A (0:00)

Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. Father, we're so grateful for these services. We're so grateful for the privilege of coming into the homes of these precious people, sharing the Word together. And Father, we're expecting to hear from heaven. We're expecting to have words from heaven come to earth today, tonight. And so, Father, we've come to receive, we've come expecting. We open our hearts, we purpose to not just be hearers of what we receive tonight, but doers of it. And so we're thanking you, Father, for revelation. We're thanking you for light. We give you all the thanks and praise. And everybody said amen. As I said last night, God had begun dealing with me about this one word for these services, and that's this word time. That for us to move into the fullness of what God has for us is going to take time on our parts. Time in the word, time in prayer, time in the Spirit. And now don't misunderstand me when I talk about that. That time does not necessarily mean secluded time, that you have to be off in a prayer closet, so to speak, or by yourself. We have to learn to. Yes, there are times that we go alongside with God, but we have to learn how to, when we're out among daily duties and responsibilities, that we still learn how to keep our hearts turned toward God. So that, if I could say this, we don't break spiritual stride, we still stay in contact with the Father all throughout the day, that we learn to turn our time into time with him, even when we're in the midst of duties. You know, when I think about somebody, the testimony of Smith Wigglesworth's life. Now think of him. Many of you would know of him. He was an English preacher whose ministry was so strong a faith healing, miracle ministry in the early half of the 1900s. And he made it a practice that all throughout the day he would feed on the Word. He would feed on the word for 30 minutes, pray for 30 minutes, feed on the word for 30 minutes, pray for thirty minutes. And you, you say, well, yeah, but Pastor Nancy, I have a job. Well, you know, before he was supposed he was in the full time ministry, he had a plumbing business and he had learned how to go about his daily responsibilities with his heart turned toward God. And I tell you, that takes practice and it takes a little bit of discipline on our part to turn our hearts toward God. So this is something that we have to take time to become skillful in. Because the more time we give to the things of the Spirit, the more time we give to prayer, the more we're going to develop in these things. The less time we give, the slower we're going to develop. And I tell you, when this last day we don't have time to face these days undeveloped, we're going to have to develop ourselves. Then some people get this idea that there are certain people that are just called to prayer. But I want you to know and understand there's nothing in the Word that states that, that the Bible says that some are called to be apostles, some are called to be prophets, some are called to, you know, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We never see that word in connection with prayer. What we do see is how the disciples gave themselves to prayer. So it's not a call to prayer, It's a giving of ourselves to prayer. And you can look at somebody who maybe has become very skillful and effective in prayer and say, well, they just have a special anointing for prayer. Or, you know, they have a special call to prayer. And that's not true. If someone is developed and skillful in prayer, it's for one reason. They gave themselves to it. And in giving themselves to it, they developed beyond someone else who didn't give time to it. So this is the thing that has been standing out to me about us giving time to developing our prayer life, time to spend in the word, time to develop our spiritual walk. One of the greatest distractions that the devil will use against the development of our spiritual lives and our prayer lives is this word distractions. This is one of the greatest strategies the enemy will use against us. Distractions eat up our time, the time we need to use to be developing spiritually. So Jesus describes in one account, he gives a parable about, there's four different kinds of ground, four different kinds of soil. And my husband used to say, four different kinds of dirt. And that's talking really about the soil of people's lives and the four kinds of ground spoken about. Only one kind of ground of the four ever produced any fruit. And that ground produced 30, 60, and a hundredfold. But the other three types of ground didn't produce any fruit. I wanted to read a passage from there in Mark, chapter four, verse 18 and 19. And I'm going to read out of the Amplified translation, it says, and the ones sown among talking about the sower sows the word. The sower came out to sow seeds. And the seeds sown among the thorns are those who hear the word then the cares and the anxieties of the world, and listen to this. And the distractions of the age and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and they choke and suffocate the word and it becomes fruitless. So notice the word can be sown and that word can become fruitless if we don't tend to it right. But I wanted us to see this phrase. The distractions of the age is one of the things that can make us unproductive and unfruitful in the spiritual life. Notice in this passage that I just read, the devil isn't mentioned. What's mentioned are the devices that he will use. And one of the main devices he uses is the distractions of the age. So notice the wording distractions of the age, giving us the idea that every age has its own distractions. You know, before we had some of the modern day conveniences, just the maintenance of daily life was so difficult. I mean, to travel anywhere. I mean, people traveled by wagon or stagecoach, you know, or by horseback or by foot. The travel time was so long without the modern convenience. That was a distraction of that age, of