Beginning a New Year the Right Way — Zac Poonen

Beginning a New Year the Right Way

Praise the Lord, all of you, it's really good to see so many people from different parts of the world, so many skin colors, so many names, which some we can't pronounce easily. And it's very wonderful how God has chosen all of you brothers and sisters.

I'll tell you, I've been born again for 63 years. I was born again in July, 1959, it's going to be 64 now, this year. But I'm amazed, even today, at how God's chosen me. I sing that song, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, it saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. My dear brothers and sisters, I hope you will always sing that song and always recognize what you were once upon a time when God found you.

Never forget it. It's one of the things I pray, I say, Lord, let me never forget the pit from which you pulled me out. When I was on my way to hell, you know, after we make progress so much in our life, it's easy to forget what we once were.

The devil wants you to forget, because then you become proud. You begin to think that you deserve something. You go to God expecting that he has to answer you because you're such a good person. Really?

I'll tell you something, you know, we don't know even 1%, and I'm not exaggerating, we don't know 1 of the corruption which is within our flesh. There is a thing that the New Testament calls the flesh, which is not spoken of in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, flesh is just meat. In the New Testament, flesh is our self-will, which has fought against God right from the time that we became conscious as little babies or children. It has been in rebellion against God.

That's the poison that Adam put into you and me, that the devil put into Adam. What was it basically? You don't have to do God's will. See, sin is not telling lies and stealing and adultery and murder, no, those are all the results of it.

Basically, at the root of it, you know, if you want to chop down a tree, you don't cut off its branches, you don't cut off its leaves, it'll grow again. If you want to chop down a tree, what do you do?

You hit the root. That's the only way to pull out the tree. And in the same way in our life, so many people, when they think of giving up sin, repentance, they're dealing with the branches, the leaves, cut a leaf here, cut a leaf, ah, I've trimmed this tree a little bit.

It looks a little more decent before other people. Other people think I'm a better person. So what? If you have not hit at the root, there will always be that sin coming up, maybe not externally, but constantly troubling you in your thoughts, making your thoughts filthy and making you behave in ungodly ways, not in public, no, even worldly people try to behave themselves in public.

It's not only Christians who behave properly in public, most worldly people behave properly and probably because they want a good reputation. It's the way you behave in your home, where nobody's watching except your wife or your husband and your children.

Evaluate your life by that. Number one, how do you behave with your wife throughout the year? How was it last year? Is it going to be better this year? Well, not if you don't deal with the root. It'll be the same.

People make New Year resolutions on the 1st of January, it'll usually last about one or two weeks, that's all. I mean, if you're really got determination, two weeks, otherwise just a few days and it's gone.

By the second week of the year, you're back to the old life. But it doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't have to be like, God did not send his son to earth to leave us like that. God did not send his Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost to leave his children helpless, defeated in their home life, acting holy in church, acting holy on the outside.

No, God did not send his Holy Spirit to make us better hypocrites. He sent the Holy Spirit to deal with the root of sin. I want to show you a verse, first of all, if you have your Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter 3.

Repentance Must Bear Fruit

You know that John the Baptist was sent to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ. And there were a number of things that he said, which prepared the way for Christ and which we can remember because the ministry of John the Baptist sort of prepares our heart to receive Christ.

And what was his main message? You know, John the Baptist's main message was repent, repent, repent. He came preaching the baptism of repentance. That's what he called it, the baptism of repentance. And he said in Matthew 3, verse 8, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

There must be fruit in your life that is in line with your saying you're repented. For many, many years, I've been preaching. God called me to serve him in 1964. That is nearly 60 years ago. God called me one day when I was working in the Indian Navy to leave my job and to serve him.

And I obeyed immediately, even though the Navy did not let me go for two years. Finally, in 1966, they let me go more than 56 years ago. And it's been the greatest joy of my life to try and serve God and to proclaim the pure gospel.

I didn't know that in the beginning. I, myself, for many years, for 60 years of my born again life, I was a defeated Christian. I understand fully what you feel like. I was a defeated Christian for years.

I was sincere. I was born again. But it was a circle, endless circle. Never getting out of it. Sin. Say I'm sorry. Be cleansed in the blood of Christ. Sin. Say I'm sorry. Be cleansed in the blood of Christ.

