← Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Dufresne Ministries Podcast
The Measure Of Faith, Part One | Nancy Dufresne | Jesus the Healer Broadcast
00:27:24
Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
- [00:09]
B
Welcome today to Jesus the Healer. And we're so glad you joined us. And we ask you invite somebody to, to join us today, let them know that we're on today. And usually when you watch this episode, you'll find that we're in our sanctuary at the church that is our home base in California. But today I've come to, to Colorado where I have a ranch here and I have a home here. But right behind me is a, is a, is just a picture, a little bit, you can see it of the one room cabin that my son built me so that when I have guests that stay with us, this is a little place that I can get away. So we wanted to bring you to this intimate place and spend time with us today here at the ranch. So thank you for joining us. On a previous, the previous episode we began ministering about faith. And there are so many different ways that we can describe faith and talk about faith. And they're all, they're all helpful to help us get a grasp on faith and become skillful in faith. And so I'm going to continue today along the lines of faith, but we're going to talk about the measure of faith. And so it says In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, without faith, it is impossible to please God. You know, there are so many important truths that the Word addresses, but one of the most important truths that the Word addresses is the need for faith. Because when we need something from God, the way we conduct business with him is on the basis of faith, that it is in His Word that He can only work for us when we're in the flow of faith. And God will not violate His Word. We have to come into his system of operating in faith. It's his system. And so the more we understand about faith in our part, because faith is our part, then we become more skillful with faith and more skillful at cooperating with God, cooperating with his power, cooperating with heaven. So Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6 says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Now so many times people think, well, you know, God's just an angry, he's just angry, you know, you can't please Him. Oh, that so many people misunderstand why this is stated. The reason he's not pleased when there's not faith is because he can't work for us when there's not faith. And he wants to work for us. So he's not satisfied. And he's not pleased when he can't work for us and supply the things that we need in this life. And so that's why without faith, it's impossible to please him. Because without faith he's not, he doesn't have access to bless our lives. And so that's why he's not pleased when faith isn't in place. And so Also Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 38 speaks about faith and it says this, the just shall live by faith. So faith is not just something that we have moments of throughout our life, throughout our life, it's the way we live. It's to be our lifestyle every single day that we learn to have faith thoughts, that we learn to speak faith words, that we learn to have faith actions. When we do this, we begin to live a faith life and not just have moments of faith, thank God for moments of faith, but to really live, to live the high, to live the life that he authored in the highest sense is to live a life of faith. And it says that the just shall live by faith. So faith is vital in the life of every believer. We must major on the subject of faith and not treat it like it's a side subject because it is so vital to the life of the believer. We can't live a life pleasing to the Lord without faith. You know, the Word will certainly address our behavior. But you know, you can have all the good works in the world, but without faith we still won't be pleasing to God. We could do all these kinds of wonderful things, heroic acts, but if we don't have faith, God still isn't pleased. And so faith is how we conduct business with God. It's how we receive what God has for us and how we come into communion and fellowship with God. It's all by faith. Now know this. There is no faith in your mind. The residing place of faith is, is your heart. And so it's not in your mind. You cannot believe God with your mind. When you're endeavoring to believe God and you feel mentally overwhelmed, it's because you're trying to believe him with your mind. You're trying to grasp with your mind and understand how God's going to do it, where God's going to get the supply from, how he's going to work this miracle in your life. If you try to understand that all in your mind, your mind will be over overwhelmed. You can't believe God with your mind. You just, many times you just have to silence your mind, quiet your mind, put your mind and say, I'm not even going to touch that in my thought life. I'm going to let my heart believe what my mind cannot understand. And you say, well, Pastor Nancy, I need to understand everything about, you know, how God's going to meet my need. Well, you know, very often I get on airplanes and I fly on commercial flights from one location to another so that I can preach at different churches. And there. If there's one thing you can understand about me, I do not know how that airplane flies. I get on an airplane that I don't understand how it flies, but I'm confident it will get me there. And I'm not sitting on that plane trying to mentally analyze how is this plane getting off the ground, how is it carrying all these people and how does it handle all the weight load of the luggage. I'm not even touching that. I'm not even letting my mind go there. I'm just confident that it's going to arrive. And that's the same confidence we need to show God that we need to show him the same amount of confidence. Father, I don't have to figure out how you're going to do it. I don't have to figure out where the money's going to come from. I don't have to figure out what people you're going to use to help bless my life. All I have to do is have confidence that you're working on it and you'll bring it to pass. We don't have to understand everything about how he works. We do have to understand what the Word tells us is our part to play and faith is our part to play. Yet we don't conduct that faith with our minds. We conduct it out of our hearts. Faith is in your spirit, and you believe God with your heart. With your spirit. In First John, chapter 5, in verse 4, it says this. