Leon Fontaine - Your Miracle Starts With You
So many people look at miracles like magic. That they just wait till they get in trouble call out to God and a miracle will occur and the Bible says that. But we often forget to take the Bible in context. We think that when we see Jesus walking in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that He just does miracles as easy as pie and that's not really true. In his hometown He couldn't. It doesn't say He wouldn't. It says couldn't do any miracles. Here we go, "Wow"! But then it says, His answer was, He went about the villages teaching and preaching in a circuit. Why would, it's the only place it says in a circuit. What does a circuit mean? It means He was gonna teach the Word, teach the Word, teach the Word in these places and then comeback around and then ministered them again. Why? Because there's a process for miracles.
And so many people they know about the miracle. They have heard about miracles. They have received the occasional miracle and they have got a bunch of religious baggage about miracles. And so today, I don't want to talk about miracle. I'm gonna kind of change some of the verbiage because most people think of miracles as, like I said as kind of magic. It's just like, you know, you just gotta connect to God. They think believing is kind of this emotional high. They think believing is knowing the Word and that's not what the Word says. They think believing God. Oh, I've got faith. And they think they're in faith but they're just mentally agreeing with things.
So I want to show you how clearly the Bible and Jesus outlines a process. And this process doesn't mean that you are earning miracles because you're qualified for miracles. It simply means that there's some parts of you that need to be renewed, that need to connect to God. And when you understand what Jesus is trying to do, incredible things begin to happen in your life as you begin to walk in His promises. Now, if you need a miracle, that means you've got a problem. I don't want a life full of miracles. I want to minister miracles to people who have tons of problems out there. But I don't want to need miracle after miracle after miracle because it means I've got problem after problem after problem.
For example, when it comes to health, healing in your physical body. You know, getting a miracle in your physical body is actually the third best way to walk healthy. Because the best way, the second best is just to stay in health. The first one is to be, the best one is to be so filled with God's presence that you're ministering this beautiful revelation and the power of God to other people around you. So I am so glad because I've gotten sick quite a few times. The power of God was there, and Holy Spirit would guide me. A lot of times as to what to do. Leon, rest a little bit more. Leon, you need to move a little bit more. Leon, you need to get your head up out of all your problems and get back focused on me. Whether it was a spiritual issue or natural issue or soul issue and emotional issue or whatever. He'd always guide me into walking in health and the same is true for all of God's promises.
So today, as I share for just a few minutes, my purpose is to move you out of this magic zone that so many Christians are stuck in, and I want you to move over to the process of miracles. One of the greatest things I find in traveling the world and praying and ministering to people that stops miracles is religious teaching. It's the worst. Most people have heard truths about they think miracles like things like God needs you suffer. God want you to struggle. You're gonna learn from what you suffer. And of course, you should. But they have this view of God that is so anti-Bible. And then they have lots of teachings that kind of develops that God doesn't want you to prosper.
So I guess just start a business so you can fail. And they just have all these religious beliefs. And then when they go to believe God for His help, for His supernatural ability on their natural lives, these religious beliefs and anytime you think God's Word says something. That's one of the most powerful beliefs you can have is when you think this is how God thinks. And so one of the keys is this ability to pull down arguments, theories, and strongholds that are against proper teaching. And the Bible literally says to us that the Word of God is made of no effect in your life when you begin to have religious teaching that is against the Word. Religious teaching can be some of the worst and in a world talks about this. That it makes the Word of God of no effect.
And so as you begin to go into the teachings of Jesus, what's interesting about the Bible is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the life of Jesus and His teachings. And so many people misunderstand the teachings of Jesus because they're all about the kingdom and how the kingdom works. And everyone thinks that all the teachings of Jesus shows you how to get saved to go to heaven. But the majority of them don't. The majority of them are showing people how to operate in the kingdom which you can be in before you go to the place called heaven. When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when it talks about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. They are both referring to a realm which is within you, both to the realm of the kingdom of God and the realm of heaven and the resources of the kingdom of God.
So we need to recognize this that the teachings of Jesus are profound. They are wonderful. They are amazing. But they, a lot of us will read it and will think, well, for example, and I've shared this before. Like, you know, if you don't forgive, you can't be forgiven. Okay, that's before the cross. After the cross it says that we are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. When you take God's Word to the cross, it changes things. So as we get involved Mark 4 is one of my favorite chapters for giving me a good look at this process of the miraculous flow of God in our lives. Now, most people love the verses that say that, you know, when you're in danger cry out to God and He'll answer. And that's in there and I've done that. But you can't live your entire life just crying out to God and He's gonna answer.
