Dufresne Ministries Podcast

Episode: Quit Believing For Things You Don’t Want | Jesse Duplantis | Campmeeting 2023
Date: June 21, 2023
Guest Speaker: Jesse Duplantis
Location: Murrieta, CA

Episode Overview

In this vibrant and humorous message, Jesse Duplantis challenges listeners to "quit believing for things you don't want," unpacking how subtle fears, negative expectations, and the influence of others—often authority figures like doctors—can lock believers in cycles of worry, limitation, and diminished faith. Drawing from personal anecdotes, biblical examples, and his signature wit, Jesse encourages believers to focus on what God has promised, develop unwavering, joyful faith, and actively reject beliefs and cares that work against divine destiny.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Subtlety of Satan: Believing for What You Don’t Want

• Opening Analogy (00:30): Jesse notes that Satan works not in the headlines, but "in the small print," slipping negative beliefs into our lives almost unnoticed.
  • "Satan is never in the headlines. He’s in the small print, where the power is of a contract or the power of anything is in the small print." (01:07)
• The enemy tries to get people to “nurse their secret sorrows,” focusing on disappointments and negative possibilities instead of God’s promises.
  • "Stop nursing your secret sorrows. Nurse what you should have instead of what you have." (02:15)

2. Scriptural Examples of Negative Faith

• Job: Jesse highlights Job 3:25 ("the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me") as a classic example of believing for (and thus attracting) things you don’t want. (05:08)
• Jacob: Similarly, Jacob in Genesis 42:36-38 is depicted as believing for loss and sorrow, leading to compounded trouble in his life.
  • "Jacob had a bad habit of believing for things he didn’t want... Of all the patriarchs, he lived the least." (09:30)

3. Anticipation of Trouble: Doctors & Cultural Influences

• Personal Story on Doctors (13:10): Jesse humorously describes medical visits where family history and doctor's warnings are designed to make people nervous about future illness.
  • "If you anticipate trouble, it will double. Avoid dwelling on unpleasantness." (15:31)
  • "The ghost of care and fear will build a false and artificial wall around you, making you believe for something you don’t want." (22:28)
  • Jesse’s interaction with the doctor is used to illustrate how to reject negative expectations and claim identity in Christ rather than in natural lineage.

4. Care, Pride, and Imagination

• Carrying worry or care is actually a form of pride:
  • "Care is a form of pride. You’re saying God can't handle your business, so you take it back from him and worry about it. That’s care." (29:15)
• Imagination can be hijacked to put “trouble into your future.”
  • "Imagination takes trouble and puts it into your future… you wait on it." (30:08)

5. Overstating the Bad and Forgetting the Joys

• We “overstate the ills of life and forget the numberless hours of joy.” (34:45)
• Memorable Moment: Jesse riffs about warnings he received when entering ministry, refuting the idea that we must constantly expect suffering:
  • "Jesus never had a financial deficit. The devil tried to hurt me, but before I got home, everything was met and not barely!" (37:55)

6. God's Provision and Obedience

• God's provision is already handled; delays come from human disobedience:
  • "Every project... is already answered. God’s already taken care of it—it’s just people that won’t do what He said." (39:05)
• On obedience:
  • "Some people are willing, but they’re not obedient. Some people are obedient, but they’re not willing. Which cancels out everything you’re going to do." (40:30)

7. Faith, Not Fear, Determines Outcome

• Story of facing death threats in Belfast, rejecting fear:
  • "Brother Jesse, you don’t fear nothing." "No, why should I? I’m not big enough to whip nobody… but I refuse to let anyone put something in me that’s not godly, especially what I don’t want." (54:42)

8. Absolute Abandonment to God

• Key teaching:
  • "Absolute abandonment of self to the reliability of God emancipates the mind… I’ve lost my mind and I've received the mind of Christ." (58:35)
• Faith means not holding onto the past or others' expectations—even those hidden in the “fine print.”

9. Don’t Nurse the Wounds—Confess God’s Promises

• "Stop nursing your secret sorrows. Nurse what you should have, instead of what you have. Tell people you’re debt-free. They’ll think you’re crazy, but they think you’re crazy anyway!" (1:16:58)
• Emphasis on confession:
  • "You’ve been saying what you have instead of having what you say. You swapped it around." (1:18:05)

10. God’s Blessings in Disguise

• God often sends the answer wrapped in an unexpected package.
  • "God wraps his blessings up in strange disguises and we rarely have faith to see into their heart." (1:22:50)
• Example: Peter was not the obvious choice, but God saw deeper purpose.

11. Community, Identity, and Testimony

• Several stories about Jesse’s connections to unlikely people—mafia, synagogues, doctors—emphasize openness and the transformative power of Jesus seen in us.
• "The only Jesus some people may ever see is the Jesus in you or the Jesus in me." (1:44:40)
• Jesse humorously relates how others try to get him to accept identities, honors, or expectations that are not for him—always steering back to his identity in Christ.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On negative anticipation:
  "If you anticipate trouble, it will double. Avoid dwelling on unpleasantness." (15:31)

• On medical checkups and generational fear:
  "I’m not genetically linked up with any of my family. I’m genetically linked up with the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn’t have heart trouble, cancer, or diabetes." (23:44)

• On pride and care:
  "Care is a form of pride. You’re saying God can’t handle your business, so you take it back from him and worry about it." (29:15)

• On faith:
  "Absolute abandonment of self to the reliability of God emancipates the mind." (58:36)

• On confession:
  "You’ve been saying what you have instead of having what you say." (1:18:05)

• On blessings in disguise:
  "God wraps his blessings up in strange disguises and we rarely have faith to see into their heart." (1:22:50)

• On persistently outgoing faith:
  "Life in Christ is supremacy and independence over all circumstances." (1:48:22)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:30 — Opening; Main theme: believing for what you don’t want
• 05:08 — Introduction of Job’s story and “negative faith”
• 09:30 — Jacob’s pattern of negative expectation
• 13:10 — Medical anecdotes: family histories and subtle fear
• 22:28 — "Ghost of fear and care" – building artificial walls
• 29:15 — "Care is a form of pride"
• 30:08 — Imagination puts trouble in your future
• 34:45 — Overstating life’s ills
• 40:30 — Digression on obedience & willingness
• 54:42 — Story: Facing threats in Belfast/Northern Ireland
• 58:36 — Absolute abandonment emancipates the mind
• 1:16:58 — Stop nursing secret sorrows, nurse God's Word
• 1:18:05 — Saying what you have vs. having what you say
• 1:22:50 — God’s blessings in disguise
• 1:44:40 — "The only Jesus some people may ever see..."
• 1:48:22 — "Life in Christ is supremacy and independence..."

Conclusion

In a message filled with storytelling, humor, and the boldness of faith, Jesse Duplantis powerfully urges believers to reject subtle despair and negative expectation in favor of active, joyful, and childlike confidence in God’s reliability and Word. By refusing to believe for what you don’t want—no matter who’s trying to convince you—you open your life to the fullness of everything God has for you, experience true freedom of the mind and spirit, and serve as a living testimony of Christ’s transformative power.