Jesus the Healer w/ Nancy Dufresne Audio Podcast
652 | Stay In The Faith Arena
Thank you to Kenneth Copeland Ministries for sowing the airtime for this broadcast. There's enough power in every sick room and in every hospital room to raise up that sick one. That may be describing you. You may be in a sick room. You may be in a hospital room and I want to remind you power is present. That power is there to do a work. Believe in what's present, not trying to get something, but notice that he's already made it yours. It's present right where you're at. Say, I receive that power. I receive that power. I receive it right now. I receive it right now. At the top of my head. At the top of my head. It's the soles of my feet. The soles of my feet. Welcome. We're so glad you're joining us today for Jesus the healer. I tell you, I'm thrilled with the word. Aren't you? I mean, when the word gets its place, it changes everything. And so we've got a studio audience that's joined with us and we're glad that you've joined with us. We invite you to get your Bible, get your notebook, get it. Something to take notes with and follow along with us. And I always say this, become a student. Why? Because when we become a student and we write down and put in place some things that will help us to be a doer of the word. It makes all the difference. Say, man, it's the doer that's blessed, not just the hero. So we want to be doers of the word. We've been teaching on the mind and we're so glad to get to do that because we all need to become skillful regarding our thought life. We've been using, as our golden text, 2 Timothy chapter 1. So you can turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7 in the King James translation. It says, "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." How many of you know that a sound mind is not a forgetful mind? Right? Sometimes you'll hear people will say, "Well, as you get older, you forget." Well, that's not in line with what this is. The word says that a sound mind is part of our inheritance in Christ. Healing belongs to us, prosperity belongs to us, joy belongs to us, victory in every arena of life belongs to us. But don't leave out that something else that belongs to us is a sound mind. That's what He gave us. And so we have to become skillful at walking in that sound mind and keeping unsoundness off of our sound mind. Amen. And so He's given unto us a sound mind and I want to read what the amplified says just about that phrase of sound mind. It says that a sound mind is calm. It's well balanced, that it's disciplined, it's controlled. And so all of these things are part of our soundness. Well, how can we have and enjoy this soundness in everyday life? Well, Romans 12 verse 2 says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind." To renew the mind means to take on God's way of thinking. And so as we feed on the word and become a doer of it, now listen, reading the word alone will not renew your mind. Just knowing what the word says is not the renewing of the mind. The mind isn't renewed till we're doing it. Till that word has found its place in our everyday life. That's when the mind is being renewed in the light of what we're feeding on. Amen. How many of you know you can have your mind renewed in one arena and not another arena? I mean spiritually, mentally, physically, materially, the different arenas of life. Someone's mind can be renewed about finances, but not about health. Right, yeah. Or somebody can have their mind renewed, you know. Maybe, and I would say this, how do you know if your mind is being renewed and you're making an advancement and that things become easier for you? What arena you're struggling in, that's the arena to pay attention to renew your mind in. Sometimes you'll find in a marriage particularly you'll see this is that one of the spouses will have an easier time believing for finances and one will have an easier time believing for healing. What is that? Their minds are renewed, but many times the strength of that renewing is evident in different arenas. You can have a measure of your mind being renewed in all their different arenas, but sometimes you're further renewed in other arenas because you never arrive. My mind, you know, I got no problems with my mind. My mind is perfect. You know, I never have a challenge. No, we're always renewing our minds with the Word of God. And so we can always renew it further. We can have our minds renewed in a measure, but for God to take us further in some things, we have to further renew our minds. So right now we are living our life and our life is demonstrating the measure that our minds are renewed. Now listen to that. Today, what you're living and experiencing in your life is showing you the measure of how far your mind is renewed. So if you say, "Well, one arena in my life needs to go further." Well, that's good that you recognize that because just know this further renewing to the mind is how you go further. So the further you renew your mind, the more advancement you