Don't Look Back, Press Forward | Victoria Osteen

1:39 Here's Victoria Osteen. The Bible says that he knew you before the foundation of the world. That he handpicked you. See, he knows every single hair on your head. Now that blows my mind. but God is God and if he said it I believe it up next on Joel Osteen Radio Victoria talks about being handpicked by God and now welcome back Victoria Osteen the other day I was down here at the altar and I was praying for a beautiful young woman she was telling me what she was concerned about and what she wanted me to pray for and then she looked right at me and she said I feel unnoticed by God. I feel like God doesn't even care about what's going on with me. You know, I believe that sometimes we can all feel that way. We get struggling with something so long in our life, we wonder, God, where are you? Do you even see what's going on in my life?

2:42 Do you even care? Sometimes we're in a room like this, and we feel like just one person in the crowd. God, how do you find me in the midst of all these people? But can I tell you today, God's eyes are on you. I want to be the one that reminds you God sees you. The Bible says that He knew you before the foundation of the world, that He handpicked you. See, He knows every single hair on your head. Now that blows my mind, but God is God. And if He said it, I believe it, no matter what I feel like. Even if I feel alone in a crowded room, I'm going to stand on the Word that God says He knew me. He knows my down sitting. He knows my uprising. The Bible says He knows my thoughts from afar. I don't even have to speak anything.

3:42 and God already knows me. But if we're going to overcome those crushing feelings of feeling uncared for, we're going to have to stir up our faith. We're going to have to remind ourself every day, God does know me. He does care for me. And me and God, we're a majority. We can do anything but fail. See, with God, anything is possible. Anything is possible. Whatever you're facing, it's possible if you take hold of God Luke chapter 13 1 Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on this Sabbath day there was people all around it was crowded and he began to teach them and in the middle of his teaching he stopped he stopped because he took notice of a woman that was in the crowd. You see, the woman that was in this crowd, she wasn't dressed beautifully.

4:43 She didn't walk in late, and that's why he noticed her. The woman that was in this crowd, the Bible says, was crippled. In fact, she was bent over like a horseshoe. It said she couldn't even straighten up. Luke describes her as a woman that was afflicted with a spirit of infirmity. Now, we don't know what that infirmity was, but it was something that had bound her up. We don't know what had happened in her life, why her body was so weak and so frail. But she was in the synagogue that day, bent over low, bent over for 18 long years. You see, I'm sure there were people standing and there were people sitting. The most amazing thing to me that day was that Jesus noticed her, and He knew all about her. In fact, He immediately called that woman forward, and He spoke this word to her.

5:46 He said, woman, you are free from your infirmity today. You're free! I mean, she was shuffling and she heard those words, I'm free from my infirmity today. Then he touched her. And the Bible said she immediately stood up. She hadn't stood up for 18 years. This woman had been looking at the ground. All she had seen was the dust of the ground and people's feet. She wasn't, didn't even see their faces. She didn't even see Jesus that day. But when he said, you are loosed from what is binding you, and he touched her and she stood up, can you imagine the first face she had seen in this upright position? Was the face of God. It was the face of Jesus.

6:40 She felt like no one saw her. But Jesus saw her as a daughter. He didn't see a crippled woman when everyone else did. He saw a daughter of promise. And He set her free that day. She'd been crippled for 18 years. She'd been looking down at the ground. I wonder how long it took her to realize that she was set free. that she wasn't crippled anymore. I mean, she was standing up straight, but you know, when you've been a certain way for so long, it's hard to believe you can be another way. It's kind of like an attitude. When that attitude's had you for so, you've had this attitude for so long, somehow that attitude has you. You don't even realize that you're a son or a daughter of promise, and that God has already spoken the Word and He's already set you free.

7:37 He's already freed you from what would bind you But you just don't realize it yet You see the enemy wants you low He wants you looking down He certainly doesn't want you to see the face of your savior He doesn't want to see you to see that you are a son and daughter of promise You see he called her A daughter of abraham There were some opponents in the crowd that didn't want her healed that day. They were looking for all the reasons that woman shouldn't be healed. But you know what he said? He said, this woman is the daughter of Abraham. She has every right and every authority to be healed any day of the week. and sometimes people try to keep you bent over with their words, with the situation. Man, your own mind tries to keep you weighed down, but can I tell you, you have all power and authority to stand up straight because Jesus is already calling you forward.

