(Spirit-Filled Life) Part 7: Humility and a Good Conscience — Zac Poonen

Faith in God's Unchanging Love

So, we've come to our last session and faith, I've tried to think about some definitions of faith which I myself have tried to understand from scripture in general. One of the things, one of my definitions of faith anyway is to believe that God loves me just as I am.

He doesn't wait for me to change before he loves me. He loves me when I've fallen, he loves me, he's disappointed when I let him down, but he doesn't stop loving me. He's always on my side against the devil.

And that applies to you too. If you can believe that God loves you as you are, he wants you to change because he sees that the way you're living, you're going to have a lot of regrets in eternity. If you value earthly things more than God, you may not see your loss now, but one day you will.

And when you see it, you'll regret. It's something like, you know, when we tell our children to take their education seriously, say they're in 3rd or 4th grade or anything and they just play the fool and don't take their, and they keep failing and they're never able to understand something and they think it's not serious.

Well, parents are disappointed. Or even you tell them to eat food that's good for them. They don't eat. You're disappointed. You're not angry, but you're disappointed. I don't believe God's angry with his children, but he's terribly disappointed with many of his children.

God's Plan for Every Day of Life

There's a prayer of David's, which I've often encouraged people in our church to pray. It's a living Bible paraphrase of Psalm 139, the last verse. See Psalm 139 speaks about a certain plan God has for our life.

He says, Lord, you, you wove me in my mother's womb, verse 13. And this is an amazing thing. I never saw it for many years. Verse 16 in the middle of that verse, it says in your book, all the days you had planned for me were written down before I was even born all the days.

I mean, this is amazing. The way I picture it, there's a book in heaven. It's picture language. Remember this big book means it's in God's mind, but there's a book in heaven with my name on it. And long before I was born, he wrote in that book, the day I was to be born and all the days that he had planned for me is a beautiful promise in Exodus 23.

I will fulfill the number of your days. And I've said, Lord, I want to live as long as you want me to live on this earth. And I don't want to live one day more than that. I believe you'll fulfill the number of my days.

The keys of death are now in Jesus hands. He took it from the devil. The day he rose from the dead, when he died and rose, he took the key of death from Satan's hand. We read that in Hebrews 2, 14. And he says in revelation, I have the keys of death now.

And if you walk in the will of God, you can never die before Jesus opens that door. You don't have to be afraid of cancer, road accidents, nothing that your enemies or anything that anybody tries to do to you.

The number of days were written down in that book in verse 16 before there was even one of them before I was born. And one of my prayers has been, Lord, I want to be every day of my life in the place where you planned in my book.

God Uses Failure for Good

So we may have the question, what about all the days I messed up? I didn't listen to God at all. So many years, your life, my life, everybody's life. We didn't listen. Or maybe we after we were born again, we backslid or we were legalists and we never sought God's will.

Well, God knows the future. And he made allowance for that. He made allowance for that, that he knew that it would be quite some years before I responded finally to his word and surrendered everything.

And the wonderful thing about God is that he can use even our failures to teach us something which can be very valuable. The difficult experiences that we go through. Think of a man like Joe who lost his all his business and all his children in one day.

I don't think in the history of the world has ever been a man like that. And what sort of ministry do you think he would have? I think he would be able to comfort parents who've lost their children or lost their business more than you and I can.

Much more because he could say to them, listen, God will see you through and his words will carry more weight than mine. See how his trials and experiences equipped him in a way which I'm not equipped.

So everything, even our failures, God can turn to something good. I have asked this question in many places. What can you tell me? What is the worst thing that ever happened on this earth from the time of Adam?

The worst sin that was ever committed on earth, the absolutely number one most evil thing in the world that ever happened. And you know, that was the crucifixion of Christ. There was never a greater sin than any man committed than killing the son of God.

That was the worst thing that ever happened. You know, everything else that you can think of is nothing compared to killing the son of God. Okay, ask next question. What's the best thing that ever happened on this earth?

The crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection. You see, it's the same thing, the same thing, which is the worst. God turned into the best to teach us, to teach us one lesson that the worst thing that's happened in your life, God is able to turn it into something wonderful.

