Joyce Meyer vs Jesus

 

 INTRODUCTION

A neighbor of mine mentioned the famous televangelist Joyce Meyer to me one day and suggested that I read one of Meyer’s books. So I read the book my friend gave me: Managing Your Emotions: Instead of Your Emotions Managing You, first published in 1997 and still sold in hardcover, digital and audio formats. The quotes mentioned here are from that book, unless indicated otherwise, but the teachings discussed are the theme of Joyce Meyer’s books and sermons to this day. Those teachings have been preached by others for decades, long before Joyce Meyer adopted them, and they are still being taught in hundreds of churches across the USA.

Early in her book Meyer warns;

“There is a lot of spiritual ‘junk’ being offered today, and some of it sounds so good and feels so right. Make sure what you are following is in line with the Word of God and is initiated by His Holy Spirit.” (p 81)

Are Joyce Meyer’s teachings “in line with the Word of God” and “initiated by His Holy Spirit”? For those who care to check, let’s take a look. And may the truth of Christ, who is the truth, enlighten us all.

 

 

Chapter 1

LEAVING OFF THE EVERLASTING ARMS

 

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—  which is really no gospel at all.” Galatians 1:6

 

Meyer presents herself as the object of envy early in her book; “My husband and I have a fabulous life” she writes, “many times things are so wonderful for us I feel like a fairy princess.” “Here I am traveling all over the world, people are coming to hear me speak, I’m on radio and television, and God,” she claims, “is opening doors to me everywhere I go – I am so blessed!”

And her readers? After claiming that she is just as “blessed” as Abraham was, Meyer goes on to tell them, “Each of us can be blessed as Abraham was, if we will be as faithful and obedient as he was.”

Notice the “if”. Meyer crams her book full of “if”s like that one, piling up a long list of hurdles that she insists her followers must jump before they can hope to approach the “fairy princess” “fabulous life”,  the supposedly “blessed” life that she claims she has and that she assumes they want.

A few examples from this book;

“IF we are willing to control our emotions, God will bless us.” “…IF we will submit to His way, everything will work out for us.” “IF we will learn and act on the Word, God will bless our lives.” “IF we do things God’s way, we will experience God’s victory.”  “UNLESS WE are obedient to God’s Word, the Word will have no effect on us.” And an endless list of others throughout her books right up to the present; “IF we choose to live according to God’s commands, our lives will be blessed, and if we don’t, we cannot expect his blessings,” Meyer writes just last year in Loving People Who Are Hard to Love.

Meyer makes it perfectly clear – according to her, she is so “blessed” because she “controls her emotions”, “submits to His ways”, “learned and acted on the Word”, “does things God’s way”, is “obedient to God’s Word,” “lives according to God’s commands” and, not only that, she is just as “faithful and obedient” as Abraham was. According to Joyce Meyer, thanks to her efforts she’s got it all taken care of. As for you, she always assumes, you’re not there yet.

What’s wrong with all this?

To start, Meyer ignores the simple fact that in the story of Abraham, there are no “ifs”. Contrary to what Joyce Meyer teaches, none of God’s promises to Abraham are contingent on his behavior. Everything is a gift from the grace – the unearned, undeserved favor – of God. In fact, if God’s grace depends on us and what we do, as Meyer claims, then it’s not grace at all;

Now if by grace, then it is not by works; otherwise grace ceases to be grace. Romans 11:6

Yet Meyer writes, “God told Abraham that IF he would obey Him, God would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him.”

But the Bible says nothing of the kind. It simply says;

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:2-3

There is no “IF“.
Meyer goes on to quote an ‘Amplified’ version of Genesis 15:1

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am your Shield, your abundant compensation, and your reward shall be exceedingly great. Genesis 15:1

“In this passage,” she states, “we see that the Lord came to Abraham and promised that IF he would be faithful and obedient to Him, He Himself would be his great recompense and reward.” But that is false  – there is nowhere any “IF”. Contrary to what Joyce Meyer teaches, there is no conditionality to God’s promises to Abraham. They come by grace – undeserved favor – not by fulfilling some requirement, as Meyer constantly insists. 

The promises made by the gracious and forgiving God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are eternally trustworthy.

Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise.
Hebrews 10:23

But the deity that Joyce Meyer is preaching cannot be counted on to keep his promises. How does she know this? “I know from personal experience”, Meyer writes, “that He does what He promises to do IF we do what He tells us to do.” So, according to Joyce Meyer, if you slip up, don’t count on God’s promises like Abraham did.

And that is exactly the opposite of grace. 

Despite this Meyer portrays herself as a modern-day Abraham, writing; “… like Abraham, in order to enjoy the promised blessings, I had to give up what I thought was the source of my happiness and security and set out, not knowing where I was headed or what was awaiting me when I got there.”

But that’s not at all like Abraham. Abraham didn’t have to leave his home and family in order to “enjoy the promised blessings” as Meyer claims. It was exactly the opposite – Abraham gladly left everything behind because he had faith, faith in God, faith that God would keep His promises to bless him and to make him a blessing to others as a gift of God’s amazing grace, not as a reward for anything he did or would or could do. 

So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Galatians 3:9

But Joyce Meyer completely rejects this.  She even claims that God personally made promises to her “… just as there were when God called Abraham: ‘IF you will obey me and do this thing I am asking you, then I will broaden your tent and you will stretch out to the north, and to the south and to the east and to the west and I will bless you and make you a blessing to others.’ ”

This is yet another example of just how “out of line” Meyer’s teachings are with the Bible. Not only does she pervert the biblical text by adding yet another “IF” that isn’t there, but in the verses she refers to, God is speaking not to Abraham, as she claims, but to Jacob instead. In the Bible’s account, Jacob is fleeing the threat of death from his own brother and is alone in the wilderness at night, destitute, with no idea of what will happen to him and with only a rock for a pillow. (Meyer, on the other hand, was contemplating changing churches in the comfort of her own home.) 

 Here is what God actually says to Jacob in the Bible:

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:13-15

Notice again that there is no “IF you will obey me and do this thing” as Meyer claims. Joyce Meyer is baldly lying – there are nowhere any “IF“s at all. Like Abraham, Jacob wasn’t required to leave his home in order to get blessed, it was exactly the opposite – because he had gotten his Father’s blessing, Jacob was forced to flee his home in order to escape the threat of death from his jealous brother. The promises to Jacob are the gift of God’s grace to someone who had lost everything, including almost his life, for seeking the things of God rather than the things of this world. They are absolutely unconditional.

And although he had to work like a slave for twenty years for everything he eventually had in this world, including even his wives, Jacob still confessed to God; 

“I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.” Genesis 32:10

Could Joyce Meyer possibly be more unlike Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Could she possibly be less “in line with the Word of God”? 

Throughout her books and sermons Meyer relentlessly corrupts and perverts the biblical text like this, in this case creating an endless list of requirements while always holding herself up as fulfilling them and thus earning, according to her, a “blessedness” that she falsely claims is just like Abraham’s. To the followers of the televangelists this may seem insignificant, but it represents the difference between the filthy rags of self-righteousness that those preachers are selling and the saving grace that comes free of charge by faith in Christ – who IS “our righteousness.”

Unlike Christ’s ‘New Covenant’ of grace, of which Abraham was the pioneer, Moses’ ‘Old Covenant’ of law from Deuteronomy 28 is full of “IF”s…

“IF you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you IF you obey the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 28:1-2

…like Joyce Meyer claims she does. 

