Building a Godly Family Life — Zac Poonen

Jesus’ Presence and Childlike Praise

It's good to remind ourselves when Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. So we need to recognize the presence of Jesus here. So in the presence of Jesus, is it right to jump and shout and clap hands and make a noise like this?

What would he think? Well, I'll tell you. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 21. It says here that Jesus came into the temple, Matthew 21 and verse 14 onwards, 14 to 16. He came into the temple and he healed the sick.

And the chief priests were not excited with all that Jesus did in healing. They saw the children shouting, I'm sure they were clapping their hands too, and probably and you know how children are, they'll jump and shout and raise their hands and saying Hosanna to the son of David.

The Pharisees and scribes are angry. In every church, there are people like Jesus and there are people like the Pharisees who are indignant. How dare you in the church make such a lot of noise? Don't you know this is a holy temple?

And they told Jesus to rebuke the children. You hear what they're saying, making a noise in the temple. And Jesus said, have you never heard or read what the Psalms say? That Psalm 8 verse 2, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise for yourself.

So if you want to know what Jesus thought about what we saw right now, you have it right there. Out of the mouth of infants and babes, you have prepared praise for yourself. I'm 83, but I want to be like a little child.

I clap with them, I sing with them, and if I were a little more alert, I would jump around and dance with them too. I would say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, be like a little child. They're the closest to God's kingdom.

And it's not just externally, in our mind. The trouble with all of us, with many of us anyway, is we are far too clever, we are far too educated, and that sort of puffs us up and thinks that we have a certain idea of what spirituality is, and it is the idea of the Pharisees, who did not understand the excitement Jesus had when he saw little children praising him.

He said, the kingdom of God is like little children. And he also said to his disciples, in Matthew chapter 18 and verse 1, he asked them a question. Who is the greatest in God's kingdom? Is it Paul? Is it Elijah?

Is it Moses? No. He called a little child and sat him before them and said, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Listen to the words of Jesus coming down through 2 ,000 years.

Unless you are converted, get rid of all those high thoughts of yourself and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. If you don't believe it today, when Christ comes, you will discover that those who have become like little children enter the kingdom of heaven, and the wise and the clever and mighty are put out.

Whoever then humbles himself as this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Do you want to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Not for honor, but just because, I'll tell you why I want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, because my Lord has done so much for me.

I don't want some seat up there, not interested in that, but the Lord has done so much for me that I want to do so much for him. And the Lord says, if you want to do that, be like a little child. And when you see a little child, receive that child in my name, smile at the little children who are not your children, and let them look at you and see that the church is the best place to be in.

I try to smile at all these children standing up here. I don't want them to know the church is the best place for them to be. There's no better place. And that's what we've always taught in all of our churches, and we want all of our children to find a place in God's kingdom, because we live in a world where so many children, they look so sweet when they're small, and by the time they're teenagers, they're out in the world and they have no respect for their parents.

God’s Fatherly Discipline and Providential Care

So we were thinking on Friday, when we had the last meeting for everyone, about building the church, and I said how the church is a three-story building. The foundation is the perfect love of our Heavenly Father for us, and as the Holy Spirit shows us that God is a loving Father, and we need to be established in that, and there must never be a time when we doubt that.

When we have messed up our life, when we have sinned terribly, when we've gone completely astray, God doesn't change. He's a loving Father, not a grandfather. There's a lot of difference. I remember the difference that happened to me when I changed from father to grandfather.

I was very strict with my children and used the rod where necessary in love, but I've never done it on my grandchildren, never once. I remember after our first grandson was born and I went back to Bangalore, some of the brothers there who knew how strict I was with my children said, Zach, what are you going to do when your son picks up your grandson and is going to spank him?

I said, I think I'll go for a walk, because I can't see it. I who do it myself, I couldn't see it, and I said I'd come back and then I'd see my little grandson crying and wanting to sit on my lap and I'd keep him on my lap and I'll tell him, you know, what your daddy did for you is good for you.

I haven't changed my mind. I still believe it. I wouldn't do it myself, because I'm not a father, I'm a grandfather. And that's what I told my brothers and sisters back in Bangalore. I said, that proves to you God is not a grandfather.

