The Whole Purpose Of God — Zac Poonen

Personal Testimony as a Witness to the Gospel

Three times in the Acts of the Apostles, we read the testimony of the Apostle Paul. And so I see that personal testimony is something that is very important for us. When you're witnessing to somebody who has an antagonism or hatred or enmity to the gospel, the best thing you can do is give a testimony of what Jesus did for you.

Because that's very powerful. So, there's a book here which I wrote years ago, which is my personal testimony, called The Day of Small Beginnings. Unfortunately, there are no copies. If you want a copy, you just have to send it.

Go to ravensministry .com. R-A-V-E-N-S. Ravens, you know, Ravens at Elijah. Ravensministry .com and you can get all my books there. Whatever you couldn't get here. The question that we need to ask ourselves is, How important is it to keep the small commandments?

Obedience Is Tested in Small Commandments

Our obedience is not tested in the big commandments. It's in the small ones. Like, how do you test whether your children are obedient? When they go to school in the morning, you tell them, Today, don't murder anybody.

Don't commit adultery on your way to school. Don't rob a bank. Ten commandments. Don't worship any idols. They'll come back and they will beg you. Is that when you test their obedience? No. It's when they're out doing something and mommy says, Come back in now.

You've got to do your homework. That small little thing, that's when you test their obedience. It's the same way with, you know, a lot of Christians go to the scriptures and say, You've got to obey the big commandments.

That's like saying your children obey the big commandments. But the obedience is tested in the small things. And Jesus said that in Matthew chapter 5. He said, in verse 19, I don't know how seriously you have taken this word of Jesus.

Whoever cancels one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, that means teaches them. Ah, that's not so important. He will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. He won't go to hell.

Because he's born again. He's accepted Christ. In the kingdom of heaven, God will call him the least. Why? Because he taught people. Yeah, keep the main commandments, but ignore the small ones. But whoever keeps and teaches the smallest commandment, of course, he will keep the big ones and the small ones.

He shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I want to encourage you to go home and meditate on that verse seriously. Matthew 5 .19. A lot of things that Jesus teaches and the Bible teaches, many people don't take seriously.

They take the main ones, like I said, you know, send your children to school and tell them to keep the ten commandments. But it's the small ones that God tests our obedience. There are many, many things in scripture which are small commandments.

The Authority and Purpose of Scripture

The other verse I want to show you is Revelation. It's almost the last verse in the Bible. Revelation 22. Where he says in verse 18 and 19. I believe this applies to the book of Revelation, but it applies to the whole Bible as well.

Middle of verse 18. If anyone adds to the words of the prophecy of this book, anyone adds something, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, from the holy city which are written in this book.

So, here's a warning not to add to the book of Revelation or subtract from it. And I believe that applies to the whole scripture as well. And here's another verse. It's the purpose with which God gave us the scripture.

Why did God give us the Bible? Second Timothy 3. And verse 16 and 17. If you want to know why God gave you the Bible, here's the answer. It's what I've written in the first page of my commentary through the Bible, which I encourage you to read three pages a day.

Second Timothy 3 .16. All scripture is inspired by God. And what's it for? Teaching, being reproved by what you read, correction where you're going wrong, training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfect, fully equipped for every good work.

That is the purpose. And one more verse Jesus said in John chapter 14. He said, in verse 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. These commandments are very nice. And if you get angry, and by a worse name, you'll go to hell.

Have you ever heard a preacher tell you that if you keep on getting angry, you'll go to hell? I preach it all the time. And Jesus said, if you lust after a woman with your eyes, it's only the sun and the moon that you'll find her.

It's better to pull out that eye, pull out your right eye, then you lust with your left eye, pull out that as well. In other words, better to be blind to the words of Jesus. People ask me, Brother Zachary, when I listen to your sermons, I find you preach so much against anger and lusting with the eyes.

Why is that? I say, I'll tell you why. Because in the Sermon on the Mount, first of all, at the end of the sermon, Jesus said, if you hear my words and don't do them, you're like a man who built his house on sand.

It'll collapse one day, even if it stands for a long time. But if you hear my words and do them, you'll be building your house on a rock that will never shake in time or in eternity, no matter what flood or rain comes.

