Joel Osteen (0:00)

Now is your time to get into a new Dr. Horton home by taking advantage of their national Red Tag Sales event, Now extended through April 27. Stop by any of their participating communities and find select red Tag homes at Incredible Pricing. So whether you're buying your first home or looking for an upgrade, you don't want to miss. The Red Tag Sales event extended through April 27th. Discover the Dr. Horton Difference at drhorton.com Dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton America's Builder and Equal Housing Opportunity Builder Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one motorcycle insurer. Did you know? Riders who switch and save with Progressive save nearly $180 per year. That's a whole new pair of riding gloves and more Quote today Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $178 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between October 2022 and September 2023. Potential savings will vary we're interrupting this.

Victoria Osteen (1:00)

Podcast to ask you a very important question. Have you had your Hershey's? When you need to brighten up your day, put a smile on your face with the classic creamy texture and pure milk chocolate flavor of Hershey's Milk Chocolate. Whether you're eating it on the go, breaking off a few pieces for s'mores night, or just treating yourself to something sweet, Hershey's Milk Chocolate checks all the boxes. Shop for Hershey's Milk Chocolate now at a store near you or found wherever candy is sold.

Joel Osteen (1:28)

Hi, this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry. If you enjoyed today's message, why don't you be a blessing and share it with a friend? We appreciate you and pray for God's very best in your life. God bless you. It's a joy to come into your homes. If you're ever in our area, I hope you'll stop by and be a part of one of our services. I promise you we'll make you feel right at home. But thank you so much for tuning in today and again, thank you for coming out. I like to start with something funny and I heard about this man. He was having a terrible time training his dog. One day he came across this charismatic evangelist who promptly told him to leave the dog with him. He'd have him trained in no time. The next day the owner came back and the evangelist went on to give a demonstration. He threw a stick and said fetch. And the dog immediately ran, picked it up and brought it back. He said, sit. And instantly the dog sat. The owner was so thrilled. He said, that's great. Let me try. He shouted, heal the dog. Lifted up one paw, put it on the man's forehead, said, I command you, sickness, to leave. Hold up your Bible. Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess. My mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus name. God bless you. I want to talk to you today about the benefits of laughter. Studies tell us that people that laugh on a regular basis are healthier. They live longer, they have better relationships, and they make better decisions. There's all kinds of benefits that come from laughter. But it's easy to get weighed down by the pressures of life. We all have stress to deal with. We have bills to pay and children to raise, and we got a deadline at the office. If we're not careful, we'll let everything become so intense and so pressured that we never laugh, we never have any fun. We become burdened down by life. And I know people that don't have a sense of humor anymore. Over the years, they've become more and more sour. Now they're all work and no play. Everything is serious and solemn. But friends, our body was never meant to live that way. One of the best stress relievers God ever created is laughter. When you're good natured, you take time to see the humor. In life, you laugh every day. It's just like you're taking medicine. Laughter reduces blood pressure. It activates the body's natural tranquilizers that help lower stress, helps us to sleep better. Laughter strengthens our immune system. It releases endorphins that make us feel better. Not only that, laughter increases our brain function. When you laugh regularly, you're going to make better decisions. Humor helps to stimulate the brain. Normally we use the left side, but when we laugh, we use the right side. This study showed people that were having a hard time solving a problem. They'd been dealing with it a long time, they were stuck. If for some reason they were to laugh, it would stimulate the brain and they would be much more likely to solve that problem. Bottom line is, if you have a sense of humor and you laugh regularly, you're going to be more creative, you're going to have fresh ideas, and you're going to be more effective. Laughter not only stimulates our brain, but it helps to bring down the walls. When you laugh with Someone, their defenses come down, they can be a total stranger. But humor will help open the door. They'll be a lot more likely to hear what you have to say. That's why I start every program off with a joke. Laughter makes people receptive. It's a common denominator. I remember when I was growing up, every year at Christmas we would go down to the Galleria and in the hotel ballroom we would have a big Christmas banquet, have a thousand or