He won't let you go. He'll spank you. Grandfathers don't spank. God is not a grandfather. When you go astray, he'll use the rod on you. That's a sign that he's a father and God is disciplining you by financial difficulties or sickness or any such thing.

Thank him that he's a father who's interested in making you holy and don't ever complain against him. I follow that principle whenever some calamity has hit me or I'm down in bed with some sickness and I say, Lord, why is that?

It's not your perfect will, it's your permissive will. Why have you put me in bed now with this sickness? And the Lord points out something in the previous week where I got a little puffed up. I said, Lord, I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. Thank you for that spanking. Thank you for disciplining me because it proves to me you're still my father. You haven't forsaken me. You haven't just let me go into the world into the hands of the devil.

You see me go one degree off track when he gives me a spanking. That's when I said to the Lord, Lord, don't wait till I've gone 45 degrees and 90 degrees off track. Please know when I've gone one degree away from that straight line, give me a spanking.

I want to follow you wholeheartedly. I'm not perfect. I'm like a little child even now. And I say, Lord, I'll never say that I don't need your discipline. I thank you. You're not a grandfather. Have a relationship with God, your father, like that.

It'll change your life. And if you have grumbled against the way God's dealt with you, well, you say, okay, I won't trouble you anymore. Live as you like. Everything that happens, even when my children were sick, I'd say, Lord, I'm going to seek you.

There's nothing that happens to me or my family or my children, which God is not in control over. And it's a tremendous testimony to the devil when there are problems, when I have financial difficulties.

And my wife and I have gone through that because when I quit my job in the Navy, I took up all my savings and gave it to the Lord's work. And I said, Lord, I'm going to start serving you with zero in my bank account.

That's how I started. And the Lord's taken care of me 60 years, and he never lets us down. I can tell you, I can testify to you. I believe at the end of our lives, every one of us must have one testimony.

I tried my best to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first. Not perfectly, but I tried my best to do it perfectly. And today, at the end of my life, whether you live to a hundred, you must be able to say, I can testify that God took care of me.

Just like he said, seek God's kingdom first. All that is needed will be added to you without your running after it. Look at the rat race there is in the world where people are running after this, running after that.

I've never done that. Well, I didn't become the richest man in the world, but God provided all my needs. That's the important thing. And it's a tremendous testimony. You can testify at the end of your life.

I did not go after money. I did not go after honor. I sought God's kingdom first. I put him first in every area of my life. And I can testify today that God's provided all my needs. He's taken care of me.

He's taken care of my children. And whatever circumstance, some difficult circumstance came, he turned it for good. Yeah. God doesn't say that he'll protect us from all trials. No, he didn't. The early Christians, I often, you know, I used to get my children to read the biographies of these early Christians, how they were and the stories about them, how they were persecuted and killed.

And sometimes a mother, young mother would have the child taken away because she's a Christian. And she'd be willing to do that. The father was an unconverted person, take away the child and the mother would be sent to prison.

There are wonderful stories of martyrs, which you must read. And we must teach our children how the early Christians suffered for their faith and never gave up. I know it encouraged me tremendously. And I wanted all my children to know that Christianity was not always comfortable for the early people.

They couldn't come like this to church on Sunday and sing. They were running for their lives. They had to hide in caves. Yeah. So it's good for our children to know those stories. I hope you're telling them that from early childhood, what it means to be a true Christian.

And that will stop us from grumbling and complaining when some little thing goes wrong or we have a little shortage of money. I believe if you don't do that, you'll raise a brood of children who are pampered and spoiled with any little problem comes, they bang the table and they complain and they say, all these things are not available on my breakfast table.

Well, I say, you go to some poor countries in the world, there's hardly anything on that breakfast table. They're thankful for just a little bit of rice that they can have. We need to teach our children this.

Otherwise, I tell you, the world's getting worse and worse and you lose your children. And don't wait till they've gone away from the Lord at the age of 18 and then say, oh God, please bring them back.

You got to start when they are one, one year old. So the foundation is God's perfect love as a father. And on that foundation, we build the first story of the first floor, as you call it here, which is our personal walk with God with a clear conscience.