Warnings Against Anger and Lust

And then, I say the other reason is that in the Sermon on the Mount, there's only two places in the entire sermon where Jesus warned, you may go to hell. There are many commandments in the Sermon on the Mount.

For example, love your enemy. Bless those who curse you. Don't divorce your wife. Tell lies. Don't judge others. Let your prayer and fasting and all be secret. Don't be anxious. Don't love money. All these things.

So many commandments. Out of all the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount, only two commandments, he said, are in danger of sending you to hell. Do you know which those two are? Lust and ignorance.

I said, that's why I preach on it, because you go to the YouTube and try to search for messages on anger and lust and ignorance and see how many people preach on it consistently. The two sins that can send a man to hell, the Lord asked me many years ago when I was a young preacher, do you want to impress people or do you want to help them?

And he said, stop. From that day onwards, I stopped trying to impress people. That's the only way I helped them. In such a way that in the day of judgment, you and I are going to meet, and I'm going to meet all the people who heard me.

There are thousands of people who heard me on the internet and conferences around the world now. I got an email from Greenland. I didn't even know people. And I was amazed at where all God reaches us.

He said, reach the outermost parts of the earth with the word of God. And the day of judgment, when they see what happened to so many believers who were not taught the whole word of God by their pastors and see how their own lives were saved from that calamity because they listened to what I said and took heed to it, they would turn around to me and say, thank you, Brother Zain, for saving our lives.

I don't care what they say about me today. I want to know what they say in that day. And many who are offended with what I say will think I'm speaking too strong today. In that day, they'll die. And that's the only day I'm concerned.

It's life or death. It's more serious than going through heart surgery or cancer treatment or any such thing. This is much more serious than all that. It's eternal life or eternal death. So that's why I preach all the commandments.

I don't take away anything. I don't preach with something which is not there. For example, in the New Testament. And I've spent 58 years studying the Bible so that I make sure that I have not taught anything which is not taught by Jesus and the apostles.

And I've tried to teach everything that Jesus and the apostles taught him. If you go through the Bible, that commentary, you'll see that. Everything that Jesus and the apostles taught him. And that's why I encourage people to read it.

Giving in the New Testament

For example, I have consistently taught and practiced that the New Testament does not ask anybody to pay 10 of their income to God. I've never done it. And I've never preached it. There are times when I was in the Navy, I used to give 50 of my income to God.

But I never preached. It's voluntary. The Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9, 7. In the Old Testament, the emphasis is how much? 10%. In the New Testament, it is how? Cheerfully or not cheerfully?

The reason is, in the Old Testament, God was the head of the government. Israel was a government. And they had government servants who did the work of the government. And they were called the Levites.

Now, when you work in your factories or offices or anywhere, you pay something called income tax to the government, to the IRS. And maybe it's 10 or 20%, whatever it is. That is income tax. Do you know what the government does with that income tax?

It uses it to pay the government servants who are serving the country. So, what you call tithe is income tax that the Israelites had to pay. God was the head of the government. And God said, I've got servants who are working, government servants.

They were called the Levites in those days. So, you must pay your income tax, which is called a tithe, so that my servants, because they were not getting any other salary. And by the way, the income tax they paid was not in money because they were not business people.

They were farmers and shepherds. So, their income tax was in 10 of their grain and 10 of their cattle, which they would give to the Levites. And the Levites would live off that. The Levites were not supposed to have any property or do any other work.

They were full-time in the temple. So, it was income tax because God was the head of the government. Now, the church is not a government. It's a family. And God is not the head of the government. He's a father.

And I say, which of you paid income tax to your father? Which father demands income tax from his children? It's crazy. It's because people don't know God is their father that they're paying income tax.

And pastors, covetous pastors, tell you, give your time, give your time, give your time. And there's not a single verse in the entire New Testament that says you've got to pay your time. What the New Testament does say is, give cheerfully.

And it's very important to emphasize that. Give cheerfully. I heard of a mother who sent her little girl to Sunday school and said, I'm giving you two notes, a $5 note and a $1 note. When Sunday school offering time comes, put the $5 in the offering bag.

And on the way back, you can buy a $1 worth of candy. Once she came back, the mother asked, did you put the $5 in the offering bag? She said, mommy, I was about to put the $5 in the offering bag when the Sunday school teacher said, God loves a cheerful giver.

