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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. Welcome to another broadcast of Jesus the Healer. I'm Pastor Nancy Dufresne and I'm so glad to be with you today. Usually we're in our sanctuary and ministering, but now we had the opportunity to come up to my ranch in Colorado and we wanted to bring you with us. So we're so glad you could join us. And I have a home here on the ranch and then I'm sitting right in front of a cabin that my son built for me. It's just a little one room cabin to when I have guests with me, I can come here and get away. And so we thought it just to be a nice thing to get to bring you along and have this intimate time with you. Grab your Bible if you would and follow along with me. If you can, let somebody else know that we're on and maybe they can join us as well. Turn with me if you would, in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11. And today we're going to be ministering along the subject of faith because there's, there's few subjects that thrill me as much as faith does. I so love hearing about faith, being taught faith because it's so important in the life of the believer. Faith is how we conduct business with God, that if we don't, if we don't grow our faith, if we don't feed our faith and exercise and release our faith, it will limit what we, how much we can cooperate with God. And Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 6 it reads that without faith it's impossible to please God. Now think of this, we could even stop partway through that statement and read it this way. Without faith, it's impossible. Not only is it impossible, but without faith, God isn't pleased. And we, when we look at this verse and it says, without faith it's impossible to please God. Why is it that God isn't pleased if we don't have faith? Because God can only move in response to faith and he wants to move for us. He wants to meet our needs, he wants to intervene in our lives. He wants to manifest Himself. And he can only do that through faith because that's His Word, that's His law, that's his system. And he won't buy violate His Word. And if we're not exercising faith, then he can't move for us. And he wants to. And so that's why without faith, he's not pleased. Because without faith, he can't move and work in our behalf. He loves us so much, he wants to move and work in our behalf. And lack of faith keeps him from doing that. And so that's why faith pleases him, because it opens the door to him being able to manifest himself and work in ways that we need him to, to work in our lives. And so I so appreciate the subject of faith because our faith is what gives God permission in our lives. God won't do anything uninvited. You know, you, when you were born again, you had to invite Jesus into your heart. He know God knows that you needed salvation, but he still could not meet that need of the unsaved believer until someone invited him in. The unsaved person, rather someone who's unsaved. He knows they need salvation. But he doesn't just force someone into the flow of salvation. They have to invite him in. And so when we exercise our faith, that is inviting God to move into our finances, into our health, into our marriages, into our businesses, into our homes. And so it's faith that gives God permission to work in our behalf. And that's why faith is so pleasing to him. Because without faith, we cannot even conduct business with God. We can't receive what heaven has for us. Faith comes one way. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the Word of God is what the Word tells us. So many times people are praying for God to give them faith. Faith doesn't come by praying. As we feed on the Word, faith comes into our spirits. It become. It's a commodity of the Word. And so as we feed on faith, faith comes into our hearts. And you know, as faith comes by hearing, don't make the mistake by thinking that faith is released by hearing. Faith comes by hearing. But faith is not released by hearing. Faith is released by what we say and by what we do. Now we can have a heart full of faith, but if we never release that faith, it will never benefit us. So it's so important that we not only get faith and we feed our faith, but it's also important that we release that faith. Because that's when we're going to see the movement of God be able to enter our life. And so faith comes by hearing. But faith is not released by hearing. It's released by speaking. And it's released by acting on the Word. So as we speak the Word, as we speak things in line with the Word, faith is spent. And then God meets that faith. And then we, as we act on the Word, then God meets those Actions of faith. His power meets those actions of faith. So if you're believing God for finances, you can, you can feed on the word of what God says, that he'll supply all your need. But it's not enough to just believe it or not. We have to speak it. And so, as we say every day of our lives, my God shall supply all my needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. When we speak the Word, then faith is released and God is able to meet the need. Also, we want to see something about faith today. That faith has several actions connected to it. First of all, when you have faith in your heart, you have to release that faith. So that's the first thing. After you've received faith into your heart through feeding on the Word, that faith has to be released. That's called believing. That when you believe God, you're releasing your faith. After you release your faith, you have to what we call fight the good fight of faith. What's that mean? You're standing your ground. Because once you release your faith, there is many times a passing of time before what you're believing for comes in a manifestation. So you release your