========================================================================
  LISTEN DAILY TO GOD WHO HAS PLANNED YOUR LIFE
  by Zac Poonen
========================================================================

Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God
and listening to His voice personally. It highlights the need to take
time to hear from God directly, rather than always focusing on sharing
insights with others. The speaker shares personal experiences of taking
a break to seek God's voice and reflects on the story of Mary and Martha
to illustrate the significance of sitting at the Lord's feet and
listening to His word. The message encourages humility, forgiveness, and
having a clear conscience to hear God's plans, which are always silently
and lovingly designed for each individual, even if past mistakes are
present in one's ancestral line.

Duration: 1:07:24 Topics: "Surrender to God", "Listening to His Voice"
Scripture References: Matthew 11:28, Psalm 139:23, Mark 9:24, John 14:1, Hebrews 5:11, Isaiah 45:15, Psalms 139:13, Zephaniah 3:17, Matthew 1:3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sermon emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God and
listening to His voice personally. It highlights the need to take time
to hear from God directly, rather than always focusing on sharing
insights with others. The speaker shares personal experiences of taking
a break to seek God's voice and reflects on the story of Mary and Martha
to illustrate the significance of sitting at the Lord's feet and
listening to His word. The message encourages humility, forgiveness, and
having a clear conscience to hear God's plans, which are always silently
and lovingly designed for each individual, even if past mistakes are
present in one's ancestral line.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brothers and sisters, because I had not been speaking anywhere for the
last month or so, a lot of people thought I was sick, which I'm thankful
for their concern, but my wife and I have kept perfect health, by God's
goodness, and we've got three sons here taking care of us, so we've done
very well. We've been extremely healthy, but I felt that I should, you
know, up till about October, I was very busy, so many Zoom meetings,
more than I've almost done any year of my life, so I felt I should take
one month off, and I've never done that for the last many, many years. I
just wanted to spend one month not talking to anybody, not hearing what
the Lord has to say to other people through me, but what the Lord has to
say to me personally.

It's one of the great dangers of preachers, particularly those who have
the gift of preaching, or especially those who have a lust for
preaching, that they're always, even when they read the Bible, and they
get something there, they say, ah, that's something I can share with
somebody. Get rid of that habit. Say, that's something God's speaking to
me.

You see, the Bible is like a two-edged sword, and one edge has to cut me
before I can use the other edge to help other people. Not the knife, not
the sort of knife of a murderer, but the knife of a surgeon. Sometimes a
preacher has to use a knife, which is a knife of a surgeon.

So, to hear what God has to say to me, that is why I was off the air for
one month, and I'm sure many people who thought I was sick prayed for
me. God heard their prayers and answered it by speaking to my heart in
many ways. I'm very, very thankful for that, and one of the first things
that God spoke to me, almost from day one, was what God spoke to me way
back when I began my Christian life, 61 years ago.

One of the things I developed from the time I was born again was to
read. I would start my day on my knees, kneel by my bed. I was in the
Navy, and then I would sit at my table with a notebook and my Bible and
read, and one of the first things that the Lord spoke to me then was
from Luke chapter 10 and verse 39 to 42.

This is a story, you know the story of Mary and Martha. Jesus went to
the house of Mary and Martha, and it says here, Mary, right from the
beginning, sat at the Lord's feet, verse 39, Luke 10 39, listening to
his word, but Martha, being a really good housewife, immediately, oh
Jesus has come with the 12 disciples. I have to make food for 13 people,
rushed into the kitchen and got everything.

Can you imagine, you housewives, if you have suddenly 13 people land up
without any warning, and you have to rush into the kitchen to prepare.
You're a really hospitable woman, and Martha was really hospitable. She
was not serving herself.

She was sacrificially serving the Lord and his people. Is there any
greater ministry that you can do than sacrificially serving the Lord and
his people? The answer is yes, there is. That's what I want to tell you.

Sometimes we congratulate ourselves that we have sacrificed something
for the Lord, or for his church, or for his people, and we pat ourselves
on the back that we are not thinking of ourselves, but we are thinking
of others, and we're caring for others. Martha was there, and if you
went into that home at that time and saw these two sisters not knowing
what is happening, and you see these 13 Jesus and the 12 disciples
sitting there, and Martha slogging away in the kitchen, perspiring, and
Mary just sitting and listening, you would have thought the same thing
that Martha thought. What in the world is Mary? She's also a woman in
this house.

