Being Balanced in the Christian Life — Zac Poonen

The Gospel of the Glory of Christ

There are different ways in which the Gospel, the Good News is described. One we know it as the Gospel of forgiveness of our sins. There is a verse in 2 Corinthians 4 which says, the God of this world, that is Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving.

2 Corinthians 4 verse 4. So Satan's one job is to blind people from seeing the Gospel, the Good News. So here the Gospel is described not as a Gospel of forgiveness of sins. That's just the beginning.

Like you've heard me say, when you clean a cup, that's not the end of it. You clean a cup in order to fill it with something. We don't just spend our time cleaning cups at home. The purpose of having a cup at home is to fill it with something.

If it's dirty, we clean it, but that's not the end of it. But there are many, many Christians, the Gospel begins and ends with their heart being cleaned. That's it. It's like a cup being cleaned. They spend all their life with an empty, clean cup.

That's where the Gospel, the devil's blinded their eyes. Here the Gospel is described as the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, which is more than just cleaning the cup. It's filling it up with something.

So, let me show you another verse in 2 Thessalonians 2. Remember 2 Thessalonians 4 .4. The devil blinds our eyes from seeing the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's described in verse 6, the glory of God in the face of Christ.

That's what he wants to prevent us from seeing. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it says here, verse 14, this is why God called you. 2 Corinthians 2 .14. He called you through our Gospel, not just that you might have forgiveness of sins, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, why did God call me through the Gospel? That I might gain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that doesn't happen all in a moment, and it doesn't happen without our pursuing after it. When Paul says in Philippians 3, in verse 12, there's a beautiful expression.

He says, Philippians 3 .12, the latter part of it, I want to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me. Think of that. Jesus laid hold of me with a purpose, and I want to lay hold of that.

So, that purpose we just read was that I might gain the glory of Jesus Christ. So, when Paul realized that, he says, I want to lay hold of that. And he says, I haven't fully laid hold of it yet. Let me paraphrase Philippians 3 .12 like this.

I'm not yet perfect means I haven't fully got all of it. If I got all of it, I'd be perfect. But I press on that I might gain it more and more. And therefore, again, he says, I haven't laid hold of it all yet.

Verse 13, Philippians 3 .13. But there's only one thing I do in my life, a wonderful thing it is, every Christian could say, there's only one thing I do in my life, everything else is secondary. There are many things we do, we eat and drink and sleep and go to work and earn money and take care of our families and bring up our children.

But it's all subservient to this one paramount goal, gaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, then all these other things fall into place. And a lot of our problems, when we get occupied with all these other things is because we haven't got the central thing in place.

So there's one thing I do, I forget what lies behind. That means I forget how much of the glory of Jesus Christ I've already got. Now, many Christians, when they read that verse, forgetting the things that are behind, they're thinking, Oh, well, I'm glad I can forget all the sins I committed in my life.

That's not what Paul is saying. You read in the context. He's saying, I want to lay hold of everything that Jesus laid hold of me. I've haven't got it fully yet. I've got part of it, but I forget how much I've got.

In other words, I'm forgetting how much of this mountain I've climbed. I'm always thinking how much more I have to climb. That's what he's meaning here. I'm not keeping on congratulating myself that I've come so far.

I forget it. If I keep congratulating myself how much I've come and how much better I am than other believers or how much better, what a wonderful church I'm in compared to others, I'll never make progress.

It's exactly what the devil wants me to keep meditating on, how far I've come. So Paul was aware of the schemes of the devil. He says, I forget what's behind. I don't even think about how far I've come or how much God has done in me already or how much he's done through me.

All these things I forget because I'm pressing towards a goal. Of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus to possess all of that glory. My dear brothers and sisters, we must never lose that vision.

If we keep that vision before us, many of our other problems are solved. Really, I'm telling you from experience. That's why the Bible says we must run the race looking unto Jesus. There's only one way we can run this race in the way God wants us to, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, the one who began a good work in us and who will do it.

Christ’s Humanity and Dependence on the Holy Spirit

When we realize that Jesus lived his entire life on earth, not as God, but as man. It's very important. I know my whole life was revolutionized when I realized one truth, that though Jesus was fully God and fully man, he did not live on earth using his power as God.