8:42 We got to shake the dust off of us and stand up and move forward. You know what I admire about this woman. She didn't let her bent over crippled condition keep her from the position of hearing what Jesus had to say. And too often, we allow the conditions in our life to keep us from our position of faith. We say, I can't come to church today. I'm too tired. Man, my boss has me working six days a week. My children have me running them to every activity that there are. I'm tired. I need to rest You see nobody would have blamed that woman for staying home She didn't allow her condition to change her position. She was a daughter of promise whether she knew it or not And that's what kept her going I want to encourage you today to stir your faith.

9:42 Don't allow anything to bend you over, to bind you up. Because whom the Son sets free is free indeed. You are free indeed today. You've been bought with a great price. You are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. You have a covenant between you and God. You see, that's what that woman had. That's what Jesus saw. He didn't see her crippled body. He saw his covenant with her. He saw an agreement that couldn't be broken. And you stand in a position today of covenant. There is an agreement between you and God that cannot be broken. There's no devil on earth that can bind you anymore because you're free, free, free indeed. You see, it's up to us to get ourself under the Word, to understand that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's going to be the same for you as He is for your children. He is the same Jesus with the same covenant, blood covenant.

10:58 You see, when we stir up our faith and we realize the power that Jesus has towards us, we will say, God can. When we stir up our faith and realize the love He has for us, we'll say, God will. Listen, God can and God will reposition you no matter what situation you're in right now and he'll call you forward and you will become everything he's intended you to be. Amen. Do you believe that today? Thank you, Lord. We received that today. Such an encouraging message

15:42 You know, love is an amazing thing because really, you know, you can love a lot of things. I love that pizza. I love the color purple. Man, when they do that, I just love that. You know, we can love a lot of things, but are we committed to a lot of things? So when you go to your favorite pizza place, it didn't taste like it did last time. I don't like this pizza anymore. I'm not going back there. You know, sometimes we can easily let go of what we think we love. But you know, love is really a commitment. It's unconditional. It's acceptance. Love is—it's an action. It's not just a word, but it's something that you commit to. You know, in Philippians 1-9, Paul prayed this.

16:38 He said, I pray that your love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. See, he was saying, I don't want you to just love one way. I want you to love deep. I want you to love strong. I want you to love committed. I want you to have smart love. If it's going to have knowledge to it, it's going to have to have some smarts to it. It's going to have to take time to study, to understand. You know, love is really a complicated thing. But we can love with that depth, because God put the love in our heart. Before we knew any love, God loved us. And He said, when you accept me, I'm going to put that same love that I love you with in your heart. See, God doesn't just love us when we're doing well. He loves us at all times.

17:33 His love doesn't change. It's unconditional. Even when we don't love ourself, God still loves us. He still loves us. That's kind of hard to believe. But when we ponder that love, we read about it in the Word, we study it, we acknowledge it, we grow in wisdom with that love, we have some depth. Whenever we don't do so great, we don't go, oh, guess that God doesn't love me anymore. Oh well, that relationship's over. No. We go, God, you know what? Thank You You love me in spite of my faults, in spite of my mistakes. I don't have to hang my head. God, I can come to You with such confidence and boldness, knowing that You love me. See, that's the kind of love we have to develop for each other. God's put that love in us so we can develop that same love for one another. Joel and I will be married 28 years in April.

18:29 And you know, even though that love did start out as a feeling, when I saw him I thought he was so cute. I thought, oh, he's cute. I remember when he used to come to my door and he'd wear a suit, and I'd think, don't wear that suit. I'd want to shut him. I said, you're too cute. I might really fall in love with you. You know, it starts a—love starts as a feeling. There's chemistry there. But you know what? Then that love has to go to a new level. When you get married, your love needs to continue to grow. It needs to continue to abound. It has seasons. There's nothing like a seasoned love. That unconditional love and acceptance is really what the strength is in our marriage after almost 28 years. It's not because he agrees with me on everything, although he should.

