Leon Fontaine - Doing the Heart Work
I wanna talk today, and I'm gonna just find my way into it. But I wanna talk about faith and the miraculous but some of the things that we've discovered as we looked into the Word of God. You know, have you ever noticed that the Word of God grows with you? Like the Word of God is incredible. But as you grow you just can't ever seem to get on top of the Word where you know it all. You read the same scripture when you're 20 and it's amazing. Then you turned 30 you read the same scripture, I didn't know anything when I read it at 20. And then you go through something in life, when you read that same verse and it will just speak volumes to you. You never saw before. The Word is so pregnant. It's so amazing that you'll never outgrow the Word.
If you're at a place right now where, "Well, I know that". You are just naive. I'm not gonna call you a fool. You're naive if you just think the Word of God can't, you know, you kind of got that figured out. Man, I'm in the Word hours every day. I've been done this for decades and I'm just fascinated, blown away, overwhelmed, and always growing and going, "This is amazing". Now, the topic of faith is something we've always looked at because it's so clear in the Word that Jesus said all things are possible to him who believes. Now, Jesus taught us before the cross. And so you've heard me mentioned this before but I just gonna say it again. Some of the things Jesus said, okay, were done pre-cross. So when He says it, it has to go through the cross as well. I'll give you an example.
The Bible says in Mark 11 that if you stand praying, forgive so that your heavenly Father will forgive you. That verse is no longer accurate. Because when you take it to the cross, everyone's forgiven once they believe on Him. Now it says, forgive as He has forgiven you and I. You understand the subtle difference there? So people who go into that topic and they'll preach, "If you don't forgive, you're not gonna be forgiven. You're gonna go to hell if you do this sin". And you've got to be careful preaching anything before the cross because there's a truth there. Like forgive, are you crazy? If you don't forgive, you're gonna be so focused on that person and your pain, you can't even believe God and have a dream on the inside.
So the truth is real. But it will say there like, so if you don't forgive, your heavenly Father can't forgive you. But He actually forgave you now 2.000 years ago. So how does He unforgive you? Does He yank away His forgiveness? So all I'm saying is, if you think you know the Word and you're all tangled up with law and grace. It's so easy. He wants you to stay in the Word of God and recognize. And so when it comes to faith, the same is true. So on this journey of watching, you know, one of my greatest desires as a pastor is to see you learn to walk in the miraculous, to see you learn to get regular miracles in the areas of your life. And I got to be careful using the word miracle because miracles seemed to always be when you're in crisis and I don't wanna be in crisis. And so I can use the supernatural power of God to stay out of crisis most of them. Isn't that what wisdom supposed to do?
So God's supernatural power should take your business and keep growing it, not just show up when you are in crisis again. God's supernatural power should grow your marriage, to the friendship, the laughter, the love, the joy, the romance, the excitement. It's just growing and growing, not your marriage is in crisis every few months and I need a miracle. So we got to be careful with the word miracle because we can live our lives in this monotonous average knowing God will show up when we need a miracle. But I look at the power of God as taking me somewhere and never stopping. Financially, taking me somewhere that never stops. Relationally, taking me somewhere that never stops. Physically, I don't wanna always need a miracle. I need the healing. I want my health to be so powered up that I'm walking in health. That the presence of God is so alive, that it quickens my mortal body and even flows on to other people when I pray with them.
So that is why when we talk about the beliefs of the heart, when we talk about faith, that I hope you will move on from this need of the miraculous every time you got a crisis. Of course, it's gonna be there. But what about growing your life? What about living and getting out of the averageness? That just barely get by. And what about taking your life to a place? Now, the devil will try to shut you down. Now, people who've been raised in faith but have never been taught about the heart sometimes give up after a while because you'll get occasional miracles but not regular miracles as the Word promises. The Word does not promise sporadic miracles. Just let me to be really real to some of you mature people in the Word. If you're only getting sporadic miracles and the most of the things you pray about you don't get. That's not what God's Word says. It says ask anything. It says you're more than an overcomer. You can do all things through Christ, not one of forty-three things through Christ.
The Bible is completely talking about a supernatural enhancement on you. That everything in your life will continue to grow. But if you look at faith as only a crisis management, you're gonna missed something. And here in this Word the teaching of the heart has brought so much clarity to me in my growth in the Word over the years and I pray it's yours. And so let's just make a few thoughts, beliefs are more important than actions. Think about that for a minute because right away all the legalist goes straight to morality. I'm not talking about morally. Of course, you should live right morally. You're empowered to live right morally. But I'm saying that beliefs, what you truly believe from the heart is more important than the actions.
Let me give you an example. You can work at your marriage. You can work at your career. You can work at your health. But if you don't believe that it's God's will, that it's easy, that it's yours. You will be working out in here in your physical world going against your internal beliefs. Your internal beliefs will win. They will win. And so the changing of your internal beliefs is crucial for you to take your business, to get your marriage, to get your relationships, your health, that miracle that you need to get it up to that next level, just to get it to continue to grow and to increase the way you've always been dreaming about. Your beliefs are more important than your actions. The Bible does not say all things are possible to him who does right actions. It doesn't say all things are possible to him who lives perfectly. It says all things are possible to him who believes. Because your believing determines your future actions. What you really believe will determine your actions. It will determine everything in your life.