He lived on earth using his power, lived on earth as a man, depending on the power of the Holy Spirit day by day. That changed my whole life completely. You see, two things happened when I realized that.

One, I had no more excuse for my sins. Till then I could always say, oh, well, I'm only human, so I sin. But Jesus was human too. But the devil doesn't want us to see it because the moment I see that, I have no more excuse for my sin.

We're always trying to find some excuse for our sin. I'm only human. But when I saw that Jesus was human too, I had no more excuse for my sin. That's number one. The second thing was, I saw that if Jesus as a human could live such a life by the power of the Spirit, the same Holy Spirit, exactly the same third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit that dwelt in Jesus Christ, is the same person that comes and dwells in me.

Without him, it's impossible. That's why I say every Christian needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit all the time. Otherwise, it's impossible to live this life. Otherwise, what can happen is we can come to church and listen to some wonderful exhortations, and church can become a way of improving the quality of our life.

That means we behave better, we talk better, we relate to one another better, and the church becomes a nice club where we meet one another and help one another in so many ways. In our personal life, you may be defeated, frustrated, and far, far removed from the way Jesus lived.

So, it's very important to recognize that Jesus lived his entire life by dependence on the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples, if you evil fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, you think your Heavenly Father will not give you the Holy Spirit if you ask him?

Of course he will. It's unbelief to think that God is very reluctant to give us the Holy Spirit. Let me repeat the definition of faith that I probably have mentioned here before. Faith is to believe that God is more eager to give me what he has promised than I am eager to receive it.

I'm not talking about things God has not promised. There are many things in the world we want. Well, let's leave that aside, but think of what God's promised in his Word, that sin will not rule over me, that I can walk as Jesus walked, that my life can be useful to God, that I can be an effective member in the body of Christ.

Will God not do this for me? That's unbelief. Am I so eager to be filled with the Spirit to overcome sin? God's not eager? That's unbelief. Faith is to believe God is more eager than I am to help me to overcome sin.

God is more eager than I am to fill me with the Holy Spirit every day. When I realize that, I say, hey, that's wonderful. So when you think of this glory of Jesus Christ that we are to gain in our life, that more and more in our life, the glory of Jesus must be seen more and more, and it's not talking about some light or brightness in our face, it's character.

Man looks in the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. It's not just being cultured and civilized and kind on the outside, it's a glory that's within, that's changed our character inward. That means I don't have to act in a certain way, I am that person.

As long as I have to act in a certain way, it's outward. I've got to keep reminding myself, hey, I've got to act nice, I'm a Christian. That's not Christianity. That's acting. But it's because God does that in my heart that I am to be that way.

Under the old covenant, it was different. In the old covenant, God didn't do anything in people's hearts. It was all on the outside, so they had to realize, hey, I'm not supposed to murder anybody. I'm not supposed to commit adultery.

I'm tempted to steal. I'm not supposed to steal because the law says I'm not supposed to steal. It's external, and you can get a good testimony, but the wonderful thing in the new covenant is it's inward.

The Holy Spirit changes us inwardly and makes us like Christ. You know that chorus we sing, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wondrous compassion and purity. There's a balance, compassion and purity.

Grace and Truth in the Character of Christ

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wondrous compassion and purity. The original chorus goes like this. I never sing it like that. O thou spirit divine, all my nature refine. My nature can't be refined.

It's corrupt. It's got to be crucified. That's what the Bible says because most people don't understand being crucified with Christ. They think my nature has got to be refined. No. O thou spirit divine, make all thy nature mine.

That's the way I sing it. O thou spirit divine, make all thy nature mine so that the beauty of Jesus may be seen in me, full all his wondrous compassion and purity. The beauty of Jesus has got a balance about it.

You see that in John 1 .14. In John 1 .14 it says, the word, it's Jesus, the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

You see the balance there? Grace and truth. His wondrous compassion and purity. So I want to share with you something about that in the glory of Jesus, there's a balance. And where there's no balance, there's ugliness.

And God wants to make us balanced in our life. And as we gain the glory of Jesus in our life, we'll be more and more balanced in our life. It's like a human body. There's a beauty in the balance there is in our human body.

If you draw a line down the middle, it's exactly the same, this side and that side. I think if one ear were much bigger or an eye was much bigger, you can still have two eyes, but it's ugly. So in the same way, you can have certain qualities, but if they are not balanced with other qualities, or one eye is missing, there's grace, but no truth or truth, but no grace.

