Joyce Meyer - Life in the Word: Devotional

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Amplified Bible (AMP). The Amplified Bible, Old Testament copyright 1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Scripture quotations marked MESSAGE are taken from The Message: New Testament With Psalms and Proverbs by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995 by Eugene H. Peterson. NavPress, P. O. Box 35001, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80935. Used by permission.

Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

FaithWords Edition

Copyright 1998 by Joyce Meyer

Life In The Word, Inc.

P.O. Box 655

Fenton, Missouri 63026

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

FaithWords

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: October 2002

FaithWords is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The FaithWords name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-446-55344-5

When you invest time each day in your relationship with the Father, you will see great results. In the LIFE IN THE WORD DEVOTIONAL, bestselling author Joyce Meyer shares her personal insights and favorite Scriptures to strengthen you to face the day. Take the time to energize, encourage and refresh yourself spiritually with her brief teachings as you learn how to keep your joy and peace in the midst of obstacles and frustrations.

Presented to
By
Date
Occasion

Joyce Meyers life serves as an example of the magnitude of Gods capability to fulfill His plan in our lives no matter how unlikely the possibility may seem. In this book you can learn how to experience the same type of victory in your life that Joyce Meyer has experienced in hers. You will glean from the knowledge she has gained of God and His Word on her God-led journey from ashes to beauty as you read these devotions covering a wide variety of subjects.

Joyce teaches that progress is made as we consistently keep doing what we know to do in God. By reading and applying one devotion in this book at a time on a regular basis, God will use these scripturally based teachings to show Himself to you. He will show you how much He loves you and wants you to learn how to open yourself up to receive all the blessings He has for you.

God wants you to have the type of life He sent Jesus to provide for those who will believe in Him and receive it. Jesus said, I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows) (John 10:10).

As you spend time with God, you can know that He is working to bring the changes you desire in your life. Begin walking on the path, in the plan, God has for you today!

The Publisher

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

JOHN 3:16

John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son as a sacrifice for it.

God loves you! You are special to Him. God doesnt love you because you are a good person or do everything right. He loves you because He is love. Love is not something God does; it is something He is. It is His nature.

Gods love is pure and ever flowing. It cannot be earned or deserved. It must be received by faith.

In Ephesians 3:19 Paul prays that we may come to really know this love. When we do, we are strengthened in our inner man. When we are strengthened inwardly, outward difficulties cannot defeat us.

Unless you have received it yourself, you cannot give love away. Let God love you. Receive His love for you. Bathe in it. Meditate on it. Let it strengthen you. Then give it away.

Say This:

God loves me. I am special to Him. I receive His everlasting love today and am strengthened in my inner man.

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes.

ISAIAH 61:3 KJV

Multiplied thousands of people have been hurt severely in their lives. They come from broken relationships or abusive backgrounds that are still producing bad fruit in their personalities.

God wants to send the wind of the Holy Spirit into our lives (Acts 2:1-4), to blow away the ashes that are left from Satans attempt to destroy us, and to replace those ashes with beauty.

The Lord has taught me that consistently bad fruit comes from a bad root. No matter how much we may try to get rid of the bad fruit, unless the root is dealt with, more bad fruit will crop up somewhere else.

God created us to be loved. He wants to love us; He wants us to love each other, and He wants us to love and accept ourselves. Without this foundation of love and acceptance, there will be no joy and peace.

Some of us need to be transplanted. If we started out in the wrong soil, Jesus will transplant us so that we can get rooted and grounded in His love, as the Bible teaches.

Know that you are valuable, unique, loved, and special. When this is your foundation and your root, you will produce good fruit.

Ask God to give you beauty for ashes.

Say This:

I was created for love. God loves me and wants me to love Him, love others, and love and accept myself.

All whom My Father gives (entrusts) to Me will come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will most certainly not cast out [I will never, no never, reject one of them who comes to Me].

JOHN 6:37

God gave me a word for a meeting I was preparing to lead. It is for anyone who needs to receive it:

Many of My people are in prison because they wont accept themselves. Many of them are gifted and talented, but they wont express themselves because they fear rejection. They fear man. They fear what people will think.

I want to love My people, but they hold Me at arms length and wont let Me really love them because they have been hurt by others. They fear I will reject them, as others have, because of their weaknesses. But I will never reject them.

Tell them I love them.

Tell them to stop trying so hard to be acceptable to Me and to realize I accept them as they are. Tell them I dont want perfect performance from them. I simply want them to love Me and let Me love them.

God will not reject you because of your weaknesses or mistakes. He desires to heal you from past hurts caused by rejection. He wants you to know He will never reject you.

Pray This:

Father, I thank You that You love me. I thank You that I am always accepted and never rejected. In Jesus name, amen.

A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

JOHN 13:34 NIV