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Growing Up Spiritually, 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.
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I'm so glad you've joined us today for the Jesus the Healer broadcast. Contact somebody, let them know that we're on. We'd love to have you join. Have them join with us today. You can see that normally I'm in a, in our sanctuary ministering, but today we're sitting out and at a very, at a very special place to us. We're on our family ranch here. We have a home here that we get to come to occasionally. And right behind me is a one room cabin that my son built. This isn't actually the home, but it's just a place that I can go and get away from, from if I have a lot of people there at the ranch that we can get away and get alone here. So we wanted to bring you to this place that's so special to us and intimate and just show you a little bit about where we get to come sometimes. Join with me, if you would, grab your Bible, open with me. And we're going to pick up where we left off from the previous episode of Jesus the Healer and we're going to look at Romans chapter 12:1, 2. And it reads this way. 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, or as one translation said, which, which is your spiritual worship. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. As we previously stated in the episode, the previous episode, that we were saying that God did something with our spirits. He gave us a brand new spirit. But this verse shows us that we're the ones who have to do something with our bodies and have to do something with our minds. What are we to do with our bodies? We're to keep them under, present them to God, present them to doing what God would have us to do, present them to do things that are in line with the Word. You know, before we were born again, we would present our bodies to sin. But now we present our bodies to righteousness to do what is right. And then we're to renew our mind. And then the renewing of the mind means to take on God's way of thinking. And we take God's thoughts and we make them our thoughts anytime. Our own thoughts would contradict what God says. We lay down our thoughts and we take on God's way of thinking. The Word says that when we renew our mind, our lives will be transformed. I don't know about you, but I didn't get saved just so I could keep living the life I lived before I was saved. And this is what a renewed mind does, that once you're born again and you renew your mind. Now, renewing the mind means taking on the thoughts of God, speaking like God thinks, and then acting in line with the Word. All of those things compile the renewing of the mind. But once we renew our mind, our lives will be transformed. That means our marriages won't look the same, our relationships with people won't look the same, our finances won't look the same, our health and our bodies won't be the same. Everything will be the way God would wish them to be and has planned for them to be. And so we have to make sure that we recognize it's our part to do something with our bodies and our minds. And we can, because God gave us a brand new spirit that has his life, his nature, his power, his ability, his grace in it. And so we're enabled and we're empowered to, to do something with our bodies, do something with our minds. So I would encourage you that if you have not watched the previous episode, to make sure you watch that, because we're going to build on that episode and go further today. But I want us to go to Galatians right Now, Galatians chapter three. And we're going to start reading in verse 29. And then we're going to read on to, into the fourth chapter of Galatians. So Galatians chapter three. In verse 29, Paul is writing and it reads this. If you be Christ's, then then are you Abraham's seed. Look at, look at this. And heirs according to the promise. So we are heirs of God. We are joint heirs with Christ. What does that mean? That means everything that belongs to Christ belongs to us. Why is that? He is the Son of God, but we're the sons of God. And so what belongs to Jesus as a son also belongs to us as sons of God. We are his family. We are the family of God. And so everything that is his, he has made ours. Think of it. Everything that heaven is enjoying right now belongs to us right now while we're on the earth. Ephesians, chapter one. In verse three, it says this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Who hath blessed us with every Spiritual blessing in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. Well, what's that mean? That means everything that heaven is enjoying right now belongs to us while we're on the earth, because we, we are one with Christ. And so as heirs with Christ, this is the life God authored for us to live, that we can live days of heaven on earth by our days while we're here replicating what heaven is enjoying. That's what God intended. So basically, we can live days of heaven before we go to heaven, and that's, that's part of our inheritance in Christ while we can, while we're on the earth. And so this is what verse 29 is telling us, that we are heirs according to the promise. Now if we look at chapter four, verse one, and go on reading, Paul says this. