“We would just say, ‘Lord, we’re going to come against fear here, we’re going to come against intimidation and hopelessness, even things that have been thrown out by perhaps some medical people who don’t really know God and don’t know what God can do and that God can get outside of what seems possible,” Mike prayed.

Ed decided if he was going to beat this disease, he would have to fire up his faith.

“I began to move my level of faith from a maintenance level to really a strong level, and it was only through absorbing myself in the healing scriptures of the word of God and those that really talked about faith,” Ed says. “And then once you get to the point where you really believe that God has truly done something miraculous in your life, you really move into an area of extraordinary faith — faith that says, ‘mountain move.’”

Soon after his chemotherapy ended, he had an experience that would forever change his life.

Ed’s wife Jan says, “one time we were in a meeting and I could just feel the power of God just touch him so mightily.”

Ed goes on to say, “I felt a complete lifting of a burden. I felt a weight lift enough to where I was actually able to personally confess and believe that it was done. I really felt like there was a total work that had come to completion.”

Ed also attacked the cancer by radically changing his diet to give his body the best chance of winning the fight. Today more than four years after his diagnosis, he’s healthy, with no signs of active disease. The doctors who initially predicted he would not survive won’t say he’s cured but they’re amazed that he’s experiencing one of the longest remissions they’ve ever seen for this disease.

So many people have secret fears, secret worries, and secret concerns. I honestly think that a large majority of people never get around to getting still long enough to even think about, “what is going on in me?” we can dress it up and take it to church, we can whoop and holler, jump up and down, we can bring our church face, smile at everybody, and learn all the Christian lingo — praise the lord, thank you, Jesus, hallelujah — get a bumper sticker, get a rhinestone Jesus pin, buy the t-shirt, buy the tapes, have the library, but what’s going on in you?

If you have peace in you, then what goes on around you won’t bother you nearly as much. If you know who you are in Christ – I mean if you’re rooted and grounded in Christ and you’re rooted and grounded in his love and you know who you are, it’s not going to matter so much what other people think because you know that you get up every day and that you do your best and you love god, so you don’t get so concerned about other people’s criticisms and judgments. But if we don’t know who we are, if we’re trying to find out who we are, then every little thing that happens out here affects us in an adverse way. So I just want to encourage you to ask yourself, “Do I know who I am in Christ? Am I walking in righteousness?” when I say walking in righteousness, yes, I’m talking about doing things right but I’m also talking about doing things right out of a revelation of the fact that you’ve been made right with god.

God has called us to a holy life. He never asks us to do anything that he doesn’t give us the ability to do, so he has planted a seed of holiness in us by giving us his holy spirit. God expects us to walk righteously, he expects us to do what is right, so he gives us righteousness as a free gift. The moment we receive Jesus Christ as our savior, the bible says, he takes our sin and he gives us his righteousness. God takes our mess. He takes everything we deserved, which was punishment and misery, and he gives us everything that he deserved because he did everything right. “He that knew no sin became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of god in Christ.” well, the bible says you have to put on righteousness.

Now, the only way we can walk through this life and not be a phony is to have things right inside and then what’s going on outside be a result of what’s happened on the inside. A phony is someone who pretends that everything is a certain way but really inside, they’re not that way at all. Jesus called them hypocrites and Pharisees. So we need to understand today that our inner life is very important to god. We can put on for everybody else but god knows what’s going on in us. So, Romans 14:17 says the kingdom of god — here we are talking about the kingdom of god — is not meat and drink. It’s not stuff. The kingdom of god is not things, but it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. I think a lot of people spend their life and I did this: I was seeking all that other stuff but when it came to righteousness, peace, and joy, I didn’t have any of that, nor was I pursuing any of that. I thought if I got all this stuff, then I’d have that. But see, god wants us to get that first and then he gives us the stuff.

I want to make sure you understand this because I think a large majority of Christians spend their whole life trying to do this backwards. They’re trying to get everything out here fixed, thinking then they’ll be okay inside, but Jesus came to live in us, to heal us, to make us what we need to be inside, and then what we need to do on the outside will just kind of come as a fruit of the life that we’re living. Nobody would ever go and plop a tree on top of the ground and expect it to stay there without it having roots. So, what’s going on in us is the roots, so to speak, of our Christian life. I was seeking big ministry but lived under guilt and condemnation all the time. I didn’t know who I was in Christ, so every time somebody criticized me, I fell apart.

I didn’t really know who I was in Christ, I didn’t like myself, so anytime anybody judged me, didn’t show approval of me, or didn’t give me enough compliments or whatever, then I was a basket case for days. Maybe not an outward basket case where I looked like I was falling apart, but I worried and was overly concerned and was a people pleaser and all these things that so many of us go through. Many times we go through them privately and never tell anybody because we act like everything is okay.

