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Inspiration Message

The way to A Happy New Year

In John’s gospel, Jesus used the symbol of water to describe three levels of spiritual development possible through the Holy Spirit:

• Level 1: In John 3:5, He spoke of being “born of water and the Spirit”. This is “the cup of salvation” (Psa.116:13), with which we begin our Christian lives. With this cup of water, we are cleansed and brought into God’s kingdom as His children.

• Level 2: In John 4:14, Jesus went further and spoke of that cup becoming “a well (spring) of water”. This is a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit, where all our inner longings are met by Him, so that we live in perpetual victory and joy, lacking nothing. A man who has a well in his own compound is not dependent on the city corporation’s water supply. No outsider can turn off his water supply, for he has the source of water within his own compound. This is how it is with the Christian who has found the secret of perpetual abundance in Christ. No-one outside of him can cut off his supply of joy or peace or victory (Jn.16:22).

• Level 3: In John 7:38, Jesus went still further and said that the well would now become a river, and many rivers, flowing out of the believer. This is a picture of overflowing abundance. Such a believer is able to quench the thirst of many needy people around him. Whereas a well satisfies only our own longings, rivers of living water make us a blessing to many people, wherever we go.

The blessing with which God blessed Abraham was, “I will bless you….and in you ALL THE FAMILIES of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen.12:2-3). This is the blessing that can now be ours through the Holy Spirit (Gal.3:14). When God blesses us to the point of rivers flowing out of us, many families in many parts of the country and even in the whole world can be blessed through us.

The good news of the gospel is that we can be saved from such a miserable existence. We can now have rivers of living water flowing out through us constantly, and be a blessing to every family that we meet. We can be merciful to others just as God has been merciful to us. We can release others just as God has released us. We can bless others just as God has blessed us. We can give freely to others just as God has freely given to us. We can be large-hearted to others just as God has been to us.

A.W. Tozer in his article Five Decisions For Spiritual Power says:
“If you are really serious about your spiritual development – the gaining of new joy, new power and new life – then you should make certain decisions in your heart concerning your life, and proceed to keep them.

“One decision is: Never pass on anything about anybody else that will hurt him.

“`Love covers a multitude of sins’ (1 Pet.4:8). The talebearer has no place in God’s favour. If you know something that would hinder or hurt the reputation of one of God’s children, bury it forever. Let God take care of it. `With what judgment you judge, you will be judged’ (Matt.7:2).”

If you want God to be good to you, you must be good to His children. The rules of our Father’s table demand that you don’t tell stories about others who are sitting around that same table with you, no matter what their denomination, their nationality or their background.” (From the book THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS).

It will be a good thing if all of us make that decision today – never to pass on anything about another that will hurt him or his reputation – and keep that decision, not just for the rest of this year but for the rest of our lives. Those who have lived by that decision in past years have found that when they discarded the worthless from their daily conversation, and spoke only what was edifying and profitable, God in turn, fulfilled His promise, and made them His spokesmen – His mouth (Jer.15:19).

This year – and every year – can be a happy year for all of us if we release everyone who owes us anything, or who has hurt or harmed us in any way. Bury those grudges permanently and be merciful to all men and thus make a new beginning with the Lord today.

Wish you a Happy New Year

– Zac Poonen

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End the Year with a Spirit of Thanksgiving

In each of the 7 glimpses of heaven given in the book of Revelation, we see the inhabitants of heaven continuously praising God with a loud voice – sometimes as loud as thunders and as the noise of roaring rivers. This is the atmosphere of heaven – one of continual praise, without any complaints or demands. And this is the atmosphere that the Holy Spirit desires to bring into our hearts, our homes and our churches as well. It is thus that Satan will be driven away from all these places.

I read of a fiery brother (who lived in the last century) who used to frequently praise God with loud `Hallelujahs’. One day, one of the staid, dead Christians around him, who was irritated by this spirit of praise, asked him what the brother would do if God finally sent him to hell. To this the brother replied, “If I go to hell, I will keep on shouting `Hallelujah’ and the praises of God there, until the Devil tells me to get out of Hell, lest I infect others in hell with the spirit of praise!!”   No, there is no place in Hell for those who have a spirit of praise! The ones who go to Hell are those who are full of complaints and demands against others. They were like that when they were on the earth and they carry that evil nature with them when they leave the earth too.

