Bible teacher, speaker, and author Joyce Meyer is celebrating her 78th birthday this week.
Born June 4, 1943, when God spoke to Joyce in 1976, that she would someday have “a large teaching tape ministry,” she could have only imagined what would happen over the next four decades.
From a small-group Bible study in her home…to airing on a few local radio stations…to eventually reaching a potential audience of two-thirds of the world through the Enjoying Everyday Life TV show, Joyce Meyer and her husband Dave, have watched the Lord use their ministry to bring help and healing to millions.
Unknown to many, Joyce Meyer’s first visit to church was almost accidental.
Her parents, she says, had no interest in going to church themselves, but a neighbour wanted to take Joyce with her. There was no altar call during the service, but wanting the salvation from Christ she had heard about in the sermon, nine-year-old Joyce approached the preacher at the end and asked him how she could be saved. She asked Christ into her heart that night.
Her childhood was tragically marked by the abuse she experienced at the hands of her father: sexual, verbal and mental, as Uganda Christian News earlier reported. She however let go of the pain, warning that focusing one’s life on revenge only brings about “poison.” Thankfully, her father later repented, accepted Christ, and was baptised.
Speaking during a recent guest sermon at Life.Church in Oklahoma, USA. Joyce meyer said that if she had one more message to preach about, it would be to encourage Christians to “love, love, and then love some more.”
For Joyce, “Love is not a sermon, it’s not a theory, it’s not a book, it’s how we treat people.”
Non-Christians are “not going to know us by our church attendance or by the bumper sticker in our car,” Meyer explained. “The only thing that’s going to convince the world that Jesus is real is if we who call ourselves Christians can learn to walk in love everywhere we go.”
The evangelical leader went on to say that “God’s love flows to us, it ministers to us, but then it has to flow out of us, otherwise it becomes like a stagnant pool of water and our lives just begin to stink.”
Meyer encourages Christians to keep an open heart of compassion for others, so their hearts may serve as vessels through which God’s love can flow to others.
Readers should not that seven of Joyce’s books have been translated in Acholi, Lango, Lugbara, Mai’di Moyo, Runyankole and Luganda.
Over 357,000 books in these languages as well as English have been distributed through outreaches beyond Uganda and East Africa. Hand of Hope, a charity branch of Joyce Meyer Ministries supports the Baby Watoto home in Gulu; caring for several babies.