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all or master of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father. Look at verse three. Even so, we, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world. Well, what does all that mean? This passage is a picture of someone who is still in childhood stage spiritually, and they haven't matured. Even though all things belong to them because they're an heir, until they mature in Christ, they'll never come into the full enjoyment of, of all they possess. So if we could say it like this, they're living like a servant or a slave when they have really been made Lord or master as an heir of God. Now we have to understand this, that spiritual growth is parallel to natural growth. When we were born into our natural family, of course we were born babies. We grew to childhood and then we came into adulthood spiritually, the same thing is true. When you were born again, you were not born a full grown spiritual person. You were born into the family of God. You were a spiritual baby. And then as you feed on the Word, become a doer of the Word, you begin to mature. And then we grow into childhood. And as we continue to take our place in the Word, as we continue to develop spiritually, we leave childhood and we go on to adulthood. Now this passage that we just read in Galatians is talking about someone who just remains in a childhood stage. They never go on to maturity, you know. Now think about it, what happens with a baby or child? So much is done for them, you know, when you were a baby or I was a baby, somebody fed us, they prepared our food, they dressed us, they bathed us, they Carried us. They did everything for us. Well, when you were born again spiritually, God would allow people to use their faith in your behalf. If I could say this, you were carried around a little bit in the sense of you didn't come into the full responsibility of adulthood as a believer and God would allow you to lean on someone else's faith. But I tell you what, if we're not careful, we can enjoy just sitting back and letting things be done for us spiritually. Just let the pastor do it all or let a praying family member do it all or something like that. And it's so easy to sit back and if I could say this, live under the umbrella of someone else's faith and never even have our own faith. Sometimes in a family it's very common for one person in the family to develop spiritually and every other member just kind of huddles up under their faith. They kind of huddle up under their prayer life and they never develop their own, their own spiritual lives. You know, this is one thing that my husband and I taught our children. We have two sons and this is one thing that we taught them. Just because my husband developed his life spiritually and I developed spirit, children were still going to have to develop their spiritual lives. They could not forever live under the umbrella of their parents faith. And this is where a lot of people in the Christian walk, they cheat themselves because they just enjoy the babyhood stage or the childhood stage where they just kind of come up under the faith of either their pastor or someone else and they never develop themselves spiritually. Well, if we don't go on and develop ourselves spiritually, we cheat ourselves from living the best life that God has for us. And we must teach our children that. I might have faith, but my faith doesn't belong to you. I can bless you with my faith, I can exercise my faith in your behalf, but my faith still belongs to me. You're not the possessor of the faith I have. And we have to teach our children they must possess their own faith. I know as a minister, being in full time ministry, we would face attacks just like anyone else. Our children would face attacks just like anyone else. And we taught our children we cannot always fight your, your fights of faith for you. You're going to have to develop your spiritual walk with God, develop your life in the Word. You're going to have to renew your mind with the Word because I can only help you so far with my faith. You're going to have your life spiritually. And this is why many times we'll see children of ministers really struggle in life because they thought that they could basically live under the umbrella of their parents faith forever. But I tell you, the best life is when you develop your own fellowship with God. You develop a renewed mind, you develop your faith and it will give you the best life. Yes, it's a blessing to help someone else with our faith, but we don't want to turn someone else into someone who's relian upon us. Listen, Jesus is the Lord. He's the one to be leaning on. We don't want to teach people to lean on us. We are not their Lord and we don't ever want to position ourselves that way. And Galatians chapter three and chapter four are telling us this says that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he's the Lord of all. Well, what's that mean? That means that he's not able to fully partake of his privileges as an heir and as someone who possesses all things. As long as he's going to stay a baby, he's going to not be able to enjoy certain things. Now think about it. That for example, my, my husband and I, over the years we've had different vehicles, different cars, when our children, because they're part of the family, they have an inheritance to everything that we possess. Everything that we possess belongs to them by birthright. So if for some reason, if my husband and I were no longer on the earth, that car would be theirs. Even if they were a child, that car would go into their name, so to speak, into the inheritance that's part of theirs. But if, as long as they're a child, they can't drive it, they have to go on