An Apology to Joyce Meyer

 

Joyce Meyer is a great teacher.

I learned a lot from her when I was a younger Christian. I watched her a great deal in my late 20's, for example. I even read her book The Battlefield of the Mind.

Her teachings on righteousness really helped me to see who I was in Christ. "I am the righteousness of God" was not some phrase I learned to claim over myself only when I started listening to Pastor Joseph Prince.

In 2008, I was learning so much about the Gift of Righteousness, and that God gives us all these blessings because of our righteous standing before God, in Christ! And I learned about this from Joyce.

I knew and believed, and spoke out the verses in 2 Corinthians 5:21, and the other verses that touch on our righteous standing in Christ.

Yet in 2008 and 2009, my life was still full of struggles. I found myself warring in my mind a great deal. Instead of feeling a sense of peace and carefree joy, I felt that I was all alone in the world. I wondered how I could live this life, and I didn't know whether God was really on my side or not.

One thing lead to another, and all the temporal blessings that I enjoyed in my life, I ended up throwing away. I was under so much stress, convinced that there was so much work that I had to do. There was no assurance of faith, and I was constantly plagued with worry about what would happen to me if I sinned, or took a wrong step, or did something amiss.

The world still centered around me, and I felt that everything depended on me.

When I was down and out in my life, during the 2009-2010 period, I became really bitter towards preachers like Joyce Meyer. My life had fallen apart, and I was writhing with guilt and shame because I could not overcome the bad habits, the harsh thoughts, the wrong believing in my life. I felt like I was in an abyss, a cycle of shame that I could not escape. What was all this talk about blessings and our righteous standing, if I was still struggling with all these problems?

Then I discovered the Gospel of Grace through Pastor Prince, I learned about the Old and New Covenants, and I realized that all our sins are forgiven--pass, present, future--because of Jesus and His Finished Work on the Cross.

At that point, I started making cutting, bitting, critical remarks against preachers and teachers of God's Word like Joyce Meyer. "She didn't teach me about this or that! She didn't explain to me about some things and others things! She's just another church lady!" And so on.

Entering into this new, grand year, fifteen years later! I have been seeing more of Jesus than I have ever seen before. Because I have been praying the Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3 prayers at great length, Jesus has really revealed Himself to me.

And that's the whole point! I see Him more clearly, more fully, more completely as a Living Savior! All that time from 2008 to 2010, I was rooted in His love, but did not know it. All that time, I had already become the righteousness of God in Christ, but I was deceived, in bondage to the mixture of wrong believing and bad teaching of my parents and their traditions. I was still under law, struggling with the classical Galatian error.

The problem was not with what Joyce Meyer had been teaching. When she talked about the gift of righteousness, when she talked about all the blessings accorded to us because of our righteous standing in Christ, she was SPOT ON!

The problem was that I had all this junky, clunky, garbled wrong believing haunting me. That was never Joyce Meyer's fault! I was still holding onto this idea that I had to earn what God so freely gives. Huh? Yes, that was what I believed still. Sure, God had saved me, but I was on my own on this earth. Sure, I was heading for heaven, but I felt that I was still living hell on earth. How awful it is to be under mixture, under law and grace put together.

I do submit that more pastors, preachers, and teachers need to confront this fact: many Christians are hearing the Word of Christ, but they are not recognizing that they are trying to balance or mix the truth with wrong believing, the bad teachings of their past lives, or their former customs.

No wonder Paul writes:

"That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" (Ephesians 4:22)

We need to put off all the deceitful lusts, and those lusts are not just the desire to eat more food, or engaging in illicit sexual practices. There is also the lust for self-righteous preeminence, to make ourselves big and right in our own eyes because of our own works, i.e. "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life." (1 John 2:16)

The problem was that in the background, I still saw God all wrong. I was trying to merge what my parents, what all the religious traditions I had grown up with had told me about God with all the great truths in God's Word that people like Joyce Meyer--and later, Pastor Prince--were revealing to me.

It wasn't that Joyce Meyere was so much church-lady Pharisee. It was that I was the Pharisee!

I can write this post as an apology to Joyce Meyer, and I encourage her to keep preaching the Gospel of Grace and let everyone know the Gospel truth that in Christ, we have become the Righteousness of God, and that in Christ we are accorded all the blessings with Him! (Ephesians 1:3)

The Sermon on the Mount: Three Different Audiences

The Sermon on the Mount contains Jesus' important ministry of restoring the fullness of the Law, so that the Israelites of His day could understand that they needed a Savior. There is no amount of good deeds, great works, or law-keeping that one can do to be accepted before God.

We need His grace, we need His favor, and if we will just believe on His Son Jesus, then we will be saved!

