by Joyce Meyer
Copyright
Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures are taken from the Amplified® Bible.
Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scriptures noted KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scriptures noted The Message are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Scriptures noted NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scriptures noted NKJV are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
Scriptures noted NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tynsdale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Ill. 60189. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by Joyce Meyer
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
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New York, NY 10017
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
FaithWords is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The FaithWords name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-446-55806-8
Contents
Copyright
Introduction
1: What in the World Is Wrong?
2: The Root of the Problem
3: Nothing Good Happens Accidentally
4: Interrupted by God
5: Love Finds a Way
6: Overcome Evil with Good
7: Justice for the Oppressed
8: Love Is Inclusive, Not Exclusive
9: Make People Feel Valuable
10: Aggressive Acts of Kindness
11: Find Out What People Need and Be Part of the Solution
12: Unconditional Love
13: Love Keeps No Record of Wrong
14: Practical Ways to Show Love
15: Do We Need Revival or a Revolution?
Notes
About the Author
Joyce Meyer Ministries U.S. & Foreign Office Addresses
Other Books by Joyce Meyer
Guest “Love Revolutionary” Writers
Darlene Zschech
Martin Smith
Pastor Paul Scanlon
John C. Maxwell
Pastor Tommy Barnett
INTRODUCTION
Revolution. The word itself sparks hope, ignites passion, and inspires loyalty like no other word in the human vocabulary. Throughout history, the idea of a revolution has poured fuel on firebrands and injected courage in the fainthearted. Revolutions have rallied those in search of a cause larger than themselves and have given previously aimless men and women a cause they were willing to die for. They have birthed great leaders and bred great followers; they have literally changed the world.
A revolution is a sudden, radical, and complete change from the way things are normally done. Revolutions are usually ignited by one person or a very small group of people who are unwilling to continue living the way they have lived in the past. They believe something can and must change and they keep promoting their ideas until a groundswell begins and ultimately changes the situation, often in radical ways.
The world has experienced revolutions in the past, as governments known to be taking advantage of their citizens were overthrown. This happened in the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution (also called the Bolshevik Revolution), to name a few. Revolutions also took place as outdated, ineffective systems or ways of doing things were replaced and as old ways of thinking gave way to new ideas, such as took place in the Scientific Revolution or the Industrial Revolution. Thomas Jefferson said, “Every generation needs a new revolution,” and I believe now is the time for the world’s next revolution, the greatest revolution of all. We don’t need the same kinds of revolutions that have dotted the landscape of world history in the generations before us; we don’t need a revolution based on politics, economies, or technology. We need a Love Revolution.
We need to overthrow the dominance of selfish, self-centered living in our lives. Nothing will change in our world unless each one of us is willing to change. We often wish the world would change without stopping to realize that the condition of the world is the result of the way we live our individual lives and of the choices we make every day.
If every person on the planet knew how to receive and give love, our world would be a radically different place. I think we all know something is wrong in society and that it needs to be fixed, but nobody seems to know what to do or how to begin making changes. Our reaction to a world out of control is to complain and think, Someone should do something. We think and say that perhaps God or the government or someone else in authority needs to take action. But the truth is, each one of us has to do something. We must learn to live life from a totally different viewpoint than we have had. We must be willing to learn, to change, and to admit that we are part of the problem.
We cannot fix what we don’t understand, so our first need is to locate the root of the problem. Why are the majority of people unhappy? Why is there so much violence in families, neighborhoods, cities, and nations? Why are people so angry? You may be thinking these things happen because of sin. You may say, “People are sinful. That is the problem.” I agree in theory, but would like to approach the problem from a practical viewpoint that we all deal with daily. I firmly believe the root of all these issues and many others is selfishness. Selfishness is, of course, the outworking of sin. It is a person saying, “I want what I want and I am going to do whatever I need to do to get it.” Sin exists whenever a person goes against God and His ways.
We tend to live “backward”—exactly opposite of the way we should live. We live for ourselves and yet we never seem to end up with what satisfies us. We should live for others and learn the wonderful secret that what we give away comes back to us multiplied many times over. I like the way a famous doctor named Luke put it: “Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity” (Luke 6:38 The Message).