so people there from the church. The highlight every year is when we would show the 15 minute blooper reel. Funny things that had happened that year in church. We would show people nodding off to sleep, people yawning. We'd put it in slow motion, put some dramatic music to it. We would edit my dad to make him say funny things. Or we might edit his hand motion in fast motion like three or four or five times, make him look like a rap artist. It was 15 minutes of total laughter. And I'll never forget how when we showed it, the serving crew from the hotel, the cooks, the waiters, the busboys, they would come out from behind the back and line up around the walls of the ballroom to watch. When people in the mall heard all the laughter, they would prop the doors open in the back. We would have 100 people from the mall peering in, watching those bloopers. What's my point? Laughter draws people to you. Laughter is attractive, interesting. One of the longest running shows on television is the blooper show, where you send in your funny home videos year after year. While other more polished, more sophisticated programs get canceled, this simple, wholesome show that makes people laugh continues to get renewed. Psalm 126, verse 2 says, when we were filled with laughter, the other nations took notice and they said, what amazing things God has done for them. When you are filled with laughter, people will take notice. It not only honors God to live a happy, joy filled, faith filled life, but laughter will cause other people to be drawn to you. Friends, there's too much sadness in our world today. Many people have lost the joy of living. They've been beaten down by life, burdened by problems, by disappointments, by heartache. We should make it our business to bring joy everywhere we go. It's already enough sour people. We should stand out in the crowd. One of the best examples we could have is to just be happy, to be fun, to be around, to let other people hear our laughter. There is healing power in laughter. When the joy of the Lord bubbles up out of you, that laughter can break the bondages of Their depression, their sadness, their despair. I read about this hospital, the patients that had been there a long time and were having a tough time recovering. Every day they would take them out to the park for several hours to watch the children play. Their purpose was to not only get them in a different environment, but. But they discovered when they heard the children laughing over and over, that stimulated the body's natural healing process. The patient's attitude was changed. They got their joy back. The research showed they began to recover quicker. Think about it. Just hearing other people's laughter brought healing and joy. Imagine what happens on the inside of us when we live full of joy, when we take time to laugh. Every day not only affects us mentally, not just our moods, our creativity, our thoughts, it even affects us physically. Do you know laughter can help you stay young? Every time you laugh, what's known as the youth hormone increases 87%. That's the hormone that slows down the aging process, keeps us fresher and younger. I laugh all the time, and I don't look 77 years old, do I? But you've seen people that have gone through a hard period in life, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, and maybe you didn't see them for a couple of years. When you do, it looked like they had aged 20 years. Why is that when we don't laugh, we don't release the healing that God's placed on the inside. When we go around stressed and solemn and discouraged, the chemicals that God designed to keep us young, to lower our blood pressure, to stimulate our immune system, they just sit there, unused and ineffective. God has given us everything we need to live healthy and whole. But we've got to tap into it. One of the ways is laughter, being good natured, being fun to be around, seeing the humor in life, and some of you today, you've lost your joy, you've gotten out of balance, and you're so focused on your problems and you got so much stress that you haven't laughed in so long. Your laugher has gotten rusty. You need to get that thing out, dust it off, and every day, on purpose, find some reason to laugh. If you can't find anything, go look in the mirror. That'll give you a good reason. Our immune system is made up of millions and millions of cells. Some of these cells, their only purpose is to attack and kill anything foreign to the body. Bacteria, viruses. They're called NK cells, stands for natural killer cells. The research shows that every person develops abnormal cancerous cells in our body every single week. These NK cells Go to work and make sure they're destroyed. But negative emotions like fear, worry, anxiety, depression, they weaken the natural killer cells. What's interesting, studies show people that are happy, people that laugh regularly, not only have more natural killer cells, but their activity is increased. In other words, when you have a sense of humor, when you're good natured, your immune system, your natural killer cells are going to function at their highest level. That's what the scripture says. A cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. When we live