02/04/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Yet [Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Romans 4:20–21, NIV

UNWAVERING
When Abraham and Sarah first received God’s promise of a son, they were too old in the natural to have children. Rather than trust God, they tried to help Him out by producing a son through Sarah’s maid, but that only caused all kinds of strife. Abraham eventually learned this principle that you don’t have to strive, force, or manipulate to receive the promise of God. He started believing and became fully persuaded that at the right time God would bring it to pass.

How we wait for God’s promises is up to us. We can wait discouraged, saying, “God, when is it going to happen?” Or we can switch over into faith. We can be a believer and not a doubter. When you keep honoring God, giving Him glory and not wavering in unbelief, you’re going to come into these moments when things happen that only God could make happen. It’s the hand of God that defies the odds, that makes ways where there was no way. Stay in peace. You have the most powerful force in the universe on your side.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that You are my God and that’s reason enough to never waver in believing Your promises. Thank You that my faith can become fully persuaded in Your power. I am going to keep believing, keep praising, and keep honoring You for what’s on the way. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

SECTION TWO
Actively fill yourself up with the promises of God’s protection. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17 NASB).

What are you hearing today? The word of the world? The word of Wall Street? Or the word of Christ?

I want to encourage you today to build a shield of faith around your family. Listen, believe, speak. Would you say it with me? Listen, believe, speak. Listen to Christ-centered messages, believe the Word of God, and speak out loud the promises you want to see in your life.

I believe that the Lord wants to seal this truth in your life today. Say this out loud with me right now:

Lord Jesus, You are our family’s refuge, our fortress, our God—in You we trust. We don’t trust in our own wisdom, our own limited intelligence, and our own abilities. We trust in You. We trust in Your grace and Your love for us. We trust You to keep us in Your divine health and strength all the days of our lives. We trust You to keep us from terror, from fear, from dangers, from disease, and from accidents. In You we trust. Amen.

01/04/24

Be encouraged to know that you don’t have to be afraid of the battles in your mind. Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

Based on God’s Word, right believing is the key that unlocks the treasures of God in your life, giving you access to the fullness of His love, grace, favor, blessings, and forgiveness.

Jesus has already paid the price on Calvary’s hill. The hindrance then between you and your victory is your wrong beliefs. The battle has to do with your beliefs.

The enemy knows that if he can control your thought life, he can manipulate your emotions and feelings. For instance, if he can make you entertain thoughts of guilt, failure, and defeat, you will begin to feel lousy about yourself, physically weak, and even depressed.

Our emotions are flags that indicate to us what our thoughts are. Thank God for emotions. They tell us if something is terribly wrong with our thoughts.

Many of us are not cognizant when our thinking slides down a slippery slope to fear, doubt, pessimism, and anxiety. However, God has designed us in such a way that we can quickly recognize our thinking through our emotions.

Try this: whenever you begin to sense negative emotions, such as fear, worry, guilt, and anger, stop and ask yourself, “What am I thinking?”

Your emotions follow quickly at the heels of your thoughts. If your thoughts are negative, you will naturally produce negative emotions. Conversely, if your thoughts are positive in Christ, you will produce positive emotions.

That is why there is a battle for your mind. The devil wants to keep your thoughts negative so that he can keep you defeated. He is a master of mind games, and he doesn’t play fair. When he first tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, he made them doubt God’s motives by insinuating that God was deliberately withholding something good from them, when in reality God was protecting them.

The devil’s strategy hasn’t changed—he is still using fears, lies, accusations, guilt, and condemnation to ensnare believers today and to make them doubt God’s perfect love, forgiveness, and superabounding grace.

My friend, are there areas you are fearful and anxious about today? Realize that those fears and anxieties indicate the presence of wrong beliefs in your life that God wants you to be freed from.

Replace those wrong beliefs with right beliefs based on God’s Word, and you will eradicate those fears and anxieties. Through the power of right believing, you will win the battle for your mind.

31/03/24

It is wonderful to know that God does not measure and judge you based on your performance today. Instead, He looks at Jesus, and as Jesus is, that is how He sees you. His Word declares that “love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.”

As new covenant believers, we do not have to fear the day of judgment simply because all our sins have been completely judged at the cross, and as Jesus is, so are we! Notice that it does not say that “as Jesus was on earth, so are we in this world.” That would have been amazing enough because during Jesus’ ministry on earth, healing, blessings, and abundance followed Him everywhere He went.