It's ugly. We can think of our, there are many ways we can think of growing in to the likeness of Christ. One is growing up from a childhood to maturity. But think of a child growing in a mother's womb.

In the beginning, he doesn't have proper shape. His head is too big. If you see pictures of these embryos they take inside a mother's womb, they look more like tadpoles than human beings, completely disproportionate, the parts of the body.

And if it were born like that, it'd be horrible, it'll be ugly. But when a baby is born, it's so beautiful because everything has come in to proper proportion. It's got a head long before it's born, but when it's three months, the head is completely disproportionate to the body.

It's not fit to be born. But by the time after nine months is over and the baby is born, everything is in right proportion. So I've thought of that in relation to our becoming like Christ. In the beginning, certain things are out of proportion, some things are more and some things are less.

But if you're really allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us, like the processes in the body work on that little baby, gradually everything comes in to its proper proportion. And the head is not half the size of the body, the head is proportioned to the rest of the body.

So it's God's will that we look at the beauty of Jesus and the truths in Scripture and find this balance in our life, because it comes in many, many areas of our life. Grace and truth is just one. In Jesus' life, we see how he could speak with compassion to a woman caught in adultery and say, I don't condemn you, or put his arms around lepers and to a five times divorced woman, like a Samaritan woman, encourage her and use her to bless many Samaritans.

At the same time, we see Jesus calling the Pharisees a generation of vipers. It's the same Jesus, the same meek and mild Jesus. He hasn't changed. He's always consistent. He's never more holy at some times or less holy, more loving at some times.

He was just as holy when he told the woman, I don't condemn you, and he was just as loving when he whipped the money changers out of the temple. It's not that he lost something there at that time. No.

He didn't lose his temper. He never lost his temper. He was perfectly balanced. He was full of grace and truth, and that truth made him expose the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and the truth made him not just tell those money changers, will you gentlemen please move your tables out from here?

No. He turned the tables and whipped the sheep and opened the cages and let the doves out, and we can't understand that. We think that if you saw some servant of God doing that, you'd think he'd lost his temper.

That's because we don't know Jesus. When you see preaching that's very hard, that denounces people, we think, oh, that guy doesn't have grace. That shows how ignorant we are of Jesus Christ. You know, this Jesus who said, if you offend a little child, tie a millstone around your neck and go and drown in the lake.

If you heard preaching like that, what would you think? If you heard Jesus saying, you'd go to him and say, Lord, you've got to be more Christ-like. Yeah, that's exactly how we think. You know, you ask yourself, when you think of a preacher who's Christ-like, what are you thinking of?

I think 99 of Christians think of someone who says, oh, I don't condemn you, you're okay, be encouraged, everything's okay. We think that person's Christ-like. It's true, it's one side of it. It's like a man who's, I picture sometimes a man whose one side is muscular and the other side skin and bones.

Can you imagine a man like that, how ugly he looks? So this is the Christ that many people see. And if you think of a Christ like that, you'll be like that. One side, whichever side is muscular and the other side, skin and bones.

Or, you know, you may be the other way around and see the other side muscular and this side skin and bones. So remember, the beauty of Jesus is seen full of grace and truth. And none of us are perfectly balanced.

Paul said, I've not attained it, but I'm pressing on. He says, I'm longing to be like Him completely. Our destination, as we have often said, God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Justification, Sanctification, and the Balance of Works

And there's a balance there. Let me show you another verse in Ephesians chapter 2, where we see this balance again. Verse 8. What place does works have in our salvation? Many people would say, no, none.

That's why we need to see the balance of Scripture. By grace are you saved. Ephesians 2, 8 -10. By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works.

Not as a result of any works. That means I can't get forgiveness of sins with any amount of work I do. It's got to be free. Because how can I atone for my sins with a million good works? No way to do it.

So that no one should boast. My forgiveness is free. But once I'm forgiven, then it says in verse 10, God has made us, created us in Christ Jesus to do good works. Good works which God long beforehand planned that we should do them, or walk in them.

So do you see the balance there? No works, but plenty of works. No works for the justification, but plenty of works for sanctification. Justification is one thing. Sanctification is another. Justification means declared righteous.

