Psalms 91

Safety -

financial safety - 

there are many business who come and say, you dont have financial safety in 
jobs.

marriage safety
- some people keep calling their spouses to make sure their marriages are safe.

job safety-

fear -monday's off.

people who write software  they don't share the code, they don't tell because of job security.


Terror by night
arrow by day
pestilence in darkness
destruction at noon.

Whenever there is a problem in the world, we have the solution in the Word of God.


Secret place of Most High

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.”

3 Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler[a]
And from the perilous pestilence.  

Dwell?

is not for an hour , for one time. Remain.

 dwelling is continuous living.

Secret place.

There is a Secret place that God Most High provides to His people.

But it is you and me who has to go and dwell in that secret place.

Verse 9

Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place,

what is this Secret place?

getting up early and praying for 1 hour?

reading the bible for 1 hr?

praying for hours?

In early days after i am born again, i used to spend hours in the morning.

i used to feel very good after that quiet time.

But as soon as i go to work, my life used to be miserable.

same old discussion, talking bad about other colleagues.

i have a good secret place. but why my life was miserable.

spending time in the presence of God and reading Word and praying these are all good.

But your real secret place is Your obedience to the Word of God.

in my previous  job,

my boss used to treat all the consultants very harshly. because we get more salary than the boss. obviously that brings jealousy.

but as a person from Christ Assembly of God, you should know obedience, that is what is being taught here.

Now when all others were talking bad about me, i would shut my mouth. 

and every morning when i go to work and before starting the work, i pray for my authorities.

Now, in may this year , all the consultants were laid off including me, and many full time people were laid off and then they brought me back and put me up with a new boss and with a higher pay.

Am i more talented than they? No

Did i go and butter my boss? No. 

The only thing I did is , I dwelt in the secret place, where I said 

The Word of God says Do not talk bad about others, pray for your authorities.

what is important to you? to just release your emotions by slandering against others. or Know the Truth 

That is why in verse 7 says

A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at right side, but it shall not come near you.

all were laid off and they pulled me back to the work?

Is there so much work to do?

You can not quantify how God works.

It is beyond and above.

The secret is Dwell in the secret pace.

Obedience is better than sacrifice.

and the root for all this is  Love.

Your Love for God will make you dwell in the secret place.

“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;
I will set him on high, because he has known My name.
15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.”

Seperated Life

                                                  Separated Life

Esther 3:8
There is certain people. Their laws are different from all other peoples.

What should be the law the a believer should have?

Sure , he should follow law of the land.

he should what the family says.

but above all the law the believer should have is

Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:2
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Haman said their laws are different from all other peoples.

We all have a tendency to do what majority does.
Exodus 23:2 says

2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil;

Don't follow the crowd in doing wrong.

if majority in the office talks bad about the boss, we have a tendency to do that.

Everybody wants to be praised by others. We also want to be praises by others. .

Like 6:26 says what sorrow awaits who are praised by crowds.

But what God desires is that we should not be like the world.

2 Kings 17: 10,11,15
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them.

God's  intention from the beginning is that believer should not be like other people.

Should not follow what others do. 
Should not follow threes trends of what the world does

What Israel doing was 

All nations had high places,  they also erected high places, 

They had wooden images on high mountain and green trees.

Today we might not have these,  but what all other people has we want to have. 

Let us look at the life of Daniel who seperated himself from all other people

Daniel 1: 8

Daniel 1:8
8 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

When all the nobles and princes were called and asked to eat the meat given for king,

Daniel was just a teenage boy.

Daniel did not go with majority, but he was ruled by the Spirit of God.
He did not get the information from any book, he did not get the information from kings laws
but he got it from what God has written on his heart. ( Romans 2:15)

Romans 2:15

15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

your seperation starts from a determination in your heart, then a confession follows

And then he went and confessed to the chief.
he could have acted like eating it and throwing it in the trash.
but he did not act it out, he confessed.

we worry that when we take a stand what happens to job, but Gods favor flows like it flowed to Daniel.

For us we are afraid what happens if i take a stand, but look at Daniel.

there were kings changing, kingdoms changing, but Daniel was in kingss palace.

generally if the government changes, they change the main officials.

How he got this favor is because of his separation.

1 Samuel 8:4

Israelites say you are old, and your sons don't walk in your ways, so give us king.
Like all the nations.

Like all the nations.

When all the nations were having king,  God was the king of Israel. 
He was ruling through his prophets,  judges, but he was ruling.

They know that one after another judge has  been raised by God.

But what they saw is all other nations .
They said like all other nations.

If you are godly person, whether it's in your family,  or in your church raise up the sons and daughters who walk in Godly ways like you.
Many people are godly,  but by the time they behind old,  they don't have leaders,  and the family or congregation would look to follow what other nations did.

Whatever be the reason,  God didn't like what Israelites asked.

Good said they have rejected Me.
When we ask what all other people  are having then remember we are actually rejecting God.

Don't say I am just want to be comfortable.
Don't say that's okay,
But when you are desiring what all other people are looking for , we recommend actually rejecting God.
V 9 God said give them what they want, but also warn them that the king is going to become a snare for them.

