Joyce Meyer

I went to a tremendous presentation by Joyce Meyer last night. She did a hilarious job of pinpointing the idiotic things we do in our Christian lives and highligting the incredible power Scripture has over that deceptions. She used the analogy of the place "there". "In 'there'", she says, "there is a mountain that takes up nearly all the space in 'there', so all you can do is go around and around and around and around this mountain." The message of her sermon was "don't go there." Satan invites us "there" and tries to get us to live "there." The mountain can be worry, fear, human reasoning; really anything opposite of the choice to depend on Christ. Narrow path to a wide open space versus the broad path that everyone is on, which leads to destruction and a narrow place. That was such an effective analogy. Not a person there couldn't say, "Man!! I've been so stupid. I've lived 'there.'" Everyone had a hunger to not live there and really make a change.

I was really blown away by the power of this teaching. Walking away, I could not say, "God has not given me an answer to this thing I am struggling with." Because he had put it right in front of my face, answering unspoken questions.

Another good point she made was the difficulty of finding an example around you to help build your faith. She said, "Sometimes you have got to set the standard and do the hard thing when no one else is doing the right thing."

Overall, it was a very powerful message and one that gladdened the hearts of the church.