16/01/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

Today’s Scripture
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
Romans 8:13, NIV

WHO RULES WITHIN?
There’s a battle taking place inside us between the flesh and the Spirit. The flesh represents our carnal nature that shows out in ways such as jealousy, pride, and compromise. It’s the easy way to live. You just do whatever you feel and don’t have to be disciplined. If someone’s rude to you, you’re rude back to them. If you don’t feel like having a good attitude, you go through the day sour. The flesh wants to rule and have control.

Today’s Scripture calls it living by the dictates of the flesh, which is described as a dictator that makes all the decisions for you. It tells you what to do and when to do it. You just follow orders. If you get stuck in traffic, your flesh will tell you, “Get upset.” If a coworker leaves you out of a meeting, the flesh says, “Get offended.” The problem is that if you keep obeying the flesh, “you will die.” That doesn’t necessarily mean physically, but your dreams will die, your relationships won’t flourish, and your gifts won’t come out as they should.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father, thank You that I can choose to be disciplined and kind and say no to the flesh and its desires. Thank You that every day I can take my feelings off the throne and allow Your Spirit to control my life. Help me to live by the Spirit and do what’s right. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

SECTION TWO

I’m sure you want the Lord to manifest Himself as the God of peace when you are fearful. So let’s go deeper into what the “God of peace” means.

Don’t forget that Paul was Jewish, so when he said “the God of peace be with you,” he was saying “Jehovah Shalom be with you.” “Jehovah Shalom” is Hebrew for “the God of peace.” Now, the first appearance of the name Jehovah Shalom is in the Old Testament story of Gideon in Judges 6.

As we read Gideon’s story, we discover that the Midianites terrorized Israel day and night, descending upon them like a swarm of marauding locusts and destroying their crops and pillaging their livestock. Fearful of their cruel enemies, the Israelites hid in dens and caves in the mountains.

It is no wonder Gideon was petrified and hid himself at the bottom of an abandoned winepress to thresh the measly stalks of dry grain he had somehow managed to scavenge. He was bound by fear and overcome by all the news of terror that surrounded him.

In the midst of Gideon’s fear, “the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!'” (Judg. 6:12).

When you find the expression “the Angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament, it usually refers to our Lord Jesus in His preincarnate state. Jesus Himself appeared to Gideon when he was in the pit of fear and called him a mighty man of valor. Isn’t that amazing?

Are there moments when you feel besieged by fear? When you hear reports of terror or exposure to some virus, do you feel fearful and anxious? Has fear driven you into hiding? The truth is, regardless of how you feel, when our Lord Jesus looks at you right now, He sees you as a mighty man or mighty woman of courage.

Isn’t it amazing how our Lord looks at us? It’s not how we see ourselves that defines us; it is how our Lord Jesus sees us that defines us. That’s why we read His Word. We read it to discover what His Word says about us. My friend, no matter what state you are in right now and how messed up your life might be, the Lord Jesus sees the best in you.

He sees your potential, your gifting, your call, and your destiny to do great things in this life! And as the ending of Gideon’s story shows, He will guide you and cause you to be a testimony of His protection as you trust in Him and see yourself and your situations through His eyes.

16/01/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
CHILDREN, YOU BELONG TO GOD, AND YOU HAVE DEFEATED THESE ENEMIES. GOD’S SPIRIT IS IN YOU AND IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE ONE WHO IS IN THE WORLD.
1 JOHN 4:4, CEV

The Battle Has Already Been Won
We all face situations that should hold us back. What we’re up against is bigger and stronger, and it’s easy to be intimidated and live in fear, thinking that we can never move forward. But the Scripture says that what’s against you has already been defeated. God is not in the heavens fighting with the enemy, trying to free you, heal you, deliver you, or favor you. The battle has already been won. Two thousand years ago, when Jesus rose from the grave, He defeated death and everything that can hold you back. He took care of it once and for all. The writer of Hebrews says, “He rendered the enemy powerless” or “brought him to naught,” which means zero. It wasn’t even close. It was a shutout.

