Love God And He Will Provide Your Needs - Zac Poonen

brother Victor came from a Hindu family many years ago many many years ago somebody told me that if you want to be a good Bible teacher you must grow up in a Christian home people who come from Hindu homes become evangelists do you see how God has helped our brother to teach the Word of God so clearly you think that is something that comes just by the Holy Spirit coming upon you I don't know his private life but when I listen to a man I can discern how much he has studied the Bible and I find most preachers are lazy most Christians are lazy they don't study the Bible and they expect to grow spiritually they neglect the one book God has given as I heard brother Victor many times it's always so refreshing every single time and I praise God that God raises up such brothers in our church I pray there'll be many more there are many others who've been in the church longer than him who are more educated than him who can speak English why is God not able to use you he's not a full-time worker he is a teacher he's earned his own living he lives in a very small house four sons who grown up now following the Lord I pray there'll be many more like him in our midst dear brothers don't come to the church just to get a benefit say Lord I want to be useful to you and I'll tell you you will never be useful to God if you are not diligent in your study of the word and so one of the most important things don't have a casual understanding of the Word of God if you can read English I want to ask you whether you have read the commentary we have through the Bible I even told people if you can't afford the cost of it come to me I'll give it to you at whatever you can afford we're not interested in money we are not interested in making money in this church never been that every single one of our books is on the internet you can listen to it all freely we don't operate our ministry like all these other Christian ministries where everything is for money they won't put their books on the internet because then nobody will buy them they are more interested in profit they have to pay royalty to the authors this is where Christendom has gone the love of many we become cold because iniquity will abound because the love of money will increase remember this we are living in that time if you want to endure till the end make sure you associate with people who do not love money there are so many Christian groups I know personally and that I've studied about that started out in great simplicity zeal pursuing holiness wanting to overcome sin and all that I mean from the time of John Wesley holiness has been preached by many many groups when in most cases in almost every case I have seen as I've studied them that downfall was money they became rich they pursued after wealth that became the big thing there to urge people in their churches give money give money give money is that following in Jesus footsteps to say give money give money give money when did Jesus say that he said give it to the poor don't give me anything where did Paul say that and yet every group that I know often christened them that I know of there may be some groups I don't know but every single group that I know of they urge their people come on give money give money give money and that proves to me that is not a work of God maybe it was when it started in the days of John Wesley and all but not today beware of that and I'll tell you why because you know where we say in durin in love unto the end how can I endure in love for Jesus until the end there's one competitor you know like we read of the bride and the harlot the bride is the church since Christ wants the love of the bride exclusively for himself that's not wrong all of you are married you want the love of your wife only for yourself you don't even want your wife to admire another man leave alone go with another man that's serious you don't want your wife to look longingly at another man and say I wish I'd married him that is a faithful bride but if you have a wife who is looking at others and wishing I were married to him that's a harlot she may be married she may be married to you but she's got the spirit of a prostitute the spirit of the bride is one who's loyal to you now apply that to Christ and money in the world the one is devoted to Christ Lord you're everything to me there will be no attraction to money we use it just won't be attractive now I'll show you this verse is very very important how shall we preserve ourselves in love jesus said in Luke chapter 16 Luke 16 and verse 13 no servant this is a very important verse and I'll tell you something you will almost never hear anybody preach on this verse in the rest of Christendom and explain it the way I'm going to explain to you now no servant can serve two masters and the two masters are not God and Satan nobody imagines that they can serve God and Satan the two masters are God and wealth read verse 13 see what Jesus said there are only two masters he said not three Satan is the master for many people in the world but for a Christian he's talking about those who are his disciples that only two masters challenging a Christian you will new Christians will never serve the devil impossible but it's very possible that you can try to serve God and money at the same time and it says no sir can serve two masters because he will hate one and love the other it's not that he will love one more than the other it's not saying I love God more than money that sounds so spiritual yes I love Jesus much more than I love money it's like a wife telling her husband I love that man but I love you more would you be happy with that your husband's you ask your wife do you love that man also yes I love him also I love you more harlot prostitute you cannot say I love money but I love Jesus more and all of you who are living like that I want to say to you in Jesus name you got the spirit of the harlot you won't hear that in another church because they want your money we don't want it 45 years in all our nearly a hundred churches we have never once taken an offering not once in any church not in the poorest villages not in the richest cities I'll tell you why because we look under Jesus and run the race and I never see Jesus taking an offering not even once I never see Paul passing a bag around saying please support me you said then how the churches continue seek the kingdom of God first and these other things will be added to you and we have proved that I remember when I left the Navy I said Lord I want to prove I learned a lot of money in the Navy I was a very very highly paid naval