If she had one more message to preach about,
it would be to encourage Christians to “love,
love, and then love some more,” inspirational
Christian speaker Joyce Meyer says.
During a recent guest sermon at Life.Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Meyer explained
that love is the most important thing Jesus said
we have to do for ourselves, for others, and for
Him.
Meyer, founder of Joyce Meyer Ministries, says
that a turning point in her life was learning that
it is impossible to be both selfish and happy,
saying that although she didn’t have financial
stresses and had a good husband and
children, she was unable to be happy because she was too self-involved.
Then, God spoke to her, telling her “you’re not
happy because you’re selfish.”
“It’s just not possible to have yourself on your
mind all the time and be happy,” Meyer says.
She points specifically to John 13:35, which
calls on Christians to show their faith to others
through love: “By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Non-Christians are “not going to know us by
our church attendance or by the bumper
sticker in our car,” Meyer explains. “The only
thing that’s going to convince the world that
Jesus is real is if we who call ourselves
Christians can learn to walk in love everywhere we go.”
The evangelical leader goes on to say that
Christians need to simplify their understanding
of love. “Love is not a sermon, it’s not a theory,
it’s not a book, it’s how we treat people,” she
says.
The true challenge to being loving is to see
how we treat people who cannot give us
anything in return, Meyer explains.
We as Christians should ask ourselves “how do
I treat people that don’t have anything I want?
[…] that’s what important to God.”
Meyer references 1 Corinthians 12:31, which
speaks on the overarching theme of love.
“But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate
the greatest and best gifts and graces (the
higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I
will show you a still more excellent way [one
that is better by far and the highest of them all –
love],” the verses read, according to the AMP version.
We as Christians need an overarching theme of:
“‘I’m doing this because I love God, and I’m
doing this because I love you.'”
This is because “anything that doesn’t flow
dies,” and therefore God’s love needs to flow
out of us to stay alive.
“God’s love flows to us, it ministers to us, but
then it has to flow out of us, otherwise it
becomes like a stagnant pool of water and our
lives just begin to stink,” Meyer says.
This ties in with 1 John 3:17 and the
importance of maintaining an open heart of
compassion through which God’s love can flow
to others.
“But if anyone has this world’s goods
(resources for sustaining life) and sees his
brother and fellow believer in need, yet closes
his heart of compassion against him, how can
the love of God live and remain in him?” the
verses read.
Meyer concludes her message by encouraging
Christians to keep an open heart of
compassion for others, so their hearts may
serve as vessels through which God’s love can
flow.
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