sour, discouraged, stressed, we're opening up the door to sickness and disease. I believe some of you would see your healing come. The headaches would go away, the stomach problems, the ulcers would cease, the blood pressure would come down. You would sleep better if you would simply start laughing more often. Laughter is as powerful as many drugs, but it's a lot less expensive and it has no negative side effects. Whether you're for or against Obamacare, laugh and you'll save us all a lot of money. Every time we laugh, healing is released in our system. Your immune system is getting more effective. No wonder the enemy hates to hear us laugh. He knows when you laugh, you're getting stronger, younger, healthier, smarter, calmer, more creative. Health and favor and blessing is flowing through your system. Medical science is catching on to the benefits of laughter. There's something called the humor in hospital movement where hospitals are bringing in programs designed to get people laughing. They know the more they laugh, the better they'll recover. There's a children's hospital in another state. They have clowns on staff that go up and down the halls making the children laugh. They're finding out children there are recovering faster than other places. Why is this? When we laugh, we release the healing that almighty God's placed on the inside. Well, you say, Joel, that's not my personality. I'm not like you. I'm more serious. I'm more solemn. Now realize God has made us all differently. But what's happened most of the time is we've forgotten how to laugh. When we were children, we all used to laugh about anything and everything. But now we've let the stress of life weigh us down. But every healthy adult should have a healthy child on the inside. Think about children. They love to play, they love to laugh, they love to have fun. They're good natured. Don't lose the child that's in you. I read where a common ingredient in people that live way up in their 90s wasn't their diet, wasn't their Exercise routine. It was the fact that they were extremely joyful people. They never forgot how to laugh. About a month ago after the service, I met a man in the lobby that was 106 years old. He looked 30 or 40 years younger. He was so happy. His mind was so sharp. And he had stood in line nearly 40 minutes waiting to visit with me. And when I got there, I said, I'm so sorry. You didn't need to stand here this long. We could have gotten you a chair. You could have sat down. He said, I don't need to sit down. When I get old, I'll sit down. He was a black man, just as handsome as can be. He didn't have one wrinkle on his face. I said, I cannot believe that you are 106 years old. You don't even look like you could be 70. He smiled and said, joel Black don't crack. He was so funny. When he left, he turned around and said to the whole group, I'll see you again this same time next year. I thought, no wonder he's so healthy. He's full of joy. He loves to laugh. He's got a great sense of humor. I thought about all the healing that's been released in him through the years. I realize we're all going to get old. But I've made up my mind. I'm not going to turn into a grumpy old man. I'm not going to get more and more sour the older I get. I'm going to be like him and stay full of joy. Even when I get up into my 80s and 90s, I'm still going to have a smile, still going to be having fun. I'm still going to be telling jokes and I'm still going to be good looking. I'm not going to lose the child on the inside. But sometimes we think the older we get, the more somber we're supposed to be and the less fun we should have. But I don't think that's God's plan. The scripture says we are to finish our course with joy. If you don't have joy, if you're not laughing every day, if you don't take time to play, you're not going to finish your course the way God wants you to. And can I tell you, old is all in our mind. Just because our physical bodies get older doesn't mean our thoughts and our attitudes have to get older as well. I knew a man when I used to go to the gym all the time. He was 83 years old. He was just as happy and fun to be around as could be. He acted like he was my age. One day I asked him how he stayed so young and he said, joel, I don't think old thoughts. I don't think of myself as being an old man. I think of myself as being in my 20s. See, your spirit person, the real you that lives on the inside, is ageless. It's going to live forever. We're the ones that talk ourselves in to being old and sour and grumpy. I think about my father when he was up there in his 70s. We would be walking down the street, he would see somebody maybe in their 50s, and without even thinking, he'd say, joel, look at that old man. I would say, Daddy, he's 20 years younger than you. But he was still young in his mind. My father loved to kid with people. Here he was a well respected minister. He was serious in his relationship with God. He was a responsible person. But he loved to have fun. He would go up to someone and very dramatically put his hand on their shoulder and he would say very seriously, I've been meaning to talk with you. I've got something on you. They would sculpt and get real nervous. Their eyes got real big