Satan has paralysed the vast majority of Christians, and made them ineffective in spiritual warfare against him, because he has succeeded in getting them infected with the spirit of murmuring and complaining against their brothers and sisters, against their relatives and neighbours, against their circumstances, and even against God Himself.

We overcome Satan, when we obey the following exhortations:

– “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in ONE BODY; and be thankful” (Col.3:15).
– “I urge that thanksgivings be made FOR ALL MEN” (1 Tim.2:1).
– “Always give thanks FOR ALL THINGS in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (Eph.5:20).

    We are exhorted first of all to be thankful for all whom God has called into Christ’s Body. If the choice had been left to us, we might not have called many of those whom God has called – especially those who belong to some other group than ours!!! But God’s wisdom being higher than ours, even as the heavens are higher than the earth, He obviously had a different opinion about them than we have. And if we are wise, we will re-align our thinking in line with God’s.

    Once we have learnt to be thankful for our brothers and sisters in Christ’s Body, we can then learn to give thanks for all men and then for all our circumstances. We know that our Heavenly Father sovereignly controls all men and all circumstances. If we really believe this, we will certainly praise God at all times, and thus prove that our kingdom is of heaven and not of this world. Then Satan will lose his power over us. Only then will we be able to wage an effective warfare against him.

    There is a wonderful word written in Revelation 12:8 that no place was found in heaven for Satan and his demons. This is how it must be in our lives too – in our hearts, in our homes, and in our churches. SATAN AND HIS HOSTS MUST FIND NO PLACE IN ANY OF THESE PLACES.

    – Zac Poonen

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    It is Dangerous to Follow the Majority

    In Numbers 13 we find that the Israelites came to Kadesh Barnea at the border of Canaan – the land that God had promised them. It was now two years since they left Egypt (Deut.2:14), and God told them to go in and posses the land. The Israelites sent twelve spies to survey the land. All twelve of them came back saying that the land was indeed a wonderful land. Ten of them, however, said, “But there are huge giants there and we cannot conquer them.” But two of them – Caleb and Joshua – replied saying, “The Lord will help us to conquer those big giants.” But the 600,000 Israelites listened to the majority.

    What do we learn from this? First of all, that it is dangerous to follow the majority – because the majority is invariably wrong. “The way to life is narrow and very few find it,” Jesus said. The majority still go on the broad way to destruction. So if you follow the majority you will certainly be along with them on the broad way to destruction. Don’t ever imagine that a large church is a spiritual church. Jesus’ church had only 11 members in it.

    When ten leaders say one thing and two say the exact opposite, whose side will you take? God was on the side of the two here – Joshua and Caleb. Unbelief and Satan were on the side of the other ten. But the Israelites foolishly followed the majority – and that was why they had to wander in the wilderness for the next 38 years. They did not have the discernment to see whose side God was on! God and one person are always a majority – and that is where I want to stand always. We see in Exodus 32 that God was on the side of just one man, Moses, when all the Israelites were worshipping the golden calf. But of all the twelve tribes, only the tribe of Levi could see that then. And now when God was with Joshua and Caleb, even the tribe of Levi could not recognise it!

    All of this has lessons for us today. Christendom in general is full of compromise and worldliness. Here and there, God raises up a few who stand for the truth of God’s word without any compromise. If you have discernment you will recognise that God is with those few, and you will stand with them against the majority. You will enter the promised land with them.

    How do you identify the man with whom God is standing? He speaks the language of faith. Joshua and Caleb spoke the language of faith : “We can overcome.” We can overcome the giants of anger, sexual lust, jealousy, murmuring etc., We can overcome Satan. God will crush him under our feet. That is the language of the man with whom God stands. The man who is not with God says: “We must not take the Bible so literally. After all, we are only human. We will be defeated until the end of our lives. You have to understand human psychology.” I tell you, I couldn’t care less for all this human psychology. I believe God’s Word.

    Many Christians go astray exactly like those Israelites – through human reasoning. God has hidden these things from the clever and the intelligent and revealed them to babes. If you use your human reasoning and your cleverness and your intelligence to study the Bible, I can guarantee that you will go astray. You need the revelation of the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus picked fishermen to be His disciples, and not professors like Gamaliel and his students. He did pick one of the students later – Paul. But the Lord had to take him into the desert for three years to bring all his pride to nothing before Paul could get revelation.