The righteousness of Christ clothing me. I'm standing complete before God the day I'm born again. The day I receive Christ. Christ's righteousness clothes me, and I stand before God not only with my sin forgiven, but clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

That's one side of truth. The other side of truth is that the righteousness of Christ must now be imparted to me. First it's imputed to me, put to my account, imparted to me. That's verse 10, where by the power of the Spirit, now I do hundreds of works, thousands of works.

That's like saying when you lay a foundation, you don't have doors and windows in the foundation. It's a crazy man who puts doors and windows in a foundation. Zero. But in the superstructure, plenty of doors and windows.

That's an example. No works in the foundation of the Christian life. It's entirely free forgiveness through Christ's justification, but thousands of works in sanctification as we build this skyscraper called walking as Jesus walked.

That's balance. No works, but works. And you find in Christian, you know, there's a lot of controversies in Christian theology, and very often, I'll tell you, the controversy is that people don't understand this balance.

Some people emphasize no works. Some people emphasize works. I say it's like saying, should we have doors or windows? I say it depends what you're talking about. Are you talking about the foundation? Definitely no doors and windows.

Are you talking of the superstructure? Plenty of doors and windows. So you're talking about, when you talk about works, no works in forgiveness, agreed, no works, but in sanctification, thousands. A lot of the controversy is there in many, many areas of Christendom because they don't realize it's not a question of this or that.

It's a question of both in its proper place. Let me show you another scripture where, in Matthew chapter 22. See, these are intensely practical in our daily life. We need to understand because a lot of people, for example, the lazy type of person, the lazy Christian who doesn't want to press on to perfection, he always finds comfort in the fact, oh, Jesus has done everything for me.

I don't know how to do any works. That's like saying the left side of my body has been built and muscular, but what about the right side of your body, all skin and bones? That's ugly. That's a problem.

Loving God and Loving One’s Neighbor

So Matthew 22, someone, people came to Jesus, the Pharisees heard, Matthew 22, 34, Pharisees heard the Sadducees had been put to silence. So one of them, a lawyer, came to him questioning him, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

The great commandment, number one. And if you see the answer, Jesus said, I can't give you just one. You ask for one, but I can't give you one. Because like a coin, how can you have a coin with only one side?

Like someone said, however thin you may slice it, there are still two sides. Yeah. And there are two sides. One, love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

You can't get one side. If you got only one side, it's a false gospel. You know, John says, so there's a balance there. Love God and love your neighbor. But the first is not love your neighbor. That's also important, which is first and which is second.

Jesus said the first and the foremost is love God with all your heart. And the second, it's important, but it's not the first. So the coin, one side is more important than the other. 1 John chapter 4, if a man says, verse 20, I love God.

I keep the first greatest part of the commandment, but he hates his brother. He's a liar. Though the way to call him is not believer, but liar. He may call himself a believer, but God calls him a liar because he says he loves God, but he can't love somebody who's a believer.

He can't love his brother. He hates his brother. There's something, maybe his brother hurt him in some way or offended him in some way. There could be 101 reasons, but if you hate him, you're a liar. It's not a question of what he did to you.

He may have hurt you. He may have stolen from you. He may have cheated you. But if you hate him, you're a liar. So the Bible says, because if you cannot love your brother, whom you can see, this is the logic.

It is impossible to love a God whom you cannot see. See the logic of the Holy Spirit. If you can't love someone you can see, you're fooling yourself when you say you love God whom you cannot see. So the test of my love for God is my love for my fellow believers.

See the balance there. But love for God must come first. Remember that. The first is not both are equal. Love for God, because one is dependent on the other, flows from the other, which means that I serve God first and thus serve man.

This is where I don't believe in the social gospel. The social gospel is Jesus. Jesus has taught us to care for the poor, help them, you know, heal the sick, establish hospitals, educate the uneducated.

All that is good, but it's the second commandment. Don't forget that. I appreciate the work of godly women like Mother Teresa and all who've done such a lot of work helping the poor and caring for them and dying people on the streets, picking them up and caring for them.

I appreciate them very highly, but I say it's the second commandment. And if that's all that we do, we can educate a person, heal the person in our hospitals, take care of him and finally send him to hell.

What have we accomplished? That doesn't mean we shouldn't care for them. Remember, which is first commandment, which is the second. So the first commandment is that I must love God with all my heart. Now you can go to the other extreme too, like a monk in a monastery who has no time to do other things.

