← Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Dufresne Ministries Podcast
My Experience In Faith, Part One | Morgan Dufresne | Tuesday's Online Service | 5.5.20
00:33:52
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by Today's message. Hebrews 11. 1. Tonight I want to. We could title this sermon My Personal Experience with Faith and My Personal Experience with Faith. And that is that I can't base my faith on personal experience. So that is all of our stories. Our personal experience with faith is always going to be that we can't base our faith on personal experience. Well, what about our testimonies? Those are wonderful, and they stir us to faith and they remind us of what God has done in God's goodness. And they help us stay the course and steady us in times of need. Maybe when we want to quit, when we want to give up. But that's not what we base our faith on. We don't base our faith on testimonies. We base our faith on the word of God. Because a testimony is an experience with God. It's an experience with God's Word. But my faith is based on God's word, not an experience with His Word. Two different things. So my personal experience with faith is that I can't base my faith on a personal experience. You can't base your faith off of maybe one prophecy that you saw come to pass. And you want to base your whole faith because you saw that one prophecy come to pass. You can't base your faith because you saw two prophecies come to pass. Your faith must solely be based on God's word and God's word alone. God performs his word. He doesn't perform your past, he doesn't perform. He performs what you believe right now. Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This should be so freeing to us that our faith is not based on personal experience. I tell you what, some people. That binds them up. Some people would disagree. Yeah, but I haven't seen this. Yeah, but I haven't seen that. But I am free to not base what I believe and what I accept on my past and what I haven't seen. Many are looking for the comfort and the tangibility of a past experience to confirm what they can believe for the future. Don't do that. That is a mistake you will make and you will miss the mark. You will miss out on receiving, on provision and promises from God. If you base. You know, I. I cannot base the. When the scripture. We'll talk about some of these things later on. But there's a promise that says, children, your parents and Lord, for this is right and it talks about how you can have you honor your father and mother that you may have long life. That's a promise. Well, if I base my faith on personal experience, I haven't seen long life yet. But I'm not going to base my faith and wait to see if I have long life to believe if that promise is true. So why are you basing your faith on whether or not God's going to provide, whether or not the new home is yours, whether or not your debt's going to get paid off? And based on what you've seen, whether or not this is your best year yet, why would you base it off a personal experience when you'll receive other promises that you can't have a personal experience? So I choose to base my faith solely on the word of God. Faith. We're going to talk about what faith isn't first, because to understand what it is, we have to know what it isn't. Faith is not hope and want. Now, hope has a part, and there's two different sides to hope. There's the hope that is a very natural hope that mankind will have. I hope this happens. I hope that happens. Bible hope is similar, but Bible hope comes with an expectation based on God's word. So faith is not hope and want. Many people want something and they'll say because they want it that they think they're in faith. Just because you want a new home, just because you want to be out of debt, just because you want to be well, your want and willpower is not faith. Your want to is to lead you to stirring your faith. Your want to is to lead you to the path of faith. I want something, I desire something that leads me to faith, which is God's word. So tonight, when we hear faith, we can also talk about God's word. We can interchange those. Faith is believing and acting. Faith is not hope and want. Faith is believing and acting. Dad Hagin said faith says the same thing that God says. Faith is simply saying what God's word says. The word of God says that's the same simplest way to put it. Faith is saying, do you get up and speak what God speaks, or are you speaking based off what you haven't seen, what you haven't experienced, what you don't know. All three of these are going to try to interject into your words into what you, you know, you don't even have to vocalize. You can have conversations with yourself based off of your past experience. Experience you can rehearse. You're the best one to Rehearse. Well, I didn't see the year of abundance come to pass for me and I didn't see this year come to pass. What makes it that the best year yet is going to come to pass for me? You have to base that off of God's word. That's not based off of what Pastor Nancy said. That's not based off of. All those sayings are not based off a man, a woman, woman, a pastor. Those sayings are based off of your revelation of God's word. If you don't have revelation of God's word concerning those sayings according with those assignments, if you don't have God's word on that, you won't receive it. Just to confess. This is my best year yet just to say it. And we're going to talk about what I mean by that. Just because you want it to be your best year yet doesn't mean it will be your best year yet. Just because you wanted