Here’s the beauty: Because you belong to God, because you’re His child, you have already defeated the enemy. You need to see anything you face in life as defeated. Don’t pray for victory; pray from victory. “Father, thank You that I am free, healed, forgiven, prosperous, and victorious.”

A Prayer for Today
“Father, thank You that every force of the enemy was broken when Jesus rose from the dead and took the keys of death and hell from him. Thank You for living in me and rendering the enemy powerless. I declare that I belong to You and I am going to walk in victory. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

Our enemy the devil is well aware that the moment you learn to receive God’s grace, you will start to reign in life. So he has been working hard to prevent you from receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

The devil has been using controversy as a device down through church history to prevent believers from having access to the most powerful truths of God. He has built fences of controversy around healing, prosperity, and grace (calling them heresies) to keep believers from reigning over sickness, poverty, and sin. You can always tell how powerful a truth is by the number of controversies the devil surrounds it with!

Please pay close attention to what I am saying. Not all controversies are based on the truth of God’s Word. We have to test everything against what the Bible says.

Nevertheless, controversy is a tool that the devil uses to prevent God’s people from accessing His truths. He is a crafty liar and deceitful thief, so we have to base what we believe on the Scriptures and test everything against it. If you want to know the truth about God’s grace, study His Word yourself and see what it has to say about grace!

Pastor Prince, are you one of those “prosperity gospel” preachers?

My friend, there is no such thing as a “prosperity gospel.” There is only one gospel in the Bible—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

However, when you believe the gospel of Jesus, which is based entirely on His grace, it will result in health and abundance of provision. In fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ leads to blessings, success, healing, restoration, protection, financial breakthroughs, security, peace, wholeness, and much more!

God blesses you not because you are good, but because He is good. It is based on His faithfulness and goodness toward you. It is not contingent on your performance, but on His undeserved favor.

If it were contingent on how good you are, then it would no longer be grace but the law. It would be deserved favor. This is the difference between the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace:

Law is deserved favor—When you obey the commandments perfectly, you will be blessed.

Grace is undeserved favor—Jesus obeyed God perfectly, and you will be blessed by believing in Him.

My friend, which covenant are you under today? Law or grace? Deserved favor or undeserved favor? How do you see God—as your Judge or loving Father?

If you think that being blessed by God today is dependent on your doing, your ability to keep the law, and your ability to make yourself righteous, I ask you to test your understanding of grace against the Scriptures.

Read today’s Scripture again and open your heart to what it says about God and His grace toward you: God is your loving Father in heaven who loves you and has nothing but good gifts for you. He sent His Son to die for you so that you can enjoy every one of these good gifts. Today, receive His abundant grace!

Let me now encourage you with a praise report on the power of praying and speaking Psalm 91 over our loved ones. This came from Brenda, who lives in Connecticut:

My twenty-four-year-old son, Lee, was crossing the street on a crosswalk in New York City when he was struck by a cab on the leg and thrown onto the hood of the car before landing on the street. Miraculously, he was totally fine after the accident! He did not have a single broken bone, bruise, or even a scratch.

I recall that just a few days before the accident, we were having a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving. Suddenly, I saw in my mind an image of Lee on a slab and dead in a morgue. I immediately dismissed that image, proclaimed that my son would live and not die, and pleaded the blood of Jesus over him.

I didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen, but just thanked God for His protection for my son and all my family members in Jesus’ name. The morning of Lee’s accident, I also felt led to pray God’s protection over my children from car accidents—not something that I usually do.

Then, later that afternoon, I received a text from Lee telling me about the accident and that he was unharmed. After hearing my son was fine, I got on my knees and cried tears of joy, thanking my wonderful Father God! I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit warned me before the accident happened so I could pray for his protection.

My son had just been awarded an awesome position in his company and we were all celebrating his wonderful new title and how God had opened up doors of favor for him. The accident happened just one day before he started his new job.

At the time I learned about Lee’s accident, I was just listening to Joseph Prince’s message on Psalm 91. I used to pray it over my family all the time, but over the years, I had forgotten about this powerful psalm.

