← Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Give Time To Prayer, Part Five | Nancy Dufresne | Jesus the Healer Broadcast
00:26:59
Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
- [00:09]
B
The last few services, I've been ministering along the lines of something that God had been dealing with me about. And it's just this one word, time, that is giving time to the things of the Spirit, giving time to prayer, giving time to the Word, giving time to renew our minds, just giving ourselves time in the Spirit so that we can become skillful. It's a whole other world. And, you know, the Word of God is the only thing that we have as a directive to teach us about that realm. And the Holy Spirit is the divine teacher teaching us about the Word that teaches us about the Spirit realm. Because as we know more about God's realm, we can become more effective in this realm. And it takes time to learn that. You know, there is absolutely no athlete, there's no musician, there's no carpenter or electrician or artist or anybody that ever became skillful unless they gave time to their craft. You know, someone may have a talent, they may have an inborn talent or grace upon their life, but if they don't develop it, it won't be useful or beneficial to anyone in Christ belongs to us. All the privileges, all the benefits that. But if we don't become skillful with those, we're not going to benefit from those, even though they belong to us. How do we become skillful with what's ours in Christ? And the benefits? We give time. We give time to learning and understanding. You know, the Word says, work out your own salvation. You know, we have to learn how to put our salvation to work for us. All the things that belong to us in our salvation, healing, deliverance, preservation, prosperity, all these that belong to us, we have to learn how to put those things to work in our lives. That takes time. And it's not enough that your pastor knows it. It's not enough that other ministers know it. You are to know it for your own life. And so that's what God's been dealing with me about, is that we give time to the things of the Spirit. Time in prayer, time in fellowship with God, time in the Word, time to renew our minds. Because things of the Spirit take time. You know, you can't rush growth. You know, you have children that when they're born, infants, there is a predictable span of time it takes for them to come into adulthood. And spiritual things, you can't rush growth. Now, I will say this. The more time you give to spiritual things, the quicker you will develop, the quicker you will grow. But even though you may give all your time and give full effort to growing up spiritually, there's still time involved that has to happen to grow up. And so God's been pressing upon me about this word time, because in the last days there's going to be strategies from the enemy to rob us of our time so that we're ineffective. You know, the first night on Tuesday night, I read some excerpts from E.W. kenyon's book out of the book title is called In His Presence. I want to again just repeat a short excerpt that I read on Tuesday night. E.W. kenyon writes this. Some have said that prayer is the greatest opportunity ever afforded to a man in Christ. If this is true, then you can understand why there would be enemies to stand in the way of a prayer life. You can understand why the adversary would make it his business to see that the prayer life of an individual, the prayer life of a church, should be ineffective. Satan would not be a good general. He would not be a strategist, unless the prayer life should be destroyed. You know, that's the enemy's goal. He wants to make your prayer life completely ineffective. EW Kenyon goes on and says this. A church is as powerful as its prayer life. The men and women who learn the secret of reaching the throne, getting the ear of God, become dangerous to the hosts of darkness. Well, that's what God wants for us. He wants us to become so skillful that hell fears us. And so that's going to take time to learn that. That's going to take time to develop in that one of the things that the strategies or the devices the devil uses against Christians to cause them to not develop is to rob them of their time through distractions. And last night we began talking in depth more about freeing ourself from the distractions that rob us of what God has for us. I want us to read in Mark chapter 10 and verse 21. We'll read Mark chapter. Actually, I'm going to back up to verse 17. Mark chapter 10. And verse 17 it says this. And when Jesus was gone forth into the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him, good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, and that is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said, Unto him, master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him and said unto him, one thing. Thou go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast and. And give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come, take up the cross and follow me. And this rich young ruler, he was sad at that saying, and he went away, grieved, for he had great possessions. So I want you to see something here. This young man's actions show that he's completely sincere to towards God. He's completely sincere towards Jesus. He's completely sincere towards spiritual things. He displays a hunger. I mean, his approach to Jesus was not just casually walking up to him. He ran to him, it said, and he knelt down before him. So he's taking a posture of worship. He's taking a posture of reverence and honor before Jesus. So his actions depict him as being sincere. And what does he do? He asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus told him, obey all the commandments. The young man answered this way. He says, well, I've been doing that all my