The Spirit of Faith Part 1
The Spirit of Faith Part 1 with Pastor Lawson Perdue and guest ministers Mark & Trina Hankins. In this episode of Grace for Today, Trina Hankins shares her testimony of being healed from an inoperable brain tumor. Be inspired to live in the spirit of faith and receive your miracle from God!
Destined to Win
When Jesus saved you, your destiny changed completely! He radically transformed us and brought us from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and from defeat to victory. Pastor Lawson goes through the book of Ephesians in detail and shows us exactly why we are destined to win. We are no longer fighting to be overcomers, we are made victorious through Jesus and any weapon formed against us will not prosper! Jesus came to give us life and have that life more abundantly! Because of God and his great love, we are destined to win!
The Spirit of Faith Part 1 Transcript
Praise the Lord, friends. I’m here with my good friends, Mark and Trina Hankins. And we’re gonna be sharing today on the spirit of faith. And, Trina was healed of inoperable brain tumor years ago, praise God, and it was a miraculous thing. She’s gonna be sharing her testimony. You don’t want to miss this broadcast. And they’ll be talking about how you can receive your miracle from God, by the spirit of faith. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m here with my good friends, Mark and Trina Hankins from Alexandria, Louisiana, and we’re sharing today on The Spirit of Faith. Mark wrote a book on this and I love it, praise God. And we’re gonna share some of these principles that you teach, and that I teach, I’ve stolen some things from you.
That’s all right.
Amen? I love one thing I heard you say, you probably heard me, in fact, one time, I’d preached something that you said, I don’t know if I gave you credit, and then they made a billboard of it and put it on Facebook and you complimented me on it, was your teaching. But anyway, you said that spirit of faith will make you swing out over hell on a corn stalk, and spit in the devil’s eye, praise God. And it will help you overcome the enemy, praise God.
Yeah, I got that from a Cajun redneck, and I was preaching on the spirit of faith, and he came up to me after and said, man, that makes me want to grab a corn stalk, swing out over hell, and spit in the devil’s eye. I said, well, I never heard it that way, but I kind of know how you feel. In other words, the spirit of faith makes you fearless.
Amen. You know, faith and fear are polar opposites. You know, the Bible says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love, and a sound mind. And so the spirit of faith speaks. We’re gonna be sharing about this in 2 Corinthians 4:13, and really in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul is talking about dealing with adversity.
[Mark] Yeah.
Sometimes people think when we teach the word of faith that we’re saying there is no adversity, but there is adversity, there are challenges. But we overcome through the word of God, and through the confession of our mouth. And we’re gonna talk about that. And Trina’s here today, I’m so pleased to have Trina.
Thank you, it’s good to be here.
And I’ve known Trina’s dad for years, and years, and years, so over 30 years ago.
Yeah.
Actually, I went to his church in Burlington before that, probably close to 40 years ago. And you were preaching out there at that time. But then when I started pastoring in Kit Carson, he was in Burlington, I remember I went to see Brother Behrman, and he gave me some counsel, but he was actually, he had built a new church, and he was up on the ladder putting a sign on the wall. And so he came down, he took me down to the truck stop. He drank a coffee and I drank a Pepsi. Praise God.
Yeah, great pastor.
Yeah, I had somebody that was mad at me in the church. And, you know, they just seemed like they couldn’t get over it. And he said, listen, there was this lady, and he’d been in Burlington then about 25 years. He said, she came to our church early on. And he said, to tell you the truth, she really didn’t like my wife. And he said, my wife probably didn’t like her much either but he said, we just love him on. He said, she’s still in the church after 20 some years, praise God, but you just gotta love everybody. And he just encouraged me. I know one time I was worried about, you know, somebody not liking me, I was in Kit Carson. You know, there’s only a handful of people. We had about a hundred people in church, and there was 300 people in town. And I mentioned to something to Andrew Wommack, and I had actually preached at a church in south Texas. And it was a church of several hundred people, and 803 average attendance the year before, they kept all the stats, but, they were considering having me come. He said, now Lawson, if you go to that church, you’re gonna have about 300 people that don’t like you. So, just don’t worry about it, you just keep pleasing Jesus. And that’s been a life lesson, you know? We just keep pleasing Jesus, but Trina, you had a wonderful miracle years ago, you had an inoperable brain tumor.
