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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Growing Up Spiritually, Part Four | 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.
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I'm so glad you've joined us today for Jesus the Healer. Welcome. In case you didn't know it, you're at our ranch in Colorado and I have a home here. And about once a year or so I get to come up here. But I've decided to come up here with a few of the staff members because we wanted to include you in this time at the ranch. And so I, we welcome you to this intimate setting. It's a very special place for us. Right behind me you can see that there's a small structure and that is a separate one room cabin that my son built for me. I tell you what, it's great having a son that can build you something like this. And so he built me just a little quaint one room cabin that I can go to that when I have guests at the ranch, that if I want to have some time to myself, I can come up here to this one room cabin. The only thing is it doesn't have electricity, it doesn't have plumbing. So I, I can't stay here overnight or for several days at a time by myself, but I can come and get away. So we're just glad that you came and joined us today. Let somebody know that we're on. We'd love to have them join us today. And we count it a privilege to come into your home with you. And I'm going to pick up where I've been, where I left off on a previous episode. This will be the fourth episode that I've been ministering along this line and I had some other things I wanted to share with you, but the Holy Ghost just keeps prompting me to stay on this for a while. So we're just going to follow his leading. It's such an important thing that we're talking about. We're talking about renewing the mind and keeping our bodies under meaning, keeping them presented to God as our spiritual worship. We have to realize this. Remember this. We are a spirit. We possess a soul which is made up of our mind, our will and our emotions. And we live in a body. And so when we got born again, God gave us a brand new spirit. He gave us. He did something with our spirit. The Word says that when we're born again, we are a new creature in Christ. Old things are passed away. All things become new. When you got born again, God did not heal your spirit. He gave you a brand new Spirit. And in this new spirit is the life of God. The nature of God, eternal life is on the inside of you. The power of God is resident on the inside of you. And so he gave us this new spirit. And it's. He intended that we be dominated by our spirits, that we be led by our spirits. Because when he communicates with us, he communicates with our spirit. God doesn't speak to the mind. He doesn't speak through the emotions. He doesn't speak through our feelings. He doesn't speak through circumstances. The new creature in Christ, he speaks to us and leads us through our spirits. So he did something with our spirits. But now we're left with our body and our mind. And we're instructed that we are the ones that are to do something with our body and our mind. So read with me in Romans, chapter 12 again, verse 1, and we'll start there. Paul is writing and he said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And another translation said, which is your spiritual worship. So what does it mean when he says, present your bodies to God? Well, before we were born again, we presented our bodies to sin. We presented our bodies to wrongdoing. But now that we're born again, don't yield to sin. Sin doesn't lord it over us anymore. We're not under the control and the dominion of sin that we had the life of God on the inside of us, that, that we are to allow to have dominion. And so now we can say, we're going to present our bodies to God. Present our bodies to do right, respond to right things, use our bodies in a way that glorifies God, not in a way that is in conjunction with sin. And so he said, present your bodies to God, which is your spiritual worship. So notice this, the way you handle your body is a form of worship. Worship is not just you lifting your hands in a church service and worshiping God. That's not the only flow of worship. How you handle your body, what you let your body participate in is a form of worship. What you allow in your thought life is a form of worship when you only allow thoughts of the word God is glorified in in that. And so notice this, that we can worship God with how we conduct our bodies, but we are the ones who have to do something with our body. God won't control our bodies for us. We are the custodian of our body if something wrong happens or we allow Our body go the wrong direction. That's because we allowed it, not because God allowed it. We are the custodians of our bodies. And. And then in verse two, Paul writes, and he says, be not conformed to this world. Can I tell you that if we, if we allow ourselves to get into the flow of the world, it will conform us to what is going on in the world. Our lives will look like everybody else in the world, but we're not limited or sentenced to that. We're delivered from being conformed to the world. He says this, but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind. That's what God wants. He wants us to have transformed lives. And that comes from the renewing of the mind. We're either living a conformed life to the world or we're living a transformed life that is transformed by the word of God. One of them glorifies God and one of them doesn't. The conformed life God doesn't receive glory from, but the transformed life he does. Notice if you'll renew your mind. And as we renew our minds, then our lives look more like. More like God wants them to look. Before we were born again, our lives look like everybody else. And this is. This is something that we want to avoid, and that is being a Christian. But our