and they said, yes, Pastor Osing, go ahead, what is it? He would smile and say, hand. For years, my father carried around a little card in his wallet that somebody gave him. This was his favorite thing to do. He would go up to someone with a big smile and say, hey, you want to see my pride and joy? He would make them think, of course, it was a beautiful picture of one of his grandchildren. He would play it up real big and get them anticipating this award winning photograph. He'd ask them again, do. Do you want to see my pride and joy? He'd finally pull out this picture of pride, furniture polish and joy. So he would say, that's my pride and joy. Now you know why I'm so corny. Some of you today, you need to retrain yourself to have fun. You need to retrain yourself to see the humor, to learn to laugh. You think you got to work all the time. You got so much stress and so many bills to pay. And even if you're not working, you feel guilty and you're thinking about the stress in your life. No. Let me give you official permission to have fun and enjoy your life. You need to start taking a dose of your medicine. Not every month, not every week. No, every day. We should find something we can laugh about and you may have a serious job I understand that, but you can still be good natured. I have a lot of responsibility, but I like to have fun at what I do. I like to laugh. Laughter relieves the stress. Sometimes when everything's uptight, maybe plans don't work out or you do something wrong instead of getting all uptight, the best thing we could do is just laugh about it. The other day I was in a hotel room all alone. It was early in the morning and I had just ordered breakfast and they brought it on a table with wheels. After I got through eating, I wanted to put it out in the hall so I'd have more room. And I was just in my shorts, not my gym shorts, my underwear. And I opened the door and looked out in the hall and I didn't see anybody. So I opened it up wider and I started pushing that cart out and it was very hard to get out. The back legs got caught on threshold of the door and so I was having to struggle and finagle with it. And it was just a lot of work. And I finally got it out, but I accidentally let the door close behind me in the hotel room. And you know those hotel room doors, they lock automatically. So I'm out in the hall now in my underwear, nowhere to go. Plus I'm on television. So I look down the hall and about five doors down there's this housekeeping cart. I ran as fast as I could. I got me a towel and put it around me. And eventually the cleaning lady came out and I asked her if she had opened my room. She said, I can't do it without your ID. I said, well, my IDs in the room. And I finally convinced her to do it. She opened my door, she looked me up and down, said, boy, you sure look different on television. I said, yes, I usually wear clothes, but I got a bigger laugh out of that than she did. A secure person can laugh at themselves. When you're secure, you can laugh when you do something dumb. I love the fact that Victoria keeps a joyful atmosphere in our home. She loves to have fun. When I get kind of uptight, Victoria will go dancing around the house and she'll come up behind me and tell tickle me when I'm stressed out. She's got a name she calls me. She calls me Old Stiffy. A while back we were on the front row here during Praise and Worship. And I've got my head bowed and I'm in deep prayer, deep thought, thinking about what I'm going to say. And you know, Victoria, she's Got her hands up. She's a lot more outgoing than I am. All of a sudden she bumps me with her hips and about knocks me over. I looked up at her and she said, come on Stiffy, lighten up. A few years ago I was at in my office preparing a message along these same lines and Victoria came through and said, joel, what are you going to speak on this weekend? So I'm going to speak on laughter and the importance of staying full of joy. She put her arm up in the air and said, woo hoo. I don't need that. But you sure do. But we like to have fun. If you have children at home, there's no reason you shouldn't be laughing all through the day. Don't get so caught up in the prayer pressures of raising your children that you don't take time to enjoy them and see the humor in what they do. When our son Jonathan was just a little boy, maybe about two years old, one night about midnight, I heard this screaming coming from his bedroom. I knew he was having a nightmare and I jumped out of bed and ran up there as fast as I could. Opened the door and he was sitting up in his bed. His eyes were this big. Jonathan, buddy, what's wrong? He said, daddy, Holy Ghost is under my bed. When our daughter Alexandra was about the same age, two or three years old, I was working on my message one day at home and my office at that time was right outside my bedroom. And she came in and said, daddy, can we go outside and play? Said, no, Alexandra, I've got to finish. Maybe in an hour we can do that. She went out and she kept coming back in like every five minutes again and again and again. Daddy, is it time? I was getting so frustrated. Finally she came in. I said, listen Alexandra, Daddy is trying to concentrate. Please don't come