That’s right.
And God healed you.
He did. And it was the spirit of faith. Bottom line. You know, years ago I had asthma, and I got a hold of the message of faith, somebody gave us a stack of books by Brother Hagin, and I learned that we have authority as believers, and that you can take the word like medicine. And so I began to do that. And I was healed from asthma. Those same scriptures that I meditated on all those years, and beefed up my faith and gave me a spirit of faith, which is believing and speaking the word of God really came into play when I had an inoperable brain tumor. What happened was, I had a seizure. And while I was out, they took me to the hospital. I woke up in the hospital room, and Mark was there. The doctor was there, you know? And I thought before I woke up, before I opened my eyes, you know, when you put the word of God in your heart, and you meditate, it’s there. You planted a crop of the word of God. And this word came up in my heart, like, himself took your infirmities and bore your sickness, and with his stripes, you were healed. The strong spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity. So when I opened my eyes, I already had the shield of faith.
Praise God, you already had the word from God.
Amen. So the doctor, he says, it appears that you have an inoperable brain tumor. So those, to me, it was like a arrow, from the devil, you know, just, fear and doubt coming. You have an inoperable brain tumor. But, if you have this spirit of faith, you have the shield of faith. And that shield of faith, just quenched that word, that report, that evil report that came to me. And I never entered into that fear.
[Lawson] Praise God.
I was just full of faith. I didn’t know what the future held, but praise God. I have faith.
Amen.
Praise the Lord.
You know, we have the exact same faith that Jesus, I’m sure we’ll talk about that this week, in Mark 11:22-24. But you know, the word of God was on the inside of you. I know one of the times you came to Colorado Springs, and your jet got grounded for some reason, there was a blizzard, and you called me and asked me to drive you over to Buena Vista. And I had been through a terrible loss in the cattle business, I mean, we had lost over a quarter million dollars, it was just hard for me, just getting out of that situation, you know, and God had spoken to me, and He told me, look at what you have, not what you lost. And I was thanking Him, and praising Him for every good thing in my life, and you know, we overcame that. In fact, I found out, you know what? If the enemy comes, right, it’s the enemy that comes to steal, but if a thief’s found, he has to repay seven times, so I got that quarter billion back seven times over, praise God. So if the devil ever tries to beat me, I just beat him back, praise God.
Just beat him back.
And we just keep believing God, we keep going forward. But as we were driving to Buena Vista, and I was sharing this, Trina, you began to share a word with me from Proverbs about, you know, wealth being in a righteous person’s house. You know, there’s treasure to be desired, and much oil in the house of a righteous man. And so on and so. And that just ministered. It was like healing to my soul, praise God? And you know what? You got the victory in your spirit when you’re born again.
Yeah.
You already have the victory. You already have the healing, you already have the blessing. You already have the peace. You have everything you need in your spirit, but you gotta renew your mind to that. And it’s so important what we focus on. But I remember on that journey, as you began to speak that word, it just changed my focus. It healed my soul, and that helped me overcome in that area, and get over that, you know, sometimes when you go through a loss or a difficulty, there’s like a overwhelming, you know, sense of loss. But it helped me overcome that grief, really.
Psalm 107:20 is a script that Mark and I just love, because it says this, “He sent His word, and it healed them.” And so the answer to whatever problem we face, he will send his word, and in the word is the power to perform whatever it is that we need. Praise God, so that’s what you received that day.
Amen, that word, you know, and the word just, it just strengthens, it helps us.
Well, to make sure we finish the story.
The story. I’m still here.
That we spoke to the brain tumor, according to Mark 11:23.
Mark came in the room, and he spoke to it.
