We are called to love. Jesus said, that we should love God and then love others as we love ourself. That can be easy sometimes to love the lovable, but what about those who get on our nerves or are difficult to love? Joyce encourages us with a few ways where we can begin to start loving those who are hard to love.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.

With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

if we want to love people that are

difficult to love the first thing we

need to do

is pray for ourselves

to have a proper attitude before we ever

bother to pray for them to change

and i’m serious i learned a long time

ago i do not go to god and pray for my

husband to change

without approaching the throne in this

fashion lord this thing is really hard

for me

and obviously i would like you to work

in dave’s life

i bet he usually sits down there he’s up

here tonight because he’s got a cough

and if he started coughing he wanted to

escape

quickly however he’s now closer to me so

if i say much

he can come up here and take the

microphone

but first i will pray now lord maybe i’m

not even seeing this right

i may be the one with the problem and so

first of all deal with me

don’t ever go to god in prayer about

somebody else’s faults if you don’t go

with a humble

attitude

amen that’s just not a very safe thing

to do

because just because we think we know

what’s wrong with somebody

doesn’t mean that we do amen

this is better than i thought it might

be

pray that we will see our own faults

because if we do

it will make it much easier to be

patient with the weaknesses of others

because we see our own faults it brings

a degree of humility

into our lives matthew 7 3

why do you stare from without at the

very small particle that’s in your

brother’s eye

let me give it to you i think it’s the

living bible why do you

why do you stare from without at the

toothpick that’s in your brother’s eye

but you don’t become aware of the

telephone pole that’s in your eye

and that’s it just imagine if there were

two people up here and one one had a

toothpick sticking out of his eye

and another one had a telephone pole

sticking out of his eye and the guy with

the telephone pole sticking out of his

eye is trying to correct the guy with

the toothpick in his eye

and actually if you go and read all

those scriptures in matthew 7 i mean it

gets really good because he said

go first and get the telephone pole out

of your own eye

then you will see clearly how to take

the toothpick out of your brother’s eye

see we really we don’t know how to help

people properly

there’s no compassion no gentleness if

we’ve got a bigger mess in our life than

they do but we’re blind to our faults

and only see theirs

maybe there’s just somebody listening

in here by tv maybe you could just

think about this a little bit maybe you

could just

think about all those people you don’t

like

and you could just maybe ask yourself is

it even remotely possible

i mean i know it would be very remote

but is it even remotely possible

that i could have more problems than

they do

hmm well i’ll just leave that with you

now you’ll like this one better number

three

pray for the person who’s being

difficult to get along with

yes thank you but don’t pray for them to

change just to make it easier for you

but pray for them to be all that god

wants them to be

so pray for the person with humility

realizing but for the grace of god there

go i

romans 12 3 for by the grace

i love what paul how paul approaches

this he’s getting ready to correct

the romans and he says by the grace of

god

i warn everyone among you

not to think more highly of yourself

than you ought to so he didn’t just go

in there and start telling them off

he said look i’m only coming to you and

daring to tell you this

because god has given me a grace to do

this

and so i’m telling you don’t think more

highly of yourself than you ought to

don’t have an exaggerated opinion of

your own

importance now you know honestly and

truly sometimes being judgmental of

other people

it is a mechanism that we come up with

to not have to deal with our own

problems

as long as i stay busy thinking about

what’s wrong with you i don’t have to

deal with what might be going on in my

own life

so i’ve kind of found out in my many

years of experience of doing a whole

bunch of stuff wrong and

hopefully learning to do a lot of it

right now

that i really need to spend less time

on other people and more time on me

amen

don’t have an exaggerated opinion of

your own importance but rate your

ability with sober judgment

each according to the degree of faith

apportioned by god

to him pray for people i’m just going to

give you a few ways to pray for people

pray that god will help them be all he

wants them to be

to do what he wants them to do

pray that god will open their eyes

that they actually can see and recognize

when they hurt other people

because they don’t see it they didn’t

get up that day planning to hurt you

pray that god will help them get to the

root of their problem

because behavior modification is not the

answer

you can be a relationship with somebody

and you can say if you don’t do this and

this

i’m leaving well maybe out of fear

they’ll straighten up and be able to

change something for a period of time

but you’ve all had the experience it

comes back

it pops up again somewhere else because

just behavior modification is not what

people

need they need a heart change they need

a nature change

and if they’ve got so many problems in

their life that they can’t see god

themselves

then they need to see us act like god

and it is a sacrifice i am going to talk

to you a little bit this weekend

about being willing to live a little

more sacrificially

for the sake of the gospel

listen we’re not going to be here

forever

jesus is going to come back and maybe

pretty soon the way things are looking i

don’t know

but when it’s over honey it’s over

there’s no do-overs

and i want to really make an effort to

take as many people to heaven with me

as i possibly can

[Applause]