That's like telling my son, "You know what, anything you need just cry, 'Daddy' and I'll come running and pay your bill and talk to your wife and figure out with your yard". No. I want him to grow up. And the same is true for us. As we learn this process of the miraculous. I don't even like the word miracles because they're just so misused and so abused. I would prefer to say, "I'd like to see you harvest the promises". When you harvest the promises, it removes a lot of religious rhetoric. Like, it's not God's timing to heal me. It's not God's timing to prosper me. It's not God's timing to fix my marriage. It's just not in His timing. And it's a ridiculous concept but it's one of the most taught religious lines. And so it leaves every person who needs God to touch an area of their life in this limbo wondering when is God's time to happen.
As you look at Mark 4, it's talking about a sower sowing seed. And there's different kind of soil. One's by the path and the birds eat it. One is on stony soil and it burst up for a little while, the sun just destroys it. It dies. Then some goes into ground that's got thorns and thistles planted in it. And as the seed grows up, thorns and thistles choked it out. But then there's some that planted in good soil that just produced thirty times, sixty times, a hundred times. Now, Jesus is saying this is the way the kingdom of God works. Oh, when this is how the miraculous help of God works. Everyone thinks that you just do whatever you want in life. Valderi, valdera, a knapsack on my back. Oh, I need a miracle. Help! Cry out to God. Thank you, God. And keep walking doing what we want, saying what we want, living what we want, believing what we want, letting our emotions go where they want, planting whatever we want in our heart through speaking and listening in here.
And then we wonder why it seems to be so hard for God's help to get involved in our lives. Because it's not up to God. Listen to me close. God is not deciding the miracles in your life. "So Leon, are you sure about that"? Yeah, Peter teaches us that. That you've already been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. So everything you need to live Godly, everything you need in life. Food, clothing, healing, health, joy, peace, happiness. I mean, relationship. That all the miraculous power has already been given to you. So God is not up there going, okay, with seven billion strings determining yes or no with every miracle. And it's something we teach on often, but I really want to help you to take a focus on this, because as you begin to study the miraculous process it says the sower sows the Word.
Now, when Jesus get started teaching this, He says twelve of His disciples. The twelve, He takes them aside just the twelve and then He teaches them the process. And He says this is how the kingdom of God works. Now, the second He says that, this is one honking big issue. If you want to get the kingdom of God working while you live in the kingdoms of this world, then you want to be influenced and you want the resources and you want the joy, the peace, and the righteousness of God's kingdom even though you're living in a world where Satan, where the Bible says Satan is the god of this world. But you're not in this kingdom of this world. You're in the kingdom of heaven while you're walking here.
And you've got to learn this because although your spirit's eternal, your soul's eternal. Your body is not. Your body is mortal and death doom. Your body is living on a world full of chemicals, full of accidents, full of all kinds of stuff. And so we've got to get in and we must understand how God has created this beautiful easy way to walk with His supernatural power in every case. And what this is teaching us, this story, isn't that you should just wait, and for God He's saying that the soil is your heart. The seed is God's promises. And He says the seed is unkillable. So the seed is not the issue. Hello! Peter says, 1 Peter 2:24, the seed is unkillable, unstoppable. Therefore, God's Word is not the issue that it would fail. And God's not the issue as though He would fail. And God's not the issue that He is sovereign and might change His mind.
I hear this phrase "the sovereign will of God" everywhere I travel. And it's just kind of religious teachers' ability to and they don't know what to say. Just say God is sovereign. What does that mean? I don't know. It just means why accidents and deaths and dying, and we don't know. So God's sovereign. God can do what He wants. As though God's doing this, and that's not true. The word "sovereign" means all powerful. But as the Bible and the New Testament which heavily involved in the Greek language and amongst the Greeks. They begin to bring over some of the Greek mythology. That the Gods are playing with man, etcetera, etcetera. And it began to creep in where you couldn't really depend on a promise because what you're telling me, you can just, the promise is gonna guarantee it. God's sovereign.
That's ridiculous. That is saying like He's not a God of His word. He said it. He promised it. His Son died but He just might change His mind. And so Christians struggle with these religious beliefs because so many people are teaching that. As you look at this Jesus begins to teach this miracle process. He says your heart it's where it can be hard-packed. It's where it can be filled with thorns and thistles. It's where it can be shallow and not be able to grow God's Word. But then He says it can have thirty, sixty, hundred-fold. That's the harvest of the miracle. And so God is not in control of the timing of the miracle. You actually are. You've got to plant the seed and then you've got to guard your heart, protect your heart. You've got to establish your heart. Don't let your heart slow down. Don't let it get hard. Don't let it get bitter. All these things. God is not in control of your soil. God is not in control of your heart. Only you are.
And so this is a crucial issue that we are treating the soil, our heart as the place that we are growing our future. So we are growing the promise that promises joy. We're finding promises about health. We're finding promises about blessing in business. We're finding promises about all these different things. And as you begin to plant these promises in the soil of your heart, it comes up. If it dies anywhere, okay, or the heart stops allowing it to grow anywhere in this process. It doesn't come to fruition.