What is she doing just sitting there listening when her sister is
struggling there to make food, not for herself, and she's the only other
woman, Mary, in the house. What is she doing sitting here? I'm sure
every one of us, including me, would have thought Mary was wrong, and
you can't blame Martha for thinking like that, but one good thing about
Martha, you know, a lot of people complain about Martha that she was
busy serving, and they themselves are serving so much, and they don't
realize how wrong they are, and she came to the Lord. You know, one good
thing we can see here, what is a good thing you can see about Martha
here? One good thing, if you read carefully, when she had a complaint
against her sister, she did not talk about it to anybody else.

She went directly to the Lord. Isn't that a good habit? Do you have a
complaint against somebody, some brother, some sister? Who do you go and
talk about it to? Learn from Martha. Go to the Lord, and say, Lord, this
sister is like this, or this brother is like this.

I wish we would all develop that habit from today. One good habit. I was
going to speak about Mary, but I got to start speaking about Martha
first.

One good thing there. Let me repeat it. Whenever a thought comes into
your hand, into your mind, in your heart, this person is like this, or
this person is so thoughtless, unconcerned.

Look at all that I'm doing here, slogging away for the church, not for
myself, and look at this other person. Look what he's doing. Look at
that family.

What do they do for the church? And look what I'm doing. Maybe you're
right. You're sacrificing a lot for NCCF.

Good. But if you complain against others, all that is wiped out before
the Lord, because you did it in your own spirit. You have a complaint,
and the Lord doesn't say you have to keep quiet about it.

Go to him. Say, Lord, here, I'm doing this, and the Lord will give you
an answer that will change the direction of your life, because I'm sure
Martha received that rebuke from the Lord, and it changed her life.
It'll change your life.

I don't believe Martha would ever again, ever again complain about Mary.
I don't have scripture to show it to you, but I think that's true.
Imagine if you got a rebuke directly from Jesus.

Do you think you'd ever be the same after that? I mean, you get a rebuke
from a godly older brother. That itself would help us, but imagine if
Jesus himself appeared to you and gave you a rebuke. You wouldn't forget
it for the rest of your life.

I don't think I would, and do you think Martha would have forgotten
that? It changed her life. One thing, don't complain about your sisters
and brothers. Come to me.

I know how to deal with them. Now, if you have, and if you're an elder,
or you're a father, or a mother, and you have responsibility, or you're
an officer in a factory, and you're responsible to your people, your
children, or a church member, then you have to deal with it, but Martha
was not appointed as a head over Mary. I'm talking about where you're
not appointed as an authority over someone.

You should not be complaining about them. That's the first thing, but
when she came and said, aren't you concerned, Lord, that I'm serving
alone? Please tell her to help me. The Lord's not going to listen to us,
and he said it so gently.

He didn't yell at her and rebuke her. He knew that she did it so
sacrificially, and I tell you, when you serve the Lord sacrificially,
even if the Lord corrects you for a wrong attitude, he'll correct you
gently. Martha, Martha, I can imagine the tone of voice with which Jesus
spoke.

Martha, Martha, you are concerned and bothered about so many things, but
let me tell you something. You probably never understood this with the
Old Testament message that Moses brought and that you heard in the
synagogue all these 30 years of your life, but I'm telling you something
which is more important in the new covenant, and that is what Mary has
chosen. She got a revelation of what is more important.

Any woman in a house, the immediate reaction when guests come is to
provide something, especially if Jesus came. You think if Jesus came
into your house all of a sudden, what would you do? You'd immediately go
get him a glass of water or give him some food to eat because they had
come after a long journey, and so it was a good attitude Martha had to
serve, and Mary also would have felt like that. Why in the world did she
not do it? I think she was so gripped by the words she had heard from
Jesus in previous occasions in the marketplace or here and there.

She said, I want to hear that. Those few times that I've heard my Lord
speak to me have so changed my life that I want to hear more. She wanted
her life to be changed, and she knew in the long run, and she would
become a better person for the glory of God, and she knew what Jesus
longed for with his people.

It's a wonderful thing. It's not just listening to his word, but
fellowship. Fellowship.

It's not good for Adam to be alone. What did he give him? Fellowship.
What is the thing missing in many homes? Fellowship.

What did Jesus want here? Fellowship, and Mary understood that, and she
sat and listened to Jesus. That's the word the Lord spoke to me 61 years
ago, and I'm very, very thankful that through the years he's helped me
to that. It was my daily habit in those days to begin my day with the
word of God and to read it based on this verse.

