Podcast Summary:

Dufresne Ministries Podcast

Episode: How To Keep Your Healing, Part 3
Host: Pastor Nancy Dufresne
Date: May 11, 2023

Episode Overview

In this third installment of the “How To Keep Your Healing” series, Pastor Nancy Dufresne delves into practical and deeply spiritual strategies for maintaining healing received from God. The core theme: receiving healing is vital, but keeping and holding fast to that healing—amid spiritual opposition—requires deliberate action and continual hearing of the Word. The episode is rich with encouragement, teaching, scriptural insight, and memorable illustrations designed to help believers stay in their “victory ground.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Our Position: Maintaining, Not Just Receiving Healing

• Pastor Nancy opens by establishing that receiving healing is only the beginning—believers must actively “occupy the victory” Jesus won (00:20).
• Quote:

  "We are not the sick trying to get healed... That's who we are. We are the healed. And we are refusing to allow sickness...to rob our health from us." (00:56)

• The enemy seeks to rob believers using symptoms and feelings. Resist “feeling-led” living; healing is an identity, not just an event.

2. The Counterattack: Recognizing the Enemy’s Tactics

• The devil often launches a “counterattack” by returning old pains or symptoms to sow doubt (02:25).
• Highlights her son’s words:

  "Healing is not a feeling. Healing is who we are. Healing is our position in Christ." (02:50)

• Believers must continually “enforce the defeat” of the devil rather than try to win a battle that Jesus already won (03:45).

3. Whose Counsel Are You Taking?

• Don’t let your body, pain, or symptoms become your counselor—instead, listen to the Holy Spirit and the Word (04:45).
• Personal story: The Holy Ghost once led her to take medicine, but also instructed her to keep feeding her faith until she was told to stop the medication (05:20).
• Quote:

  "Take your counsel from the Holy Ghost. Don’t take it just from your body. Don’t take it from the devil. Don’t take it from circumstances." (05:45)

4. The Role of Teaching and Preaching

• Cites Luke 5:15: People came to “hear and to be healed,” connecting hearing the Word as a vital precursor to receiving healing (07:55).
• The divine order: Jesus went everywhere “teaching, preaching, and healing”—not the other way (09:30).
• If one doesn’t honor or value the teaching/preaching, “it’s going to be difficult for them to receive healing” (10:50).
• Even if healing is received through another’s faith or a gift of the Spirit, one must develop their own faith to keep it, as help from others is “temporary” (13:40).

Notable Illustration (15:50)

"Teaching is putting handles on something. If I could say this, if this was a hot cup, I need that handle to be able to hold it...That’s what teaching does. It puts handles on truths so you can say, 'I grabbed that. I understood that.'" (15:50)

5. Knowledge vs. Ignorance

• Ignorance is a major enemy—lack of knowledge leads to loss, not the direct power of the devil (17:45).
• Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
• Encouragement to actively pursue knowledge; don’t “value the seat of ignorance. The seat of ignorance is easy to occupy, but hard to live with.” (19:10)

Memorable Story (20:35)

• Woman with a terminal diagnosis refused to die just because she was ignorant; she moved cities to attend healing school and be taught.

“She valued knowledge.” (21:05)

6. Ongoing Spiritual Education

• Draws parallels to academic discipline—spiritual learning should be just as deliberate (22:00).
• Many lose healing due to “one thing, lack of knowledge...about healing and how to hold fast.” (22:45)
• God can’t be blamed if we lose what He’s given because “we lacked the knowledge.” (23:10)
• "You can’t stop him from coming [to steal], but you can certainly stop him from accomplishing what he came for. Amen." (23:55)

7. Personal Responsibility and Initiative

• It's not up to others to spur your spiritual growth; it’s your job to get up, go to church, learn, and feed on the Word (25:05).
• God provides pastors and teachers, but “it’s up to us to take charge of our life.” (25:40)
• “Put a whip in our own hand... get up, get to church, be a blessing, learn the word.” (25:48)

8. Scriptural Instructions to “Hold Fast”

• 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Hold fast that which is good.”
• Revelation 3:11: “Hold that fast which thou hast.”

"When you have something good, you have to hold fast to it...in the face of your enemy, you're not stealing mine from me." (26:40)

• James 4:7: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
• “What we don’t resist has permission to stand. So make sure at every turn, you’re resisting what should not be there.” (28:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Healing as Identity:

  "We are not the sick trying to get healed... We are the healed." (00:56)

• On the Nature of Faith:

  "Faith doesn’t walk by what it sees, by what it feels, because faith is not a feeling. Once you receive your healing and the manifestation of it, you’ll feel it. But...we don’t believe that we’re healed because of feelings. We believe we’re healed because of the Word." (13:10)

• On Importance of Teaching:

  "If people don’t know the Word, the devil can easily overthrow them. Continue to learn even after you’ve received healing..." (17:20)

• On Spiritual Laziness:

  "We can’t just be floaters in our spiritual development and in life and say that we’re going to easily hold fast. Holding fast will be a struggle and a difficulty if we’re just floating in our spiritual life." (20:00)

• On Responsibility:

  "It’s not up to others to prompt you toward your spiritual development. It is within our sole responsibility." (25:25)

Important Timestamps

• 00:56 – “We are not the sick trying to get healed...that’s who we are. We are the healed.”
• 02:50 – “Healing is not a feeling. Healing is who we are" (attributed to her son).
• 05:20 – On being led by the Holy Spirit regarding medicine and faith.
• 07:55 – Luke 5:15: “They came to hear and to be healed...”
• 13:10 – “Faith doesn’t walk by what it sees, by what it feels...”
• 15:50 – Teaching as “handles on truth.”
• 17:20 – “If people don’t know the Word, the devil can easily overthrow them.”
• 20:35 – Healing school story: “She valued knowledge.”
• 25:25 – Personal responsibility in spiritual growth.
• 26:40 – Scriptural instructions to “hold fast.”
• 28:20 – “What we don’t resist has permission to stand...”

Structure for Holding Fast to Healing (Main Takeaways)

• Resist and Refuse Symptoms: Don’t let symptoms or feelings dictate your identity or faith.
• Continual Feeding on the Word: Consistently place yourself under sound Bible teaching and preaching.
• Honor and Value Knowledge: Ignorance is dangerous; spiritual education is vital.
• Personal Initiative: Your spiritual growth is your responsibility—not your pastor’s or family’s.
• Use Scriptural Authority: “Resist the devil, and he will flee.” Hold tightly to what God has given.

Pastor Nancy’s closing charge:

“Occupy the seat of the learned...When you do, the power of God will escort you into great things. Amen.” (26:00)

For more, revisit previous episodes or continue in this series—because, as Pastor Nancy reminds us, “Jesus is the healer.”