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Victory for the Mind & Body, Part One | Nancy Dufresne | Jesus the Healer Broadcast
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 12, Romans chapter 12. We have our broadcast that goes on TV in Russia and onto now other networks, but it's called Jesus the Healer. And how many of you know Jesus is the healer of our bodies, but he also has a prescription for us to have sound, peaceful minds. How many of you know that God doesn't just want us walking in health, he wants us walking in peace. Amen. And the prescription for a peaceful mind, it's the word. And as we take his prescription, things that troubled us, things that harassed our minds, things that have been bad, mental habits fall off. Amen. And we want to look at that this morning. Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. I want to read to you. Paul is writing. And he said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And the amplified says, which is your spiritual worship. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Anybody in for a transformed life, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Notice he didn't say you're transformed by being born again. He said your life is transformed when your mind is renewed. That you may prove, or the word prove actually means discern. That you may discern what is the good, the acceptable and perfect will of God. Why? So that you'll choose the perfect will of God. Now, to understand the instructions here, we have to understand other things. First of all, everyone, every human is a threefold being. We are a spirit. We have a soul. Our soul is made up of our mind, our will and our emotions. But we live in a body. We are not a body. We are a spirit that lives in a body and we possess a soul. The part that is most like God of us is our spirits. It's our spirits that were created in his image. Amen. God is a spirit. And so God made us spirits. And he intends that our spirits take the lead in our lives, not our minds, not our bodies. Amen. And when we got born again, God did something at that very moment with our spirits. He gave us a brand new spirit. I want to read to you Ezekiel, chapter 36 and verse 26, God spoke and said a new heart. Now, when the Bible is talking about a heart, it's not talking about the organ of the heart. It's talking about the center of your being. So he says, a new heart or a new spirit also I will give you. And a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. Again, he's not talking about the organ of the heart. He's talking about the center of our being. He gives us a brand new spirit. That's the part of us that's born again at the new birth. So once you got born again, you got a brand new spirit, whether you recognize that or not. And in this spirit, there's no death in it. In this spirit, there's nothing of the old man in it. You are a new spirit, a new man. And the wonderful feature of it is the life of God is in your spirit. Amen. Not the spirit of death anymore, but now the life of God. And what a new birth that is. But at the new birth, we got a new spirit. But we were left with our same minds and our same bodies. So God did something with the most important feature of us, our spirits. Why? Because in changing the spirit, now the body and mind can be changed. Amen. God does not change. Heal your spirit at the new birth. He took out the old one and put a new one in you. The Word says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things. The old spirit is passed away. Behold, all things are become new. How did all things become new? Because you got a new spirit. And now that new thing goes out and affects everything around you. But we have to let our spirits do dominate us and take the lead. If not the mind that is not new, the body that is not new will continue to lead our lives. And that's not God's plan. God wants the new spirit with his life in us, dominating and leading our lives. Amen. So he did something with our spirits. But as we see in Romans 12, we are the ones who are instructed to do something with our minds and our bodies. If we don't, we can still live a life of hell on earth. If we don't address our minds and our bodies, we will live tormented, harassed, troubled, and with a body that leads us into ruin. We will not automatically succeed because the life of God is in us. God did his part. Now we must do our part of what Romans 12 instructs us. Now, with that understanding, let's look again at what Paul said in Romans 12. He said, I beseech you. Therefore, brethren, listen to this. I beseech you. Not just I encourage you. He is saying, I beseech you. This is a matter of life and death for you. This is so important. This is so central to your success. It's not enough to be born again. You have to do something with that spirit to make sure that it takes the lead instead of your mind and your body taking the lead. If your body leads you, it'll lead you into ruin. If your mind leads you, it will lead you into total failure. But if your body leads you, excuse me, if your spirit leads you, that has the life of God in it. Ah, God. Now you're going to start living as God authored for you to live. Amen. The problem with this is the Bible says that the mind is the mind, the body. The body is at enmity with God means