One thing is needful, verse 42. The first book that I ever wrote many
years before CFC started in 1970 was a series of messages I gave to
students, and the first message was one thing is needful. The first book
is the supreme priorities.

That's the first book I wrote, and the first chapter of that, the first
of the four things mentioned there is this one thing is needful. Supreme
priorities. Number one, sit at the Lord's feet and hear his word.

Because the Holy Spirit has come, it's possible for us to do that even
today, and that's the thing that helped me when I was a young man. And I
said, Lord, I was seven years in the Navy before, as a believer, seven
years as a believer in the Navy before I left my job, and all those
seven years I spent studying the word of God, and by the end of those
seven years, I really knew the scriptures well, because it was what I
read and meditated and studied every day in all my spare time. I did my
secular work.

No commanding officer had any complaint about my work. I would do that
faithfully, but my priority was God's word, and that saved me from so
many temptations between the ages of 19 and 26, you know, years when
young people can easily be tempted, and God kept me from all types of
things, because every spare moment was spent studying the word, and I
would say that to all of you young people, spend your spare time
studying the word, and because God urged me to have that foundation at
that time, I believe that's become the basis of my ministry today, that
I know the scriptures, and when the Lord wants to speak to me from one
scripture or another, he reminds me of things that I have read. I
believe that this is what Jesus did in the 30 years of his life.

You know, very often I have felt that Jesus, when I spoke of the first
30 years of Jesus' life, I always spoke about, speak about, yeah, he
obeyed his parents, and he worked as a carpenter, earned his living, all
those good things, but one thing I forgot to mention, those 30 years,
every day he spent listening to his father, that continued always, and
that is how he knew what to do. He knew when to step out of the
ministry, and step out of his home rather into the ministry, and it's
because I had this habit myself that I also knew one day when the Lord
spoke to me to step out of my job into the ministry. I want to say to
all of you, even if God never calls you to full-time work, one thing is
needful for every single believer.

Let's look at that verse, Luke 10, 42, and see what Jesus says here.
Mary has chosen the, I would say, the best part. You know that saying
the good is the enemy of the best.

The best is always better than the good. To serve the Lord and his
people like Martha did, good, but the best, to sit at Jesus' feet and
hear his word, which will look as if you're not doing anything, but in
the long run, I tell you in Jesus' name, you will accomplish a lot more
than if you just run around helter-skelter in activity. It's one of the
things I discovered in, as we, as the Lord planted churches.

I've never planted a church, one single church in my life. God planted
them all. And I just went around to water the plant that he had planted.

That's all I've done in every place. But I've discovered one thing, you
know, I, when I was a young man, I thankfully discovered it in my early
thirties. I said, Lord, I don't want to waste my life and come to the
end of my life and discovered that I did a lot of good things for the
Lord, but not his plan.

I want to fulfill your plan. You know, like you get, when you get
appointed in an office, supposing you get a new job, you've got many of
you got jobs and you reported for work on the first day. What did you
do? Did you go and start working, go and sit at some table and start
doing something for that office? They'd have thrown you out immediately.

The first thing you did was go to the boss and say, sir, what am I
supposed to do? And he gives you a job description and it doesn't matter
if there are 10,000 needs in that office, you fulfill your job
description. That's what you get paid for. We all know that in our
secular job.

And even if you're not in full-time Christian work, every child of God
is a servant of the Lord. You have a task in the body. This is the
difference in the old covenant.

It was one high priest and some priests and some prophets and Kings.
They had a ministry from the Lord. In the new Testament, it's a body.

Somebody like me, maybe the tongue, there may be a number of tongues in
the body, but some are hands and some are hidden ministries of prayer,
like the liver and the kidney and different internal organs and the
nerves and veins and all which supply blood those are people who pray
and do a lot of things in secret who have never seen. So everybody has a
ministry in the body of Christ, but every member of this body has a
connection with the head. And that is what Mary's part is to have a
connection with the head, where you're listening to what the head is
saying.

We, without realizing it, we don't realize it, but every part of our
body from the day you were born was constantly listening to the brain.
What am I supposed to do for a baby that is crying, crying for milk?
That's the brain prompting it. You're hungry, cry out.

From that time onwards, we don't realize it. It's all unconscious now,
but we are doing what our brain is prompting us to do. When a mosquito
comes and sits on a hand, the brain prompts you to take it out.

