Seeking Only Jesus in Heaven and on Earth — Zac Poonen

Remaining Steadfast in the Work of the Lord

I hope you all read your Bibles every day last week. After the emphasis we placed on it. If you didn't, don't get discouraged. Do it this week. I'll tell you, you will thank me in eternity and even before eternity you'll thank me in your life on earth for this little exhortation to read your Bible every day and ask God to speak to you.

It's changed my life. I want to read, begin with a verse in 1 Corinthians 15 and the last verse. It says here, Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Now here, Paul is not writing to some great saints. Whenever you read in the New Testament, ask yourself to whom is he writing? Sometimes he's writing of Timothy or Titus, Christian workers. But in 1 Corinthians he's writing to a whole lot of believers who are carnal, who are babies, who have not grown spiritually, who have quarrels among them, that they're taking each other to court, where there's been adultery in their church and the man has not been judged.

Well, don't you feel you're better than that? And even to such a church and people whose spiritual life is much lower than yours, the word of the Lord is, be immovable, unshakable, steadfast. So I want to ask you, is your Christian life an unshakable one?

The devil cannot shake it and human beings cannot shake it. Is your marriage an unshakable one? That is God's will for you. Nothing should shake you. And that is the reason why God gives us the Holy Spirit and pours his grace upon us.

Building a Firm Foundation Through Repentance and Faith

So in order to come to this life, it's not very difficult. If you start well, in other words, if you lay a good foundation and take time to lay a good foundation and don't move forward till you're sure of this foundation.

In my own life, it took me about six years, approximately, to lay a good foundation. I think I must have first consciously received Christ into my heart when I was 13. Now, I could have received Christ into my heart when I was three years old.

There are a lot of people who have this crazy idea that you must not preach the gospel to little children. That's the surest way to ensure that they die and go to hell. We must share the gospel because Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like little children.

They are much closer to the kingdom than the grown-up people. Who gave this crazy crazy idea that really grown-up people can understand the gospel? I'll tell you the testimony I'll never forget of a 85 year old missionary lady from Norway who came to our church in Bangalore, a good friend of ours, and she testified publicly something I've never forgotten.

That when she was three years old, and remember this is an 85 year old godly lady saying she accepted Christ, and she proved it for the next 82 years, and she said when she was five years old in Norway, she heard a missionary from China, a godly woman, speak about the need in China, and she felt a call of God in her heart at the age of five to go to China.

Does God speak to children who are five years old to be missionaries? Well, when I look at her life, she did it, and China was closed by the time she grew up to be old enough to go to the missionary field, so she went to Japan, but she was determined to go to China, and somehow or the other God opened the door, and they flooded China with Bibles in Chinese, she and her husband, and then came to Sri Lanka and started a missionary work there, and then came to Bangalore, and they were the ones who published a lot of our books.

He came and told me, he said to me once, the message you're preaching, he had been listening to our message in our local church, CFC in Bangalore, he said this message should not be in this little church building alone.

It's got to go around the world. He said, I've got a printing press in Sri Lanka. You just type out these messages, and I'll print it, and it's amazing how God had a plan in all these things. You see, until then, I had been, the first six books I wrote, I'd all, I'd done it typing, because I had no computers those days, and the problem with typing is, first of all, I did not know how to type, so I, my typing was the biblical method, search and you shall find.

So I searched, and I found with two fingers, and that took ages to type, and my fingers are all numb by the time I finished one book, and then I had to correct it with a pen, and before giving it to the printer, I had to type it again, so I had to go back searching for the letters and typing, and that's how I wrote my first six books.

Well, I want to say it took, it took a long time, working on it day and night for months, but God honored all that labor, because those books have gone out in millions around the world and blessed many people, so I'm very thankful that I put in that labor.

I want to tell you, your labor will never be in vain in the Lord. That's what it says in this verse, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing one thing, that all your work will never be wasted in the Lord.

Well, I told this brother, I said, I'm tired of this typing. I mean, I did it in the days when we didn't have a local church, I had a lot of free time, but I said, now we've started a local church, I don't have time to type books.

I've got so many people to shepherd, and I've got to preach, and we are also reaching out to other places. So he said to me, I'll lend you my portable computer. And it's one of those early portable computers, a huge thing.