make. Now what happens with people who just neglect the renewing of their mind? They don't understand the place of that sometimes. They don't know that it's their responsibility, but not only that they're privileged to renew their mind. Well, those people will never develop and grow up spiritually as they ought or as they could. They'll not grow in spiritual strength. Their faith will always be weakened. Well, it doesn't need to be that way because we can renew our minds and as we do, it fortifies every single arena of our life. And what Romans 12 verse 2 tells us that it will transform the life. So I would say this to you and my husband and I would do this many times. We would assign each other faith projects based on each other's strengths. So for example, Ed would come in and he would say, I know at one point over the years he'd always had Bible schools. But he'd had part-time ones. Sometimes you'd only be on a Saturday or on an evening. But he came in, oh, I don't know, around 2010 and he said to me, he said, "God began dealing with me about starting a Bible school." So he said, that's what God told me to do. That's my part. He said, your part is, develop it. Well, you see, we would take our faith and we would use it on different projects. He had faith to start it. I had faith to implement it, to put it in place, to develop it and stuff. And so you learned that with your faith. Well, how do you know how far your faith is going to be developed in a certain area? Well, how far are you renewing your mind in that area? When somebody struggles financially, they struggle financially. Get around somebody who doesn't struggle in their thought life about finances. Because when they're struggling financially, they're something in their thought life they're struggling with. So you have to renew your mind toward that arena that you're struggling with. I remember one time, for example, God had spoken to my husband and I that he had another house for us. And so we believed God for that house. And God began on this particular house. He began to speak to me more about the house, you know. And so I was, I found a home and I showed it to Ed and he said, "Yeah, that's the home. That's the home." And so he said, if you want that home, he says, "I'm going to let your faith take the lead in it." Now listen to that because people will say to see the husband is the head of that family unit, right? Well, certainly that's what the word says. Being the head of something doesn't mean everything is your way. Being the head of something means that you do what's best for everyone in the family. That's what being the head is. See, Jesus, when he came and he did what was best for humanity, he didn't do what was best for him, so to speak, because he didn't need deliverance from the enemy. He hadn't had no power over him, but he did what was best as the head of the body of Christ. He did what was best for the body. That's what being the head means. You do what's best for everyone who's under that headship. So as a husband in a family is the head of that family. That doesn't mean everything is just made easy for him and everything is his way. Nobody else gets what they want. It means that that husband takes time to find out what is God's best for this family. And he leads the family into that best. So when my husband, when he said to me, "That's the home," and he said, "But I'm going to let your faith take the lead," he wasn't stepping down from his headship of the family. He was delegating a faith project to someone in the family. Because this is what he said to me. He said, "Honey," he says, "I've got my faith on a new building. I've got my faith on this. I've got my faith on that." And he says, "I'm not going to spread my faith too thin." Because if I spread it too thin, there won't be enough faith on these projects to bring them to fulfillment. So he said, "So I'm going to have your faith take the lead." And so you understand what I'm talking about. Us bringing our faith. Well, when your mind is further, and we got that home, and that home was a blessing to us, but as your mind is further renewed, you can be a greater help in your family. You can be a greater help to the head of that family and to the other family members because they can delegate, so to speak, some projects to you because your mind's renewed in those arenas. Amen. So take time to do that. Renew your mind. If there's, "How do you know if your mind needs renewing in an arena?" Well, what arena do you tend to worry about? What arena does fear seem to get a hold-in with you? That's a sign that you need to further renew your mind. So right now, your life is displaying the measure that your mind is renewed. You're living to the degree of the renewed mind to go further and renew the mind. And what a privilege to do that. Listen, that is our lifelong profession as a believer that will never be done with the renewing of the mind. I love something Dad Hagen used to say to us. He said, "Your mind doesn't stay renewed any more than your hair