And we're doing all this unconsciously, but the parts of our body are
listening to the brain. That's the meaning of Luke 10 42. One thing is
needful.

Sit and listen, and you'll accomplish a lot more that way. And as I
looked around as a young man in my early 30s, that's more than 50 years
ago, around 50 years ago, I observed different people in doing Christian
work in India. And I read about it in other places.

I hadn't traveled anywhere else. And I saw one or two people that I
admired who did a fantastic work for the Lord. They didn't waste their
time.

They would go here and they'd plant a church and the Lord would plant a
church through them. And then they wouldn't go anywhere here and there
and there. They wouldn't just like wandering preachers, waiting for an
invitation and just going to get an invitation and then get another
invitation and go over there.

No, I was not impressed with that. That way you become famous. You make
them a lot of money and you become a famous international deeper light
preacher or something like that.

I did that for three, four years. It was very frustrating. I mean, you
get a lot of honor, you make money, but inwardly you're backslide.

But I saw these other people who would wait on the Lord and the Lord
doesn't go there. Sometime later, there's a church there. Some years
later, the Lord doesn't go there.

And I said, Lord, that's the way I want to serve. I don't want to waste
my life. I only want life.

And I don't want the end of another 50 years to be known as a great
international preacher. In fact, as I was rising in the Christian world
sphere, those days getting more and more known, the Lord told me to give
it up. And I remember that time in 1975, when all over India, people
knew me as a well-known speaker and invited me here and there, the Lord
said, quit it.

Martha, you are distracted about many, many things. That's not what I
want you to do. My dear brothers, let me give you my testimony.

Yeah, it's 45 years ago. The Lord told me to quit that. I'd left my job
54 years ago, 1966.

But after nine years of this type of becoming an international preacher,
the Lord said, quit it. It's what most people don't do. When you're
rising in fame, most people say, hey, this is great.

I can now become world famous. But somehow the Lord told me quit. And as
I look back now, boy, am I thankful that I quit.

And meet with five or six people in my house. That's how we started. And
people would come and go.

And in the eyes of others, it was the most stupid thing to do. Like
Moses going into the wilderness. Okay.

And we also didn't know at that time where we were going to go. But I
tried to listen. I would sit with my Bible in the morning and hear what
God is trying to say to me.

And this word kept coming back. I remember one birthday of mine,
November 5th, one of those years. I said, Lord, do you have a word for
me? And the Lord said, what I told you in the beginning, one thing is
needful.

And this is what now recently in this last one month, I said, Lord, have
you got a word for me? The Lord said, go back to what I told you, 61
years ago. One thing is needful. I want to hear it more and more.

To sit at his feet and listen to his word. If the one thing needful was
preaching, many of you would be incapable of doing it. Women would be at
a handicap.

People who are not good in language or limited would be at a handicap.
You can say, oh, Brother Zach's got some gift of speaking. No, I don't
have.

God gave it to me. But maybe God doesn't give it to you. What do you do
then? You envy somebody else in NCCF who can preach well and better than
you.

Don't. You want to envy somebody? Envy the man who hears God clearly.
And you will see that in a transformed life.

Through the years, that's what's helped me. I've heard a lot of great
preachers. And I'll tell you honestly, I do not envy any of them.

In my young, immature days, I wanted to preach like some of them. I gave
it up. The Lord said, you are unique.

Don't be like anybody else. Just listen to me. And if you're a woman,
who made you a woman? Did you choose that? God made you because he's got
a specific ministry for you.

It was to a woman. Mary, it was to a woman Jesus said, one thing is
needful. She was the one who sat at Jesus' feet.

It's a woman who taught me, Mary, who taught me to sit at Jesus' feet.
So don't think your sisters have no ministry. Your example can bless
others.

Mary was not a great preacher. But look at that one word. That example
of hers has blessed me for 60 years.

Example of a woman. So don't your sisters think that you don't have any
ministry. Listen to God.

Listen to God. Here, the one who hears God has got something to say. I
ask my wife sometimes, what have you heard from God? And I find that
sometimes there's something significant that I have to hear, which I
haven't heard clearly myself.

So there's no difference in the body of Christ. God didn't make a
mistake in making me a man. He didn't make a mistake in making you a
woman.

One thing is needful, essential, very, very, very important. Sit at his
feet. Be still.

Sitting, if you expand on that, it's a position of relaxed rest. You're
not in a panic. You're not running around doing things.