it always wants something different than God wants. That's why you have to do something with your body so that it doesn't take your life in a direction God doesn't want it to go. Amen. So the Bible says that the body is at enmity with God. It's on the opposite side of what God wants. Let's say it this way. Your born again spirit is on this side, your body is on this side. Your body wants something different. Haven't you ever noticed that if you let your body get what your body wants, it will take off with your life? It will, it will just, ah, it will just have all kinds of activities that you. Without restraint. The body is an unruly thing, you know. So we have the spirit that's born again here. We have now I'm talking about at the new birth. I'm not just talking about after years of walking with God. There should have been some changes made, right? But we have the spirit here, the body. The Bible says the body is enmity with God. The flesh is at enmity with God. Meaning that the flesh won't lead you God's direction. You have to lead your flesh God's direction. You have to lead your flesh God's direction because your flesh will not lead you God's direction. But in the middle of that we have the mind and the mind is the variable. The mind, if it is renewed with the Word, will side in with your spirit. If the mind is not renewed, it will side in with your body and the body or the spirit is the one that will gain dominance based on what side the mind is on. If the mind is renewed and sides in with the spirit, you got two against one, you win. If the mind sides in with the body, you got two against one. Your spirit loses. That's why Paul said, I beseech you, do something with your body, do something with your mind. Because if you don't, you will not live the life God authored for you, even though you're born again. Now, don't misunderstand me. There are millions of Christians who don't do something with their body. They don't do something with their mind. Will they still go to heaven? Yes, they can still go to heaven, but they will live hell on earth instead of heaven on earth. And God wants us to live the life he authored. So it's dependent on what we do with our minds and with our bodies. So many times people are praying for God to do something with them physically, God to do something with them mentally. And that is a prayer that's off the word. You don't need to pray and ask God to do something with your mind and body. He told us to do something with our mind and our body. I tell you, the most he could ever do for our mind and body, he already did. Why? He gave us a new spirit. Amen. That's the best thing he could do for our mind and our body. He gave us something else to dominate over our mind and body that will lead us into success. Now, the instruction we have is that we have to do something with our body and our minds. Those who seem to live the most blessed on this earth are people who follow that instruction. Your pastor cannot do something with your body and your mind. All your pastor can do is teach you what to do with your body and your mind. Now, children, I want you to know this for a while. When you're young and growing up, your parents can help keep your body and mind. You know, we can do all that we can do. But ultimately, your parents doing the right thing with their mind and body does not equal you doing the right thing with your mind and your body. You cannot have a blessed body and a blessed mind just because you live with somebody who has done something with their body and mind. You have to do something with your mind and your body no matter what age you are. I remember when my kids were young and at times if they had nightmares, they would wake up crying in the middle of the night. You know what I did? I'd teach them. Right there in the middle of the night, I'd teach them what to do. Why? Because I can't control how they handle their minds and their bodies at a time like that. All I can do is teach them. I want you to know all I can do is teach you. All God can do is teach us. If we're sitting back and waiting for him to do it, it won't work. He's not doing it. He taught us how to do it. And his Word is telling us and instructing us. And Paul said, I beseech you, present your body to God. A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. Which is your reasonable service or your spiritual worship? What does he mean? What does all that mean? Well, before we were born again, we presented our bodies to sin. If our bodies wanted to do something wrong, we just, come on, let's go do that. Our bodies took a lead and we just presented it to any wrongdoing that showed up because there was no restraint over us. Amen. I'm just talking about general. But now he says, don't present it to wrongdoing anymore. Present it God, what's that mean? Present it to doing right. Present it to righteousness. Amen. Whether or not we do the right thing with our body will determine the health of our bodies. We can't live any wrong direction. We want and think that we can believe God for a blessed body. Amen. First Peter 2:24. What's it say? Somebody get me started. Whose own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin. Look at this. Should live unto righteousness. Look at this. By whose stripes she were healed. He paid the price so we