I want you to really open up your heart and let God reveal this to you. The one thing that will set you free from absolutely everything is just simple childlike trust. If you trust in God, you won’t worry. If you really trust in god, you won’t have to get anxious about tomorrow. Trust sets you free from the mistakes of the past. Trust keeps you from worrying about money. Trust keeps you from caring about what people think.

Trust makes you secure. It sets you free from everything even addictions and bondages. Trust in God can set you free from alcohol, drugs, or sexual perversion because when you feel the pressure of thinking you need that substance, if you’ll run right to God right then and say, “the devil’s telling me I need that but I believe that I need you,” and if the first few days you have to do it 500 times a day, then do it. Trust God for the wisdom you need. Trust God for the strength that you need. When things don’t turn out in your life the way you think they should, trust god. Stop trying to get answers to things that you are never going to have the answer to. Stop trying to explain away things that only God has the answer to. When things happen like 9/11 or the tsunami or the hurricanes that we’ve experienced people always seem to want to get preachers on TV and start drilling them about: now why did God let this happen?

Is this judgment or is it this or is it that? I didn’t know how many places I’d be interviewed, but I already had my answer prepared before I ever got asked the question. It was very simply: you know what?  I’m not god. To tell you the truth, I don’t have the answer to why these things happen. All I know is I’m a believer, I’ve got the love of God in me and since it did happen, I’m going to do everything I can to try to help the people that got hurt and bring restoration to their lives.

You probably think that I have this running thing like God just speaks to me and the heavens open up every morning and he gives me a dictation. You know what? Sometimes I go months and months and months and sometimes, even a year or 2 years and I don’t feel like God has said anything specific to me. I remember saying:  well God, you haven’t talked to me in such a long time. What do you want me to do? He said: just keep doing what I told you to the last time.

Oh, I can do that. Just do it. Whatever God told you to do, do it, and do it again, and do it again, and do it again, and do it again because you know what?  You are someone who can outlast the devil. You know what my testimony is? I believe it can be your testimony too. This is my testimony: I’m still here. I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. The devil has never met anybody more tenacious than I am. How about you?

I’m always very serious about the word that I bring because I really do believe that God uses his word to set people free. I believe that there are words in due season and that every message doesn’t have to be new but it needs to be now – it needs to be what you need to hear right now. However, I do have some things to share that I’ve never shared before because I never saw them this way before. I realized as I began to study this that there’s one thing that can set you free from everything, which is pretty much god’s style because we complicate it. But he makes everything real easy.

One thing. When I tell you what that one thing is, you might even initially be disappointed because you might be looking for something that you’ve never heard of before. But what I’m going to share with you is not probably something that you’ve never heard of before. One part of the message will be, but I know that I know that I know that I’m right about this so no matter what you might think initially.

Tharina: I would go back to visit some family members and during those summers I was sexually abused by a family member. I equated the abuse that had happened to me and it all came back to one thing: that I wasn’t worthy to be loved, that I wasn’t valuable because if I was, the people who were in my life – grownups – would’ve protected me. They would’ve protected me from it. They didn’t.

Narrator: As a young girl Tharina suffered the trauma of losing both parents: her mother to a drunk driver and her father to a drug overdose. She went to live with an aunt in phoenix which was yet another step into darkness.

Tharina: It was a wild, wild, wild time. That was when I first started doing meth hardcore. My aunt dealt it and she introduced me to it and I was hooked. I was sharing a room with a girl who was a stripper. I was seeing her come home with the money and realizing these stupid such and suches! They give you this much money? That I could take my sexuality and what I thought was power to get what I wanted and to get what I needed, and for the first time I thought I had the tools that I was going to be able to control my future.

Narrator: Tharina moved back to Vegas and began stripping in the clubs making an average of $500 a day. Her addictions were out of control and her life was darker than ever.