officer but when I left I gave all my entire life savings away for God's work and started God's work with zero in my bank account and I said I want to prove if God can take care of me with a zero bank account and trust God in it somebody may give me a gift but I was working mostly among students and religious people not among the rich churches and the message I preached was not appealing to all the big denominations so I got a little bit here and there my wife and I were married first three four years we were so poor so poor that we could not rent a house to live in one room in my father's house which he kindly gave us not out of choice nobody likes to live with their father-in-law parents house what to do and you don't have money what do you do but I said Lord I will never love money if you go let me go through the struggle I don't know why you're letting me go there's this way it's difficult for my wife but what to do we're going to be faithful we will not send letters to other places sending reports of our work and all that to get money I'll never do it and God tested me for four years and I proved in those years and subsequent years also that he is faithful he tested me through years to see when you're in need will you go and tell somebody will you write a letter describing your work to people so that they'll support you no and then I tried proved it in my life he got married I proved in my family then we could have a church CFC say now I proved it in my life I proved it in my family with two or three children now I want to prove it in a church that the same principle will work in a church you cannot serve God and money I'd proved in my life I can serve God and not bother about money he provides for me I couldn't buy whatever I wanted when my shirt collar tore my wife would remove the collar turn it invert it and use the other side of the collar that's the type of shirts I wore for years because I couldn't afford to buy a shirt now today people give me so many shirts I don't know what to do with them I have to give it away to other people please remember these are old times is not I'm not like that today but what I say is God was testing me we couldn't afford washing machines we washed our hands washed out clothes the way Jesus washed his clothes is there a better way than that we can't afford it buddy we refuse to get into debt refuse to in 80 years of my life I have never borrowed money one rupee from anybody else if I don't have the money I say I won't buy it if I don't have the money for something I won't go on a vacation I won't go on a holiday I won't travel it's fine I can live without traveling not gonna go get into debt I will not owe one cent to anybody and I've taught my children that don't ever get into debt credit card debt the worst possible thing it's an absolutely shameful thing for a Christian child of God to go and buy things on a credit card credit card and not pay it the next month if you are paying it immediately next month fine but if you're not able to pay it next month get rid of your credit card can you imagine Jesus buying things in a credit card and not paying it the next month and clearing that debt with Jesus are you people following what are you hearing in the church about Christ manifest in the flesh which Christ one who gets into debt one who has credit card debt shame on you that is not that real Jesus Christ that is another Jesus and you must be an example you must be able to say at least from now on till the end of your life I did not get into debt I can say that in our entire married life we never borrowed money when we had little we lived with little God was testing us I've absolutely convinced that God tests a man in the area of money before he gives him a ministry sure when I'm sure a brother like Victor God Esther I don't know how God has tested him but I'm absolutely sure he must have been tested in the area of money and I'm absolutely sure the reason why many God does not give a ministry to many of you is because he's Tesla's Union money and you have failed your begged your borrowed and sometimes your not returned I've seen that in CFC people have borrowed money and never returned it for a long long time get into debt and they want to say Christ came in my flesh I want to follow him another Jesus Paul says there were times when he didn't have enough to eat why couldn't he borrow you think people would not loan money to Paul he wouldn't borrow see ok God doesn't give me enough to eat I'll eat what look there is these are the men whom God is used throughout the generations I want to encourage you so we proved it in our church for years in bangle no offerings and those who were with us in the early days know that we never asked never made any driving never sent reports to anybody people would sometimes give an alkyl one example after six years in our home we found it was getting a bit crowded there were about sixty people when we wanted to have a conference you know my old house we put us Shami onna there and we had a conference there and all the brothers would sleep one next to the other in our front room the sisters in different places and we had our first conference there but it was getting crowded and we needed a place and we looked here and there we couldn't get one then my father had paid the advance for a plot of land in the cost of square and he said you can have it for the church but you had to pay the balance and the balance was quite a lot he had paid only twenty percent as an a deposit we had to pay the eighty percent balance and after six years we didn't have that money from our offering box we had a little and what we had was less than half it was about one third of the money we needed that we had and we had to clear the money in about two or three weeks but he in six years we did not have collection what shall we do he said we will not send reports to anyway we will not ask anybody in the world for it if God wants us to have that land it will be written across it reserved for CFC nobody can touch it we trusted God and I think it was those who live with us and those are with us in those days know about it about two three weeks before the deadline before if he didn't pay it the other fella would take the plan back somebody sent us a check for the entire amount which we needed to buy the land somebody whom I have never seen in my life till then and somebody whom I've never seen in my life till today we just sent a thank-you note to him and somebody who never sent any money after that he's never met me I've never met him he's never come to CFC who did that do you believe in God you believe God honors