Used Mark 11:23 and spoke to the tumor. And then the doctor said, well, we still wanna do surgery and see what kind of tumor it is. I said, well, okay, do what you feel like you need to do, ’cause on all the tests it was showing that tumor. So she went in, and after about five or six hours, he went into her brain five or six times, and after five or six hours, that doctor came out and said, well, pastor, he said, I don’t know what to tell you, but that tumor has disappeared.
[Trina] Amen.
[Lawson] Praise God.
All along, he’s just sent his word. You know, as you’re facing a challenge, we were facing an inoperable brain tumor. He sent his word, and Mark would speak the word, and as I was going into that surgery, he sent another word. And it was Romans 8:11, that the same spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, dwells in you, he will quicken your mortal body. So I took that word, and I began to rejoice over it. I went into surgery laughing.
Hallelujah, praise God.
Because I was just imagining the power. There was a meltdown, it was a supernatural meltdown.
Hallelujah.
So the word works mightily. And so, rather than just asking God to heal you, or even believe that it’s a will of God for you to be healed, you take the word, and mix faith with the word. ‘Cause there’s healing in the word. And so putting the word in your mouth, which is part of the spirit of faith that we have, Paul said, that’s what we have, he didn’t say, we’re trying to get it, he didn’t say, someday we’re gonna get it, he said, this is what we have. So if you were to sit Paul down, interview him, and say, Paul, what is it that you have that keeps you from collapsing with all the adversity that you’ve been through? Paul would say, let me tell you what we have. We have the same identical spirit of faith. We believe, and therefore we speak. And so Paul said, that’s what I have. But he said, that’s what we have is the same identical spirit of faith. In other words, the spirit of faith works the same. First of all, I’m a believer. Second of all, I must speak. In other words, believing and speaking open the door to the supernatural.
Amen. So when you believe something at a heart level, you’re gonna speak that. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And he said, by your words, you’re justified. And by your words, you’re condemned, in Matthew 12:34 and 37. So if you are really believing something from your heart, you cannot help but share that, and speak that outta your mouth. Now if I’m correct, when the doctor went in and did this surgery, they couldn’t find a tumor.
The tumor disappeared.
Yeah, they just hunted and looked, because it was on every test that showed up, on the MRIs, on every single test that they had taken that whole week. And they could not find it. Of course, you know, the brain surgeon is like, scratching his head, what? What happened?
Everything showed it. But when you know, I have a man here, and he actually, about six months ago. One of the men in the church said, hey pastor, I need to take you over to talk to this person. And so I went over to talk to him after service. It was after our 10:30 service on Sunday morning. And he said, pastor, do you remember about a year ago, I came up and had you pray, and I had a brain tumor. I said, yes. And so he got out his phone, and he showed me a picture from a year ago, he said, that’s a year ago. And this is now. There’s the tumor a year ago, there it is now. There’s no tumor. And God, no medical intervention, God supernaturally healed him. And we’ve had this actually happen with a lot of people. And I’ve prayed for a lot of people with cancer. Not every person I’ve prayed for with cancer has been healed, but a lot of people. And what I do, I speak, like you said, I speak to the cancer. I speak to the tumor. Deuteronomy 28:27 includes in the curse, emerods, which are tumors, which is cancer. So I curse the cancer, that’s how I pray. And I tell them, Christ has redeemed us from the curse, Galatians 3:13-14, so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus, that we might receive the promise through faith. But then, the promise of the spirit through faith. But then I also pray Romans 8:11. So I curse the cancer, and then I pray in Romans 8:11, and I command it to go into remission, but the same spirit from Romans 8:11 that raised Christ from the dead dwells in them, and quickens their mortal body. So we’ve got victory. We’re gonna take just a short break, and we’ll be back in just a few seconds. Blessings. Friends, this week we’ve been sharing on faith in God will change your world. And I am so happy to be sharing with you this faith package. I have this book from my good friends, Mark Hankins, Mark and Trina Hankins, on “The Spirit of Faith.” We have “World Changing Faith,” one of my best series. We have “Four Keys to Faith,” and then finally we have, “Have Faith and Doubt Not.” These are some of my very, very best teachings on the realm of faith. And if you begin to understand faith, I believe it will literally change your life. It’s changed mine, praise God? It’s changed my financial position. It’s changed my spiritual condition. It’s changed my physical condition. And it’s all good. God wants to do good things in your life, and He does it through grace and faith. So if you want to get this teaching, just give us a call today, or check us out online. Thanks so much, in blessings. Praise the Lord, friends, we’re back, and we’ve been sharing on the spirit of faith. We haven’t got very far on the word. We’re just testifying. Isn’t it amazing, all the testimonies that we have?