how much time it took to travel. And then talk about ladies just doing the laundry. I mean, can you imagine before the washing machine? Listen, I can imagine because my mother used that old ringer washer for years, the whole time we were growing up. So I know the time involved in that and the time involved in taking the laundry out to, you know, hang it up to dry, just the maintenance of that. What about producing your own food? I mean, years ago and generations ago, they grew their own food or they had to go out and hunt their own food and then they had to kill it. And then can you imagine the preparation time on that for thus modern day ladies can't even, can rarely even conceive of that. But those were distractions. They were the necessities. But they were distractions that belonged to that age that really could consume someone's time if they let it. Then what about this? Now that we have all these conveniences that are huge time savers for us, our time is eaten up with distractions that are typical to this age. I mean, even though we have all these modern conveniences, there's other kinds of distractions that previous generations didn't have to deal with. I want to, you know, go with me if you would. Let's go to Luke, chapter 10. I want us to read there in Luke, chapter 10, verse 38. And I'm going to read out of the Amplified, and we're going to read verses 38 through 42. It reads, now, while they were on their way, it occurred that Jesus entered a certain village and a woman named Martha received and welcomed him into her house. So notice this woman. She made a place for Jesus in her home. She made a room for him to come and utilize her home for his purposes. So we know this. She had a love, and she had a regard for Jesus. She had a love for the Word. She had a love and a regard for what he brought. And verse 39 says, and she had a sister named Mary who seated herself at the Lord's feet and was listening to his teaching. But Martha and the Amplified says she was overly occupied and too busy, was distracted with much serving. And she came up to the Lord and said, lord, is it nothing to you that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me to lend a hand and do her part along with me. But the Lord replied to her by saying, martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. There is need of only one or but a few things. Mary has chosen the good portion, that which is to her advantage, which shall not be taken away from her. So notice, I mean, Martha has invited Jesus, but if you invited Jesus in, you got a crowd of people, too, because everywhere he went, there were people following him. So it wasn't just Jesus in her house. It was people who wanted to sit under his ministry, hear what his words were and listen to his teaching. They would crowd in that house. And so Martha is so mindful of being this wonderful hostess. I mean, this is her home, and she's hosting this precious man of God, and she wants to put, so to speak, her best foot forward. And we understand that. But she needs help in performing the tasks of hosting all these people. So she's trying to get Mary's attention. And Mary won't even respond to her. And so notice what Martha does. She comes almost, if I could say this, frustrated with Jesus. And she's saying, don't you even care that my sister's not even helping me? You know, this is what happens when people are distracted with the wrong things. They get frustrated with people who are tending to the right things, and they get frustrated that you're not as frustrated as they are. And that's what Martha came. She was, if I could say, displeased that Jesus was not seeing her predicament and helping her. And so she was trying to Tell out on Mary. Mary's not helping. But it came back and said, mary's not the problem, Martha, you're the problem. How many times have we gone to God and said, God, I mean, help me out with this. I mean, I'm doing all I know to do. You need to deal with this person, or you need to deal with my husband, you need to deal with my wife. And. And God turns around and points at you and says, hey, you're the one that's going to need to adjust something. And that's what Jesus did. So listen, Jesus is ministering in Martha's house, and she's not even in the same room listening. She's in the kitchen area preparing. And so, you know, what is she doing? She's mislabeling what is important. And if we're not careful, we can mislabel what's important and we can neglect this divine privilege of prayer, the divine privilege of having fellowship with our Father because we are so distracted and our time is being eaten up with things that we call important. That's really not so important to her. Being hostess was more important than listening to what Jesus was saying. My goodness, that's a dangerous approach to take. To think that your job is more important than going to church to hear what God would say to you and your family. That's a dangerous approach and a dangerous mindset to have. Being a gracious hostess and being good at it's important. I mean, I don't diminish that. But we have to remember this. Jesus was the one serving up the real food that day. I mean, Martha was trying to host everyone and be a gracious hostess, but. But I mean, nobody could serve up what Jesus was serving up. And Martha was completely missing this divine meal that was being served in her house because she was distracted with what she thought was important, that wasn't important. So you see this. She wasn't eating what he was serving because she was thinking wrong, thinking that what she was doing was more important than what he was doing. Now we have to know this. Things that we have going on in our life may be important, but nothing is as important as what God is doing in the earth. You know, that's what it says in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. So many people so much of the time are sick, seeking things to be added to them. And in the seeking, they're not giving proper time to what God