Tharina: That’s when I got out of the blue a parcel from an aunt. This aunt had attended this lady named Joyce Meyer — she had gone to her conference or something and here were these tapes. I just sarcastically put it in to check it out and the truth shot through my ears into my spirit. I remember getting so offended and so mad, I turned that thing off and threw that tape down for a little bit. I was still going on with my life, living wild and living crazy but there was… What I know now was there was a little bit of a seed that got in me that started to say: you don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to feel like this anymore. You do not have to go through the rest of your life with this abuse and this hatred and this self-loathing. There is a whole other possibility and there is this love from this God guy that I can have and can change me.

Narrator: A short time later she discovered she was pregnant and after her daughter was born she moved in with her grandmother looking for a fresh start.

Jentezen: It’s worked for you. When I pulled up on this gorgeous campus, to know that it’s debt free and to see what God has done, obviously every time you have heard from God, he has provided for this ministry to go from level to level.

Joyce: A lot of that probably is a compliment to my husband because like I said he’s so great at waiting. Sometimes his waiting can drive me crazy but I’m glad he has. We so needed a building, Jentezen! People were piled on top of people! It was just ridiculous. We were renting this space and this space and this space. But Dave just kept saying he felt that we needed to save the money and build as we go. I’ll have to admit that probably if it would have been me and I wouldn’t have had his wisdom there, I would have said, “let’s just borrow the rest of what we need and make the payments,” but that wasn’t God’s way for us. Like I said, I’m not saying that’s not God’s way for somebody else because we are individuals and God leads us individually.

Jentezen: There’s a lot of wisdom in what you’re saying.

Joyce Meyer: We waited and we waited and we waited and we waited, and now, there’s no pressure. A lot of times we do things too fast and then we’re pressured by those things. That doesn’t mean that God won’t help us and he won’t work it out but we could have avoided a lot of pressure if we would have just taken a little more time to make sure that it was not only God’s will but God’s right time.

Joyce: And doors begin to open. People need to pray. I pray all the time for God to open right doors and close wrong ones. I don’t even just pray for open doors because sometimes you can get a wrong one opened that looks good but it’s not, so I always pray: God, open right doors and close wrong doors. It’s interesting what you said: “you don’t need to send out your resume” because when God very first called me 32 years ago, I wanted to preach so badly I could hardly stand it — just could hardly stand it. I’d sit and watch people on tv and think: “I could preach that good. Why am I stuck here in my living room with 25 people?” I remember talking with a friend of mine and I was going to literally send out my resume to every church here in St. Louis and tell the pastors, who did not know me from Adam and probably at that point it would have just been a joke, tell them how I was called of God and did they not want me to come to their church and preach? I am so glad that God stayed my hand because now I just think about how embarrassed and even devastated I would have been. Even if one of them had called me, it wasn’t time for that.

Jentezen: Right. I never will forget when you came and preached in our newer building. For a long time I had people pushing me: build that building. What are you waiting on? We were in multiple services, just crowded out of the place, had no room to grow but I couldn’t get peace in my spirit. And then I don’t know what happened, I just woke up one day and felt peace about it. I saw too that our finances were where they needed to be.

Joyce Meyer – I think people just go out and they maybe really have a legitimate direction from God but they miss the timing and even the natural things. Look at what you’re able to do financially and use good common sense. And the provision, if God is in it, he will provide.

Joyce Meyer Online. As far as this personal relationship with god that you can have through Christ, really he’s done all the doing that needs to be done. He died for your sins. He took your punishment. He died in your place but he arose from the dead, death couldn’t hold him, and he’s now seated at the right hand of the father but also he comes to live in the hearts of those who accept Christ as their savior. So, god’s done everything that he really needs to do. Often I tell people he’s done everything that he’s going to do because he’s done everything he needs to do, but Joyce Meyer believe right now he’s drawing you, you feel in your heart if you don’t have that personal relationship with him that you need to make a change, you want to be assured that you’re going to go to heaven, you want to know your sins are forgiven, you want to have Christ as your friend like I’m talking about, so there is something you need to do. He’s done everything else but you’re at a point right now where there is something you need to do, and what you need to do is make a decision. You only have one life to live so i want to ask you: what are you gonna do with it?