And I said, Okay, I'll borrow it and try and type one book on it. Because the advantage for the first time I discovered that if I made a mistake, it could be corrected. And you could finish the whole book and correct the whole thing.

And you didn't have to type it out again, just correct a few words. It was all new to me at that time. This is going back to the mine in 1980 or so, around 1980. And then I remember trying typing out this book, A Good Foundation was the first one, which Santosh just showed you.

And I was writing the first chapter on repentance. And I was just typing the first page and it got stuck. And the page hung. I didn't know what to do about it then. So I had to fortunately, because it was a portable laptop, it didn't, you didn't have to shut it off, you just close the lid.

And I took it to this brother who was living nearby. And I said, What do I do now? And he opened it, he said, Oh, the computer is hung. So I didn't know what that meant. Anyway, he said, You got to start all over again.

I said, Dear me, I thought that was only with, with typewriter, it can happen in a computer too. I said, Okay. So I took it back. And I just start typing that chapter on repentance all over again. And I go, I got so mad at the devil, that I said, I'm going to write that chapter much harder than I wrote it the first time, make repentance really serious.

So I see even in that there was something good. God always makes, makes it work for our good. And I'm very thankful. Subsequently, all the nearly 24 books I wrote after that, I could do much more easily with the computer.

I want to encourage you, my brothers, always be abounding in the work of the Lord. So as I said, when I was 13, I think I first accepted Christ into my heart as a little boy going to Sunday school and hearing the gospel.

And I would go to some meeting, my dad was a believer, and he would take us to meetings where we'd hear the gospel. We had even sometimes preachers staying in our home, God fearing men. And I never was sure because I never saw any change in my life.

And then when I was 15, I joined the military academy, just like the West Point here. And there it was hardly no, no opportunity to go to church, full of worldly people all around. But somehow God preserved me in those three years there and in the year and a half on a ship that I was there.

And then I moved to a naval base in the south of India. And I still had the habit, I was 19 and a half by then. And I still had the habit of reading the Bible every day and saying the Lord's Prayer, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, just repeat it.

And that day, I've said this before, and I want to say it for the benefit of those young people here, especially, who probably haven't heard it. I used to read through the New Testament. And that particular day, I remember in July 1959, I was reading John chapter 6.

And as I read through it, I came to this verse in the middle of verse 37. And any of you who are not sure of your salvation, please listen to this carefully. This verse is for you. The one who comes to me, I will certainly, certainly not cast out.

Now, you know, you can read that and nothing can happen to you. But when I read it, it was like a suddenly a light came up in my heart. I said, really? And I spoke to the Lord and I said, Lord, I've come to you at least 100 times or maybe more.

He said, I never caught you out. So I don't know when exactly the Lord took me as his child. But that day, I remember I was sure. And it's like a ship, you know, it's a ship drops an anchor so that it doesn't drift anymore.

I dropped this anchor on that verse that day. The word of the Lord, heaven and earth will pass away, this word will not pass away. If you come to Jesus, he will not reject you. You may one day decide to reject him.

That's another question. But he will never divorce you. He hates divorce. And if he's married to you, he will not divorce you. He will not cast you out. Please remember this, all you young children. Well, that was more than 63 years ago, and I've never, never doubted it.

I've not been perfect. I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life since then, but I never doubted one thing that Jesus accepted me and forgave me. It's a wonderful thing to have the assurance of salvation early in life.

If I did not have that, I think I would not have grown spiritually. I find so many believers who have accepted Christ, but they are never sure. You must be 100 sure, just like you're sure that you're alive.

If I were to ask you, are you alive or dead? You'd say, I'm alive. Are you perfectly healthy? That's another question. You may not be perfectly healthy. You may have many weaknesses and sicknesses and problems.

But are you alive? Yes. Distinguish between being alive and being healthy or being strong. Some of you may be weak, weak in your mind, weak in your body. That's okay, but you're alive. You look at another person who's very muscular and strong and intelligent.

He's also alive, but you're also alive. You may not be as clever as him. You may not be as strong as him, but you're alive. So when you look at other believers who are spiritually more powerful and strong and capable, look at them just like you would look at someone who's physically stronger than you.

But you're also alive. Don't doubt you're being born again. It's very, very important if you have sincerely, as I've told you, repentance and faith, if you have sincerely, to the best of your knowledge, turned from what you know to be sin, not from all sin.