faith, and then there's the time that your answer manifests. What are you going to do in that period in between, once you release your faith and before that answer shows up, you're going to be fighting the good fight of faith. You're going to be standing your ground. Well, what's it mean to fight the good fight of faith? It means that you're going to continue to release your faith. You're going to speak words that, that are going to allow God to continue to move. You know, the Holy Spirit, when he hears words of faith spoken, he immediately begins working and performing in our behalf. So every day that we speak words of faith, he is a performer and he performs those words that he hears us speak. Now, if we don't release faith and he doesn't hear words of faith from us, then he has nothing to perform. And so every day from the time we release our faith, what we do is we say, thank you, Father, that your power is working to meet my need. Whether it's for healing, whether it's for finances, whether it's for favor, whatever it is that you're believing God for, after you've released your faith, from then on until it manifests, you say, thank you, Father, that your power is working to bring my answer into manifestation. You are releasing faith as you do that. You know, worship and praising God is one way that you release faith. We can release faith as we confess the word. We can release faith as we worship and praise. We can release faith as we sing songs of praise to God. And so we have to make a conscious effort every day to release our faith. Dr. Lester Sumrall, who was a precious man of God, that was our pastor for many years, he made this statement. He said faith must be be reborn every day. So he's letting us know that we can't live off of the faith we released yesterday. Only we need to be releasing our faith every single day, feeding our faith and releasing our faith. And so once we pray and we release our faith for God to meet our need, from then on, we continue to express and release our faith as we worship and praise and thank God for our answer that's on its way. From the time you first released your faith until the time your answer manifests, that's when the enemy is going to be active against your faith. He's going to try to sway you away from what you released your faith for. And so he will bring all kinds of accusations against the mind. He will let you know, he'll accuse your faith of not being enough. He'll accuse you that it's not going to come to pass. He'll bring to your thoughts other people, other Christians who didn't receive their answer. Well, that has nothing to do with you and God. So the devil will use everything he can, every strategy he can, and he uses those strategies against the mind. You know, there's not faith in your mind. The faith is in your heart. So don't let the accusations that the devil brings against the the mind cause you to cast away the confidence that you have of the faith in your heart. So while you're standing your ground, while you're waiting for your answer to come into manifestation, you are going to have to fight the good fight of faith. And how do you do that? You speak the word, the fight of faith. The good fight of faith is simply a fight of words. When the devil says it's not going to come to pass, you answer him back and you say, it shall come to pass. I have God's word on it. And that is called fighting the good fight of faith. Now the Bible calls it fight the good fight of faith. Why is it a good fight? Because it's a winning fight. That if you will continue to release your faith in the word of God, that it will always overcome any opposition, any threat, any suggestion that the devil would bring against you. So that's why it's called a good fight of Faith. Now, notice it's not called the fight of worry. You cannot worry once you release your faith, once you pray and release your faith for God to meet your need. And then until that answer shows up, you cannot worry during that span of time because that cancels out your faith. And worry is the exact opposite of faith. It's not the fight of worry. Will the temptation to worry come? Absolutely, it will come. What do you do? You fight the good fight of faith by answering that worry and say, satan, I refuse to worry. I refuse to worry. God is working in my behalf. You just stay in the flow of faith, and your words of faith will help you stay in a mentality to where you carry thoughts of faith. Can I tell you? To live the life of faith also requires you to have thoughts of faith. You cannot allow yourself to think, think thoughts of worry and think that your faith will be strong. We feed our faith, we release our faith, but we also think faith thoughts. And that is that we refuse to let our mind entertain thoughts that are against the word. So faith has several actions. Faith believes. That means you release your faith. You have to stand your ground. You have to fight the good fight of faith. And then faith receives the manifestation. You know, when power comes, that power has to be received. If we're worrying or we're doubting, we're unable to receive that power. But once the manifestation, the power comes, we are to receive that power and thank God for it. Now, after we've prayed and our answer comes into manifestation, I want you to know the fight of faith is not over yet. Just because your answer manifests, it's not over, faith has another action to take. And this is what I wanted to emphasize today is that faith has the action of holding fast to what you've received. Every time you receive something from God, the enemy is busy trying to steal it from you. If you've received healing, the devil will launch a counterattack against your body to try to get you to let go of your faith, to try to steal that healing from you. For example, if you've been believing