Joyce Meyer Ministries. Another way I like to say it is you only have one life to give. What are you gonna give it for and who are you gonna give it to?  Are you gonna just be selfish and self-centered and try to live for yourself? That won’t make you happy. You can’t be selfish and happy. Are you going to live for the world?  Are you going to give all your gifts and talents to the world and then at the end maybe be disappointed because the world ended up taking advantage of you or they weren’t there for you when you needed them?

Joyce Meyer Online – Are you gonna give your life to some useless cause that produces no good fruit for anyone or are you going to live your life for god? Are you going to give your life to god and ask him to use your talents, your gifts, your abilities, the things that he gave you to start with? Everything that you can do well came from god, so are you gonna take what god gave you as a free gift and as an act of your own free will now offer it back to him by simply saying: i want you in my life. I need you, God.

How many years do we suffer: we don’t feel like God heard us. We don’t feel like our prayers are working.  We don’t feel like they got out of the room. You have to know. He says, “I will hear you and I will answer you.” god is a god who hears. He hears us so we don’t have to try to figure out whether we feel like he’s there or not; he just is.  And that’s… According to Joyce Meyer Online there’s no quick easy answer. I think we all have to spend the time to get our mind renewed to believe what the bible says more than we believe what we think or feel.

Ginger: but it’s such a freeing experience because then that love is his love flowing through me. It’s not about what I can do anymore. It’s not about where I fail in loving people because he’ll help me where I fail, and it takes so much pressure off.

Joyce Meyer Ministries: not only that, ginger, you’re just wasting your time to get up every day and go out and try to love somebody. That’s why spending that time with god is so important to get refreshed in him, renewed in him, strengthened in him, to remind yourself… Even this morning, I sat on my couch in my little office and I just said, “God, I’m so glad that I know that you love me and that you love me unconditionally, and that you don’t even have to prove it to me.  I just know that I know that I know that I know that I know.”  and I kind of repeated Romans 8 to myself, starting at about verse 33 and going through to the end of the chapter, that: neither height nor depth, and nothing in the world, nothing impending, nothing threatening can ever separate us from the love of god which is found in Christ Jesus. The enemy wants to separate us from that love but we can’t let him do that.  That’s one thing that we have to be assured of. To ever get to the point where you live beyond feelings…

Joyce Meyer – When you’re feeling something that doesn’t agree with the word of god, one of the best things to do is open your mouth and say, “the devil is a liar and I don’t live by feelings; I live by faith. And I know that what I’m feeling is not right because it doesn’t agree with the word of god.”

So if people don’t know what love is… Joyce Meyer Ministries said I mean, years ago when I started really trying to get into this, I thought, “i’m going to take this apart and find out what it is,” because it’s certainly more than us saying, “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,” and then not showing any of the fruit of it.  So there are other things in here… Love is never envious nor jealous. According to Joyce Meyer that Doesn’t it bless you when maybe something wonderful happens to you and you can find just a few people who are actually happy?

Pastor Barnett:  that’s right! I know exactly what you mean.

Joyce Meyer Online: what are some of these other facets of love that really mean a lot to you?

Pastor Barnett:  Joyce Meyer the bible says they were to forbear one another, which really means give them what they want instead of what you want to give them. I’ll give you an example. People will come and you’ll see them hinting for a compliment on the way they look or their new dress.  And there’s something about us that says, “they want a compliment, so I’m not going to give it to them.” you know, that’s wicked.

Joyce Meyer Ministries: that’s terrible.