is, what God is doing. And What God calls calls important. So this is exactly the situation that we find Martha in. She was thinking that what Jesus was doing was not as important as what she was doing in the kitchen. And it's so easy to fall into the flow of responsibilities and the natural that pull at you that you don't take the time to set it aside. So this is something that we have to guard against is that distractions that look legitimate. I mean it was a legitimate thing to be a hostess, but it no longer is as legitimate when Jesus is there serving up the meal. And so this is what she was missing. And Jesus said to her in verse 41, he said, said, Martha, Martha, I tell you what, you know you're in trouble when he doubles up on your name. Martha, Martha. Why did he say her name twice? Probably to get her attention. I mean anytime when my children were growing up and I had to say their name to them more than once, it's because they weren't listening. I mean their body could be standing right in front of you, but their mind is off on something else. And basically this is what we see. They that Jesus doubled up on her name. He had to call her name twice because although her body was there, her mind was racing with all of her duties as a hostess and he had to grab her attention. He said, martha, Martha. He said, you are anxious and troubled about many things. He nailed her that day. She just thought or she just presented it like she had one problem and that was married's not helping. But Jesus saw the whole picture of her life and he said, the root of it is that you're troubled about many things. So what is it that we see? Notice this is not a one time problem with Martha. She had allowed a bad habit of being distracted by the unimportant into her life. So when the important showed up, she gave way to the habit instead of giving way to what was important. She was so used to tending to things that didn't have the same weight to them, that didn't matter the same. So the bad habit of allowing distractions was affecting her spiritual life and her spiritual development because she wasn't even sitting and listening to what Jesus was saying. Now notice what Mary did. Of course she chose not to be distracted even by a sister who was pressing on her to come help. You don't even know. We don't even know what it might have looked like that day in Martha's house. If Martha was coming up to Mary while she's sitting at Jesus feet saying, you need to come help me or was she passing that information down the road to everybody that was sitting around? Mary, come, tell her to help me. You don't know if she's behind Jesus trying to get Martha, trying to get Mary's attention. You don't know. But we know this. Mary would not yield to distractions because to her, what Jesus was serving up was more important than anything else that was pressing on her. This is a discipline that we have to put in place if we're going to give proper time to our spiritual life, to our prayer life, to the development of our spiritual life. Look at this. How many times have people been in a setting where Jesus was speaking to them through their pastor? People sitting in a church service and they're sitting there listening to their pastor, so to speak, or at least their body is there, but their mind is somewhere else, and they're missing what their pastor is serving because they're distracted in their mind. They're undisciplined in their mind. How many today, when we talk about the distractions of the age, let's talk about this one. Sitting in church, using a device, going texting a friend, looking at emails, surfing the web, shopping online, playing video games during a church service, you talk about a distraction of the age. You talk about something that will hinder spiritual growth and development. Because people will pull out these devices and they kind of make it look like, well, I'm reading my Bible. Because so many people may be reading their Bible on their phone or on their iPad, but you can tell that when they've got one finger going and they're just. You can tell when they're texting something to somebody. You can tell as a preacher, I mean, how many times I look out and I go, oh, they're not even listening their bodies here, but they're distracted. Distractions will cost us. Distractions are expensive because we will miss hearing what we need to hear when we don't deal with distractions. A bad habit of distractions, being distracted will cost us more than we ever really realize. My remedy for that, if that catches you, if you realize, hey, Pastor Nancy, you know, I'm sitting there, I'm reading the Bible, then all of a sudden a text pops up and I go there. Then I would just encourage you. Maybe you need to be reading the Bible out of a book and not on a device. If a device is a distraction is something that is something you're not very good at, you know, not being distracted by, then put your device away and pull out the Bible. Because distractions are expensive. They Will cost you so, so much. I remember years ago, I was going to a church to preach. They had invited me to come, and I had said to God, I said, God, you know, I'm glad to go preach, but I know this, that this, the church, they have a little bit different flow than we have. They emphasize things differently. And I'm not sure how my ministry will be received there, because I understand, you know, people have different ways or emphasis in their ministry. And so God spoke to me and said, I want you to go there. And I. And he told me what to preach on. He said, because I need you to warn the pastor if he does not change the direction he's going in his ministry, he. He will not live out the length of his life. Well, God did not want me to privately go and talk to the man. God told me what sermon to go and preach that would hold the answer for that pastor. So, I mean, I'm there on an assignment that's sobering. I'm there, of course, to feed the sheep that are in the service. But there is a special purpose