He's spending all his time pretending he's loving God, but he doesn't do anything for his neighbor. Well, it's like the Levite and the priest who saw this man beaten up on the roadside. They were going to Jerusalem.

They wanted to go to the service and the meeting on time, and they ignored their brother. He was their brother because he was the son of Abraham. And the other person who is not even a Levite, he was a Samaritan, he cares for him.

So Jesus is answering that question, how do you love your neighbor? So there is a balance here again in our life. Turn with me to Matthew 4 and verse 10. Matthew 4 .10, Jesus said, this is the answer of Jesus to the devil.

The third temptation in the wilderness. Be gone, Satan, for it's written you shall... You see the balance here again? You see this many, if you look carefully, you'll see the balance all over the New Testament.

You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him. His worship and service is a balance. If you worship only, you're imbalanced. If you serve only, you're imbalanced. And if you serve before you worship, it's wrong.

You have to worship first and then serve. And I want to explain to you, worship is not singing a few songs on Sunday morning. The right New Testament word for that is thanksgiving and praise. Actually, we sing a lot of songs which are not even thanksgiving and praise, but prayer.

You need to distinguish between prayer, number one, thanksgiving, number two, praise, number three, and worship, number four. And my experience, I'll tell you honestly, 99 of believers don't have a clue what worship is.

There are hardly any people I have heard of who know much about worship. I mean, Tozer was one of those rare men who knew what worship was, and a few others whom I've read of who lived in different centuries.

But most people don't know what worship is. They know what prayer is. They know what thanksgiving is. Some go a little beyond to point number three, praise, but worship is almost unknown. They don't even know what it is.

It's important. See, does terminology matter? Yes, it does. If you go to buy, say, a Cadillac car, and somebody gives you a motorcycle and says, this is a Cadillac car, and he's fooled you, and you imagine that you've got a Cadillac car, all you've got is a motorcycle.

Don't you think somebody's cheated you? And if the devil has fooled you that what you call worship is only praise or thanksgiving, he's really cheated you of something which you're supposed to have. See, prayer is not praise.

It's not thanksgiving. Prayer is asking God for something. Sometime when you get time, look through the hymns you sing, slowly, forget the tune now, read the words, and ask yourself, is this prayer? A lot of it is prayer.

Yeah, good. Lord, do this for me, and do that for me. A lot of it is exhortation to others. Trust and obey, for there's no other way. Good. You're exhorting people to do something. The other is, a lot of thing is comfort.

You know, God will take care of you, my brother, and God will take care of me. A lot of songs are like that, you know, because a lot of Christians in a pretty baby level, they always want to be comforted.

The only reason they come to church very often is to be comforted. I'm always having problems, and I need some comfort, and the church is a place on Sunday morning where I get some comfort. We got to go beyond all that.

And then you look through some of the songs we sing is thanksgiving. Thank you, Lord, for what you've done for me. We need to say that. There was 10 lepers who were cleansed, and only one came back to thank Him.

And if you look at your own life, you'll find the proportion of thanksgiving to prayer in your life is also probably one is to 10. We pray 10 times for something and maybe thank God once for something He did.

Praise is something beyond that. Now I'm not thinking of what God did for me, not even thinking of asking God to do something for me. That's prayer and thanksgiving. That's over. I'm thinking now of who He is.

I'm admiring Him for praising Him for who He is, Almighty God, my Father, how holy and pure. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, all earth is full of your glory. It's praise. It's not prayer or thanksgiving.

Finally, you come to worship in Scripture. Throughout Scripture, whether it's Abraham or Job or the Apostle John and Patmos, you always see them falling down on their face with their head down to the ground, worshiping God.

It says they bowed down and worshiped God, bowed down, bowed down and worshiped John. When he saw Jesus in the Isle of Patmos, he falls at his feet like a dead man, even though he's been a believer 65 years.

He was 95 years old then. And so I see worship as, you know, bowing down before Jesus in our spirit and literally saying, Lord, I desire nothing but you on earth or in heaven. You are everything to me.

Like the Psalmist said in Psalm 73, 25, Whom have I in heaven but you? That means I'm not interested in the golden streets or the pearly gates or the mansions or, oh, I'm going to be free from all sorrow and trial and sickness there.