and grow up into maturity, into adulthood, then they could drive it. You know, when we have, when my children were young, they could not drive our cars. But they, they sometimes they wanted to drive. You can't drive. You're not mature enough to drive. Yeah, I can drive. Just because you can still turn the steering wheel doesn't mean you know how to drive. You know, we have to teach them. You don't know how to drive. You think you do, but you don't. But as they reach this certain age that the government allows them to start driving, then they could take the car that belonged to my husband and I and they could drive it. That was a reward of coming into adulthood. Until they came into adulthood, they could not partake of what they really had an inheritance of. And this is what this passage is telling us, that as Long as you're going to remain a child, you're going to live like a servant and not like a master. You're not going to live like someone who possesses all things. And so it will benefit us to grow up and mature spiritually, because that's when we begin to enjoy the fullness of Christ. You know, if we don't mature or develop spiritually, we're going to remain either in a babyhood or childhood stage of spiritual growth. And we will live in bondage. We will live in bondage to the flow of the world. When someone remains as a spiritual baby or spiritual child, their flesh dominates them and their body. Their body dominates and their flesh dominates them. And then their minds are not renewed and they will struggle. Can I tell you, the older I get and the more I mature spiritually, the more my mind is renewed, the easier life gets. Things that were struggle to me years and years ago as a young Christian, don't even faze me now. Why not? Because I got older, but because I matured spiritually. You know, just getting older, age wise, doesn't mean life gets easier. It's developing your spirit and renewing your mind that brings you into the easy flow of life. Circumstances can be difficult, but the Word turns everything easy. The Word shows you how to handle different circumstances. And I would say this, that the hardest days for me were when I was a spiritual baby or spiritually young. Because my mind was not renewed. There were certain things I didn't know and I struggled. But as I renewed my mind with the Word, I gained light of the Word. And then I knew how to address certain things. And I walked in the light of the Word. I was a doer of the Word, and life became easier. So do yourself a great favor and keep renewing your mind. It will make life sweeter. It makes life change to where you never feel overwhelmed by what's going on. Circumstances can be overwhelming, but they don't have to overwhelm you because you know how to rest in God and trust in God, even while you're walking through the circumstances that show up. But when someone chooses to remain a spiritual baby or to remain in childhood spiritually, they don't keep their flesh under, so their flesh controls them. Their flesh bosses them around. Anything their flesh wants, they'll end up yielding to that. They don't renew their minds to think like God thinks. So their minds are troubled, their minds are harassed. Their minds are tormented by worry and fear and doubts. They live as a slave to fear. They live as a slave to worry. To doubt, to health problems, to financial problems, marriage problems, relationship problems, problems. But as we come, as we renew our minds and we choose to develop spiritually, to mature spiritually, then we begin to walk free from fear. We begin to walk free from worry. We walk in love. And so marriage problems are resolved and relationship problems are resolved, because feeding on the Word changes and transforms our life as we do it. We get to where we're not moved and troubled by every troubling circumstance that comes. Troubling circumstances no longer trouble us. Fearful things no longer make us afraid. So this passage in Galatians is letting us know that to enjoy the fullness of what belongs to us in Christ, we don't want to stay in a spiritual babyhood stage or childhood stage. We want to develop. We don't want to live under the umbrella of someone else's faith. Yes, their faith can bless us, but we want to have our own faith. You know, my husband had a powerful ministry, and he was in the ministry almost 50 years before he went home to be with the Lord. And his homegoing was very sudden. And so to say this, I didn't. I didn't have time, so to speak, to all of a sudden just get up, build up my own faith because my husband was going home to be with the Lord. Thankfully, through our almost 30 years of marriage, I didn't take the approach of, well, my husband is spiritual. I'll let him do all the believing. I'll let him have all the faith. I'll let him develop spiritually and, you know, be the spiritual guide of our home. I didn't just sit back and say, I'm content with that. I wanted my own fellowship with God. I wanted my own faith. I wanted to know what the Word said for myself. I didn't just want to relax and rely on someone else's faith. And because of that, when he went home to be with the Lord, the ministry continued. Our family stayed strong. We didn't fall into a hole of depression. We didn't fall into a ditch of grief and sorrow because we had been having our own faith life built. Our own life in the Word was being built. We taught our children to value having their own life in the Word. And because of that, our ministry continued. God continues to bless