Yet, that is not what the Word says. What it says is, “as Jesus is” (notice the use of the present tense). In other words, as He is right now, so are we in this world.

What a powerful revelation! Just consider where Jesus is today. The Bible tells us:

He [God] raised Him [Jesus] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.—Ephesians 1:20–23

Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand today, in a position of power and authority. If I were you, I would take some time to meditate on this passage because the Bible tells us that as Jesus is, so are we right now, in this world.

Meditate on how as Jesus is “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named,” so are we! See it in God’s Word for yourself. See yourself as Jesus is, far above every principality and power, far above every disease and physical condition, far above every kind of fear, depression, and addiction, and begin to reign over every negative situation in your life today!

30/03/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
HIS FAVOR LASTS A LIFETIME.
PSALM 30:5, NIV

SUPERSEDE
God’s favor upon your life is not for a few years, just for when you’re in your twenties or thirties. No, His favor is for as long as you’re breathing. We can all look back and see these moments of favor where God opened doors we could never open. He had you at the right place to meet your spouse. He promoted you when you weren’t next in line. He healed you when it didn’t look good. The good news is God never does His greatest feats in your yesterdays; they’re always in your tomorrows. Yes, we should celebrate and be grateful for what He’s done. But He’s taking you from glory to glory. Your future is going to supersede anything you’ve seen in the past. The Scripture says, “You haven’t seen, heard, or imagined what God has in store for those who love Him.” That’s why we can live with expectancy, excited, hopeful, and full of praise. You’re about to step into one of these moments of favor that takes you to a new level of your destiny.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that You are the Most High God and that Your favor toward me lasts for my lifetime. Thank You that my future is going to supersede what I’ve seen in my past. I declare that I am going to live with a great expectancy for what is coming. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

SECTION TWO
One of the reasons we can rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus has borne the punishment that was due us: forgiveness and healing go hand in hand.

The Bible says that He who never broke a single law of God “was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). Do you see how healing and the price for our forgiveness are so closely intertwined in God’s Word?

Many today are struggling to heal themselves from their sicknesses, diseases, mental dysfunctions, and addictions. I want to announce to you today that our part is to receive forgiveness from Jesus and to believe that we are forgiven every single day. The more forgiveness-conscious we are, the more easily we will experience healing and liberty from every bodily ailment, mental oppression, and destructive habit.

One of my favorite psalms goes like this: “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases” (Ps. 103:1–3).

Now which comes first? The consciousness that all your sins are forgiven precedes the healing of all your diseases!

And the operative word here is all. Some of us are comfortable with receiving partial forgiveness in certain areas of our lives. But we refuse to allow Jesus’ forgiveness to touch some dark areas—areas that we can’t let go of and that we can’t forgive ourselves for. Whatever those mistakes may be, I encourage you to allow Jesus to forgive you of all your sins and receive healing for all your diseases.

My friend, let the past go. Let the mistakes go. Allow yourself to be free, and learn to forgive yourself by receiving with an open heart Jesus’ total and complete forgiveness today.

29/03/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

Today’s Scripture
And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
Matthew 8:26, ESV

AWAKEN FAITH
We all face dreams and obstacles that seem too big for us, but God has all the power in the world. The key is our faith. God works through our faith. If you believe little, you’ll receive little. If you think small and talk small, you’ll get stuck where you are.

The Scripture talks about different levels of faith. In Matthew 8, the disciples were in a boat with Jesus when a huge storm arose and the waves swept over the boat. They woke Jesus up and cried out, “We’re about to die!” He responded, “Why do you have such little faith? You’ve seen the miracles I’ve done. You know I can do anything. Why are you still stuck at this low level of faith?” If you’re going to reach the fullness of your destiny, it’s not going to happen with weak faith, doubting faith, or average faith. It’s going to take great faith. The good news is, it’s in you, but you have to awaken your great faith. You have to dare to believe big, to take the limits off.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that You bring obstacles across my path so big that only You can make it happen. Help me to be bold, to dare to believe, to dare to take some new steps of faith. I declare that I will not stay stuck at a low level of faith. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

SECTION TWO

Once, the Lord showed me a vision of what happened at the cross. I saw how all the sins of the entire human race (lies, deceit, envy, bitterness, adultery, addiction, bondage, murder) and all the consequences of sin (fear, sicknesses, guilt, disease, and condemnation) swirled around Jesus like evil spirits and demons, laughing heinously, taunting and tormenting Him. Jesus became like a magnet for all sin and of His own volition accepted all this sin into His own body.