If you have faith, you know, we miss out on so many things because we don't believe. I have faith. I made a lot of mistakes and blunders and sins in my life. And I've said, Lord, I believe that you're a God who can bring good out of evil.

And if you can make all the evil that other people do to me to work for my good, I'm sure you can make some of the evil I did myself to work for my good in some way. And the mistakes I made and even your legalism, for example, I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees once upon a time and a thorough legalist.

But it has helped me when I see other people who are in that same bondage today to be able to know how to set them free if they want to be set free. A lot of them don't want to be set free. But those who want to be there are a few.

There's always a remnant of those who want to be free. So everything we go through, even God's made allowance for that, too. So you don't have to live in regret over the past. But I'll tell you this from the time you get light.

And I believe that many of you have got light this weekend, seen things that you've never seen before. It's enlarged your mind and your vision of God. And God is saying to each of you, my son, my daughter, come up higher.

It's an invitation to come up to a higher level of life. And he says, I'll help you. But you must believe faith is to believe that God loves you as you are. Faith is to believe that everything God has commanded in scripture is for your good.

God's Commands Are for Our Good

You know, like we can be disappointed with our children when they can't understand that some of the things we tell them is for their good. When you take a knife out of the hand of your two year old child, does he believe that it's for your good?

I mean, he thinks it's so wonderful to play with the shiny knife. And dad and mom take it out of my hand. They don't love me. But they love you far more than you think. You little two year old. But it's not only when they are two.

What about when they get into their teenage years? You think that teenage daughter of yours understands the restrictions you place upon her? No, she thinks that mom and dad are too strict. Until one day she's messed up her life with somebody.

Then she realized that dad and mom loved her more than anybody else. We parents recognize children don't believe, don't trust us. They don't trust us when they are two. They don't trust us when they are 17 or 18.

They don't realize that dad and mom have have my good at heart. We're like that when we come to God. We read something in scripture and say, Oh, well, that's too extreme. We don't realize it's a loving father who knows exactly what's good for us, telling us that.

So faith is to believe that every commandment of God is for my good. I believe it. I believe I really believed it. I would be eager to find out what those commandments are. I electronic gadget like a dishwasher or washing machine or some computer or something very expensive.

And you got a little booklet with it called Manufacturer's Instructions. I think you'd be careful to read that carefully. So you don't blow up your machine and waste your money. Is there any machine more important than your body?

Is there any machine that's more important than the one earthly life God's given you? The God there's only one book called the Manufacturer's Instructions. That's the Bible. If you read it, if you really believe that God's commands are for your good, you'll be eager and desperate to find out what those commands are.

And I tell you, after 48 years of studying the Bible, it has saved me, kept me, made my life supremely happy. When the Bible tells me to forgive others, no matter what they do to you, forgive them. It's good for us.

And the wonderful thing is that the Holy Spirit is there to help us in every single command. He doesn't just give us a command and tell us to do it. He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant, there was a command, do this. They couldn't do it. In the New Testament, the Lord says, I will make you do this. Just allow me. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me means like these bullocks we have in the fields in India where they don't have tractors.

There are bullocks that plow the field and there's a yoke on the neck of one bullock. And when a senior experienced bullock wants to train a junior inexperienced bullock how to plow a straight furrow, the older bullock would say, take my yoke upon you.

Walk at my pace and I will teach you to plow a straight furrow. So straight that one day you'll be able to teach others how to plow a straight furrow. But you got to learn in the beginning. So if I bow my neck under Jesus yoke and say, Lord, I want to learn from you.

I'll do it the way you say. I live the most satisfying life when I come to the end of my life, I'll be able to look back and say, Lord, thank you. When I was 21 years old, God showed me one thing that he had a plan for my life.

I didn't know all the scriptures like this, but. I knew he had a plan for my life and I said, Lord, I want to fulfill it. I'm a little over 68 now and as I look back on my life, I have a tremendous satisfaction.

It's not that I didn't make any blunders, but God taught me many things through those blunders. And. I often tell young people, I wish you'd have the same satisfaction when you come to the end of your life and you look back and say, God even turned the blunders for something good.

Finishing the Course God Has Given

I accomplished God's will on earth. How could Paul say at the end of his life? I have finished my course. Second Timothy four. You know, the 30 years of his life, he was persecuting Christians and blundered and went the wrong way.

