Reviewing a new Joyce Meyer article that just continue to confirm that she has no business dividing the Word of Truth...

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I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." -- John 16: 33 (ESV)

https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/68803-joyce-meyer-reveals-the-key-to-seeing-god-move-supernaturally-in-your-life-again

Joyce Meyer has made herself the darling of female Christendom and several million dollars along the way by preaching a feel good, humanistic empowering, biblically vacuous theology that saves no one. We have to understand as the days grow short that every second not preaching the actual Gospel is more wasted time. Every sermon we listen to from Meyer is another half hour wasted. Yes I might feel better about myself on this planet for a little while, maybe deal with an old wound, or feel more empowered in my temporal life but salvation? Not a chance. I get the draw beloved I really do. Joyce Meyer speaks in edible sound bites of sugar coated heresy. Little rancid nuggets of platitudes that have zero power eternally because they are not the Gospel. They may sound pious but they are not the Gospel. Let us reason again through her latest article, linked above.

"I used to be one of the most negative people I knew. My motto was, "If I don't expect anything good to happen, then I won't be disappointed when it doesn't." However, God's way of seeing things is just the opposite! He wants us to live our lives filled with hope, expecting Him to do something great at any moment." -- Joyce Meyer

I used joke that I was neither pessimist nor optimist but rather a realist because I doubted the water in the glass existed. Made for a funny anecdote but it had no eternal value. Neither does Meyer constantly returning to her history of abuse and negativity as some kind of spiritual sign that God has done something when He clearly has not. If God was involved He would start with her false teaching, not her personal pessimism. The more problematic portion here is her teaching that God wants us living our life filled with hope, expecting Him to do something great at any moment. This is the false hope business Meyer is engaged in peddling. When you have a ministry whose sole purpose is in making this life better then you have no chance to recognize the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joyce Meyer believes and preaches that our hope is temporal but it is not. It is eternal. Take a close read of the key verse today, which we all should know. What is Jesus saying here? He does not sell hope in the middle of temporal tribulation but rather peace. This is the same peace that transcends all of our earthly understanding. Our hope is in the eternal. It is in Christ overcoming the world not seeking fulfillment within it. God holds no optimism for this world beloved. He will judge it and set up His millennial kingdom one day. This kind of false teaching sets up an unrealistic hope for things God never promised. What happens to the people who buy into it and God never manifests Himself as Joyce teaches? They will either blame God or blame themselves.

"What is hope? One definition of "hope" is "a favorable and confident expectation."

It's a positive attitude and the happy anticipation that something good is going to happen.

Real hope is not a wishy-washy, vague "let's just wait and see what happens" attitude, but it's believing and trusting that what God promised, He will do. God is just looking for opportunities to be good to His children and He wants us to expect and look forward to it." -- Joyce Meyer

Beloved the issue is not whether or not we have hope but in what we have hope. Joyce Meyer has disobeyed the Bible, taught when she ought not to have, made millions of dollars fleecing the flock of God and because she enjoys temporal wealth and success, she assumes her worldly prosperity is a sign of divine providence. It is not. There is a reason why 50,000 people show up each weekend to hear Joel Osteen preach and it sure is not because they are ardently reaching out for God. They are reaching out for this world. God is looking for opportunities to be good to His children? Is Joyce teaching a powerless god that needs opportunities to do something? Is she teaching a capricious god that blesses on whims or on a performance curve? But it sounds right on some level doesn't it beloved? Except it is not quite right. God does not want us to expect He will do something good but that He already has through His only Son. This is the blessing theology of the prosperity gospel that only sees blessing as thing yet to come instead of what has already been won for us at Calvary. When you engage in the sound-bite Christianity it becomes easier to fool people.

"The Bible says that hope is the anchor of our soul (see Heb. 6:19). When things look dark and we don't have an answer, that's when hope kicks in to remind us that our new beginning is right around the corner. For instance, when it looks like everybody else is getting blessed and we're tired and feel like giving up, it's hope that steadies our heart and helps us hold on to our faith in God's promise. In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, hope is described as a helmet. So, what we think must be pretty important. Our attitude and what we're expecting has everything to do with what we're thinking and saying!" -- Joyce Meyer

When you sell Christianese sound bites for a living, you tend to victimize the Bible the same way. Hebrews 6:19 does say that hope is the anchor of our souls among other things. The hope however is not in the things of this world beloved. Joyce keeps missing the point because she is so busy not looking for it. Just look at her absurd example and you will see what Joyce Meyer is selling! Joyce is not shy in preaching her nonsense. To her, the challenge is when you see others being "blessed" and we are growing tired and want to give up because we haven't gotten ours yet is when we need hope? Wow. The master twisting however is when she tries to leverage 1Thessalonians for her cause and all it does is expose her as a charlatan who cannot divide the Word of Truth correctly.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. -- 1Thessalonians 5: 8-11 (ESV)

Beloved, what is our hope in according to these Scriptures? Is it to survive when others are "blessed" more than we are? No. It is in the salvation we find in Christ Jesus. So let me truly encourage you where Joyce Meyer would only have you hoping for more trinkets from this world. God has no longer destined us for wrath beloved! Instead we obtain our salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that we might live! Our hope is in these truths not in the shifting sands of this carnal world. Joyce can keep that.

