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The Seven Companions Of Faith, Part Four | Nancy Dufresne | Jesus the Healer Broadcast
00:26:47
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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I want to read again just so for our viewers that are watching. We're at two Peter chapter one and verse five. The Holy Ghost gave Peter a list of something, something that we're to add to our faith, because faith is a bridge, if we could say it that way. And we have seven supports that are listed here in second Peter that are to be under the bridge of fai. And without these supports in place, the bridge of faith is compromised. So here, let's read it again. Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. And to virtue, knowledge. And to knowledge, temperance. And to temperance, patience. And to patience, godliness. Or we could say this godlikeness. And to godliness, brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness, charity, or the divine love of God. So. So we've been looking at the first thing that we're to add to our faith. Because faith doesn't live alone, it has companions. And so to add to faith, it says we're to add virtue. That word virtue in this passage means moral excellence. So God is a moral God. His word will lead us into a moral life, because that's the best life. Amen. It protects us when we live moral. Now, just because you are part of the body of Christ, just because the life of God is in you, does not dismiss you from living a morally excellent life. Just because you may have an anointing on your life, that anointing is no substitute for moral excellence. Just because you may have a call on your life, that call is no substitute for moral excellence. When you have a call of God on your life, and I'm talking especially for five fold ministry, if you have a call on your life to be an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, teacher, evangelist, if you have a call on your life for that, that means you have a greater demand upon your life for moral excellence. Because the devil's going to attack you in a specific way because you're a target for him. And you better make sure that moral excellence is in place. And I don't care how many miracles you get without moral excellence, you're going to have a problem. I don't care how you can pray and get answers, you're not. You're going to have a problem if moral excellence isn't in place. And the devil would love to wait until you get far ahead down in your Christian life. Why? Because he wants as many people joined to you as he as he can get. Joined to you before he strikes, he will allow your ministry to grow. And you think, oh, God, God's winking at the way I'm living because he's not dealing with me. You know, something's out of place. Not living clean in some way. Nothing seems to happen, so people keep doing it. It's because you're under mercy, not because you're under permission. God is giving you a chance to get it right. He's not turned his back and winking at it, making as though he's not seeing it. Amen. I tell you what, you don't want to play with what's wrong because it will hook you in a way that you'll never realize you got hooked. Amen. And so make sure that you don't try to substitute, well, I've got faith in God that won't make up for moral excellence. It says you have to add moral excellence to your faith. It doesn't say that faith will substitute for it. I don't care how many faith scriptures you confess. If you're not going to live clean, you're going to have problems and you're going to injure your life and people around you. And we can't say the devil did it. When moral excellence is in place, the devil has a closed door and he can't get through a closed door. Amen. Hallelujah. Now I let you know this. Morality involves integrity and honor. Amen. Morality involves being right, doing right, being honest, being faithful, being honorable. Amen. If you're dishonorable towards your spouse, you're going to have faith issues. Your faith is going to be compromised because moral excellence is a support under that bridge of faith. And if you dishonor your family, you dishonor your spouse, you dishonor your boss, you dishonor those that are over you, you're going to have issues with your faith because when you go to believe God for something, that faith isn't going to be able to conduct that power across that. Why? Because there's a support missing. Amen. So when I say this, that morality involves honor and integrity, doing right, being right, having right thoughts, being faithful, being trustworthy, all these things, even though others may not do or treat us right, never dismisses us from doing what's right. If you're just going to equal someone, you, your life is not going to be what God intended. Well, they said that to me, so that's why I said this. See, we don't take our cues from people. We take our cues from the word. Just because someone Else may say it doesn't mean we can. Just because someone else may do it doesn't mean we can. Just because someone else may go there and they're supposedly a Christian, doesn't mean we can go there. Why? Because I'm not equaling men. I'm equaling God. His Word is my