In many societies owning, possessing, and controlling have become people’s number one goal. Everyone wants to be “number one,” which automatically indicates that a lot of people will be disappointed, since only one can be number one at any time in any given area. Only one person can be the number one runner in the world; only one can be the president of the company or the best-known actor or actress on stage or screen. Only one can be the top author or the best painter in the world. While I believe we should all be goal oriented and do our best, I don’t believe we should want everything for ourselves and care nothing about other people.
I have lived for sixty-five years at the writing of this book, and I suppose that alone qualifies me to know a few things. At least I have lived long enough to have tried a variety of ways to be happy and have discovered by virtue of elimination what works and what does not. Selfishness does not make life work the way it was intended to work and is definitely not God’s will for mankind. I believe I can prove in this book that selfishness is indeed the major problem we face today worldwide
and that an aggressive movement to eliminate it is our answer. We need to declare war on selfishness. We need a Love Revolution.
Love must be more than a theory or a word; it has to be action. It must be seen and felt. God is love! Love is and has always been His idea. He came to love us, to teach us how to love Him, and to teach us how to love ourselves and others.
When we do this, life is beautiful; when we don’t, nothing works properly. Love is the answer to selfishness because love gives while selfishness takes. We must be delivered from ourselves, and Jesus came for that very purpose, as we see in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “And He died for all, so that all those who live might live no longer to and for themselves, but to and for Him Who died and was raised again for their sake.”
Recently, as I was pondering all the terrible problems in the world, such as millions of starving children, AIDS, war, oppression, human trafficking, incest, and much more, I asked God, “How can You stand to see all that goes on in the world and do nothing?” I heard God say in my spirit, “I work through people. I am waiting for My people to rise up and do something.”
You may be thinking, as millions of others do, I know the world has problems, but they are so massive what can I do that will make a difference? That is exactly the kind of thinking that has kept us paralyzed while evil has continued to triumph. We must stop thinking about what we cannot do and begin to do what we can do. In this book, I and some guest writers I have invited to join me will share with you many ideas and ways you can be part of a new movement that has the ability to bring radical, positive change.
I refuse to stand by any longer and do nothing while the world spirals downward. I may not be able to solve all the problems I see, but I will do what I can do. My prayer is that you will join me in taking a stand against injustice and be willing to make a radical shift in the way you approach life. Life can no longer be all about what others can do for us, but it must be about what we can do for them.
Every movement needs a motto or a creed to live by. We at Joyce Meyer Ministries have prayerfully crafted a covenant that we have committed to live by. Will you join us?
I take up compassion and surrender my excuses.
I stand against injustice
and commit to live out simple acts of God’s love.
I refuse to do nothing. This is my resolve.
I AM THE LOVE REVOLUTION.
I pray that these words will also become your creed—the new standard by which you live. You must not wait to see what someone else chooses to do, and you dare not wait to see if the movement becomes popular. This is something you must decide for yourself, a commitment you alone must choose to make. Ask yourself: “Will I continue being part of the problem or will I be part of the answer?” I have decided to be part of the answer. Love will be the central theme of my life.
Ask yourself: “Will I continue being part of the problem or will I be part of the answer?” I have decided to be part of the answer. Love will be the central theme of my life.
What about you? Will you perpetuate the problems in the world today? Will you ignore them or pretend they don’t exist? Or will you join the Love Revolution?
CHAPTER
1
What in the World Is Wrong?
I am only one, but still I am one, I cannot do everything, but I can do something and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
Edward Everett Hale
While I sit and drink my morning coffee, looking out the window at my beautiful view, 963 million people are hungry.
More than one billion people earn less than one dollar per day.
Thirty thousand children will die today because of poverty. They die in some of the poorest villages on the earth—far removed from the conscience of the world. That means that 210,000 die each week—11 million each year—and most of them are under five years old.
Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 640 million are without adequate shelter, 400 million without safe drinking water, and 270 million without access to any medical services whatsoever.
Are these statistics as staggering to you as they are to me? I hope so. They are the stunning, sobering facts of life in the world in which we live. These things are happening on our planet and on our watch. I realize the statistics you have just read may not apply to the city or country where you reside, but today more than ever, we are all citizens of the world. We are part of a global community, and members of our human family are suffering in unthinkable, unspeakable ways.
