In Three Days

[Mom4Christ]

From Wednesday to Friday, I had the honor of learning the Word from a phenomenal man of God! His name is Dr Ed Dufresne....Each message that Dr Dufresne gave was different...but they all tied into each other!!

I'm going to try to blog all three on this note, all at once...by date. All Scripture is taken from the Contemporary English Version, unless otherwise specified.

9/2/09 - Day 1

He opened, today, by teaching us that if you want to be blessed, healed, prosperous, etc....you have to move it to you with words (specifically THE Word)

Matthew 8:16-17 That evening many people with demons in them were brought to Jesus. And with only a word he forced out the evil spirits and healed everyone who was sick. So God's promise came true, just as the prophet Isaiah had said, "He healed our diseases and made us well."

• Isaiah SAID it....and it happened!!

He, then, told us we need to protect our anointing....the devil does not want us to walk in our anointing, so we need to be careful of what we say! Protection IS the will of God, for His people!

Then he said something that got a lot of people thinking, I'm sure....he said, "If you believe God allows sickness and disease, to teach you something...why do you have surgery to fix what's wrong??"

• He said, that kind of thinking is where the devil gets us.


• We all know that the devil is the one who puts sickness and disease on us...not God


• But Religion keeps us from thinking right. Some would rather hold on to their religion, than praise God for their healing.

Isaiah 53:2-12 (NLT) My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows (sickness/disease) that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.


The above passage was spoken out by Isaiah...hundreds of years before it happened! But...IT HAPPENED!!!



9/3/09 - Day 2

This evening, Dr Dufresne opened with a Word from God...and a very profound statement.

• In 2010, we would see the glory of God, like never before


• There will NEVER be a Communist, or Marxist, spirit in America - the devil WILL NOT take our country!! He said if you're fearing this is coming true...stand in your authority, and tell that spirit to leave!!


• And, most people don't know how to believe God for provision, unless they have a job! He asked us if we could still believe for our finished building, if none of us had any income.

But, the Bible says, in Matthew 6:25-34....I tell you not to worry about your life. Don't worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn't life more than food or clothing? Look at the birds in the sky! They don't plant or harvest. They don't even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren't you worth more than birds?

Can worry make you live longer? Why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don't work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn't as well clothed as one of them. God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow. He will surely do even more for you! Why do you have such little faith? Don't worry and ask yourselves, "Will we have anything to eat? Will we have anything to drink? Will we have any clothes to wear?" Only people who don't know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these. But more than anything else, put God's work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well.

Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.

• Without faith, it is impossible to please God


• 97% of Christians live below what God has provided for them


• If we start to worry about finances, we should go watch the birds, and meditate on how well God takes care of them

Confession - "I get care packages from God, every day!!"

Dr Dufresne encouraged us to stop saying, "I can't afford this"....and just believe God for it! He said our words will move things to us...or away from us.

In Matthew 8:5-10, there is a passage on how faith speaks. The soldier wasn't even a believer, but he knew what authority was, and that words make things happen.....if an unbeliever can have that much faith in God's Word, why can't all BELIEVERS???

• When Jesus was going into the town of Capernaum, an army officer came up to him and said, "Lord, my servant is at home in such terrible pain that he can't even move."
  
  "I will go and heal him," Jesus replied.
  
  But the officer said, "Lord, I'm not good enough for you to come into my house. Just give the order, and my servant will get well. I have officers who give orders to me, and I have soldiers who take orders from me. I can say to one of them, `Go!' and he goes. I can say to another, `Come!' and he comes. I can say to my servant, `Do this!' and he will do it."
  
  When Jesus heard this, he was so surprised that he turned and said to the crowd following him, "I tell you that in all of Israel I've never found anyone with this much faith!

Even the fig tree obeyed the Word......

Mark 11:12-14 When Jesus and his disciples left Bethany the next morning, he was hungry. From a distance Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went to see if there were any figs on the tree. But there were not any, because it wasn't the season for figs. So Jesus said to the tree, "Never again will anyone eat fruit from this tree!" The disciples heard him say this.

In one translation, it says Jesus answered it. The tree had to have said something, to be answered! When Jesus spoke to the tree, demanding that it produce fruit no more, the tree withered away and died

The tree had ears to hear....heard Him speak, and obeyed Him!