A Clear Conscience and Hearing God’s Voice

As soon as we slip up, we ask God to forgive us. If we've hurt somebody, we ask immediate forgiveness. We have to build that first floor, the first story strong. And the way to build it as strong as by keeping our conscience clear.

When Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, he said it at a time when there were no Bibles around. I've said this before, for 1400 years after Christ, nobody had a printed Bible.

Printing was not discovered. So what did it mean, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? Jesus wasn't referring to a Bible there. Nobody had a Bible.

Very few people had access to these scrolls of parchment, which were only available in the synagogues of what was written in the Old Testament. Nobody could afford to buy one. Far too expensive. But then what did that mean?

I meditated on that for a long time, and I discovered, how does God speak to every man through his conscience? So primarily, when it says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, not that proceeded 2000 years ago.

Proceeds, present tense, present continuous. That proceeding continuously from God, where is that? It's in your conscience. Every man, you don't need a Bible. You can be illiterate. The conscience tells you, it's the voice of God.

Man shall not live by food alone, but by every word that proceeds from God's mouth in your conscience, telling you, that was wrong. What you signed there in your office was a lie. Take it back. Cancel that document.

You get a little more money, but you ruin your soul. And bring up your children in fear of God. Punish that child for what it did wrong. Don't let him speak rudely to his mother. Little, little things.

God speaks to you. What do you do about it? Listen to his voice. So God speaks to you and says, that was a dirty thought. That's a wrong attitude you have towards that person. That person did wrong to you, but you have to forgive him.

Like I forgave you. The Lord says, you've done a lot of wrong to me, haven't you? And I forgive all of that. Well, if people do wrong to you, forgive them. And that's the voice of God. You will not live by your breakfast alone, but by the voice of God in your conscience.

That is the first floor of the church. And if you don't build that, you can never build a church. I'll tell you that. I want to tell you in Jesus' name that every single person sitting here, God wants to use you to build a church somewhere.

You don't have to be very gifted. But start here. Otherwise, you can't build it. Don't try and build. The church is the third floor, the third story. You can't build that before you build the first one.

So everyone who's eager to build the church, listen to this. Start with listening to the voice of conscience. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And God is speaking all the time to everybody.

The slightest deviation from the straight and narrow path, God will speak to you. But there's another thing I want to warn you. If you don't listen, I say, forget it. That's not serious. You keep saying when God says something, it's wrong.

You say, no, that's not serious. You're arguing with God. It's not serious. Okay. What will happen? I'll tell you what will happen. Little by little, you'll become deaf to the voice of God. Maybe God wanted to use you as a prophet.

But he won't use you. Prophets have to hear God's voice. And he'll test you whether you listen to his voice. And if you keep listening to your voice, he can make you his mouthpiece, that you speak for him to many people.

God can do amazing things. But it always starts with listening to conscience. And then the second floor after that is still not the church. The church, we've got to wait for that. The second floor is our family life.

Family Life as the Second Floor of the Church

How you live with your wife. How will you live with your husband. How you bring up your children. That is the second floor once you've established the first floor. We don't forget about the first floor.

That continues to remain. We don't demolish the first floor when we go on to the family. No, it remains forever. Always listening to a voice of our conscience. And then we go to the second floor, which is our family life, where we work with the help of the Holy Spirit to bring up our family in the way God has intended.

You know, in the Old Testament, there was no emphasis on the family. There's no verses in the Old Testament that are telling us how to behave with your wife or how the wife should behave to her husband.

There are a few odd verses in the Book of Proverbs. Other than that, there's nothing. In God's law given to Moses, there was nothing about family life. There was no, you know, today we have to show our family life to people if we are to build a church.

You know, in the Old Testament, the prophets used to say, come and hear what the Lord has said. Moses has come down from the mountain. Don't look at Moses' family life, please. He was fighting with his wife.

We read about that in Exodus 4. His children were not circumcised. They were all disobedient. But please don't look at my family life, Moses says. I'll tell you, thus said the Lord. Samuel, he had two children who grew up to take bribes, and they were the judges in Israel.

Samuel would say, please don't look at my children. No, no, no. But I'm giving you the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord came through prophets whose children were wayward. David, the man after God's own heart, his children were thoroughly wayward.