standard, not the life of other people. Amen. Even though others may not treat us right or do right, we aren't dismissed from doing right or being right. Amen. Well, you know, I would forgive them if they came and repented. Did you know God forgave you before you repented at the new birth? You just received the forgiveness. He forgave you before then. And if you're waiting for somebody to repent to you before you let go of offense toward them or unforgiveness. What if they never repent to you? Offense is a lack of integrity. To be offended is a lack of integrity. Why? Because God's not offended and we're equaling Him. Amen. To have unforgiveness or bitterness towards someone is lack of integrity based on God's definition. Well, you don't know how they did me. No. But I know this. The greater one is in you to make your actions greater than theirs, to make your response greater than theirs. Amen. Hallelujah. Well, I just can't forgive them. No, don't say you can't. Just say it. Say it the way. Say it the way it is. You won't. You can. You can. And thank God. The Holy Ghost will help you. He will help you in a life of moral excellence. He did not leave it to your willpower to live a life of moral excellence. He did not leave it to your emotions to live a life of moral excellence. We have the help of the Word and the Holy Ghost because He is in us. We are enabled to forgive anyone, to walk free from offense toward anyone, to not be in bitterness toward anyone. We are empowered because we draw on Him. Now, if you're going to stir up feelings of offense by keeping them warm, nursing them, talking about it, meditating on it, then that thing's just going to hook you. But if you'll just let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Amen. Hallelujah. Proverbs chapter 11. And verse 3 says this. Proverbs chapter 11, verse 3. It says, the integrity of the upright shall guide them. Know this. The Holy Ghost isn't going to lead you apart from integrity. Any way he leads you, it's going to be a path of integrity. And if you say, well, I don't have any particular leading in my heart of how to handle this situation. Then we know this. Ask yourself, what would integrity do? Because you're guided by, by integrity. Amen. Well, you know, a lot of people, they don't want integrity to guide them because they want to hold on to their money. But sometimes you have to do what integrity would do, not what your checkbook would do.
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Well, praise the Lord.
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James, chapter one and verse four. I like especially the Phillips translation. It reads this way. Be men of integrity with no weak spots. No weak spots. So when integrity is in place, everything is fortified. There's nothing weak. How many of you know the devil can't enter through a strong place. He can only enter through a weak place. Amen. So when integrity is strong and in place, then there's no point of compromise that the devil can get in through. Amen. And so when moral excellence is in place, the devil can't get in. And not only that, then your faith will work right. If you want your faith to work right, we have to walk in line with integrity. Now that's going to also involve money matters. You want to stay on this for a little bit. Don't compromise your faith just to keep money. Don't compromise your integrity just so you can hold on to your money because it'll cost you more than what that money would have been. Think about Joseph. Think of his brothers, sold him into slavery. As about a 17 year old somewhere around in there, they did him wrong. He didn't do them wrong. They did him wrong, sold him into slavery. He sold. And then as he's working faithfully in that house of slavery, he's falsely accused by the master's wife. So the master hasn't thrown into prison. He, he's in prison for 12 years, thrown in on a charge he didn't commit. Now you would think that somebody could get a bad attitude toward God because people start blaming God for men's actions. Don't you ever blame God for what men did? God had nothing to do with men's actions that, that are out of line with righteousness. But so many times people have things happen to them and they turn around and start blaming God. That's not honorable, that's not morally excellent. Amen. If people did wrong, people did wrong. God didn't do wrong. And Joseph understood this. He did not become bitter at God by him sitting for 12 years where a man put him. So he's down there in prison for 12 long years while he was a shepherd boy for his dad while he was a slave for Potiphar. And while he's a prisoner, he's got no money. He's not dealing with money in any of those locations. Isn't that right? But what's he dealing with? Himself. For 12 years he's dealing with himself. Keeping his heart right, keeping his thoughts right, keeping his attitude right, keeping his fellowship with God right. Because you know, in a prison for 12 years is one of the darkest places on earth you can be. He had every, every oppressive thing working on his head and he kept himself right. I don't care what oppressive setting you may be in, you don't have to be oppressed. How do you keep from being