Setting Our Mind On God's Interests — Zac Poonen

Spiritual Formation Must Begin Early

I am primarily burdened for those who are young and born again in our midst because you have your whole life ahead of you to live for the Lord. And if you start right and are consistent, even in 10 or 15 years from now, God can do some wonderful things through you if you allow him to prepare you.

See there is no country in the world I think where they are so keen on educating their children right from a young age like India. In western countries and all they send the children to school only when they are 5 or 6 years old.

It is only in India that we send children to school when they are 2 years old because we want them to finish, go to college when they are 15 or 16 and finish a degree by the time they are 18 or so. It is amazing, nowhere in the world do people finish so early.

What is the reason? Because parents are so keen in a country where it is so difficult to get jobs, they are so keen that their children should get a good education. All of you parents are like that. I find the children of farmers and plumbers and taxi drivers are also like that.

Parents know that if we neglect our children, our children will end up living in the slums like us and they are so zealous to make sure that the children get a good job and get an early start in life.

But I don't find that same zeal when it comes to born again people in their spiritual life to start early to get to know God. Why is that? Many of you who are so eager to get your children into good jobs and good education, there is nothing against that.

We live in a country where it is difficult to get jobs, it is good to give a good education, I encourage that. In fact, right from the time CFC started, I have always encouraged all parents to get their children educated as far as possible depending on the level of their intelligence and the financial ability of their parents.

God determines that. But I wish we would show the same zeal to grow spiritually right from the very early start to pursue education, spiritual education and I wish you parents would urge your children to get spiritually educated also from a very young age instead of just leaving that to Sunday school or hoping that it will work out.

You don't allow your children to study like that, do you? I hope they will learn their ABC and I hope they learn mathematics. No. You go after them. You check how they are doing every year. How about it spiritually?

Raising Children Amid Spiritual Decline

I believe this is very, very important because there is a decline spiritually all over the world and that is predicted in the word of God, the love of many will wax cold as we approach the end and there is tremendous amount of deception.

The spirit of the world has become so much more powerful. It was much easier for me to bring up my children in 1975 and 70, 72, 75 than it is for people today 40 years later because there are so many other temptations.

So, all the more you have to be careful that you fight the battle spiritually if you don't want to lose your children permanently and you may not realize you have lost them till they have left home and then you will discover whether they are really standing for the Lord or not.

At home, you can think everything is okay because children are pretty good at fooling their parents but I am also thinking of a lot of young people. I was just checking the CFC list the other day and I discovered there are 160 unmarried young people here.

Can you imagine? Did you know there were so many? I am not talking about married couples, 160 young people here. Can you imagine what a powerful force that can be for God if every one of them and that includes all your children also who are teenagers or above.

What a tremendous power that can be for God if you can urge them. It does not conflict with their education, it does not conflict with their sports or any such thing. I believe we need to be balanced.

Man is spirit, soul and body. So it is not that we are not like sannyasis or hermits who neglect the mind and body. No. Balanced spirit, soul and body provided we recognize spirit is number one and our mind is number two and body is number three.

Don't put the mind above the spirit. That is the way to destroy your children, that is the way to destroy your life. If you place your earthly education above your spiritual education, I can prophesy today you are on the broad way that will destroy you finally.

It may take a long time before you discover that you are destroyed but it will be too late to turn back. So my duty is only to warn you, God himself does not catch us by the neck and make us go the right way.

He shows us the way like Moses told his Israelites, here is the path of life and here is the path of death. Choose this day which way you want to go. And I said in this choice our mind plays a very very important part.

Jesus' Rebuke of Peter's Human Interests

Very very important. You know the only time Jesus called one of his disciples Satan, you know that was in Matthew 16. Let me show you that place, Matthew 16 where when Peter said to Jesus, when Jesus said I've got to go to the cross, Matthew 16 21, I have to go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be killed and be raised up on the third day.

And Peter took him aside, verse 22 and said God forbid it Lord. It says he rebuked him. Can you imagine rebuking Jesus Christ? That's how bold Peter was. It shows us something of the humility of Jesus that Peter felt he could rebuke him because Jesus made himself so equal.