So, what else do we see in the Sermon on the Mount which affirms the truth that much of that sermon is not written for the church to abide by today, but does exist to show the fullness of His ministry on earth, and what He accomplished at the Cross?

Consider the first few verses of Matthew 5:

"1And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying," (Matthew 5:1-2)

There are two groups that I want to focus on here: the multitudes and the disciples.

Throughout the Gospels, when there are multitudes thronging after Jesus, our Savior reaches out to them and helps them in every way, whether with healing or provision. Yet this time, early in His earthly ministry, Jesus does not go towards this multitude, but goes away from them. Isn't that interesting!

What's going on here? The multitudes here are pictures of people who are "fans." They see Jesus as a celebrity, as an oddity, a curiosity. They want to get near Him, see Him so that they can brag about being something near Jesus. Any movie star can tell you that fans are often very selfish. They only care about their feelings and promoting their own reputations, their own interests. Basically, this multitude of fans wanted to use Jesus to further their own ends.

We see another example of this fleshly fan-dom in John 6:

"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." (John 6:15)

Jesus performed miracles and healed many, but there were still many in these crowds who just wanted to use Jesus to accomplish the narrow political goal of restoring Israel. Jesus' main mission during His earthly ministry was not Israel, but to fulfill the Old Covenant, enact the New Covenant, and provide salvation for the whole world! 

Then we have the second group: the disciples. When Jesus sat down on this mountain, all the people who saw Jesus as a pattern to follow, a teacher who could help them be more godly, they came up and sat around Him. These are the "followers." They want to be near Jesus so that they can hear His teachings and become just like Him ... through their efforts.

However, anyone who reads the Old Testament, as many of these disciples should have done by that time, would have learned that there is no keeping the Law in order to make oneself holy!

"And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." (Joshua 24:19)

and

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

Yet, these disciples come up to Jesus, they sit down around Him on that mountain, and they smugly distance themselves from the rest of the crowds, which only see Jesus as some curiosity. "Teach us how to be like you, Jesus!" You can kind of sense that arrogant eagerness about them.

In fact, there is also a third audience, but in the Sermon on the Mount account, he does not appear until the end, when Jesus goes away from the multitudes further and goes down the other side of the mountain:

"1When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." (Matthew 8:1-4)

We have here a leper, in essence a failure who would later become family. He does not see Jesus as a Celebrity. He does not see Jesus as a Sage. He sees Jesus as He really is: a Savior! When you are dying from a deadly disease, or in bondage to sin, you need someone to save you, to set you free. You don't need a selfie with a celebrity. You don't seek advise from a sage. You need a SAVIOR who can save you! The leper asks Jesus to heal Him, and He not only heals him, but he touches the leper! This very act of touching the leper probably shocked the disciples whom He had been teaching, since in the Law it was unlawful to touch a leper. Not only that, but the leper should have never been around other people, but instead he should have shouted "Unclean! Unclean!" to warn and ward off everyone away from him. Jesus not only fulfilled the Law, but He took away all the sins of the world, and that included healing people of diverse diseases.

And there you have it. There are in total three key audiences throughout the Gospels when it comes to the people who interact with Jesus. In the midst of disciples generally, one can include the Pharisees and other religious leaders, who think that they can earn God's goodness, that they can keep God's law, that if they learned more and tried harder, they would be good, loved, accepted, and blessed. All of this is rank offense, of course, since it's only by God's grace that we receive, not achieve, His goodness.

With the three different audiences outlined, this revelation will further help us to see the full context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was not speaking to the saved and resurrected Body of Christ who believes in Him. He was speaking to disciples who had gotten accustomed to this falsehood that if they could keep God's law as best as possible, then they would be accepted and favored. With them, He expounded on and restored the Law to its "unkeepable" heights. Keep in mind that when Jesus opens His mouth and speaks, that moment occurs when the disciples come up to Him. He doesn't say anything when He sees and walks away from the multitudes. He speaks to His disciples, and so with them He is restoring the full prominence, pre-eminence, and impossibilities of the Law.

The Sermon on the Mount: Restoring the Old Covenant, Preparing for the New Covenant

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

Too many Christians believe that we are supposed to live by everything that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

And yet, if we look closely at what Jesus says during His earthly ministry, then consider the revelations that Jesus gave to Paul in his epistles, we recognize that a change has taken place!

Consider this passage in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:15)

Wow! We have to forgive, or God won't forgive us? How demanding!

And that's the point. Jesus was bringing the Law, the Old Covenant, back to its pristine wholeness again.