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. Think of that. If you're born again, you're born of God. That means that you have overcoming life on the inside of you. And it goes on and says this. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Notice this. We can even overcome the world things around us, the circumstances around us, without faith. So the victory that overcomes the world is our faith. So notice this. Your victory is waiting for your faith to show up when your faith shows up. Victory is the result of that faith. And so we cannot even walk in the victorious life that Jesus authored for us and made ours unless we bring our faith and the Moment we bring our faith, our victory goes into action. Romans chapter 10 and verse 17 says this. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith does not come by praying for it. Faith does not come by wishing for it. It comes by feeding on the Word of God and then putting that Word into action in your life. Be a doer of that word. Faith comes by hearing, but faith is not released by hearing. Now, that's a huge key to understand. It's good and it's right to hear. But you hear so that you can release the faith that you've heard. So that faith that came in you when you heard the Word of God now has to be released. And you release faith through speaking and acting on the Word. So faith comes by hearing, but faith is released. Or you turn your faith loose. You put your faith in action. You put your faith in motion. You spend your faith in as you speak and as you act on the faith that's in your heart. As I said in Romans 12, 3, I want to read to you. God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. In the previous episode, we talked about this in detail. But at the new birth, when you were born again, God put a beginning measure of faith in you. He did that for every single child of God. So every single one of his children start with the same beginning measure of faith. Once he gives us that measure of faith, then it is up to us as to the condition of that faith. Whether it will grow, whether it will be dead, whether it will be inactive. That faith of what happens to it depends on us, not God. It is not up to God to grow our faith. It is up to us to grow our faith. How do we grow our faith? By feeding on the Word and acting on the Word. So from then on, we are the ones that are responsible to make sure that our faith is growing and not diminishing. And I will say this about faith. Faith never is stationary. Faith is either growing or. Or faith is diminishing. You're not just floating in neutral at faith and maintaining the same measure of faith that you had yesterday. As I heard one minister say, and I like this, he said, faith has a very short shelf life. Meaning this, that if you just leave it unaccessed, you don't turn your faith loose. It starts diminishing. It does not just stay where you left it. It starts diminishing. So we need to continually increase and feed our faith and become SC skillful with releasing our faith so that we can receive that which we go to lay hold of by Faith. And as we, we increase our faith by feeding, feeding on the word plus exercising, turning our faith loose, using it. As I said In Romans chapter 12 and verse 3, reading it again, it says, God has dealt to every man the measure faith. So notice this, faith is measurable. God gave to everyone the beginning measure of faith, and it's the same measure for every man that God gives to every believer. So faith is measurable. The Bible speaks of weak faith. It speaks of strong faith. It speaks of growing faith, increasing faith. It speaks of dead faith. Well, see, all of these are measures of faith. And so these measures of faith show us that faith is measurable. If you look In Hebrews chapter 11, in verse 1, it says, now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So notice this phrase, faith is the substance. So faith, although you can't see it in this realm, faith has spiritual substance. It is measurable in the spirit realm. And so every substance is measurable. And God calls our faith a substance. So every single substance is measurable. If you were to go in the kitchen and you were going to make a particular recipe, you would see that there are measurements that you're going to have to use of the different ingredients. You may have flour, sugar, salt, pepper, oil, eggs, different ingredients. These are substances. And so you put the right measurement of these different ingredients in and the recipe will be a success. If you don't use the right measurements of these substances, then it'll be like mine. You'll have to end up walking over and throwing it the trash. How many times I've cooked something, walked over and just put it in the trash because I didn't measure right, it didn't come out right, it was not successful. No one wanted to eat it, including me. The trash ended up with it. Well, faith can be measured, and we have to apply the correct measure of faith to our situations. And we're going to spend some time talking about that today because this, this is an important thing to learn when believing God. For a need to be met, the right measure of faith must be applied to have success. Now let me talk to you and tell you what I mean by that. Oh, probably about 30 to 35 years ago, when I was a young believer, I was having some symptoms in my body and I had gone to the doctor and the doctor wanted to put me on a particular kind of medication. Well, I didn't want to go on medication. You know, I was