Yeah.
From the word of God? But let’s get into this, in 2 Corinthians 4:13, you quoted, “We having the same spirit of faith.” The exact same spirit of faith. The exact same spirit of faith as Jesus, I believe.
[Mark] Yeah.
“According as it is written, I believed, “and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, “and therefore we speak.”
[Mark] Yeah.
So, what you believe you’re gonna speak.
Yeah, actually the spirit of faith, I like to say it this way, there’s three kinds of people. There’s pioneers, settlers, and museum keepers.
[Lawson] Yeah.
So a spirit of faith is really a pioneer spirit. A pioneer is someone who is constantly pressing for a new territory. Constantly, Paul said, forget those things which are behind. I’m pressing for those things that are ahead. That means, when you have a spirit of faith, you believe your best blessings haven’t even happened yet.
[Lawson] Amen.
They’re still ahead of you.
[Trina] Amen.
And so the pioneer spirit, number one, is constantly pressing for new territory. So that would be fresh revelation, the direction, and new territory. And so then, the spirit of faith is a pioneer spirit, which means you are constantly preparing the way for those who will follow you. So many are watching you, and your spirit of faith is taking you right into the will of God, the plan of God, the promises of God, the purpose of God. And so God is a faith God, it says in Hebrews 11. Without faith, it’s impossible to please him. And so the spirit of faith is, I believe, believing is the attitude of faith. So when you have a spirit of faith, you have a certain attitude. You walk with an attitude, talk with an attitude. What is that attitude? It’s a positive attitude of expectation of the goodness of God.
Now, one of the first times I heard you preach, you offended me a little bit. Now I got this now, listen, you’re one of my best friends. In fact, we put you on my church board. Aaron, my son and my daughter-in-law, Heather, they wanted to have you on the board for two years. God worked out the situation so that could happen. So we’re really, really happy to have you on the board.
But how did I offend you, I mean what was it?
Well, this is what it was. And then, and then later, now you’re one of my best friends and you’ve really helped me, praise God, you’ve helped me overcome some religious thinking. But I thought, he seems like he’s arrogant, but.
[Mark] Just a little bit.
Right, but it’s not arrogance. You know, the fact is, it’s an attitude. It’s an attitude of faith. It’s because you understand who Christ is, and you understand who you are in Christ.
It’s confidence, and a boldness, the scripture calls it.
Right, I’m sure I’ve offended a lot more than one person.
So really, when you have a spirit of faith, you do have an attitude. I mean, it’s like David running at Goliath. I mean, he showed up with an attitude. He already killed nine, killed a bear. He said, well, who y’all letting this guy talk to you? I mean, this is a giant killing attitude, because he knew he had a covenant with God. And he knew Goliath did not have a covenant with God. And so that attitude of faith gives you such confidence. Not arrogance, none of us should be arrogant, but confident that God is our God, and that He will watch His word and perform it. So, if a spirit of faith doesn’t affect your attitude, then you’re not even.
You’re probably not operating in a spirit of faith.
Yeah, this, I believe, and then that attitude is in your voice, I speak. I believe, and I speak, so that is the spirit of faith. And it is the same. In other words, you can’t come up with a different, some different, think about it. It’s the same, it’s the same Old Testament, same New Testament.