lives still looking like they did before we were born again. That's what we don't want. We got born again so that we could have a different life. And it's by the renewing of the mind that our lives are transformed. Well, what is the renewing of the mind? The renewing of the mind is when we bring our thoughts and our actions in line with God's word. That we, we accept God's definitions. That if we have been thinking a certain way and we recognize that that's in opposition to how God thinks. Well, we lay down what we think and we take on God's way of thinking. We take on God's definitions. And so this is what a renewed mind does. And I will tell you this is that it a lifelong occupation for the rest of our lives to keep our bodies presented to God. And renewing our minds with the word of God and then also developing our spirits. Those are the things that for the rest of our life we keep doing. We never arrive to where it's completely done. I remember that something that dad Hagin, Kenneth Hagin, was our spiritual father. And there was something that he said that is so true. He said, the mind doesn't stay renewed any more than the hair stays honed. So basically, just as you get up every day and you put your hair back in place every day, we have to get up and make sure our mind is in place with the Word of God. And we do that by feeding on the Word. So this kind of life will give us the best life is to present our bodies to God. Don't let our bodies run off with us, but also renew our minds. Then I want to read in Galatians chapter 3 in verse 29, and it reads, and if ye be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and your heirs according to the promise? So that means when you're born again, you are an heir. Everything that belongs to Christ belongs to you. Because God is Jesus Father, but he's also our Father. And because of that, we have a shared inheritance. Now, as we present our bodies to God and as we renew our minds with the Word of God, then we will begin to live our lives that depict the goodness of all the things that God's provided for us. That we will really live our life as the heir that God has made us to be our lives. We will have health in our life, we'll have provision in our life. We'll have victory. Joy will be the flow of our life, peace will be the flow of our life, because we are presenting our bodies to God and renewing our minds, and we are showing ourselves to be heirs. And then it goes on. In Galatians 4:1, Paul says, Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all. And then verse three says this, Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. So this passage is saying that as long as you're going to remain a spiritual child, that you're going to not really be enjoying the fullness of what you should be enjoying as an heir. That a child, even though they have an inheritance of what belongs to their parents, they're not really partaking of it fully until they become an adult. And so this is what he's saying, that if we remain a child, that things will hold us in bondage that shouldn't. We'll be in bondage to fear, we'll be in bondage to doubt, we'll be in bondage to sickness and in bondage to lack. Because if we don't renew our minds, if we don't demand that we live, demanded of ourselves, that our lives be transformed by the Word, then our lives will. They'll be less than what God intended. And so as heirs, he wants us to live lives of righteousness, live of provision, lies of health, and that comes as we grow from childhood into adulthood. And so by the renewing of the mind, we're no longer children. By the renewing of the mind and keeping our bodies under, we come into maturity. Then I want us to read on to First Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 14. In the Amplified translation, it says this. But the natural, the non spiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly, meaningless nonsense to him. He's incapable of knowing them. So he's telling us that if we don't, if we remain spiritual babies, if we remain carnal, if we live unspiritual lives, that there are revelations that God has for us that we won't really even discern, we won't even accept, because a spiritual baby can only hold so much. You know, my grandchildren, they will come into my. Our hospitality room at the church. And at the church, in that hospitality room, there's a bowl of candy. And their hands are so little that if I say get a handful of candy, their hand will only pick up maybe two or three small pieces. But that's all they can hold because their hand is small. But if I put my hand in there, because it's a full grown hand, I'm going to be able to pull out nine or ten pieces of candy. This is what the Word is telling us. If you remain unspiritual, you'll remain so small that you won't. I'm talking about the spiritual capacity that you won't be able to receive much light, you won't be able to receive much revelation of the Word of God, but God has more to bring us into. And as we renew our minds and as we develop and mature spiritually, we're able to contain and receive so much more. We can receive our healing easier, we can receive provision, things will become easier in our receiving because we have a spiritual capacity in maturity to receive more from God. And so that's what that passage is encouraging us to do, is not remain a spiritual baby, but go on to spiritual adulthood. And that only happens in as we renew our mind with the Word of God. Now I want us, if you would go with me to Galatians in chapter four and verse nine. And again I'm going to read out the classic Amplified translation. And midway through the verse it says this. How can you turn back again to the weak and Beggarly and worthless elementary things, all religions before Christ came, whose slaves you once more want to become. So this passage is letting us know that if we don't continue to develop spiritually, that if we don't