How could a man who went the wrong way for 30 years of his life say at the end of his life that he finished his course? Was that God's plan for him? The early first part of his life to kill Christians?

No, God had made allowance for it. God knew this guy is sincere, but he's totally wrong. And he made allowance for it so that even though Paul messed up his life so much in the early part and did so many wrong things like circumcising Timothy, fighting with Barnabas, not breaking up that fellowship, the Holy Spirit array organized and losing fellowship with Barnabas.

I mean, working together that broke up permanently. God planned for them to work together forever. It broke up. We would think such a man can never fulfill God's plan for his life. But he did. It's amazing what God can do.

God can take our where we are and. Help us to fulfill his plan. You know, a couple of years when I was traveling in a car in the US and I saw for the first time this GPS system. And how it would say now, turn right, turn left.

I said, boy, this is how God wants us to live. Listen to the Holy Spirit as we go along and there's a destination he'll take us to. And the most wonderful thing I saw in the GPS was that supposing this person took a wrong turning, the GPS didn't get upset and say, hey, what are you doing?

Amazing. It was a real lesson to me. Be patient. Be patient. The GPS will say, OK, never mind. I'll recalculate how to get to your goal. Isn't that great? That's how the Holy Spirit is. You messed up and you turned somewhere, you stubbornly went off here.

The Holy Spirit says, never mind, I'll recalculate and I'll tell you how to get you there still. It's wonderful. God is better than any GPS, I'll tell you. And he's more patient. You don't have to worry.

You don't have to be discouraged. Have you messed up? Have you gone completely off track? Never mind. He'll get you there. So that's that's faith. You know, believe that God loves me as I am and he is on my side against the devil.

He'll never get on the devil's side against me. Impossible. How can God get on the devil's side? The devil may resist me, but he's always on my side against the devil. But I want to say that with one qualifying statement.

God's Discipline of the Proud

There is only one situation where God will turn against you. I have to tell you the truth as a servant of the Lord, and that is if you become proud, not if you commit adultery, not even if you murder, though I hope you'll never do those things.

But if you become proud in that moment, God turns around and becomes your enemy. He becomes your enemy because he loves you. Because he sees you're going the wrong direction, he says, I can't support this man anymore.

I've got to get in front of him now and push him back. And then if you're an unbeliever, things will go smoothly in your life, even when you're proud. But if you're a child of God, whom God jealously loves, and you become proud, I tell you, everything will go wrong in your life.

You'll have financial difficulties, your business will fail, all types of things will happen, because God loves you. The unbeliever who's in pride, his business will prosper, because God doesn't care for him.

But you're his child. That's why he deals specially with you. He holds you in a jealous care. I've known times in my life where God disciplined me and I was lying in bed sick and I said, Lord, what did I do wrong?

And the Lord would remind me of one careless word. One careless word that I spoke the previous week to somebody. Did it make me angry with God for disciplining me for one careless word? No. I wept with joy.

I said, Lord, how much you love me that you don't even want me to go one degree off the wrong path. You don't wait till I've turned 90 degrees off before you discipline me. Half a degree, point one degree.

You discipline me and say, get back, my son. I said, Lord, treat me like that forever. Please treat me like that forever. I want that. I want to be disciplined. Whoever whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.

I'll tell you something. I've seen believers who do wrong things. They tell lies. They do some terrible evil things. And I see nothing bad happening to them. And I say, it's terrible. God must have given up on them.

He must have given up on them because I know times when I go one degree off track and how he treats me. And these fellows have gone 90 degrees off track and going completely around. Nothing seems to happen to them.

God must have given up on them. He must have put them on the shelf and say, go your way. I've got no more time for you. Be thankful if God is disciplining you. He loves us too much to let us go astray and waste our life.

That's why he disciplines us. And that's why we need to pray this prayer. I was mentioning which David prayed in the last verse of Psalm 139. The Living Bible says, Lord, point out anything in me that makes you sad.

Is there a hurtful way in me? Hurtful means something that hurts God. Lord, point out anything in me that makes you sad. I printed it out on a card and gave it to everybody in our church. I said, keep it somewhere where you can see it.