One killed another. So if Moses and Samuel and David were living today, I would not appoint them as elders in a CFC church. I'd say, Brother Moses, you're not fit to be an elder in a CFC church. You can go and be a leader of Israel in the Old Covenant.

Samuel, you can prophesy to Israelites in the Old Covenant, but you cannot be an elder in a CFC church. I will not appoint you. Great prophet Samuel. I would say that to David, the man after God's own heart.

Yeah, you can go and be a king in Israel, but you can't be an elder in a CFC church. Because an elder in a CFC church must have his family right. Because it says in 1 Timothy 3, if he doesn't know how to bring up three, four children at home, how is he going to look after 30, 40 people in a church?

He's unfit. That's the trouble today that a lot of people are pastors and leaders whose children are wayward. They have two children and they're both wayward. And they try to bring up what they call a mega church.

What's the use? It's a deception. The Bible says such people are totally unfit to lead any church. And we've been very strict on that in all of our CFC churches in the last half a century. CFC's been going for almost half a century.

And I myself, having responsibility, have removed some elders from their position because their children were wayward. They were elders and then their children became wayward. I say, brother, please step down.

And they had to step down. So we've tried to keep the standards of God in every area in the church. It's not easy. You'll become unpopular. And I'm sure I'm certainly unpopular with many people. That's fine.

I'm not looking for popularity. I have one goal in life that one day Jesus will say to me, well done, good and faithful servant. The final day, when he examines every detail of my work and to see that I never sought to please any human being.

And I couldn't care less for anything that I never went around looking for gifts or offerings from anybody in the world. I want him to say, Lord, I want to live. I try to live like you. And I spoke the truth.

And if a person like Peter, closest co-worker, went astray, Jesus said, get behind me, Satan, rebuked him straight. He wasn't bothered whether Peter would get offended and leave him. If you get offended with correction, brother, you're not fit to be in the church.

Go out in the world and join some other group. In the church, elders are like spiritual fathers. And a father who does not discipline his children is a good for nothing, useless father who's bringing up his children for the devil.

What would you think of a father who's raising his child? Oh, I want to raise you up to be a child of the devil and live for the devil all your days. You don't say it like that. But when you don't discipline your children, when you don't correct them, when they speak rudely, when they misbehave, when they steal something from somebody else, or they go fighting with somebody else and you don't discipline them, you are saying, maybe silently, oh, Satan, I want to bring up this child for you.

I hope you'll grow up and live for you, Satan. That's exactly what you're doing. Don't do it. If you've done it in the past and your children have become wayward, repent now. And you and your wife get down before God on your knees.

I've told this to older people whose children are wayward. I say, listen, I can give you a little prescription. Even if your children have gone astray, will you and your wife promise to settle all matters between both of you and ask forgiveness from each other for every wretched thing you said and did to each other?

And forgive one another freely and say that I will not hold that against you. I'm not going to bring it up ever, whatever you did in the past. Start like that. And then spend five minutes. Is that too much?

Five minutes a day, kneeling down before God with your conscience clear and pray for your children. And I'll tell you, God will do a miracle for your children, even if they are wayward now. But the best thing is to start when they are one year old.

Teaching and Disciplining Children

When they are one year old, all of you who got little babies, those sweet little babies, start disciplining them from age one. Teach them to listen to you. I had sometimes to sit with a two or three year old child and say, you are not going to tell me a lie.

Tell me what, did you do this? Or I don't remember exactly the circumstance, but I felt he was telling me a lie. All children tell lies. The Bible says that. It says in Psalm 58 that children tell lies from the day they're born.

So I asked him, are you telling a lie? And he would go around and around and around. And I think I spent a long time with him. Finally, he said, yes, Dad, I'm sorry. He didn't tell me immediately. My children are not better or worse than anybody else.

They are children of Adam. They needed to be born again. I remember some, you know, we were preaching victory in the church. One of the brothers came to me and said, Brother Zak, do your children fight at home?

I said, sure. They are children of Adam. They are not born again yet. Things will change when they are born again. Otherwise, they behave exactly like the children of Adam, and I have to discipline them.

