"Doing The Right Thing Every Day" by Nancy Dufresne

I’m reminded of a statement that Dr. Lester Sumrall made: “I don’t do anything great – I just do something all the time!” He didn’t measure the success of his life by the periodic dramatic moments of his life, but rather, by just doing the right thing every day. Practicing the Word and making right choices every day were what added up to living a life of greatness. Every day, he was a doer of the Word! He walked by faith in God’s Word.

     Luke 11:28 records that Jesus stated, “…BLESSED are they that HEAR the word of God, and KEEP IT.” It’s the one who does what he hears of God’s Word that will experience the blessing of God on his life.

     William Booth, the founder of The Salvation Army stated, “I’m not waiting for a move of God – I AM a move of God!” It was the way he lived his “everyday life” that enabled him to say this. Every day, he made choices toward his spiritual life. He was a doer of the Word every day. He lived in fellowship with God every day.

     Smith Wigglesworth stated, “I live full of the Spirit. That’s why I have revival everywhere I go!” When we live full of the Word and the Spirit, it elevates the flow of our daily life, and out of that fullness we will be a great blessing to others. This was not just a periodic flow of Wigglesworth’s life, but a daily flow he chose.

     These men were skillful at doing the Word in their daily lives. Greatness in the life of the believer is not built in the periodic dramatic moments, but in how we live our lives every day.

     The faith life is about choosing to let the Word govern us. When faced with the circumstances of life, we ask ourselves, What does the Word say about this? We put the Word first – we act on the Word.

     Joseph lived a remarkable life. During his teen years, he was a shepherd for his father, then his brothers sold him as a slave, and then he was falsely accused of a crime and thrown into prison for 12 years. His years of youth and young manhood were lived in difficult, dark surroundings. The enemy, no doubt, sought to destroy him during this season, but because he conducted his daily life in a way that was pleasing to God, God was able to use those difficult times as an accelerated training course to prepare him to run a nation by the time he was 30 years old. He wasn’t trained in the palace. He was trained for greatness by doing the right thing in the everyday moments of his life as a shepherd boy, as a slave, and then as a prisoner. He had to guard his mind, doing the right thing with his thought life. He had to guard his heart to keep out unforgiveness, bitterness, and offense toward those who had mistreated and mishandled him. He learned to do the right thing every day.

“Doing the right thing – being a doer of the Word – this is what helps develop us spiritually and makes us of great use to God.”

— Nancy Dufresne

     Doing the right thing – being a doer of the Word – this is what helps develop us spiritually and makes us of great use to God.

     In contrast, we see Sampson. He was a man who had an anointing upon him. God had promoted him to be a judge over His people. Sampson had dramatic spiritual happenings, but he was dominated by his flesh. What he permitted in his daily life became his weakness.

     It matters what we permit in our everyday life. The flesh and natural things lose sway over us as we let the Word dominate us. Being a consistent doer of the Word brings blessing, for with consistency lies victory. Life becomes sweeter as our skill in doing the Word grows.

     In an interview, I was asked, “What was your darkest day?” My most difficult time wasn’t a day – it was a season years ago, when I was spiritually young and my mind wasn’t renewed with the Word of God. Everything was hard then. Ignorance of the Word and not being a doer of the Word makes life hard, for the enemy seeks to take advantage of ignorance.

     We don’t have to live in a place of ongoing difficulty. As we keep hearing and practicing the Word every day, it makes life sweet! “…BLESSED are they that HEAR the word of God, and KEEP IT” (Luke 11:28).

"Consider Not" by Nancy Dufresne

When Jesus ministered to the sick, He said, “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matt. 9:29). Faith is simply believing what God says in His Word and acting like it’s true. Faith means acting on the Word!

     Even if circumstances and situations around us tell us something different than what God says, we choose to still believe what God says about it. If our body and what we feel tell us something different than what God’s Word says, we still choose to believe what God says. If thoughts bombard our mind against what God says, we still choose to believe what He says.

     Abraham’s faith pleased God, so we can look at what he did and know what we are to do to have faith that pleases God.