Lord, point out anything in my life that makes you sad. A lot of people are wondering whether, wondering what makes God angry. Forget it. God's not angry with you. Ask him to point out anything in your life that makes him sad, that makes him disappointed.

Be one of those children of God who will come to God and say, Dad, is there anything in my life that's making you sad? Please tell me. I want to set it right. You as a father, mother, can you think of the delight that will come to your heart if your little boy or girl comes to you and says, Dad, tell me, is there anything I'm making you sad in?

I really want to make you happy. Boy, that would have made your day if somebody tells you that. That's what God's waiting to hear from many of us. I pray that prayer frequently. Lord, I don't see everything in my life.

Paul said, Paul, the great apostle said, we see darkly. Then shall I know as I am known. 1 Corinthians 13. He said, I don't know myself fully. I try to see myself and it's a dark glass. But the Lord knows me fully.

And so I want him to tell me if there's anything in my life that makes me sad. You remember Isaiah? He thought he was a very holy man. Till one day he saw the glory of God. And he saw that his lips were unclean.

It was his speech that he was convicted of. Are you convicted of your speech? Isaiah was not convicted of it till he saw the glory of God. He was absolutely sincere. You can be absolutely sincere and you may think there's nothing wrong with you till one day you see the glory of God.

And boy, you get floored and say, Lord, what a wretch I am. How merciful you've been with me. Another definition of faith that I have in relation to seeking God for the power of the Holy Spirit. We need faith.

We need thirst. I believe many of you have thirst. But you need to have faith. And that's why I'm trying to make you understand what faith is. It's not that God will fill you with the Holy Spirit when you're perfect.

Faith in God's Desire to Bless

No. God loves you as you are. He wants to give you the power of the Holy Spirit. Right now, if you're sincere. Another definition of faith that I see from scripture is to believe that God is more eager to bless me than I am to be blessed.

Can you believe that? It's very difficult for many Christians. They say, I'm so eager. God's not blessing me. Do you really believe that God's more eager to bless you than you are to be blessed? Jesus always used the example of fathers and children, parents and children.

Is there a parent sitting here who's not eager that it should go well with your children? What sacrifices you make that it might go well with your children? I mean, your children don't even know that there are many secret sacrifices you make.

You deny yourself almost everything you do. You work hard and earn money to educate your children, to feed your children, to clothe your children, to bring up your children. There are little babies, you wake up at night, you sacrifice so many things.

Look at the mothers who miss meetings, which they like to sit in for the sake of the children. What a lot of sacrifices they make. Fathers and mothers longing to help their children. But sometimes those children don't realize it.

They don't realize that dad is more eager to help me and bless me than I am. And we don't believe either sometimes that God is more eager. Now, let's take the part of the Holy Spirit. Do you really believe that God is more eager to fill you with the Holy Spirit than you are to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

It'll make a world of difference when you believe that. That's faith. I come to God and if I'm asking for something which is not in his word, then I don't know. I can ask and I'm not sure whether I'll get it.

I can ask for a better job, okay? Maybe I'll get it, maybe I won't get it. Maybe God wants me to struggle along in my present job and become a better Christian perhaps through that struggle. I don't know.

I don't know if he'll give me a better house. But I certainly know he'll give me a better life. No doubt about that. And I don't have to have any doubt about that. He wants me to have a more Christ-like life, a spirit-filled life.

That I have no doubt about at all. I'm not even so sure that God will heal me of all my sicknesses. I don't go around making that promise like some preachers do that God will heal you of all your sicknesses.

Totally, total unreality. It just makes a lot of people suffer under the bondage of thinking they're not healed because they don't have faith or their children are not healed because they don't have faith.

That's not the reason. Most of the sicknesses in the world are because we are living in a world which is under the curse. No matter how much you pray that there should be no thorns or weeds in your garden, they will be there.

In India, we have a lot of mosquitoes. No matter how much we pray, no matter how spiritual you are, the mosquitoes still come inside the house. And they bite as well, no matter how much you pray. I mean, what's he is saying?

Is it God's will for a mosquito to bite me and all this type of... We live in a world which is under the curse. There can be snakes in the garden, in the gardens of believers. God protects us. But you can't say, Lord, bring me to a life where there'll be no snakes, no thorns.