“However, IF you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you…” Deuteronomy 28:15

… and a long list of horrible curses follows.

Meyer refers to that list of “blessings” in Deuteronomy 28 frequently in her books. “Deuteronomy 28 provides details about the blessings we can expect if we obey the Lord,” Meyer writes in her 2005 best-seller Battlefield of the Mind, “and the problems that will arise when we do not obey Him.” “We must realize that the blessing package described in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 is conditional,” she writes in The Confident Woman, The Everyday LIfe Bible and Keeping the Devil.

Being conditional, that “blessing package” is earned by following Moses’ commandments, not given freely out of God’s gracious love – and according to Joyce Meyer she’s got the whole “package” because she obeys them all. After quoting Deuteronomy 28:1-2, the verses shown above, in God is Not Mad at You, Perfect Love and God’s Greatest Gifts, Meyer writes, “We don’t need to chase blessings, because they will chase us if we will simply do what God asks us to do.” According to Joyce Meyer, to “fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands” is for her a piece of cake – she ‘simply’ does them. 

The apostle Peter had something to say about the Law of Moses to the Joyce Meyers of his time:

“Now then, why are you testing God by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to endure?” Acts 15:10

The gospel of Christ has a completely different message than the law of Moses and the televangelists have about just who is blessed and who is cursed by that law. It’s those who have faith in Christ and what he did who are the blessed. It’s those who have faith in themselves and in what they do who are the cursed.

 … all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Galatians 3:10

And that includes Joyce Meyer. 

Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, is the only person to ever “fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands” and thereby deserve all those blessings that the Law of Moses promised. But rather than enjoy a “fabulous life” he chose instead to suffer a horrible, painful death in order to free those who believe in him and in what he did, rather than in themselves and in what they do, from the Law’s miserable curse;

“Christ rescued us from the Law’s curse, when he became accursed in our place.” Galatians 3:13

In the fourth chapter of Romans, Paul examines the same story in Genesis that Meyer was referring to about Abraham;

“What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, ‘Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.’ When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. ” Romans 4: 1-4

Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. Romans 4:13

Joyce Meyer’s ‘gospel’ is exactly the opposite of the gospel of Christ. Paul the apostle makes it clear that it’s not because Abraham was “obedient to the Word” and “walked in His ways” that God blessed him, as Meyer constantly insists. Instead, it was Abraham’s faith in the “God who forgives sinners”, sinners like himself, and that faith was “counted to him as righteousness” – not anything that he did.

For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, “The person who is put right with God through faith shall live.” Romans 1:17

But Joyce Meyer wants none of that for herself or her followers. The false gospel that she is preaching isn’t about Christ, his obedience, and the gift of eternal life that he purchased with his suffering and death. Instead it’s about how she has earned her “blessed” “fairy tale” life through her deeds, brought about by her will, the reward of her supposed obedience. “It takes a constant act of the will to choose to do things God’s way,” Meyer insists, always promoting herself and her supposed obedience to the law of Moses, not Abraham and the righteousness he obtained by faith, as the ideal.

“All we have to do today,” Meyer breezily concludes on page 53, “is what Moses had to do – obey.” Her ignorance of the story of Moses is telling. Moses was denied entrance into the promised land because he disobeyed God, yet Meyer portrays herself as doing what not even Moses could do. And she teaches those who follow her that they can do the same IF they can just somehow summon the willpower and discipline and incredible effort to obey all of God’s commandments like she she claims she easily does. And even Moses didn’t.

But though Joyce Meyer teaches the opposite, Moses, like Abraham, found God’s favor by his faith, not by earning it. And the reward that Moses was looking forward to was the same as Abraham’s; not a supposedly “blessed” life of money, property, power and fame like Meyer claims that she has – because, according to her, she has earned it – but the undeserved gift of eternal life with Christ, the same “abundant compensation”, the eternal life that God promised to Abraham, compared to which all of the bogus “blessings” of the televangelists are nothing at all.

“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ to be of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.” Hebrews 11:24-26

Could it be any clearer that Meyer’s “reward”, the “blessings” she claims she has earned by her supposed “diligent obedience”, are temporary things in this world, rather than eternal life with Christ in the next?

Her attitude toward her own followers should be equally clear; “To receive from God what he has promised us in His Word,” she again insists, “we must obey the Word. ‘Yes’, you may say, ‘but I have been doing the Word for a long time and I still don’t have the victory!’’

Meyer’s answer? “Then do it some more.” 

Unlike Meyer’s “victory”, the victory Bible talks about is not the result of our “doing the Word”, it is instead the result of our faith, contrary to what Joyce Meyer over and over insists,;

“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.” 1 John 5:4

Salvation by faith is an essential doctrine of the Bible. It teaches that reconciliation with God, the righteousness that comes from faith, and the gift of eternal life are not earned by our obedience or our works or our doing but are received as an unearned gift by putting our faith instead in Christ’s obedience – specifically in the self-sacrificing atonement for the sins of the world made on the Cross by the only truly sinless person who ever lived.

“And just as all people were made sinners as the result of the disobedience of one man, in the same way they will all be put right with God as the result of the obedience of the one man.” Romans 5:19

“For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.” Romans 3:25

It’s “by his wounds that we are healed” not by following the self-aggrandizing teachings of a televangelist, and it’s by abandoning faith in our own actions and putting our faith instead in what He did that we receive that healing, as the Bible teaches over and over.

“I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.” Phil 3:9

“By grace are you saved, through faith; and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God –not by works, so that no one can boast.” Eph 2:8

And because Joyce Meyer thoroughly rejects God’s way of salvation by faith she boasts plenty;

“I am free in Jesus,” Meyer claims in her book, and, she assumes, you aren’t. “I live and walk in light and peace and joy,” she brags, always assuming that her readers don’t.  “Do you want to continually bruise Satan’s head, as I am doing in my life and ministry?” she asks. She is and you of course aren’t. This is the basic premise of every cult guru and it’s everywhere in Meyer’s books and sermons; the guru’s got it, you don’t, the guru’s there, and you are not. “God fills every room in my heart, so that I am filled with His light,” Meyer claims. And you must read her books and listen to her sermons and try very very hard so that you too might get there some day “sooner or later”, like she claims she has. And even then you’ll only get there “IF”;  “… IF you will stay on that narrow path and leave all your excess baggage behind, sooner or later you will find the peace, joy and fulfillment you seek,” she writes.

Fortunately, Jesus, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, puts no such hurdles in the way of those who put their faith in him rather than in themselves;

“If anyone is thirsty, let them come to Me and drink. The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From their innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:38

And the God-given escape from the demanding arrogance of the self-righteous is the undemanding humility of the Messiah, who alone is truly righteous, and who alone completely submitted his “mind, will, and emotions” to God like Joyce Meyer falsely claims she has;

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28

Unfortunately, Joyce Meyer’s followers aren’t taking Christ’s yoke and learning from him. She’s convinced them that they should buy her books and watch her sermons and learn from her instead, making them slaves of a righteousness by the law that no one will never attain. According to Meyer, her way is The Way, not Christ’s; her ‘truth’ is The Truth, not Christ’s; and her life is The Life, not Jesus’.  

Seeming to contradict herself, Meyer goes on to write: “I needed to know that God loved me unconditionally and His love was not something I could buy with works or good behavior.”  So how does Joyce Meyer go about knowing God’s love? By resting her faith in Christ’s death on the cross as its proof?