Remember what Jesus said about the Pharisees and their "brand" of righteousness:

"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:20)

But under grace, under the New Covenant, we are not trying to earn righteousness. In fact, because of Jesus, we have become THE righteousness of God in Christ! (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus restored the DEMANDS, the CLAIMS of the law, and Jesus would fulfill all those demands and claims.

In fact, He declared as much in the same Sermon on the Mount!

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17)

What about the issue of forgiving others and being forgiven? Well, under grace, in the New Covenant, we forgive BECAUSE we have been so forgiven!

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:32)

You see? We forgive BECAUSE "God the Father for Christ's sake has forgiven" us!

There is no contradiction. There has been a CHANGE!

What has changed? The covenants!

The Old Covenant was cut between God and Israel at Mt. Sinai, and it was cut with blood, for all covenants come into being through the shedding of blood and the death which ensues:

"17For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. 18Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood." (Hebrews 9:17-18)

Consider what Jesus declared when He instituted communion in the Upper Room on the night of His betrayal:

"Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Luke 22:20)

That blood was shed at the Cross, and at the Cross, Jesus declared "It is Finished!" (John 19:30) because He fulfilled the Old Covenant and enacted the New Covenant!

So, there you have it. The Sermon on the Mount restores the pristine, unassailable, unachievable standards of the Old Covenant, and therefore, since we believe in Jesus and are no longer under law but under grace (Romans 6:14), we need to make sure that we understand what Jesus is saying, where, when, and to whom Jesus is saying things in the four Gospel accounts.

In Christ, We No Longer Backslide, Just Turn to Him in Times of Need

A few days ago, a dear friend of mine shared that he was not feeling very well.

He felt that his spiritual growth was diminishing, that he was “backsliding” in his walk with God.

That word “backsliding” caused me to want to get more information on this.

Here's what God showed me when I studied the whole "backsliding" issue.

First, there is no mention of "backsliding" in the New Testament. Sure, some people might say Hebrews 6:4-6 speaks of people who "backslide":

4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

However, this verse refers only to people who have "tasted" the heavenly gift, but didn't drink it in completely. For example, Judas Iscariot experienced Jesus during the three years of His earthly ministry. When he betrayed Jesus, he was then sorry for it, but ultimately resorted to paying for his own sins rather than believing in Jesus' Finished Work. Hebrews 6:4-6 verse does not refer to believers who have "backslidden", but people who heard about and experienced the Gospel in some way, but sadly do not believe and choose not to believe. They were never believers to begin with!

The first mention of "backslide" in the Old Testament, Meshubah in Hebrew, appears here:

"For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." (Proverbs 1:32)

Yet even under the Old Covenant, God is going out of His way to restore us!

The first mention of "simple", the word used in Proverbs 1:32, appears in the Psalms:

"The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7)

He wants the simple (i.e. unbelieving, unwise) to believe!

The second mention of "backsliding" in the Old Testament appears here:

"Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts." (Jeremiah 2:19)

Here, God is speaking to the Israelites. They routinely would fall away from God, not honoring His Covenant (no longer shedding of blood through bulls and goats; not honoring the Sabbath days), and they would run after other gods.

One phrase in the above passage stood out for me: "My fear is not in thee."

I then heard the LORD tell me: "Look up where I will say that I will put my fear in them."

Here's what I found:

"And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." (Jeremiah 32:40)

God would provide a way to put the fear of Him into their hearts, so that they would not depart from Him. Keep in mind that "fear" in these contexts is not about inspiring terror or fright, but rather honor, respect, and worship.

You and i need to know that God has taken every step so that those who believe on Him never have to worry about "holding onto God" so to speak. This is so awesome! This promise speaks to the New Covenant that God will cut for everyone in the world who believes on His Son Jesus!

Notice how God turns the issue of man’s sin into a means of showing His grace. Man may struggle in his ability to focus on Him, but He makes it clear that he will “not turn away from them”. What a wonderful God we serve!

Jeremiah reveals this New Covenant in the two previous verses, too:

38And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: 39And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: (Jeremiah 32:38-39)

Jesus talks about the New Covenant at the First Communion, which was cut through His blood:

"Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Luke 22:20)

The writer of Hebrews repeats all the elements of the New Covenant:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12).

So, God makes it very clear that He will go out of His way to heal Israel from the very nature of sin, which inevitably leads to them to turning away from Him, or backsliding. God is more interested in us not feeling that we have fallen away than even we are!

Consider also what Hosea prophesied:

"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." (Hosea 14:4)

The solution to a sense of "falling away" is to remember that He loves you freely, and that His anger is turned away from you.

