Making Marriage Work (10 page)

I had a vision of something God showed me. He said, “Joyce, if your pastor pulled up while you were in the middle of one of those fits, by the time he rang the doorbell you’d get over it.” He said, “You would exercise perfect self-control in his presence.” You would open the door and you would say, “Well, Pastor, praise the Lord! It’s so good to see you. Oh, the children. Oh, well, the little darlings, they’re playing in their room, the little dears. Yes, come in, praise the Lord.” That truth taught me a major lesson.

When we are around people that we want to impress, or that we don’t want to think badly of us, it is amazing how well we can behave. When we want people to “love us” we demonstrate plenty of “self-control” so that they see the lovable side of us. If our focus were to love others, we would also demonstrate self-control over what we do and say so that we wouldn’t hurt the people we love.

Verse 27 of James I is saying that our worship and faith in Christ are to have some outward expression that others can see. It’s called good works, but these good works must be done with a right motive. If good things are done with a wrong motive, then God doesn’t call them good works. He calls them “works of the flesh,” which stink in His nostrils. James explains that worship that is expressed in outward acts should be pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father. Examples are to visit, help, and care for the orphans and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world. This is acceptable worship in the eyes of God.

So, if you want your religion to be real, you must have three outward expressions of your faith:

• you must bridle your mouth

• you must help hurting people

• you must live a holy life

If you focus on these three things, you will bless yourself, your spouse, your family, and your friends. You will see the blessing of God poured out into your relationships. Happiness will abound, and success will follow all that you do. God’s ways are simple and true. Obedience to His instruction leads to what I call radical and outrageous blessings. Don’t spin your wheels trying to bless yourself. Simply obey God’s principles, and God will bless you.

HOW TO LIVE A HOLY LIFE

Holy living begins with getting rid of selfishness in your life. The paradox of happiness is that it comes when you forget about yourself and live to help somebody else. I found out that you can’t be happy if you have yourself on your mind all the time. I spent so many years as an unhappy Christian. If we don’t have righteousness, peace, and joy, then we have missed the kingdom.

Obedience to God’s instruction leads to radical and outrageous blessings.

Prosperity, healing, success, and promotions on our jobs are all kingdom benefits that God wants us to have. He shows us in the Bible how to get them, but those benefits are not the kingdom. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, the Bible says, it is …
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost
(Romans 14:17
KJV
). We are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to us. (Matthew 6:33.)

So our priorities need to stay in line with God’s Word. We have to do things in God’s order. And God gets weary of people who only seek His hand and never seek His face. We need to go to God not for what He can do for us, but for Who He is and because we need Him to survive every day. I have no joy, peace, nor righteousness apart from Jesus.

The kingdom of God is the realm within us. It is learning a response to daily life that differs from how the world responds, and we need to pay more attention to this inner life we have available to us through Christ. We get too concerned with what everybody thinks of us. We are too concerned with how we look, what we own, what kind of car we drive, whether we have a title that we can put on our door at our office, what kind of seat we get in the church, and what our position is in the church. We need to be much more concerned with what kinds of thoughts we have.

If you are unhappy, examine yourself and ask,

• “What’s going on in me that’s not pleasing to God?

• What attitudes do I have that stink in the nostrils of God?

• Am I jealous, bitter, or resentful?

• How many people am I offended with?

• How many people do I have unforgiveness against?

• How many people do I hate?

• How many people am I jealous of?”

Your unhappiness probably has nothing to do with your spouse. Discontent is most likely a result of your outlook on life.

It’s not your circumstances that make you unhappy; it’s not having things right on the inside of your heart.

If your heart is not full of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, happiness won’t be found anywhere, through anyone. It’s not your circumstances that make you unhappy; it’s not having things right on the inside of your heart.

Jesus said we can have peace in the midst of the storm. (Matthew 8:26.) When Peter said we can have
joy unspeakable and full of glory
(1 Peter 1:8
KJV
) he was in the midst of persecution from Nero’s reign in Rome. Paul repeatedly spoke of his joy saying in all his troubles his joy knew no bounds. (2 Corinthians 7:4.)

As Bible teacher Jerry Savelle says, “If the devil can’t steal your joy, he can’t steal your goods.” He can only ask you for it, and only you can give it up. I have lived the unhappy, the selfish, the self-centered, the carnal life, seeking God for what He could do for me, wanting my ministry to grow, trying to get this, trying to get that, trying to keep up with everybody else. I had a new project every week, and it was some kind of a faith project to get something else I wanted. And I finally became so fed up with being an unhappy Christian, I thought, Dear God, I did not become a Christian so I could trade in my worldly misery for a Christian misery. Something is wrong.

If you relate to those feelings, I must tell you there’s no such thing as a drive-through breakthrough. There are no drive-through victories with God. The only way you will see changes is to learn what God’s Word says and, whether you feel like it or not, start doing what it says consistently day, after day, after day, after day, after day Improvements to your present conditions come from getting alone with God, confronting the devil yourself, and gaining victories that no devil in hell can take away from you. Truly enjoying the life God has planned for you requires maturity and self-control. You must know who you are in Christ and seek peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Out of my selfish, self-centered lifestyle, I began to cry out to God, “What is wrong?” God showed me many things. First, I was seeking God’s hand and not His face. I needed to seek God’s presence, not just what He could do for me. Then He showed me how selfish I was. The verses in James say that we have to help somebody or our religion is not pure.

