by Joyce Meyer
If you read the previous verses in John 3, you will find that some of John the Baptist’s disciples were getting concerned that Jesus was baptizing too, and that everyone was leaving their master and flocking to Him. They went to John with this report. Had John not been secure in himself and in his calling, he may have become fearful and jealous. He may have felt led to compete with Jesus in order to maintain his ministry. But John’s response was verse 27. His attitude was, “I can only do what I have been divinely authorized and empowered to do, so I must be content with that gift and calling.”
Scriptures like these were life-changing for me. Because of my background I had many weaknesses in the area of competition. I was always comparing myself with others, jealous of them and their possessions and abilities. I wasn’t being myself, I was trying to keep up with everyone else. Often I felt pressured and frustrated because I was operating outside my gifts and calling. When I finally realized that I could not do anything unless God had ordained it and anointed it, I started relaxing and saying, “I am what I am. I can’t be anything unless God helps me. I am just going to concentrate on being the best me I can be.”
LET GOD CHOOSE YOUR FORM OF SERVICE__________________
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
Another thing “they” seem to decide for us is what is and what is not an important profession. We are led to believe that a doctor is more important than a factory worker, a pastor is more important than a janitor, a woman who leads a Bible study is more important than a woman who is a homemaker and mother.
If we buy into this philosophy, we will spend our lives trying to become what “they” approve of and, in the process, may very well miss our true calling in life.
One of my daughters, Sandra, is becoming quite a good public speaker. My other daughter, Laura, has one main desire, and that is to be a wife and mother. They love each other and get along great. There is no competition between them. Laura does not feel that she is “missing it,” because she does not want to be in full-time ministry. She knows what she is supposed to do, and she is doing it. It is not that Sandra is “more spiritual” than Laura; they are just different, and they handle their spiritual lives two different ways.
Laura has two sons and may be raising a great world evangelist. Sometimes it is the little seemingly insignificant things in life that have the greatest impact in the end. “They” tell us that only big things are important, but God has different ideas. The thing that is important to Him is obedience. Laura is being obedient to the calling on her life, and I am just as proud of her as I am my other daughter.
I have met many pastors’ wives who want to work full time in the church and be really involved in their husbands’ ministries. I have met many other pastors’ wives who want to be a full-time wife to their husband and the mother of his children, doing nothing in the ministry except support their husband in whatever way he may need. Often a pastor’s wife suffers from insecurities and feels pressured to teach the ladies’ Bible study or be involved in other aspects of her husband’s ministry simply because “they” expect her to.
It seems that each role in life has expectations attached to it, but we must be sure whose expectations they are.
I remember the woman who came to the altar crying after a service. She said all her friends were attending early morning prayer at their church, and they were pressuring her to go. She did not feel led to go and was now wondering what her problem was.
“What’s wrong with me, Joyce?” she asked with tears streaming down her cheeks.
I questioned her a little while and discovered that what was actually in her heart was to baby-sit the children of the ladies who were attending the morning prayer. This woman had a gift for working with children, and her desire was to help in that way.
When we pressure people to do what we are doing, or what we think they should be doing, we often miss the gift they could contribute if we would let God choose their ministry. People are naturally going to want to do what God has gifted them to do. By the same token, we won’t feel fulfilled if we repress our gifts and do what others are doing just to be approved or accepted by them.
This young lady was quite relieved when I told her that absolutely nothing was wrong with her. She had a good prayer life; it just was not going to be exercised at early morning prayer at the church three times a week. I recommended that she stand her ground with her friends, telling them exactly what was on her heart. If they wanted to benefit from her gift, fine; if not, it was their loss.
I have discovered that boldness is required in order to be led by the Holy Spirit, because He may not always lead us to do what everyone else is doing. Some insecure people tend to feel “safer” doing what others do. They are fearful of “breaking the mold” or standing alone. Anytime we step outside the boundaries of what “they” say is permissible, we take a chance on being judged or criticized. Insecure people will usually give into the expectations and demands of others rather than face disapproval and possible rejection. We must not allow such things to keep us from fulfilling our God-given purpose.
HANDLING CRITICISM AND JUDGMENT__________________
And so each of us shall give an account of himself [give an answer in reference to judgment] to God.
Romans 14:12
Confronting the criticism and judgment of other people becomes easier when we remember that ultimately it is before our own Master that we stand or fall. (Romans 14:4.) In the end we will answer to God alone. It is a sin to be critical and judgmental, but it is equally sinful to permit the adverse opinions of other people to control our decisions. Romans 14:23 KJV says that whatever is not of faith is sin.