You know there are people you would be scared to rebuke but Jesus was not like that. He made himself so equal with his disciples they were not even scared to rebuke him. Of course it was completely wrong.

But he rebuked him saying never Lord, that is never going to happen to you. Of course he was in love, he said I'll defend you, nobody will touch you. But he didn't recognize that Jesus also said he'll be raised up on the third day.

I mean, I think we should all be ready to die if we could be raised up the third day, sure. It would be a great experience going out of the world for three days and coming back. But Peter didn't think of that.

And he didn't realize that this was necessary. And he turned around and said to Peter, verse 23, get behind me Satan. It's the only time that Jesus ever called a person directly Satan. The only time. Once he told the devil himself in the temptation, get away Satan.

But this is the only time, he never even called the Pharisees Satan. He called them vipers and generation of vipers and humbugs and all that. But Satan, the one whom he loved the most, he called Satan.

He loved all of them, but the one who betrayed him, Judas Iscariot, on the day of his betrayal, he put his arm around him and said, friend, are you betraying the Son of Man? I learned something from that.

Like the Bible says in Revelation 3, 19, those whom the Lord loves, he rebukes. And the more strongly the Lord loves us, the more strongly he rebukes us. And I would say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, when you read the scriptures, if you have not heard a rebuke from the Lord, I would say to you, you have never heard God at all.

You can imagine God is speaking to me, God is speaking to me. Tell me how many times have you heard God rebuking you? Never? Then you are imagining that you are hearing God. But those who really hear the Lord, I hear the rebukes of the Lord pretty often.

To me, that's one mark, he loves me. He doesn't want me to miss out on even a small little thing. So those whom the Lord loves, he rebukes, and the more he loves them, the more strongly he rebukes them.

Get behind me, Satan. I believe it was something like this that made the Apostle Paul feel at one time, I am the chief of sinners. Because he got so strongly rebuked and he said, boy, I can't imagine there is any sinner in the world worse than me.

Have you ever felt like that? If you really know the Lord, sometimes you will feel like that when the Lord rebukes you about something. And you wonder, Lord, I am going to CFC, but I wonder if there is a sinner who is worse than me.

So what is the reason why the Lord said to Peter, get behind me, Satan? He said to him, you are a stumbling block to me. So two questions. When do we begin to behave in a satanic way and be a stumbling block to the work of God in our life or in the church?

It says here, here is the reason. Your mind is set on man's interests, not God's interests. Here was Peter, his whole way of thinking was along human interests and not God's interests. He was thinking of human comfort and human pleasure and ease of living and all that and not God's interests.

And that is when he became a stumbling block. And you begin to think more and more like they unconsciously, even though you love Jesus just like Peter loved Jesus. You can be a stumbling block to the church.

You can be a stumbling block to God's work. And you can be a stumbling block to your own spiritual growth and to the entire work of God. And if you live close enough to Jesus, you will hear him say, get behind me Satan.

But if you don't live close enough, you may not hear that voice. That's the danger that I can have my mind set on human interests and come along to CFC regularly and never hear the Lord rebuke me. That's tragic.

Thank God that as soon as Peter began to set his mind on God's interests, the Lord came down hard on him so that he got a jolt and woke up. And you should be thankful. I want to be thankful if the Lord comes down hard on me as soon as he finds my mind a little towards my own interests.

Not after I've gone on my own interests for 10 years. And then I don't want to hear the Lord rebuke me then after I messed up my life and messed up God's work in my life and what he wants to do through me for 10 years.

I want to know it at the first step. Are you eager for that? Are you really eager? Then you'll hear something today that will help you. If you're really eager to know that as soon as your mind is moving away from the things of God and the interests of God to your own human interests, you want the Lord to rebuke you immediately.

And not with gentle words and say, oh my dear child, this is not the way. No. But with strong rebukes that make you sit up and say, Lord, am I the chief of sinners in the whole world? That type of rebuke.

If you've never felt that type of rebuke, I would say you've never heard the Lord at all. You're imagining God spoke to me and God spoke to me. I've heard thousands of believers say that. And I know it's all rubbish.