I don't think any of us, including me, know what all sin is. There may be things in our life that are still we don't know, are displeasing to God. But known sin, I always speak about known sin. God does not hold you responsible for what you don't know.

Growing Without Judging Other Believers

I'm going to speak very simply today so that everyone understands. When you're in the kindergarten, the teacher does not expect you to know what is in the sixth grade. That'll take you six, seven years to get there.

You only need to know what you were taught in the kindergarten. So there are a lot of things you may not know in the Christian life. It doesn't matter. Do you know what you know to be sin? That's all you've got to get rid of.

A person who's older than you will know more about sin, just like a person in the sixth grade will know more than someone in the third grade or the kindergarten. But what you know to be sin, in the kindergarten, you're examined only in the area which you're taught in the kindergarten.

When you go to a higher grade, you'll be expected to know more. It's the same in the Christian life. What you know to be sin, you must avoid. What you don't know, wait, God will show you next year, maybe two years from now.

That's important for husband-wife relationship also. I've often said, dear brother, don't assume that your wife knows what is sin just like you do. Maybe you're in a higher grade than her. So don't judge her if she does not see something as sin.

She may not be in that grade yet. The same way your wives don't judge your husbands if he does not see something as sinful. Maybe you're in a higher grade as a wife. That's also possible. So don't judge each other.

And that's why we should not judge each other even in the church with one another. You can look at a believer and say, why doesn't he see this as sin? I see it so clearly. Brother, you may be in a higher grade.

Thank God if you're in a higher grade. But don't look down on that other brother or sister who's in a lower grade and does not see it as sin and does something which you will never do because you're in a higher grade.

If only you understand this simple principle, you will stop judging. I wish somebody had told me this the day I was born again. But as I've often said, I never had a spiritual father. Unfortunately, God never allowed me to have that.

I looked around, but I could never find someone who the only man I respected in India was a godly man who I rarely saw. He was living somewhere else. But in the church I attended near the naval base, there was nobody who I could look up to as a spiritual father.

They all would preach on Sunday morning, but they were not spiritual. So it's a good thing you know this. It will prevent you from this terrible habit that a lot of Christians have at looking at others and judging them.

Even if you don't openly say it, you judge that person in your mind, you're destroying yourself. Let me tell you that again. You judge somebody in your mind, you've begun the process of self-destruction.

Get rid of it. You see that person doing something wrong, assume the best. What is assuming the best? That person is not in my spiritual level. He's in a lower level than me. And so he or she does not see that as sin.

That child is in the kindergarten. He does not understand multiplication. So don't blame him if he got two into two wrong. He hasn't learned it. We understand that in school. No student would ever despise someone in a lower class.

But Christians have this terrible habit of not recognizing that others could be in a lower class. They assume that everybody must be in my class. Why should they be? Maybe you've grown quickly. Maybe you got some double promotions in your Christian life.

But that person is a little slower. I say this because I believe spiritual progress is hindered in the lives of many believers. Because instead of judging themselves, they judge other people. If you can get rid of this one habit of judging others, you'll make a lot more progress in the next one year than you've done in the last so many years.

I'm telling you that from my own example. And I'm almost certain that the devil will make you forget this within a week or two. Because he knows you'll progress and the devil doesn't want it. Please determine that you are going to stop judging other people from today.

And you're going to judge only yourself. You'll make a lot more progress in your life. So one of the good things that happened to me at that time was because I took a long, long time, five, six years to really come to an assurance of salvation, my conversion was solid.

You know, the foundation became solid. And even in the ups and downs later on in my Christian life, that foundation never shook. And not only that, my commitment to the Lord was total. You know, some people when they give themselves to Christ, they give themselves to Christ in order to go to heaven.

Seeking Jesus Rather Than Heaven's Benefits

That's a very weak foundation. I'll tell you that. Okay, if nothing better than that, at least come to Christ in order to go to heaven. But that's the lowest level. It's like going to a school where the education is very poor.

How many of you would send your children to a school where the teachers are not serious about educating their children? That's a condition of a Christian who wants to come to Christ only to go to heaven.

I want to go to heaven when I die. That's the lowest, cheapest school you can ever go to. The Bible says we love him because he first loved us. And I'm thankful that when I finally came to Christ, I did not come to Christ to go to heaven.