We crave acceptance; therefore, criticism and judgment are hard on us mentally and emotionally. The fact is, it hurts to be criticized or judged! However, if we are to succeed at being ourselves, we must have the same attitude that Paul displayed when he wrote:
But [as for me personally] it matters very little to me that I should be put on trial by you [on this point], and that you or any other human tribunal should investigate and question and cross-question me. I do not even put myself on trial and judge myself.
I am not conscious of anything against myself, and I feel blameless; but I am not vindicated and acquitted before God on that account. It is the Lord [Himself ] Who examines and judges me.
1 Corinthians 4:3,4
I particularly enjoy the Ben Campbell Johnson paraphrase of this passage:
I am not the least concerned with the fact that you are deciding what is right and what is wrong with me…and even passing sentence on me. Neither you nor anyone else can put me down unless I first put myself down. (And I’m not doing that.) But though I don’t know of anything against me, my ignorance doesn’t mean I am correct in my appraisal because the final evaluation is in God’s hands.
Criticism and judgment are the devil’s tools. He uses them to stop people from fulfilling their destiny and to steal their liberty and creativity.
Some people criticize whatever is different from their choices. It is interesting to note that most of these people are also very insecure — that is why they are uncomfortable with people who don’t conform to their way of thinking or acting.
When I was still in my insecure years I found myself being judgmental most of the time, and, of course, always toward those who didn’t think or act as I did. They made me uncomfortable. I finally realized that their decision to be different challenged my decision.
Secure people can handle being the only ones doing something. They can easily allow friends and family members the liberty to make their own choices.
As I mentioned previously, my husband Dave is very secure, and he has a
llowed me to succeed at being me. He is not threatened by my success in life because he is comfortable with himself. He likes who he is. There is no competition between us. Neither of us is more important than the other. We are simply free to be all we can be, and yet we are very different.
We don’t judge and criticize each other’s differences, we just accept them. It wasn’t always that way, but we learned over the years that we are called to love one another, not change one another.
Paul did not allow the opinions of others to change his destiny. In Galatians 1:10 he said if he had been seeking popularity with people, he would not have become an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. This statement should teach us a lot. How can we succeed at being ourselves if we are overly concerned about what other people think?
In Philippians 2:7 KJV Paul tells us that Jesus …made himself of no reputation…. Jesus obviously wasn’t concerned about what others thought. He had a goal — to do the Father’s will — no more, no less. He knew He had to maintain His freedom in order to fulfill His destiny.
Criticism and judgment may be painful but not as painful as allowing ourselves to be controlled and manipulated by that criticism and judgment. To me, the greatest tragedy in life would be to get old and feel that somewhere along the way I had lost myself and never succeeded at being me.
Have you lost yourself, or have you found yourself?
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CONFIDENCE IS REQUIRED
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CONFIDENCE IS REQUIRED
[Most] blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is.
JEREMIAH 17:7
To succeed at being ourselves, we must be confident. It is not self-confidence we are to seek, but confidence in Christ. I like The Amplified Bible translation of Philippians 4:13 which says in part, […I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]. It is actually a sin to be confident in ourselves — but to be confident in Christ should be the goal of every believer.
Jesus said, …apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing ( John 15:5). It seems to take us forever to really learn this truth. We keep attempting to do things in the strength of our own flesh, instead of placing all our confidence in Him.
Most of our internal agony, our struggling and frustration, come from misplaced confidence. In Philippians 3:3 Paul says that we are to put no confidence in the flesh. This means our own selves as well as our friends and family. I am not saying that we cannot trust anyone, but if we give to others or to ourselves the trust that belongs to God alone, we will not experience victory. God will not allow us to succeed until our confidence is in the right place, or more correctly, in the right Person. He is willing to give us the victory, but He must have the glory, which is the credit that is due Him.
HAVE CONFIDENCE IN GOD ALONE__________________
Thus says the Lord: Cursed [with great evil] is the strong man who trusts in and relies on frail man, making weak [human] flesh his arm, and whose mind and heart turn aside from the Lord.
Jeremiah 17:5
In order to succeed at anything, we must have confidence, but first and foremost it must be confidence in God, not confidence in anything else. We must develop confidence in God’s love, goodness and mercy. We must believe that He wants us to succeed.
God did not create us for failure. We may fail at some things on our way to success, but if we trust Him, He will take even our mistakes and work them out for our good. (Romans 8:28.)
Hebrews 3:6 tells us we must …hold fast and firm to the end our joyful and exultant confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ]. It is important to realize that a mistake is not the end of things, if we hold on to our confidence.
