Be a Servant Always - Till the End of Your Earthly Days

In 2 Kings 3:11, we see a beautiful title given to the prophet Elisha by others in Israel: “He who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.” Each time, after Elijah had finished eating, Elisha would bring some water and pour it for Elijah to wash his hands. He did that job so regularly and faithfully that others observed it and gave him that title! That is how Elisha started out on his ministry.

God will test our faithfulness in little things before He commits a ministry to us. Joshua had served Moses faithfully for many years before he became the next leader. Timothy served Paul faithfully and became an apostle.

Elisha was not known as a great preacher or a great prophet when he started out. He was known only as a servant. Many young people miss God’s best because they look for fame in the ministry and not for the opportunity to serve others.

Jesus taught us by His example that we should wash people’s feet till the end of our lives. It’s not that we begin by washing people’s feet for a few years and then move up to more senior ministries! No. We are called to wash people’s feet until the end of our lives. We must always be ready to do the lowly tasks.

Jesus said that He had come to serve others and not to be served by others. Be a servant always - till the end of your earthly days. If you want to be a servant of the Lord forever, be a servant of peopleforever. Always consider yourself a servant of others and nothing else. When you serve the Lord, others will be kind to you and serve you. But don’t ever take any delight in that.  Don’t ever look at them as your servants. They are your brothers. Be willing to serve them and to wash their feet. Most preachers today have become “lords”, and that’s why the anointing has gone from their ministry.

BY Zac Poonen  www.cfcindia.com

Pray with full faith... GOD will deliver and hear your prayer... GOD Bless All :)

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. 
(Psalm 18:2-6)

God Commands Us to Build a Home for Him to Live In

By Zac Poonen www.cfcindia.com

We all know how when we go into some homes that we don’t feel at home there. Whereas in other homes, right from the moment we enter, they make us feel completely at home. It is difficult to explain this feeling, but we all know it.

A Christian home must be a place where Jesus feels completely at home. That means that He is happy about everything He sees there. He is happy about the books we read, the magazines we get, the conversation between husband and wife, the things we talk about, the programs we watch on TV and everything else. In many Christian homes, they have Bible-verses hanging on the wall. But Jesus does not feel at home there.

Can you imagine with what tremendous anticipation God brought Adam and Eve together. What wonderful plans He had for them as a Father. He hoped that they would have a wonderful home where He would always be first. But how soon God was disappointed. He was not angry with them, He was sad. I believe there is a lot of sadness in God’s heart today when He sees the condition of many a Christian home, where there is no peace, but only quarreling and fighting. They turn to Him only when they are in trouble. The people of the world turn to God only when they face some problems. But as Christians we are to be different. God is not an emergency number that we are to call when we are in some difficulty. No. God must be the Centre of our lives at all times.

God’s Word has been given to us exactly like the “Manufacturer’s Instructions” that we get with any gadget that we buy. All of us are so careful after buying an electronic gadget to follow thoseinstructions exactly. If your gadget has some problem and you take it to the manufacturer, the first question he will ask you will be, “Did you follow the Manufacturer’s instruction-booklet exactly?” In fact, in most guarantee cards it is clearly written that the guarantee becomes invalid if you don’t follow the instructions exactly.

The wonderful thing about God however is that when we go to Him with our messed-up life at any time, He is still willing to rectify it. His is not a one-year guarantee! It’s a life-long one! If you come to Him with your broken life, He will straighten it out. That’s the wonderful thing about God - He is a loving Father. And it’s very important that we know that the One Who is asking us to make a sanctuary for Him in our home is a loving Father. He is very, very interested in our lives and He wants us to be happy until the day that Jesus returns.

I can tell you that the most wonderful life we can ever live is one where Jesus is the Centre of our life, and where everything in our home is determined by whether it makes Jesus happy or not – the way we spend our time, the way we spend our money, and the way we do everything else. If we live like that, then when we come to the end of our life, or if Christ returns before that, and we stand before Him, He will say, “Well done”. It won’t matter then what others thought about us.