I'm very thankful for that. I loved him because he first loved me. And I wrote a number of things in the first page of my Bible. I drew a little heart inside. I wrote Lord Jesus Christ and Zach Poonen.

And I wrote Psalm 7325. Know what Psalm 7325 is? Wonderful verse. If you don't know it, please remember it all your life. Because this is the verse I started my life with. My Christian life started with this verse.

And I'm thankful that I didn't take 10 or 20 years to come to this verse. I got it almost as soon as I was converted. Whom have I in heaven but you? Number one. That is, I'm not going to heaven to look for the mansions or the golden streets or the comfort and freedom from sickness and freedom from enemies.

No! I'm going to heaven only to be with Jesus. There began this desire in my heart to just be with Jesus and to know the love of Jesus. Not the comfort of a Christian life or the comfort of heaven. No!

I want to ask you who say you've accepted Christ. Have you accepted Christ in order to just be with Jesus with nothing else? Do you want to be a preacher? Do you want to be famous in the church? Or do you want to be famous?

Or do you want some prosperity? Do you want to become a Christian because you want to get some answers to prayer? Or will you come to Jesus today and say, Lord, I only want you. Whom have I in heaven but you?

When I go to heaven, it's not the things in heaven I look for. And not only that, on earth, leave alone heaven, right now on earth, I desire nothing but you. I want to ask you who are born again, can you honestly say that to Jesus Christ now in all your life?

Lord, I desire nothing on earth but you. If I have a need, I'll ask you. And if you want to give it to me, give it. If you don't want to give it to me, that's also okay because I desire only you. So I wrote another thing in the front of my Bible.

This verse, whom have I in but you, in heaven desire nothing but you. And I wrote, Lord, I want nothing for myself. I wrote that in the front of my Bible. And I meant it. And I say that today. And I've tried to say that all these 63 years.

Lord, I want nothing, repeat, nothing for myself. If you give me something, I'll accept it. But I will not demand it because I desire nothing on earth apart from you. So meditate on Psalm 73 25. I'm telling you my testimony.

It changed my life because I started my Christian life with this verse. So my commitment was total. And almost from the very beginning, I said, Lord, my, till then my profession in the Navy to become an admiral in the Navy was my goal.

It all disappeared. I do not desire that anymore. And I want to ask all of you who are born again Christians, do you have some ambition on earth outside of the will of God? There's nothing wrong in advancing in your profession.

There are many godly Christian businessmen who excelled in their business. Many godly professors have excelled in as a professors and many godly people who have excelled in many, many fields and as athletes and sports.

But it's all secondary. Are you satisfied with Jesus alone? Supposing you never become very rich and you remain poor all your life, will you be happy? I desire nothing but you. I say this, I emphasize this because for many people, they want to grow in their Christian life, but they don't want to begin here.

Well, I'll tell you, you will not grow in the Christian life if you don't begin here. You'll always have some ambition outside of Christ, and then you'll be frustrated. And some prayer is not got answered and you'll be disappointed.

I'm never disappointed if God doesn't give me what I asked for. There's so many things I asked, God never gave me. I said, fine. I said, I only want, I told you right at the beginning, I only want you.

Anything apart from that, okay. If you give me well and good, if you don't give me, that's fine. So I say this because I'm concerned that it could be possible and I think it is possible that a number of people sitting here, this is not your desire.

I believe that. I don't know your private life, but I know the average Christian. And I've met thousands of Christians in many countries around the world. And I've seen there are very, very few Christians who are like this, but these are the most satisfied Christians of all.

Yeah, I tell you, these are the people whose lives accomplished something for God on the earth. And you don't have to go to a Bible school. I thank God with all my heart that God never allowed me to spend one minute inside any Bible school.

I would have ruined my life. I used to think of Jesus walking down to the road to Emmaus and with two disciples. And as he went along, it says in Luke 24 that he opened up the scriptures all the way from Genesis to Malachi.

That's what it says, Genesis to Malachi. He opened up the scriptures to them, Luke 24 and verse 27. Moses and all the prophets means Genesis to Malachi. If they had a physical Bible, Jesus would have opened the Bible and pointed it out.

Today we have a physical Bible and I said, Lord, this is what I prayed. Lord Jesus, it says in Hebrews 13 verse 7 and 8, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. Do you believe that? That Jesus Christ is the same as he was on the earth yesterday, today and for all eternity.