You and I will never be able to imagine the excruciating pain that tore through His body at the cross. Every malignant cancer, every tumor, every sickness, and every disease came upon Him at the same time.

He who knew no sin took upon Himself the mountainous weight of all men’s darkest and foulest sins. He took it all Himself.

The Word says that “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17). “Himself”—a singular, reflexive pronoun that signifies the exclusion of you and me.

Since He Himself has taken the full punishment, judgment, and condemnation for all sin, you and I are excluded from every punishment, judgment, and condemnation for all sin when we receive Him as our Savior.

But the story did not end there. Jesus did not die on the cross in the middle of receiving upon Himself all of humanity’s sins. He took it all and accepted it all in His body. Then the fire of God’s judgment was unleashed upon His own precious Son, and only when every last sin had been punished did Jesus cry out, “IT IS FINISHED!” moments before breathing His last breath (John 19:30).

Can you see that? Jesus held on at the cross until every single sin that you have ever committed and will ever commit was punished in His own body. That is why we call what Jesus has accomplished at the cross a “finished work.”

Now, what is your part today? Your part is to believe with your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life and that all your sins have been paid for at the cross.

If you believe that all your sins have been forgiven, sin will have no more power over you. You don’t have to walk around with “a mountain of sin” on your shoulders anymore because this “mountain of sin” was laid squarely on the shoulders of another—Jesus. He Himself has already paid the price for your sins, so stop condemning yourself!

28/03/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
Psalm 78:41, NKJV

NO LIMITS
When God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, He told them that they would make it into the Promised Land, but along the way through the wilderness they had delays, setbacks, and opposition. They got discouraged and started complaining. “What are we going to eat? How are we going to survive? The people in the land look like giants. We don’t have a chance.” The whole time, God was whispering, “I’m in control. I have provision for every season. I’ll defeat those enemies for you.” But they let the doubt and what they saw talk them out of what God promised. They limited God, and that generation never went in.

What we do in the face of doubt and negative voices telling us God’s promises are not going to work out will determine whether we see the fullness of our destiny. God allows us to be in situations and puts things in our spirit that are too big for us to work out on our own. Let what God says override the doubt, and believe that it’s still going to happen.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that You are the Holy One of Israel, and You are not limited by what limits me. Help me to remember that You can do the impossible when I’m tempted to doubt and listen to negative voices. I believe that what You say is still going to happen. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

SECTION TWO

As we press deeper into the power of right believing, I want to show you practical ways in which you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Right believing is all about renewing your mind and uprooting the wrong beliefs that shape your thinking and behavior. That’s why the Word of God says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (Rom. 12:2 NLT).

God wants to change the way we think by shifting our thoughts from self-occupation to Christ-occupation. Our human tendency is to be focused on ourselves. We are prone to excessive self-introspection and are easily susceptible to becoming preoccupied with ourselves rather than with Jesus.

Many of our greatest pains, struggles, failures, and miseries stem from us being “I” centered. Oftentimes, we are engrossed with thoughts such as, “Have I done enough?”, “What is wrong with me?”, and “Why do I have so many weaknesses?” Unfortunately, when we become overly occupied with self, we become obsessed, oppressed, and inevitably depressed.

My friend, is your mind filled constantly with thoughts of how you have failed, how you have missed it, and how unworthy you are? That is symptomatic of someone who is clearly self-occupied. Thoughts like that cause a person to develop an inferiority complex.

People who suffer from this are ever ready to condemn themselves. Their minds are clouded with negativity and pessimism.

But self-occupation can also manifest at the other end of the pendulum’s swing as a superiority complex. There are people who think they are always better than everyone else. They are painfully arrogant, and they think their perspectives and opinions are always right. Whether you are feeling superior or inferior, your focus is still on yourself, and in the end that causes you great pain, misery, and heartache.

Only in Christ will you experience true transformation and walk neither in pride nor in false humility. When you are Christ-occupied, the flesh in you becomes inconsequential and you begin manifesting all the lovely, wholesome, and beautiful attributes of Jesus unconsciously.

The fruit of the Spirit, such as love, joy, peace, and kindness, flow through you effortlessly when your mind is renewed and occupied with the person of Jesus. It’s an inevitability! You cannot touch His grace and not become holy any more than you can touch water and not get wet.