And I felt I could give the $1 much more cheerfully and give the $5. So I put the $1 in the bag and I bought $5 worth of candy. That girl was absolutely right. She was more scriptural than all these people in churches who are being forced to pay tax.

I believe God was delighted. You think God was delighted in that reluctantly that, oh, I've got to put this $5 into the bag. You think God would be happy with that child like that? Not at all. You don't understand God is a loving father.

Very important. Things which the Bible, the New Testament does not teach are being taught by the Bible. Or things that the New Testament does teach, that a woman when she prays must wave her head. We teach that.

Oh, that's a small thing. I know. When mommy says come inside, let's do your homework. It's a small thing. What should we teach them? Don't commit murder. Don't commit adultery. That's not the way you test the obedience of your children.

It's in small things. And God has kept some very small commandments in the Bible. You know what for? Not whether you go to heaven or hell. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And not one little dot will be removed from God's Word.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my Word will not pass away. So that's the way we have sort of built new covenant churches here in India and in at least 70 other places in different parts of the world.

The Narrow Way and the New Covenant Church

Many of the villages, the poorest villages in India, we've seen this work in a couple of villages where there was no church for 2 ,000 years. But we have a new covenant church. And in big cities. There are London, Paris.

And so it doesn't matter where it is. A new covenant church. It's not size that matters. Jesus said the way to life is narrow and very few will find it. So we're not expecting to find megachurches. I don't believe any new covenant church will ever be a megachurch.

If it happens, I'd say, what is it you're not preaching here? How in the world did this become a megachurch? Jesus said few will find it. In John chapter 6, we read a big multitude came to Jesus and they were so impressed by all that Jesus was doing.

And then he turned around and said to them some teaching about the cross. About the way of the cross. He turned with me to John chapter 6. You read there. There was a great multitude that was following Jesus there.

It says here in verse 2. John 6 verse 2. A large crowd followed him. Now today when a pastor sees a large crowd, he says, time to take an offering. But that's not what Jesus said. When he saw a large crowd, he said, time to teach them about the way of the cross.

And he taught them, you know what he taught them? If you don't eat my flesh, verse 53, and drink my blood, you have no life. You know what that symbolically means? To eat his body and drink, eat his flesh and drink his blood means?

Death. That flesh and blood symbolizes death. So he's saying the way I die, you got to die. And he was symbolically speaking about eating the flesh and drinking the blood. And if you don't do it, verse 54, you have eternal life.

If you don't do it, you don't have eternal life. And he who eats my flesh, verse 56, and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. And then, you know what the disciples, now we're not talking about the Jews.

None of the Jews. People who up till then were willing to follow him, verse 60. Many of his disciples. Now if the Jews said it, I can understand it. It was his disciples. Not the 12 disciples, many others.

He had many other, hundreds of people. They said, this is a difficult statement. Who's going to take the, of this way of the cross? And then, he would not explain it. He said, all I can say is, verse 63, the words I speak to you are spiritual healing.

It's not just the flesh and blood. And then, it says here, as a result of this verse 66, many, how did we start? Chapter 6, verse 2, great crowd. Many left. There were thousands there. You read there that 5 ,000 were fed with five loaves and fishes there.

You read about that in the earlier part of the chapter. And many of them left. And this great mega group finally were left with 12, verse 67. John chapter 6 is the great chapter of how Jesus Christ would reduce a huge crowd to the size of 12 people.

He was in the business of reducing numbers all the time. And then, he wasn't excited that 12 stayed. He said, hey, you guys want to go as well? Imagine saying that. He says, no, I hope you folks don't leave me.

At least you 12, that's not what his attitude is. You want to go away too? Verse 67. Do you want to go away also? It doesn't disturb me. Because of verse 37, I know one thing. All whom the Father gives to me, they'll never go.

And that's why Simon Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of Jesus. Then began the first new covenant change. But he said, one of you is the devil, verse 75. And he dropped out. So there can be people who come to us in the beginning who don't have the spirit, who externally have the same form, but the preaching of the word becomes so strong that they will drop out.