Because when I look at their life, I find they're completely set on human interests. What do you mean the Lord spoke to you? Didn't the Lord speak to you that your mind is set on human interests? It's all a deception what is happening today.

Discernment and the Renewed Mind

And because we don't allow our mind, remember the mind is what Jesus said here. Where have you set your mind? What direction is your mind thinking? And that is what determines whether we get what the Bible calls discernment.

One of the greatest needs today in the spiritual life is discernment. What is of God and what is not of God? I'm not talking about the knowledge of good and evil. Murder is evil. Thinking dirty thoughts is evil.

Speaking angry words is evil. I don't mean that's a low level. It's good. But that is a tree of knowledge of good and evil. You can go to the Sermon on the Mount, for example, and make the Sermon on the Mount a better tree of knowledge of good and evil than the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments is a tree of knowledge of good and evil. Murder is bad. Adultery is bad. You know, bearing false witness in court is bad. And not honoring your parents is bad. Idolatry is bad. That's a knowledge of good and evil.

Then you come to a more refined knowledge of good and evil which is the Sermon on the Mount. But I say lusting after women is bad. And getting angry is bad. Not loving my neighbor is bad. I've got another list of things I must avoid, and I try to carefully avoid all that, and I think I'm okay.

But if I pray and I tell other people about it, that's bad. And people do all this, and they don't have discernment. Absolutely not. You know, when I see the number of... I mean, you heard me speak about this for years.

I never get tired of speaking about it because I'm seeing the number of people who are deceived. Even in the city of Bangalore, Christians. The number of people who are deceived by television evangelists who are just collecting money from people.

And what surprises me is not what they do. What surprises me is the millions of people who sit there and don't have any discernment. Or the millions of believers who turn on their TV sets to watch this entertaining program without discernment.

And who send money to these people, which is like exactly the same as putting money down the toilet and flushing it out. Same thing. I'll tell you this. If you send money to these televangelists, it's exactly the same as putting that money in your toilet and flushing it down.

No difference. Absolutely no difference. So what I'm concerned about is this tremendous lack of discernment. And particularly among people who say they are spirit-filled. Which spirit? Speaking in tongues.

What tongues? You don't have discernment on what is right and wrong? Because the mind has not been renewed. In the new covenant, the promise of God is, turn with me in Hebrews in chapter 10. Hebrews in chapter 10.

Now many of us may have avoided all these television evangelists and sending money anywhere to them. I mean some of you may not be giving money anywhere. So you think you're free from, that's another type of deception.

But in Hebrews 10, it says here, this is the new covenant, the Lord says. Verse 16, Hebrews 10, 16. I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind, I will write them. That is the tree of life. That's different from reading in a book.

This is bad. That is good. Whether Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. It's good. I believe we should keep the Sermon on the Mount, but a lot of people can keep it mechanically. Mechanically.

I do this, they don't do this. And they don't have discernment. Whereas when God writes his law on our mind, that's a different experience altogether. And you know Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

You know that well-known statement, the first statement Jesus made in his ministry when he was speaking to the devil. And I believe that's the foundation of the Christian life. Man shall not live by bread alone, by food or by any of our earthly needs to live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

As I meditated on that, I thought, how did Jesus practice it? I mean the best way to do it is the way Jesus himself did it. When Jesus got up in the morning, he didn't have a Bible to open. Not only Jesus, but for more than a thousand years, for fourteen hundred years, when believers got up in the morning, they had no Bible in their home.

How do you listen to the word of God every morning? The man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth. Have you ever thought of receiving the word of God without a Bible?

Or just what you heard on a Sunday, but you don't have a physical Bible to read? And your whole life you've never read the Bible, but you've only heard the sermons and the meetings? Imagine, supposing I've often thought about that, supposing we were a first century church.

A first century church would be, say, 20 -30 people meeting in a house. Nobody has a Bible. Even the preacher doesn't have a Bible. Imagine having a meeting like that. I really believe we could have some spiritual meetings.