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us,” 1 John 3:16

Of course not – Joyce Meyer doesn’t put her faith in Jesus. As always she puts it in her own “works and good behavior” instead. “Through the process of continual study and meditation in this area,” she claims, “I became rooted and grounded in God’s love as the Apostle Paul encourages us to do in Ephesians 3.”

That’s what Joyce Meyer says Paul says but it’s not at all what the Bible says Paul says. According to the verses Meyer is referring to, it’s not by “continual study and meditation”, or any work on our part, that we cam become rooted and grounded in God’s love. Instead it is of course by faith;

“I pray that he would give you, accord­ing to his glorious riches, strength in your inner being and power through his Spirit, and that the Messiah would make his home in your hearts through faith. Then, having been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to understand, along with all the saints, what is wide, long, high, and deep— that is, you will know the love of the Messiah, which transcends knowledge, and will be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19

Self-will, what Nietzsche called “the will to power”, is at the heart of Meyer’s teaching. An essential point of Meyer’s book is her contention that “we fight against our emotions –by using our will to make a decision to follow God’s Word.” According to Meyer, she is “blessed” by her will, her effort, her supposed obedience to God’s Word – all to her credit and glory, not Christ’s. She insists that she is using her will to follow God’s will, but in doing so she makes it plain that she refuses to abandon faith in herself and in what she does and to believe instead in the gospel of Christ and in what he did – she’d rather believe in herself. There’s no more “worldly” attitude than this; rejecting faith in Christ’s atoning death on the cross and replacing it with faith in one’s self, replacing the righteousness that comes by faith in Christ with self-righteousness, replacing confidence in God with “self-confidence”.

One only needs to read the titles of a few of Meyer’s other books to perceive the spirit of self-will that she is selling: “Never Give Up!: Relentless Determination to Overcome Life’s Challenges”, “Winning the Battle in Your Mind”, “Overcoming the Obstacles to Your Happiness”, “21 Ways to Conquer Anxiety, Fear, and Discontentment”. The message is repeated over and over again; it’s all about yourself and your efforts – “overcoming”, “conquering”, “winning” by your own willpower – not about giving up on believing in yourself and instead putting your faith in Christ, who by the painful sacrifice of his own life overcame the world, conquered death, and won eternal life for all who put their faith in him and what he did rather than in themselves and what they do.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“This is the work of God, to believe in the one whom he has sent.” John 6:29

That one is Jesus, not Joyce.

 

 

Chapter 2

BLESSED ASSURANCE, MONEY IS MINE

“Beware, and be on your guard against every kind of greed.” -Jesus

 

Meyer constantly boasts in her book about her “blessedness” – recall her proclaiming in the previous chapter “I am so blessed!” What does the Bible mean by “blessedness”? After discussing how Abraham was blessed because of his faith, Paul makes clear exactly what Abraham’s “blessedness” was by quoting Psalms;

David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
 Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.” Romans 4:7-8

And what does Joyce Meyer mean by “blessedness”?  

Money.

When Joyce Meyer was questioned by a local newspaper about her $900,000 per year salary, her husband’s $450,000 per year salary – both on the ‘Joyce Meyer Ministries’ payroll – her $20 million office complex, full of millions of dollars worth of antique furniture, her $10 million private jet, her multi-million dollar family “compound”, her half-million dollar vacation home and her expensive luxury cars – everything paid for by her followers and all worth twice that amount now – her response was curt and unequivocal; “There’s no need for us to apologize for being blessed.”

There is a serious problem with Meyer calling herself “blessed” due to her worldly wealth. It’s not just Meyer’s false claim that she has earned this “blessedness” by her supposed obedience, as we saw in the first chapter. Worse than that, Meyer is deliberately contradicting Christ himself on the subject of just who is and who isn’t “blessed”;

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.”

Luke 6: 20, 24

Following the ‘prosperity preachers’ before her, Meyer completely perverts Christ’s clear teaching as to just who is and who isn’t “blessed.” In the good news of Jesus’ gospel it’s the poor who are blessed and it’s the rich who are in trouble with God – yet Meyer teaches exactly the opposite. Meyer boasts of her “joy and blessedness” yet Christ teaches that it’s those who are weeping who are blessed – exactly the opposite. Meyer calls herself “so blessed!” due to her thousands of loyal followers but according to Jesus it’s those who are hated, those who are excluded, those who are insulted because they’re following him that truly are blessed – exactly the opposite. And to those who, like Meyer, have acquired a cult of thousands of adoring, unquestioning followers Christ warns…

“Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” Luke 6:26

In announcing the misery in the next world awaiting those who, like Meyer, are “blessed” with “prosperity” in this one, Jesus was speaking entirely within the biblical tradition. A few examples; 

“…my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong. 
They are free from common human burdens;
they are not plagued by human ills.
…Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.

…This is what the wicked are like—
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

…Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
They are like a dream when one awakes;
when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.”  Psalm 73

“Why should I fear when evil days come,
when wicked deceivers surround me—
those who trust in their wealth
and boast of their great riches?

… they leave their wealth to others.
Their graves are their eternal homes,
their homes from generation to generation,
though they have named estates after themselves.

… This is the way of those who trust in themselves,
and of their followers, who approve of their words.
They are like sheep and are destined to die;
death will be their shepherd. 

…. Though while they live they count themselves blessed—
and people praise you when you prosper—
they will join those who have gone before them,
who will never again see the light of life. Psalm 49

“Why are the wicked so prosperous?
Why are evil people so happy?
You have planted them,
and they have taken root and prospered.
Your name is on their lips,
but you are far from their hearts.
…..
Drag these people away like sheep to be butchered!
Set them aside to be slaughtered!” Jeremiah 12

“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” Proverbs 30:8

What both Christ and the book of Proverbs call “my daily bread” is clearly not enough for Joyce Meyer, to put it mildly.

On pages 135-136 of her book, Meyer talks at length about a particular solid gold watch she coveted, but had postponed buying while she considered a less expensive gold-plated version. When her husband unexpectedly gifted her that solid gold watch, along with an expensive suit and gold ring to match, Meyer exults, “I thanked the Lord that I had had the sense to let Him work out His plan for me”, otherwise “I would have ended up with a cheap watch that I would not have been happy with very long.”

That “cheap”, merely gold-plated watch cost $800 in 1997 – that’s over $1500 today.

Meyer, who boasts in her book “I am filled with peace and joy” makes it clear where her joy originates; “when Dave presented me with that 14-karat gold watch I had wanted so badly, I was filled with joy.” 

“Joy” is not at all the emotion that the Bible teaches is in order here;

“Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you …. Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.” James 5:1-3

Jesus declared Woe to the Pharisees who had him killed, Woe to those who lead children away from him, Woe to the cities that rejected him and Woe to Judas who betrayed him – and includes the rich in that hell-bound crowd. Who but rich televangelists like Joyce Meyer could be so spiritually blind and scripturally ignorant as to believe that a solid gold watch is “God’s plan”?

Meyer goes on in her book about the purchase of her earthly mansion, part of the multi-million dollar family compound mentioned earlier – paid for, like everything else, by Joyce Meyer Ministries. “I knew the house was a gift from the Lord” she writes on p 137, describing it as “a good financial investment for us”. Ever the example to her readers of “Managing Your Emotions”, Meyer explains how she didn’t get overly excited about suddenly owning such pricey real estate, as she might have in the past. Instead she was “filled with calm delight”. Why? Because by being too excited “we take away the joy and blessedness that should exist between us and the Lord when He does something special for us.”