stays combed. Every day, get up and put your hair back in place." Right? We hope you're doing that. Are you doing that? If you don't put your hair in place someday, everybody can tell it. Right? Everybody can tell it. And if we're not renewing our minds, others can tell it. It'll show up. And so there's no sense in having an unsound mind because the renewed mind will help us to live that sound mind that belongs to us. Amen. One of the things that we have to understand is that the mind is Satan's battleground. Why does he launch his attacks against the mind? Well, that's the soulless arena. That's the mental arena. But also, the faith of God is in your spirit. Now understand that. The faith of God is not in your mind. The faith of God is in your spirit. Your mind is not built to believe God with. It's not built to be the resting place of faith. But your mind must come into agreement with the faith that's in your spirit. That's what your mind is to do. It's to agree with the faith that's in your spirit so that you have faith thoughts. But the faith thoughts didn't come from the mind. They came from the faith in your heart. They came from the faith in your spirit. Amen. And so you have to understand that faith is in your spirit. That's why the devil is afraid of a person who lives being led by their spirit, dominated by their spirit. Because then their life is going to be dominated by the faith that's in their spirit. And he knows he cannot whip faith. The devil cannot whip faith. Why? Because it's the faith of God that's on the inside of you. The same kind of faith that God operates and lives according to. That's the same that's in you. Amen. It's his faith. What's the faith of God do? It wins every time. It always succeeds. It always, always comes out on top. That's why the devil doesn't want you in that spirit arena, the faith arena. Your spirit, the spirit arena is your faith arena. That's where your faith lives. That's where your faith resides. So the devil to even have any chance at swaying you out of your victory is to get you away from your faith. So what's he going to do? He's going to endeavor to draw you up into the middle arena. Because faith, that's not the spring of your faith life is not the mind. As I said, the mind can take on faith thoughts. But the mind can only come into agreement with the faith that's in your heart. But the mind is not the source of your faith. And so the devil works to get you, he's got to get us away from our faith. So he endeavors to draw us up into the mental arena. Because he knows then that if we get entrenched in that mental arena, we're out of contact with our faith. And it's the faith that destroys him. Now, if the devil can hold you in the mental arena, he can defeat you. You go, well, Jesus defeated the devil. Yes, but if we don't enforce our victory and you can't enforce it by living out of the mental arena, your mind was not designed by God to dominate you. Your spirit is the feature of you that's like God. Amen. We are created in his image. He's a spirit being, we're a spirit being. The life of God flows from our spirit, everything that springs up and blesses our life springs up from our spirit, not from our mind. But the mind is the gateway to the spirit, whether it lets right things in or right thoughts or keeps right thoughts out. So the enemy, his strategy is get them away from the faith in their heart. Because if they stay in faith, I have no chance. But if I can get them away from their faith, get them up in the mental arena and just hold them there. Just keep them entrenched and occupied in their attention all up here. Then he knows I have a chance. You see. And so if he can hold you in the mental arena, the enemy can whip you in a certain circumstance, in a certain arena. The mental arena is Satan's arena. He is skillful in that arena. He's skillful there. You cannot outthink the devil. I guarantee you, you cannot think him. Because as soon as you get it, if you get in that mental arena, if you follow him up and get entrenched in that mental arena and just stay there and you disregard your spirit, you don't look to your spirit. And you just get entrenched and stay entrenched in that mental arena. He will outthink you. That's why he wants to get you in that mental arena and entrench you in that mental arena. That's how he gets people in depression and oppression. It's all his mental harassment and activity up here. What's he trying to do? He's endeavoring to hold you away from your spirit. Why? Because then he holds you away from the flow of your faith. Wow. It's the truth. You have to understand this. This is his strategy. If the devil can hold you in the mental arena, he can whip you, but let me say this. If you will hold him in the spirit arena, the faith arena, he's whipped every time, every time, every time. Amen. Because Jesus has made you master. Amen. He's made you master over the devil. Now become masterful with the mastery that belongs to you in Christ. Become skillful with that mastery. Amen. How do