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Faith And The Seven Companions, Part Two | Nancy Dufresne | Jesus the Healer Broadcast
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. We conduct business with God on the basis of faith. And if our faith is lacking something, our business, the business we conduct with God may be lacking something. That's why Jude told us, earnestly contend for the faith. How many of you know this is not a passive approach that we take toward faith. These are aggressive words, earnestly contend for the faith. And if we're to earnestly contend for the faith, we have to realize that the Word lets us know that faith doesn't live alone. Faith has companions. And beside this, giving all diligence, notice this. We're going to have to apply something of ourselves to this. We won't just float into this. We get there on purpose, giving all diligence out to your faith. See, faith needs something added to it. What does it say to add to it? Virtue. And to virtue? Knowledge. And to knowledge? Temperance. And to temperance? Patience. And to patience? Godliness. And to godliness? Brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness. Charity. For if these things. What things? Faith. And these seven companions. If these things be in you and abound, that means that you're making progress in these. It doesn't mean you're perfect in everything of these, but you're making progress. These things are developing and growing in your life. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing that Peter lists in this list of divine additives, you're going to add this flow of moral excellence, because you have to understand God is a moral God. The second thing to add to that moral excellence is knowledge. God doesn't work through ignorance. He only works through knowledge. And so faith only works where the will of God is known. You have to know the will of God. The knowledge of the will of God is a support beam to your faith. Under that bridge of faith, it's an important support to this wonderful bridge of faith that we're constructing to make it even broader in our life. Amen. But to know this, to have knowledge, it goes Back to Romans 12, verse 2. Don't be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind. When you start talking about the knowledge of the Word, you also are talking about the renewing of the mind. Amen. And the more you renew your mind, the further you renew your mind, the sweeter life will be. Amen. And to let you know, the renewing of the mind is our lifelong profession. We never are done. I love something dad Hagin would say about this. He said, you mind doesn't stay renewed any more than your hair stays combed. Meaning this every day, Every day you get up and you put your hair back in place. Every day you've got to keep your mind in place, your thoughts in place. And so for the rest of our life, it is our divine privilege to renew our minds. What is the renewing of the mind? To take on God's way of thinking. To think right. To think like God thinks. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank God for ministry lines. Thank God when our ministers, our pastors, lay hands on us and bless us. But this will never take the place of the renewing of the mind ministry lines, bless us, but it's only the renewing of the mind that transforms a life. Many times people are trying to run the devil out when they just need to put some right thinking in and he can't get in anymore into that arena. Amen. Your greatest defense against the devil is a submitted body and a renewed mind. If we're ignorant of the word, we can't just throw more faith at our need and think it's going to work. We have to know some things. We have to know some things. Then to add to our faith, we're adding moral excellence, we're adding knowledge. The next thing it tells us to add is temperance. This word temperance is self control and restraint. So we're to exercise and develop this flow of temperance in our life, spiritually, mentally, physically. This involves having balance in our lives. We need to be balanced spiritually. Amen. Staying in the middle of the road, not getting in a ditch on one side or another. Amen. That's part of the flow of temperance that we're self controlled in the sense of we don't allow ourselves to be enticed with things that just thrill the outside man, but they take us into error when it comes to spiritual truths. Spiritually, mentally and physically, we have to put boundaries. Why those boundaries? You know, I never. The world treats us like rules and things like this and guidelines are just hindering people and their expressions. But I never once walked into. And I stay in a lot of hotels just like your pastors do, and sometimes those hotels and you'll get one that's on an upper floor, a room on an upper floor and it has a balcony and they always have a guardrail on that balcony. I've never once gone down the front desk and say you're trying to hinder my freedom. You're trying to limit my life by putting a guardrail on that. No, it's all for safety. It's not to limit or hinder. It's a safeguard to our life. Temperance keeps us safe. Amen. It keeps us in a life of balance. Amen. At the new birth, God did something with your spirit. But then he told us that we're the ones that have to do something with our minds and our bodies. We submit our bodies to God. What's that mean, to submit it to God? Well, before we were born again, we submitted it to wrongdoing. We allowed our bodies anything they want to do. Listen, if you let your body run your life, it will ruin your life. If you let your body take the lead. Why? Because it was never built to take the lead. It was never designed to take the lead in your life. And so we have to submit our bodies, but we renew our minds with the Word. And that's our job. That's our job. God's not going to do something with our bodies and do something with our minds. We're