Jentezen: I think the danger is when you don’t know, racing ahead instead of being led and stopping long enough, like you said, to give time. If you will just wait and say “Holy Spirit, I’m open to whatever you want to do in this situation,” I believe he can reveal that to us but what I did wrong I think is just racing ahead, rushing to judgment. When we do that, we always get in trouble. I think it’s a process. I think you learn to discern the voice of God by the mistakes you make, also, because I’ve missed God but I’m much more cautious now to say “thus says the Lord” or “God told me.”

Joyce: You probably learned a lot from that mistake you made and that’s one of the things I want to really encourage our viewers about today, is that nobody learns how to hear from God without making some mistakes along the way, no more than a baby learns how to walk without falling down several times. You can’t be so afraid of missing God that you will never, ever, ever take a step in any direction to do anything.

Jentezen: That is so true. Faith is spelled r-i-s-k. A lot of times people want every question answered before they move out but I’ve found that God will often say “go and I’ll show” and we want him to show first every piece of the puzzle, and he doesn’t do that but when he speaks, there will be a peace.

Joyce Meyer Online: What I have discovered in my life, Jentezen, is that God does lead us one step at a time. You may get a feeling or like when God spoke to my heart about ministry, I felt like he told me, “you’re going to go all over the world and preach the gospel and have a large media ministry.”

You’ve got to do the same thing that Jesus did in the garden; when you know what God wants you to do, you have to hang on and pray, “God, help me not to come into temptation. I want to finish what I’ve started.” Jesus said, “shall I not go to the cross? Is this not the purpose for which I came? I’m not going to quit now just because it’s hard. I’m going to press through and finish the job.” Make your mind up that you’re going to finish what you start. Amen? Amen.: Let’s go to Genesis 11. We’re talking about excellence and integrity, and that people who have it finish what they start. They don’t just sit around and pray for promotion without adding their motion.

Now, you all know about Abraham. Almost anybody who knows anything about the bible, if you mention Abraham, they recognize that name. But there’s another name that maybe you don’t recognize so much and that’s Terah. Terah was Abraham’s father. I find it interesting in the bible that Terah was given an opportunity to go to the same place that God told Abraham to go to, but he got part of the way there and he settled. So God had to now find somebody else. I wonder how many opportunities God gives us and we get started, and we settle somewhere along the way because it’s hard, and then God has to use somebody else. Genesis 11:31: and Terah took Abram his son, lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together to go from ur of the Chaldees into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. Everybody say: I’m not going to settle.

I’m not going to settle.: vs. 32: and Terah lived 205 years; and Terah died in Haran. He died where he settled. I don’t want to settle somewhere that’s partway between where I was and where I’m supposed to be. You see, mediocrity is average or below average but God has not called us to be mediocre or lukewarm; he’s called us to be excellent people.

They don’t actually really think that was his father because that man forced her into prostitution and that’s probably how this little boy got aids but when you see the smile on his face, I guess to me, just to think about what his life would be like right now if this place wasn’t here — what his life would be like if somebody had not reached out to help him. I know what my life would be like if Jesus wouldn’t have helped me, and he’s given us an opportunity now to help other people. Really, these children look hopeful, they look healthy, they look happy but that’s not the way they looked when they came here. That’s the thing that we have to remember, is just the transformation that can happen in a person’s life — the total transformation. Here, they were sick and now they’re doing better physically. They weren’t getting proper education. They’re being educated. They didn’t know about Christ. Now, they’re being taught the word of god. Just so many wonderful things are happening. They have a family and a lovely home. It’s great to meet them.

Announcer: Stay with us. When we return, Joyce shares more from the conference in Bangalore, India. Join us tomorrow as we venture to Haiti, where we meet a young boy with an arm so badly broken doctors fear it may need to be amputated.

Woman: Personally, I have felt that I have had the opportunity to touch the world through hand of hope because hand of hope truly is an organization that’s touching the whole world.

Chris Caine: I’ve been to India many times but for some reason this trip has impacted me more than any other trip. I’ve had so many conversations with young women and I guess more than ever,

I realize the plight of young women in this nation, how women in many cases have been considered to be less than even cows. I’ve wept more than ever about the plight of women in this nation and I guess there’s a passion in me to see the young women released into their god-given purpose and destiny and I’ve understood more than ever why god’s using someone like Joyce Meyer — a woman with such a broken background that is a living testimony of the redemptive power of Jesus Christ and I think just standing here in front of people, telling her story of the great things that god has done gives multiplied millions hope and faith that if god could do it for her, god could do it for them and we could see a nation transformed.