Following Christ Through a Transformed Life

I can imagine some of these other fellows who left earlier would have come to Simon Peter later on, and I can imagine them asking, hey, you decided to stick along with this man. You explain to me, Peter, what did he mean by eating his flesh and drinking his blood?

And you know what Peter would have replied? He said, listen, fella, I don't know. I can't explain. I myself, but I know one thing. That I have no doubt. And it's because of his life that I stick with him.

Not because I can understand everything. That is the basis on which the disciples stuck with Jesus. What does it mean to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Today we can explain it because we have the Holy Spirit.

They didn't have the Holy Spirit at that time. They were drawn to Jesus by his life. And I say the only thing we want people to be drawn by to our New Covenant Church is a light that they see in our midst, not a darkness.

The people who are drawn to us by, ah, this is wonderful doctrine, they won't last. I remember a man from the Pentecostal Church in Kerala, India, came to me once at the end of a conference and said, Brozac, I'm fed up with the Pentecostal Church and I want to join your church.

He said, please don't join our church because you will get fed up with us also. You stay there where you are. The day you are fed up with your own defeated life, then come to us. Not when you are fed up with your local church.

When you are fed up with your own defeated life. Because we are a bunch of people who are fed up with our own defeated life. Fed up that we are not like Christ. We want to be like Jesus. We are fed up every day that we have not yet become like Jesus.

We have not yet become like Jesus. We got a passionate desire to follow up to Jesus because we are fed up with un-Christ-likeness that we see in little areas of our life. When you come to that place, welcome and join us.

Otherwise, you will never fit in with us. Because you will be arguing about doctrine and all that and I have no time for that. Please stay where you are. If a day ever comes in your life when you are fed up with your defeated life, fed up with your un-Christ-likeness, come and join us.

Welcome. We can together encourage one another to press on. That is how we build a church. It's on the basis of life. Not on the basis of understanding and extending the doctrine. Very, very important to understand.

Five Foundations for Christian Life and Ministry

So when we follow that way, we seek to see what all does Jesus teach? Everything in the New Testament. Yesterday I was mentioning the five fingers with which you can hold something tight. Five main things.

Certainly, I found that in my own life. The first is the blood of Jesus Christ, without which we can't begin. The base ABC. The blood by which all our sins are cleansed. And we are justified by His blood.

It means we are declared righteous because His blood has cleansed us. Number two, the Word of God. We respect the Bible as the Word of God from cover to cover. We study it. We emphasize it. We believe that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

It doesn't mean just, you know, a lot of people emphasize reading the Bible. You must read the Bible every day. Let me tell you what I teach. If you read the Bible for half an hour in the morning, and you go to the office and tell a lie, or get angry, it's much better you don't read the Bible for half an hour in the morning.

You go and obey the Bible throughout the day. That is a million times more important than reading the Bible. What is the purpose of reading the Bible? It is to obey. Jesus didn't say, if you love me, read the Bible.

No. Do you know that for 1 ,400 years, Christians never had a Bible in their hands? How can you tell people to read the Bible half an hour a day when 1 ,400 years they never had a Bible? But they could obey God's Word every day.

It's obedience that's, unfortunately, that's not being stressed. A lot of people are easing their conscience saying, I read my Bible this morning. So what? Did you obey it throughout the day? Did you yell at your wife?

That's what you should overcome. There's no use reading the Bible and getting angry with your wife or your husband. No. Obey that. Overcome that. Obedience. Man shall live by every word. What's the rest of that sentence?

That proceeds. You know the difference between past tense and present tense? Not that proceeded 2 ,000 years ago. That proceeds from the mouth of God. It's a living thing. That means as you read the Bible, if you hear the word that proceeds from God's mouth in your heart, that's what you live by.

In other words, you've got to let that word come into your heart. Man shall live by that. That's what we preach. So I see it's better to read one verse and let that hit your heart. I know in my life, I mean, in the early part of our Christian life, we must go through the whole Bible and meditate.

I used to read a whole chapter a day because I didn't know anything about the Bible when I started. And that's a good way to start. But as that time has gone on and I've read chapter and chapter and got to really understand the Bible, now very often, I read a verse and God speaks to me and I say, I can't move on to the next verse because I've really got to the depth of this verse and see if I'm obeying it.