continue to renew our minds, because like I said, we never arrive at a fully renewed mind as long as we're on this earth, we're going to need to keep renewing our minds. If we ever stop that process, this scripture is showing us that we're going to end up turning backwards. So notice this. If our spiritual progress stops, we don't just stay in neutral right where we're at. We either are increasing spiritually, developing spiritually, growing spiritually, or we're going backwards. And that's called a backslidden state. I so much appreciate a statement that Smith Wigglesworth made. Now, Smith Wigglesworth was an English preacher who had a powerful healing ministry in the earlier part of the 1900s. And he made a statement about. About what it means to backslide spiritually. And he said, to have less of God today than I did yesterday is to backslide. So he knew this. It's not just turning away and walking back into a life of sin that he called backsliding. He said to just have less of go today than I had yesterday. So what is this? He's just telling us that every day we should go grow in God. Every day we should see more light. Every day we should go further in God. If we don't, we don't stop and just stay steady and neutral, we will begin to go backwards. And this is what Galatians is telling us. How can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly and worthless elementary things? And notice it says you'll once again become slaves to that. Listen, Jesus delivered us. He freed us from the things of our past. When we became born again, we came into freedom. And we need to renew our minds of what belongs to us. And if we fail to renew our minds, or if we quit our spiritual development, if we don't continue to develop spiritually, we're going to end up going back to things that used to hold us in bondage. And this is what we're warned against. Whatever used to bind you before you're born again, if you ever turn away from your spiritual development, if you ever make steps that cause you to backslide, you'll end up going back to what he once delivered you from. Let's not do that. Think of what you got delivered from. You don't want to go back to that. What Is this the precaution that keeps us from going backwards is to continue to develop spiritually, mature spiritually through the renewing of the mind and keeping our bodies presented to God, keeping our bodies under the dominion of our own spirits. And so we want to make sure that we don't. We don't dishonor the life that's in us by again returning back to things that we used to partake of. We must keep our flesh under the dominion of our spirits so that our spirits will lead us and not our flesh leading us. The good thing about this, we're not doing this by willpower. We're not keeping our bodies under just by willpower. We have the Holy Ghost power to help us. The Holy Ghost directs and leads us. And as we depend on him and rely on him and look to him, he will enable us and empower us to say no to the flesh and to continue to grow and develop spiritually. Listen, if we ever. If we. You know Paul well. Let me say this. Paul made this statement. He said, I keep my flesh under. Well, think of this. Paul was esteemed as a great apostle of God, had more revelation, walked in more light than any, hardly any man we know of besides Jesus. And notice this. He said, I have to keep my flesh under. So even as spiritually mature as Paul was, as renewed as his mind was, he walked in such great revelation. He said, I still have to keep my body under. What's he keeping? Under the dominion of his spirit. His spirit makes the call in his heart. He's saying, my spirit. I don't want. My spirit says no to this. My spirit says yes to certain things. No to certain things. And then I make my body fall in line with what my spirit says. I don't let my body lead me. If you ever let your body start taking the lead in your life and what that means letting you just following your body, whatever your body wants to do, you do it. Whatever feels good to you, you do it. That's letting your body take the lead. If you ever let your body take the lead, it will run off with your life. If you ever let that flesh loose and don't keep it under, don't keep your dominion, the dominion of your spirit over your flesh. I mean, it will take off with you. It could be like this. If you have a horse that's in a corral and you open the gate without any kind of rein on that horse, that horse will take off. And if he's not highly trained, you'll never see that horse again. Because Once you let a horse out of a corral, you let him loose, he will take off, and he won't come back on his own. And unless he's highly trained, well, that's what the flesh will do. If we take the guard off of our flesh, our flesh will run off with our life. And let me tell you this. If we let our flesh run off with our life, it will ruin our life. Our flesh will take us to places we don't want to be. Our flesh will end us up in all kinds of situations that are heartbreaking. It can ruin our life. And so that's why Paul said, this great apostle said, I keep my flesh under the dominion of my spirit. My spirit makes the call, not my flesh. And this is how we keep the door closed to the devil. And I cannot express enough the importance of this next statement. But to keep your body submitted to God and to renew your mind is your greatest defense against the devil. You understand what I just said? A submitted body and a renewed mind is the greatest defense you have against the devil. People think many times, if I can just get someone to pray for me, if I can get someone to agree with me or lay hands on me or, you know, tell the devil to take his hands off of me, well, if we will renew our minds and keep our bodies under, there will be no entrance that the devil has into our lives, and that is victory, keeping the door closed to him. And so we need to make sure we don't allow