life, from the time I was a youth. Notice this. The young man says, the commandments are something that I've observed all my life. But notice, he recognized that still something was off in his life. He recognized that something was missing. What was it? Eternal life. And so he came up and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? So living right and doing right is good, but that won't take the place of receiving eternal life. What is eternal life? It's the life and nature of God that comes in you at the new birth and causes you to become a new creature in Christ. It's the. The very life of God himself becoming your life. That that's why your spirit is made brand new, because it now has a new nature in it. It has God's nature in it. It no longer has the nature of the devil in it. And this young man recognized, my nature's all wrong. I'm obeying commandments, but I can tell that I don't have life. And so this is what he's asking. What do I do to inherit eternal life in even though he obeyed the commandments. Now, see, he said, Jesus said, obey all the commandments. The rich young ruler says, I've done that from my youth. But notice what Jesus said. He addressed something. He addressed. He said, one thing you lack. The one thing that was holding him back spiritually was that he trusted in his possessions. So notice this. It only takes one thing. Left unaddressed to rob us of the best that God has for us. This young man, he was, if I could say this, he had a spiritual bend toward God. He was interested in pleasing God. He wanted to do right. He wanted to be pleasing to God. But evidently there was this one area. Now, see, if he's obeying all the commandments, can I tell you this? If he's obeying all the commandments, then Jesus wouldn't have said, one thing you lack, because the commandments will help deal with those things that would trip us up. So verse 21, it says this. Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him and said unto him, one thing thou lackest. So I think it's so interesting that the word describes it this way. He describes Jesus love for this young man. And. And then it tells exactly what Jesus said. You're lacking something, I tell you, out of God's love. He tells us what we're lacking. That is a flow of his love, and that's showing. It's a manifestation of his love. To point out what is distracting us and what's robbing from us, what God's best is for us. Jesus loved him so much that he was not willing to let the one feel that was robbing from this young man go without being acknowledged. He was pointing it out. He says, you lack one thing, and then he told him what it was. He loved his possessions. So Jesus, what was he doing? The possessions this young man had were a distraction in his life. They were distracting from his spiritual development. So what did Jesus do as a remedy to. So that this distraction wouldn't keep robbing him, get rid of what's distracting you. Now, when Jesus told him, go sell all you have and give it to the poor, it wasn't because Jesus is against people having possessions. He's not against people having money. He was trying to point out to this young man, your love for your possessions is robbing you of your love for God. It's distracting you and keeping you out of God's best. So let's deal with that. Let's address that. I want you to know the more you give, it keeps greed out of your life. That's why it's so important that believers become givers. Because not only is that the nature of God that's in us, God is a giver, and his nature is in us. To be true to the nature of God that's in us, we have to be givers. And. And so this is what this young man lacked. He was greedy in the sense of he wanted to hold on to everything that he had. And Jesus was letting him know the way to break greed off of your life, to break that distraction of your possessions off your life. Give it away. Because Jesus wasn't trying to get it back, get it away from him. Let me tell you, if this young man would have done what Jesus said, given everything he had to the poor. What's the Bible say? That he who gives to the poor to the Lord and God will repay him. God would have repaid him more than he ever possessed before if he would have just done what Jesus said. But he saw what Jesus said as a subtraction from his life and not as Jesus trying to get more into his life. Listen, it said Jesus loved him. When you love someone, you're not trying to take something from them. And so he only pointed out what was distracting this young man. And what was taking this young man's love for God, of course, was that he was holding and putting possessions in front of God. And that was going to keep him out of God's best. Now, notice this. The young man said that he had obeyed all the commandments from his youth. But I want to point out this to you. He's in violation of the first commandment. What's the first commandment? I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other God than before me. So this young man was treating his possessions as a God. Why? Because he was serving them. He would not give up those possessions. So although he says, I've been doing the commandments from my youth, he has bypassed the very first commandment he has violated and in violation of that because he's putting something else in front of God. So what we see is this. What you're serving is what is your Lord. And this young man was serving his possessions. He showed himself to be serving his possessions because he refused to part with them to receive eternal life. Jesus is telling him this must be addressed. Your love, your misplacement, giving possessions the wrong placement in your life is robbing you of God's best. So we have to address this. This has to be changed if you want to go on further with God and have a fellowship with him. But his wealth was distracting