And I said, Lord, if that is true, and it is true, like you walked with those two disciples to Emmaus and opened the Bible and explained to them, showed them Jesus in every page of the Bible. I said, Lord Jesus, show me yourself as I read the New Testament.

And he's done that. And the wonderful thing is when you see Jesus and you want that, the Holy Spirit will gradually make you like him. He'll make you humble like him, which is the most important thing we all have to learn.

Cleansing the Heart and Seeing Jesus in Scripture

We have a lot more pride in us than we realize. We may all think we are pretty humble, but that's because you don't know yourself. If you know yourself, you'll acknowledge there's a lot more pride in you than you see.

There's corruption. There's corruption in our body, there's corruption in our spirit, and we need to be cleansed. The Bible says, let us cleanse ourselves, 2 Corinthians 7 .1, from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit.

Cleanse ourselves. That's why you go to the shower to cleanse yourself. That's why you go to the toilet to get rid of rubbish from your body. Now, if you can do that for the body, what is outside and inside, why can't you do it for your spirit?

Cleanse yourself from all the filthiness of the flesh and the spirit. Get rid of it just like you get rid of the garbage in your house, like the garbage bin in your kitchen. Don't you throw it out? Don't you keep on accumulating that or throw it out?

Throw it out. And I want to tell you in Jesus' name, there's a lot of garbage inside you. Ask God to show it to you so that you throw it out as soon as, don't let it accumulate, it becomes a big bin. As soon as you see one thing, throw it out.

Don't accumulate it like you do in your kitchen bin. As soon as you see one bit of garbage, throw it out, throw it out. I don't want any garbage to remain in my spirit even for a moment. That's the meaning of keep a good conscience.

Throw the garbage out immediately. Don't wait till the end of the day. Wait till the end of the day is for weak believers, those who are not wholehearted. To them, I say, oh, at least at the end of the day, settle matters with God.

Some people don't even do that. Forgive everybody. If you don't forgive anyone, that is a garbage. Throw it out. Don't wait till the end of the day. Throw it out immediately. And Jesus opened up the scriptures and explained everything concerning himself.

They saw Jesus in the scriptures. And I said, Lord, I want to see Jesus in the scriptures. That's the other thing I want to encourage you. Study the scriptures, not to prepare a message. Please, please, no.

In my foolishness, in my younger days, I did that. That's because again, as I say, I didn't have a spiritual father to tell me that don't study the scriptures to prepare a message. Study the scriptures to see Jesus.

And I thank God that now I study the scriptures to see Jesus. And then when there's a need for a message, the Lord will give it to me. He'll give it to you. I'm not saying you shouldn't study the scriptures to prepare a message in your younger days.

Okay. But one advice I give to you is, if you're ever asked to share a word anywhere in a small meeting or in a church, don't speak beyond your experience. I've seen that hundreds of believers do that.

And it's so obvious that it stinks in God's eyes. It stinks with me too. It's obvious this chap is speaking way beyond his experience. He read that somewhere. And he thought it'd be very impressive to impress everyone with this clever thought, which everybody thinks he got it himself.

He didn't get it himself. He heard it on some paper on YouTube or something that blessed him and he wants to share it as though it is his own clever thought to let everybody get a good impression about him.

Garbage! It's that pride that prevents God from giving you grace. Why not humble yourself and say, I'm only in the first grade, dear brothers and sisters. I cannot teach you anything more than what I've learned in the first grade.

That man will grow spiritually. He'll go to the second grade one day. He'll be able to share something more. He'll go to the third grade, be able to share something more. But the man who's in the kindergarten and wants to act as if he's in the seventh grade or eighth grade, he will never grow.

God will judge him for his hypocrisy and his pretense. I want to advise all of you, brothers or sisters, whenever you're asked to share God's word anywhere, please, please, please share according to the message of your life, not according to the message of your knowledge.

If you want to share beyond your life, be honest and say, there's something more I'd like to say, but I have not experienced it yet, but I'm pressing on in this area. I'd like you to join with me in that area too.

If you really want to grow spiritually, do that. Again, I wish I had a spiritual father who told me that when I was born again. I learned it after a long time. I spoke a lot of stupid messages before that, beyond my ability, but I learned.

I learned the hard way. I sometimes ask the Lord, Lord, why did you allow me to go 16 and a half years through the streets of Babylon before you brought me to spiritual Jerusalem and filled me with the Holy Spirit?