the family and life is still a joy. Do I wish my husband were here? Sure. But the thing is, he's not here. And the best days are not behind me. The plan of God did not leave when my husband left. God still has a plan for my life. And so I was able to stay on course with that plan. Why? Because I was renewing my mind before my husband went home to be with the Lord. So life will. Will throw you some very definite changes and you don't want to be relying on someone else's faith at the time of those changes. Think of it. What if I had just like I said, just decide I'm going to let my husband have the faith for this family and develop spiritually. Then the day he left this earth, I would have been in a real difficult situation. I would not have had time. It takes time to renew the mind. You can't renew the mind in a day or in a week. It becomes our lifestyle. It becomes our lifelong occupation to always just spend time renewing our mind. It's an ongoing lifestyle for us. So we want to make sure that we are doing our part to renew our minds and keep our bodies under. Now go with me, if you would, to First Corinthians in chapter 2 and verse 14. I'm going to read, and I'm going to read this out of the classic amplified translation. It says this. But the natural non spiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and the teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God. For they are folly, they're meaningless, they're nonsense to him. He is incapable of knowing them, of progressively recognizing, understanding and becoming better acquainted with them because they're spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated. So this passage is saying that an unspiritual man with an unspiritual mind, he doesn't think like God. So when God tries to speak to him, he cannot even accept or receive what God says. Because when God speaks, it's a spiritual action, it's a spiritual flow. So it takes a renewed mind to be able to receive of that spiritual flow. When someone doesn't think like God, they can't receive what he offers them. Although it belongs to them, it won't manifest when someone is born again if they don't renew their mind. They can't even conceive and flow with what God has made theirs because they don't know how to accept the revelation. They don't know how to cooperate with the light because their minds are unrenewed, they reject it, or they. They. They think in terms different than what the word says. So a spiritual man receives what an unspiritual man cannot receive. Someone who is developing spiritually will be able to receive from God what someone who is a spiritual baby and just wants to remain A spiritual baby they would struggle receiving just because they don't have the spiritual capacity to even take in what God offers. It will cost us so much if we fail to renew our minds. Now listen to that statement. It will cost us much to fail to renew our minds. Because we're going to face situations in times of life that's going to call for a renewed mind if we're going to live in victory. So when someone fails to renew their mind and they don't think like God thinks, then when God speaks to them or when God offers them something to take that they don't, they don't receive it because the unrenewed mind does not receive the things of God. An unspiritual way of thinking will not cooperate with God. And it will cost us so much if we don't renew our minds. Think of it. There's going to come times in our lives that we're going to need to renew our mind. Whenever. Whenever I think about dad Hagin's testimony. Dad Hagin was a man who was born with incurable heart condition, incurable blood condition. And as a 15 year old, he ended up on his deathbed because his mind, although he was. Although he got born again on the deathbed, his mind of course, was not renewed to healing. And so he wanted to be healed. But his mind wasn't renewed to what the Word said about healing. So for 16 long months, he would pray and wonder why he wasn't being healed. But then over those 16 months that he was bedfast, he began to feed on the Word about healing. And what happened? His mind began to be renewed to the truth of healing. And as his mind was renewed to the truth of healing, then he could receive the healing power. And he was raised up off of the deathbed. Why? Not because someone came and prayed for him, but because while he was on that deathbed, he took time to feed on the Word. His mind became renewed with the Word. And then what could happen? He could receive the healing power. A renewed mind receives healing power. A renewed mind will receive the flow of prosperity. A renewed mind will receive the flow of joy. The renewed mind will receive the flow of victory. But an unrenewed mind will not be able to receive these things. They don't think in these terms. So know this. It will cost us much if we choose not to renew our minds. But what a divine privilege to renew our minds with the Word of God. And so I know you're hungry. I know you want to, to have a spiritual life that is growing and becoming robust. So I just encourage you keep renewing your mind, feeding on the Word of Go acting in line with the Word and when you do, your life will be transformed and it will give you the best life. God bless you for joining us. We're so glad to have you and we look forward to next time seeing you on Jesus the Healer.
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We Trust you've enjoyed this message. 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.