oppressed? You do what's right, you think what's right, you hold to what's right. And for 12 years, he's dealing with himself in a dark, oppressive place. He refuses to let what's around him in him. That's called moral excellence. That's called integrity. That's called honor. That, that. You don't let the circumstances around you define the man you are. You define yourself from the inside out, not from the outside in. And so many cheat themselves out of the best life because they're letting what's going on around them define what they let in them. The greater one is in us. And we live by inside out. That means we change situations. That means when we show up, things around us get better because moral excellence shows showed up. Because integrity showed up, because honor showed up. You don't go home at a family gathering and there's a bigger fight because you arrived. If things got worse because you got around, you're doing it wrong and you need to be right. It should get more peaceful, it should get more lovely. Relationships should get better, not tense and divided. Amen. You want your faith to work. This support of moral excellence has to be firm under that bridge of faith. Amen. It doesn't matter how you treat someone, because sometime in the middle of the night, you're going to need a miracle. Sometime at an unexpected time, you're going to need your faith to work. And if you've been using offense or bitterness or unforgiveness or harsh words, and they've been eating away at that support of moral excellence under the bridge of faith. Your bridge of faith is going to collapse on you at a time. You're going to need it to work. Amen. The faith life is not just about faith, people. It's about a life of moral excellence, doing what's right, living in line with the Word. Amen. Not arguing with the word, honoring the word. Amen. Hallelujah. So Joseph was treated, mistreated, mishandled on every side. But he didn't let himself get twisted. He didn't let himself get off. Why, he's dealing with himself. He is holding himself in a flow of moral excellence. How do we know that? Because when he's down there in prison, God gives him dreams showing him the helpful other men. Do you know what he had a dream for? Two other men. They were thrown in prison with him. Remember the story? And God gave him answers to get them out and to get them their answer. But notice this, God wasn't talking to him about his yet. Amen. How many of you know real faith is not just about you. It's about being a blessing to someone else. Your faith isn't just for your life. It's so you can be a blessing to someone else's life. And because he didn't get bitter, God could still, he could still receive revelation from God. And that revelation helped. And then there came a time when the king, the Pharaoh, had a dream that he did not understand. And just so that his wise men supposed wise men would not trick him with the interpretation, he said, I'm not even going to tell you the dream. You have to tell me the dream and the interpretation there. I know you're not just making up an interpretation after I tell you the dream. Pretty slick, huh? And so they said, you've asked something that's impossible for anybody. But one of the men he had helped said, wait a minute. There was a man who helped me two years ago, had a two year memory lapse. And they pulled Joseph up out of prison, cleaned him up, brought him before Pharaoh, and Joseph told him the dream and then told him the interpretation and then gave him God's divine idea of how to protect the nation based on what that dream exposed. And Pharaoh said, who has this kind of wisdom? I'll give it to the man, the position, the man who's going to head up the economy to protect our country from seven years of famine that's coming. He says, I'm going to give it to the man who had the divine wisdom. So think of it, think of it. He wakes up one morning in a prison, still a prisoner, and he goes to bed, second command in a nation that night. Why? Notice this? He's not just administrating people, he's managing the future, the economic future of Egypt. The Pharaoh put the economic welfare of the nation in this man's hands who had Never handled money as a shepherd, he didn't handle it. Potiphar slave. He didn't handle his own money when he was a slave, he didn't. When he was a prisoner, he didn't handle money. What am I trying to say to you? It's not money that qualifies you for money. It is your moral excellence, your integrity, your level of honor that determines whether you can be trusted with greater degrees of prosperity or not. So many times people are compromising their integrity and their honor to get money and they don't realize they're making themselves broke. I never will exchange honor for money. Don't you ever. Don't you ever exchange your honor for money. And what was God doing by raising up a man that would run the economy of Egypt? He had him in a place God was taking advantage of the place he was at to make a man. He was building a man's insides down in that prison. I tell you what, whether or not we flourish and how far we go depends on our insides. Amen. Our integrity, honor.
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Praise the Lord.