Now, I wanna go from here and I wanna just deal with some, the topic of the heart again, because every time if I get a chance to get involve with people who need miracles, financial troubles, things that are going on, without exception in a second, I'll come back to a belief of their heart. It's like as a counselor rather than counseling with their mind, it's one of the greatest problems with counseling is that we've got wonderful counselors as pastors. We've got people who attend here who have doctorates and they're psychologist and psychiatrist and I love what they do. But the playing around with the mind is some of the most defeated ways to try to help people. Because people don't even know their own beliefs. Then I'll be responsible for putting them there.
So they can be working at something that is completely failing and think they're talking it through because they're so tired of ending relationships and they talked about what they think is ending their relationships, what they think is going wrong. And they're nowhere near it because it's the beliefs of the heart that totally set the boundaries for what you can't achieve. So see a counselor all you want. I'm not saying don't see a counselor. But I'm saying add to this ability to open up and talk to somebody. This understanding of the power of your heart. It is established boundaries that you are running into all the time. And until you reestablish those boundaries, until you change those boundaries, it doesn't matter what you do on the outside. The beliefs of your heart are gonna control you.
Now, you must believe that change is easy because nobody says that in our world. Everybody says change is hard. And if you understand the things that need to do change, yes, there are times change can be hard. But Jesus never said that. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. Holy Spirit is gonna lead you into all truth. He's gonna help you change. And so we know that we've gotta begin to believe, that for you to change your finances is easy. But it's hard to believe if you've been stuck in your finances for years or slowly going down. Then you begin to believe what you've got, not what the promise says. Week after week, month after month, year after year, how you do relationships, how you do finances, how you do everything in your world, begins to drill you into, it begins to put beliefs into you as your brain grabs where you are and believes this is all that is possible.
Did you know that everybody in the Bible God had to take them on a training course to make them think bigger? All Gideon was praying about was a little food and some safety to eat it. An angel shows up and says, "Mighty man of valor you're gonna take up all the countries around you and be the top country going. You're gonna be the leader". Basically, a whole story in a nutshell. He's going, "You're right. I'm the littlest in my family and my family is the smallest in the whole nation". He had stinky thinking. He had a really poor outlook. His boundaries were so enforced that he was hiding on the backside of a winepress just trying to get a little bit of food out. Everything God's gonna do in your life before He takes you anywhere, He's gonna have to make you believe bigger, have to make you believe broader. He's gonna have to expand your boundaries. He's gonna have to lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes and make you go, "Here is where I'm going".
Because the enemy, you know, he may doesn't care about destroying you. In fact, he will if he could, but he usually can't. But one of the things he's good at is simply maintaining people. He's great at maintaining you somewhere by using your own beliefs against you. So we must believe that success is easy. That it is our birthright. It's our inheritance to continue to grow, to continue to have, to continue to be, to continue to be effective for God, to increase the kingdom, to reach out and influence people. If you don't continue to believe that and expand your boundaries, you will be forced into a mold and pretty soon you kind of go, "You know what, I can talk good, but nothing really seems to be changing". Now, there's a powerful portion of scripture in 1 John 3:19-24. We're gonna put up on the screen but I pray this becomes maybe something. Every time you hear me teach on something, if it's touching your heart, use the scriptures. You get that message. Listen to that message every, every day.
You know, I remember, I know how many of you know the Brites, but they've been with our church right from, even before I came here. I remember one time visiting them in their home. We were friends. And she was telling me what she does, how that she would listen to me do a message then she would always buy that message from the church, take it home and she would go through it seven days in a row every week until the next message, then she would grab that message and she would listen to it seven days in a row. And it was brilliant because everyone thinks they've got everything out of that message. But Holy Spirit can reveal so much more to you if you'll have a daily devotional time which could be reading, listening, in a small group, whatever. Where you're just getting the Word on the inside of you.
And so when you hear something that you need, get those verses or get that CD and begin to listen to this and go through it for seven days so that you are not only dealing with the mind, you're dealing with the heart. The greatest battle in this room right now is not between you and the devil. It's the greatest farce in the Christian faith, is that the devil got that much power. The greatest joke in the demonic realm is how you believe about him. When you die, and you get to go to heaven and this season is over and Satan is locked up, the Bible says you will look at him in the pit and go, "That's what we fought our whole lives against"? You don't have to fight him. The greatest fight between you in your world is the desires of your mind and the beliefs of your heart. That's the only battle going on.
You can't find a ton of scripture saying, "Fight devils. Fight devils. Fight devils. Fight devils". You can't find it. You fight the good fight of faith. Which is the fight to stay in faith. It talks about falling down a stronghold. But those strongholds are in the mind. It talks about all this fighting and none of it is about the enemy. There's one part where it says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. And even in that it's not talking about a spiritual power as much as it is talking about a spiritual concepts and beliefs. Where the enemy will be, for example, let's say that you're trying to get to figure something out of your life. You'll find your mind will be against you. That's why you got to renew it. You're not smart enough. You're not good enough. People don't like you enough.