the ones authorized. And what a privilege. I know, right? I said what a privilege. Paul said, this great apostle who had the revelation that's recorded in about half of the New Testament, he said, I keep under my body. What's he saying? I exercise temperance. See, your faith won't work right when you let your body do anything it wants. Temperance, self control. And this is not just by human ability. We have divine help, the help of the Holy Ghost, the help of the Word. By faith, we do these things. Amen. And as we said in Romans 8:13, it says, you mortify through the spirit. You mortify the deeds of the flesh. And so part of this temperance is as we pray in the Holy Ghost throughout our daily lives. What happens is we are fortified, that we can say no to things of the flesh, no to things of the mind that we know are out of the flow of God. Amen. What about a temperate mouth? Not just letting our mouths say anything it wants to say, because we can come up with some things. Amen. Just because you can think it doesn't mean we need to hear it. Right. How we're going to when we're believing God for finances, we can't be found sitting with fellow employees in the lunchroom talking about our employer. Look ahead now. Uh oh. What we're going to do with our mouth is going to determine. You can get up and release all the faith you want, make all the faith confessions And I value faith confessions. I don't diminish it. But you can confess the word all the way to work, but undo every bit of what it could accomplish by what you say in the lunchroom, what you say around the dinner table talking about your boss and they don't give me enough money. They should have given me a pay raise. They didn't give me a raise. Well, did you know what they were paying you when you took the job and agreed to it? Stay there.
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Yeah.
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Well, it's okay. Praise the Lord. We'll move along. Let's be people of integrity. I knew what they were paying. I'm not going to. What room do I have to complain now that I. Now that somebody trusted me enough to hire me. These things, how you use your mouth, is part of this temperance. Amen. Proverbs 13:3. And I'll just read it to you. He that keeps his mouth, keeps his life. But he that opens wide his lips just saying anything they want without restraint, they shall have destruction. You shall. You can't say, I don't know why this happened. You shall have it. There's no getting away from it. And as Brother Copeland teaches us, what we sow, we reap. Amen. Proverbs 30, verse 32. And the amplified says this. If you have thought evil, lay your hand upon your mouth. It's one thing to think it. You need to catch it. When it's in the thought arena, don't let it come out into the verbal arena. Why? Because it takes on a whole nother existence. Amen. Then what about this being temperate with our thought lives? Nobody else knows what you're thinking but you. God knows. And if we want our faith to be strong, we have to pay attention to our thought life. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought. When a thought comes, take it captive and say, does this represent the word? Is this what God says? Or is this, where does this come from? Before you unleash it, know its source. Hallelujah. Don't allow yourself to lay in bed and think about worry. It'll break down your faith. It's a worry will weaken the support of temperance in your life because it's an uncontrolled thought. Amen. What about bitterness, offense, unforgiveness? All of these things are an uncontrolled thought life. Anything you're worried about. Now you know what you need to fortify. Praise the Lord. Then the next thing that we add to our faith is this word patience. Patience is not just putting up with somebody. I was patient. Didn't you see me put up with them? I went to, you know, I went over to their house. Didn't you? I went. I went. Patience is waiting with joy. With joy. It's how you endure. Amen. Patience holds a good attitude no matter how long it has to wait. Patience with a bad attitude is not patience. Amen. And the biggest thing about patience, that if we're not patient, settle for the wrong thing, we'll accept something that comes quicker to satisfy us. How many times people have settled for the wrong spouse because they just were tired of waiting for the right one? How many times they took the wrong job just because they didn't know where the right one was? They bought the wrong house because they just couldn't wait to get the next house. Amen. Patience is not a clock watcher. Patience is not a calendar watcher. Real faith ignores the clock in the calendar, for it's fixed on what God says and not what the calendar shows. Amen. There are times that by this date, we have to have this certain amount of money. And you can absolutely trust God when there's a deadline put on you. But what impatience will do is put a deadline on God. And that's where people get into trouble and they injure their faith. Amen. Praise the Lord. What's it say in Hebrews 6:12? Through faith and patience, we inherit the promises. Not just through faith, but through faith and patience. And I heard Sister Gloria Copeland make this statement years ago, and I never forgot it. And she said, without patience, faith will quit. Without patience, faith will quit. And if you're going to fulfill God's plan for our lives, we have to do it by patience. You want to know why God is building a man? We want big money, and God was bringing us to the place. But God is building a man. Because to have big money, you have to be a big man inside. God is building a man, and that takes time. And we need to enjoy that journey of God's building us. God is bringing us and working His Word in us and fulfilling His Word in us. And we have to be joyful in that process because we are his workmanship. Amen. Think about it. Wait. Especially