And I'll keep disciplining them until they are converted. And even after they are converted, if they go slightly astray, I'll rebuke them and correct them. I'll never give up my responsibility as a father, even when I'm 83.

Because I am answerable to God for my children. Take that seriously, dear brothers and sisters. Many of you have done well in your profession. You go to an office and you're very faithful to do your work.

It's a shame if you're not more faithful than that to bring up your children for God. You earned your money. You know that if you're unfaithful in office, you lose your job or you won't get your salary.

Some cut will happen. Your boss will rebuke you. Are you more worried about that than God rebuking you for the way you brought up your children? I love you, my brothers. I'm not rebuking you because I hate you.

If I hated you, I'd say, oh, live as you like. Let your children go to the devil. No, I love you and I want your children to live for God. That's why I'm saying this so clearly and straight. Because we are living in a world where people are not taking the discipline of their children seriously.

And if you have a newborn baby, you're lucky that you're hearing these truths right now. So that you can bring up your children right from the day one. You know, in the Old Testament, you'll never find a passage of Scripture anywhere in the Old Testament teaching us how wives and husbands should behave.

And a few instructions on fathers and children in the book of Proverbs. But otherwise, there's no instruction on family life in the Old Testament. Because it didn't matter how your family was, so long as you were before God, like the great prophets.

The New Testament Pattern for Family Life

But in the New Testament, there's so much teaching. What's written in Ephesians 5 is repeated in Colossians 3. Now, why is something repeated in Colossians 3, which is written almost word for word from Ephesians 5?

Please turn to Ephesians 5. There it is written. Why does God repeat something in the Bible? Ephesians 5, it says about wives, husbands, fathers, children. From Ephesians 5, 22 onwards, all the way to chapter 6, verse 4.

How husbands and wives must behave, how children and parents must be. And you don't find a section like that in the Old Testament. And the same Apostle Paul writes to the Colossians and does the same thing.

In Colossians 3, 18 onwards, up to 21. It's a little briefer, but it's the same thing. Wives, husbands, children, fathers. And, well, of course, he was writing to a different church, so I can understand.

But I say, Lord, why have you included that repetition in the Bible? It's already written very clearly in Ephesians 5. Because people tend to ignore it. God gives grace to the humble. That's written in James, chapter 4.

But you turn the page, you go to 1 Peter 5, it's repeated again. And I say, Lord, why do you have to repeat it? People ignore some of these things. They miss it the first time, I want to catch it the second time.

Rejoice in the Lord always, Philippians, chapter 4. And it says here, verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. And he says, again, I say to you, rejoice. You have to repeat it? Yes. Because they don't take it seriously, that I must rejoice in the Lord at all times.

So, what I want you to notice here is, you know, where you see, Ephesians especially, is very systematically written. The first three chapters, there are no exhortations. Ephesians is divided very neatly.

First three chapters, all that God has done for you. The next three chapters, what you must do for God. It's very neat division. I don't think there's any book in the New Testament that's divided so neatly.

Yeah, you look at Ephesians 1 to 3, get established in that. This is what God has done for me. And what God wants to continually do for me. To strengthen me. And with the Holy Spirit and give me revelation and so many wonderful things.

He's chosen me before the foundation of the world. He wants to give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation. When I was dead in sin, He lifted me up and placed me with Christ in the heavenly places. All these wonderful things.

And then He says, okay. Now, with all these things that God has done. Chapter 4, therefore. Therefore. Chapter 4 verse 1. Because of all that God has done. Chapters 1 to 3. Take some time to study Ephesians like that.

Chapters 1 to 3. Because of all that God has done for me. Therefore, is the way I must live now. And one of those things is family life. I want you to see where this family life section has come. There's a lot of talk today about being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Being Filled with the Holy Spirit

And speaking in tongues. I'm not against it. I experienced it. My wife and I have experienced it. We teach it in our church. Many in our church have experienced it. But that's not the main thing of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here it says, Ephesians 5 verse 18. Be filled with the Spirit. Speaking in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The spirit of thankfulness. Always giving thanks unto the Lord. That's what we do on Sunday morning when we come together.