This, according to Meyer, is where she finds “joy and blessedness”; not in Christ and his atonement for her sins but in her gold and real estate. 

What does Jesus have to say of all this?

You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Rev. 3:17

After washing all 24 of his twelve disciple’s dirty feet, willingly doing the humiliating job of the most menial servant, Jesus put an “if” before his disciples and promised them a blessing, provided they obeyed it;

“For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” John 13:17

Meyer certainly must know these things, but following Christ’s example and doing them she certainly is not. Can anyone imagine Joyce Meyer personally washing the car or cleaning the toilet of even one of her myriad disciples?  While she revels and glories in what she falsely calls “blessedness”, can Joyce Meyer be anything but the very opposite of “blessed” according to Christ? 

Joyce Meyer has a multi-million dollar mansion and a million dollar vacation home. Jesus, by his own admission, was homeless. Joyce Meyer has a private jet and expensive luxury cars. Jesus briefly had a borrowed donkey. Jesus’ example was one of total humiliation, of washing his disciples’ feet as if he were a slave, of being whipped bloody before those who hated him, and, though he could have had anything, choosing instead to give up everything, stripped naked, robbed of even his underwear, ridiculed by the public, suffering horribly, and executed as a criminal in order to atone for the sins of everyone and purchase an eternal home in heaven for all who believe in him rather than in themselves. Joyce Meyer’s example is one of exalting herself over her followers, of reveling in her power and fame, of glorying in her millions of dollars in real estate, her multimillion dollar mansion, her jet, her cars, her furniture, her gold, her jewelry, her expensive clothes, and all the loyal servants at her command – everything paid for by those same followers, who will never get anything in return but the poisoned anti-gospel that she has sold them. 

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. And Jesus said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.” Luke 16:13

Could Joyce Meyer, who holds herself up as the example while proudly parading her worldly “blessedness”, possibly be more unlike Christ’s example? Could anything possibly be more detestable in the sight of God than the ill-gotten wealth of televangelists like Meyer, the filthiest of all “filthy lucre”? 

Isaiah dealt with such greedy ‘ministers’ thousands of years ago, writing;

“The dogs have big appetites; they are never full. They are shepherds who have no understanding; they all go their own way, each one looking for monetary gain.” Isaiah 56:11

Jeremiah prophesied about such preachers as well;

“From the least to the greatest,
their lives are ruled by greed.
Yes, even my prophets and priests are like that.
They are all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments
for my people’s mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace
when there is no peace.
…. Whatever I gave them will soon be gone.
I, the LORD, have spoken!’” Jeremiah 8:10-13

Meyer has been deluded by what Christ calls “the deceitfulness of riches”, the mistaken belief that having money is a “blessing” and proof of God’s approval but if you’re poor it’s God cursing you with poverty because you aren’t as “faithful and obedient” as Joyce Meyer says she is. Not only does Joyce Meyer teach that Satanic lie, she has gotten rich spreading it around the world for decades – while, even worse, calling it a “Christian ministry” in the name of the Christ who teaches exactly the opposite.   

Fortunately, the Bible everywhere echoes Christ’s clear teaching that even though the Joyce Meyers of the world are determined to rob them of that belief, God is on the side of the poor, not the rich.

A few examples:

My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.” Psalms 35:10 

For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight..  Psalms 72:12-14

You are a tower of refuge to the poor, O LORD, a tower of refuge to the needy in distress. Isaiah 25:4

On that day the deaf will hear words of a book,
And out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.
The afflicted also will increase their gladness in the LORD,
And the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 29:18-19

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.  Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18-19

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.
Luke 1:5

The poor man died, and angels took him to the place of honor next to Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. He went to hell and was suffering terribly. Luke 16:22-23 

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? James 2:5-7 

Long ago Paul the apostle warned Timothy about exploitation by rich ‘prosperity preachers’ like Meyer;

They have wicked minds and have missed out on the truth. These people think religion is supposed to make you rich.

And about the followers of such preachers the apostle warns;

People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 1 Tim 6:9

Unlike Meyer, the apostle Paul knew what true “blessedness” was – not getting rich in this world, but gladly throwing away everything he had, including even his own life, knowing that he, like Abraham, forever possessed the “exceedingly great reward” of Christ himself, through whom God made everything. And he received that blessing by his faith in Christ, not by any “diligent obedience” to the law of Moses: 

It’s because of him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ.  Phil 3:8-9

And the believers of the Bible found their joy not in gold, money and real estate like Meyer and her fellow televangelists so shamelessly do, but in having Christ, in whom and for whom all things exist eternally. Those believers gladly gave up everything they had in this world, not because they thought they’d get even more worldly goodies as a result, like Joyce Meyer says she does, but because they knew that in Christ they had forever the same “recompense”, the “very great reward”, the same “better and lasting possessions” in the next world that Abraham and Moses looked forward to;

“Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering… You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” Hebrews 10: 32, 34-35

That rich reward, the eternal home that all those who believe in Christ gratefully receive by faith just like Abraham did, is not in this world but in the next, as Christ teaches plainly:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matt 6: 19-21

But Joyce Meyer already has her fleeting “reward” and she makes it abundantly clear that her heart is set on her treasures in this world, not in the next; “If you stay in your faith you are going to get paid,” Meyer asserted in a St Louis Post article, referring to her multimillion dollar mansion; “I’m living now in my reward.” And as Christ explains about all those who profit from religion like Meyer has,

“That is all the reward they will ever get.” Matthew 6:2, 5 & 16

 

Chapter 3

I MUST LOVE ME THIS I KNOW, FOR JOYCE MEYER TELLS ME SO

 

“As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” – Jesus

 

According to Joyce Meyer, she wasn’t always such a “winner” as she claims to be now. She describes her earlier life:

“I was a controller and manipulator. I was out of control emotionally. I was depressed. I had mood swings. I had a bad attitude, a horrible self-image, and low self-esteem. I didn’t like myself or anybody else.”

How did Joyce Meyer find deliverance from this sorry state? Did she humble herself like Jesus’ tax collector and pray “God have mercy on me, a sinner”? Did she fall on her knees like Peter and say, “Lord, I am a sinful person!”  Did she readily confess like Paul did long after he was chosen to be an apostle, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”

Unfortunately, no. To Joyce Meyer all such talk is “self pity” and “poor self-image” and, according to her, such “negative confession” would only assure that you’ll stay a sinner as long as you confess to being one; “The more you think about what’s wrong with you, the longer you’re gonna stay that way,” she preaches. So instead she claims that Jesus himself personally told her that all of that repentance stuff would just be a waste of time. In this and 26 other books Meyer claims that when she was feeling worst about her behavior Christ himself tauntingly asked her “Do you want to be pitiful or powerful?” And that gives her cover to reject repentance and do exactly the opposite of what the real Christ teaches;

“Finally I had to learn to just look myself in the mirror and say, ‘Joyce, I love you just the way you are, and I am going to get along with you. I am not going to be against you any more.’” (p 210)

Meyer claims she was changed for the better, not by humbling herself before God and confessing her sins, not by living in repentance for her bad behavior, not by accepting Jesus’ atonement for all her wrongdoing –“the one who loved us and died for us” – and loving him forever in gratitude for the forgiveness of her sins that he bought at such a price, but by loving her sinful self instead.