John: Which keeps you very busy!

Joyce: Which keeps me very busy! But god really got across to me… He said: Life is not only probably not going to change but the way things are going in our society, there’s a chance that life is going to be more pressure, more stress, more complicated.

John: It’s not going to slow down.

Joyce: Yeah. More complicated than ever before. I remember when you just went and turned your tv on. Now I have to have routers and re-routers and you have to make sure you get the thing right at the eye and this and that and something else.

John: In fact, I’m always wanting to know what happened to the on and off buttons. You turned it on, you turned it off. You had abc, nbc, cbs — you had three channels; life was very simple. No more!

Joyce: All the modern conveniences, I guess, are convenient if you can survive learning how to work them.

John: That’s exactly right.

Joyce: I’ve got a car that I’ve had for five years and there are still things on it I don’t know how to work. So, life is just probably not going to change. So God just really got it across to me: You better change your approach. You know, john, how we approach everything makes all the difference in the world.

John: Absolutely. Sure does. In fact, if we are not in our own life flexible and willing to make changes, life will beat us up.

Joyce Meyer: That’s really true. Out of that I wrote a book called “100 ways to simplify your life.” We have your book “today matters: 12 daily practices things you can do today: To guarantee tomorrow’s success.” So, we want to talk about ways to simplify life, which means you’re going to enjoy life even more. I think there’s the obvious: Don’t have so much stuff, don’t overload your schedule, and things like that but I’m just going to open this up at random and we’ll see what we come up with.

Joyce so you decided to take your Christianity seriously.

Paul exactly!  Yeah! Being a Christian means to live like Christ or try to.

Joyce instead of just driving from your Christian college to your Christian work and being like the religious guys who passed by the man on the road who had been beaten up and hurting, you decided to actually stop and get to know what was behind those signs.

Paul exactly.  Yes, ma’am.

(lance) we say that we’re trying to inspire people to get outside the four walls of the church and get outside the pew, to actually live out Christianity instead of just a twice a week or once a week thing, on a daily basis.

Joyce I really believe that’s the message that we have to get across to people today. There are so many bored, miserable, unhappy Christians who sit in church every week and go home and do nothing with their Christianity, then go back and wonder why they’re not happy and it’s just not possible to really be happy and fulfilled if you’re not reaching out. What did you find on the whole as you were out there as far as people who were really in need versus people who maybe that was just a way for them to make a living?

Paul that’s an awesome question.  Glad you asked it but we think that in those situations, instead of just giving two dollars and going on your way, go spend time, maybe take them out to eat and just constantly show love. Maybe invest in that person and keep every week going out there and taking them out to eat because you kind of know where their territory is. Find them and just showing love constantly.

Joyce it takes an investment. It’s one thing to throw a couple of bucks at somebody and I’m not saying that’s not good.  Maybe everybody is not in a position where they can go take that person to lunch or for some people it may not even be safe to do that if you’re a woman by yourself or something but I have found that once we get accustomed to giving money, it actually gets to be much easier to give money than it does to really give yourself.

Joyce Meyer Online – Recently I’ve been doing some teaching about how we can literally serve Christ or think we’re serving Christ by going to church and calling ourselves a Christian for years and years and never really give ourselves.

The guy who had nothing had written on a piece of legal paper some things that he wanted to do, but now that he found he had cancer, he threw it away. Well, the guy got a hold of it — the millionaire — and he said, “what is this?” the guy said, “it’s my bucket list; the things I want to do before I kick the bucket.” one of them was jump out of an airplane, go in a shark tank, kiss the most beautiful girl in the world, and so forth. And he looked at me and said, “Pastor, when I saw that movie… I’ve got three kids, I’ve got all the money in the world. I want you to make a bucket list. I’ve got the money. You and I will go and I can pull off anything you want to do. Will you make a bucket list?” well, what an opportunity! I sat down and I started… And Joyce, I couldn’t think of anything I want to do. I didn’t want to jump out of an airplane. The bible says “low” I am with you always. Amen? – Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Joyce Meyer: I agree! (laughing)

Pastor Barnett: I’ve already kissed the most beautiful girl in the world, and if I kiss another one, she’d probably kill me! And I thought, “all I really want to do, honestly, because of the blessings of god, I’ve traveled everywhere, I just want to love people and serve people. And after I’m too old to do that, I just want to die.

Joyce Meyer Online - Because after David had served his generation, he fell asleep. And I hope we can get through to your viewers today that there is nothing like loving and giving.  And it’s something you can do whether you’re a millionaire or you’re a pauper; we can all love.