Well, that's heaven, brother. You got to wait for that. This is not heaven. God's made this world a pretty difficult world so that we don't find a comfortable life here and don't think of settling down here.

This is not our home. I often say in India, our life on earth is like a train journey. Most of us in India travel by trains. And sometimes train journeys in India can take two or three days to go from one end to the other.

And I say, nobody thinks of settling down in the train. I mean, you're not investing all your money inside that train compartment to live comfortably. Traveling in a train is a little inconvenient. And there are common toilets for about 20, 30 people.

And the beds are not as comfortable. And they're very narrow. And many, many discomforts. But you see, it's only a short journey. I've got a destination to go to. If you look at your earthly life like that, it makes a lot of difference.

So we are living in a world under the curse. And because of that, there are children born with AIDS. What crime did they commit? Is it because they lack faith? It's terrible what some preachers are doing, torturing people.

They're already sick and they torture them some more by saying, you don't have faith. That's why you're not healed. You don't have faith. That's why your child is not healed. Look at this person who had faith.

I'm sorry. I never see Jesus ever saying that type of thing to people, you know, torturing them. He encouraged people to have faith, but it was faith based on his promise. It was always, you know, when they when they doubted whether God would care for them.

I believe God cares for us when, you know, they thought, oh, this sea will come and drown out our boat. Where's your faith? Don't you know God cares for you? So we are not to be anxious that the Bible says, but we're not to believe this.

This type of teaching that goes around saying that faith means we'll have no more problems. No, God allows us. God allowed the great Apostle Paul to have a sickness, which he called a thorn in the flesh, which he never got healed from to keep him humble because God wanted to preserve him in humility to save his life.

God does that sometimes. So it's a good prayer to pray, Lord, is there anything in my life that makes you sad? I told you that the spirit of God is the spirit of Christ. And the last time we saw how the spirit of Christ was such that when he was in heaven, he didn't want to have it all just for himself.

He wanted to share this wonderful life with others, even if it meant that he had to come down and suffer. And that is the spirit of Christ where you long to serve others and help others and to bring them to this wonderful life you've come to yourself.

And that's why you need to come to this life in Christ of spirit filled life. God wants you to have it. Another definition of faith that I have found is this. It's the leaning of the human personality.

Leaning on Christ in Faith

Now, there's a verse in the Song of Solomon, which says, who is this who comes up from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved? It's the leaning of the human personality. It's me leaning upon Jesus with absolute confidence in his in God's almighty power.

He can do everything in his perfect wisdom that whatever he plans is for my very best and his perfect love for me, his confidence in his power, his wisdom and his love. I lean upon in absolute trust. I remember when our children were small, we got a little children's story Bible where which had pictures.

And one of the very beautiful pictures was Jesus holding a little baby and in his hand, a little boy and saying, don't be afraid. Just trust me. Pictures often come to my mind. Don't be afraid. Just trust me.

Many times in life, we need to hear that word. Don't be afraid. Just trust me. Just trust me. So it's the leaning of the human personality in absolute confidence in my father's love for me, that my father has got almighty power.

He's got all things under his control. The devil was defeated 2000 years ago. God is on the throne and he will never forget his own. I belong to him. Another definition of faith is what you have up in that verse there.

You know, like a helpless branch dependent on the tree for all its supplies. It flows out from the one I just spoke about. Recognizing I can do nothing without Jesus. I believe one of the greatest lessons that Jesus wanted to teach his disciples in three and a half years was you can do nothing without me.

That verse without me, you can do nothing. But the other side of the coin is that's John 15. Without me, you can do nothing. John 15. The other side of the coin is Philippians 4 .13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

You must. Faith is to believe both. One side of the coin apart from me. Without me, you can do nothing. Lord, I believe that. Which means I want you to understand that in this way also. Without me, you can do nothing means that whatever you do without Christ will ultimately amount to nothing.

It will. You'll realize it one day that whatever you seek to do apart from Jesus, one day it will amount to nothing. So I don't want my life to amount to nothing. So I want to do everything in fellowship with Jesus, in dependence upon Jesus.

Everything. I don't want to do anything in my life which I can't do in fellowship with Jesus. I went to a part of India once among some tribal people where they were all nominally Christian. And some of them were believers.