those who trust him what did that proved to us God wants us to have that land and God did give us on the main road with a purpose because there was some Roman Catholic believers who walked by that road once and walked in and got converted thank God we were on the main road God put us there with a purpose we couldn't get a line on the main road we became the object of jealousy of all the other Christians are only how did these guys get this land here and then it got crowded so anyway we proved in that church over years then I said Lord I proved it in my life I proved it in my family I proved it in this local church but Bangalore is a city people earn a lot of money here I want to prove this in the poorest villages in India that there also we will have a church without offerings let's see whether we can survive because God is the god of cities villages poor people rich people and so God gave us opportunity to go into the poorest villages of India in two villages where there were no churches for 2,000 years same principle we will not take an offering of course we'll help one another that's fine but ultimately we want every church to be self-supporting not supported by other churches and every one of our churches is self-supporting no church is supported by another Church for their own needs we may help them to whatever building or something but not more than that and we are proved in all the poorest villages in India we never ask for money we never take an offering all the needs are met and all our conferences we give free food free accommodation come to the villages and see 2,000 people come no offering because we have a Father in heaven who's interested in our work and we want to prove to an unbelieving generation of Christians that God is faithful you cannot serve God and money you cannot love God and money you will love one and hate the other we are talking about enduring in love until the end if you want to end your in love to Jesus under the end you got to stop loving money and you got to prove it don't jump into the big ministry first start in your personal life God taught me in my personal life first then in my family life then in a small church and then another church expanding and then the building we had there became small we had to build another floor people sitting on top with closed-circuit television there and then it's top floor and I thought these poor old people climbing two floors - and he got crowded Lord give us another land and where could we get it - get a land in Bangalore first of all you have to money you have to have money which is not declared to the tax authorities unrighteous money that you keep in cash and they'll ask for millions like that if you want to get a land and we see we don't even have one cent like that not even one paisa not one rupee like that no no then we can't sell you that end the other condition we needed in Bangalore was the neighbors must all agree to have a church building here and which neighbors will allow you to have a church building there they say we don't want all your cars parked over here and the children throwing things across the a compound wall and so everywhere we went we had these two objections first we people wanted what they call black money and second it must be neighbors must agree impossible there's a saying that the for a Christian the word impossible is in a fools dictionary and somebody showed us this land all the lands around around here were given by an old Muslim ruler of India called Tipu Sultan gave it to his descendants and all the descendants are fighting as to who owns it so it is all in the courts so nobody can build anything here so we have no neighbors so we could nobody we didn't have to get anybody's permission to build the church God planted from Tipu Sultan's days I mean he's got CFC in mind you don't realize how early God plans everything for us I'm not telling his stories go and ask again go and ask our treasurer he'll tell you what about the black money part the man who owned this versus nominal Christian he had bought it from a good neighbor there in front who owned this whole land and he had read one of my books this Christian man who owned this and he was willing to give it to us and I told him listen please give us 10 months to pay the full amount he said sure and we had only one-third of the cost of this land we never told anybody he never sent out letters asking for money and we had spent from 1980 to 2000 or something - more than 20 years and we had only one third of that amount and in six months we got the remaining two-thirds without asking anybody without telling not even putting pressure on people in our church I know what will happen if I got up in CFC and said brothers we have to buy this land I know the poor people will give the rich people will keep their money it's always like that I've seen that when I preach about fasting all the thin people fast the fat people never I've seen that regularly the fat people remain that's well that's not for me so I've learned from that that it's always like that we preach about giving the poor people who'll give so I said I'll never preach about it we'll trust God to take care of it and he provided for us we came into this property without debt we have never been in debt in 45 years in any of our churches we never go to a bank to borrow money because the bank will say we're just income we say we trust God oh sorry because we can't give you any loan and then we had to build a halt here and we had this nice builder who was a Christian of some sort and he said sure I said I don't know whether we'll have enough money says but let me you give us the money when you have it and we built it we paid him we did not get into debt to him for one rupee the numbers increase the type of people sitting here could not fit downstairs what to do Lord we had to build another floor never ask anybody dear brothers and sisters if you serve God and honor him he doesn't matter what it's your personal need and I'll tell you something all this has cost millions of rupees and we have never asked a person for one rupee I'm not telling stories our treasurer's know it our board members know it and saying that for your encouragement when you're in dire need trust God love him and God will supply your need God's called us to pursue after righteousness peace and joy you cannot love God and love money if you want to endure in love until the end make sure that love of money is not that in your heart at all that you don't pursue after it you should be able to this was my desire as a young Christian when I committed myself at the age of 26 54 years