the year of abundance, just because you wanted to be on top of the barrel doesn't mean it's based off the word of God. When we hear this is our best year yet, I love what one minister says, based on what you've got to have verse and Scripture, not just this is my best year yet. Based off of what, what is your best year? What does that mean for you? For my life, best year yet is going to look like. And the scriptures that I have, I guarantee, are probably going to look a little bit different than yours. Because the needs in my life, the things I'm facing, are going to be different than yours. They're not going to be any greater, maybe they're not going to be any lesser, but there's still needs that God cares about, and God is the only one that can meet them. And God is the only one that can answer every need in my life. God is the only one that can meet and answer every need in your life. So if you're trying to confess something that you heard somebody speak and prophesy or exhort us in, but you don't have verse and Scripture for it, then it's only a want, it's only a hope. We need to turn those wants and hopes into believing and acting. Meaning I believe and act according, not to my experience, but according to God's word, not according to what I've seen, and definitely not according to what I feel. I don't care if when Pastor Nancy said that you got goosebumps. I don't care if you got upset when she said it because the word of God is not based off feeling. Our assignment is not based off of feeling. The word of God is based off the resurrection power, Heaven's power. What God? The creator of the heavens and the earth. The words that he spoke. Thank God that it's not based off the words you speak. Thank God what He has promised in his word is not based off of what you speak. But what he speaks is supposed to influence what we speak. I'm so glad that it's not dependent. The greater things are not dependent. And we're not dependent on me. But what comes and goes in my life is dependent on me. But at first it goes back to what was first resting on God, and that is the creation of earth, the creation of his family, sending his son. It all goes back to what God took responsibility for. When God sent Jesus, he was taking responsibility for your situation. That was God sent saying, I'll take all responsibility for that. So what is our responsibility? What is my responsibility? Well, what dad Hagin said, faith is simply saying what God says. My responsibility is to not say anything other than what God says about my life. Now we can see in Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The Moffatt translation. Now, faith means that we are confident what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see. We got to be convinced of what we do not see. Bible hope is expectation. But when it's not. Now, this is very important, so listen up. But when it is not accompanied by faith, and with faith, it always stays as an expectation instead of becoming a manifestation. I'm going to say that again. Bible hope is expectation. But when it's not accompanied with and by faith, it is always going to stay as an expectation instead of becoming a manifestation. I need my expectations to become manifestations. I need what I expect from God and what I can expect from the Word to become manifestations. How is that done? Through that pipeline of faith. We've got to send our expectation through the pipeline of faith. You know how many of us wake up in the morning with an expectation of coffee, Coffee. We take our coffee beans and we buy coffee beans. I like buying fresh coffee beans because when you grind them, it's way more fresh than what's already been. Ground coffee beans get ground in expectation of that wonderful liquid bean water that comes out at the end, which creates a wonderful feeling that we were expecting to have, which is excitement and energy for the rest of our day. But coffee beans, they get ground. When I pull out my coffee beans in the morning and freshly grind them, I have an extract expectation of those. But until I mix them and I run it through the coffee pot and mix it with the boiling water, what is that? The water of the word. What I desire is never going to manifest. I can listen, I can smell those coffee beans. I can smell the grounds all I want. But till you can get happy and have expectation about this being your best year yet. But until you mix it with faith, until you mix it with the water of the word, you cannot have coffee without water. You cannot have what you want manifest without the word. You cannot sit and look and hear what somebody else says, even what manifests in somebody else's life and say, oh, I want that. I can have that. Sure, you can have that. But till you mix it with a word and the help of the spirit, you will not receive from it. You will continue to stay in expectation. Are you speaking out of expectation? Are you speaking from the place of faith? Two different things. We must learn to speak from the place of faith, not from the place of want. Well, I thought every time I confessed it was faith. That's not true. And we're going to see how that's not true and how to know whether or not we're speaking from hope or we're speaking from faith. Our wants, our desires and our needs stir an expectation. Stir a hope. But the word of God turns an expectation into the realization of receiving that want, desire, or need. I'm going to say that again. Our wants, our desires and our needs. What are you facing today? You might be facing all three. You might have a need for all three. You may have wants, you may have