But almost all those believers used to smoke cigarettes. And they'd invited me for one week of meetings. And that's not true in the most of the rest of India. Most of the rest of India, believers just don't smoke cigarettes.

But in this particular place, a lot of them were smoking cigarettes. It was a big shock to me to see that. I mean, not that smoking cigarettes is a sin. I believe gossiping is a worse sin than smoking cigarettes.

And speaking evil of somebody behind their back is a hundred times worse than smoking a cigarette. Some people don't realize that. Because when you speak about somebody behind his back, you hurt him. When you smoke a cigarette, you only hurt yourself.

Okay. But I was thinking now how to help these people to see in a permanent way that smoking cigarettes is not good because it harms the body. So I told them, I don't know. I said, you know, all of you, I've seen a habit with many of you that whenever you smoke a cigarette, as you pick out a cigarette, if you have some friend of yours with you, always offer a cigarette to him.

I've noticed that. People who smoke cigarettes always, when they open their pack, offer it to a friend who's with them. Have one yourself. I said, Jesus is your friend. The next time you smoke a cigarette, offer him one and tell him, Lord, this is good.

Just try this. And if you think that Jesus would take that cigarette from you and smoke it, go right ahead and smoke. The next day, the one who was translating, this is another language, one was translating for me into that language, came to me and said, Brother Zach, I want to tell you something.

He said, I stopped smoking yesterday. I said, why? I never told you to stop smoking. He said, I found I couldn't do it in fellowship with Jesus anymore. I said, that's the principle. When you watch television, shall I tell you not to watch television?

There's something worse than television that most people have in their homes is a computer. Do you know that on the Internet you can see pictures which are a hundred times filthier than anything that you see on television?

I'm surprised how some people are against television, but not against computers. It's one of the irrationalities of the human mind. Anyway, but my point is this. What is the solution? What shall we teach our children?

Conscience and Internet Use

Never to use a computer? Never to go on the Internet? Well, you won't be able to do that very successfully in the world that's coming up. But if you can teach them, never do anything which you can't do in fellowship with Jesus.

Imagine Jesus is sitting there watching that TV. Can you imagine Jesus enjoying that thing you see or enjoying? If you can't, if you can't imagine, if you think Jesus would get up and go when that program comes up, you better get up and go yourself or turn off the TV or go to another channel.

The same thing with computers. If you are, if you think that Jesus would not go to that site, and I tell you, even, even if you don't have, there are all types of evil emails that come to anyone who's got an email, and you all know that, inviting you to go to a site.

And the best thing is never to go to any of those sites. I mean, I get so many emails. I've never once been to a pornographic site in my life. Don't say, well, I accidentally went there. You don't have to go to accidentally there.

You don't have to go there at all. Because I know when I, this thing has come up, I say, I know what these fellows are trying to lead me into. I don't want to go there. I don't, don't even want to click there and say, what is it all about?

I don't want to know what it's all about. There's a verse in Ecclesiastes, which says the knowledge of evil is not wisdom. That's not wisdom to know what evil is going on. I know there's evil going on everywhere in the world.

I don't need to know about it. You should have a testimony, at least from now, that I'm never going to watch pornography on the internet ever. I'm never going to click on sites, which I don't know. I don't want to go there.

Okay. Maybe you've done it in the past, but I tell you it's possible. I, because I've got 40 churches responsibility for I'm on email every day because I need to keep in touch with them. And a lot of people write to me and I get all these sites.

They invited me to go to and never go to any one of them. I want to keep my mind pure for God. I've got only one life to live. I want to keep the edge of my sword sharp. You know, many of you, you're blunting the edge of your spiritual sword just for some cheap thing.

So don't do anything that you can't do in fellowship with Jesus. When you're sitting at the computer, remember Jesus is sitting there with you and don't get addicted to the internet any more than you get addicted to drugs or anything else.

It's an addiction. It doesn't look like a, but anything that takes you away from fellowship with Jesus, from being able to listen to his voice, anything, which is not absolutely essential for your daily life.

It's an addiction. You be the master. Paul said, I will not be mastered by anything. I refuse to be mastered by the internet, even though I have to go on it so often. I refuse to be mastered by anything.