back in. I'll come get you in just a little while. She said, okay. Three minutes later the door opens. She peers her head through and says, daddy, are you still trying to constipate? Do you know every time you've laughed today, healing has shot through your body. You're getting stronger, stronger, younger, healthier. I'm asking you to start taking a dose of your medicine. If a doctor prescribed us a pill to take four times a day, every six hours, we would be very careful to follow those instructions, even if we had to get up at 2:00 in the morning. Well, I'm giving you a prescription. Not from a doctor, but from our creator. He says to stay full of joy, take time to laugh. Every Day be good natured. Find the humor in life. In the Old Testament, one of the ways that an enemy would overtake a city was by clogging up the wells that provided water to that city. They would fill them full of stones and before long the people wouldn't have any water. They'd have to come out from behind the protected walls. And that's when they would attack and overtake. In the same way, every one of us has a well of joy that God's put on the inside. When we were children, it flowed freely. We laughed, we loved to have fun. We were good natured. But too often we've allowed our wells to get clogged up with stones of worry, stones of disappointment, stones of stress. Now that joy doesn't flow freely like God designed it to. In Genesis 26:18, it says that Isaac redug the wells for the Philistines had stopped them up. It's interesting. The name Isaac actually means laughter. I believe it's significant that Isaac was the one that unstopped the wells. God is saying, if you want your wells to become unstopped, if you want to see his goodness flow once again, you've got to get your joy back. Laughter is one of the best ways to unstop your well. If you'll learn to laugh on a daily basis, it'll loosen up those rocks and eventually wash them totally away. When our sink gets clogged at the house, I'll run up to the store and get some Drano. You pour it in there and wait 15 minutes. I come back and the sink is totally unclogged. And I was thinking, you know what laughter is? It's the Drano in our lives. When we laugh every day, it's just like we're continually cleaning out the hard crusty things that tried to keep us stopped up. I'm not talking about laughing once, since you've heard a message on it. I'm talking about developing a lifestyle of seeing the humor in your everyday life. Laugh with your children, laugh with your family. Learn to even laugh at yourself when you do something wrong. If your well is clogged up, you've got to take action and start laughing more often. I heard a story about a comedian. His name was Joey Grimaldi. He lived back in the early 1800s. He kept people laughing for over 42 years. He could change a riot into an applauding audience. But Grimaldi was a workaholic. He lived with the constant pressure of bettering his routine. He was a perfectionist that was never satisfied. Although he continued working. He became a very sick man. He went to the doctor and this doctor didn't recognize him. He examined him and said, sir, I don't see anything physically wrong with you. I think you're just overly stressed. My suggestion would be to take some time off and why don't you go see the comedian Joey Grimaldi? He'll do you good. He'll make you laugh. He hung his head and said very sadly, but doctor, I am Joey Grimaldi. A few weeks later, amid the applause and laughter of a packed house, Joey Grimaldi collapsed and died from exhaustion. He could make other people laugh, but he never took time to laugh himself. Don't let that be you. Job 8:21 says, God wants to fill your mouth with laughter. That's God's dream that we live full of joy. I hope you'll take time every day to laugh. Get your well unclogged. Look for the humor in life. Friends, if you will, let God fill your mouth with laughter. That not only brings honor to God, but you'll enjoy your life more. You'll have better relationships, you'll live healthier, you'll be more creative. I believe and declare every one of us is going to finish our course with joy and become everything God's created us to be. Amen. Do you receive it today? We never like to close our broadcast without giving you an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Would you pray with me? Just say, lord Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior. I repent of my sins. Amen. Friends, if you prayed that simple prayer, we believe you got born again. Get in a good Bible based church. Keep God first place. He's going to take you places that you've never dreamed of. When we face challenges, it's easy to feel like God has forgotten about us. We don't see anything happening and thoughts tell us it's not going to work out. But God is not called the great I was or the great I will be. He's called the great I am in my new book, he is I am. You'll discover that God is with you in every area of your life. I am is always in the present, not at a later time. God is working in your life right now. I am means I am your healer. I am your provider. I am your waymaker. Whether you're facing a challenge or pursuing your dreams, stay in faith. The great I am is right there.