Romans 4:16 says, Everything depends on having faith in God, so that God's promise is assured by his great kindness. This promise isn't only for Abraham's descendants who have the Law. It is for all who are Abraham's descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all.

• Everything we need is waiting for us to call out to it, so it can come to us!


• God quickened Abraham's mortal body...He can quicken our bodies, too!!

In the beginning, God told Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge...that was God's example to us of a Tithe. God had allowed Adam to name every creature, and placed Adam's name above every other name. The reason God allowed Adam to name everything, was because it was Adam who would be calling those things to himself, when he needed them.

When Adam committed high treason against the Kingdom of God, he lost everything....but Jesus got it all back for us, when He went to Hell, and rose from the dead three days later!!

Genesis 3:15 (NKJV) And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Jesus kicked the devil in the head, after entering Hell....and He took back everything Adam had lost!! Hallelujah!!

When we are disobedient to the will of God, we give place to the devil...we should only speak the Word in our lives!



9/4/09 - Day 3

As Ministers of the Gospel (yes, all believers are), we should teach people what they can live on. This evening's message was more a disciplinary action...but I hope it's something we can all live on!

2 Corinthians 2:11 I have done this to keep Satan from getting the better of us. We all know what goes on in his mind.

• We need to be smarter than the devil, by staying hooked up with the Word of God!

Dr Dufresne taught that there are causes to why the Body of Christ still suffers under the curse of the law, with sickness, disease, poverty, etc. Sometimes, what's wrong in our lives is an outright attack from the devil...but there are things that we do to give place to the devil, and cause those hard times to fall on us.

1 Corinthians 11:28-32 That's why you must examine the way you eat and drink. If you fail to understand that you are the body of the Lord, you will condemn yourselves by the way you eat and drink. That's why many of you are sick and weak and why a lot of others have died. If we carefully judge ourselves, we won't be punished. But when the Lord judges and punishes us, he does it to keep us from being condemned with the rest of the world.

• The Cause: not discerning the Lord's Body. As a believer, we do not belong to ourselves, anymore; we are God's property...our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit


• We are to judge ourselves (speech, deeds, thoughts, etc) by the Word

Our walk, as a Christian, is not about us....it's about getting the Word out and saving the Lost!! That's our job!!!

Ephesians 4:11-16 Christ chose some of us to be apostles, prophets, missionaries, pastors, and teachers, so that his people would learn to serve and his body would grow strong. This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like him. We must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings, which are like winds that toss us around from place to place. Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head of the body. Christ holds it together and makes all of its parts work perfectly, as it grows and becomes strong because of love.

• False teachings (aka: false doctrine) is for the rebellious; they are unteachable


• In this passage, we are instructed to stop behaving like children...children whine about things, instead of acting on them, to change what they don't like


• In order for the Body of Christ to grow, we need to bring our supply to the storehouse (aka: the church); whether it be in the form of natural talents and gifts, or whatever, we all need to hook up with a local church, and contribute to the Ministry of Helps

Dr Dufresne said that the reason we're not where God wants us to be, as far as spiritual maturity, is because we've gotten lazy....he said, "Knock it off, we've got a world to win!!"

He encouraged us to "put our foot to" the bad habits we've formed, and get control of them; being disobedient to God, gives the devil an advantage over us.

Then, he said something to us that he stated he's never said before....."If you're out of the will of God, you don't qualify for divine healing." He said if we're always getting sick, or being injured, or whatever...we need to get with God and find out what area of our life is out of His will; then we need to repent, and get back in line with His will.

He said we can just plead our case to God, like it says in Isaiah 43:25.......But I wipe away your sins because of who I am. And so, I will forget the wrongs you have done. Meet me in court! State your case and prove that you are right.

We, need to learn to discern our own bodies....learn when to rest, and what to eat (or not eat).

With God's help, we can break all those bad habits that have kept us from receiving His best!! Our lives, and the lives of the Lost, depend on us taking care of ourselves.

We have to stay obedient, and bring our supply to the storehouse (aka: the church)

Dr Dufresne's last statement to us was, "Quit being so high maintenance that you can't minister to others! Find your place in the Body of Christ, and bring your supply to the storehouse!"





My prayer, as always, is that this has blessed you as much as it blessed me!! ♥