One characteristic of man is that he judges by the outward appearance. I did that myself for many years, when I was a legalist. But I now see more clearly that it is the heart that God looks at. It is important to remember that it’s our heart that should always be pure. Whether our home is a palace or a hut is secondary - the outward appearance is secondary. It’s our heart that God sees. So make sure that our hearts are together a sanctuary – a holy place – for God to dwell in.

Novena to St.Antony of Padhuva

Trust and pray and be Blessed... GOD Bless All :)

Novena to St.Jude.

Pray with Full Heart and Trust, testify and be blessed :) GOD BLESS :)

LORD JESUS CHRIST IS OUR SAVIOUR , WE SHALL NOT WANT

Look for the Anointing of God and the Grace of God upon a Man

WORD FOR THE WEEK by Zac Poonen www.cfcindia.com

In 1 Chronicles, Chapter 12, we read of those who stood by David when Saul was persecuting him. It was easy to join David after he had become king. But here we read of people who joined him at a time when he was rejected and being hunted for his life. It’s easy to live totally for the Lord in heaven but quite another matter to follow Him totally here on earth where He is rejected and despised. In the same way, it is easy to join a church after it has become famous and popular, but quite another thing to join it when it is despised, because you see that the anointing is there.

The men who became David’s army generals later were those who followed him at a time when he was being persecuted by Saul and rejected by Israel. In our day also we see something similar. God raises up a man to do a work for Him in a particular place, but very few have eyes to recognize God’s anointing on him and on his ministry. These few join him and don’t care what ‘Saul’ or anybody else says about him. Thus they accomplish an eternal work for the Lord in their generation. We need to train our senses to recognize where the anointing of God is today.

A true servant of God will never be popular, even as his Master was unpopular. Jesus said,“Woe unto you when everyone speaks well of you, because they spoke thus about the falseprophets. But blessed are you when all men speak evil of you, because that’s how they treated all the true prophets.” (Lk.6:22, 26) Very few people have understood this fact. A true prophet is almost never fully recognised or valued in his lifetime.

The history of the church shows that even the true apostles were rejected and despised by others in their lifetime. Paul was rejected by the believers in Corinth. He said in 2Tim.1:15, “All those in Asia have forsaken me.” Paul was true to God until the end of his life, but most of his fellow-believers forsook him. Jesus was true to His father and most people left Him too.

Some of the sons of Benjamin came to David when he was in a cave (12:16). David met them and told them, “If you have come peacefully, my heart will be with you. But if you have come to betray me to my enemies - my conscience is clear - may God punish you.” We have to be careful, because even today there are people who can come to us pretending to be our friends. But if our conscience is clear, God will deal with them.

But look at the wonderful example of Amasai (12:18): “The Spirit of God came upon Amasai, who was the chief of the thirty valiant men, and he said, ‘We are yours, O David. We are with you, son of Jesse. Peace to you and peace to him who helps you. Your God helps you.’ Then David received them and made them captains of his band.” People like Amasai recognised God’s anointing upon David, despite David’s outward circumstances, because the Holy Spirit was upon them.

If you read the history of the church you will find that the truly godly men who stood against the established religious system in Christendom were always persecuted. You have heard of how Martin Luther was persecuted by the Roman Catholic system. Perhaps you have heard of John Calvin too. But there was another group of wholehearted believers at that time called theAnabaptists, who were persecuted not only by the Roman Catholics but also by the followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin!! These Anabaptists were godly people who sought to live godly lives, totally separated from the spirit of this world – and they were persecuted severely for their stand. They met in the forests and many of their leaders were killed. Church history may not have written much about them. But one day when Jesus returns, we will discover that these people were the men who stood wholeheartedly for God in their day. And this is true in our day too.

Look for the anointing of God upon a man – not for supernatural gifts (even Satan has supernatural gifts) but for the anointing and the grace of God – those are the proofs that God is with a man. And if God approves of a man, we better approve of him too! Amasai had that much sense!