God might give you what you want, but it might become a snare for them.

Have you ever wondered when you have prayed for something that God gave it to you and still that became big headache for you, 

Check if you have asked like all other people have.

Lord everybody has that thing,  please blessed me also.

Pray only for needs,  don't pray for your lusts.

Noah.

7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

if we see the life of Noah , he was actually moved with godly fear

and what he was doing was.

every morning when everybody gets up, you know what all people are doing

Matthew 24:18

 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark

morning every body getsup, eating and drinking, marraiges and all things of the world. is there anything wrong,

but everyday he getsup and takes the wood, breaks the wood, takes the nails , put the wood together.

How many years it took, whatever is the number of years, he kept on constructing the Ark.

His seperated life is this, in days of noah everyone will be doing all things of the world, he is diffferent, he will be taking wood, constructing the ark.

daily constructing the ark.

Esther 3:8, In verse 8, haman says,

in other versions says it says their customs are different form other people customs.
what does it mean?
after becoming a believer also, we carry on lot of customs from our traditional backgrounds.

Galatians 4:8,9

8 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.

for example:

in India,people dont travel on tuesdays.
or
if we buy a house, we make sure that milk boils and it flows in the kitchen saying the prosperity will come, but we should know our prosperity comes by the favor of God and not by making the milk flow over the vessel.
favor of the Lord will make us prosperous.
or a generous person will be prosperous
a person who trusts in the Lord will be prosperous.

-- if we take a look at an classical example of how people of God want to have what all other people had.

Why did haman said these people are different.

Haman who is honored by king Ahasuerus wanted to kill Mordecai. why he wanted to kill Mordecai is:

V1,2 - king promoted haman and haman is next to king.

What everybody ( all kings servants) does is bow down to haman.
but
Haman represents flesh.
Haman was Agagite. and everybody bows down
The flesh always demands bowing down.

But Mordecai refused to bow down or pay homage.

When we try to stand up for God, all others will start to say, aren't we doing that. you alone are holy, we are all trash.

and they do that daily.In verse 4 Just like all the king servants were asking Mordecai to bow down daily.

When we have to take a stand for God, we need to confess as we heard yesterday.

Mordecai confessed and said i am a believer, i can not do this.

In verse 5, when you take a stand  for God, you are not representing for yourselves, you are actually representing the whole community who believes in you.

when you do something,people will say Christians are like this.
people are always looking at us to see how different we are from them.

In verse 8, haman says, these people are different from other peoples laws.
in other versions says it says their customs are different form other people customs.
Here actually haman is doing accusation of Mordecai and jews but what he is actually it is the testimony for them.

When people say some accusing things about us, they are not just accusing us, inturn they are actually giving testimony about our lives.

when you live as a testimony, there sure is suffering.

In conclysion, Matthew 7: 13,14 says

Don't go by what many people say or many people do

Many people enter the broad way to goto destruction,
But narrow is the gate and difficult is the way. Few find it.

Psalm 89 (1- 18)

Verses 1,2 talk about the mercy of the Lord.

Mercy is what God is.

Exodus 34:5,6
5 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

God when He revealed Himself to Moses, He tells who He is and He proclaimed the name of the LORD.

merciful and gracious.

The first thing that God tells about Himself is merciful and gracious. God has been merciful throughout generations.
Right from Adam, till now we can see many many testimonies which reveals Gods mercy.
Today if we are able to gather here in His Name, is because He is merciful towards all of us.

Verse 14: 

Righteousness and Justice are Foundations of Your Throne.

Throne is the place where God dwells.
For God to rule, the foundation of His throne is Righteousness and Justice.
Mercy and Truth go before  Face. 

For man, what comes first out of him is judging other people.
if your spouse makes some mistake, then you will immediately judge.
he is like that, she is like this.

James 2:13 says

Mercy triumps over judgement.

Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.

Profit n Loss

Most of the contents of this message are from a message preached by Pastor Zephaniah Sastry.
1 Corinthians 10:23
23 All things are lawful for me,[c] but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me,[d] but not all things edify. 

All things are lawful but not all things are helpful/profitable
All things are lawful but not all things are edify.

In life everything we do has profit or loss

In a day how you spent there might  be profit or loss.
How you spent your time has either profit or loss
How you spoke your words has either profit or loss
How you responded to a situation has either profit or loss


In life everything we do has profit or loss
Just like when you invest in shares or when you look at our own accounts we know whether we ended at profit or loss

or when an organization looks at each quarter, they will see what are profits and losses.

Similarly, in everything we do in our lifes has a profit or loss , we may not realize it, but it has either profit or loss.

Steve jobs last words

Steve Jobs said., he pursued fame and wealth - he achieved it.
but in the end he says
he missed out on what is really profitable.