I'm not saying that you try it, because we are not at that level of maturity. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, if you want to do it, first of all. Otherwise, it will be just cleverness. But I can imagine a Spirit-filled group of 20 -30 people in the first century, a really powerful church meeting together in the first century, who had heard the apostles now and then, and had received the word of God.

The Holy Spirit had been keeping on instructing them. And they come together for a meeting. Nobody has a Bible. And one person gets up and shares. He can't quote exactly. There's no chapter, reference, and even the quotation may not be exactly the same.

You find, for example, even in the New Testament, some of the quotations are not exactly like in the Old Testament. So sometimes we are particular, it must be quoted exactly, and we say, see, this word, what does it say, and all that.

It's all intellectual stuff. It's good to see it. But if that becomes the major part of some of you who preach, that is your message. You haven't understood what it is to live by the word of God. To have your mind open to what God is saying.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. See, to have God's law written on our mind is very different from studying and memorizing Scripture. Memorizing Scripture is very good. But there's a lot of difference between that and God writing his law on our mind.

I can have Scripture in my memory, which is different from God writing on my mind. Let me say that again. Scripture in your memory is not the same as God writing his law in your mind. Because when God writes his law in your mind, it changes your way of life.

Whereas there are people who can quote Scriptures like anything, who know so many Scriptures, who still love money, who still lust after women, and still get angry, and still tell lies. There's a lot of difference between memory and mind.

Remember that. It's good to have Scripture in your memory. Because Jesus quoted Scripture from memory when he said, Man shall not live by bread alone. But to live by the word of God, what the Lord told Peter was, as long as your mind is set on your own interests, not God's interests, and as long as your mind is set on your interests, let me tell you in Jesus' name, you will never get discernment.

No matter how many times you come to CFC, even if you've been here for 30 years, you will never get discernment. Discernment doesn't come by study. Discernment does not come by understanding the truth.

It is by having your mind set on God's interests. And that is what it means for God to write his law in our mind. I can't do it. My nature from birth is to seek my own interests. Every child is like that.

You put two children together with toys, and each child will grab the best toy for themselves, or the best food for themselves. We are born like that. As we grow up, we get a little more civilized, but it doesn't make us stop seeking our own interests.

We say the important thing is not toys and food. The important thing is to make a lot of money in the world and get on. Our mind is set on our own interests in very subtle ways. But at the same time, we want to appear spiritual.

I want to ask you, my brothers and sisters, to ask God to give you an honest evaluation of your true condition. Not your Bible knowledge, which is memory. Forget that. But your mind. Is your mind set?

Set means it's fixed. It's like these pillars. You can't shake them. I want my mind to be set like that. On God's interests. And nothing of my own interests. I'll tell you this, from the little experience I have of more than 50 years, that if you do that, God will take care of your interests.

And He'll do it much better than you can do it yourself. You don't lose out by seeking God's interests. Not at all. The rich ruler whom Jesus said, Go and sell everything that you have and come and follow me.

Come and follow me. Same words he said to them were what he said to Peter. He told Peter also, Go and get rid of your fishing net and come and follow me. Peter said, sure. Jesus told the rich young ruler, Go and give up what you have and come and follow me.

He said, no. That man could have been like Peter. Look what he missed out. And wherever he is today, go and ask him today whether he regrets his decision. Go and ask all the people who have left this earth, those who have gone to hell and even those who have gone to heaven, if they don't regret the times in their life when God told them to set their mind on God's interests and they thought, no, no, no, unless I seek my own interests, who will take care of me and my family?

And that was the decision which ruined them. I hope we have people here in CFC who are not just wanting to go to heaven when you die. I think a person who wants to become a Christian only to go to heaven when he dies is one of the most selfish Christians you can think of.

It's like a child in a home. Think of a father who is maybe a labourer, working hard day and night, going early morning, carrying bricks and doing everything to educate his children. And all that, the mother goes to work and they work hard and think of a child there who enjoys all that and has no sense of gratitude to make life easier for his parents, but only wants to think of himself and complains when his father can't buy this or that for him.