could live unto righteousness. And then we can live healing. Amen. Too many times people are claiming, by whose stripes I'm healed. That's good. But you left out the other part. Should live unto righteousness. Should live unto righteousness by whose stripes she were healed. Amen. It is our job to present our bodies to righteousness. If it won't help us in our spiritual walk, our bodies should not be participating. Participating in it. Amen. People will say, now it's a sad thing. It's a sad thing to be stated in the United States. Now, I know other countries address it differently, but in the United States, it's a sad thing that people do wrong things with their body. I'm talking about in the church, doing wrong things with their body, putting wrong things in their body, drinking and drinking alcohol and, you know, taking drugs, whatever, and thinking nothing about it. If it won't lead you unto righteousness, if you. If it won't make you more spiritual, don't let your body participate. If it's going to make you more carnal, don't let your body participate. That's the thing is don't do anything with your body that's going to lead you into greater carnality. If it won't make you more spiritual, it will hurt your life. So he said, here. Present your bodies unto God, unto righteousness. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. So we have to realize this is that our bodies had habits when we got born again. In our body is the ability to form habits. In our mind is the ability to form habits. In our flesh is the ability to form habits. Well, that's a good thing in the sense of if you put right habits in place, then even if you don't feel like doing the right thing, the habit of doing the right thing is there, right? That means since you were born again and your body had a practice of bad habits, if you'll present yourself to God and you can stop that bad habit, why that habit of maybe compelling you to drink, compelling you to smoke, compelling you to cuss. Whatever that bad habit that you had, you can say, no, no, no, I'm not doing that anymore. I will not present my body to do what it used to do. I'm presenting my body to righteousness. Now. Let me tell you this. When the desire or the fleshly pull push to do a bad habit, to participate or carry on a bad habit comes, talk to it. Just like what I said. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not doing that. Talk to it. I'm not doing that anymore. That perversion. I'm not doing that anymore. That sin. I'm not doing that anymore. That worry. I'm not doing that anymore. That fear. I'm not doing that anymore. Talk to it. Amen. Romans 6, verse 13 and 14 says this. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness. What's he talking about? The members of your body do not yield to it. How come some people say, I can't stop doing this. Yes, you can. You can say, the word tells me not to yield. I will not yield my body anymore. Just because you used to yield to it doesn't mean you have to keep yielding to it. You can say, no, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. I'm not putting up with that anymore. In my flesh no more. My body is not running me. And listen, if you put. If we as humans put a bad habit in place, the devil will energize it. But if we put a right habit in place, God will energize it. Amen. And even if you sense being energized, could I say this a Bad habit. Being energized by the enemy. What's that mean? He pokes on that. If we put a bad habit in place, he pokes on that. And even if you sense that over that compelling drive to keep doing that, it will stop if you'll answer it. But I feel like I just gotta have that drink. I just gotta have that smoke. I just got to involve in that perversion. No. No. If you'll talk to it, you say, no, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. Why? Because you've got life on the inside of you now, dealing with that. You're not trying to deal with that from a dead spirit anymore. You've got a living spirit with the life and the power and the anointing of God in it. And you can answer and say, no, you don't. So Romans 6:13 says, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God. Notice that sin can't make you involve yourself. You have to yield to it. But righteousness can't make you involve yourself in righteousness. You have to yield to it. Your life is an expression of what you've yielded to. Amen. Our lives are a picture of what we've been yielding to. If we don't like the picture, change what we're yielding to. Amen. But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. That's us. We had a dead spirit, no more. We have a living spirit with the life of God in it and your members. But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and yield your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. What's that mean? Don't allow your body to participate in anything that God didn't. That God doesn't bless. Amen. That means it's going to dictate where you take your body. If you take your body to wrong places, wrong things will happen to you. People go, I don't know why God let that happen. Because you went to a wrong place. People say, I don't know how God let me. I don't know how God let me marry this bad person. Because you went to a wrong place, made a wrong decision, God didn't let