We have a major attitude of faith. Praise God. Joshua and Caleb had a major attitude of faith. Praise God, and it changed, you know, faith in God will make you one in a million. Think about this. You know, God told Moses, I want you to go pick 12 of the best men you have, one from every tribe. Every man, a leader. So he picked 12 outta two million. Right? And then, Moses knew the tendency of the average person is to focus on the negative, not to focus on what God said. So he told them very specifically, now you go in the land, and you look at the trees, and you look at the fruit, and you look at the cities, and you look at the people, and be of good courage. He told them very specifically what to believe. But when they came back, only two of them really had that major attitude of faith, that spirit of faith, Joshua and Caleb. And you know, faith will make you one in a million. Praise God?
So it’s very interesting, Joshua and Caleb, again, you see the spirit of faith, and you see the believing and the speaking part, and, 10 of the guys who went in there said, we are not able, because there’s giants in the land, and we look like grasshoppers. And so then, two, Joshua and Caleb said, we are well able, let us go up at once and possess the land. So the question to us years ago, we were studying faith, was, oh, which one of them got what they said? We were like, well, Joshua and Caleb. The truth is, they all got what they said. The ones who said we can’t, did not, the ones who said we can, did. In other words, I believe, but your faith cannot be silent. I believe, and I speak. And so you have an attitude of faith, of expectation, of confidence in God, and in the blood covenant.
[Lawson] Right.
And then I speak. And so the spirit of faith just has those two main ingredients. I believe, I speak. I believe God, I believe the word of God. I believe in the power of the blood of Jesus. I believe in the indwelling Holy Spirit. I believe, and I speak. And that is the inner workings of the spirit of faith.
You know, when you get a revelation of something on the inside, you can’t help sometimes, except say some things.
Yeah, you have to.
I mean, it’ll just come out of you.
Yeah.
I remember when we came to Colorado Springs, you know, and we were trying to buy a house, and we were moving from Kit Carson. We had a contract on our house to sell it, and we were trying to buy a house here, and we looked for like five months, and then we found this house, it was a great deal. So on and so forth, but we went to six different banks before we found a banker that would loan us money. With 50% down, to buy this house. And it was crazy. But when we went to the first banker, we were talking to this one realtor, she said, you gotta go talk to my banker and get approved. So, we went and we sat across the desk from this banker, Barbara and I, and she pulled out my 1040s. You know, she pulled out my last three years’ income statements, and she looked at ’em, and we were trying to buy a house over in the southwest of Colorado Springs, over, you know, near to Broadmoor, just in district 12. We wanted to put our kids in that school district, and we were starting the church in that area. When we first started, we were over in that area. And I remember this banker, she looked at my 1040s, and she said, why you can’t even afford to buy a lot in this school district, let alone a house. And I kind of stood up and I said, if I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be here. You know? But it wasn’t, you know, God had spoken to me, first of all, right?
[Mark] You couldn’t be silent.
And then, you know, I went to Andrew Wommack minister’s meeting and some people, Cecil and Lisa Paxton that know us, and I’m on Cecil’s board now, at major things that we’ve done together, but Lisa had given us a word. They didn’t know anything about this. And they said, you’re gonna make a move, and God’s with you, and what God’s put in your heart, and it is good for you, it’s good for your family, it’s good for the body of Christ. It’s good for the church, you need to do it. And so they are, and we were looking at this specific area to buy a house. At that time, we thought, well, maybe we can’t get one, but when they, you know, that just renewed that word. So when I went in to this banker, that sat across the desk, that was looking at the natural situation, my 1040s and telling me that I couldn’t, when God had told me, already told me, and then confirmed His word, you know, through this person, through, you know, really a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge. I said, you know what? I am not gonna let any little old banker arguing. Well, she wasn’t a little old banker. She was kind of a big heavy. But I’m not gonna let her tell me that I can’t. And it’s just like, she was, it’s like, she was like the devil speaking over there. And God had already spoken to me, and I already had the word, so I said, if I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be here.