And that's changed my life. As I stop and say, it's like a stoplight. I can't move. There's a red light there. God's stopping me and saying, think on that verse. That's how my life has changed as I've learned to listen to the word that proceeds from God's mouth through that verse of Scripture.

Then I can move on to the next verse. Sometimes I go on to the next day and the Lord says, same verse again. And the red light is still there. It's not yet green. You read the Scripture like this where you examine yourself and see whether you've really obeyed that or you just ease your conscience saying, yeah, I've read my Bible.

Anyway, that's the second thing. The Bible. The third is the Holy Spirit. I'm not surprised that there's a lot of counterfeit of operations of the Holy Spirit in the world today. Not at all. Because anything precious is counterfeited.

Have you ever seen counterfeit toilet paper? Anybody? Counterfeit toilet paper? Counterfeit newspaper? Counterfeit brown paper? What do you see counterfeit? Counterfeit notebooks? What do you see counterfeits of?

Gold. Diamonds. Only precious things are counterfeit. Is there a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit? Boy, then the original must be really precious. And I want it. And if you're going to buy diamonds somewhere, I've never bought one, but I would never think of ever buying it without taking an expert with me saying, listen, how do I distinguish between glass and diamonds?

How do I distinguish between fake gold and real gold? You'd really need an expert to tell you the difference between the real ministry of the Holy Spirit and the fake. And I'll tell you who that expert is.

Jesus Christ. And you look at the scriptures and you see there was the perfect spiritual man. I said, Lord, show me what is really the Holy Spirit and what is not. And Jesus said, look at me. He was the perfect spiritual man.

And whenever I see something which is called a manifestation of the Spirit, immediately I compare it with Jesus. You know this fake gold with the real gold? This fake diamond with the real diamond? I see Jesus.

Can I imagine you doing that? No? Fake. I don't want it. So, I'm not deceived now. Because I've got the real thing here. The real person. The real spiritual person is an example. So I'm not deceived by the fake.

And I need the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If you're not interested in serving God in any way, then you don't need the gifts. But if you need the fruit anyway to live the life.

But I'm interested in following Jesus in his life and his ministry. And the ministry does not mean necessarily teaching and preaching. Maybe just helping the poor or just encouraging somebody. So, the third is the Holy Spirit.

Very important to have the genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit. Like I said earlier, if you open every door of your heart, He will fill you. Number four is what I've said yesterday. The way of the cross.

Hardly ever taught in Christendom today. The way of death to self every single day. Galatians 5 .24 They who belong to Christ Galatians 5 .24 have crucified the flesh with all its affections and desires.

That is their attitude to the flesh is one of crucifying it, crucifying it every day. The flesh is different from the old man. You don't know the difference? If you've been a Christian for more than two years, two years, when does a child learn to walk steady on his feet?

Two years. After how many years did God take the Israelites to the borders of the land of Canaan? Two years. From all these examples, I believe that God wants a Christian to enter into a life of victory in two years.

And if he doesn't, something's wrong. Of course, the Israelites took 40 years and some Christians may never enter the land of victory even in 100 years. But if you've been a Christian for two years and you don't know the difference between the old man and the flesh, first of all, you're sitting in the wrong church.

They haven't taught you the difference between the old man and the flesh? Apples and oranges are completely different. What is the old man and what is the flesh? I'm sure you've read this many times in the New Testament.

And people use a word called sinful nature. Take a concordance and see if the word sinful nature is found anywhere in the New Testament. It's not there. Why do we use words which are not in the Bible?

Why do we invent words? You've heard them from your pastor who hasn't studied the Bible himself. That's why you get the word sinful nature. Show it to me in the Bible. The Bible says flesh and old man.

Why not use biblical words? Why use some other word? This is just an example of how Christians have ignored the Holy Spirit's words and used words which are taught in Bible schools. I'm not interested.

My life was changed. I never went to a Bible school a single day of my life, I thank God. Because the apostles never went there. No prophet in the Old Testament ever went to a Bible school. All the false prophets came out of the Bible school in the Old Testament.

Same today. So, now let me explain to you, at least now you'll understand. In a very simple way, the old man is like an old servant that lived inside my heart who always opened the door to the gang of robbers called the lusts of the flesh.