Sin again. Say I'm sorry. Be cleansed in the blood of Christ. Get angry with your wife. Sometimes not even say I'm sorry. Say sorry to God, but not to your wife. And repent. It was this endless circle.

But I thank God a day came in my life when God put an end to that. I'm not in that endless circle anymore. I've been set free. One day when God filled me with his Holy Spirit, and I saw that I not only need to be cleansed from my sin, that's just cleaning the inside of the cup.

Here's a glass. Before we put water into it, we clean the inside. Not just the outside, the inside. And then, don't leave it empty. Don't just ask Jesus to cleanse you. Then the heart is empty. Good. It's clean.

Inside of the cup is clean. Why do you clean a cup? Whether you want to drink a cup of tea or a glass of water? You pour the water inside. And why did God clean our hearts? Not to leave it empty. I fear, I really fear that many of you, my dear brothers and sisters, your heart is clean.

Praise the Lord for that. You know the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from sin. But is it being filled? Or are you an empty glass and you're struggling, struggling? You're thirsty, thirsty, thirsty because there's no water.

The Necessity of Being Filled with the Holy Spirit

We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I tell you, if the fullness of the Holy Spirit is the most important thing in the Christian life, I believe it is, more than study of the Bible. You know, if the Bible was the most important thing, the printed Bible was the most important thing that we needed, God would have allowed printing to be discovered at least 100 years before Christ.

So that everything that the apostles spoke and that Jesus spoke could be printed. And from the day of Pentecost, everybody would have a copy of the Bible. And wherever Paul went, he could distribute copies of the Bible.

But why is it that for nearly 1 ,500 years after Christ, printing was not discovered? Why did God not allow that? You know how valuable it is to have a printed Bible? I thought, supposing I were living in the first century, no printed Bibles, and even the few copies of the Old Testament handwritten on parchments was so expensive that you could only have one copy in the synagogue.

And if Paul wrote a letter somewhere, which we call the epistles, which we have copies in so many translations of the Bible, there'd be one copy somewhere. Somebody would have copied it in the whole world.

There may have been about 10 copies of Paul's letters. And we may not be in the place where we have a copy of that. Can you imagine how Christians lived in those days? Why didn't God allow printing to be discovered a couple of hundred years before Christ?

I thought about that. It's not that the Bible is not important. I'll tell you something more important. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. That began on the day of Pentecost. The Christians could not live without being filled with the Holy Spirit.

We tell people, read the Bible every day. I read the Bible every day. To the best of my knowledge, I've read it every day for the last 64 years, nearly, since I was born again. Even today, the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is to talk to my Heavenly Father, to read at least a few verses of Scripture, sometimes much more, sometimes whole chapters.

I still do it, and even now, I get so much out of it. It's such a valuable book that I cannot go anywhere without it. But I tell you this. So many people have been in prison. Their Bibles have been taken away, Christians.

How did they survive without a Bible? It's the Holy Spirit. So I want to say to you, I'm not asking you to devalue the Bible, because we don't know about the truth unless we read the Bible. But I fear that many of you value the written word more than the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need both. We need both. It's like we need, for example, a train. What does a train need? A train needs rails. If you don't have rails, the train cannot move. And the rails are the word of God, and the rails must be absolutely straight.

If there's a slight break in the rails, the train derails. So the rails are God's word, and I value it. But that train will be stationary if you've only got rails. It needs some power through diesel or steam or electricity or something.

There are different ways in which they make trains run. That's most important. That's how we need it in our life, too. We need the rails. Oh, be careful. I'm very particular about God's word. I've studied God's word intensely, carefully.

I've written huge notes on it in my Bible and outside, because I want to be accurate about God's word. I mean, if lawyers study some legal document to be exact when they go to court, I say, Lord, I want to be ten times more careful in reading God's word, because I see so much of deception in the world today.

The First Temptation: Doubting God's Word

Because I see that the first temptation, the very first temptation that came to Eve, you know what it was? Let me tell you. Genesis chapter 3, the very first words that the devil spoke to Eve to lead her astray and to lead Adam astray.

It's good to read the Bible slowly, carefully. Do you remember what are the first words that the devil said to Eve? I think most of you will say the devil said, eat of that tree, forbidden tree. No, that is not what he said.