So as you look at this incredible thing, you'll notice that the heart is paramount. Jesus goes on to teach these twelve disciples in Mark 4 and He says when the soil is but on the hard-packed path, He says Satan comes and steals the Word. What? Satan? Because Jesus compares him to birds. Yeah, did you know that as you begin to hear teaching that you need to focus on, that the enemy does not want you to focus on the Word. He does not want this Word to go down deep in your heart. He does not want your mind to grab it and your focus and your attention just marinate and get the Word in because if the roots go down so big, you're unstoppable in that area of blessing. Okay?
So the only way to stop that miracle is not that the seed would fail, but that Jesus' teaching the heart would fail in some way. So the enemy is going to try to keep you away from the Word. Then He says, it goes into soil that is so shallow that it comes up excited at first but when persecution comes, the heart is not deep enough to nurture it. So that means people are going to harass you. People will come to Springs Church hear this incredible message. They'll get saved, healed, lives touched. And as soon as they run into somebody, "Oh, Springs Church. Oh, Leon Fontaine. Oh, you can't believe that blessing and prosperity and healing mass. Are you kidding me"?
And you'll notice persecution will begin to come for the Word's sake. And the heart doesn't have a depth to keep feeding the Word and so it dies. Then it talks about thorns and thistles. It talks about how that the Word is in there but around there is these thorns and thistles. And it's talking about your heart being focused primarily on other things first. It's focused on prosperity or wealth. It's focused on the cares of this world. Other things take the first focus. And so because of that, that's what outgrows the Word, not because the Word can't grow because the heart is growing its first focus. And so it says it just choked out the things that you desire. When we take, Jesus is teaching this way.
And if you look at chapter 4 of Mark, he's teaching us that miracles are not up to Him. Miracles are not some kind of magical incantation. Miracles are not something that if you cry enough and your mascara runs enough. That finally, God signs off on the miracle and goes, "Give it to him". In fact, the entire miracle process has been handed to the human race. Jesus teaches and it's twice, once in Matthew 16 and once in Matthew 18. He says this, and I love the way the Amplified puts it. He says that whatever you bind on this earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on this earth is loosed in heaven.
The Amplified says that whatever you declare illegal on this earth must be what is declared illegal in heaven or what is not in heaven. And what you declare loose on this earth must be what is loosed in heaven. It is so clear and yet we still have people that they just want to skip over that. Find a few verses about suffering and different things and just stay in that zone because it's all they know. But He is saying very clearly declare is to speak. And so as you look at this beautiful portion of scripture, it's teaching us that the Word must be planted in your heart. Next Mark 4 teaches us about don't put a light under a basket. Put it upward it can be seen. He's talking about revelation. As you plant the Word what begins to happen in you is it begins to be revealed to you the plan of God. The cross Jesus died on. That grace is a gift. That righteousness is a gift. All these beautiful truths began to be revealed.
Then the next few verses it begins to talk about your attention. What do you focus on? And it says and in the Amplified, I love the Word says that the amount of attention that you give to the truth you hear determines how much virtue and knowledge comes back at you and more besides. So we've got the Word being planted. We've got the revelation of what it means taking place. Then it's saying that as you keep going, keep your attention, your focus on this. And here's where a lot of Christians struggle. They are looking for an easy way to not do any work. And anytime you say, "Well, you should study. You should really bear down and get involved". Oh, I don't have to. It's not about works. It is so about works. The Bible talks about works all the way through.
One of the judgments in heaven which is the bema seat, is all about rewarding Christians for their works. It just says this one truth. Your works can't qualify you for miracles. Your works don't earn you miracles. Jesus did that. But it says study to shew thyself approved unto God, in Timothy. It says workout your own salvation with fear and trembling. It's not saying earn it. It's just saying that you have been given this beautiful believing heart. You've been given the three-part body. You're made in the likeness and the image of God. You're designed to walk in the miraculous. And the way to walk in the miraculous isn't just you keep asking God as though it's a magical favor and God does it. It is to take this beautiful system that He's put in place, your heart and the Word of God.
And as you plant God's Word in your heart, it begins to come up. This thing about the heart. This thing about the miraculous process is not complicated. It's not hard. But if you do not start on it and just make a decision to begin to know what God's Word says, take time every day to find promises and just declare them, to speak them and to never stop. The spoken word is still a mystery to most Christians. That when you speak words, you gain control of your mind. Did you know that when you speak words, that you can't think about something else? So if you've got fear, heartache, hurt, speak His promises and your mind follows what you speak.
Did you know that when you speak words, that the speech area of your brain is overriding everything else? That when you speak words, the words being planted. Because the Bible says whatever you, what you declare to be illegal is as you speak words, you are creating new boundaries for your life. Boundaries that allow healing and blessing and the old ones are wasting away. My time is past. But I just pray you become fascinated with the Bible and begin to see how beautiful and wonderful it is. God has made you wonderfully. He has made His Word wonderfully. And He's bringing this two together. And as you begin to function in this world, you are called to walk with supernatural help in your natural life in every area.