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    Bro. Jonah Ravinder on 07/10/2010

    Bro. Jonah Ravinder spoke from Matt 7:21-23 “Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord , Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? And in Thy name have cast out devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniequity”. The theme of the text under consideration is without any doubt a most solemn, grave and vital message. It is essentially a warning that precludes none and that serves as an awesome reminder to search and examine oneself , particularly if he thinks he is standing in the faith, which is in Christ Jesus. These are those who assume themselves as Christians and profess to be and take it for granted that they are so. Yet our Scripture text exposes their true character and divulges that in actual fact their nature and their works reveal otherwise; indeed they are contrary to what they profess. Hence thier profession is merely a delusion and they deceive themselves and perhaps, many other but certainly not God. They are judged to be workers of inequity.

    It is clear from the text that our works, no matter how pious or religious or charitable they may be, cannot secure us the salvation of God. Consider what our Lord says here, that many are those who will be baffled and astonished at His disapproval and rejection of them on that Day. Wherefore, comparatively, a majority of those who now say that they embrace Christianity never meet the approbation of our Lord. They will be judged and manifested to be hypocrites, whose confession of faith is inconsistent and incongruous to their lives. Therefore only a few , a very small remnant will be proven to be faithful and genuine in their faith. There will indeed be many surprises on that Day but the most momentous, nerve -racking moment would be the inevitable turn when each one of us has to face the Lord Himself for the verdict. How shall it be with you then, my friends?. I beg you to be honest and objective and to beseech God to help you to search yourselves. My friends, do not defer nor procrastinate in repenting and turning to God from your idols to serve the living God.

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    Break the walls of Jericho and Build the walls of Jerusalem

    We all have the walls around us at all times of life. We’ve all built them either for holding God in the midst and separating ourselves from the wickedness of the world or trying to hide ourselves inside a wall to cover up our sins. They are unseen, yet they effectively hold us back from being the person we should be or should not be. Brick by brick we build our wall. Some are higher than others. But we should be able to recognise what sort of a wall is there around us. They can be either spiritual walls or worldly walls. Spiritual walls relate to the strength and stability of our Christian testimony. They relate to our capability of defending the faith, moral strength in time of temptation and also relate to our ability to separate from the unbiblical values and attitudes of this world’s system. If we have this wall of salvation around us then we are safe and secure. The walled city will be much stronger and more easily defended. The wall clearly sets the city apart from the surrounding countryside. God wants a spiritual wall to surround us but not a wall that doesn’t allow Him to enter. God wants to see strong, solid believers with a testimony that is plainly visible in this dark world. He wants to see Christians with a consistent lifestyle that is distinctly Biblical even if it means a painful separation from the values and the attitudes of the surrounding world. If we do not have this there is always a possibility that the world gets in to us and becomes a wall between God and us (Isaiah59:2). Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land God commanded them to destroy the walls of Jericho so that they can have a break through. We are living in days of battle and spiritual struggle. We need to know how to fight. We need to know that our God is able to give the victory. Just as Israel faced the formidable walls of Jericho, we face walls and obstacles in our lives as well. We need to know how to over come them as we march towards the victory. When we face these obstacles we must learn not to look upon our obstacles as dead-ends, but as opportunities for the Lord to work in our lives.

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    Santification | Part Four | Rev. Vipul Kharat

    Part One | Part Two

    Pastor spoke from Rev 2:1-5 about the Church in Ephesus, which had immaculate doctrine, yet had forsaken their first love. The priority of God, is love. God doesn’t want to hurt our pride, he wants to kill it. He challenged to offer our lives as living sacrifice to God.

    WEEKLY DEVOTION

    Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.
    Numbers 13:30-32 (NIV)

    Attitudes can change everything. You know the story. Moses sent spies into the promise land to see what it was like. All twelve men saw the same thing but came back with different conclusions. Two saw possibilities born out of faith and hope in God’s love and power. The others saw defeat, death, dying and doom. The people believed the second story. Why is that? Why can we believe the death, dying and doom story so much easier than the land of milk and honey? What is it that keeps us from believing in the goodness of God? We don’t doubt whether He can do good, we doubt whether He wants to. Dallas Willard in his book Hearing God shares why even the miracles of Jesus could not convince some people of His love and Lordship. Willard writes, “Our preexisting ideas and assumptions are precisely what determine what we can see, hear or otherwise observe.” You see Caleb’s report could not change what the people already believed in their heart. They did not believe that God loved them. Deep in there heart they believed they were better off taking care of themselves. What do you believe? Seeing a miracle won’t change it. A good report won’t change that deep down doubt. Only repentance and a relationship can. Repent of unbelief, doubt and fear and then spend time with God. Don’t quit; every day get to know Him until you sense His concern and His deep passion and love for you. Come to Him today, ask Him to show you His love. He will. The promise land is waiting. – Ronald