And for those who aren’t happy with their own behavior, Meyer doesn’t tell them to follow Jesus’ call to live in repentance. She tells them instead to do exactly the opposite – to admire themselves in the mirror every day just like she does; “Look at yourself in the mirror every morning and say, ‘I like you. You are a child of God. You are full of the Holy Spirit. You are capable. You have gifts and talents. You are a neat person –and I like you.’ If you do that and really believe it, it will work wonders in overcoming a shame-based nature.” (“Shame-based” nature, not to be confused with the Biblical “sinful nature”, is a concept that Meyer has borrowed from pop psychologist John Bradshaw. More on that later.)

Meyer actually claims that her ‘I love myself just the way I am’ teaching is Christ’s, when someone asked him what was Moses’ most important commandment;

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt 22:36

About this, Meyer writes;

“He must have meant that it’s as important to love ourselves as it is to love others. But it is not enough to love ourselves, we must also like ourselves… If you don’t like you, you are going to have a hard time liking anyone else.”

Meyer doesn’t bother to explain how it could be possible to simultaneously love one’s self and not “like” one’s self. After claiming that Christ’s teaching to “Love your neighbor as yourself”  is “not enough”, she also never explains why we should take her word over the words of Christ, who makes no such differentiation. She simply expects it. She is, after all, Joyce Meyer and, on the other hand, Jesus in Meyer’s book is, well, only Jesus – instead of the Word of God incarnate, the mediator between God and humanity, and the Son of God he’s just another of her admirers, there to tell her how righteous she is, just another self-help guru who doesn’t know as much as she claims she does.

1 John 1:9 states,

“If we make it our habit to confess our sins, in his faithful righteousness he forgives us for those sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us”

That is the operation of God’s grace in the lives of those who keep on admitting and confessing their sins – a lifetime of receiving undeserved forgiveness and being changed for the better by that grace. 

Christ teaches…

No one is good except God alone. Luke 18:19

And the apostle Paul follows him, declaring…

 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. Romans 7:18

But loving and admiring her sinful self every day instead of confessing her sins every day has, according to Joyce Meyer, worked such “wonders” on her that she claims that Jesus himself, after telling her that repentance is “pitiful”, tells her that she no longer has any unrighteousness to be cleansed of, saying, “There’s nothing wrong with you, but there is a lot right about you,” on page 178. 

That’s how Joyce Meyer deals with Jesus on those many occasions when her teachings contradict his. Following the example of the televangelists before her, she simply shoves her words into his mouth and that takes care of it.

Of course, Christ nowhere teaches that we are to love ourselves “just the way we are”, as Meyer puts it. He teaches exactly the opposite instead – that loathing our sinful selves leads to eternal life;

“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

He teaches…

“Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near!” Matthew 3:2

And he teaches…

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

This is the new commandment of Christ’s ‘New Covenant’, a commandment that completely supersedes the commandment of Moses’ covenant – that we should love others, not like Joyce Meyer selfishly loves herself, but like Christ selflessly loves us, a love that cost him everything, including his life, the greatest love of all. 

 

Since what Joyce Meyer calls the “wonder working” power of self-love is found nowhere in the Bible in general, or Christ’s teachings in particular, from where does it originate?

“If there is a panacea or cure-all to life, it is self-love,” wrote Paul Solomon, famed “psychic”, “seer” and supposed channeler of the “universal mind”, fifteen years before Meyer’s book.

‘New Thought’ advocate, ‘Religious Science’ minister, and regular guest of the Oprah Winfrey Show, Louise Hay wrote in her phenomenally best-selling book You Can Heal Your Life, “…there is only one thing I ever work on with anyone and this is Loving the Self. [emphasis in the original] … Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives,” she writes. Hay’s book sold over 50 million copies, the third biggest ‘self-help’ book sale in history. Joyce Meyer not only follows Hay’s ‘Loving the Self’ principle – even claiming it “works wonders” like Hays does – she faithfully follows Hay’s ‘Religious Science’ principles throughout her books and sermons as well, as we shall see.

Pop psychologist and another guest of the Oprah Winfrey show – where self-love was the cure for every ill – John Bradshaw, wrote in his best-selling book, Healing The Shame That Binds You, “Total self-love and acceptance is the only foundation for happiness and the love of others.” Bradshaw makes his opinion about religion clear early in his book, writing “Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame,” and the phrase “rooted in toxic shame” appears repeatedly in his books. Meyer readily copies the phrase, writing, “When an individual is rooted in shame, it affects his entire life” and goes on to base her ‘Rooted in Shame’ chapter entirely on Bradshaw’s book – though she never mentions or acknowledges him.

“Shame-based people feel flawed and defective as human beings,” Branden wrote. “I cannot think of a single psychological problem— from depression to fear of intimacy to criminal violence —that is not traceable to poor self-concept…” Meyer copies Branden almost word for word, writing, “When a person has a shamed-based nature, as I did, it becomes the source or root of many complex inner problems, like depression … sexual perversions of all kinds; the list is endless.” The phrase “shame-based nature” appears in 20 of Meyer’s books.

Although there’s nowhere any ‘inner child’ in the Bible, Meyer claims on p 259 that “God has given each of us an inner child,” and even includes a ‘Restoring the Inner Child’ chapter in her book, based on another best-selling book by Bradshaw, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child. In that book Bradshaw tells his ‘inner child’ “I love you just the way you are.” Rejecting the repentance that Christ teaches, Meyer follows Bradshaw’s advice word for word, telling herself as we’ve seen, “Joyce, I love you just the way you are”. “We get our being needs met when we allow our inner child to play,” wrote Bradshaw. “We need to recognize that fact and become more attuned to the playful child within each of us,” wrote Meyer soon after, again parroting Bradshaw.

Jesus teaches exactly the opposite – that not only is there no “playful inner child” that needs to be “restored”, but that we need to repent and completely change in order become as humble as a child before we can have any hope of entering God’s Kingdom;

“I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 18:3-4

And, as anyone can see, repentance and humility – or “low self-esteem” as she calls it – are nowhere on Joyce Meyer’s agenda. 

Yet another regular guest of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the influential pop psychologist Nathaniel Branden, author of the 1994 best seller, The Six Pillars of Self Esteem wrote, “People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.” Branden is famous as the founder of the now-discredited “self-esteem” movement, for his adulterous affair with Ayn Rand, and also for his avid atheism; “Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy,” he wrote, “confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.” Despite all this, Meyer not only follows Branden’s directives about self-love to the letter, she promotes his theories about the importance of self-esteem as unquestionable gospel truth to this day – though even Oprah Winfrey admits they have long since been disproven. And although it’s now referred to disparagingly as ‘the cult of self love’, Meyer remains a devotee, insisting in her 2021 book Authentically, Uniquely You, “If you don’t like yourself, you are destined” not for eternal life as Christ teaches, but “for a life of misery.” 

For the ‘self-esteem’ that Joyce Meyer relentlessly preaches, the Bible uses a different term – pride;

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

God opposes everyone who is proud, but blesses all who are humble with undeserved grace. James 4:6

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

Is there anything that Joyce Meyer despises more than a “broken spirit” and a “broken and contrite heart”? Is anyone on earth a bigger enemy of true repentance? 

