19/03/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James 4:2–3, NKJV

HEALTHY PRAYERS
Peace, in today’s Scripture, the word “amiss” means “sick, weak, miserable.” This is saying, “You won’t receive when you pray sick prayers, when you pray weak prayers.” When we pray out of selfish motives or just to make it through, that’s a sick prayer. “God, I’m so defeated. Please do something.” That prayer needs to go to Urgent Care; that prayer is on its last leg. Try a different approach; try a bold prayer. “God, there’s a lot coming against me, but I know nothing is too big for You. Thank You that the blessings You have for me are so great they will overflow to those around me.” That’s a healthy prayer. That gets God’s attention. He responds to faith-filled prayers.

Are you praying bold prayers? Are you asking God to turn situations around that look impossible? How many miracles are you missing because you’re not asking? Dare to ask, not just for your needs, but for others to be blessed through you. Ask for the big things God’s put in your heart. He’s longing to be good to you.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that You want to do great things in my life so that Your greatness will be displayed. Help me to pray bold prayers that release Your favor to open new doors and bless others. I declare that I am going to ask You for everything You have put in my heart. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

SECTION TWO
If you look carefully at the Scriptures that Satan used to try to get our Lord Jesus to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, you will find that it has nothing to do with endangering yourself to test God’s protection.

Psalm 91:11–12 is not encouraging you to throw yourself in harm’s way. It is saying that as you go about the course of your daily life, “in all your ways” the Lord will protect you. The Hebrew word for “ways” in verse 11 shows this clearly—it is the word derek, which means path, road, or journey.

As you go about your daily path, there are times when the enemy may have put snares ahead of you that you are unaware of. But God will give His angels charge over you, to go ahead of you to protect you from those snares.

It doesn’t mean that you should go and do something foolish and harmful to yourself to test God’s protection! Even as we trust the Lord for His divine protection, let’s exercise wisdom as well.

You may be familiar with Mark 16:18, which says, “If they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them.” Now, if someone challenges you to drink poison and you willfully drink it to show that it will not hurt you, that’s just being foolish.

Psalm 91:11 is talking about the paths you take as part of your normal life. Drinking poison intentionally is certainly not part of your normal life. What Mark 16:18 is saying is that should you drink something harmful without realizing it in the course of your day, the Lord will protect you from being harmed!

I have a missionary friend who told me how someone had tried to poison him while he was in the mission field. In the end, the person became a believer in the Lord Jesus because he saw the missionary innocently drinking the entire glass of poison—and suffering no ill effects. That’s how Mark 16:18 applies!

And I hope you realize that God’s protection does not always have to come in the form of spectacular angelic interventions. I believe that every day, His protection over us is so supernaturally natural that many of us don’t even realize that we have been protected.

Perhaps as you were stepping off the curb, you felt something hold or pull you back, and right then, a car sped past you. What do you think held or pulled you back? It may well have been an angel, not necessarily spectacularly, but supernaturally protecting you!

18/03/24

God has made it so easy for us in the new covenant to be directed by His wisdom and love. We no longer have to run to prophets to find out His will for us. He Himself leads us!

For those of you who want to serve the Lord, but don’t know where to start, just ask yourself what is in your heart. If you have a desire to work among children, then do so. As a new covenant believer, that’s how your Father leads you. He puts His laws in your mind and writes them on your heart!

Perhaps you feel a prompting to bless someone financially, even though the person looks prosperous. Follow that prompting because today, God speaks to you directly and He has made it easy for you to know His will through His promptings in your heart.

We all know how looks can be deceiving. For example, many con artists believe that church folks are gullible. Therefore, they dress down with a well-rehearsed sob story so as to move you to give to them.

On the other hand, there are noble people who dress up on Sundays to honor the occasion, but they may be in dire straits financially. Hence, we need to follow the promptings of our hearts and not the sight of our eyes.

So when you feel a desire to do something good for someone, do it, knowing that you have a brand-new heart that hears God, and that it is God who works in you both the willingness and the ability to do it!

17/03/24

No matter what challenge, crisis, or circumstance you are faced with today, allow His provision of peace to flow in and through you. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He came to bring you peace, to anchor, and to establish your heart even through the most turbulent of times.

No matter how boisterous the storm appears, how high the unemployment rates are or how low the world economy crashes, allow His peace to reign supreme in your heart and mind. It’s a peace that surpasses all human understanding, and it provides you safety, soundness of mind, stability, and even sweet sleep.

How can you let your heart not be troubled nor afraid? By receiving a fresh dose of perfect peace directly from the Prince of Peace today. Turn your cares into prayers. His robust peace will bring you safely through every storm!