Read carefully. The very first verse of Genesis 3 verse 1. Satan's first words were, has God really said this? Got it? What is the first temptation? To doubt the word of God. Not to eat of the tree. Has God really said this?

Read that in Genesis 3 verse 1. And that put doubt into God's mind. And that's how he puts doubt into your mind. Is this really God's word? Are you sure? And once we begin to doubt and how many millions of people are being confused by that, is this really God's word?

You know, when I was a young Christian, if someone were to ask me, how do you know the Bible is the word of God? This is the answer. I hadn't read the Bible at that time. I took about six, seven months to read through the whole Bible after I was converted.

And then also I just read through it quickly just to know what is in it. And then I began to study it, study it, study it. I've been doing that for 64 years. But if you had asked me in those days, how do you know the Bible is God's word?

I say, well, I'll tell you, I would say there are two things I've noticed about every really godly man whom I have respected. In those days, I didn't know much of the Bible. But now and then, I would meet a truly godly man, a truly godly man who was really humble.

You see, I've always seen that truly godly men, their primary characteristic is humility. A truly humble man, a truly godly man is a humble man, number one. How holy he is, I don't know his thoughts. But his humility in the way he talks to me, in the way he behaves with me, in the way he relates to me is something I can see.

Jesus was very humble. See how in the last day of his life, he was washing the disciples' feet. He never had high thoughts that I am the Lord, how can I wash people's feet? It's foolish men, foolish Christians who think like that.

It's foolish pastors and preachers who take titles like reverend and right reverend and all that rubbish. Jesus, when they tried to make him a king, he ran away. Even John in Revelation, he doesn't say, I'm the right reverend John or I'm pastor John.

No, he says, I, John, your brother. These apostles were humble. They had learned humility from Christ. So I've noticed, and whenever I've respected a man for his humility, and I've met, I'll tell you, in my young days, I met just a few.

But I can think of two or three people I met in those days way back. And I saw two things almost consistently in all of them when I spoke to them. One, all of them believed the Bible to be the word of God from cover to cover.

And secondly, they all spoke about an experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Every one of them. Then I saw that is the secret. As a young Christian. So people ask me, why do you believe the Bible is God's word?

I said, because the godliest men I have met, the humblest men, Christians I have met, they believe the Bible is God's word. And they are filled with the Holy Spirit. And so that's why I accept it. But today, if you ask me, why do you believe in God's word?

I say, well, it's changed my life. I've experienced His promises. I've seen God keeps His word. I've claimed the promises in God's word. It's like the promises in God's word are like checks. Checks signed by Jesus Christ.

I've taken those checks to the bank of heaven, and every one of them is cashed. I don't mean in terms of money, but in terms of promises being fulfilled in my life, of prayers being answered for other people.

That's how I know the Bible is God's word. Do you know it like that? I mean, in the beginning of your Christian life, okay, you accept the Bible as God's word because you have met some truly humble, godly men who say they believe the Bible is God's word.

So you accept it. Good. We've got nothing here because we haven't studied the Bible. But after some time, I believe if you've been at least four or five years a Christian, you should really have thought to know the Bible and read it a little more thoroughly and read all of it.

So because we believe the Bible is God's word, we come to it and say, Lord, I want to go by everything that's written here. And the devil will say, Has God really said that? You come to some promise in the Bible that says, Has God really said that?

And you come to a command in the Bible, and the devil says, Has God really said that? You see, that is in contrast. Genesis chapter 3 verse 1, Has God really said, is in contrast to Genesis chapter 1.

Turn for a moment to Genesis chapter 1. What do we read there? That chapter is full of one phrase, two words, two words, repeated again and again and again and again and again in chapter 1. You know what those two words are?

God said, God said, God said, God said. See verse 3. See verse 6. See verse 9. And see verse 14. See verse 20. See verse 24. See verse 26. There's no chapter in the Bible. There's no chapter in the whole Bible where you read these two words repeated again and again and again.

God said, God said, God said, God said, God said. Why is that written in the very first page of the Bible? And that is on the first day, on the second day, on the third day, the fourth day, fifth day, sixth day.

And then God rested. So what is the message that comes to us from the whole week? One message. The first page of your Bible. God speaks every day. I want to ask you. You say you're a Christian. Do you hear God speak every day to you?