“Trust and rely on Him to take away your hurt and pain and restore you to full and vibrant emotional health,” Meyer writes. And of course, you can’t really “trust and rely on Him” because that’s faith in the grace of God, and Joyce Meyer, as we’ve seen, is faith’s worst enemy – any statement Meyer makes in favor of faith in God’s grace is soon after negated in favor of Joyce Meyer’s faith in herself. So, as always, Meyer goes on to explain that it actually depends on your “diligent obedience” instead; “Healing of emotional wounds is a process,” Meyer adds. “It requires an investment of time and diligent obedience to God’s commands.” That supposed “vibrant emotional health” Meyer flaunts before her followers is thanks to her “diligent obedience to God’s commands”. The grace of God she doesn’t need – according to Meyer she’s keeping God’s commandments just fine all by herself and has the “blessings” to prove it.

But “emotional health” has nothing to do with righteousness; the world is full of “emotionally healthy” people who are evil, greedy manipulators. Christ suffered and died on the cross in order to purchase eternal life for those who believe in him rather than in themselves – eternal life, not the self-love, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-satisfaction, the so-called “vibrant emotional health” that Joyce Meyer mistakes for righteousness.

Christ was “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain,” wrote Isaiah.

“I am so sad that I feel as if I am dying,” Jesus says in Mark 14:34 and Matthew 26:38.

Doesn’t that mean that Jesus had what Meyer calls a “complex inner problem, like depression”? “I am nothing but dust and ashes,” said Abraham to God. Wasn’t that a “horrible self-image”? Elijah prayed that God would end his life, “I’ve had enough now, LORD,” he said. “Take my life! I’m no better than my ancestors.” Wasn’t that a “negative confession”? After God finally spoke to him at the conclusion of his story, Job declared, “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Should Job have listened to Joyce Meyer and loved himself instead? “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people,” wrote David in Psalms. Isn’t that what Joyce Meyer and Nathaniel Branden call “low self-esteem”? “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags,” Isaiah confessed. Too bad Isaiah never heard of Joyce Meyer – Jesus himself, according to her, has told her “there is a lot right about you”. “Oh, what a miserable person I am!” wrote the Apostle Paul. “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” How sad Paul wasn’t as ‘faithful and obedient’ as Joyce Meyer says she is!  

None of these people had what Meyer calls a “healthy, godly view” of themselves and the supposedly “vibrant emotional health” that she claims she has. What miserable losers they all must seem to her followers compared to that self-described “winner” Joyce Meyer! What a pack of what Meyer and the self-help gurus call “negative people”.

What an embarrassing failure Jesus himself must seem to Meyer and her followers with his depressing crucifixion. “Which side of the cross do you want to be on?” Meyer asks in Eat the Cookie, Buy the Shoes and several other books, setting up a false choice; “The crucifixion side or the resurrection side?” Meyer’s going to get her resurrection her way – she wants nothing to do with all the “negativity” of Jesus’ ugly death on a cross, even though it’s at the very heart of the true gospel, the very thing that makes eternal life a living hope, the irrevocable proof of God’s love of humanity.

Is anyone a bigger enemy of that cross than Joyce Meyer? 

The one and only time the Bible mentions ‘self-love’, it warns against it first and foremost among a long list of the reprehensible vices of religious hypocrites; 

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Even though they will make a show of being religious, their religion won’t be real. 2 Timothy 3:1-3

And Meyer diabolically perverts the Word of God into a tool to transform her disciples into lovers not just of money, lovers not just of this world, but lovers of themselves as well, boastful and proud, just like her. “What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake,” wrote the apostle Paul. But Meyer has stuffed herself so full of ‘self-esteem’, has such a high ‘self concept’ and is so in love with herself that it’s she who is the subject of her books and sermons, not Christ, it’s her life she talks about, not Christ’s, it’s her opinions that matter, not his. For every time Jesus’ name is mentioned in this one book, Meyer’s beloved ‘I’ appears over sixty times.

After extolling what she calls the ‘wonder working’ power of self-love, falsely based on Moses’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself”, Meyer never goes on to bother with the “love God” and “love your neighbor” that Moses commanded. For Meyer it’s all about ‘me, me, me’. “Stop blaming yourself and feeling guilty, unworthy and unloved. Instead begin to say, ‘If God is for me, who can be against me? God loves me, and I love myself’,” she concludes. “Praise the Lord, I am free in Jesus’ name, amen.’ ” 

But we are not free in Jesus’ name because we say we are any more than we are kangaroos in Jesus’ name because we say we are. Contrary to the New Thought / Science of Mind / Positive Confession paganism that Meyer and her fellow televangelists are selling under the pretext of a ‘Christian  ministry’, no ‘word of faith’ or ‘positive thinking’ or ‘power thoughts’ could possibly force God into doing anything, including free us. It’s not faith that Meyer is teaching, it’s magical incantation. It’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s Gnosticism. It’s not the grace of God, it’s sorcery. 

It is only the Son of God, the Word incarnate, to whom alone God has given all power in heaven and earth, that can truly free us; 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

The freedom that the Joyce Meyers of the world promise is the freedom to live a “fabulous life” of arrogance, greed, hypocrisy and selfish self-indulgence. But as Peter warns;

They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. 2 Peter 2:19

The freedom that Christ alone can give – freedom from all of our sins –  is not the result of the message of self-love from which Joyce Meyer is making millions but the result of His priceless, selfless and undeserved love, which cost him everything, including his life;

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2.24

This healing, the soul-healing result of mankind’s reconciliation with God, was purchased 2000 years ago by Christ’s death on the cross – the highest price that anyone could possibly pay. We can “stop blaming ourselves” not by blaming others like Joyce Meyer does but by accepting that the Son of God chose to take all blame upon himself for us. We can “stop feeling guilty” not when we believe that we are worthy like Joyce Meyer does but when we come to believe that Jesus, by his suffering and death, atoned for the sins of everyone, for which no one could ever be worthy. And we can know what love really is, not when we selfishly love ourselves like Joyce Meyer does but when we instead receive by faith the unimaginably selfless love of Christ, to which no other love can ever compare;

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” 1 John 3:16

This is the love of God that was revealed to the world in Christ – a love that inspires those who believe in Him to forget about themselves and instead to sincerely love and serve, not themselves, but God and others. 

Chapter 4

WHAT A TOOL WE HAVE IN JESUS

“False prophets appeared in the past among the people, and in the same way false teachers will appear among you.” – 2 Peter 2:1

Meyer’s instruction to “Look at yourself in the mirror every morning” and practice ‘positive affirmation’ originates deeper in the self-help grab bag. Norman Vincent Peale prescribed it decades ago in his phenomenal 1952 best-seller called The Power of Positive Thinking. “Look at yourself in the mirror every morning,” Peale wrote, “and say ‘I am a success’.” And that advice has been copied by the self-help gurus ever since. Louise Hay copied it her best-selling You Can Heal Your Life; “The most powerful way to do affirmations is to look in a mirror and say them out loud” wrote Hay. Like Louise Hay, mentioned earlier, Peale was heavily influenced by New Thought, Science of Mind and ‘Religious Science’. And as we’ve seen, Joyce Meyer follows them both to the letter.

But Joyce Meyer goes beyond anything Peale or Hay wrote and insists that people’s spoken words actually have supernatural power; “Words are containers for power,” Meyer claims not just in this book but in 36 other books as recently as last year, “they carry either a life-giving force or a destructive force.” 