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    Process of Santification | Part Three | by Rev. Vipul Kharat

    Two terms used by theologians
    1. Imputed righteousness
    2. Imparted righteousness

    Imputed righteousness: Says that we are unrighteous and there is nothing in us that deserves me the favour of God. But what Jesus does is, He comes and covers us and when God looks at us He doesn’t look us but Christ and declares us righteous. It is imputed to us on the merits of Christ, he covers, overwhelms us and God looks at it and says “I see Jesus there and because of Jesus I don’t hold anything against you, you are now my child.” But imputed righteousness itself is incomplete.

    Imparted righteousness: Jesus doesn’t only cover us from outside and leave us unclean inside. God says “yes the imputed righteousness is come to you, but I want to impart my righteousness in you.” Meaning that Christ not only is going to cover you but He is going to come inside you and He wants to clean you from the inside. Hence the sanctification is also called baptism of the Holy Spirit. Therefore holiness is simply the life lived under the total lordship of Jesus Christ.

    Holy Spirit is simply Jesus in the Spirit form. And He has come to indwell us. And so the distinguishing mark of the person filled with the Holy Spirit is basically and essentially the reflection of the character of Christ, because the character of Christ begins to be reflected in our hearts and the image that we lost in the garden, the image that God has created now begins to be restored and the process begins.

    There is a marked distinction between a pure heart and a maturing character. The pure heart is the result of sanctification. But the result of what has happened in the sanctification is the growth that now begins the maturity that now begins to come who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The maturity of character comes after the self been crucified and after everything has been surrender to Christ, as we go moment by moment in our lives, the maturity doesn’t come instantly, overnight. A baby cannot be expected to leap and jump in an early age. The baby has to fall down sometimes, taught, instructed, supported and the baby makes mistakes. Same way we as sanctified believers make mistakes and fall down. And falling down is not the problem, but staying there.

    There is a difference between a sinful nature and human nature. Sinful nature is simply the self-centredness with which we were born. It is a condition that we live in. Therefore the sinful nature is a broken relationship with God. This condition has so permeated our lives and hearts, but in sanctification God has purged us and taken out the self-centred element at our kneeling down and surrendering it and asking Him to crucify it on the cross for us. But what we are left with is our human nature. It will not be eradicated; this will have its personality and its characteristic traits. Some people have the humorous personality. God is not going to take that humorous heart but He will purify it by taking out the self-centredness out of it and use it for His glory.

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    What is Santification? | Part Two | Pastor Vipul Kharat

    AUDIO: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

    The book of Isaiah 6 gives a graphic and glorious illustration of the doctrine of sanctification.
    V3 “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty” all the angles singing to him “holy holy holy.” They are looking at the very face of God and describing who God is. They are bringing forth the beauty of God’s nature. They are bringing in the revelation of the very being of God. They are proclaiming the very substance of God. They are giving us the glimpse into the very depth of God in making us realise what really is the essence of God.

    Unless and until, we have the right concept of God we will not have the right concept of life, sanctification and we will not understand what victory is and way before we reach for it we will be defeated. What they are saying is “Holy the father, Holy the son, Holy the Holy Spirit.” The glorious trinity is revealed. The trinity is involved in sustaining me, in sanctifying me and in giving me the status to stand on. What then is the essence of God? What is the substance of God?The very substance of God is Holy, Holy, Holy. God is:

    1. Holy Holiness – He is spotlessly and immaculately holy. If he was all holy, all glory and all majesty to him then we would not be able to have relationship with him. He is pure and there is more to it.

    2. He is Holy Love – Love is intertwined with his holiness. And his agape love, which brings him down to us. And because of that love he does not treat us as our sins deserve. But as the east is far from the west he removes our sins from us. He pities us.

    3. Holy Grace – If we were to hold God’s holiness and his love for us to see, there is one thread that runs through these two elements and it is the Grace. His divinity is on this grace and that’s what is revealed to Isaiah. The grace of God is that unmerited favour to man. We do not deserve it, we cannot earn it and we cannot work for it and yet he bestows it upon us. We cannot even repent upon our own. As the book of Romans tells that it is your grace that leads me to repentance.