God, maybe you've had pain in your back and you've been believing God and that pain begins to leave. And over time you recognize that that pain has gone. If you just relax and let go, so to speak, and you relax on your faith, then the devil will certainly after a period of time, it may be a short period of time, it may be a year or two years later, you may sense or feel symptoms try to come back on you. Or what is that? The devil will Launch a counterattack. He wants to steal from you everything you've ever received from God. If he can't stop you from believing God for it, he'll try to steal it from you after you've received it. And so he will launch counter attacks against your family, against your marriage, against your finances, against your health. And so our job is to hold fast to what we have received from God. I remember years ago, I was going through a particular test. I mean, there was a bombardment on my mind. Have you ever noticed that anytime there's an attack on your life, whether it's on your finances or your marriage, there's also an attack on the mind that accompanies the. That. Why? Because the devil has to get you thinking wrong so that you'll let go of what God's provided for you. But if you think right, then the devil can't steal from you. So that's why the devil will attack the mind. He'll bring threats, he'll bring thoughts against your mind because he wants you to let go of your help, let go of your faith, let go of your answer from God. And so I remember there was. There was a time I was under. My mind was under a great attack. And that's one strategy that the devil was will use. And this was probably about 30 years ago. I was a young believer. I had not had much experience with this. And I remember that I had gotten up in the middle of the night. I could not sleep well. I wasn't resting easy. And I got up in the middle of the night and I was sitting downstairs and I had just sitting in a chair, and I was talking to God. And my husband got up and he came downstairs and I said to him, I said, honey, would you lay your hands on me and pray? Because I was looking for some relief from this attack on my mind. And so he put his hands on me and he prayed. And then he walked out of the room. And when he walked out of the room, the spirit of God said something to me, and it was a rebuke. And he said this. He said, if you're going to believe everything the devil tells you, he will steal from you everything I've ever blessed you with. Now think of that. If you're going to believe everything the devil tells you, he will steal from you everything I've ever blessed you with. So God was letting me know your problem is not that the devil's attacking you. Your problem is that you're believing what he says. Now, that caught me. You know, I thought, my goodness, I'm the one being attacked, yet I'm the one being rebuked. Well. Well, thankfully God was trying to help me. He was letting me know the problem wasn't that the devil was opposing. The problem was I was entertaining and thinking about and believing what the devil was threatening me with. And so whenever you receive an answer from God, I guarantee you the devil will come with a counterattack and he'll threaten you and say, you're going to lose that house God gave you. You're going to lose that job, that business you started. He will launch counterattacks. I Our job is not to believe it. We are to hold fast to what the word says and to faith so that the devil doesn't steal from us what God has blessed us with. And I will tell you this strong faith and Bible faith is not only interested in just getting your answer. Bible faith is interested also in holding on to everything you receive from God. Bible faith is a faith that will not give up to the devil, that will not yield over to the devil what he's trying to steal from you and from your life. Everything you receive from God, the devil wants to get it out of your life. Just know that. And so when you hold fast, that is the action that refuses to allow the devil to steal what you've received from God. If you've received healing from God, if you've received financial provision from God and then all of a sudden, sudden that which you've received seems to diminish. Maybe, maybe you feel weakness again coming back into your body, or maybe you feel old symptoms coming back. Where's the leak? What is it that's causing what we've received to seem to be diminishing in our life? It is a failure to hold fast. And so we have to make sure that we hold fast to what God has blessed us with. We, when we receive something from God, keeping it is not automatic. We have to take the action of holding fast to what we've received. I want to read to you. You can turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews, chapter one. In verse one it says this God, who at sundry times and in divers manner spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness, talking about Jesus, who being the brightness of God's glory in the express image of God's person, listen to this. In upholding all things by the word of his power, notice this phrase, God Upholds all things by the word of his power. What things is he talking about? Well, he just said by whom he also made the worlds. Everything he made in the world in creation. He didn't just walk off and leave it. He upholds it by the word of his power. What's that mean? He holds fast. Everything that he has created, he holds fast to it to make sure it remains in the proper working order and in place. Think of the solar system that he put in place. Just think if one planet ever got out of proper rotation, how it would throw catastrophe into the solar system. Why does he keep. Why does everything keep working? Because God not only created it, but by the word of his power, it continues to hold what he created into place. So we see the