There's always gonna be some kind of negative belief coming at you. There's no way you can do it. There's no way you can make it. Your spouse is not gonna go with you on that. Your spouse is never gonna change. Your kids not gonna change, church not gonna change. What you believe will always be attacked. So his only ploy is one attack. Just boom! boom! He is to make you believe something and then turn your beliefs against you. And so it says in 1 John 3, "And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure," I want you to notice the word. "Assure our hearts before him". All right? Assure. "For if our heart condemn us, there is," By the way, the word faith is not even in this portion of scripture.
So many of us who focus on faith so much and haven't walked in the miraculous regularly, our erring by not understanding the heart's role in what you believe. "And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him". Just stop right there for a minute. Whatever we ask, we receive. It doesn't say one out of forty-three, once every five months. You know, you get one miracle in finances about every quarter after that you can't. No, you were to have every prayer answered. If you want every prayer should be answered if it's God's will. You gotta find it in the Word, every prayer should be answered. Your life should be one consistent life of the supernatural empowering everything that you do, from raising kids to walking in health, to whatever you put your hand to.
And it's saying here that you can have anything you ask, if your heart doesn't condemn you. It doesn't say you can have anything you ask once you bind the devil, reduce him to ashes, intercede through the copper skies, breakthrough his strongholds and, none of that is even there. It comes down to one thing in this new covenant. Does your heart condemn you? Because if your heart condemns you, it says God is greater. It doesn't say you won't receive. Notice there's no negativity here. It's saying if your heart doesn't condemn you, you receive anything. If your heart does condemn you, you think it would say, "You gotta receive nothing". But it says God is greater than your heart. And it just, you kind of go, "What's that mean"?
Now, we go on and here's where a lot of people who could lose it. It says, verse 22, it says, "Whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments". Okay, there we are back into the law. "Leon, I thought we're under grace now. Why are we going back under the commandments"? Well, in the New Testament anytime it uses commandments, you better find out which commandment He's talking about. Let's go to the next verse. It says, "And whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and we do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment," Now, it doesn't list all ten. It just says, you're commanded to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ. Wow. "And love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us".
Now, here's where a lot of people struggle. They begin to think, and they go back into the Old Testament, find the Ten Commandments and the 632 other commandments and all the things that are of not faith like your heart condemning you if you think you've already done it and I'm not. All of those things are important if you want to get along with other people. Okay? But here, it's talking about you getting whatever you ask if you keep His commandments. And it's, if you keep His commandment, it's singular. Believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ. Don't let the enemy make you feel like you are disqualified. You are not smart enough. You cannot make it. You are not born in the right place. You are not.
No, no, no. Unless anytime you believe God for a miracle, your life should now go. I gotta stop. Your mind should go to Jesus has qualified me. Jesus has forgiven me. All my sins have been washed away. All the punishment that I deserved called the curse was put on Jesus. And now, I am qualified Romans chapter 5 says toward what I'm believing. If I'm believing God for a new place in business, I'm qualified for it by Jesus. You can't find anywhere in the Bible that draws a line and what you can and can't have rising up higher. How happy a marriage? A three out of ten is normal. Really? How prosperous? Ah, you know, two out of ten. Don't want too much. Like all of that stuff is religious limitations. The one that the churches doing baked sale to pay their power bills.
Now, the last thought I should deal so that you can meditate a little bit more on this is, if your heart condemn you. It doesn't say you're not gonna receive. It says God is greater than your heart. If you are struggling with something right now, you've faith it, confessed it, spoke it, wisdom it, everything you know to do and nothing is changing. Then you either have you're condemning yourself or you have a limiting belief. That this is good enough. This is fine. And just say, "God, You're greater than my heart". Now, when you begin to open up to God with this let's see what's gonna happen. God, You're greater than my heart when it comes to getting a miracle in my body. God, You're greater than my heart for the finances, the businesses, the marriage. God, You're greater. Holy Spirit's job is to lead you into the new truth your heart needs. He shows you things to come.
One verse says if you're not careful your heart can be darkened. What's got you with darkened? Because the pictures of your heart are the language of your heart. What do you see when you close your eyes and I say, "Hey, what's this New Year gonna look like for your business"? You can say all you want with your mouth. What is your heart revealing through pictures? If I said, "Hey, what's your next year gonna be like for your marriage"? And your kind of, "It's gonna be blessed. Pray the Lord. Halleluiah. Glory to God". But yet inside you just see the same old arguments, the same old problems, the same old nothingness. Your heart can get darken. You can deceive your own heart with your mouth. This thing called the heart. Would you please ask God to help you with it? Because He's greater than your heart. And He's, the whole role of Holy Spirit is to lead you into all truth within your own heart. So that you can go, be, do, conquer, live, love, laugh, everything.