why God sent me to that church. And so I'm preaching along, and I'm building up to some of the things that this pastor needs to hear to turn his life, to turn his thinking, to turn his ministry in a different direction of what God wanted me to say to him. And so I'm laying the groundwork and laying the foundation so I can say some of these very sobering, weighty statements to him that will be a rescue to him. And here I am. I take maybe 20 minutes or so to build up to it. I'm getting ready to say the things that this pastor needs to hear. And right then, he turns and calls for, like, an usher to come to him. And he's given him instructions about something in the building. And I'm going, oh, my goodness. No, no, no, you. You can't be missing this. You've got to hear this, because your life depends on it. Your future depends on it. And so I'm watching him carry on a conversation with his usher during the service. And so you say, well, what did you do? Well, I just kind of. If I could say this, I just kind of treaded water for a moment to try to give him time. I just kind of did some filler, so to speak, to try to give him time to get done. And then I had to go back and restate some things and state things all over. He had no idea that he was getting ready to miss the rescue for his life. The devil Will love to send an undisciplined thought life and send all kinds of distractions your way during a service so that you miss the answer for your family, so that you miss the answer for your finances, so that you miss the answer for your health. The devil will use just these slight little things so that you miss what God is saying to you. I tell you, it is so important that we have to learn to recognize that and put our foot to the neck of that. This is really what Martha got rebuked about. She did not know and she didn't recognize that she was allowing her life to be stolen from, that there was a wealth of a meal that Jesus was serving in her house and she wasn't getting any of it because she was. She thought just because she was present, she was fulfilling her obligation. So many times people think, well, I'm present in the church service. And so they think that they're developing spiritually. But you know what? If our faith isn't growing, if our prayer life isn't developing, if our skill in the word is not developing, our spiritual life is not developing. And so we have to realize that there are things that the devil will use, and then he'll use just things around us, just everyday things. So distractions will come. But I tell you this, we don't have to yield to those distractions. We can make adjustments in our life and recognize distractions, distractions and get rid of them. I mean, we need to pay attention. Wait a minute. What distracts me? What do I allow my attention to go to? And then you need to pay attention to that. And I tell you, the Lord will help us with it if we'll ask him to. Because these distractions not only rob us of answers, they rob us of time that we need to be spending with the word, spending time with the Father, spending time sowing to our spiritual life and developing skill. There are so many natural things that can come up in a home, in a life, in a business, in a family that distracts us. We may have to step back from some really fun family gatherings and social gatherings so that we give appropriate time to spiritual things. Listen, God wants us to have a social life. He wants us to have time with our family and recreation time, but he wants us to have an appropriate measure of it. It's when we have an inappropriate measure of it that now it's going to start robbing and hindering our spiritual life. You know, Kathryn Kuhlman, she had a tremendous healing ministry back in the 1960s and 70s, and she said this, she says, I cannot live my life like other women and others can go and shop and have a social life. And she says, I'm recognizing that the outcome of people's lives are depending on me spending time with God and my fellowship with God. She had to prepare herself to minister to the people. She realized that if she was going to be someone that God could use, that she was going to have to conduct herself differently than the average person did, you know, because sometimes these distractions can be perfectly legitimate activities. But even the legitimate activities we can overindulge in. And when we overindulge in them, they cost us much. You know, there are some families that they spend every weekend. I mean, they work during the week, but they spend every weekend going and doing recreational things. I mean, every weekend is that. And they train their family in the recreational life more than in the spiritual life that will end up costing something. So we have to realize that how we are training our children, our families, what are we training them in? Are we training them to be distracted by the unimportant over or the overindulgence of that which is unimportant? So we have to make sure that our prayer life isn't suffering our life in the Word. Because I tell you, there's going to come a day when we need our faith to work. There's going to come a day when we need to be effective in prayer, when we need to have a skill in prayer. And we have to make sure that our hobbies are not what we're exchanging our divine power for. Because I tell you, no hobby and no pastime is as important as operating in the power of God. Listen, I want to pray with you. Father, we're so grateful for the time that we get to spend together. We judge ourselves right in the middle of this sermon, we take this time to judge ourselves. And we ask you, show us. Show us things that need to be changed. Show us things that need to be adjusted. Father, we repent for times that we have overindulged in the natural, overindulged in the unimportant, and it's cost us. And Father, we want to go on, and we want to be used the way you want to use us. Just right here in the middle of this service, we check ourselves. We judge ourselves because we