way God acts and the way God handles what he. What he has created. He continues to watch over it. He holds fast, he upholds it to in such a place so that it is not ever. It doesn't diminish, that it doesn't decrease, that it stays in full functioning order. That's what our faith is called on to do that once we receive something from God, we have to hold fast. We have to uphold what we've received from God. And we do that by holding fast to the Word. Many of you would know of Kenneth E. Hagin's testimony. I refer to dad Hagin so much because he's our spiritual father. Before he went to heaven, he was our spiritual father for many, many years. And so we learned so much from the different victories that he won. And so I want to retell some of those because they shed light on this dad Hagin. He was born. When he was born, he was born prematurely. And because of that, his heart never developed right. The organs in his chest cavity were deformed. He had a blood disease. And so he had a. He was a sickly child as he was growing up. When he became 15, he became Bedfast. And the doctors had said that no one in his condition had ever lived past the age of 15. So when he was 15 years old, he became bedfast. And it was while he was on that bed that he was born again. And so here's a 15 year old, he got born again. And his greatest desire was to be healed. And so he began feeding on the Word, he began reading the Word and he came across Mark 11:24, that what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. And so he began to camp out on that Word. That verse he lived with day in and Day out, day in and day out, until he built that word into his system. And so over a process of 16 months, he was feeding on the word, meditating on the Word, he began speaking the Word. And at the end of 16 months, to make a long story short, he was raised up off of his deathbed. Supernaturally, his heart was healed. He had been paralyzed. The paralysis had. Paralysis had left his blood. Disease was healed. He was completely raised up off of his deathbed. And after he was raised up off of his deathbed, the doctors didn't understand this because, of course, there was no medical cure for his condition. So they just said, well, he's up by willpower. They said, he just refuses to quit, and he's up by willpower. But he realized that God had healed him. And so once again, he returned to high school. He continued to finish out his school years, but over time, a short time later, symptoms began to come back. Heart symptoms began to come back. Other conditions that he had been healed of begin to come back into his body. So he would be out walking, walking to town, and he didn't look well, he didn't look strong. And people who would be walking down the sidewalk, they knew that he had been bedfast. They knew he had been close to death at one point. So they would ask him, how are you feeling? Does your heart ever give you any trouble? And when these heart conditions started coming back, he said, yes, my heart has started giving me some trouble again. And so whenever he would say that, his heart would get weaker and weaker. And he said at one point, he found himself almost completely bedfast again. And so he said to God, he said, God, it's undeniable that you had raised me up off of my deathbed. But he said, here I'm having these heart symptoms returned to me. Well, you can understand. He's a young believer. He has no one to teach him about healing. The church he had attended as a boy did not preach healing. They didn't believe in divine healing. And so he was believing all on his own. And he didn't know what the problem was. And he found this verse, and I want to read it in 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, in verse 21. Follow along with me if you would. And it reads, prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. Hold fast means to hold hard to it. Get a grip on it and don't let go of it. The picture of that would be two toddlers. Have you ever seen one toddler has a toy and the other one wants it? And that first toddler, they hold fast to it. That's exactly what you're going to have to do with what you've received from God. The devil wants to steal it from you. Well, how are you going to be able to hold fast? Well, you receive faith by hearing the word of God. And you're going to have to keep hearing the word of God to keep your faith fed and to keep it fortified. For as you keep hearing the word of God over and over and over, then it strengthens your faith and you can continue to hold fast. And I've learned this. Anytime we have backed up on standing our ground on the Word, it's because we've quit hearing as much as we need to hear. And so we have to make sure that just because we receive our answer from God, we don't quit hearing the word. We have to continue to hear so that we can continue to hold fast to what we've received. And this is what dad Hagin learned. This is how he learned to have one confession. Confession that when there came a counter attack, he didn't change what he said, he didn't change what he believed. But he continued to say, I believe I'm healed. And by doing that, healing power could continue to operate in his body. And the attacks of the enemy were stopped. And so know this. God's blessings and benefits for your life are so rich and so many. But the devil wants to see stop you from receiving those. And if he can't stop you from receiving it, he wants to steal from you. Don't let anything you've received from God be stolen from you. I trust that today's teaching has helped you, encouraged you, instructed you, and we're so glad you joined us for Jesus the Healer. We look forward to seeing you next time. God bless you. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at defresheministries.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.