you. It's what you yielded to. Amen. That means that it does matter what you do Friday night and where you go. Even if your mama and daddy and your pastor don't know you're there, the devil who hates you knows you're there. Even if nobody knows what you are watching on the computer, the devil knows. And he will energize that thing. And then people say, why did God let this happen? Because you yielded. I want you to know the good news. Never again do you ever have to yield to the wrong thing. Never again. Never again. Never again does any of us have to yield to what we used to yield to Pastor Nancy. How do I not yield to it? Talk to it. Talk to it. Talk out loud. Talk to it. Say, no, no, no, I will not let my body drink that. No, I will not let my body shoot that in. No, I will not let my. Not let my eyes look on that. No, I will not. And then you yield to righteousness. Well, what's righteousness? How about worshiping? I worship you, Father. I glorify you, Father. You have to yield to something different than what is trying to trip you up. Now. If we don't do something with our bodies like this, our bodies will keep our lives in the wrong direction. Paul said, I beseech you, do something with your body. What are we to do with it? Yield. Yield to God and quit yielding to the wrong thing. You say I tried it. I can't. That's a lie. If God said you can yield to righteousness, you can. If he instructed us to quit yielding to sin, then we can stop. Well, you know, I just. I just have a devil that's driving me. No, no, no, no, no, no. In your spirit, there's no devil. Now, there may be a demon attached to your mind and attached to your flesh, but your spirit has the anointing in it. And he can break that thing off if you'll answer it. If you'll answer it. If you'll answer it. If you'll answer it and say, no more. No more, no more, no more, no more. And you might. You're going to have to say. Say it more than once, and you're going to have to do it more than once. How long do I have to do it? How bad do you want it? If you barely want it, you'll barely do it. If you really want it, you'll really do it. Amen. Verse 14, Romans 6, verse 14. Listen to this. Well, let me go ahead and read 13 again. It's just too good. Next. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God. How about yielding yourselves or praying in the Holy Ghost whenever something tries to see that's yielding to God. How about yielding to worshiping God? How about yielding to singing in The Spirit. How about yielding to praying? How about just reading your Bible? That's yielding to God. Do something God can get involved in at a time that the flesh is wanting to do wrong. But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. And your members, yield your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Look at verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What's that mean? It means when you got born again, the grace of God that empowers you to live righteous is now yours. You don't live right by willpower. You don't say no to the devil just because you've got a strong willpower. You have the grace of God backing you up. You have the grace of God backing you up because the grace of God is in you. It's to help you live right, not to give you permission to do anything you want. It's to help you live right. Amen. And this is why so many Christians have troubled minds. They're not living clean. Amen. And they want God to do something to bless their minds. And they're not living clean. And I'm not just talking about a life of participating in sinful activities. What about offense? What about unforgiveness? What about bitterness? What about rebellion? Those things are unclean. They're not righteousness. You have instead. You know, there are. Sometimes people have dealt with, you know, just. They've just gone through life and not even realized it. But they carry bitterness, unforgiveness, offense. They don't even realize it. But if you'll wake up, the Holy Ghost will enlighten you and say, put my grace on that. What's his grace? It's his ability backing you up to help you live the life he authored for you to live. It's his empowerment. Amen. We don't do right by willpower. We do right because. No. The life of God is in me. The power of God is in me. The anointing of God is in me. That means I have. It's his ability. I do this by his ability, not by willpower. I do this by his ability. And every single one of us have his ability. If we're born again, we have his ability on the inside of us. And I love this. Sin shall not have dominion over you. You need to say, sin no longer has dominion over me. Perversion no longer has dominion over me. Fear no longer has dominion over me. Why? I have a new Lord. I have a new Lord before I was born again. It could dominate me. But now I'm in another kingdom and it cannot dominate me. Amen. Bad habits, alcoholism, drug addiction, all of these things. No more. No more do you dominate me. No more. If you're going to walk free in your body, you have to talk to your body. You have to talk to things that try to affect your body. Hallelujah. I said hallelujah. We are the ones that will do and can do something with our bodies. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. 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 defrain Ministries.