That's how a lot of Christians are. After all that the Lord has done for them on the cross, they can only think of, will I go to heaven when I die? I'll tell you this honestly, you are totally unfit to be in CFC.

Totally, 100 unfit to be in this church if your only aim in the Christian life is to go to heaven when you die. I'm not interested in gathering a single person who wants to go to heaven when he dies.

I told the Lord that. Lord, I will not go anywhere to get people to heaven when they die. Those evangelists who want to do that can do it. I will not do it. Because I don't think you came here to do it.

You came here to make disciples. He gathered people who were disciples. There were lots of people who wanted to go to heaven when they die in Jesus' time. He didn't call them. He drove them away. He said, you got to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

Otherwise, you don't have any life in you. Don't you think those people wanted to go to heaven? Of course. But he drove them away. Jesus had a tremendous ministry of driving away people who only wanted to go to heaven when they die.

And I want to have that ministry too. To offend them, drive them away, get them offended. And even if they sit in CFC, to be perpetually disturbed by hearing the message. Jesus is only calling disciples.

He said, go into the world and make disciples of all nations. And that's what we are doing in India. And a disciple is one who is not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But who wants to look at the footsteps of Jesus and follow him.

Who wants to have the same mind that Jesus had. And Jesus' mind was not always set on how to make more money, how to make more money, how to be more famous, how to have a little more pleasure. No. See, the mind of the average person on earth is set on money, pleasure, which is usually sex and food and sleep, and honor.

These are usually three things. It's pretty simple. All as we grow up, I mean, from as we grow up, our mind becomes more and more like that. Particularly when you start working. Now there's nothing wrong in earning more money, let me tell you that.

When the cost of living goes up, it's good to look for a good job. And that's another thing I always taught people. If you have two jobs, choose the one with the better salary. Provided you don't lose out spiritually.

There's no virtue in choosing a cheap job. No. Unless you're going to lose out spiritually in some way. You know, you go to some place where there's no fellowship and you lose out altogether. But otherwise, I always say, earn the highest salary possible, get the best education possible by all means.

But don't let that be primary. Let that be as important as the fact that you got to wear some clothes. Sure. And so I'm not saying that, but if our mind is set on that, and you know when it is, particularly if you have more than enough for your family's needs, and you still want to make more and more and more, and you want to neglect your children and send your wife to work, not because you're trying to survive, but because you want more and more and more, you know where your mind is set.

Rejecting Worldly Conformity

Or the other thing is pleasure. A lot of people, their mind is set on pleasure. In the world, it's like that. The Bible says, don't be conformed to this world in your mind. What does that mean? Turn with me to Romans 12.

In Romans, in chapter 12, we read, Romans 12, I've always said, the equivalent of paying the tithe under the old covenant is Romans 12, 1 and 2 in the new covenant. In the old covenant, it was, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your tithe, 10 of your flock, 10 of your grain to God.

That's old covenant. And the vast majority, more than 95 of Christian pastors and preachers and churches are preaching that. I urge you, brothers and sisters, pay your tithe, and over your tithe, your offerings.

You know the meaning of tithes and offerings? Tithes is 10%, offerings is above that. This is the deception going on, leading people back to the old covenant, and the result is, they live in the old covenant, defeated by sin.

But in the new covenant, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, not tithes and offerings, but your body and your mind. Offer to God your body and your mind. That is the equivalent of tithes and offerings in the Old Testament.

Never forget that. Present your body, a living sacrifice to God, because God's not interested in your tithes and offerings. He owns the whole world. He made them do that in the Old Testament, first of all, to free them from the love of money, and also to make them pay the Levites who were not doing any work, because they had to look after the temple.

There's no temple today, so there are no Levites. But present your body, a living and a holy sacrifice, that's number one, and then don't be conformed to this world in your mind, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So that's the second thing. So what the Old Testament were very particular about giving that tithe, I have to be very particular that I've given every part of my body to God, and that my mind is not conformed means shaped.

You know, like when people make a mold of something, to make some piece of shape of something, they make a mold and pour the hot liquid into it, and it comes out in that shape. So that's a very common thing in factories.