ago I said Lord I want to live for you and I will trust you till the end of my life money will never be an important factor in my life and I can say today after 54 years of full-time Christian work that honors those who honor him you should be able to say at the end of your life I spent my life seeking the kingdom of God and he added everything for me he's added everything I remember my father was a good man and he gave me some inheritance but it is just enough to sort of make ends meet because through the years God has prospered it but when my father died it was very little that I got and when he was dying in his deathbed he called me and he said so you got four sons you don't take any money from anyone you've got these few people meeting in your house how are you going to educate these children college education is very expensive I said dad if I stop seeking the kingdom of God even the small school fees it was about 100 rupees per month school fees were just paying those days I will not be able to pay even that but if I seek God's kingdom first God will take care of my children's education I don't have to beg borrow or ask any anybody for anything God help them to get scholarships and they could study in colleges God does amazing things yeah he can do amazing things for you if you honor him but determined I would rather die than dishonor the principles by which Jesus lived on this earth to me that is Christ manifest in the flesh I am to live like him I'm to see how he lived particularly in the area of money and we have preached that through the years that Christ came in our flesh that is the secret of godliness we have preached it for forty-five years in this church and in all of our churches and in this area of money we must prove it in ecclesiastes let me close with this verse Ecclesiastes and chapter 2 this is how we can endure in love until the end in love for Christ Ecclesiastes chapter 2 and verse 26 for to a person who is good in his sight that is a child of God he gives him the privilege of collecting in his wild life wisdom knowledge and joy or in New Testament terms righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit as the task he has given us believers to accumulate accumulate accumulate the knowledge of God the wisdom of God and the joy of the Lord all through our life and to the sinners he gives the dust of collecting money and money and money and money and money and money which group are you in and then out of that money God will make sure that the one who is good in God's sight gets enough for his need also isn't that amazing how God does it I like that which group are you in are you one of those who is good in his sight to whom he has given the task not of collecting money in by putting an offering bag in front of every people people are there in many places in these big conferences they pass buckets offering bags to small buckets to collect money is that what he's given are you one of those was good in God's sight he's given you the task of collecting wisdom knowledge and joy in your life or are you in the other category of those who gather collect collect collect collect more and more of yourself it'll perish with you love God with all your heart and please have this testimony that I have at the end of your life I spent my life seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness and in what way I could I help the poor and lived with what is minimum necessary for me never buying unnecessary things not living like a beggar bare necessities I mean if you come to my house you'll find it's looks nice but I don't waste money thank God that I have a wife who's with me in this when you get so many people and they say we're planning a marriage for our child I'm they say even in CFC choices we must get a woman a girl who's educated who can earn her own living as she got a college degree in what subject literature uh she can't learn anything computer science or something like that where she can earn money that's the type of girl I want to get for my daughter for my son and what family do they have a lot of wealth in their families I thank God that all my four sons their wives are not working they didn't marry wives to make them work to make money my wife did not work she looked after the children I've seen women who work and I'd like to see what their children are like wayward leave the home don't respect the parents because the wife was busy making money I thank God my wife did not go that way and I thank God that all my four sons married into families that could not give them any money if parents are not rich I'm a living testimony I don't preach here I seek to live the life before I speak dear brothers and sisters examine your life why doesn't God anoint you he sees that you're a hypocrite you want the honor of belonging to CFC but you don't live by the values of CFC in your life you love money more than you love God you want to live on the border like brother Victor said from the border I can sometimes go across the border and collect some good things from there but I want to live this site where it's comfortable I hope some of you will wake up now and live with the at least the rest of your life saying Lord I want to be a living testimony to this world that there's a father in heaven who cares for his children forget the past God ignores the years of ignorance but he's now commanding all men to repent and say Lord Jesus I want to love you more I'm not saying you should not get educated by all means educator i educated my children they must support themselves i said lord i don't want my children to grow up as beggars they must work hard and support themselves and serve the lord and that's what they're all doing I'm very thankful but put God first and he'll honor you and be a living testimony at the end of your life and in your ministry be faithful and I believe that one day God will add to you others wherever you are even if you're lonely now and you'll be able to build a church in your locality that has a similar testimony let's pray Heavenly Father we do not take any credit for what you have done all the glory is yours you're the one who took care of us from day one till today in our life in our family and in our ministry and we'll give you all the glory for that be honored in our midst Lord raise up many brothers who can minister your word powerfully backed up by their life and raise up many churches that'll be a testimony to your name we pray in Jesus name Amen

Channel: CFC India

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Length: 36min 43sec (2203 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 17 2020