desires, and you may also have needs. Our wants and our desires and our needs, they stir an expectation. They cause us to go looking worldly people, they have wants, desires, and they have needs. Those who are not of the family of God, what do they do in their own effort? They go and try to meet those. They go and try to have the career. They go and they maybe they go from spouse to spouse trying to meet a desire or a need that they cannot find outside of God's family. They every human on this earth has a desire, a want, or a need, or all three. But when you're in the household of faith, know this, that God is looking to take care of every want, every desire, and every need. And so our wants, our desires, and our needs, they stir us to an expectation. That's what they're supposed to do. They're not to discourage us and say, well, how come I have this. I should have more. Don't ever get discouraged at a want, a desire or a need. The Devil leads us. His path is a path of discouragement. If tonight you are discouraged about anything that hasn't manifested in your life, you are no longer on the Word of God. You have gone off of the Word. I don't care how many scriptures you can quote. I don't care how much you prayed in the Spirit. But if tonight you're discouraged over a want, a desire or a need you have taken what should lead you to an expectation in the Word. And now you're on the path of discouragement. One step into the path of discouragement, it leads to frustration. It'll lead to depression and oppression. We must stay on the path of faith. What dad Hagin says, faith is simply saying what God has said. So it says here, our wants, desire and needs stir an expectation or a hope. But the Word of God, it takes and it turns that expectation into the Word of God. Now, the Word of God, not man's word, not a prophecy. Yes, we believe that prophecies, words of wisdom and words of knowledge are from God. But they must be mixed with God's written word. They must be in agreement. They must. You must receive those with the faith that you have in what God has already said to you about you and for you. So we take and when we mix our expectation. That's why it says now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. When we take our wants, our desires and our need and we stir it, we're stirred to an expectation. And the Word of God turns that expectation into the realization. When I read the Word of God, I now have the realization of receiving the answer to every want, every desire and every need. If it's not real to you, your answer, you must get back in the Word of God. Because like I said, no experience is going to bring you to the realization. No man, no woman, no family member, and no preacher will bring you to the realization of the truth of God's Word and the manifestations he wants to bring into your life. Like his. Like his words. Stop looking to man. Stop looking for somebody to somebody to confirm. Now we know this. God speaks to us through man, but God speaks to us through our pastor. God speaks to us through others to confirm what he has said, to point us back in that direction. To point us when. When Pastor Nancy said, by the Spirit, it's our best year yet. That's to point us back to what is God's best What is his best? We take and we see. I see health as God's best. I see prosperity as God's best. Now I'm going to take in God's word in God's scripture what I need the best in my life. And I'm going to flood my thought life. I'm going to renew my mind. And I will only speak in line with God's best. I will only say God's best from a place of faith. Without God's word, you will not be able to believe. No matter what you've seen, no matter what you felt, no matter how you've experienced. The power of God. The power of God does not bring faith. The power of God, you know, experiencing, falling out under the power, running, dancing, shouting and rejoicing under the power. It does not bring faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And so we've got to put these things in its proper place. Now listen to this. This is something the spirit of God said to me. When you see something with your natural eye, you want it. And this is how the world lives. They live seeing things with their natural eye and wanting things. So what do they do? They work extra hours to get it. They divorce their spouse to get that person they want. They push their kids in arenas so that they're. Because they want their kid to have the best education. So they put pressure on their kid to do what they couldn't do. They want things, they see things with their natural eye and they do what? What else do they do? They want health so they will do it anything and stop at nothing, pay anything that it costs to have health. This is when you see something with your natural eye, you're going to want things. Just as human beings, we want things. We see something, we like it and we want it. We see something, we desire it and we want it. We decide we want that. But when you see with your spirit, you believe it. There's a difference in wanting it and believing it. Just because you see a new home with your natural eye, just because you see and you remember what it was like to have certain debts paid off. That's a want. That's something you want to have happen. But when you see it with your spirit, you turn from wanting it to believing it. Let's examine ourselves tonight. Lay everything out. Husbands and wives, families, single people. Lay everything out. Do you want a spouse or are you believing for a spouse? Because if you were believing for a spouse, you would act like and