They make a mold and then you want something in that shape, that's how they make it, statues and all that. So here it says the world has got a mold, and it's always trying to pour you into that mold and you come out that shape.

What is that? You begin to think like them, in relation to money, in relation to sex, in relation to sleep, and in relation to honor and position. It's a particular shape the world has in the mind. It says don't let the world squeeze you into that mold, is what one paraphrase says of this verse.

So the only way to avoid that, because we live in a world where everybody, you go to the office and everybody's talking that language, of that mold, everybody, and you have to inwardly resist it, resist it, resist it, otherwise you'll unknowingly begin to accept some of that.

It's very easy, you know. You live in the midst of people who are always using foul language, unconsciously you may use it. You live in the midst of people who have always got one set of values, one set of values, and every day you go to work, they're talking about that, talking about that, talking about that, and you get that, whether it's in the area of money or sex or honor.

What are the people in your office seeking for? All your fellow workers. Money, sex, higher position and honor. There is a way in which God wants us to earn that. He wants us to earn an honest living, earn our money that way by never telling a lie, never cheating anyone.

Yeah, it's very, very important that we don't follow the world in any of these areas that we, for example, don't give a false statement about, there's a thing called leave travel concession. I remember in the Navy also, they used to give us when you travel somewhere on duty, you could always give a report on your leave travel concession and you could always, a lot of people tell lies on that, make a lot of money for themselves, which is unrighteous.

Or, you know, there's the black money there is when selling and buying houses. There are people in CFC doing that, I know it. They can conceal it. From whom? From me. I'm not God. Who are you concealing it from?

Do you think you won't have to answer to God in the final day for that? You think just because you've cheated the tax authorities, God has also been fooled? I tell you, every single paisa you cheated somebody off, you will answer to God in the day of judgment.

You better settle it before you leave this earth. I mean, you won't hear such messages everywhere else because the pastors themselves are doing it in other places. But you'll hear it here. If you don't want to hear it, find another church where you can sit comfortably and go to hell.

But here, we will not allow you to do that. This mindset on money, do unrighteous things. It doesn't matter. Nobody sees. Everybody does it. Everybody does it. Well, everybody's going to hell. You want to go there too?

So this business of everybody does it is no excuse. Be careful. Don't let the world squeeze you into that mold. We've got to resist it. We've got to resist it. We've got to teach our children when they go to school and learn all the filthy stuff from their friends.

We've got to cleanse that when they come home. If you don't do that, you'll be polluted. I remember when my children were in school, and this is long ago when it was not so bad. Every day when they came home, my wife would ask them, what happened today?

Go through their whole day with school with them to make sure that they didn't get polluted, that they didn't learn bad habits and bad words. Do you do that with your children? Do you know that they're acquiring bad words?

I remember once when one of my little boys came and used a word and he didn't even know what it meant. I said, do you know what that word means? He said, no dad, somebody in school used it. I said, I'm not going to explain to you what it means, but I never want to hear that word again.

It's evil. It's unchristian. That's all you need to know. But if we don't check up on our children, they will develop and you'll be responsible. Fathers, bring up your children in the instruction of the Lord, and that's part of it.

And we live in a world where they're acquiring all types of wrong values, wrong attitudes to the opposite sex, when they are in fourth, fifth standard. Can you imagine? And who's there to correct them?

I hope you are. Are you raising another generation to follow Jesus? Like you're following the Lord? Or is the next generation going to lose out because you were not strict? I hope you are. And I hope your mothers are.

Because I say mothers because the fathers are at work, and the children come home from work. Who's going to take time with them to check what happened that day in school? Do you check their bags to see what books they brought back?

I used to check my children's bags when they came home. When? This is 40 years ago. What sort of books did they bring back from school today? Somebody may have given them some book. There are worse books today.

And in those days, I would check if there was anything in their bag which they didn't take from home to school today. And if you're not strict as a father and mother with your children, I can tell you they will go astray.

Because the tendency of nature, you know in the world, in a field, you look at a field today, the tendency of nature is not towards a garden, but towards a wilderness. That field will not naturally become a garden, beautiful garden, it's a wilderness.