and my heart started pounding in fear now I'm teaching this like 25 person Bible study in my home and God's teaching me how to be excellent and be a person of integrity and so on and so forth and so he just said to me don't you realize if you have to do this in fear something's wrong with it when I got through the checkout lane he said well congratulations joy she just stole three chickens well the first time are one of the earlier times that I preached this message I was in a church in Tennessee and the pastor sat on the platform with me you know behind me so he was behind me the whole time I was preaching and I told that story that I just told and he jumped up and pointed to his wife on the front row and he said you have turned me into a thief but he said it wasn't chickens it was pilot paper and was for the church another thing God taught me was you know when you go in a grocery store a lot of the stuff you really don't have to have is first and then by the time you get over to the milk and the eggs and you know the stuff you really got to have you've ran out of money at least if you were like I was back then I mean I had to shop with my calculator and my coupons and I had exactly 70 dollars for every two weeks for groceries and if I was going to be over that I had to start putting stuff back well until I really let God have full play in my life whatever I didn't want I would take out of the cart and just put it wherever I was at in the store you know I'm the person who put the lettuce in the cleanser do you ever find the items in strange places and think what is that it was me and so then God started making me when I say making me he didn't like force me but I was committed to trying to learn to do what I felt like God really wanted me to do so he would make me walk every item you know how it is when you when the Holy Ghost is in you and you're really trying to be led by the spirit it's you don't even have to have any words it's like that looks that your mother gives you and I finally learned it was better to just go do what he said then to have it nagging at me all day because sometimes God can be a nag I mean he would just keep it up and keep it up and keep it up keep it up keep it up keep it up keep it up now if you don't pass that test you will get to take it again and then one last story my grocery cart I know that most of you heard the grocery cart story but you're just gonna have to indulge me and let me tell it again this is so amazing to me because you know I was one of those people I didn't want to go put my grocery cart back in the space marked off for grocery carts I wanted to lean it against a pole or profit on the other carts that were out in the middle of nowhere and I would kick the wheels you know try to get them so the thing wouldn't roll away and you'd start to walk off and it would start to roll so you go back don't you love it when you come out of the store and there's two or three grocery carts leaned against your car and one of them scratched your paint what was people like me who did that I didn't want it done to me but I did it to other people so God started dealing with me to go put the thing back work was supposed to be well they've got people that do that well they're asking you to do it then it won't cost as much to run the store then the prices won't be so high but here's the sad thing it took me two years two years now that we're talking this is 40 years ago I'm grateful I can say that but it took me two years to get to the point where I would go put it back every single time I started I'd do it if the weather was good if it wasn't raining wasn't snowing wasn't cold the wind wasn't blowing am I the only one who does these kind of things do I have anybody else out there that feels you've been kind of caught and I can say this and mean it with my whole heart I honestly believe if I would never have learned to put my grocery cart back where it was supposed to go I don't think I'd be here to do that's how important it is that you hear what I'm saying tonight we need to come up higher and we need to be excellent people who represent the God that we say that we serve and love in a way that he deserves somebody give God a praise tonight how many of you will know tomorrow afternoon what I preached on tonight all right has anybody thought of at least one area where you could maybe make a little change well then I think my job is done let me pray for you and then Todd's going to come by to thank you for your word tonight so simple but yet so powerful I thank you for reminding me again of the kind of person you want me to be and I pray Lord for everybody here that they heard that they will obey leading guide each person in what you would have them do to come up higher and help them never forget how important it is in Jesus name Amen Todd's going to come back thank you so much

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Views: 535,034

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Keywords: Christ Fellowship, Christ Fellowship Church, Latest Message, Latest Sermon, Pastor Todd Mullins, Joyce Meyer, Joyce Meyer Ministries, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Bible, Bible teaching, encouragement, freedom, hope, peace, faith, Living a life of excellence, How to live a life of excellence, Elevation Church, Gateway Church, Church of the Highlands, Lakewood Church, North Point Community Church, Saddleback Church, Life Church, Vous Church, Hillsong Church

Id: UieEY9WHfHo

Length: 44min 25sec (2665 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2019