That's not what I'm thinking of. I'll tell you honestly, I'm prepared to live with sickness for all eternity if I can live with Jesus. No problem. I really mean that. I'm prepared to have aches and pains in my body for all eternity if I can be with Jesus.

To me, heaven is not freedom from aches and pains and people troubling me. I don't mind people troubling me for all eternity if I can be with Jesus. To me, heaven is Jesus, not freedom from trials and problems and sorrows and difficulties.

You're going to be very disappointed if you go to heaven with that goal. I'm not going to be disappointed because I want to be with Jesus. That's what I told him once. I said, Lord, I'm prepared to be in hell if you're there.

It won't be hell anymore. It'll be heaven. Heaven is not physical comfort. It's a very immature baby Christian attitude to think, oh, thank God there'll be no tears there, no sorrow. It's good. We are all babies at a certain stage.

I'm not saying that's wrong. All I say is grow up. How long are you going to be a baby? It's cute to see a baby two years old running around. It's cute to hear people say, I'll be so free from sorrow.

I'll be so free from all problems and all these difficult people who trouble me won't be there. Good. Well, I hope you'll grow up and get fascinated with Jesus and say, whom am I in heaven but you? And on earth, I desire nothing but you and I desire no one but you.

That is worship. Well, Jesus becomes everything. Then we can serve. The only person who can serve God effectively is the one who is worshipped first. Thou shalt worship and thou shalt serve. It's not only worship.

It's service. My fervent devotion to Christ must lead me to sacrificial, lowly service for the poorest of the poor on earth without distinction. Yeah, I'm not serving others and thinking of how I can be a blessing to others.

Then I'm imbalanced. I must not always be so occupied with God that I don't think of my neighbor. So when we seek to serve God, again, there's a balance. You know, the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit filling us.

The Fruit and Gifts of the Holy Spirit

And when the Holy Spirit fills us, He gives us, first of all, the fruit of the Spirit. The things mentioned in Galatians 5 and 24, sorry, Galatians 5, 22, 23, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, all these things make me a much better person.

The blessing of the Spirit filling me makes me a much better person, the fruit of the Spirit. This is the beauty of Jesus being seen in me, in my character. There again, there has to be a balance. Because the Bible also says the Spirit of God gives us gifts as well.

And in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1, we are told to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, just like I earnestly desire to be a totally loving person, just like I earnestly desire that my heart is always filled with the joy of the Lord, no grumbling, no bad moods, no complaining, like I want my heart to always have the peace of God in me.

That's the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, etc. I must also earnestly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We can say the fruit of the Spirit is for myself. The gifts of the Spirit are for others.

So if I'm thinking only of myself and only of how wonderful a testimony I'll have if I'm full of love and full of joy and full of peace, it's a pretty selfish Christian life. I must also seek the gifts of the Spirit, which are none of which are for me.

If God gives me the gift of prophecy, it's not for myself, it's to bless other people. If God gives me the gift of healing, it's to bless other people. If God gives me any gift, it's for others. See the example of Jesus.

It's not that one is more, one is important, the other is not. Both are required. Of course, we would say that the fruit of the Spirit is much more important than the gifts of the Spirit. Now the reason why I say that is because Jesus said, in the last days many will come, the last day many will come to me and say, Lord, we exercised all these gifts of the Spirit.

That's in Matthew chapter 7, verse 22 and 23. We cast out demons, we healed the sick, we did many miracles, we prophesied. Look at all the gifts of the Spirit we did in your name. And I will say to them, Matthew 7, verse 23, get away from me.

Paraphrase it, you didn't have the fruit of the Spirit. You lived in sin. You didn't live in love. You're always grumbling and complaining. You never had any joy in your life. It's a sin to keep on grumbling and complaining.

That's not God's will for a Christian. God's will for a Christian, Philippians 2, verse 14, is to get rid of all grumbling and complaining. Make it zero in my life. It may take time, but I've got to get to zero.

It's like asking how many, if my house is full of snakes, how many of them should I get rid of? I'd say all of them. Even if it takes time, make sure you finally get rid of all of them. All grumbling and complaining.

If I see grumbling and complaining is a snake, I don't want even one in my house. Never. I want to be completely free from it. Think of, your home will be a little bit of heaven when you eliminate these snakes of grumbling and complaining.