treat the opposite sex as if you were believing for a Spouse. If you just want a spouse, you'll go date and sleep with any person you want. Because what you're wanting is the attention and affection and satisfaction. But when you're believing something according to God's Word, you recognize, I believe with my heart and nothing else matters but what God's Word says. So you can want something, but it doesn't mean you're unfaithful it. When you see it with your natural eye, you want it. When you see it with your spirit, then you believe it. The only way to see it with your spirit is through God's Word. God's Word. This is what the spirit of God to me said to the Spirit of God said to me. God's Word is the only lens your spirit can see through. When you remove God's Word off and from from when you feed on God's Word, you're taking the lens of faith and now you're able to see. You know what? You read a little bit of the Word and you'll have a small lens. You read much of the Word, you renew your mind with much of the Word. That lens will grow bigger. You'll see more and more and more and more of what God has. And when you see it with your spirit, you believe it. When you see it with your heart, you can't be moved from it. But if you only see it with your eyes, you will be moved. You're only wanting something. You're only hoping a natural hope for something. Remember, hope leads to is an expectation that leads us to God's Word. And ultimately, through the path of faith, we receive a manifestation. Many people just want it. They're staying back at hoping something comes to pass, hoping something is in there, hoping something's in their future. God's Word is the only lens by which your spirit can see. There's many believers walking around blind because they're basing everything off of what someone else did, what someone else didn't do, what they haven't seen, what they haven't experienced. But family, let that not be us. Oh, Father, let that not be me, that I find myself basing what I believe and what I'm standing on on something other than your word. Father, help me. Help me. That should be a prayer that we can pray. That's what the Ephesians prayer is, that the eyes of our understanding are enlightened. What is the eyes of your understanding? The eyes of your spirit get an understanding in our enlightened. That's what a lens is. That's what those telescopes are Those telescopes let in more light. They magnify and let in more light. So we need to take and expand and grow and develop the eyes of our spirit. It's with the eyes of our spirit that we believe. Not just hope and want, but we believe. Well, what is Bible believing? Bible believing is believing. It's the start and it's the foundation by which we receive. Now, let's look at another element of this, another aspect of this, which is provision versus a promise. And we may go ahead and stop here tonight. I didn't even get halfway through my notes, so we might pick up here next week. But I want you to see something and we'll. We'll close with this provision versus a promise. God hasn't promised to heal you. He provided healing. He made you. When you received Jesus as your savior, healing became born on the inside of you. When you became born again, healing was birthed inside of you. You are the healed. The devil is going to challenge who you are. You wouldn't. I wouldn't walk up. I wouldn't have somebody walk up to me and challenge that I'm a female. Challenge that my name is Morgan. Challenge me that my hair needs to be cut. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna be concerned with that challenge because I know all of those things are true. But when I see here in God's word, word that there are promises in provision. Healing is a provision. You don't have to have any thought, argue with you whether or not you're healed. Don't entertain anything that tries to argue with you about whether or not healing is your bread to partake of every day. Healing is the children's bread. It's mine and I receive it by faith. It's not something that's promised to me in the future. It's received. Now, God hasn't promised to provide for you. He is the provider. My father is providing for me right now. He didn't promise to provide for me. Now, we can say it this way. He promises. I know that he has promised that no matter whatever need I face, that the promise is true. He will provide for every need in the future. But right now, how many of you say, I've got needs, Don't. God has promised me. Because what it does is it mentally puts everything off into the future as if it's going to happen. We subconsciously think God has promised me. You know what I've promised my children? We're going to go back to Disneyland when the coronavirus is over. What does that say to them? In the future, what happens when we say God has promised to provide subconsciously it can put everything off into the future. Future. Be careful. No, God has provided. He has assured me that now faith is. Every need I have is paid for now. Every need. This is where the eye of your spirit has got to see it. Wanting it. This is what we talking about. Wanting it and believing it are two different things. I believe it. I know that. I know that I know. And I believe by the eyes of faith, by the lens of faith, that right now, faith is right now. The substance of faith has laid hold of that. It's the evidence of things not seen. I have proof and evidence with my faith that right now every need is paid for. Well, Pastor, is it in your bank account? Pastor, have you seen it? Pastor, do you still have those symptoms in my body? Well, we could