him from his eternal salvation. Now this is. This is a major distraction. But this is what the devil was using to keep this man out of God's best. After the young man left, Jesus called his disciples to him. And he used this situation to instruct his disciples. He said, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God? So basically, Jesus was trying to help this young man enter into the kingdom of God, enter into what God was offering him. But he refused to let go. Now why did he refuse to let go? Because his possessions were his law. That's what he was serving. You know, so many times people will think, well, I have no other gods before me. They're thinking of a false God as some idol somewhere. You know, sometimes people's family is their Lord in the sense that they will obey family before they'll obey God. Whatever you're serving, whatever you're putting first is your Lord. Some people put their business. They have spent years and years building this personal business, and they're gonna put that business first. They would not. If they have to miss church, attend to their business, they'll do that. That's called putting, having an idol. Anything that you put in front of God and obeying God is an idol and it will rob from your life. And it's one way that God that. Excuse me, that the devil distracts you from obeying God and having all that God has for you. Now, now I want you to know there's a difference between Jesus as Savior and Jesus as Lord. Because Jesus Savior, he saves us from going to hell. But Jesus as Lord means that he's first in every aspect of our lives. And so if Jesus is Lord, he's going to want to have something to say about how we live our lives. Now, there are people who, they want to miss hell. They want to go to heaven. And listen, I do too. Everyone ought to want to miss hell and go to heaven, but not everyone wants Jesus as their Lord because they want to give Jesus their heart, but they want to keep their life for their own use. They want to give him their heart, so to speak, but they want him to come into their heart. And they want to go to heaven, but they still want to live life the way according to their own plan and according to their own own purpose. And this is what this young man ran into. He wanted Jesus to save him. He wanted to receive eternal life, but he didn't want to make any changes to move God into the position of lordship. He wasn't willing to remove the possessions from the position of lordship. And so because of that, he walked away without what he needed. Now, the Bible doesn't record, maybe later he changed his mind. Maybe later he saw the futility of that bad decision. But I would say this. When he walked away from Jesus without making the change Jesus called for, I can't imagine that he ever enjoyed his possessions Quite the same again, that he could look at those possessions and say, wow. They would preach to him of how he walked away from Jesus that day. But there are people who, when Jesus is Lord, they don't understand that he's going to want to have something to say about their lives. When Jesus is Lord, he's going to want to have something to say about where you go, what you do, who you hang out with, how you use your mouth, what kind of activities you participate in. He's to going, going to want to have something to say about those things if he is Lord. So this young man wanted to receive eternal life, but he didn't want to change what needed to be changed. I tell you what it says in verse 22, it said he was. This young man was sad at what Jesus said to him, and he went away grieved for he had great possessions. Well, we really know he didn't have great possessions. Great possessions had him. And we know he didn't receive eternal life that day because he went away grieved. People who will change and come into agreement with what God tells them to do, they don't walk away grieved, they walk away joyful. So Jesus wasn't telling him, as we said, to get rid of wealth. Wealth is not the problem. What's the problem is the wrong thing we put in front of of God, the wrong thing that we make Lord instead of God. And so this is what Jesus was trying to get this man to correct. You know, when we obey God and lay aside what distracts us, he's able to bring us into the best that he has for us. But we have to be willing to lay aside what's distracting us. I remember when I first got saved, I. God began dealing with me about relationships in my life and fellowship that was in my life. And he basically began dealing with me about stepping away from those relationships. Well, those relationships were. I mean, I lived by myself. I was single. You know, I didn't have family there. And those relationships that I had forged, they were my only, if I could say, this social life. And so God began dealing with me about separating from that. And I'm thinking, well, I don't know what I'm gonna do if I don't have these people, who do I have to socialize with? So basically I put what God said to me on the back burner. And I didn't do anything about it. I didn't act on it. Well, I want you to know this. My spiritual life didn't progress any further. I could not just keep disobeying what God was dealing with me about and going further. Because wherever we won't make a change, that's our stopping place. That's the place we don't grow past. You know, I remember something that dad Hagin told, a story about a woman. He was in a church and he was holding a. He had been there for several weeks and he said it was some of the most difficult meetings he had been in. He said it was hard preaching. There was no move of the Spirit. There had been no outbreak of the gifts of the Spirit in manifestation. He said it was just very difficult going. And he said, so I decided one day that I was going to spend extra time praying so that we could have, so