19:23 it's not because we meet each other's expectations every single day because we don't but we love each other anyway that love has become deep it's become rich we've nurtured it we've invested in it and now it's a commitment and you know that unconditional love and acceptance anchors both of our lives. In fact, often, I love this idea, and I think about it often, God put Joel and I together. The billions of people on this planet, He could have brought anyone across my path. He could have given Joel anyone, but He gave us each other. Now, you know why I love to think about that so much? It's because when I do something, that's so cool. But when God does something, it's important. When God does something, it has deeper meaning. There's purpose in it. Do you know when Joel and I, when we disagree and we don't like each other, we never break our union. We're not going to break that union. There's too much writing on that union. It's worth fighting for. It's worth striving for. It's a union made in heaven and what God puts together, we're not going to let anything break apart. Amen?

20:46 So today, if you're here and you have a spouse, I want you to know you're blessed. Think about it. God put you together. There must be some power in that union. You know, a good relationship is all about giving and receiving. A healthy relationship, one that satisfies you, is a two-way street. If you're giving all the time, that's not right. If you're receiving all the time, that's not healthy. But when you're giving and receiving, that's what God put in place. That's the principle. God said when you give, it'll come back to you. Think about that. We should be giving and receiving. Find out what your spouse likes and give it to them. Study them. Adapt to them. They have a love language. Give them what they need, not what you need. You know, I think about it. You know, there's some things that I know make Joel's life easier. I just know it.

21:40 And you know what I do? I do them because they make his life easier. And do you know he does the same for me? He does them because he knows I like them and helps me. And that's what we need to do for one another. We need to help each other. You know what? God wants us to not only have this strong bond of unity and power and accomplishment, but He wants it to go to the next generation. He wants our children to see the commitment, the unconditional love, the fact that we're willing to overlook, the fact that we're willing to forgive, that we don't have to just decide we don't like someone, give them the cold shoulder because they didn't meet our expectations. It's not like pizza. It's not like the color purple. it's commitment unconditional and it anchors us it anchors us about eight or nine years ago we had this beautiful young couple they were both young doctors that went to the church since then they've moved to another city and they built their practices somewhere else but when she was first married she wrote me this note and she was telling me how much she loved to watch joel and i and that she felt like that we just really loved and respected each other and that's what she wanted for her marriage. And she told me all the dreams and desires she had for her marriage.

22:57 But at the end of the note, she made this one statement, and it has stuck with me. And I thought about it, and it's such an interesting statement. She said, I love my husband, and I'm going to treat him like he's famous. And I thought about that, and I thought, you know, we look at famous people and we put them on a pedestal. We see them on TV and we are in awe of them. They seem so wonderful. We'd say, oh, we'd love to get to—oh, wouldn't you love to meet them? Oh, man, I'd love to be their friends. We hold them in high regard and put them in an important place. Think about this for just a moment. What if you treated your spouse like they were famous? Think about what they could do for your relationship. Put them on a pedestal, continued to stay in awe of them, got excited when you saw them, couldn't wait to be around them.

23:55 You know, I took that to heart, and I started treating Joel like he was famous, and guess what? Now he is! He owes me big time. You know, when you live a life of giving, you live the best possible life there is. Now, sometimes we think, well, I can't give all the time. If I give all the time, I won't have anything left. Or we think, if someone asks me for something that I don't have, how do you expect me to give? But can I tell you this today? That there is never a time that you are empty-handed. you always have something to give in the book of acts Peter and Paul were walking to the temple to worship God it was a time of day where everyone came to worship at the temple I can just imagine the crowd and everybody trying to get into the temple so they could all get a good seat kind of like this morning you know you got out of your car you were rushing here you wanted to get your seat before someone took it? You were all busy. And so they came walking into the temple. They were passing the gates of the temple and they passed a man who was sitting there begging. Now the Bible talks about this man and this man had been crippled from birth and the people that took care of him placed him at the gate every single day. Obviously it was a good place to sit for spare change because he was there every day. I'm sure if it wasn't a good place they would have moved him somewhere else, right? So he was there that day begging, believing that he was going to get what he needed for that day, have enough money to take care of himself and the people who helped him. Well, this particular day when Peter and John were walking past the gate, he hollered out to them. And he said, hey, I need some money. He was begging from them. And I can see Peter and John, they're probably having a good time, a good day. It was a good day for them. And they kind of felt their pockets, maybe they got their money bag, and they realized, I don't have any money.