     Romans 4:17-21 reads, “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he CONSIDERED NOT his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”

     God told Abraham that he was going to be the father of nations, but Abraham was childless and 90 years old. His body’s ability to produce a child was dead.

     When Abraham’s body told him something different than what God said, he had a choice to make. He chose to believe what God told him rather than what his body told him. If we are going to receive healing and walk in health, we must choose right – we must believe what God’s Word says over what our body says.

     Verse 19 reads, “And being not weak in faith, he CONSIDERED NOT his own body now dead.…”

     How does someone weaken their faith? They consider what they ought not to consider. When our attention goes to and stays on the wrong thing, it weakens our faith. To keep our faith strong, we have to keep our attention on the right thing – on what God says. Where our attention goes affects our faith. Abraham protected the strength of his faith by keeping his attention off the wrong thing and keeping it on what God said.

     To “consider not” means to not think about it, don’t touch it in our thought life – don’t turn it over in our thought life. We must discipline our thought life to not allow our mind to consider, entertain, or turn over wrong thoughts – thoughts against the Word.

     We can’t keep wrong thoughts from coming to us, but we can refuse to entertain them – not turning them over and over in our mind. We can’t keep birds from flying over our head, but we can keep them from building a nest in our hair.

     We are going to have to answer every circumstance, every symptom, and every thought that says something different than what God’s Word says – not just once – but every time the thought comes! When we answer wrong thoughts with what the Word says, it stops the movement of those thoughts around our head.

     After we answer, then we are to continuously praise God for His Word coming to pass in our life.

     “Consider not” doesn’t release us from exercising our faith. We must still release our faith, even though we refuse to focus our attention on opposing circumstances.

     Abraham “considered not” his own body – he didn’t touch in his mind and in his thought life what his body told him. His body told him something, but he refused to focus or put his attention on that. Although he didn’t consider his body, he still released his faith – he believed what God said. Verse 18 tells us, “He believed according to what was spoken.” Faith holds to what God says, despite all opposition!

     Abraham didn’t consider his own body, but he also didn’t consider the body of anyone else – including his own wife. “…He considered not his own body now dead…neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

     If we touch in our thought life the condition of someone else’s body, or why someone else failed to receive healing, it will weaken our faith. “Consider not” the body of another.

     Lilian B. Yeomans, a teacher of divine healing, had previously been a medical doctor who God raised up off her death bed. She wrote, "Consider not – blessed words – an unfailing refuge from the fiery darts. Heavenly atmosphere where no germ or disease can survive for the fraction of a second. Consider not. Do not accord to the physical symptoms a passing thought. Refuse to take them into your calculations. If you consider your own body, paying attention to the symptoms, that is why they persist. As long as you consider them, they will persist."

     If we are not to consider our body, what are we to consider? Consider the Word! Fill your thoughts, mouth, and heart with what God says. 

     Answer every thought that’s in opposition to the Word. Answer troubling thoughts, pain, and sickness with the Word. Walking in real victory means learning to “consider not” our body or what the enemy suggests and threatens us with.

     If we believe we’re not healed because symptoms come, then we’re believing our body more than we’re believing God’s Word. Don’t believe anything more than you believe what God says!

     It’s not our job “to not feel the test,” but it is our job not to change what we believe because of what we may feel or see. We are not to believe anything more than we believe the Word.

     Yes, we may feel the test, but that feeling doesn’t mean our faith isn’t working or that the Word isn’t working.

     As Sister Yeomans stated, “Consider not – blessed words – an unfailing refuge from the fiery darts. Heavenly atmosphere where no germ or disease can survive for the fraction of a second.” When fiery darts come against the mind, we are authorized to not consider them, to not be moved by them, and therefore, to be completely untroubled, living days of Heaven on earth.

"Faith Is Specific, Part 2" by Nancy Dufresne

In last month’s letter, I told of a particular test I faced. There was a threat the enemy kept making. I didn’t know the specific answer to it, so I would answer it generally with the truths of the Word, and it would just stand off. But after a few weeks, that same opposition would return. I would again give a general answer and it would again back off, but it didn’t leave.