want to be pleasing to you and we want to fulfill what you have for our lives. So we purpose to give the time to the joy of our fellowship with you and the joy in the word. Hallelujah. So I tell you those things Will bless us if we will listen to them. Amen. Now I want to go on and let's go. Turn with me if you would and let's go to Acts chapter six and I'm going to start. In verse one it reads this. Now about this time when the number of the disciples was greatly increasing, complaint was made by the Greek speaking Jews against the native Hebrews. But because their widows were being overlooked and neglected in the daily ministration. Now notice, I want you to see something here in verse one it says when the number of the disciples was greatly increasing, what was happening? The church was growing. The church was thriving. The number of people getting saved was on the increase. And right in the middle of increase, increase, what happens? Strife starts trying to stir up and notice it's the Greek speaking Jews against the native Hebrew. It gets to be an ethnic thing. I tell you, you have to make sure that this doesn't become a distraction in a local church. Of all the differences in our congregation, we have so many different cultures and races and I absolutely love it because that's what the body of Christ comprised of. That's not a difference for us. That is a plus for us. And we don't get distracted by what the world gets distracted by. You know, racial issues become a distraction to the body of Christ. We are one in him. I mean in Christ there's neither Greek nor Jew, there's neither male nor female. I mean all of those natural distinctions become unimportant and we cannot keep. We can't treat those natural things as important because if we do, it will have an effect on our effectiveness in the spiritual realm and in the things of the Spirit. And strife got in, offense got in. And there's nothing that will shut down increase like strife will. So we have to make sure that these things don't become strifeful, that we don't become distracted by the unemployment and strife gets. In verse 2 it says the 12 apostles convened with the multitude of the disciples and said it's not seemly or desirable or right that we should have to give up or neglect preaching the word of God in order to attend to serving tables and superintending the distribution of food. Now that's the way the amplified reads that we don't neglect the preaching of the word. The King James says we must give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. So notice this, that they said this is a legitimate need in the church. We need somebody to help handle the distribution of the food and make sure that everyone is treated honorably and respectfully by. But we can't allow this legitimate need to pull us away from what we should be doing. So when they were faced with this legitimate need, they had to make a definite choice. They had to choose that they're not going to be distracted from their calling, from their office, and from what God was expecting and requiring of them. So what did they do? They appointed others in the church to take care of this need so that they could give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Now, this is not a license for a leader, a pastor or minister to just pass all the work off to others just because he wants to be freed up so he can maybe have his own hobbies or interests. No, they were. They wanted to keep themselves freed up for the purpose of prayer and the ministry of the Word, not so that they could over and indulge in natural things. So the apostles were devoting themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. They weren't devoting themselves to hobbies. They weren't devoting themselves to more social life. They were developing their spiritual lives. So ministers have to make certain that we aren't distracted by the unimportant or even by legitimate activities, even in the church, even within our ministry and within the business of the ministry. You know, when ministers are distracted, it's going to show up. And when they're. The way it shows up is through a lack of revelation and a lack of anointing. You know, the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. And if the anointing is lacking, then people aren't going to receive the help that they need. If the anointing is not present, if the anointing is not to a degree that people can be helped in a way, we have to make sure that we're protecting as ministers the flow of the anointing and the revelation. How important that we have revelation. You know, it's revelation that causes people to walk free from all the things that the devil would try to attack them with. You know, dad Hagin said this when he was on his deathbed, of course, he was dying with an incurable heart disease. He had a blood disease, and he was given up by medical science to die. But revelation of the Word began to come to him. And it was that revelation of the Word that when he acted upon that and became a doer of that revelation, he was raised up off his deathbed. It is so important that when we minister that revelation is. Is flowing to the people because that's what's going to raise them up out of the positions that they're in that they need to come out of. There's nothing that changes until someone gets light or revelation. And dad Hagin made this statement. He says, you can't believe beyond actual knowledge, meaning this. If you don't have revelation of something, you can't believe for it. You have to know about it. You have to be taught and instructed on it, or you're not going to be able to receive of what belongs to you. As ministers, we're not just up here delivering something that is just going to be, you know, an encouragement. Yes, people should be encouraged, but they need revelation. Encouragement won't get you past the devil. You have to have the light of the Word. You have to have revelation of what the Word says. You have to have something, some knowledge of what