That's what these children did. And when we are filled with the Spirit, we'll be filled with the spirit of thankfulness. That's number one. And the second thing that happens when we are filled with the Spirit is, verse 21.

We'll be subject to one another. We will not boss over other people. And try to tell them, you've got to do this or you've got to do that. Even if you're an elder. Even if you're an apostle. You will not boss over people.

You'll be subject to one another. I'll give you a very up-to-date example. Just two or three days ago, I had to write to some of the elders in one of our churches in India. I'm in touch with them constantly.

All of them. I thank God that I have provision today that Paul never had. WhatsApp, email, and all types of facilities to contact them. Speak to them. Even with Zoom and video on the phones, etc. So, I don't have any excuse today like Paul had.

Well, things went wrong in Corinth and he'd write a letter. Take three months to reach there. Get three months of reply to come. That's why so many things went wrong. But today, no. It takes less than a minute to contact somebody when something goes wrong.

And we can fix it because I can tell somebody else to go there and fix it immediately. So, it's wonderful the provision we have today to be able to build a church. And here we read when they were... I made a suggestion to them, to these elders.

I said, I think you should do this. These are folks who are 20, 30, 40 years younger than me. And they got together and prayed and talked about it. And they said, Brother Zak, we don't think we should do that.

I think we should do it like this. I replied within two minutes to that WhatsApp message. I said, brothers, do it like you said it. I agree with you 100%. And I said, this is the wonderful thing of being in a part of an eldership that we talk about things together and where the majority feel this way.

And if it doesn't matter if I'm in the minority, do it that way. That's how we build unity in the church. Nobody is a boss. Nobody is a king. Only Jesus is Lord. I praise God that we've built CFC churches around the world like this in so many countries in the last 50 years.

Mutual Submission and the Body of Christ

We serve one another. In my younger days, I got on my knees and scrubbed the floors of four widow's houses. Lifted the furniture of people when they were shifting house. Well, we're just brothers to help one another.

There is no such thing as someone who is above the others in terms of position or hierarchy. No, we are brothers in Christ, but God gives us different responsibilities. It's like which part of the body is more important than the other.

You see, when you listen to me speaking, you see the tongue is so important. But think of how does the tongue get the ability to speak. If it doesn't get food and strength, it won't be able to speak. It'll be dumb.

And to get food and ability, there's a whole process in getting the tongue to be strong. First of all, the stomach has to cry out and say, hey, I'm a bit hungry. And then the mind has to think, where shall I go for food?

And the eyes have to see the direction and the feet have to take me over there, wherever the food is. And then my hand has to go in and take the food. I'm talking about how the tongue gets strength. And then you have to put it in the mouth and the teeth have to cooperate in chewing it up.

And the throat has to cooperate in swallowing it. And then it's got to go down into the stomach. And I'm not a medical person, I don't know what all happens there. But a whole lot of acids and all are thrown into it.

It breaks down and it slowly is converted into blood and flesh and bones and strength comes back to the tongue and the tongue can speak. And the tongue can't say, hey, I'm doing it all myself. I say, Brother Tongue, you didn't do anything yourself.

You did it with the help of numerous parts of the body. That is the body of Christ. And that's the type of body we want to build in every place. That's what Jesus wants. This is not an Old Testament system where one prophet comes down to the mountain and speaks and everybody listens.

That's not the church. But unfortunately, a lot of churches today are like that. And in the midst of this, the Lord wants to build New Testament churches where we don't have any kings or any one pastor rule.

No such thing. The word pastor is a gift, not an office. There's a lot of difference between an office and a gift. A gift is what he gives to people. Teacher, apostle, prophet, pastor, shepherd. But nobody goes around calling him shepherd so-and-so or teacher so-and-so.

Why do they call themselves pastor so-and-so? Yeah, Jesus said you're all brothers. Don't take titles like a rabbi. He said to us never to take titles. Read that in Matthew 23. He said you're all brothers.

But we don't care for the teaching of Jesus. We think we know better than him. So coming back to this. I want you to notice that the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5 .18. That's what I wanted to point out to you.

Ephesians 5 .18 is the one place, the only place for your information in all the episodes where there's a clear command, be filled. In the original language, it is the continuous tense. Be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.