     The last time it came, God said to me, “Ask Me about that opposition.” I hadn’t talked to God about it because I didn’t want to touch that threat in my thought life – I didn’t want to turn it over in my mind. But when God told me to ask Him about it, I did. He told me why it was coming. God gave me the specific answer to give to that threat, and when I answered that threat specifically, that devil left and didn’t come back. The enemy’s strategy failed because the wisdom of God came.

     When you resist an attack, but it keeps recurring, it’s because you aren’t yet giving the right specific answer.

     Specifics given by the Spirit of God are the wisdom of God for your need, and wisdom is the principal thing that gets results every time when we add our faith and obedience to it.

     The wisdom God gives can come through His Word or by His Spirit. But His wisdom is our specific answer and help.

     For me to overcome that opposition I faced, my faith needed to be more specific. When I received God’s wisdom, my faith became more specific and I got results!

God Is Specific

     The God-kind of faith is in every believer (Rom. 12:3), and the God-kind of faith is specific! The more specific we are with our faith, the more results we will get.

     In Creation, God was specific – He wasn’t general. God didn’t say, “Everything be created.” Every day of Creation, there were specific things God spoke and specific things God’s Spirit performed.

     In daily life, we are specific. We can’t get dressed without being specific. We choose specific clothes to wear each day, and we are specific in how we put them on. We can’t get to work without taking a specific route. We can’t buy anything at the store without selecting specific items. We can’t purchase anything in a store without specific amounts and specific payment. We can’t buy or sell a home without being specific.

     However, when it comes to dealing with spiritual things and with God, we sometimes become general in our faith, then wonder why we don’t receive specific results.

     We need to be specific in what we are believing God for.

     What kind of job do you want? What pay do you want? We must be specific in our faith because God is specific in meeting our needs and supplying our wants.

Specific Answers

     When one pastor pioneered his church, he lived in a nation where travel was difficult. The traffic in his city was so congested that it would be easier for him to navigate through traffic on a bicycle than on a car. He was just learning about faith, so he decided to believe God for a bicycle. He prayed and released his faith for a bicycle. Three months later, he still had no bicycle. When he asked God why it was taking so long, God said, “You never told Me what kind or color you wanted.”

     The minister then got specific. “I want a red Schwinn bicycle.” Within days, he was given a red Schwinn bicycle. His specific faith got specific results.

     Being more specific doesn’t make it harder for God; it causes the answer to come quicker.

The Spirit Will Lead Us

      Look to the Word and to the Spirit for specifics you may need – don’t look to human reasoning. Specifics can also come from your own desires, for the Word tells us that God will give us the desires of our heart.

     If we are too general with our faith, sometimes it’s a sign we aren’t believing for anything specific. We are to have a faith that is specific, and we are to look to the Spirit of God to lead us in those specifics.

     Colossians 1:9 reads, “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” (NIV).

     In the late 1980s, God directed me to do tent crusades in some inner cities. There were great results in those tents with many salvations and healings.

     In one of my first crusades, there were 200 people present the first night and 50 answered the altar call to be born again. When I got back to my hotel room, I told God I didn’t like that percentage; I thought it was too low.

     He answered me, “You didn’t say how many you were believing for.”

     I said, “How do I know how many to believe for? I don’t know how many will be there.”

     He replied, “The Holy Spirit knows. Why don’t you ask Him?”

     So I said, “Alright, Holy Spirit, how many should I believe for to be born again tomorrow night?”

     The Spirit of God answered, “Believe for 200.”

     I said, “Alright, I believe for 200 salvations tomorrow night.”

     I arrived at the meeting the next night, and 250 people were present. Since there were 50 saved out of the 200 present the night before, based on that percentage, it seemed to be a stretch to think that 200 out of 250 people present on the second night would answer the altar call, but they did! There were 200 people that answered the altar call.

     The more specific we are with our faith, the more results we will get.

     Look to the Spirit of God to give you the specifics you may need, for He will make known to you the wisdom of God for the situations of your daily life – and God’s wisdom is the principal thing!