And this gang of robbers always came to steal from me, not my money, but my purity. My love. To make me hate people. To make me proud. To make me sin. This is what the gang of robbers are coming into my heart for.

That's the lusts of the flesh. And the old man is the wanting to sin attitude in me, which I inherited from Adam, which opened the door. Aha! Have you come to steal something? Come right in. You want me to watch pornography?

Sure. Come right in. You want me to yell at this guy? Come right in. You want me to be a bit unrighteous with money in here? Sure. I'm here already. That's the old man. Different from the robbers. This is the unfaithful servant living inside.

One day, God took that unfaithful servant and finished with it. Removed it. Killed it. I couldn't do it. God did it. Your old man was crucified with Christ. That is what we testify to in baptism. When I go into the waters of baptism, my old man, God, has got rid of it.

And I come out of the water saying, I'm a new man now. What is a new man? A new man is a new servant who does not want to sin. Who wants to keep the door shut when these robbers come knocking. So, after your baptism, you find that robbers are still coming knocking.

Haven't you noticed that? After your baptism, after Jesus baptism, he was tempted immediately. After your baptism, you are tempted immediately. The robbers are still hale and hearty. They come knocking and say, can we come in?

But now, there's a new servant inside. Say, no, you're not going to come in. Your old servant is gone. Sorry, you're not going to come in. Isn't that what happened to you when you were born again? See, if your attitude to sin has not changed, I would say you're not born again.

Definitely not. If you want to sin, when people come to me for baptism, I ask them one question. Do you want to sin? They say, no. Do you want to sin even once in the rest of your life? No. I'm not asking, will you sin?

Nobody can say no. Do you want to sin? The one to sin is the old man. If that's still alive, you're not born again. The new man is, I don't want to sin. That's the way you can find out if Christ has come into your life.

I don't want to sin. But then, what happens? Why does the Christian sin? Because he doesn't feed the new man. The new man is not strong enough to keep the door shut. He wants to shut the door, but those robbers force their way in, because the new man has not been eating enough, not been doing enough exercise, and he's too weak.

He doesn't read the Bible. He doesn't pray. He doesn't sing God for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. He's not strong enough to keep the door shut. But there's a difference between a believer sinning and an unbeliever sinning.

The believer does not want to sin, but he sins. The unbeliever wants to sin, and he sins. There's a lot of difference. It's like, you know, a pig going into the dirty water and a cat going into the dirty water.

Cats can fall into dirty water too, sure. But when a pig falls into the mire, it says, wow, I enjoy this. And it stays there. But a cat, when it falls into the dirty water, it says, hey, I want to get out of this.

So if there's a dirty pond somewhere, and at night you hear some animal falling into it, you can find out whether it's a pig or a cat. If it jumps out immediately, it's a cat. If it hangs around there, it's a pig.

And that means when you fall into sin, I can tell you whether you're a believer or not by what's your attitude after you fall into sin. Not whether you fall into sin or not. When you fall into that dirty pond, do you want to get out immediately?

You're born again. You don't want to get out? What about a cat who looks around to see if anybody's looking and enjoys that pond? That's not a real cat. That's a pig that's put on a cat's dress and pretending to be a cat.

There are a lot of believers like that. They look around. Anybody see? Let me enjoy this for a while. I won't watch this on the computer. Anybody watching? That's not a real cat. That's a pig pretending to be a cat.

So, you know, it's wonderful to see these truths so that we get a proper light on ourselves and don't deceive ourselves. So, these are little things that when you go into the depths of scripture, you hear the word of God, you hear the life out of it.

Following the Examples of Christ and Paul

And one of the things we discover in the New Testament as we read it is that the apostles, you know that the Apostle Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. Do you know the first person in the Bible who said, follow me, was Jesus Christ?

He said, follow me, follow me. Do you know who was the second person in the Bible who said, follow me? The Apostle Paul. He said in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 1, be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.

Christ is like one who is climbing the top of the mountain called perfection. Paul is looking at Jesus' footsteps in the snow and following him. And I can say, follow me as I am following Paul and Christ going on this road of perfection.

Every true Christian should be able to say that. And not only Paul, he says in Philippians in chapter 3, he says, not only me, you can also follow, verse 17, others who are walking in the same pattern as me.