the Word says and not just a pep talk. And so we have to make sure that there's revelation of the Word flowing. If we're too distracted by legitimate things, even legitimate ministry needs, we have to go back and measure and say, wait a minute, we need to put some things back in perspective and back in order. Notice this. Distractions are expensive. It can cost us a lot and it can cost congregation members a lot. It can cost us so much when we don't have the things in place that we need. You know, Smith Wigglesworth made the statement. He said sometimes people wait too late to try to get faith. Well, what did he mean by that? Well, faith always works. The word always works. Healing works, always works. But sometimes people are not in the position where they can even take in the Word that heals. You know, dad Hagin made a statement. He said, of course, the condition when he was a young man and he was given up to die by medical science on his deathbed with an incurable heart condition, incurable blood condition. And he said my condition was slow working. He was on that bed for 16 months. And nearly all that time, God was bringing him more and more into the light of the Word. And he said, if I would have had a quick working disease, he said, I'd have been dead. He said, because my condition was slow working, I had time to get the Word in. Now, this is what Smith Wigglesworth was referring to. He said, sometimes people wait too late to try to get faith. What's that mean? It's not that it takes the Word long to work. It can take long for people to get past wrong thinking. It took 16 months for dad Hagin to get past some of the denominational wrong thinking he had concerning healing. Before he could even receive and believe God for healing. So it's not that the Word takes longer, God takes longer long, or that the power takes long. It's that it takes time to get past wrong thinking many times. And so because of that, if people don't have time, so to speak, on their side, that they can wait too late. And that's what Smith Wigglesworth made the statement of being distracted and not being prepared and not putting the Word in. It can be expensive because it can cost us sometimes with things that that could have been avoided if we would not have been distracted. Demas Shakarian made a statement about Kathryn Kuhlman. He said Kathryn Kuhlman's fellowship with God made it easy for others to receive their miracle. So he's saying this because she was so skillful in her fellowship with God. People who didn't have that same level of skill because still be blessed and receive because of her skillfulness with God. That's a goal. That's what we want to do. We want to become so skillful in the Word and the Spirit that we can be a help to those who don't know, maybe all that we've been taught. My husband used to make this statement. He said, the lies of others depend on me hearing from God. Now think about that. Whether or not someone else is going to receive their answer sometimes is going to depend on us in the leadership or us as ministers being skillful in recognizing God's voice, recognizing the Spirit's leading. And so he said, the lives of others depend on me hearing from God. Well, see, then we have to protect that time that we need to take to learn God, to learn to hear his voice and not be distracted by that which is not important. How much is lost if we aren't sensitive and we aren't skillful to the leading of the Spirit and aren't sensitive to the anointing and recognizing the different flows of the anointing in a service. You know, there's times that I've missed the leading of the Spirit just because of lack of time in the Spirit. I remember years ago, there was this. There was a relative of mine. And, you know, when we were growing up, we played. We were so close. We got to see each other often, and we had a good time together. And I hadn't seen them for the longest time. And here I was probably. I was probably in my late 30s, and I remember exactly where I was standing, standing. I was getting ready to go to the office one day, and I was finishing up getting Ready? And I was doing my hair. And as I was standing in front of the mirror, her name came up to me. And when her name came up to me, you know, I just. I just started reminiscing. I didn't recognize that as a cue from the Holy Ghost. So I just started reminiscing. And I got to thinking, well, I wonder what she's doing today. Oh, I remember, you know, the times. And I started recounting and rehearsing those things. And I didn't pray when that came up. I should have prayed, but I didn't recognize it as a leading of the spirit. I just thought. I just thought of her name. Now, let me insert something here. Following the Holy Spirit, listening to the Holy Spirit and when he speaks. Sometimes, you know, if we're recording, we'll have a cue card that somebody may hold up. You've got five minutes, or you've got one minute. And they'll just flash that cue card just like this. Maybe it's an instruction to me or something. And they'll just put it up, and then they'll put it back down. And they're expecting me to, you know, just catch a glimpse of that and see it. They don't want to just hold it there because they don't want to distract me from, you know, what I may be doing, what I'm recording. And so they'll just sometimes just hold up something real quick that's much like the Holy Ghost. He'll just flash up something real quick. Just a name will flash up. It'll come to you, and then it'll go down. And if you're not careful, you'll think, oh, that was just my own mind thinking that name up. But you have to. If we have time with the Holy Ghost, time in the spirit, spirit time with God. When those things flash from him, we'll recognize them as coming from him. Well, see, in this situation, I didn't recognize it. So I'm just reliving, so to speak, the memories of the past. I didn't pray. I should have stopped and just prayed about it. And so about a week later, my mother called and she