25:59 And, you know, it would have been easy for them to say, well, buddy, you know what, I'll catch you next time. You know, I don't have any money right now, but I'll catch you next time. Have you ever done that? Someone asked you for something you didn't have, and you think, wow, well, I have. Okay, I'll admit it, I have. I was sitting at the light parked in my car at an intersection, and I was just sitting there minding my own business when this man, I saw him walking to all the cars. And he was begging for money. And so I reached in my purse and I started looking for some spare money. I didn't see any money, no change. I began to look in my console, no money at all. And I saw him getting closer and closer to me. And I felt bad because, you know, you always want to give something to him. I didn't want to deny the man. So I grabbed my phone and I started talking on it. I was like, yeah, yeah. You know? And so when he passed my car, he didn't even know I saw him. I didn't have what he was asking for so I just ignored it you see I am so glad that day that Peter and John because they didn't have money they didn't ignore the man see Peter realized I always have something to give as long as I have the power of the most high living in me he looked straight at that guy and he said hey buddy silver and gold I don't have but I do have something and his name is Jesus and he reached out his hand and he said get on up and walk buddy you're healed in the name of Jesus and the Bible says that that guy jumped up and there was a miracle that everyone saw that day, he began jumping and leaping and praising God.

27:45 Listen, Peter realized he was never empty-handed. You may not have exactly what someone is asking you for, but do you have a hand to pick up your neighbor? Do you have an encouraging word to put someone on their feet? You know what I learned that day that I grabbed my phone, tried to ignore the fact that I didn't have what that man needed, I realized I do. I do have something. I have the name of Jesus. And next time I run in that situation, I'm praying. God, thank you that you'll give that man supernatural opportunity, that, Father, he'll understand his value and his worth. God, I thank you that you're doing things he could never, ever, ever expect that only you can do, Father. Bless him today, Father. Enrich his life. You see, I have a prayer, and that prayer is powerful when you give it in love. When you put it in the hands of Jesus, it has a ripple effect.

28:42 It makes a difference on this earth. You see, that's extravagant giving. That's a person who knows that they're not lacking anything because they serve the creator of the world. I may not have exactly what you need today, but I have something better. I have a prayer. I have a hand. I have a word. I have something I can do for you. Maybe it's just your time. Sometimes time can be more valuable than money. Hey, does your sister just need an encouraging word? Does she need you to just sit down for five minutes and help her out with the situation that she's going through? Maybe she just needs you to nod and say, yes, you can do it. What is it that someone needs today? You have it because you are never empty-handed. A lot of times we don't have enough financially if you do have enough financially Praise god give it god always gives back but sometimes we don't have enough to solve someone's problem We don't have enough to get them out of the situation There was a young boy in the bible. He packed his sack lunch one morning He decided he was going to go see jesus He put five loaves of bread and two fish in it He thought this should take care of me at least for the afternoon when I get hungry I had a good breakfast, but it'll take care of me this afternoon.

30:01 So he was standing in the crowd watching Jesus. And all of a sudden, he got a tap on the shoulder. And this disciple came up to him and said, hey, young man, can I have your lunch? I see you got a lunch there. He said, I got to feed all these people. And I'm sure the boy was like, I'm sorry, but this is not enough to feed all the people.

33:20 Can you imagine him scratching his head saying, where'd this guy come from? You know, but the boy gave it anyway. The boy said, maybe I don't have enough, but let me just see what would happen. And that day, the disciples took that lunch and put it in the hands of Jesus. That little bit wasn't enough, but in the hands of Jesus, it fed 5,000 people that day. You may not have enough to meet the entire need. You may not have enough to solve the problem. But can you share your lunch? Can you give a little? Can you do what it takes to help a friend? Listen, we need to have this abundant mentality. Because I believe when we put our little, no matter what it is, is it a smile?

34:13 Are you holding a door for a stranger when you walk through the door first? Are you just letting your light shine? I believe when we begin to put our little in the hands of Jesus, that's when we're going to see miracles. That's when we're going to see the blind see, the crippled walk, the lame jump. We're going to see relationships mended. We're going to see the ripple effect of what we have given to Jesus effective on this entire earth. you know when we give no matter what it is how great or how small that giving serves and helps others but do you know really what that giving does it powerfully transforms the giver do you want to transform life do you want to live at your highest level do you want to see god do things not only in your own life but in the lives around you be that extravagant giver have that mentality of I'm never empty handed.

35:05 I've always got something to offer. And watch God take your little. Make it into much.