say, naturally speaking, no and yes. The money isn't in my account. But I don't have to see it in the natural with my own eyes. All I have to do is see it with my spirit. You can't take away from me what I see in my spirit. No man, woman, child, family member can take away once I've laid hold of it with my spirit. If you're faltering, if what others say to you, it could be in your own house, household, is causing you to falter and waver in what you chose to believe and what you saw in God's word. You can kick that out, you can answer that with the words of faith because they cannot live by your faith, by your believing. It's got to become real to them. So what are we to do within our own households? We are to stand firm no matter what anybody says, no matter what anybody does. You stand firm in your believing. What did your spirit see? What did you lay hold of? Don't move off of that. If you saw it with your spirit, then you. Then you've received it. If you saw the revelation of what God says that you can do by faith and what you have, notice not what you can have. What you have right now. Provision is what you have right now. God hasn't promised to deliver you. He did deliver you. I am delivered. So anything tries to come and bring bondage on me, I'm delivered. I'm delivered from the power of darkness. I'm delivered from Satan. I've been delivered under the hands of God. I'm in his hands. He's taking care of me. He's watching over me. You're not going to be. He's promised me deliverance No, I am delivered. He has provided deliverance. And what he has provided, I have to take with the eyes of my spirit with faith. So promises. Now we can look all through. I love looking at psalms. Psalms is full of promises. Many times promises are when we take an action, God promises to fulfill something for us. Like I said, children, honor thy father and mother. Children, obey our parents that it may be well with you. That's a promise God made us, that if we obey his word, he has promised to be able to do his part. We open the door for God to continually. Many times promises are a continual work. Promises are something that continually are at work in our lives and manifesting for us. And we can stand on those promises that they are going to continue to flow and operate. There are promises that promise his continual protection, his continual blessing flowing in our lives. Those are promises that we can stand on. And we say they're ours. Those promises are mine. But we, we continue. But right now, whatever need you have, God is the provider. And don't look at it as he's promised me something down the road tonight, he is your provider. You can with the eyes of your spirit. Now, don't just want it. Don't just say, I want something and look to what you want and think you're in faith. You've got to take that want, turn it into an expectation. You take that coffee bean and you grind it up. That's your expectation. But you don't stop there. You don't stop and smell the roses. You don't stop and smell how wonderful that coffee bean when it's freshly ground up. You don't stop there and say, oh, I am energized for the day. I've never heard anybody say that in my life, that they sniff their coffee grounds and they're good to go. No, we've got to take. And that becomes our expectation. That want, that coffee bean becomes the ground up expectation which is our divine Bible hope. And it leads us to mixing it with the word of God. And what is the Holy Ghost? He's the heat that puts it on. He's the one that stirs us, that brings that fire, that heats up that Word of God, that nobody can take it away, that you get up every day and you rejoice over what the word of God says. He brings the heat to our life with God. He makes it on fire, he makes it fresh, he makes it exciting. And what comes out on the other side is the manifestation. So tonight we can examine everything in our lives according to this principle. Now faith is and what we see with our spirit, what we lay hold of and see in the promises of God with our spirit and the provision of God with our spirit no man can take away. But like I said, what you see when with your natural eye it leads you to wanting what you see with your spirit, it leads you to believing and it and it gives way to believing. Bible hope is an expectation. But when it is not accompanied by faith, it will always stay as an expectation instead of becoming a manifestation. Faith is simply saying the same thing that God says. I want to say only what God says. We decide that our personal experience with faith is not based on my. My faith is not based on a personal experience. That is what I've chosen and decided. Why don't we decide as a congregation, as a body of believers that we could our testimony and we say my personal experience with faith is this. That I don't base my faith on any personal experience experience. I only base it on what God's word says. You want to walk close with God and you look at. Sometimes we look at people and go, I could never walk with God the way they do. Yes you can. God's word and every every word in this book is as much for you as it is for any man or woman of God that you may look to and glean from and admire and say, I want to be like them. I want to have that kind of family. I want to have what they have. It's the word of God that brings that as a truth and a reality to your spirit. Don't just want it because you see it. Believe it because you see it. Believing unto manifestation. When you believe it with your spirit, that is how you get to the manifestation. Amen. 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.