“You see, words are containers,” wrote the founder of the ‘Word of Faith’ movement Kenneth Hagin , years before Meyer copied the phrase; “Words create or destroy.” “Words are containers,” echoed ‘Word of Faith’ preacher Charles Capps in 1978. According to Capps, words are not only ‘containers’, they’re an actual deity with supernatural power; “The words that you continually say will be god over the circumstances you face in life”. (Note the lower case “g” in Capps’ “god”.) “Words carry power,” wrote Kenneth Copeland in 1980, “The very forces of life and death are powered by the tongue.” Could the line from Hagin to Capps and Copeland to Meyer be any clearer? 

Imitating all those ‘Word of Faith’ preachers before her, Meyer’s use of Proverbs 18:21 – “The tongue has the power of life and death” – to justify this teaching is laughable;

“See now that I alone am he; there is no God but me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal. No one can rescue anyone from my power.” Deuteronomy 32:39

How does anyone’s tongue compare to that?

Despite that, Meyer claims that you can actually manipulate God’s power by mouthing certain phrases. “Start speaking His Word — words that release His power – and watch Him do something amazing in your life,” Meyer claims in Power Words. That book and others like it by Meyer include long lists of “positive confessions” for her followers to recite in order to “release His power”, though none of them are actually Bible verses at all. Instead of confessions of faith in God, they’re exercises in self-delusion like “Work is good. I enjoy work!” and “I look good, I feel good, and I weigh what God wants me to weigh.” 

In the Bible, angels told its main characters what to do. In Joyce Meyer’s religion, you can use Bible verses to tell angels what to do. “When we confess God’s Word out loud, the angels hear it and go to work for us,” she divulges in The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word. Joyce Meyer claims to know the “secret power” to control angels and you only need to buy her book to learn it. According to Meyer, our own spoken words are so powerful that “we can prophesy (speak forth) the future of our day by what we say at the beginning of it”, she claims in Change Your Words, Change Your Life. “We can actually prophecy our own future,” Meyer writes in The Everyday Life Bible. To whom are we to speak this prophecy? According to Joyce Meyer, into the air; “You can speak positive things about yourself into the atmosphere and thereby ‘prophesy your future,” Meyer claims in Ending Your Day Right. How does this sorcery work? “We are reaching into the spiritual realm and drawing out something according to our words,” Meyer explains. Which “spiritual realm” she doesn’t say. 

“We can appropriate the blessings of God in our lives if we will continually and purposefully speak about ourselves what the Word of God says about us,” Meyer writes in Straight Talk on Insecurity and five other books. “Appropriate” is certainly the right word for it – Webster’s defines the verb as “take (something) for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission.” According to Joyce Meyer, your Almighty word will get you those ‘blessings’ whether God wants you to or not. 

This belief in magical incantation  – “a series of words spoken as a magic spell” says Websters, “formulaic recitations which describe the desired outcome” says the Anchor Bible Dictionary – isn’t new to Joyce Meyer. Despite the origins of this “Secret Power” in the occult, the founder of the ‘Religious Science’ movement, Ernest Holmes, passed it off as Christian over a century ago and it has been passed on by the self-help gurus and ‘word of faith’ preachers who have followed him ever since.  Louise Hay was a minister of Holmes’ ‘Religious Science’ sect, and according to Norman Vincent Peale it was Ernest Holmes himself who “made me a positive thinker.” 

Though Holmes called himself Christian his teachings were anything but; “Who is Christ?” he wrote almost 100 years ago, “… not the only begotten Son of God” [emphasis in the original]. Instead, according to Holmes, everyone is Christ; “We are now as much the son of God as we can ever become,” he claimed. And who is God? “…I understand that the life I live is God. Amen. And so It Is.” The dark influence of Ernest Holmes lurks behind Joyce Meyer’s every book and sermon.

According to Holmes his words are God’s words; “My word is the presence, power and activity of the Truth which is within me, which is Almighty, which is God. There is none other,” Holmes wrote in 1923; “We speak the word, it is brought to pass.”  Following Holmes and the New Thought “Law of Attraction” principle that he and his followers teach, Meyer claims that our words are Almighty as well; “If we speak negatively, we will have negative experiences. On the other hand, if we speak positively, we will see good, positive things happen in our lives,“ she explains inThe Secret to True Happiness, and Power Words. “If we speak positive and good things, then we minister life to ourselves,” she writes in The Power of Being Thankful and Living Beyond Your Feelings. 

The Bible teaches:

The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5:12

And Christ himself teaches:

“… the Son gives life to anyone he chooses.” John 5:21

But according to Joyce Meyer you don’t need Jesus at all in order to “minister life” to yourself – you can do it with your very own ‘positive’ word power. 

You don’t even have to humble yourself and pray to the deity that Joyce Meyer preaches – he’s so weak you can push him around with your tongue; “Tell God every day that you are expecting something amazingly good to happen to you,” she asserts in Change Your Words, Change Your Life. And if something horribly bad happens to you instead it’s your own fault for not ordering God around properly like Joyce Meyer supposedly does.

And that is exactly the opposite of faith.

 How does Joyce Meyer know she has this magical word-power? As usual, by making her sock-puppet Jesus say whatever suits her; “‘Call things that are not as though they were,’ He said. ‘Stop rehearsing the problem and start speaking forth the solution according to My Word!’” she writes in The Confident Mom.

“Call things that are not as though they are,” Meyer tells her followers in Ending Your Day Right, The Power of Being Thankful, New Day New You, Power Thoughts and Seven Things that Steal Your Joy.

According to God’s actual Word rather than Joyce Meyer’s, who alone has the power to “Call things that are not as though they were”?

That would be the real God…

“….the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” Romans 4:17

…not Joyce Meyer.

Jesus taught…

“Have faith in God; truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Mark 11: 22-23

But like those ‘Word of Faith’ preachers before her, Joyce Meyer isn’t preaching faith in God, Joyce Meyer is preaching faith in the supposed magical power of her words to manipulate God. Joyce Meyer doesn’t serve God, Joyce Meyer believes that by using her supposed supernatural thought and word powers she has made God into a tool that she can use to serve herself. How many of her followers are reading her books and listening to her sermons hoping to learn how to master the sorcery that will let them manipulate God to get them what they want too, just like Meyer says she does?

Despite claiming that your words are ‘Almighty,’ Ernest Holmes warns that you have to be careful not to negate the supposed supernatural power of ‘positive confession’ with a ‘negative confession’, or you’ll end up with “zero power”: “We send out the word and it sets the power in motion. Then we think the opposite thing which neutralizes the first word and zero is the result,” he writes in The Creative Mind, 1918. “The trouble is that we are speaking the word and in the next breath we are denying its power by saying something that contradicts it.” 

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to operate at zero power,” Meyer writes in A Leader in the Making, Battlefield of the Mind Bible, God’s Greatest Gifts and over a dozen other books. “I don’t want to have a positive confession for two or three days and a negative one for two or three days so that I am back to zero again.” Joyce Meyer copies Holmes almost word for word a hundred years after him except that, according to Meyer, it wasn’t Ernest Holmes she got it from – as always, she claims that God himself personally told her this. “God spoke to me one time and said, “Many people operate with zero power because they are always mixing the positives and the negatives. They have a positive confession for a little while, then a negative confession for a little while,” she writes.

Meyer may think it’s the voice of God, but it sounds exactly like the spirit of Ernest Holmes.