Many times we think
Profit means
                            Whether I got more money
                            Whether I got time for myself
                            Whether I got recognition
                            Whether my kids are recognized


Lord Jesus in
Mark 8:36

36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 3

Here Lord Jesus is talking that gain whole world but Lost soul

Profit should be to Soul
We always look for our flesh to be profited

There are tons of things in this world you want to gain in every stage of your life.
as child you want to have best toys , you want to be pampered
as a youth , you want to be identified in friends circle, you want to have latest gadgets.
as an young adult, you want to get the best job, get the best spouse.
as an adult, you want to settle down with a good house, get financially stable have kids.
give children to best education, a name in the society.
as an old person, you want to see your children settled in marriages, have grand kids and finally want to take a look at what is important for coming life.

this is a cycle everyone goes through.
but as a believer , are we looking to be profited in soul or flesh.
you may gain the whole world, what is the profit?


Simple example
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God that proceeds out of mouth of God

Physical bread  - the food that we eat
Spiritual bread - Word of God

If you ask any believer, how much/ how many food  you eat in a day, they say very excitedly i ate this dish in the morning, i ate biryani for lunch, i ate such a nice dinner.
but  If you ask how many times you meditated on Spiritual food , people might say actually we are dieting.
we get all kinds of execuses, I got only time in the eve.
Whether we our spirit is given enough food or not we don't care much but our flesh must be fulfilled
We will do full eating when comes to physical food but when comes spiritual we do dieting
I am actually dieting brother
For us , we mainly look for flesh beng profited.

Genesis 25: 29-32

29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and hewas weary. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom.[d]

31 But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.”

32 And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”

Esau when he went for hunting and came back
There were 2 choices put before him
Physical food - Soup
Spiritual food birth right

Actually Esau might had lot of options at home
It is not that only that particular soup made by Jacob alone is there at home
Some bread might be at home
Some snacks might be at home
Or if goes and asks his mom she could have given something

Its not that Jacob offered it Esau, But Esau himself  actually wanted to have that stew made by Jacob he chose that which directly contradicted with Spiritual bread

When we do something that directly contradicts Word of God , we are actually looking to profit our flesh.

Esau said if soul is lost that is fine but right now flesh has benefited.

How many times we go directly incontradiction with word of God.

But take a look how Lord Jesus responded when He was hungry.

Matthew 4:

after 40 days fasting, the Lord was hungry.
He might be more hungrier than esau.

look at the 3 temptations put forward by satan.
food,testing God, fame and power.

but the Lord presevered the temptations. and finally
in verse 11 it says .. the angels came and ministered to Him.
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Esau when hungry looked for the immediate food.
he gained in a fleshly manner, but lost his soul.
but the Lord through testing times endured and finally the angels ministered to Him.
if we endure we will see Gods supernatural way of treating.

when you go through testing times, do you set your mind on things which profitable to soul or you givein to immediate flesh gain. those who endure, will see Gods supernatural blessing.

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Obedience

in our Church, we have a lot of teaching about obedience.
But our obedience depends on what we think is profit.
Jeremiah 35:
There is family called Rechabites.
2 “Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them into the house of theLord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.”

5 Then I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Drink wine.”

V2 - God said , call the family of Rechabites and give them a cup of wine.
In V6 - they said we will not drink wine, for father Jenobad said.

No wine for family,
No building houses.
No sowing the seeds
No planting vineyards.

just live in tents.

if you say that todays generation - no facebook, no whatsapp, dont go after fashionable things - they will say you are an old man. what kind of life you are talking about.

but the key for this family's obedience is "you will live many days in the land you live"

and they had set their heart on it.
they saw that the profit is living many days in the land.
they might have thought -
for us living many days in more important.
than to drink wine, build houses, plant vineyards.
they know the moment the start drinking wine, they will lust after it, and there might be issues with neighbours where they are living , they may throw them out.
the minute the start builiding houses, they have to get the land and the people living there will fight with them and throw them out, and the moment the start planting the vineyards then there will be fights for vineyards.

they could see the profit of what their father said.
and they obeyed.

they counted all things ( wine, houses, plants) as rubbish or loss and they said living long life is important.

I count all things as rubbish compared to knowing Christ.

Iexample honor parents - long life.
If you think long life is profit then you will obey.

If you know obeying authorities is good in sight, otherwise both God and king will punish, then you will check what is profit.
The obedience is based on profit.

The final result for Rechabites is they are blessed , the Lord says they will never lack a person who stands before God.

Your obedience comes from what things you count as profit or loss.
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We are always challenged with questions like
whether this is right or wrong.
is wearing this dress right or wrong.
watching a movie right or wrong.
going to a pub right or wrong.


We always want to know something is legal or not.
Very rarely you goto Pastor and ask whether a Certain thing is profitable of not?
All things might be legal but not all things are profitable.

Genesis 14

But look at Abraham
For him the reputation of God is important
For him Soul matters
What he benefits the Soul is important

It's perfectly legal for Abraham to take money from King of sodom

But he thought what profits my soul
Abraham knows his soul gets profited if he receives from God and not from man.

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1 Timothy 4:8
for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Lot ws godly man, but he looked for green field and there were many sorrow followed him.

Church, look for what is profitable for soul.
I even if you lose whole world that is fine, just be profited in soul and you will see the end will be greater.
Dear Church in life we always gets this question asked
Do you want to benefit your soul or your flesh