    What are we supposed to do? The bible tells us that such a God has made you and me in his likeness, in his image. If we have a mirror and if we like to see the image we need to stand before the mirror in the right position. And if you and I are image of God then we need to stand before God in right position. He created us like him and therefore he is loving and he wants us to be loving. He is holy and he wants us to be holy and he is grace and he wants us to have the grace.

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    What is Sanctification? | Part One | by Rev. Vipul Kharat

    As a believer we would like to know the ‘will of God’. We can know the will of God in most areas of  our life through applying the established biblical principles, whereas in some areas the will of God is so perfect and straight forward without a shadow of doubt.

    Sanctification is one of the important issues where the word of God clearly states that “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. (1 These 4; 3-4). The word of God gives us ample information about the significance of sanctification in a Christian life.

    In order to understand the concept of sanctification better, it is vital to know what sanctification means. Sanctification relates to being set apart for a specific use or to be cleansed from the sinful nature. In the Old Testament times several utensils, places and articles were kept exclusively for the purpose of rendering the services to God. The consequences of using these for general purposes would mean the user have to pay a heavy penalty. For instance, during the reign of King Belshazzar the sanctified vessels were brought into the King’s party. The King Belshazzar and others drank wine in those sanctified vessels and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. The very night, King Belshazzar of the Chaldeans were slain.

    According to the New Testament, we are the sanctified vessels. We are the temple of God and the most Holy God almighty wants to reside in us. Because the Christ is the head of the Church and we all belong to the body of the Christ. Each part of the body plays unique role in communion with the other parts of the body. The Spirit of God wants to dwell alone in our hearts. When we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour the Spirit of God regenerates our spirit and we experience the new life from the above. (Born-again experience) In this new life, we have rejected our old ways of life which contradicts to the Word of God and we welcomed the Holy Spirit into our lives.

    Sanctification is the act of God and we cannot sanctify ourselves since our nature itself is corrupt. Our efforts will not help us to become sanctified and since  it is a subsequent to our regeneration. Sanctification is an ongoing process and it is an incessant work of God in believers’ life. The sanctification plays an important role in submitting ones mind and body in subjection to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The old nature always constantly wants to prevail in believers’ life and there is always a contradiction between the flesh and the spirit.

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    Testimonies

    And they overcame him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” (Revelation 12:11).

    Our testimony is about what we have experienced – what we have seen and heard. A real Christian can talk about their experiences with God through Jesus Christ. We as Christians are called to a relationship of real communication with the Son of God. God comes to live inside of us. Things change. God deals with every person in a different way. The more Christians that come forward and talk about how God has intervened in their life, the more people will begin to realize that God is for real, miracles do happen, and prayer works.

    This will inspire others to seek God and turn from their sins so that they too can know the peace and satisfaction that comes to a person who truly gives their life over to God. Acts 1:8 says, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” To be a witness to Jesus is to speak and communicate the things that you have seen and heard in your life that happened because of Jesus. It’s the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus real to us, and makes Jesus real through us.

    God’s plan is for people to hear the good news that Jesus Christ paid for their sins, and conquered death for us through rising from the dead. After believing, people should go on to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and then testify to others what God has done for them.

    Our testimony does not have to be super dramatic or unusual to be effective. Not everyone can relate personally to a sensational testimony. If on the other hand your testimony is weak because you can’t point to a change in your life, could it be that you have not really consecrated your life to God properly?Are you trying to living with one foot in God’s Kingdom, and the other in Satan’s?

    Is your heart still in love with this present age, this world system? If so, it would be a great time to decide to live for God and to get serious about it, because none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow. Perhaps your testimony is weak because you have not given attention to the wonderful truths concerning the Holy Spirit and overcoming Satan that can be found in God’s Word. God wants our testimony to be strong, so we can live unashamed before God and men, and give honor and glory to God. He wants our life to show forth His power – what He can do. And God has done absolutely amazing things for people in all kinds of trouble, who were messed up and without natural hope. Some testimonies of how God helped such people heard last Friday. It was amazing to know the marvelous works of God reveled in our dear ones lives.Sister Shoba Charles, Bro Peter Ravela, Bro Sudeep, Bro Sudeer, Bro Ravi, Bro Prabhakar and Jonah’s son testified the greatness of our God in their lives, it was heart touching and surely challenged everyone to trust in God in all situations.

    If God has worked powerfully in your life, please share it so others can benefit. It will remind you of how God has worked and it will encourage others to believe in God. It may be the means by which another precious person comes to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. So do it. Begin to write down your story and share it on every last Friday of the month at the fellowship.