How did Jesus feel about this “positive confession” doctrine? When he revealed to his disciples that his fate was to be crucified as a criminal, Peter reprimanded him for making such a “negative confession” …

“Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. But Jesus turned around, looked at his disciples, and rebuked Peter. “Get away from me, Satan,” he said. “Your thoughts don’t come from God but from human nature!”  Mark 8:33

According to Christ it’s from Satan, not God. So where did Joyce Meyer, Ernest Holmes, the ‘Word of Faith’ preachers, and the self-help gurus get it?

Like the other televangelists, Meyer attempts to justify this teaching by over and over misquoting the King James Version of Proverbs 23:7. Referring to a host who pretends to be generous but isn’t, the KJV text reads “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Meyer rewrites the verse in Proverbs to make it say “as a man thinks” in Battlefield of the Mind and 27 other books. In ten more books she claims “Another translation states, ‘As a man thinks in his heart, so does he become’.” But, like so many of Meyer’s claims, that is false – no translation puts it that way.

It’s easy to see why Meyer insists on using the KJV version of Proverbs 23:7 even though she deliberately misquotes it. The best translations put it completely differently…

Do not eat the food of a begrudging host,
do not crave his delicacies;
for he is the kind of person
who is always thinking about the cost. Proverbs 23:7

The verse doesn’t even remotely say what Joyce Meyer claims it says in 37 different books.

Since neither “as a man thinketh” nor “as a man thinks” appear in any Bible translation of Proverbs 23:7, where does the phrase come from? The quote originates in the title of a classic of ‘New Thought’ literature called As a Man Thinketh, written in 1903 by James Allen. The book itself is based on ‘Science of Mind’ principles, Hindu mysticism and shreds of Greek philosophy, and despite its King James English title it nowhere quotes the Bible. Norman Vincent Peale quoted the same “As a man thinketh” phrase repeatedly in his books and readily acknowledged the influence of James Allen’s book on his writing. Joyce Meyer never acknowledges anyone.

All this shows how Joyce Meyer has cooked up her teachings: by stirring a boiling pot of the doctrines of the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ and ‘Word of Faith’ preachers, adding heaping dollops of the advice of the best-selling pop psychologists, self-help gurus, and ‘spiritual teachers’, tossing in plenty of chopped and shredded Bible verses, squeezing in a little twisted Jesus and – Hocus pocus! –  out climbs something all those best-selling self-help gurus could only dream of, a tax-exempt “Christian ministry”. For every new fad in the self-help genre, Meyer has cranked out a Bibled-up version in response, happily distorting and perverting its verses to fit it while claiming that she miraculously got it all by direct communication from none other than God Himself.

It should also be clear by now exactly what Joyce Meyer means when she says “Make sure what you are following is in line with the Word of God.” For Joyce Meyer, “God’s Word” is not what the Bible says God says – like it was with Ernest Holmes, to Joyce Meyer “God’s Word” is whatever Joyce Meyer says. 

Jeremiah had something to say about such false prophets over 2000 years ago;

“These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts.” Jeremiah 14:14

 

 

Conclusion

GIVE ME THAT OLD-TIME DECEPTION

“In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words.” 2 Peter 2:3

 

Many more examples could be given from Joyce Meyer’s books and sermons showing how completely “out of line” her teachings are with the words of the Bible in general and the message of Christ and his gospel in particular. The issues covered here are not occasional errors on Meyer’s part but the very foundation on which all of her teachings are built. 

Recall at the start that Meyer wrote:

“There is a lot of spiritual ‘junk’ being offered today, and some of it sounds so good and feels so right. Make sure what you are following is in line with the Word of God and is initiated by His Holy Spirit.”

Meyer’s books and sermons are full of folksy stories and happy Bible verses carefully chosen to “sound so good and feel so right” but they are only the sweet bait for the deadly spiritual poison that is at the core of the false gospel that she preaches.  As we’ve seen in the chapters above, Meyer teaches her disciples to reject the suffering and death of Christ that atoned for the sins of the world and to believe in themselves instead, like she does; to reject the true blessings of God –  the forgiveness of our sins and the hope of eternal life with Christ – and to run after the bogus ‘blessings’ of money, power and fame instead, like she does; to reject the selfless love of Christ that opened the doors of heaven and to selfishly love themselves instead, like she does; and to reject the Word of God and to follow her word instead, just like she does. 

“Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,
leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”  Isaiah 30:10-11

Even as she hypocritically calls Christ, the Holy One of Israel, “our example and role model” Meyer loudly and proudly leads her followers to a life of arrogance, of greed, of egotism, of hypocrisy, of lies, of self-righteousness and of selfish self-indulgence  – a life just like Joyce’s, a life full of the rotten fruit of a corrupt tree, a life that is in every way contrary to both the example and the teachings of Christ. 

After reading these few pages, one thing should be very clear: to follow Joyce Meyer is to reject Jesus Christ. 

My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.

They will never follow a stranger.  

John 10:4-5

 

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Books and articles that examine in depth the origins of the anti-gospel that Meyer and her fellow anti-Christs are teaching:

The Seduction of Christianity, by Dave Hunt and T A McMahon “Anyone who imagines that because he thinks certain thoughts or speaks certain words God must respond in a certain way, has slipped into sorcery, and, if not playing God, is at the very least attempting to manipulate God.”

A Different Gospel, by Dan R McConnell “The Faith teachers interpret the cross of Jesus exclusively in terms of the benefits it confers upon the believer, such as prosperity. In so doing they create a mind-set in their followers which is entirely antithetical to the true meaning of the cross.”  

Christianity in Crisis, by Hank Hanegraaff   “Men such as Joel Osteen and women like Joyce Meyer are living proof that error begets error and heresy begets heresy.”  

Two theologians examine the effects of belief in the ‘prosperity gospel’ and conclude:
“There can be no compassion for those who are not prosperous, for clearly they have not followed the rules and thus live in failure and are not loved by God. …. The prosperity gospel also gives voice to another of the great heresies of our time, namely Gnosticism. It affirms that reality can be changed by the powers of the mind.”
https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/the-prosperity-gospel-dangerous-and-different/

Two psychologists examine the effects of Meyer’s ‘positive thinking’ doctrine and conclude:
“… the level of thought disciplining that Meyer and Osteen propose is inherently impossible. It predisposes the subject to perceptual continual failing, creating anxiety and internal conflict.” 
https://www.academia.edu/45478721/Overcoming_the_Battlefield_of_the_Mind

For a Manifesto by Paul Massey, a former employee of Joyce Meyer, explaining why he left the Meyer organization and the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ belief system altogether, click here. For a video interview of Paul and his wife Emily, also a former employee of Meyer’s, examining why they left, click here.

For a deeper look into Meyer’s ‘Word of Faith’ roots click here. But note that although Meyer’s books claim she has an “earned PhD” she has never taken any college classes, much less earned a PhD.

For an example of a ‘New Age’ endorsement of Joyce Meyer click here. Though the site mentions Christ, note that “The Voice for Love uses the term ‘Christ’ to mean ‘the Divine Consciousnes [sic] with humankind.’”

For a first-person account of the rotten fruit of “Word of Faith”, Susan Puzio writes in  Seed Faith- Can a Man Bribe God?  “I never heard of anyone confessing they wanted cancer, yet ‘Word of Faith’ people say oh, he or she must have had a bad confession, or they must have had sin in their life. We were the most uncompassionate bunch going. We were to love people, yet we looked down on the sick.”

Thank you for your time.