learning to believe God. I was learning to use my faith. And so I just wanted to believe God and to receive my healing by the power of God and not involve any medicine. But the more I thought about not using medicine, I became unsettled. What was it? Because my faith was overwhelmed. My degree of faith was less then than it is today. And so when I consider. Considered my situation, it overwhelmed my faith. And so the spirit of God spoke to me one day when I was considering, do I go on the medication or not? And the spirit of God spoke to me and he said, go on the medication, but while you're on the medicine, continue to feed your faith. And when your faith reaches full measure, then he said, then I'll tell you when to come off the medicine. How easy is that? He's our counselor, he's our guide. He's not offended if we need to use medicine. What displeases God is if we won't use faith. There are some people. And I remember something my husband said to me during that time. He said, honey, it's not the withholding of medicine that pleases God. It's the using of faith. You know, you can withhold medicine and decide, I'm not going to use medicine, but if you don't use your faith, you. You still won't be pleasing to God even though you didn't take the medicine. You see, it's faith that pleases God. It's not withholding things that pleases God, but it's the exercise of our faith. So when the spirit of God said to me, he said, go on the medicine, and then every day, continue to feed your faith and exercise your faith. And when your faith reaches full measure, he said, then I'll tell you when to come off the medicine. And I did that faithfully. And every day I fed on healing scriptures. Then I confessed those healing scriptures. And I worshiped God for my. For the healing power working in my body. And after three months, one day the spirit of God said, you, faith is where it should be. You can come off the medicine. And I did. And there was no negative results, no negative effects, and everything was well. And I maintained my healing. I held on to that healing. So evidently the measure of faith I had wasn't enough for that need, for that physical need. But that didn't mean I couldn't be healed. He just told me, keep feeding your faith. So if I could say this to you, if you need medical treatments, and you've been endeavoring to believe God, but things aren't changing. Just if you have peace about it in your heart, take the medical treatments, take the medicine, but keep feeding Your faith, join your faith to that. It's not going to offend God. But if your faith is not where it needs to be, God doesn't want you to suffer. Just go ahead and keep feeding your faith. Follow your spirit. Absolutely follow your spirit. But sometimes people get this idea and the devil will energize this thinking that God will be upset with you if you go the medical route or that God will be upset with you if you take medicine. And you know what displeases God is the lack of, is not using faith. As long as you use faith, God will be pleased and the Holy Spirit will continue to guide and counsel you. So it's faith that pleases God. And like I said, if you need to go the medical route, don't get under guilt or condemnation. God does not put you under that. But don't just sit back and take the medical route and then not even use your faith. Not release your faith that won't be pleasing to God. God wants you to release your faith, feed your faith, even if you go a medical route. The Spirit of God counseled me in that situation based on the measure of faith I possessed at that time. Listen, I would have liked not to have used medicine and just believe God for my healing. But the Holy Ghost was counseling me based on my measure of faith right then. So the Holy Spirit won't lead you based on someone else's faith or he won't lead you based on the faith you wished you had. You know, really, there are times I've felt this at times in my life. And I believe so many Christians will feel this at different times. Where you feel like, I should be further along in my walk with God, I should be further along in my faith. And that may be true. We all maybe should be further, further along. But we can't believe God based on where we should be. We can only believe God based on where our faith level is at today and right now. And that's what the Holy Spirit is going to counsel you about, is he'll tell you and guide you today based on the measure of faith you possess today. Listen, the Holy Spirit, if you'll follow him, he will lead you into success every single, single time. He will never lead you beyond your measure of faith. If you get out beyond your measure of faith, then you'll fail. But if you'll stay within your measure of faith, you will succeed every time. If you keep using your faith, the Holy Spirit is leading you into success. He will not lead you beyond your measure of faith. But I will Say this. The devil would love to. To try to guilt trip you into getting beyond your measure of faith. He will try to get you to make steps and make decisions that are beyond what you can actually believe for at that moment. And so you don't go by pressure, you go by the peace in your heart of the decisions and the steps you make. That's why you want to be very careful if you endeavor to counsel somebody on what they need to do. Because you can't give proper counsel to someone if you don't know their measure of faith. You can't counsel someone based on your measure of faith. I know that one time, years and years ago, a couple came to me and they were unsettled because they had decided to not. They had decided to do something to take a certain step which was perfectly fine for their lives. If they wanted to take that step, that's perfectly fine. But another couple who was older in God, they had walked with the Lord longer. They had been feeding on the word more. They were more spiritually mature. And they said, you shouldn't do that. You should do what we're doing. Well, see, the people counseling them was talking to them