when we talk about ministry. For those who aren't called to ministry, be patient and let God bring it to pass. Don't let zeal for ministry be a substitute for preparation for ministry. Just because you're zealous and excited about what God is doing doesn't mean we're prepared for it. Yet we have to be patient while God is preparing us. I value preparation time as much as I value what I'm called to. Because it's only as I'm prepared I can fulfill what I'm called. To think of it, Jesus for 30 years did what he was not born for. He was a carpenter. He wasn't born to be a carpenter, but he did it because it was the place where God was preparing him for three years. And once you're prepared, it doesn't take long to step into the fullness. Amen. Sometimes people are blaming the devil for things that happen in their life when it's really lack of patience that stepped out ahead of God and tried to make things happen before God put them out there. And if God hasn't brought us into all that we have in our heart, it just shows that we just are going to have to exercise more patience. Because when we're ready, God will bring us into the things that he has put in our hearts. Let me just say this. Practice patience on everyday things. I mean, when you're in the car, bless God, get out the way, I'm going to church. How the flesh wants to do that? No, practice patience. Joyfully waiting everyday things. When you're standing in line at the store and there's 14 people and you're all upset, you know, practice patience. God, you're building a man, you're building a woman. I'm going to let you build it right here while I stand in this line. Amen.
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Amen.
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The next thing we're to add to this life of faith is this force of Godliness. And when I say the word Godliness, I always think of it in terms of Godlikeness, like God in all that we do. If he wouldn't say it, think it, do it, or go there, neither should we. Amen. Godliness means we're interested in what God is interested in. We value the things that are associated with Him. What this means. We're interested in his plan. We're not just interested in our plan. Because if we're going to be like God, we have to be interested in what he planned, not just what we planned. Listen, it's only the plan of God that makes a man's life great. It's not our plan, it's his plan. Jesus said, my meat, the thing that sustains me, the thing that nourishes my life, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. Godliness is simply doing the will of God. With joy. Glad to do it. I'm so glad to do well, that's not what I'd want to do. Listen, the further I go, I've learned to get rid of preferences because my preferences become sometimes tripping points. If what God instructs me or commands me to do is different than what I prefer. Father, I prefer what you prefer. No, I'm not a machine. No, I have a will. But I've chosen to take my will and decide ahead of time before you've even told me. I prefer what you prefer. And as I was telling the students this week, I've learned this thing of Because I travel all the time. And sometimes if I will sense a dread about having to travel or I don't want to go or something like that that tries to push me back out of what I'm born for, I say, father, I thank you that when I go, that's my home. Because your will is my home. So when I arrive in a hotel room, I say, father, I'm home. I'm home. Why? Because his will led me to that place. And his will is my home. That's where I'm joyful. That's where I'm the happiest. Amen. How many of you know godliness also involves consecration? That we choose. We choose that God has more for us. And we are laying aside things that would rob us from moving into the more of what God has for us. Consecration is not just purposefully trying to afflict yourself. It's because God offers us more. And I'm not going to let something of the natural that is not as near as important rob me of the importance and the fullness of what God makes available to me. Amen. And I would say this, that if there's something in you that's struggling with what God has spoken to you about your life or what he's instructing you to do, I would say this. Take Philippians, chapter 2, verse 13, and put it in your mouth. Amen. That it says this. For it is God who is working in me both to will and to do of his good pleasure. There are some times I did not in my own self want to do something that he commanded me to do. So I said, father, you're working in me both to will and to do. Because it's not just that I do it, but it's how I do it. I do it joyfully. Why? Because the willing and the obedient, the willingness deals with the inside agreement. The obedience of it is the carrying out of the act But I want my insides agreeing as well as my acts fulfilling the obedience of it. Amen. Then the sixth thing that we're to add to this force of faith in our life. And I think it's so interesting that Peter enlisting this. He listed brotherly kindness or brotherly love, and then he lists love separately. And the importance of that is seen in Ephesians 6:10, that Peter made a distinction between our love for the brethren and the love for all men. We are absolutely to love all men and walk in love with all men. But how many of you know there's a divine order in things? And in Ephesians chapter six, it says, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men. Look at this. Especially unto them which are of the household of faith. He makes a distinction between all men and then those who are of the household of faith. We walk in love with all men, but especially we give our best and we give our first to those that we're divinely connected to. I'm not divinely connected to all men. Amen. But I am divinely connected to the body of Christ. And the way I treat the body matters more than how I treat