you do that? Learn to stay in your spirit arena, in the faith arena. Learn to be dominated by your spirit. You have to turn your attention away from all that's going on that the devil may threaten up here and you have to learn to turn toward your spirit. One of the best ways and quickest ways to turn toward your spirit is praising and worshiping God. Amen. When you start praising and worshiping God, it will help you quiet the mind. You see, when the mind is racing, when it seems like you can't get a rain on that mind because it's been in the flow of just racing too long. Well, praising God and worshiping God takes your attention and it puts it back on God and off of all the thoughts that the devil's suggesting, all the things that are threatening the thought life. And so that's one of the great flows of praise and worship. It's not because God needs it to feel good about himself. It's because we need it to keep our attention and our focus on him and to hold us in the faith arena. And in the spirit, in the arena of our spirits to where our spirit is dominating us. No wonder David wrote in the Psalms and said, "His praise shall continually be in my mouth." What does that do? That holds us in the faith arena continually. Do you know that praising God is an act of faith? Why? Because you're praising a God you don't see. You're praising a God you don't feel. You're praising a God you can't physically touch. You're praising by faith. That means you just tapped into the faith arena. When you started praising out of your heart, amen. So that's one of the quickest ways when the enemy is bombarding the mind. One of the quickest ways to take your attention off of the mind. Because see the devil wants all your attention on what he says. Where your attention goes is what's going to get movement in your life. So if you will put your attention inward on the Word of God that's in your spirit, on the faith of God that's in your spirit, then you stay in control, you stay in domination of that thing. Amen. So as I said the devil, that's why he seeks to hold you in the mental arena. So when you first wake up, what a good habit to start so much of the time. People when they first wake up, they start thinking. All these thought, worry thoughts. All these what if thoughts. It's a great spiritual habit to immediately start turning toward your spirit the moment you wake up. Turn away from the thought life, the mental arena. Turn toward the spirit, amen. Turn toward your spirit. And how do you do that? Praising God is the quickest way to do it. It gets your spirit involved. It gets your faith moving when you praise God. Amen. And if you'll start out that way, it's easier to stay in the flow of faith, in the flow of your spirit dominating you instead of your mind dominating you. God did not ever intend that the mental arena dominate you. He intended that your mind serve you and agree with your spirit. Not argue against it. Not argue against the faith that's in your spirit. So we have to realize that it is our divine privilege but also our responsibility to turn away from the thought life toward the spirit. Listen, I know what I'm talking about. I've been dealt with by God on this. I mean, there were times when I was going through different tests or trials or something was trying to assault the mind. And I would wake up in the middle of the night and I'd start thinking, you know, you just wake up and you just start thinking. What do you do? You turn to that mental arena. I remember one night, years ago, and I woke up and I started turning toward that mental arena and just started thinking about what had been trying to trouble me. And the moment I did, the Holy Spirit, thank God for the Holy Ghost. Thank God. He rebuked me. Listen, any rebuke from the Holy Spirit, any rebuke from the Holy Spirit is heaven to me. Why? It's help. So the Holy Spirit rebuked me and he said, and I heard it clear as a bell coming up out of my spirit. When are you going to stop turning toward your mind and turn toward your spirit? Listen to those words. When are you going to start turning away from your mind and start turning toward your spirit? Because that bad habit will entrench you in depression, fear, worry, doubt. Because all those things are the mental arena. Did you know those things are not of your spirit? Those things are not of the faith arena. Fear, worry, doubt. All those things are of the mental arena. They're not of the spirit arena. So if we'll turn, learn to quiet the mind, turn toward our spirit, focus on our spirits, and learn to get our faith going by praising God, by speaking the word. All these things get our faith going so that we yield to the faith arena instead of yielding to the mental arena. Amen. Amen. Hold your attention toward the spirit arena, not toward the mental arena. And like I said, the devil's number one strategy is get you up in that mental arena, get you in that cycle of trying to answer. What if this? And what about that? And what if this doesn't happen? That is not your flow. Your