about their measure of faith. They weren't talking to them, that couple, about the measure of faith that young couple had. And so this is where many people get into great difficulty trying to counsel people is because you can lead people's lives off by trying to get them and counseling them based on your measure of faith rather than their measure of faith. I remember Brother Hagin talking about a situation, and I so appreciate this, that there was a woman in his church that she needed a surgery, that her body would not get better without this surgery. There was a growth that needed to be removed or it would just continue to get worse. And the doctor said, we can remove it and we can handle it. Well, Brother Hagin knew that the highest and the best was for this woman to receive healing by divine power. And that's always the best. But not everyone is always at that level of faith. Their measure of faith is not always able to grasp that at that point. So he said, for weeks I would go and I would minister to this woman and I would endeavor to help her cause her faith to grow. And he said, I could tell she just wasn't grasping it. Well, part of the problem was she was in pain. When you're in pain, it's very difficult to yield to your spirit. And so this woman was in pain. It was very difficult for her to grasp the truths of what he was saying. Saying. And he saw that she was getting worse and not better, although he was spending time teaching her the Word. See, the word has to get in you for it to work. If it's not going to get in you, your faith won't be able to grow. And so he recognized, she's not getting any better. She's getting worse. And he said, I need to change my approach. I've been trying to get her to believe God at my level. I need to help her believe God at her level. And so he asked her, he said, sister, he said, I have failed. He said, I've been endeavoring to bring you to another level. He said, it's not my job to get you to believe God at my level. It's my job to help you believe God at your level. So he said, tell me, what can you believe for? And she said, brother Hagin, she said, I can believe that God will guide the surgeon's hands. I can believe that God will cause me to recover speedily after I have the surgery. And he said, you know what he said, I can agree with you for that. Let's agree with you for that. And he said, they agreed. They prayed. She went into the surgery. After the surgery, the doctors came out and they said, we have never had a surgery go that smooth and that easy ever, with a woman in that condition. Well, see, their prayers worked. Their faith worked because they prayed at the level that that woman's measure of faith was. And then, not only that, usually they. She would have had to be on extreme painkillers because it was quite an aggressive surgery. The doctors came in after about 24 hours, and they said to her, I see on your charts you haven't had any pain medication. Are you in pain? She says, no, I haven't had any pain. Well, see, that's a miracle. Yeah, maybe it might not have been the best miracle to where she didn't have to have this surgery, but it's still a miracle because God met her at her measure of faith, and God blessed her there, and she had success there. Now, that's what real maturity understands. It understands that everybody is at different measures of faith. And God wants you to succeed at your measure of faith, and so so does the Holy Ghost. I noticed this about Jesus when he was on the earth. He never rebuked someone for their measure of faith. What he did rebuke them for was not using the measure of faith they had. So God will never put you down. He will never criticize you or be displeased with you over your measure of faith. But when we don't please him is when we're not using the measure of faith we have. It might just be a small measure. If you'll use it, God will be pleased. And so this is what we have to understand, that faith is measurable. And so we need to be careful that when we're encouraging someone, when we're praying with someone, when we're counseling with someone, we need to talk to them and say, what can you believe for? You know, as a pastor, I pastored for 25 years and I got all kinds of phone calls and all kinds of prayer requests from my congregation. Some were facing very difficult circumstances. Some were facing circumstances with their family, their children, their business, their health, their finances. And I never told them what they ought to do until I first asked them this question. I asked them this, what are you believing for? What are you believing for God to do? Because if someone needed healing, maybe I can believe for them but to receive divine healing, but what can they believe for? It's not my job to invoke my faith on them. It's my job to join my faith with their measure of faith. That's what the prayer of agreement is. If I'm agreeing, if I'm praying in a prayer of agreement for one of my congregation members and I'm praying for them to receive divine healing and they're just praying to be able to find the right doctor to help them, then our prayers aren't in agreement and we're not going to get results, you see. So I always ask people, what are you believing for? Sometimes I found that they were believing for something beyond their measure of faith. And I would say, wait a minute, let's back up a little bit. What is the spirit of God dealing with you about? Because if we follow the Spirit, we will have success every single time. I tell you, faith is such a wonderful flow. It's the way we're to live. But understanding these things keeps us sound and sure footed in our faith life. So it's been a privilege to share and teach teach you about some of these things. But we're going to continue along this this line on the next episode. So make sure you join us. You don't want to miss it. So we'll see you next time on Jesus the Healer. God bless you.
- [27:07]
A
We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us@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.