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That means we have to be big enough for big money inside. A lot of people want big money, but your inside's got to be big. Hallelujah. We must deal honestly with all men at all times if we're going to see increase in our life. If our faith for finances is going to work. You can't release your faith for finances when you stealing under the table. It's not going to work when you've cheated a brother, when you've cheated someone financially and then go to release your faith. See, you can't throw faith at the lack of moral excellence because faith is not a substitute for moral excellence. If moral excellence, if you've been mishandling people and money matters and then you go to release your faith for more supply to come. It's not going to work because your bridge of faith is coming compromise because it's missing this moral excellence under it. You say, well, what do I do? I recognize myself in that. Repent, straighten up, do right from then on and God will help you if you'll repent. But not if you're going to still do. Not if you're still going to compromise your brother to get money. Not if you're going to injure the body of Christ just so you can make more money. God didn't send you to a local church so that you can make a business deal. God didn't send you to a local church so you could further your clientele. I don't allow that to Go on in this church if you want, in the parking lot, if you. If somebody says, you know, I need something built. And someone says, well, I can help you with that. But I'm talking about people coming to the church for the purpose of building a clientele for their business. That's not going to work here. Why? Because we're not going to compromise. Why? The anointing gathered people. The anointing didn't gather people so that you could get money in your pocket. The anointing gathered people to bless people's lives and change people's lives by that anointing. It didn't gather people so that you could make a business deal. Amen.
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Praise the Lord.
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That should not be your intent. Trying to get loans off people in the church, trying to appeal for money by telling someone your hard story. Don't do that because you're compromising your faith. God will meet you. God will meet you if you'll release your faith. But don't injure the body of Christ for the sake of money. Don't injure your place in the body of Christ for the sake of money. And this is what we see about Joseph. That he could be trusted because his insides were clean. His insides were right. He held to his integrity. You don't have to be in a top spot to be trained for the top spot. God's going to train you. He's going to qualify. See if you're qualified for the top spot by how you run your everyday affairs, how you talk to your spouse, how you handle your boss. What do you say about your boss when other co workers are talking against them? What do you do? See, these are going to things that are going to be qualifying you or disqualifying you. Amen. You don't have to be in the top spot to qualify for the top spot. You don't have to climb the ladder. Joseph didn't climb any ladder to get to the top. All he did was deal with himself and deal with his insides and have integrity and honor and moral excellence in very hard places, in very dark places. He held to his moral integrity and God could bring him up in a matter of hours to the top. Why? Because the real work was done in the dark of that prison. Amen. God's going to qualify you by your everyday actions. You're going to show God whether or not you're qualified. Amen. You must deal honestly with all men at all times. And I'm talking about financially. Don't cheat someone if you want your faith to work. If you Owe a bill, you owe it. Don't try to act like you don't owe it. And if they contact you to try to get. Don't dodge your collectors. If you owe something, you don't dodge them. That means that you don't quit taking their phone calls, quit showing up. That means you answer the phone and you say, I'm going to pay that I'm asking you for mercy. I will work it out with you. You. And if you will be, if you will be up front, the Holy Ghost and God will help you because that's integrity. To take responsibility. But to try to run from responsibility, it will weaken your faith life. Amen. Don't get upset because someone is reminding you that you owe money. If you get upset because someone you owe money to, talking to you about it, you have issues. Your insides aren't clean, your insides aren't right. Your mind is not right. If you owe it, you owe it. Amen. Don't get mad at someone just because they're trying to collect what you owe. Well, they should be better to me. Listen, if you owe it, you owe it.
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Well, praise the Lord.
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Don't look for a way to get out of it and say, well, the favor of. You know, I'm believing God for favor. God won't help you be disloyal and dishonest toward an obligation. Now if you'll, if you'll talk with them and you'll be upright and you'll be honest, that's a different thing. But whenever you, you, you cop a heart attitude that is different than what it should be just because of what you owe.
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Well, praise the Lord.
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Hallelujah. Can I tell you this? Let me hit on this one. Just to help people. Don't go buy something with the intent of returning it after you've used it for your function. You're dishonest. Let me say that again. Again. Don't go buy something. Hold on to the receipt because you only need it once. You're going to hold on to the receipt, use it, and then return it. You're dishonest. You're dishonest. That's what a thief does. If I ever use something, I never return it. Never. And there are people who they just. That's their strategy of working. They go buy something, they only need it once, they keep the receipt, then they return it. That's dishonest. These things will hurt your faith because God sees that and the devil sees that and lack sees that and lack knows where to find you.
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Praise the Lord.
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Let's bump our moral excellence right up to our faith. We love what's clean. We love what's right. We love what's pure in every single arena. Hallelujah.
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