In your heart? In the olden days, he spoke from outside. Abraham, Abraham, Samuel, Samuel, Elijah. But those are the days when the Holy Spirit was outside man. The first person who walked on earth. With the Holy Spirit inside was Jesus Christ when he came to earth as a man.

And from the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit wants to dwell inside and speak from inside. I used to, as a young Christian, say, oh, I wish I could hear you, Lord, speak to me from the outside, like you called Abraham.

But I realized that Jesus was with the disciples for three and a half years, speaking to them, God speaking to them from the outside all the time. And yet, at the end of those three and a half years, Peter denied Jesus Christ.

Judas Iscariot ran off with the money and betrayed Jesus Christ. And all the disciples were scared, locked up in rooms and did not preach the gospel to others as the Lord told them to do before he went to heaven.

No, they couldn't do it. But the moment they were filled with the Holy Spirit, everything changed. Then they began to hear God and tell other people what God has spoken to them. That's what happens when you're filled with the Holy Spirit.

I can tell you this from the time I really understood the value of being genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit. My greatest longing has been to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day and to hear God speaking to me every day.

I wanted to be said about my life every day of the week, seven days of the week. God said, God said, God said, God said. And we read in Genesis 1, when God said something, something happened. If it is really God's word, something will happen.

You never read in Genesis 1, then God said something on this day and nothing happened. You read anything like that? Please meditate on Genesis 1. Every day when God said something, something happened.

And he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the same. When God says something, something happens. If nothing happens, then God has not spoken. And when God speaks, he expects us to do something about it.

See, God's word, when it comes forth, it cannot return to him empty. I want to show you a verse in Isaiah 55 and verse 11. Please remember this. If you don't know it, it's a good verse to remember. Isaiah 55 and verse 11.

God says about his own word, my word which goes forth from my mouth. What do we read in Genesis chapter 1? God's word that went forth from his mouth. If my word goes forth from my mouth, God says, it will never return empty.

That means it will never return without accomplishing something. You think of Isaiah 55 and 11 when you read Genesis 1. God's word never returned empty in Genesis 1. First day, second day, third day, fourth day, any day.

When God speaks, it cannot return empty. It has to accomplish something. It will not return without accomplishing what God wants. That's what it says here. And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

What a wonderful verse. Let me repeat it. God says, my word which goes forth from my mouth will never return to me without accomplishing anything. But it will accomplish what I desire, what God desires.

And it will succeed in the matter for which I sent it. In other words, when God gives a word, he sends it with a particular purpose. And then it will accomplish something. We read in Psalm 106 that God sent his word and healed him.

Accomplish something. Whenever Jesus spoke a word, something happened. Always. Yes. And he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that's why I don't want to read the Bible like I read other storybooks.

I'll tell you, if you've been a Christian for even two or three years and you haven't read the whole Bible, I believe you don't really respect God. Now, I'm not trying to insult you, but I want to tell you, if you have been a Christian for three years and you haven't read through the whole Bible cover to cover, at least I'm not asking whether you understood it, but you haven't read through it even once, don't tell me you fear God.

I'll tell you to your face humbly, my dear brother or sister, you do not respect God. You're just a Christian trying to impress people in your church or others that you're a Christian. Before God, you're not.

And I'll tell you why. Let me use an example. Supposing you're a young boy or girl and your father is working, didn't have a job in your hometown, had to go 1 ,000 miles away to work somewhere to earn money for your family and sends you, one day he sends you a letter, my dear son, my dear daughter, and sends you a long letter.

It takes about hours and hours, maybe days to write a 20-page letter to you. And that's the father who's supporting you financially and doing many things like that for you. And you don't bother to read it.

You don't bother to read that letter from first page to last page. How in the world can you say that you respect your father or that you care for your father or that you're grateful for your father supporting you, caring for you?

You've never seen him. Of course, he's 1 ,000 miles away, but he's working hard to support you. You cannot say that you love and respect your father if you don't read every single sentence in that 20-page letter he sends you.

I'm sure you'll agree with me there. How can you say you respect your heavenly father who sent you something and you don't read it cover to cover? You don't believe it's God's word. That's the thing. You believe it's written by 40 different people who wrote it, their own ideas.