our flesh to run off with us, our minds to run off with us. What's an unrestrained mind? I mean, when a thought comes and it's a thought that is not in line with the word, and you just let that thought play over and over in your head. Have you ever done this? I have at times, I mean, got to deal with a situation, maybe with a person, and maybe I'm. There have been times when I've been driving to the office and I've got to address a certain problem. And it's almost like you play off a scenario in your head. Have you ever done that to where you say, if they say this, then I'm going to say this. Or if they say this, and I'm going to say this, and you're playing out a conversation in your head, what is that? Well, if you're not careful, that can lead you into an unrestrained mind, because the devil will do the same thing. You can lay in bed at night and one thought comes, and then you allow that thing to take on a whole movement. Of its own, and it just cycles through. And before long you built up a scenario in your head because you left your mind unrestrained. I guarantee you as you grow, and if you want to grow, mature in your maturity, spiritually, you have to keep a tight rein on your thought life and a tight rein on your body as you do that. The devil has no point of entrance into your life. You understand that? Think of that. No point of entrance. Yes, the devil may be present, yes, he may attack, but he can't get in. All he hits is a renewed mind. All he hits is he comes up against a submitted body and he finds no door. He finds no access. He finds no entrance. That's what God wants for us. And that is our greatest defense against the enemy, is to have a submitted body and renewed mind. I remember when I was a little girl, I was raised in a small town for the first eight years of my life in a small town in Oklahoma. Just a couple of hundred people, if even that many were in the town. And the charming thing about our community was so many of us had horses and we would get together as a community and we would go out and have a big bonfire on the outside of town. And we didn't drive our cars out there, everyone just got on their horses and we rode out to this place. And so it was just a really fun way to grow up. And I remember I was about 4 years old and daddy had bought me a little Shetland pony. And so, you know, they're small and so daddy had a little saddle on it and that was my horse that was small enough that I could hand handle all by myself. So my family and other people in the community, we were all, you know, in a group together riding our horses out to have like a big bonfire on the outside of town. And my older brother, he was about nine years older and he was riding of course, a full grown horse. And my sister, that was older, she was riding on the back of that horse with him. And I was riding this little Shetland pony and all of a sudden something spooked that Shetland pony and he scared and he took off. I mean, he took off running and nothing I did, I wasn't strong enough to stop him. Well, I was laughing, I mean, I was having a great time. Nobody else got to have this kind of ride. I mean, he took off away from the group and the group is just going along this way and that Shetland pony took off to the side and I mean he was going at full throttle. And I mean I was doing my best just to hold on. Well, my brother saw that my. My pony took off, so he pushed my sister off the back. She was riding on the back of the horse with him. He pushed her to the ground and he took off full throttle after me to help. And he finally caught up with my pony and grabbed the reins and stopped that. That's what unrestrained flesh will do. It'll take off your life and it'll take it in a wrong direction and go as hard and fast as it could. And for a time you think it's fun, for a time you think this is a joyride. But you end up at a really bad place. And so this is the great joy and privilege of keeping our bodies under and renewing our mind. And can I tell you this? Treat it like what I just said. It's a joy and a privilege. It's not a hardship. It's not something hard that God demands of us. It is a privilege to know what to do with our bodies. So many lives are ruined in this earth because they don't know what to do with their bodies. They don't know how to handle their bodies. They don't even know what's right to do with their bodies. But what a privilege that we have, the word that defines for us and shows us what to do with our bodies. What a joy to know that. What a privilege to be having that revelation. Most people in the earth don't know what to do with their minds. So many people are medicated. Just to get some kind of peace, the doctors have prescribed certain medications for them. And you know, thank God there's a measure of help, but the eternal help, and the best help is to learn what the Word says of what to do about with your mind. And the Word says, renew your mind with the Word. That means feed on the Word, Take the thoughts of the Word, make them yours. When something shows up against your life that is different than the Word, answer that thing with the Word of God as you do, that renewed mind gives you the sweetest life. What a privilege to know what to do with your mind. So I say this. We have a lifelong occupation presenting our bodies to God, renewing our minds with the Word of God. And it is a complete joy to do it. It's a complete privilege to do it. Let's not treat it as a less than that is what will parent every other blessing that is received into our lives. God has so much for us and we want to receive all that he has. And so we're so glad you've joined us today for this time of instruction in the Word. We value the Word and we value to get to spend the time with you in the Word. So thank you for joining us. God bless you. We'll see you next time on Jesus the Healer.
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