so if i have to keep forgiving the same

person over and over and over and over

and over

or i have to keep believing the best

believing the best believing the best

believing the best

now we all need to see a little progress

there’s no doubt about that

but i i i really believe

that you can kill the meanness in people

with kindness

i mean i proved that with my own father

and it’s too long of a story to get into

right now but

many of you’ve heard me testify about

how god put it on my

heart to take care of him and my mother

until they died and if anybody in the

room thinks i wanted to do that or

thought it was fair you have got another

thing coming because i did not

but it was the single most powerful

thing that i’ve ever done in my whole

life

and my father’s in heaven getting to

hear the message tonight so isn’t that

good news

pray for discernment we need more

discernment

we are we are too much off the top of

our head

we need to pray for discernment

discernment goes deeper than just what

we see

or what we think you remember jesus when

the woman was caught in adultery and

they were trying to trap him because

they knew he

you know was this big love guy and now

here she’s broken the law

and the law says you got a stoner so now

okay mr love what are you gonna say

about this one

and so he knelt down on the ground and

the bible says he wrote in the dirt with

his finger

now what what’s that all about

you know what

and then he slowly gets up and he says

well i’ll tell you what let

whichever one of you has no sin throw

the first stone

you know what i believe he was doing

this is my personal opinion but

i believe that he was taking just enough

time

to hear from his father about the just

right way to handle that situation

[Applause]

what would happen in our lives and in

our families instead of just

well if you do that again i’m out of

here and if you give

i mean come on we all know that don’t

work i mean when my kids were teenagers

i

i screamed at them and my son would roll

his

eyes at me and there’s nothing that i

dislike worse than a teenager whose eyes

roll back in their head every time

every time you try to correct them

or when the room looks like a slop house

and you say clean this up and then i

went through

with it

but it didn’t change them

you scream at your kids till you don’t

have a voice left it’s just going to

make them hate you

but through more discernment

through more prayer through more

realizing what you were like at that age

oh no you were all perfect when you were

12 and 13

14 i mean i did some dumb

stuff when i was a kid

pray for more discernment take a little

more time with things

oh i’m praying i’m praying praying

praying

you can pray for me i’m praying that i

can

just think before i open my mouth and

say something

now not up here when i’m preaching

because you know i believe god’s

speaking to me i don’t have to think i

just open my mouth and out it comes but

you know man when i’m dealing with

people sometimes i’m like

oh why didn’t i just

shut up for a few minutes

all right number four you’re not gonna

like this one but

it’s gotta be part of it number four way

to love people that are hard to love

you gotta be ready you gotta get up

ready

to forgive them often

you know if you’re with somebody that’s

fairly obnoxious there’s not much of a

chance of getting through a whole day

so you need to make your mind up before

it ever starts i’m going to forgive you

you are not going to beat me the devil

working through you is not going to beat

me

i’ve got more love

i have got more love than you’ve got

meanness

[Applause]

here again i’m not saying you know i i

like

okay let’s bring it down a notch you

don’t need to talk to me like that

there’s nothing wrong with that i’m not

talking about not confronting people’s

bad behavior but what i am

talking about is not then building walls

around yourself

and keeping them out of your life

thinking you’re protecting yourself from

ever getting hurt again

got to keep in mind that if you wall

people out you wall yourself in

be ready to forgive them often seven

times i can do seven lord

no peter just over and over and over and

over and over

forgiving one another ephesians 4 32

says forgiving one another readily and

freely as god in christ has forgiven you

you will never

and i will never have to forgive

somebody else for more than jesus has

had to forgive me for

every day every day every day every day

every day