Everybody doesn't have to go that way, but because the Lord had a special calling for me to build his church in different places, that's why the Lord showed me I had to take you through all the streets of Babylon and to show you what Babylon is like, because then you can expose it to other people.

Only then you'll be able to build the true Jerusalem, but other people don't have to go that way. They don't have my calling. My calling is different from yours. Your calling is very important according to what God has called you for.

Serving According to God's Calling

Don't try to be somebody else. Don't try to imitate others. You know, the number of elders in our CFC churches in Bangalore and in India, one of the main exhortations I have given to them is, please don't try to imitate me.

Don't try to imitate my ministry. You have a special ministry of your own. Imagine if the hand tried to imitate the tongue. Whoever it'll, it won't even do the job of the hand. It'll never be able to speak.

That's as stupid as that, if you try to imitate somebody else's ministry. Imitate a person's life. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. But he said, don't try to be an apostle like me. You'll never be.

Don't try to write scripture like me, Paul says. You'll never be. But follow me as I follow Christ in my life. So it's very important. So, you know, I thought of that song we just sang, Jesus Savior, Wonderful Savior.

I wrote that 60 years ago. Whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom have I in heaven? But based on this verse, which we read in Psalm 73, it came from my heart. I heard that tune, that melody I heard somewhere on the radio.

Those days it was only radio. And I heard this melody somewhere and said, boy, I want to put some words to it. And those are the words the Lord gave me 60 years ago in 1963. And it's blessed my heart.

I'm waiting for that morning when thy glorious face I see. Till then let the world despise me. Savior, I will walk with thee. I really felt that way back. And I had only been converted two years after I took baptism.

I was just 23 years old. But I was gripped with following Jesus because my Christian life was not in order to go to heaven. I was gripped by the fact that Jesus loved me and gave himself totally for me, gave up everything of heaven in order to come to earth to save me.

And I said, Lord, I'll give up everything of earth to follow you. If your conversion to Christ is like that, I want to tell you, you'll have a very satisfying Christian life. And I want every one of you to have a very satisfying Christian life.

And as I told you, one of the things is John 6, 37, to be absolutely sure that Christ has accepted you. Please be sure today if you're not sure till now. The Lord led me on from there to be sure of another thing.

Justification by Faith and Acceptance in Christ

And that is in Romans 5 and verse 1. Here's another thing which is not possible in the Old Testament. To be justified by faith. Do you know what that means? It's important. You've accepted Christ. Christ has come into your heart.

Justified means just as if I'd always been righteous. To be declared righteous by God when I'm not fully righteous. None of us are fully righteous. I'm not fully righteous. To be fully righteous is to say I'm 100 like Jesus Christ.

I'm not 100 like Jesus Christ. I've grown a lot in the last 63 years. But I'm not 100 like Christ yet. But God looks at me as if I'm 100 like Christ. That's the meaning of justify. Now that shouldn't make you proud.

It should make us deeply humble when we see the numerous things that are wrong in our life. And I say, Father, you look at me as if because I'm in Christ. You know what is the reason why we pray in Jesus name?

For many people it's just a empty ritual. Oh, we pray in Jesus name. Let me explain to you what it means. Never forget it. We're saying, Father, I cannot come to you in my name because there are so many things in me that are wrong and you are holy.

I cannot come in my name. I'll get nothing from you. I'll be thrown out of your presence if I come in my name, even though I've sincerely said I want nothing in heaven but you and I desire nothing on earth but you.

I've said that still. I'm not good enough to come to you because I'm not 100 like Christ. Do you know that the only person who can come to God the Father is someone who's 100 like Christ? Who can come?

Not you or not me. Because he's holy. Not one sin, we don't understand this, not one sin can come into the presence of God the Father. How in the world can you and I appear before him? You've got to be very arrogant to think you can.

That's why he has to justify us. That means clothe us in the righteousness of Christ. Christ becomes our righteousness and we are accepted in Christ. Christ is our righteousness. That is the meaning of praying, Father, I pray this in Jesus name.

I'm coming in name. I'm not coming in my own name because you will not accept me. I'm coming clothed with Christ as my righteousness. That's the meaning of justified and therefore when we come before Christ like that, there is no difference between you who was converted yesterday and me who was converted 63 years ago.