to speak, a revival or an outpouring to happen. And so he said that night he went to the service and he said a young man stood up at the beginning of the service and gave a prophecy. And he said when that young man gave that prophecy, he said the anointing of God fell and a revival was on. They were in the middle of an outpouring. After the service that night, dad Hagin went back to his room where he was staying and there was something bothering him. And he said, God, he said, okay. He says, I need to have it out. He said, because I need to talk with you about something. He said, today when I was driving downtown, I saw that young man that was in the service that prophesied tonight. I saw him go into a dark dive. Now that's the phrase dad Hagin said. Now I don't know what a dark dive. I mean, to different people and different times and different cities, that phrase means something different. But it was just a place he shouldn't have been in. A place that was obviously wrong for a Christian to go into. And he said, I have a problem because I saw this young man go into that dark dive. Yet you used him to cause really the outbreak of a revival in these meetings. And I don't understand that. He said, there's dear old Sister so and so. And he named, you know, Sister Smith or whatever her name was, that she is, you know, a 80 year old woman who's been part of this church ever since its beginning. She's here for every service. She's a praying woman, she's a giving woman. I mean, she's a centerpiece and you know, she's a pillar in this church. You could have used her, but you didn't. You used this young man that I saw going into a dark dive and he Says, I'm bothered by that. And he said, when he said that to God, God said, okay, I'll tell you about dear Sister smith. He said, 50 years ago, I called her to go as a missionary to the foreign field, and she told me no. He said, she's been sitting in that church for 50 years in disobedience to me. He said, now let me tell you about the young man today. You saw him go into that dark dive, but what you didn't see after you drove by, he caught himself as soon as he got in the door. And he said, he repented before me. Father, I repent. I have no business being in this place. He turned around and walked out. And he said, you didn't see him walk out of that place, but you just assumed because you saw Sister Smith there that she was the one that I should use. And he says, you just don't know. You don't know all the things that were involved in that. Well, of course, when. When God told him that, then he understood. What did I tell you that reason for notice this dear Sister Smith, because she told God no 50 years ago, even though she's in church, she still didn't develop in his eyes where she should have been and could have been because she did not make changes to come into agreement with what God told her to do or what God's plan was for her life. So this is what happens with this young man. He did not come into agreement with the change that Jesus offered him. God was trying to point him into more. Jesus was trying to bring him into more. He was trying to bring him into eternal life. But this young man did not. He was not willing to make the change. I tell you what, for this young man, the change was, you're going to have to quit giving possessions the first place in your life you need to get rid of your possessions. But like I said, God would have loaded him back up with possessions more than he had ever had before if he'd obeyed. But for somebody else, it may be get out of relationship. That's what it was for me. And I know this, that I didn't progress spiritually further until I got out of the relationship and I made the change that God was telling me to make for someone else. Maybe someone else is in offense. Until they change that, it's going to hinder their spiritual progress. It's going to hinder their prayer life. And so the devil will use all these kinds of things to distract us and hold us out of God's best. Now notice this Jesus gave a call to this young man. He said, go, sell all you have. Give it to the poor. He said, take up your cross and. And follow me. Do you know that is the exact same words, follow me that he said to Peter and to the other disciples that became the 12 apostles around him. Notice this young man just wasn't treated like one of the crowd. He was extended by Jesus an invitation to come into his inner circle. And the young man declined that invitation because he was holding on to possessions. Let me say this. He refused to make changes. He refused to change what was distracting him from God's best. But notice this. Even though Jesus loved him, it did not change the fact that he still required changes in his life. God loves us, but he's still going to call for changes in our life. You know, people will say and get this idea, well, God loves me no matter what. Yes, he loves you, but to take you further into what he has, there has to be change. And the Word says, we are changed from glory to glory. So God's telling us this, if you will make the changes, my Word shows you, and my Spirit speaks to you, you will come into more glory. If you will do that, more glory awaits us. And so the Word tells us this. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. He corrects. God doesn't chasten us through difficulties, sickness, hardship. He chastens us through His Word and by his spirit. So I don't know about you, but I want to make the changes necessary because I want to go on with God. I want to go further with Him. Hallelujah.
- [26:42]
A
We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us@DefrainMinistries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings.
- [26:49]
B
Share your testimony, become a partner, or.
- [26:52]
A
Visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Dufresne Ministries.