"I encourage you to take control of your thoughts and words first thing every morning. When you wake up in the morning, don't settle for thoughts like, Well, I guess I'll try to make it through another day. Instead, anticipate good things from God. Think and declare things like: "God, thank You for this day! I know that You love me and You have a good plan for me today. Apart from You, I can do nothing, but in Christ, I can do whatever I need to do. And with Your help, I am going to have a good attitude and positive thoughts." Then expect your breakthrough and new beginning. Say, "Today could be the day!"' -- Joyce Meyer

Now we see the full blown word faith heresy Joyce Meyer always teaches. Our words do not create reality beloved. Forget the sound-bites here which are designed to make you miss the overall false teaching. Today could very well be the day. It could be the day you get the diagnosis no one ever wants. It could be the day you lose your child. It could be the day you are called home to glory. The point is that Joyce doesn't know any more than you do! I am not saying that we should have negative thoughts either but rather realistic and biblical thoughts. Paul said he can do all things through Christ because he had learned the secret of godly contentment. How to be content in all situations because our hope is placed in Christ and not in this world. Joyce Meyer sells the opposite. She sells how to be hopeful of contentment based upon some future deliverance of blessings, which God never said, nor promised.

"It's important to realize that we can't live by how we feel if we want to have a positive, hope-filled life. When negative feelings come, if we don't give in to them and feed them, they will die.

So, don't allow yourself to get caught in the trap of waiting to feel hopeful, but instead, decide to be full of hope. When you make a conscious decision to think positive, faith-filled thoughts throughout the day, your feelings will eventually catch up with your decision." -- Joyce Meyer

Beloved, there is nothing wrong with living a positive life. That is not the point here. Joyce Meyer is not Anthony Robbins teaching a motivational self-help seminar. She carries a Bible and calls herself a pastor. She leverages Scripture, wrests it horribly out of context to pretend God is agreeing with her many heresies. The problem is she is leading Christians to take their eyes off of Jesus Christ and place them onto things they might value in this earth. Who is god in the equation Joyce outlines above? You are. You decided to speak and think a certain way as to force yourself to feel a certain way. The result however is that God is now on the hook for what Joyce promises when He has actually said none of it! He did not say expect your breakthrough today! He said pick up your cross and deny yourself! He said we will suffer for His namesake! He said the world, which Joyce Meyer clearly loves here, will HATE us! Once again however the sound-bites sound so right. Don't feed the negativity and it will die! Decide to be filled with hope! Except the Bible doesn't say any of that and shouldn't we be more concerned with what God has to say than what Joyce Meyer has to say?

"God's Just Waiting to Amaze You - Several years ago, I asked the Lord, "Why don't I have exciting, special things happen in my life anymore?" God spoke to my heart and said, "Joyce, I still do those things all the time. You have just gotten used to it." You see, God wants us to live amazed by His goodness in our lives...to actively take notice of the truly wonderful things He does for us. Why? Because when we live amazed, we will never be without hope!" -- Joyce Meyer

How pitifully sad it is that Joyce Meyer is not amazed with God unless He is throwing exciting and special things into her life. I am amazed every single day that while I was still a sinner, He died for me. I am amazed at Calvary. At the brutality He suffered for me. I am amazed at His grace that saved a wretch like me! Meyer's sound-bites might be easier to swallow but look at this gem you have to eat along with it:

Because when we live amazed, we will never be without hope!

Beloved, our hope is in what God has already done for us -- not what goodies He has for us tomorrow. Do not strive to live amazed. Strive to live obedient. Strive to live as Christ did. Life is sometimes very un-amazing. Sometimes it can even seem boring. Sometimes it can seem unfair. Sometimes the person dies that we love. Sometimes we break our leg. The thought that at these mundane or difficult times we would feel hopeless is a real problem with faith. Beloved Joyce Meyer is teaching that our hope is in what Jesus will do for us instead of who Jesus is. That is a real and heretical problem. She concludes:

"Let's look at the story of Abraham. God had blessed Abraham abundantly. However, there was one thing that he and his wife, Sarah, didn't have--a child. Abraham said, "'Lord God, what reward will You give me, since I am [leaving this world] childless...?'"And the Lord brought Abram outside [his tent into the night] and said, 'Look now toward the heavens and count the stars--if you are able to count them. Then He said to him, 'So [numerous] shall your descendants be'" (Genesis 15:2, 5 AMP). Although Abraham's circumstances looked hopeless, the Lord brought him out of his tent to amaze him and remind him that He can do the impossible. I believe we can spend too much time "in our tent," looking at our own problems. That's why the Bible says to look away from all that will distract unto Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith (see Heb. 12:2). Every time we decide to pray, read God's Word or simply dwell on the great things He has done for us in the past, it produces hope. And, like Abraham, we soon begin thinking, Wow, maybe He can do this for me! When times are tough and you feel discouraged, it's time to step outside the tent and see what God has to say. When you do, you'll find that He is just waiting to amaze you." -- Joyce Meyer

Ugh. Wow, maybe He can do this for me? Seriously? God did not take Abram outside to amaze him but because that was where the stars were. The truly sad thing is when you use the Bible to try and proof-text your own theology you miss the point of the text and what God is really saying:

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. -- Genesis 15: 6 (ESV)

The point of the covenant with Abram was not to reinforce some lame teaching on false hope. It is placing your hope in the only thing that endures and is never wrong -- what God says. Just because he lived in a tent that does not mean that we get stuck in our own tent. That is just silly hermeneutics. I agree that whenever we pray, read the Word or dwell on the things God has already done that this should produce hope. But not hope that God will wow us with something that will bless our socks off and make us stop looking at our brother and sister with the envy Joyce was promoting earlier. God said something to Abram that defied human logic but nonetheless Abram believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. God has now said so much to us through His Word and we ought to take the same level of comfort in it, let it produce a godly hope in Christ for what He has already done, and help us to avoid the wolves that seek to make merchandise off of us by twisting what God has said to their wicked heart's desires. Reject the sound-bite theology because God has so much more for us than this world could possibly offer.

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.