flow is out of your spirit, the faith arena. Now Jesus, in Luke chapter four, we won't take time to turn there, but we know the passage where it said that in Luke chapter four that Jesus, verse one, that Jesus was, after he was baptized, he was led of the spirit into the wilderness. Now see, there he was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights. God wasn't tempting him, but the enemy was tempting him. The spirit did not lead Jesus into the wilderness to see who would win. Amen. It's not who's going to win. It was there so he could demonstrate his mastery and skill and authority over the enemy so that we would have an example to follow too. Jesus went through that season. That was a season, that 40 days and 40 nights, but notice because he showed himself masterful, he never went through a season like that again. Why do people have certain seasons being repeated over and over and seasons of difficulty over and over in their life because they're not yet masterful and skillful within the face of that season? But Jesus showed himself master, showed himself skillful in that and he never went back into a season like that again. But notice Jesus' policy of dealing with the devil in that season, his mind was being assaulted, no doubt. All these kinds of temptations and all the different temptations that are listed, there's three primary that are listed there in Luke chapter 4. Jesus' policy of dealing with the devil was, it is written, what did he do? He answered him with the word. Notice this, he didn't get in the middle arena and try to figure out something. Whenever the enemy says something, don't get in the middle arena and try to outthink that thought to get rid of it. You answer it. Every time there was a temptation, he answered it with the word. He said it is written, this is what God says. Now see, the devil even used the word against Jesus, but he used the word misapplied. He distorted the context of the word he spoke. But Jesus' sound mind, sound thinking, answered him with the word and every single time, every test was overcome because he answered it with the word. Where did he go? He went to his spirit. That word was in his spirit. He did not get up in the middle arena and try to deal with that season, that season of temptation. He answered out of his spirit and what was in his spirit is what came out. What was in his spirit? It is written. The word was in him. That's why you have to get that word and graft it in you. Renew your mind. You have to get that word abiding in you so that when temptations come immediately, you have the answer of the word ready and prepared. Amen. That's our policy of dealing with the devil saying it is written. And I tell you what, Jesus, he knew how to answer the devil. You have to learn how to answer the devil. Amen. No one can answer the devil for you in your behalf, but you can become skillful at answering. Amen. The first time many troubling thought comes, learn to answer it. Amen. Well, this is what we've been teaching out of our sound discipline mind book. We invite you to get hold of the copy of it for you. You can go to DefrainedMinistries.org and we'll get you out of copy right away. Remember this as you go. Jesus is the healer. God bless you. To watch or listen to today's message and other messages by Nancy Defrained, visit DefrainedMinistries.org. It is my joy to let you know how we can get these messages teaching on a sound mind into your hands. I taught the first 80 episodes of my daily broadcast on a peaceful mind, a sound mind. And we have compiled them into four different CD series. Each CD series contains 20 teachings. So we invite you to get all four series on the sound discipline mind. You can purchase yours by going to our website at jesustheheater.org and we'll get it right out to you. God bless you. Come join us for special services with guest speaker Kenneth Copeland on January 3rd and 4th 2025. Services will be here in Marietta, California on Friday night at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 10 30 a.m. and 7 p.m. For more information visit our website at DefrainedMinistries.org. Nancy Defrained is the president of World Harvest Bible Training Center in Marietta, California. This is a word and spirit Bible school where you will receive impartations and revelations. So whether you're called to the fivefold ministry or want to bring a greater supply to your local church, this could be the school for you. We're now accepting applications. Go to WHBTC.org for more information. We're excited to announce a new worship album called In Your Glory by Grant Defrained. For more ways to listen to In Your Glory, scan the QR code on your screen. Jesus, thank you Lord. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at DefrainedMinistries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, submit a prayer request or visit our online store. Thank you to the friends and partners of Defrained Ministries for making this production possible. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]