16/03/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8, NIV

NOT A LION, LIKE A LION
Even though our enemy was defeated when Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, the challenge is that he makes a lot of noise, going about like a roaring lion. He’s not a lion. He can’t overpower you. He can’t control your destiny. He’s like a lion, which means he’s loud. He’ll roar negative thoughts, such as, “That sickness will be the end of you. You’ll never meet the right person. You’ve made too many mistakes. There’s nothing good in your future.” Do yourself a favor: Ignore the roar. Don’t believe his lies. When those thoughts come, just give him the zero sign. Remind him, “You have no power over me. You’ve already been defeated. Because I belong to God, I will walk in victory. I will live and not die. I will prosper and succeed. I will stay in peace in the midst of the storm.” When you know that what comes against you has already been defeated, it changes your outlook. You won’t live in fear, worried about your future, or let doubt hold you back. You’ll move forward knowing that God has already taken care of anything you face. The path has already been cleared.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that when the enemy is roaring, bombarding my thoughts with doubts and fears, I can resist him, firm in the faith. Thank You that he does not have any power over me. I declare that I will not be intimidated into backing down, and I will not believe the roar. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

SECOND SECTION
I encourage you to test everything you hear with God’s Word. I always tell my church to read the Bible for themselves instead of simply swallowing all that any preacher, including myself, says.

Be wise and don’t just swallow everything—hook, line, sinker, fisherman, and even his boots! Be discerning when you hear something that does not sit well in your spirit, such as when a preacher tells you that “God gives you sicknesses to teach you a lesson.”

Ask yourself, “Is this in line with the new covenant of God’s unmerited favor? Are there new covenant scriptures to back up this teaching?”

The answer is obvious once you align it with Jesus and what He has done on the cross for you! Why would God give you sicknesses when Jesus has taken every sickness and disease upon His own body at the cross?

With full assurance in your heart that sickness is not from God, you can have faith to be healed! But what assurance can you have if you believe the lie that the condition is from God?

Now, instead of thinking that God is against you, you realize that He is on your side! Your confidence is restored, faith is renewed and His healing can flow unabated through every cell, tissue, and organ in your body!

Let me just share with you the words of Miles Coverdale, who said, “It shall greatly help thee to understand scripture, if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom, and unto whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstance, considering what goeth before, and what followeth after.”

Essentially, he was saying that to understand the Bible, we need to read everything in its context. What powerful advice from the man who translated and produced the first English Bible in the 16th century.

My friend, rightly divide the covenants whenever you read the Bible and you will never be ashamed. Now that you have received Jesus into your life, you are under the new covenant and it is your new covenant right to enjoy Jesus’ unmerited favor to succeed in life!

14/3/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”
Matthew 19:26, NLT

SEEING BEYOND
Most people are limited by their logic, but logic can be a dream stealer. If you look at your life situations only from a human point of view—what you can do, your resources, your connections, your experience—you’re going to miss the greatness God put in you. The promises that God has put in your heart, what He’s whispered to you in the night, may not seem possible. All your logic says, “There’s no way. It’s too big. It’s never happened in your family. You don’t have the experience.” But that’s okay. Jesus says that just the opposite is true, that with God all things are possible.

Here’s the question: Are you going to let your human reasoning, what you can see and what’s natural, set the limits for your life? Or are you going to see beyond the logical? Are you going to believe that the all-powerful Creator of the universe, the God who flung stars into space, the God who parts Red Seas, will make a way where you don’t see a way?

A PRAYER FOR TODAY“Father, thank You for being the all-powerful Creator of the universe, for reigning as sovereign over my life and as the One who makes all things possible. There are things in my life that I want to see changed that seem unchangeable, but I trust You. I believe that You will make a way for it. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
[3/14, 1:42 AM] Odia Abuja: I’d like you to picture a strong and healthy tree. A strong and healthy tree does not worry about producing fruit or getting rid of the dead leaves on it.

“Father, thank You for being the all-powerful Creator of the universe, for reigning as sovereign over my life and as the One who makes all things possible. There are things in my life that I want to see changed that seem unchangeable, but I trust You. I believe that You will make a way for it. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

SECTION TWO

I’d like you to picture a strong and healthy tree. A strong and healthy tree does not worry about producing fruit or getting rid of the dead leaves on it.

As long as it receives the right amount of sunshine, water, and nutrients, it will have healthy sap flowing in it that is brimming with all the right nutrients and that naturally pushes out all the dead leaves. And as long as its inward life—its healthy sap life—keeps flowing, new leaves will spring forth on this tree and good fruits will naturally grow and flourish on all the branches.

My friend, as you begin to receive the sunshine of God’s favor and take in the water of His Word, as you begin to feed on Jesus’ forgiveness in your life and your righteous standing in Christ, the dead leaves of guilt, fear, addictions, and every type of disorder will begin to be pushed out by the new life of Jesus within you.

The transformation you will experience, when it is not based on your own discipline and self-control, is truly effortless. It is no longer, “How will I overcome this anger problem?” or “How will I beat this cigarette addiction?” or “How can I curb this habit of overeating when I am stressed and insecure?” Instead, it becomes, “How will Jesus in me overcome this anger problem, this cigarette addiction, this habit of overeating?”

The fruits of your success will be effortless. One by one, the addictions, dysfunctions, and negative emotions will begin to drop off from your life like dead leaves, and new leaves (new positive thoughts and attitudes), new flowers (new desires and dreams), and new fruit (new behaviors and habits) will begin to flourish in your life.

Jesus’ word to you today is simply to “abide in Me,” and you will bear much fruit.