said, nancy, do you remember your cousin? And she called her name? And I said, I sure do. And when she said that, I go, oh. Because it sounded like I was going to hear something I didn't want to hear. And then it dawned on me. Oh, yes, her name came to me. That wasn't just me reliving a sweet memory. That was the Holy Ghost bringing her up to me. And she said, well, you know, she's in her mid-40s now. She has some younger children. She had her children later in life, and she has some younger children. And they went in this morning and they found her dead in her bedroom. And I just go, oh my, my, I missed that. I missed that. Well, you say, pastor Nancy, what do you do when you miss it? Well, I know this. You can't carry the weight of that on you because the devil will take advantage of that to defeat you with it. He'll take advantage of that to accuse you with it or get you under condemnation. All you can do is say, father, I repent. I missed that. And all you can do is repent and go on. But then that means this. Try not to let that happen again. Do something to become skillful. Spend more time in the spirit. Spend more time getting acquainted with how the Holy Ghost moves and how he leads and how he speaks to us so that we don't miss those cues because they are so, so important. I was talking to a precious minister friend of mine and this was years ago. She was telling me something of a like story that had happened to her. She was at home one morning and she had planned to go into the office, their ministry around noontime. And she said while she was getting ready, she said a really strong burden of prayer came on her. And so she recognized it and so she started praying. And she had just been praying for a short while and somebody from the office called her, their ministry office called and there was, so to speak, an emergency that had come up. And so they said, would you please come down here, we've got to handle this. So she picked up and she left that place of prayer and she went down to the office and was dealing with this emergency, so to speak. And when she did, she completely forgot about the prayer burden, which would be easy to do. And so she goes down to the office, spends the day fixing this situation that had come up. And when she did, she got a phone call later that afternoon and her son called her and said, mom said, my wife and I were in a car today and said we were in a car wreck. And she was killed in the car wreck. And they had a unborn child and so they lost the baby and he lost his wife. She lost her daughter in law that day. And she said the Holy Ghost was trying to alert me, but I stepped away from that burden to go take care of something that came up as an emergency. Let me tell you, the devil has strategies and he will attack your prayer life. And he Will use all kinds of natural things, things to divert you that when God puts something on your heart, like she had that prayer burden on her heart, no doubt the devil had something to do with causing a commotion over in this other arena to try to get her to tend to that. I tell you, distractions are not always subtle. Sometimes they're very bold and demand. Right now we demand attention. We have to learn to recognize that. Because many times those distractions are strategies of the enemy. They're not just a daily life distraction. They are sent by the devil to interrupt your effectiveness in that prayer assignment that God may have you on. So you have to recognize that. You know, I remember another time that I missed it. I grew up in Altus, Oklahoma, and had a wonderful home life there and went to school. School was not my favorite. Not because I didn't like learning. I was so much of a loner, I guess, that the social side of it was not my preference. But there was one, and I did well in school. But there was this one particular class that I struggled with. It was the only one in my whole school, school career, so to speak, that I really, really struggled with. And I had a particular teacher that was in that class. And he started out the school year by saying, 70% of my students fail this class. So he was letting us know your chances and percentages are pretty low. And so I fell into that 70%. And so. So he was not easy for me to understand. I mean, I just struggled in his class. And basically I turned it into nap time. When I realized I can't even get this. It became nap time for me. Well, one day, probably about 25 years ago, here I'm grown, you know, and I'm at home, and this schoolteacher's name comes up to me. And all I did was, again, I missed it. All I did was start reliving and rehearsing that school year with that teacher and that problem and that class. And all I did was relive all the difficulties of that. And then I just let it drop. Well, then about a week later, my mother calls me and she says, nancy, do you remember the school teacher you had? And called this man's name? And I go, oh, this sounds familiar. Oh, yes, yes. And she told me of a great tragedy that had happened to him and he had died. Well, see here, if I would have yielded to that, I certainly believe that could have been changed. Why? Because the Holy Ghost was trying to find someone that would give them give the time to cooperating and laboring with God and Bringing about this change. I missed it. And again, what do you do? All you can do is repent. But the thing is, is we don't want to keep missing it. We want to keep spending time in prayer, keep developing, keep growing so that we can bear fruit in prayer. I'm so grateful for the times I didn't miss it. I'm so thankful for the times that God used me and allowed me to be used and I got to participate in some things. I remember one in particular I had. I was laying in bed one night, just getting ready to go to sleep, and I would just lay there and pray in the Spirit as I was going off to sleep. And while I was praying in the Spirit, right in front of me, this mini vision that I had. And I see a car wreck and there's a certain pastor. I