But I'll tell you, from my reading it for 64 years, it is the word of God. I've claimed promises in it which have changed my life. When God called me to leave my job on the 6th of May 1964, I wrote it down on Isaiah 49 was the chapter through which God called me.

You are my servant. I called you from your mother's womb. I said, wow. Lord, you called me from my mother's womb to be your servant? Now, I know it's there in the Bible for everyone to read, but that day God spoke to me directly to my heart.

And some amazing things in that chapter that God spoke to me and that I've seen fulfilled in the last year since 1964 until now. In all these years, 58 years, I've seen it sort of fulfilled in different ways, but I accepted it.

God spoke to me. Sometimes God speaks in a special way, and it's fulfilled. I want you to read the Bible as God speaking to you. God wants to speak every day. And for that, you need to really ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of Adoption and the Fatherhood of God

Then he'll speak to you from within. And one of the first things that the Holy Spirit does, what is the first thing the Holy Spirit does when he comes in? Turn with me to Romans chapter 8. If this has not happened, something is missing.

Some people would say that the first thing the Holy Spirit does when he comes into your life is to make you speak in tongues. I do not agree with that. Speaking in tongues, let me tell you, from 1 Corinthians chapter 12, is very clearly one of the gifts of the Spirit and very clearly mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that all, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 30, all do not speak with tongues.

I'm reading scripture, 1 Corinthians 12, 30. All do not speak with tongues. Those are the exact words in my Bible, 1 Corinthians 12, 30. In spite of the Holy Spirit having written that all Christians do not speak with tongues, there are some people today who go around saying, all do speak with tongues.

When God says, all do not speak with tongues, and you say, all do speak with tongues, that reminds me of what the devil told Eve. Has God really said? Yes, God has really said, all do not speak with tongues.

I'm not against speaking with tongues. God gave me the gift of tongues, and I've used it for the last 48 years. But I also believe that all do not speak with tongues. And I also believe what the Bible says, that speaking in tongues is not to be used publicly because it says one who speaks in a tongue speaks to God.

1 Corinthians 14, verse 2. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 2, they don't speak to men, they speak to God. That's what it says here. And if you go to a church where everybody is speaking in tongues, that's also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14, where we read in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 23, you go to a church and everybody is speaking in tongues, you like to call it a mad church.

Those are not my words. I'm not angry with anybody. I'm just telling you what God's word says, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 23. If everybody is speaking in tongues in a church, you call it a mad church. Some people say it's a Pentecostal church.

I say it's a mad church, according to God's word. But if some people say you should not speak in tongues, that is another thing because it says in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 39, do not forbid to speak in tongues.

The problem in Christianity is we don't know the balance. We go to one extreme, everybody must speak in tongues, or nobody must speak in tongues. That's just one area. Find the balance in Scripture. Read Scripture carefully.

I read these verses to you. Read Scripture carefully. But what is the first thing the Holy Spirit does? Romans chapter 8, when he comes into our heart. As soon as he comes into our heart, it says here in Romans 8, 15, we have not received a spirit of slavery, but we have received a spirit of adoption.

Adoption means we've been made children of God. Not the way we think of adoption today, where you adopt somebody who's not really your child and make him, bring him into your home. No. Here the word adoption means completely different from what we understand adoption today.

It means being established as a child of God, recognized as a child of God, and the Holy Spirit comes in. And the first thing he says from us is to cry out, Father, Daddy, the word Abba. I'm sorry to say that word Abba has not been translated.

Abba is not English. That's a Greek word. It's very similar to our Indian words, Appa, Appa, Appa. What is Appa? Very similar to Abba. It means father. Or more accurately, Daddy. So let me read to you.

The spirit, when we receive the Holy Spirit, Romans 8, 15, the first thing he does is he cries out, Daddy, Father. Has that happened in your life? I'm not telling you somebody teaching you, look at this person and say, call him Daddy, call him Daddy.

This is some child that is not your child and he's become an orphan. You welcome him into your home and you teach him, hey, this is your Daddy. Call him Daddy, Daddy. Not like that. A baby born into your home, what a delight it is when your first child was born into your home and one day looked up to you and said, Appa or Amma, Daddy, Mommy.

What delight it brought to your heart. I know. I have four sons. And it brings such delight to my heart when they call me Daddy. And I want to say to you, it's a father who's more delighted than the child, isn't it?