I believe it’s time for a worldwide wake-up call—one that will rouse us from our complacency, our ignorance, or our distaste for difficulty and stir us to rise up against pain and poverty, loss and lack, injustice and oppression, and living conditions that don’t sustain healthy human life or basic dignity. Indeed, it’s time for a Love Revolution.
One Small Mouth, Six Abscessed Teeth
During a Joyce Meyer Ministries medical outreach in Cambodia, a dentist who volunteered his time to go and help pulled twenty-one teeth from a small child; six of the teeth were abscessed. Thinking about this excruciating situation reminds me of the time my husband had a bad toothache while we were traveling to Australia. He was absolutely miserable because he was on an airplane and could get no relief. As soon as we landed, at ten o’clock at night, someone made arrangements for him to see a dentist and he was able to receive help. But what about the little girl and thousands of others like her who endure pain every day and have no access at all to medical care? Take a few moments and imagine it. What would it feel like to have twenty-one teeth that are decayed and throbbing with pain?
This kind of unimaginable suffering exists; it happens to real people every day in remote places of the world. Most of us either don’t know about them or, at best, we may see images of some of them on television. We say, “What a shame. Someone really should do something about that,” and then we continue drinking our morning coffee and enjoying the view.
Where Trash Is a Treasure
A ten-year-old girl named Gchi lives in a trash dump in Cambodia. She moved there when she was four years old. Her parents could no longer support her, so they asked her older sister to take her, and the only way the two could survive was to live and work in the trash dump. Gchi spends seven days a week digging through the trash with a metal pick or with her hands, looking for food she can eat or for pieces of plastic or glass she could sell to get money for food. She has lived in the dump for six years; many others have been there much longer.
It is vital that you understand that this is the city trash dump, and every night the trash and garbage dump trucks back up to the pile of trash to leave the discarded remains of other people’s lives, which they have gathered around the city. The children work at night, in the dark, wearing helmets with lights on them because the best garbage is found when it first arrives.
After my visit to that trash dump, an interviewer asked me what I thought about it. As I attempted to articulate my thoughts, I realized that the situation was so horrible I didn’t know how to think about it. That depth of degradation simply wouldn’t compute in my mind in a way that I could verbalize, but I did resolve that I would try to do something about it.
It took about a year of effort on the part of several people to address the issue and required donations by the partners of our ministry, as well as some of Dave’s and my personal finances. But we have managed to retrofit two large buses and turn them into mobile restaurants. They pull up to the trash dump; the children get onto the bus, sit down to a nice meal, and even receive some lessons in reading and math to help prepare them for a better future. Of course, we share the love of Jesus with them, but we don’t merely tell them they are loved, we show them by meeting practical needs in their lives.
Good Intentions Aren’t Enough
I heard a story about a man who went to Russia with good intentions of telling people about the love of Jesus Christ. During his visit, many people were starving. When he found a line
of people waiting hopefully to get bread for the day, he approached them with gospel tracts in hand and began to walk the line telling them that Jesus loves them and handing each of them a tract with the salvation message on it. To be sure, he was trying to help, but one woman looked into his eyes and said bitterly, “Your words are nice, but they don’t fill my empty stomach.”
I have learned that some people are hurting too badly to hear the good news that God loves them; they must experience it and one of the best ways for that to happen is for us to meet their practical needs, in addition to telling them they are loved.
We must beware of thinking that words are enough. Jesus certainly preached the good news, but He also went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed (see Acts 10:38). Talking is not expensive, nor does it require much effort, but real love is costly. It cost God His only Son, and allowing real love to flow through us will also cost us. Perhaps we will have to invest some time, money, effort, or possessions—but it will cost!
We must beware of thinking that words are enough.
God Is Counting on Us
I am going to leave my home soon to go get coffee with my husband and later we’re going to eat lunch. We will probably be gone about two hours, and during that time an estimated 240 children will have been abducted into the sex-trafficking industry. This means two children every minute will have their lives destroyed by someone’s selfishness and greed unless we do something. What can we do? We can care; we can be informed; we can pray; and we can take action. We can support ministries and organizations with proven records of rescuing children and women from these horrible conditions, or if God asks us to, we can even choose to work in these arenas. If full-time work is not an option, we can consider doing something on a project basis or taking a short-term mission trip.