Pastor Barnett: it really is. Why not give them what they want that you don’t want to give them? Like elderly people will be in a hospital or they’ll be in a convalescent home, or they’re getting older and they’ll say to their kids, “well, I might as well die. No one loves me. No one cares about me.” and there’s something about the children when they make that statement that just says, “I know what you’re trying to get — sympathy.

Joyce Meyer – I’m not going to give it to you.” why not just say, “I don’t know what i’d do if you died. I’d miss you so much. I cannot live without you.” we need to give people what they want.

Joyce Meyer said that people will learn a lot from you about the nature of God by watching your loving, giving lifestyle. You won’t have to preach at all; your actions become a sermon. Joyce Meyer Online says one man said: Preach at all times, using words only if necessary. One of the ladies who works for me now, when I met her – it’s probably been ten years ago now – I went to her shop to get my hair done, sat in her chair, didn’t know that I was making her a nervous wreck because I was a preacher and she was living a bad lifestyle. I was just nice to her – just good to her, pleasant. Didn’t condemn her because she was living with her boyfriend. Didn’t condemn her because her entertainment was gambling boats. Didn’t make her feel guilty with my so-called spirituality. I prayed for opportunities. According to Joyce Meyer Ministries that when God would open a door, I would say things to her. One day I said to her: Let me ask you a question, Deborah, do you feel right about living with your boyfriend, not being married? Well, no, I know it’s wrong. Okay, you have your own answer. I don’t need to preach to you; you already know it’s wrong. But when you get ready, I can help you do something about it. You can have a great life. Think about how your actions are influencing your son. I just kept being nice to her. I brought her a coat I had one day that she had admired.

Joyce Meyer Online – I would give her good tips. I gave her a gift certificate once in awhile to go out to eat. I’d just be there for her. It took about two years. Sometimes you have to be willing to invest some time. It took about two years. I invited her to a conference. She came and was just like blown away because she’d never seen anything like that.

Joyce Meyer said that we serve an excellent God and we need to get over being mediocre and thinking it’s okay just to kind of float downstream with every other mediocre person. God’s looking for somebody who will swim upstream against the current of the world that’s trying to suck us down into the pit where the rest of them are. Amen!: We need to just get over ourselves and realize that everything in our life doesn’t have to feel good. Amen? According to Joyce Meyer Online that the bible, for example, in Matthew 5 teaches us that the righteous – those who seek righteousness will be fulfilled. You know what else it tells us in Matthew 5? The righteous will be persecuted. We like verse 5.  We don’t care much about verse 10. Oh yes, I’m a righteous person. Joyce Meyer Ministries said that I should be fulfilled. Meet my needs. Give me a blessed life. Matter of fact, in Matthew 5, it talks about how to be blessed means to be enviably prosperous and to have such a blessed life that you’re so blessed even in your soul that even if your circumstances stink, you’re still blessed. Well, we love that! Oh yes, yes, amen, amen! Joyce Meyer says but when we read down to verse 10 and the bible promises us that the righteous will be persecuted, we don’t care too much about that. We want everybody to like us. We want everybody to approve of us. We want everybody to clap and cheer every time we come around. We don’t want to be lonely. We want to be invited to everything. According to Joyce Meyer Ministries that you know, Jesus had some lonely times, his reputation wasn’t too good – at least here on the earth but he had a great reputation in heaven. We need to get a little more concerned about our reputation in heaven than we are our reputation here on earth. Amen? Because you know what? The amount of time we spend here is a drop in the bucket. It’s like one grain of sand compared to all the ocean shores in all the world – one little grain of sand, the amount of time we spend here but forever has no time. Never-ending. Amen? Amen.: Joyce Meyer Online said that I think we need to teach just a little bit more hell, fire, and brimstone these days. Amen!: We need to teach a little more righteousness.

Joyce Meyer Ministries – Here I am today talking to you about straightening up your behavior, and last night I told you that you couldn’t change yourself and that you really needed to turn the whole thing over to God and not just keep trying to do something you can’t do.