Isn't that true? All of you who have children, when your child first called you Daddy, who was more excited? You or the child? You were excited. He calls me Daddy. Wonderful. Do you believe? Do you believe this?

That your father in heaven is excited when you call him Daddy? Do you call him Daddy? Or do you call him, oh, God, oh, God? He is God. And I will call him God. I'll call him Lord. The apostles also prayed Lord.

And I call him Lord many times. But my favorite word is Daddy. Is that your favorite word when you talk to your heavenly father? You know, there are some songs in the English hymn book where I don't agree with some of the words.

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. See, a song is something you're supposed to pray. It's a prayer. Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. Well, I say I never sing it like that because I never call God Jehovah.

That is an Old Testament expression. You never find the word Jehovah in the New Testament. It's Father. Father. So I've told people I don't call God Jehovah. I don't sing that like that, guide me, O thou great Jehovah.

When everybody else in the congregation is singing guide me, O thou great Jehovah, I sing guide me, O my heavenly father. I sing it softly. I don't want to disrupt the singing. I say that's what I say.

And people ask me, isn't he Jehovah? Why don't you call him? I say if my children come to me and say one day, Mr. Poonen, I would like to talk to you. I say you're my child and you're calling me Mr. Poonen?

Are you angry with me or something? You call me Daddy. Other people call me Mr. Poonen, but you call me Daddy. How do you go to God and what do you call him? Do you only call him O God, O God, O God? He is God.

Definitely call him God. But I want to ask you, how many of you call him Daddy? I wake up in the morning and I say, Dad, it's so good to talk to you this morning. That's how I begin my day. I'm a very happy person.

My life has become more heavenly every day. My home has become a fortress of heaven on earth. Part of it is because I had known God as a daddy, because the Holy Spirit filled me. I saw a change in my life.

I'm not a better Christian than other people. I'm not here to compare myself with anybody. That is for God to decide. But I know that the Holy Spirit has come into me and cried out, Daddy. Yeah, he's given me many other gifts.

He's given me the gift of tongues. He's given me especially the gift of teaching God's word. That's not something I produced myself. You can't just decide, I'm going to be a teacher of God's word. I'm going to be a preacher of God's word.

No, you can't. God has to give you a gift. And when God gives you a gift, godly people will recognize it. So unfortunately, there are so many people who stand up in pulpits today whom God has not gifted.

And you listen to them for five minutes and you discover pretty soon, God has not gifted them. This guy is just expressing his own thoughts. Yeah, God gives gifts to every one of his members. It may not be gifts that put you into the pulpit, but he's a loving father.

And he gives different gifts according to each of his children, like different members of the body, different fulfilling, different functions. But the most important thing is to know him as father. I'm absolutely convinced that this is one of the most important things that Christians all over the world need to know.

Obedience to Christ Requires the Holy Spirit

Turn with me to John's Gospel, Chapter 14. John's Gospel, Chapter 14. One of the most difficult statements that Jesus said is to keep all his commandments. Don't you agree? He told us never to get angry.

He told us, and men have a problem with this, never lust, never have sexual lust in your mind towards any woman in the world. Sexual desire must be only to your wife after you're married and to nobody else.

You ask any honest man, he'll tell you that's a big struggle. And yet Jesus said, you lust in your mind. It's one of the first steps towards hell. Many people don't even know that. If you don't overcome anger in your home, it's one of the first steps to hell.

You think Jesus' commandments are easy? Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who are evil towards you. Forgive everyone no matter what they've done. You think they're easy commands?

There were no such commands in the Old Testament. No. These are commandments that can be obeyed only, only, only if you're filled with the Holy Spirit. And if you can't obey them, it's because you're not filled with the Holy Spirit.

And because you don't want to obey them, God doesn't fill you with the Holy Spirit. Why do you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit if you don't want to obey the commandments? For example, if you're working in a company and two of you are working in a company and both of you are sent to the market to buy something for the company and the owner of the company gives one person a hundred thousand rupees or a hundred thousand dollars to go and buy something for this company with a detailed list.

And he gives you ten rupees or ten dollars to go and buy something for the company. And you say, hey, why this difference? Why are you giving him more and giving me less? The owner will say, well, I've given you a smaller list of things to buy.