She probably thought you sounded a little arrogant.
Well, well, you know.
It was the spirit of faith coming up.
We just stood up and then walked out, and Barbara’s like, well you embarrassed me. Well, you know what, I wasn’t trying to embarrass my wife. I wasn’t even trying to be rude to that banker. But that banker was saying something different than what God had already spoke to my spirit. And I, listen, it was a major challenge for us to move from Kit Carson to Colorado Springs. And you know, you’re dealing with all these challenges in the natural realm, and then to move where God told, it cost 50 more thousand in district 12 at that point in time to buy a house than it did across the line, because the better school district, so on and so forth, which was very good for our children, and them fulfilling their destiny. But see, God had spoken to us, and we’d begun to look, and it looked like we couldn’t, and we kind of, but then God, you know, confirmed that word, you know? And Lisa Paxton actually gave us that word. And you know what? We moved into that, praise God. We bought that house, and you know what? After a while, I owned three houses, all on the west side of Colorado Springs. I sold that one last year, and over doubled my money. But then I owned the office building in Monument. You know, we didn’t have, we had almost, we started this church with one blind man and his wife, Mike and Mary Peterson and Greg Trapp. And you know, then Greg got married. Barbara said, the church doubled. But you know, we started with almost no people and no money. And now we’ve been here for 20 years.
But if you think about it really, it was a spirit of faith that brought you out of Kit Carson, and brought you into Colorado Springs.
Amen.
And you can see where the Lord has brought you from Kit Carson, and that step of faith, and you pressing, and as you begin, as you believe and speak, and the Lord brought you into, really, it affects not just what you receive from God, but it affects the divine destiny upon your life. In other words, maintaining, Paul said, we have that spirit of faith. And maintaining that, not that he was without adversity, you studied the apostle Paul, no one had more adversity than the apostle Paul.
Well, and right there where he’s talking about it in 2 Corinthians 4, maybe we’ll get into it later this week. There’s so much we haven’t even got through the one scripture in this first session. But, he’s talking about how you overcome, and how you get the things, you know, you’re pressed on the outside, and you have this temporal realm, but yet you have the spiritual realm, and how you move, you know, through the challenges that are in the temporal, the physical realm, by the power of the Holy Spirit on the inside of you, and that power of the Holy Spirit is a spirit of faith.
Yeah, and so, if you go a little further in 2 Corinthians 4, he says, we have the same spirit of faith. And then he goes, “For we do not faint,” he said, “because our outward man is perishing,” or having adversity, our inward man is renewed day by day, which means the spirit of faith must be a daily renewal. And then verse 18, he says, “While we look not at things that are seen, “but at things which are not seen, “things that are not seen are eternal.” So the spirit of faith is an inward man renewing, and it is that constant eternal perspective. In other words, not focusing on the seen, but seeing the unseen, and declaring that the unseen is greater than the seen.
Praise the Lord. So we’ve been sharing on the spirit of faith with Mark and Trina Hankins. This is his book, “The Spirit of Faith,” and you can go to his website, markhankins.org. You can get this, or we will offer it in a package with some things that we’ll be teaching. But thank you so much for tuning in to the broadcast today. If you need prayer, give us a call. We would love to hear from you. We appreciate you stay in tune, and we have people ready to receive your calls. Blessings.
[Announcer] What is faith? Do I need more of it? And how do I exercise what I have? In this package containing Mark Hankins’s book, “The Spirit of Faith,” and CD series, “World Changing Faith,” “Four Keys to Faith,” and “Have Faith, Doubt Not,” you’ll learn the answer to these questions and more. You can get to special package for $59. When you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com.
Friends, the scripture says, if you will continue in the word of God, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. If you go to our website at charischristiancenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website, as you watch ’em, as you listen, absolutely free of charge. And we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. And I believe that the word that has freed me, will free you. Blessings.
[Announcer] Thanks for watching “Grace For Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000, or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80962. See you next time on “Grace For Today.”