How can you know that He loves us freely and that He is no longer angry with us? Because of the CROSS! Jesus accomplished a perfect work, taking upon Himself all our sins, and sin itself, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because of all that Jesus has accomplished, God the Father has seated us in Christ, at His right hand! (Ephesians 2:4-6). We cannot backslide anymore, for we are forever seated in Christ!

We see the full power of the Cross also prophesied in Isaiah:

“For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” (Isaiah 54:9)

Because of what Jesus did, my friend, God will never be angry with you again! His anger is turned from you.

BUT ... those feelings of "I am far away, I am backsliding" come up from time to time, don't they? That sense that “I am not close to God because I have done something wrong” still troubles us from time to time. What do we do then?

This is the revelation for everyone: If we "feel" that we have fallen away from God, the answer is to remember that ALL our sins are paid for, and just to keep receiving those gifts of righteousness and abundance of grace (Romans 5:17).

Sadly, what often happens is that people think that they have to start "doing" something to "get back to God", because they they think that they have "backslidden".

The moment that you start trying to "do" something, though, you fall from grace (Galatians 5:4), and then you end up back in the "wandering-wondering" Romans 7 experience, where you want to do good, but the bad ends up emerging in you instead.

So, realize that in Christ, you can no longer backslide. Your righteous standing in Christ can never be taken away from myou. Stop doing, and start believing that Jesus has done the perfect work, and that nothing can separate you from Him! (Romans 8:38-39; Hebrews 13:5)

To summarize (thanks for bearing with me in this), if you feel like you are backsliding, the solution is not to look at yourself or to do something to restore a right standing with God.

The solution is to … just come to Him!

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)

There's no greater time of need than we you "feel" that you are far away, or that you have failed or sinned. God doesn't say "Get your act together, and then you come to me." He says "Come to me, and I will get your act together!"

In sense, there is no longer any backsliding. If we fail, it's a falling forwards, a falling upwards, as we keeping coming to our Loving Father, receiving more of His grace and favor in our lives.

YES!

I know and believe that this will bless you!

Jesus, More Than Beauty, but a Saving Star

Throughout the Old Testatment, we can see pictures of Jesus, of His Finished Work, of the blessed transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

There is one clear example outstanding in the Book of Esther. This section of the Bible is noteworthy in that the name of God, whether "Elohim" or "Yahweh" is never mentioned.

And yet ... and yet His power, His grace is at work throughout the book.

Consider the account in the very first chapter:

"10On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, 11To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. 12But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him." (Esther 1: 10-12)

Here, we have King Ahasuerus, who summoned his wife Vashti to appear before him and his guests.

She refused.

Her name means "beautiful", and she is a picture of the law, the Old Covenant, and she is also a type of the nation of Israel, and the king is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Israelites rejected their king when Jesus came in AD 33. They had cried out "Hosanna! Hosanna!", but then rejected Him when he was condemned before six false courts and ultimately hanged on a Cross.

The Old Covenant is beautiful, the law is good, but it cannot make any of us good. It's beauty does not help us, does not save us:

"12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." (Romans 7:12-14)

The king was angry, just as Jesus recounts a ruler who invited guests to his supper, and they all refused (cf Luke 14:15-24):

"21So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." (Luke 14:21)

Jesus uses the above parable to blast the Israelites during His earthly ministry who rejected Him, so Jesus would reach out to the "undesirable" and other univited guests.

That includes you and me, those who were dead in our trespasses, whom Jesus brought back to life and then seated us in heavenly places! (Ephesians 2:4-6)

So, Vashti was rejected, for her refusal to come before the king harmed not only him:

"And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus. 17For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not." (Esther 1: 16-17)

Esther would be chosen to be the next queen, highly favored, placed in the right place at the right time.

Her name means "Star".

The distinction between beauty and starlight cannot be overlooked.

Soren Kierkegaard, a Christian fundamentalist and polemicist, writes in Fear and Trembling:

"[I]t is one thing to be admired and another to become a guiding star that saves the anguished."

Jesus is our Morningstar (2 Peter 1:19, Revelation 22:16).

The law is beautiful, but it cannot save us, it cannot yield to grace. Jesus our star guides us to safety. The radiance of His beauty blesses us.

Esther, the picture of the New Covenant and of our Lord Jesus Christ, saved her people from ultimate destruction. She received great grace and favor, just as He came to the earth full of grace and truth (Johnn 1:14).

A foreign bride for a king, Esther represents the Gentiles, the nations who would heed Jesus' call for salvation, too.

Today, let us recognize that Jesus is indeed altogether lovely (Songs 5:16), but He does not hide behind his beauty or use it as an excuse to disdain us.

Jesus, our heavenly King, came to serve--and to save!

"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

and

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17)