somebody in line at at the store. Now don't misunderstand me. We should all walk in love with everybody. But I'm saying that those in the body get our best and they get our first. And you say, well, love is the same everywhere. Well, let me ask you this. Don't you love your children more than you love the neighbor's children down the street? Amen. Your children in your home should get your best. Is that not right? And we're not walking in love whenever we're more gracious and hospitable to a stranger than we are to our own family members in our house. We're not walking in love when we're serving. And let me just give this example. Some will work and serve in their schools, and maybe they'll be serving on a baseball team or a basketball team that their child is on at school. And that's perfectly alright. But I teach our congregation those things are right to do. If you're already serving the body somehow, if you're serving in a capacity in your local church. Why? Because we should do good to all. But especially to those of the household of faith. They get our best, they get our first. And then if there's time left over, then I'll go help in other capacities and God will help me to have the time. But if I'll put God's family First, I will have the time for other things. He will see to it. Amen. Praise the Lord. I told our congregation there was a little gal that she had just gotten saved, and she. She was telling me, and I know her mind's not renewed, so I teach her as you go. And she was saying to me, she said, pastor Nancy, there was a person that was standing on the corner, and, you know, they were needing money. And so I handed them some money, and she was so thrilled to do that. And I said, that's so wonderful that you're that generous. I thank you. But don't forget, what really matters is that make sure you're paying your tithes and offerings, because it's not right to give to random people when you're not giving to your assigned location. Amen. It helps us to know these things, that there is a divine order to these things. And when we're showing affection for the brethren and we're walking in love with each other, it helps us to even walk in love better with the ones that are out there in the world. Because haven't you ever noticed this, that sometimes you'll be serving in the local church and they'll put you with somebody that's kind of opposite of you or y' all don't see, what's that do it rounds. Off your corners, baby. That's the love of God helping you rough. Round off those rough edges. I mean, I can't believe they assigned me over to that department. That's not the department I wanted to see what love is going to develop in you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Aren't you thankful that the Lord gives us this divine checklist that as these things are put in place in our life, our faith will flourish, Our faith will be supported in every time we. We go to use our faith. We will always receive what we need when our faith is supported and it doesn't have anything that weakens our faith life. Are you helped this morning? Hallelujah. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for this life of faith. I'm so grateful for it. But I'm so grateful that if we're going to understand faith, to teach faith, and to study faith, it's going to touch every single arena of our lives. Amen. People will say, well, y' all just emphasize faith too much. It's not possible, because to teach faith, you have to touch and address every single arena of life. Amen. Father, we thank you this morning for your word. It's a lamp to our feet. It's a light to our path. And Father, it is a joy to sit under your Word and it's a joy to be a doer of it. It's a joy and we're not left to this doing by ourselves. We have divine help. We have the grace of God. We have the Holy Ghost. We have the Word of God. The ability of God is helping us in all things and we give you thanks and glory and honor for it. And everybody said Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you Pastor.
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God's Word speaks about the different measures of faith, little faith, weak faith, dead faith, increasing faith and great faith. We need to understand that faith is measurable. Get your copy of Nancy Dufresne's book Knowing youg Measure of Faith.
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God offers you his thoughts. Take them. This life changing book by Nancy Dufresne A sound, disciplined mind will instruct you on how to do that. God's Word will reach into your everyday life, transforming it. It will lift you from the commonplace into the supernatural. Order this book now at dufresneministries.org Jesus.
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Called Healing the Children's Bread Nancy Dufresne's book Daily Healing Bread from God's Table contains daily portions of healing bread for you to feast on and meditate on in your thought life throughout the day. Order this book now@dufresneministries.org In Nancy Dufresne's.
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Classic book the Greatness of God's Power, she teaches how God wants us to know his power that is in our direction. It belongs to us. We cannot live the life God authored for us without his power. Order this book now@dufresneministries.org Colossians tells us.
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That Jesus spoiled, defeated and stripped Satan in his total conquest and victory over him. The timeless truths in this book answer it, reveal how to answer every opposition and the steps to take to exit times of testings. Order this book now@dufresneministries.org we trust you've enjoyed this message.
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Visit us at defrainministries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, become a partner or visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Dufresne Ministries.