didn't know who it was, but later it was a certain pastor I knew, but at the time I didn't see who it was. I couldn't tell. God didn't reveal who it was. You know, the Bible says that he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto God, speaks not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth him howbeit in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. I'm so grateful that in seeing that vision that I didn't see who it was because I knew that the person. It could have been troubling to my soul to know who it was. But God was able to involve me without troubling my. Without, you know, my soul being troubled by what he was involving me in. And so I saw this car wreck and I saw that this. This one car was driving and another car came and hit on the driver's side. And. And I knew this. I just had the sense of it, that it meant certain death. Well, there again, just me seeing that is not the victory I have to deal with that God shows us when we take time to see things and we see things and God shows us these things, it's so that we'll deal with it. If we're just saying, well, I saw it, that's not going to be the victory of it. That's not going to change anything. Just to say you saw it. God shows it so that we will use our authority because we're the ones with the authority on the earth to deal with things. Jesus said, I give you the authority, the power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all, the power of the enemy. Then the Word tells us that whatever we bind will be bound in heaven. Whatever we loose Will be loosed in heaven, which means heaven will back us up. But this scripture shows us if we don't do the bind, if we don't bind, some things won't get bound. If we don't loose some things, some things won't get loosed. So things are waiting for us to use our authority. When I saw that vision of that car wreck, that's exactly what I did. I started using my authority. And I spoke and I said, satan, you take your hands off that situation. And I said, death, you take your hands off that situation. Situation. And I call for the angels of heaven to be around that vehicle, to be around that person, to protect and guard and keep their life in Jesus name. After I used my authority and did that, then I just spent a few moments praying in other tongues. Now, the reason I prayed in other tongues was I wanted to see if there was something else further I had I needed to do. Was I missing something? Did I need to address something different? What did I need to do differently or in addition to what I already done? Well, after I prayed in the spirit, then I had a release, a sense of release that once I had spoken to it, spoken with my authority to it, and I prayed in the spirit that I didn't sense to do anything else. So that was the end of that, of what I did that night regarding that vision. About three weeks later, I had been away on a trip, and when I came back home, my husband was awake. And it was around midnight when I got in. And he woke up and he said, nancy, he said, you got a phone call that there's this certain pastor that has been in a wreck and they're wanting you to call. So I called and found out that this pastor was coming home from church. And on the way home from church, there had been a drunk driver that was out and ran right into the side of this pastor's car, hit him on the driver's side. And of course, the pastor's car just wrapped around this other car. And so when the emergency team came to help, all they did was pull out the jaws of life. They had to cut that car away. And it took them an hour to cut the car away from him. And they just pulled out a body bag and just laid it beside the car. They said, there's no way that anybody could have survived this kind of an accident. And so they just pulled out the body bag and laid it alongside the car. And after an hour, they finally were able to cut the car away from the pastor. And when they did, they got him out and he only had minor injuries. And, I mean, they were completely shocked by that because there's no way that man should have walked away from that situation. Well, see, there are so many things that our prayer life can reach into our faith and our authority can reach into. And I think that we have really not even scratched the surface of knowing how far our authority will reach. We can't change everything for everyone else, but there's a lot we can change. And God is looking for somebody who is sensitive and skillful and perceptive when he's looking for someone to labor with him to bring about change and rescue for somebody. Now, people would maybe think, well, you had that vision about that car wreck because you're a minister, because you're a pastor. No, that's not why I had that. I had that because I had been taking time to pray in the spirit. And by taking time to pray in the spirit, I positioned myself to see in the spirit. And so then God could show me this, and then God could work rescue through me on behalf of this pastor. And I'm so grateful for that. This is such an exciting thing that God allows us to participate in. So I encourage you. Take time, spend time, give time, cut away distractions, see what needs to be changed so that you can give the time to developing spiritually. I want to pray with you. Father, we're so grateful for your word. These are wonderful times that we live in. They're sober times that we live in. And we purpose to take our place and be doers of your word. It's part of your plan that we be skillful in prayer. Father, we choose to be skillful in prayer. And we know that that's going to come as we take time to pray, as we take time in the spirit. And we're so grateful for the Holy Ghost, our grace guide, our great teacher, who helps us in this divine work. We give you thanks and praise for it. And everybody said, amen. Listen, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. You don't want to miss it. God bless you. We'll see you then. 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.