Notice another characteristic of David (in 13:1): “David consulted with the captains of the thousands and the hundreds, even with every leader.” A true man of God works in fellowship with others. One reason why David got such tremendous support from the people was because he discussed things with them. His attitude was, “I am a weak brother and I need your opinion. What do you think about this?” He sat down and discussed things with people who were junior to him and together came to a decision along with the other men. And then we read in verse 4, “All the assembly said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.”

Very Very Important !!! GOD BLESS ALL :)

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:26 that he had a very definite aim in what he was doing. He didn’t fight or run aimlessly. He ran towards a definite goal. He fired at a definite target.

I remember the days when we cadets were being taught to shoot with rifles in the military academy. We had to lie down on the ground, a few feet apart from each other, with rifles in our hands. Each of us had a target-board some yards in front of us, marked with a number of concentric circles, with a point in the centre called the “bull’s eye”. When we first began shooting, our aim was highly inaccurate. Some of us would be hitting the next person’s target and not our own!! After a while we learnt to hit our own targets.

That’s how it often is with many Christians too. They hit other people’s targets and not their own. They are busybodies in other people’s matters. But if they work out their own salvation, they will gradually learn to hit their own target and finally hit the bull’s eye. Then their aim would have become perfect. Paul’s aim was perfect. He didn’t judge others. He judged himself and subdued his own body. And so he fought a good fight and finished his course (2 Tim.4:7).

Our eyes and our tongue are the two members of our body that we need to discipline the most.

We invite unbelievers to give their hearts to Christ. But the Lord asks us to give Him our bodies (Rom.12:1) - and He asks especially for our eyes and our tongues. If we don’t give Him these, all the time, we cannot expect to be bondslaves or spokesmen of Christ, or to stand approved by God in the final day.

If we don’t keep our eyes under control - at home, in the bus, on the road and in our place of work - we will find that even if we preach like angels, we will be disqualified by God in the final day. Many servants of God through the centuries have fallen because they were not careful with their eyes. They allowed their eyes to wander and look at pretty girls, and soon one thing led to another, and they fell into sin. It is not enough to say that we don’t lust after women. The Bible warns usnot even to admire a woman’s BEAUTY, lest it bring us to spiritual poverty (Prov.6:25,26). How careful we must be then.

We have to be careful in the same way with our tongues. God will not use the tongue of a man to preach His Word, if that man allows his tongue to be used by Satan at other times. The Lord told Jeremiah, “If you separate the precious from the worthless (in your conversation), then you will become My spokesman” (Jer.15:19).  We must never speak anything that does not come from a heart of goodness. That’s not easy to do, because we are so weak in this area. We have to be ruthless if we are to discipline our tongues.

I am sure there must have been many young people in our land whom God had called in past days to His service, whom He had planned to make His prophets in India. But they did not become prophets, because they were not careful to discipline their eyes and their tongues. They did not subdue their bodies.

We are called members of the Body of Christ, because that expresses anintimate, inward relationship with Christ the Head, just like our bodily members have with our brains in our physical bodies.

Jesus was faithful to keep every part of His body available exclusively for His Father (His Head). It is written in Romans 15:3 that He never pleased Himself. He never sought His own pleasure in the way He used His eyes or His tongue. He did not look at what He wanted to. Nor did He speak what He wanted to. He always sought to do what pleased His Father. Thus He presented His body without any blemish to His Father and became the perfect spokesman of His Father to the world (Heb.9:14). That is how we are to live too, as members of His spiritual Body now.

To be a wholehearted disciple of Jesus is to have a burning desire to present ourselves to God without any blemish.

If we want to build the church as the Body of Christ, we must gather together all those who are eager to present their bodies to God thus, and who are really keen to make their bodies their slaves.

Each time we miss the bull’s eye, we must mourn for our failure. We must mourn when our eyes are not absolutely pure. We must mourn when our tongues have spoken something that was not spoken in absolute goodness.