I have discovered that God will take my mistakes and turn them into miracles, if I continue to trust confidently in Him.
We all have a destiny, and in my case I was destined to become a Bible teacher and minister. It was God’s will for me from before the foundation of the earth that I should give birth to and operate a ministry called Life In The Word. If I had not done this, I would never have succeeded at being myself. I would have felt frustrated and unfulfilled all of my life.
Just because we are destined to do something does not mean that it will automatically happen. I went through many things while God was developing me and my ministry. Many times I felt like giving up and quitting. Often I lost my confidence concerning the call on my life. Each time I had to get my confidence back before I could go forward again. Confidence is definitely required for any of us to truly succeed at being ourselves.
BE CONSISTENTLY CONFIDENT__________________
…The man who through faith is just and upright…shall live by faith.
Romans 1:17
Confidence is actually faith in God. We must learn to be consistently confident, not occasionally confident.
For example, I had to learn to remain confident in God when someone got up and walked out while I was preaching. In the beginning of my ministry that type of occurrence brought out all of my insecurities and practically destroyed my confidence.
I had been told by friends and family that a woman should not be preaching the Word of God. I also knew that some people, particularly some men, had difficulty receiving the Word from a woman. It was confusing to me because I knew God had called me and anointed me to preach His Word. I could not have done it otherwise, but I was still affected by the rejection of people, because I was lacking in confidence. I had to grow in confidence to the place where people’s opinions and their acceptance or rejection did not alter my confidence level. My confidence had to be in God, not in people.
When the growth and progress of my ministry seemed to be painfully slow, I had to practice being consistently confident. It is easier to remain confident when we see progress, but during a time of waiting the devil attacks our confidence and attempts to destroy it.
Basically, Romans 1:17 tells us that we can go from faith to faith. I spent many years going from faith to doubt to unbelief and then back to faith. I lost a lot of precious time until I became consistent in my faith walk. Since then, I have tried to practice being confident in all things. I have learned that when I lose my confidence, I leave a door open for the devil.
During those times when Satan attacked my confidence level while I was ministering the Word, I began to realize that if I did not quickly stand against those attacks, things would go from bad to worse. I learned that once I gave the devil a foothold, he often got a stronghold. If I allowed him to steal my confidence, I suddenly had no faith for anything I was doing in the services.
I would become fearful about the offering. I would think, “What if people are offended because I am talking about money?” I would become fearful about advertising my teaching tapes. I would think, “People don’t like me talking about these tapes!” While I was teaching the Word I would think all kinds of negative thoughts that provoked fear in me, things like, “This message makes no sense. I’m boring everyone. This is not the right message for tonight; I should have preached something else.”
During those demonic attacks, which gained entrance through my lack of confidence, if anyone did get up and leave, I was certain it was because of me.
I recall an instance that occurred in Oklahoma City. A woman who was sitting in the second row got up and left about five minutes after I had begun my message. I immediately felt insecure, and Satan started shaking my confidence. I was bothered throughout the entire service. I commented to Dave about it later that evening, and he said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, that woman said she had to go to work, but she loves you so much and gets so much out of your teaching she decided if she could only be there for the worship and even five minutes of your teaching, it was worth it to her to come.”
We can readily see from this instance how Satan works to deceive us. If my confidence level had been consistent and strong, I would have thought positively instead of negatively in that situation.
God
has told me that above all else I must be consistently confident. When I lose my confidence, I give place to the devil.
The same principle applies to you.
Be confident about your gifts and calling, your ability in Christ. Believe you hear from God and that you are led by the Holy Spirit. Be confident that people like you, and you will discover that more people do. Be bold in the Lord. See yourself as a winner in Him!
MORE THAN CONQUERORS__________________
Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us.
Romans 8:37
We need to have a sense of triumph. In Romans 8:37 Paul assures us that through Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors. Believing that truth gives us confidence.
I once heard that a woman is more than a conqueror if her husband goes out, works all week and brings his paycheck home to her. But God spoke to me and said, “You’re more than a conqueror when you know that you already have the victory before you ever get a problem.”
Sometimes our confidence is shaken when trials come, especially if they are lengthy. We should have so much confidence in God’s love for us that no matter what comes against us, we know deep inside that we are more than conquerors. If we are truly confident, we have no need to fear trouble, challenges or trying times, because we know they will pass.
Whenever a trial of any kind comes against you, always remember: This too shall pass! Be confident that during the trial you will learn something that will help you in the future.