The truth changed my heart. Now I just want to help people. It’s the only reason I write, travel, and speak. I don’t do things to impress people; I just want to please God. He keeps making our ministry bigger and bigger, but we are not trying to do things to be “big.” I’m writing this book to help people.

The Lord has done such a work in my heart! I’m going to do what God has called me to do as long as I can breathe and find more people to help. If we can forget about our little aches and pains, our little personal trials and tribulations; if we can get ourselves off of our own minds and go find somebody else to help, our lives are going to get better. This is a marvelous discovery.

I can be in a position where something is going on in my life and I do not have the ability to help myself. But at the same time when I cannot help myself, God will anoint me to help others. You will find it true for yourself, too. When you can’t deliver yourself, and you can’t encourage yourself, you can still go encourage somebody else. Sometimes when you can’t believe God for the mess you are in, you can encourage somebody else to believe God. And as you share with them, you encourage yourself to believe God.

You find it easy to encourage the downhearted by saying, “Now don’t get depressed — don’t get discouraged.” Why does God make us like that? He has created us to give out of ourselves to other people. As we do, we are sowing seeds that we need to grow so God can bring a harvest in our own lives. As you help someone else, God will help you. Always remember that what you make happen for someone else, God will make happen for you.

Do we have any idea what would happen if everybody prayed every day, “God, show me somebody today that I can help”? We are missing out on joy. If we walked in this love on a daily basis, we wouldn’t be fighting off grief and depression. Our love for others would shield us from the darts the enemy tries to inflict on us.

I learned all about spiritual warfare, but I still didn’t have authority over the devil’s fiery darts and I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I went to the seminars, bought the tapes, and screamed at the devil until I didn’t have a voice left. I fasted until I almost died, prayed with groups of people, yet was left without victory. What was wrong?

I had a method but no power flowing through that method. You can have all kinds of methods, but they can become empty, dead works that wear you out and get you burned out with Christianity. People wear out because they think, I have to say my confessions; I have to do this and I have to do that, and I have to yell at the devil … They do all these things without a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to teach us about rules, regulations, and methods; He came to teach us how to have a personal relationship with Almighty God and then with others.

When asked which was the greatest commandment and law, Jesus replied:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).

This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself.

Matthew 22:37-40

In Matthew 7:12 Jesus said,
Whatever you desire that others would do to and for you, even so do also to and for them, for this (sums up) the Law and the Prophets.

So, to experience God and His plan for our lives, we are to look for the needs of others and do what we can to serve them. Our religion is not pure if it is polluted with “self.” Our self-centeredness keeps us from noticing what other people are going through. We must get our needs, wants, and desires out of the way.

The Bible says plainly to delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. We don’t have to chase our desires away, just our selfishness. Psalm 37:4,5 tells us that when we delight in the Lord, He gives us the desires and secret petitions of our hearts. When we commit our way to Him, repose the care of our load on Him — trust, lean and rely on Him with confidence in Him — He will bring to pass the desires of our hearts.

The Bible says to delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. We don’t have to chase our desires away, just our selfishness.

HOW TO BE RID OF STRIFE

James 4:1 asks the question,
What leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? Verse 2 answers the question with, You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled. …

What leads to strife? Jealousy and unfulfilled desires lead to strife. Churches, businesses, schools, and marriages are full of strife; brothers and sisters can’t get along, and on and on. When I came across the Scripture above, I had a great deal of strife in my life. James 4 explains that conflicts and quarrels and fights start because our sensual desires are ever warring in our bodily members.

Strife gets started because of all the stuff that we want that we don’t know how to get. And so we are struggling to make all these things happen. I struggled in trying to change myself, my husband, and my kids. I struggled with trying to get healed, to become more prosperous, and to get my ministry to grow. I was working on various “faith” projects all the time that I had started. I’d make all my plans then expect God to bless them.

Jesus is the Author and the Finisher of our faith, but He’s not obligated to finish anything He did not author. God said if we delight in Him, He would take care of all the desires and secret petitions of our heart.

James 4:2 continues explaining the consequence of our actions when we are jealous of what others have: …
[So] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. …

And then, this next simple statement from God’s Word changed my life about twenty years ago. The rest of verse 2 says, …
You do not have, because you do not ask
.

But then verse 3 says,
[Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures.

So here are the reasons why we don’t get the things we want: First of all, we are trying to do it ourselves instead of asking God and the result is strife in our life. Secondly, we do ask God for it, but our motive is wrong. He can’t reward our wrong motives. There is a purification process that has to go on in our life.

I was trying to get all this “stuff” and make certain things happen, but I was leaving God out of the loop. All I needed to do was ask God for what I wanted, and if it was right for me, He would give it to me in His way and in His time. If it wasn’t right, and I was smart, then I had better hope He wouldn’t give it to me anyway. I finally found out, either God is going to get His way, or I’m going to be one miserable lady. I can save you years of agony, so listen to “Mama Joyce.” If you want to have a nice life, you had better pray on a regular basis: “God, help me to stay in Your will. I don’t want anything that You don’t want me to have. If it’s not You, God, slam the door in my face.”