I am thankful to Joseph Prince for reminding me of the power of Psalm 91. When we pray the Word of God over our children or any situation, we release His angels to work on our behalf.

Our God is such a good God, isn’t He? I trust that you are beginning to see how important it is to invest your time in getting His living and powerful Word into your heart, praying it over yourself and your loved ones, and speaking it out loud.

14/01/24

Some people think that when they worship God, they are giving something to Him. On the contrary, I believe that as we worship and praise Him, He is giving to us, imparting His life, wisdom, and power into our lives, renewing our minds and physical bodies as well in His sweet presence.

Worship is simply a response on our part to His love for us. We don’t have to, but when we experience His love and grace in our lives, we want to. It’s a response birthed out of a revelation in our hearts of just how great, how awesome, how majestic, and how altogether lovely our Lord and Savior truly is.

As we worship Him and become utterly lost in His magnificent love for us, something happens to us. We are forever changed and transformed in His presence. All fears, worries, and anxieties depart when Jesus is exalted in our worship.

We have seen this demonstrated through a worship collection, A Touch of His Presence (Volumes 1 and 2), that we compiled from spontaneous worship songs that flowed from my spirit during intimate times of worship when we simply occupied ourselves with the person of Jesus.

I would sing out what God was putting in my heart, and He would manifest His loving presence. That’s when the gifts of the Spirit would operate and healings would break out among the people in the congregation.

We received a letter from Emma in Germany who said, “Whenever the devil tries to attack me with symptoms of a disease, I would listen to these worship CDs and worship Jesus, my Lord, my Savior, and my Redeemer. I would also often partake of the Holy Communion while listening to the worship songs. After a few minutes, all the symptoms would disappear!” Another brother described how this worship music freed him from paralyzing, irrational fear and chronic sleep problems.

I share these testimonies with you because I believe that some of you want to worship God, but you may not know where to begin when you are alone at home. If that sounds like you, then start by getting ahold of anointed Christian music that can fill your room with the presence of the Lord.

Allow the music to simply wash over you like rivers of living waters. Let His presence flush out every fear and every anxiety. Let His love take away the cares that burden you. Let Jesus be magnified and glorified, and watch Him turn all things around for your good!

13/01/24

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
TODAY’S WORD

Today’s Scripture
…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Hebrews 12:2, NKJV

WHAT’S YOUR STORY?
We all have a story of how we see ourselves and our future. It comes from how we were raised, what people have said, our successes and failures. Perhaps your story is negative. “I’ve been hurt too much. I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t have the talent or the experience.” Do you know what’s stopping you? Your story. You’re being limited by what you believe about yourself, by how you see your circumstances. The story that you’ve written will override what anyone else says. It’s even more powerful than the facts. You can be incredibly gifted and have a great personality, but if you tell yourself that you’re average, your gifts won’t come out as they should.

Is the story you’re telling yourself keeping you from rising higher? Why don’t you tell yourself a new story? God has already written your story. God says His plans for you are for good, to give you a future and a hope. He calls you a masterpiece, valuable, victorious, and an overcomer. The key is to get your story in line with His story.

A Prayer for Today
“Father, thank You that Jesus is the author of my story, and He will finish what He has written for my life. Thank You that Your plans for me are good, to give me a future and a hope. Help me to get my story in line with the story You have written for me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

SECTION TWO
When Jesus was crucified on the cross, not only did He wash away all your sins with His precious blood, but He also gave you His very own righteousness as a gift (2 Cor. 5:21). Do you know that you can never lose this righteousness? Your righteousness is a gift from Jesus because it is entirely dependent on His perfect performance and His perfect obedience, not yours.

So my friend, because you are forever righteous in Christ, God hears your prayers every time you pray. Apostle James tells us that the earnest prayer of a righteous man—that’s you—”produces wonderful results”. Not just plain results, but wonderful results!

What provision do you need today, righteous one? Favor for an interview, wisdom to clear your debts, healing for your children? As a righteous man or woman of God, boldly ask Jesus for what you need in prayer!