Your mind must be also sitting. Very often, we sit physically and read
the Bible. That's happened to me also.

And the mind is running around. Mind is like Martha. Body is like Mary.

It's more important for the mind to be like Mary. I mean, you can
sympathize with me because you've experienced the same thing yourself. I
used to kneel down to pray, and all types of things would come to my
mind that I had to do, and I wouldn't be able to pray.

And I almost started saying, if you have forgotten things to do, just
kneel down to pray. The devil will remind you of all the things you're
supposed to do. And I say, Lord, I have to discipline myself here, not
let my mind wander when I'm supposed to be praying.

Not let my mind wander when I'm supposed to be reading the word. I say
it's unimportant. All those things are unimportant.

I mean, if there's something urgent to be done, I do it. I'm not a
fanatic that I have to read the Bible in the morning. If one of the
children was sick early morning, then I would forget about the Bible
reading and take the child to the hospital.

I don't live under any law. My principle is I want to listen, not the
Bible. The 1400 years, people never had a Bible.

You know that. The Bible was first printed only in the 1400s. So people
didn't have a Bible.

They could listen. The early apostles never had a Bible. The New
Testament wasn't even available for 60, 70 years, but they could listen.

Listening to the word, it's good to have a Bible, but to listen to God's
word, you can do as soon as you wake up in the morning. You know, the
first, I've often said this, the first book that the taught me to study
was interestingly enough, Song of Solomon. And I wasn't married, so I
wasn't thinking of a wife.

I was thinking of Jesus. And the Song of Solomon is a picture of a bride
and bridegroom relationship. And I saw it as a picture of my
relationship with Jesus Christ.

I was on a ship those days, 1960 and 61, and it was not a warship, which
was always busy, active here and there. Warships would go to interesting
places around the world, exciting. But the Lord posted me on a survey
ship.

The survey ship had to go around surveying the uncharted waters around
India. And the uncharted waters were always in the unheard of villages
and where there was nothing, no town, no city. There was nothing to go
ashore for.

And so one year of boredom, and I was on, but I had a room because I was
an officer. I had a cabin on the ship. And somehow at that time, I
didn't know anything about how to study the Bible, but I brought with me
a commentary.

I didn't even know what it was. It was something my dad had. I took from
his library and it was a commentary on the Song of Solomon, small little
booklet.

And that's the only thing I had. So I said, okay, let me study the Bible
with this book. And it was a sovereignty of God.

My first Bible is full of notes on the Song of Solomon that I wrote. And
I really developed a relationship with Jesus. And I learned there that
Jesus loves me.

The most important thing for me to know as a new believer, like listen
to this Song of Solomon chapter two, verse 14. Imagine the Lord saying
to me as a new believer, still struggling to overcome sin. Song of
Solomon 2, 14 in the middle, it says, my dove, boy, what a comforting
word.

I know in today's language would be my darling, my dear son. Let me see
your face. Let me hear your voice.

Here we long to hear the Lord's voice. And the Lord is saying, let me
hear your voice. Your voice is sweet.

And you look so beautiful. And you look means not my physical looks, but
my heart. And even though I was not far from perfect, the Lord was
looking at my heart and saying, in my eyes, you're beautiful.

Yeah. You know, a loving husband will tell his wife, even if she's got a
scarred face with injury or anything, you're beautiful in my eyes.
That's how the Lord is.

I don't know, I realize sometimes we are so burdened by our sin and our
failure that we think, oh, the Lord can't possibly look at me and think
I'm beautiful. I want to say to you in Jesus name, you are. If you don't
believe it, spend the next month reading Song of Solomon and hear the
Lord speaking to you and learn to speak to the Lord like the bride
speaks to the Lord here.

And when we feel condemned and feel unworthy, let me give you a verse
which is very misunderstood among Christians. It's a verse where the
bride feels so unworthy and so small and nothing. Song of Solomon
chapter two, verse one.

This is not the bridegroom speaking. This is the bride speaking. And let
me paraphrase it to you.

The bride saying, oh my dear bridegroom, I'm only an ordinary rose of
Sharon among the millions of roses. They're not special. An ordinary
rose of Sharon in the midst of millions of roses there.

I'm just an ordinary lily of the valleys in the midst of millions of
lilies. And the Lord replies, oh yeah, you may think you're a lily, but
you are a lily among thorns. You're my darling among all those thorns.

You are a lily. I see so many thorns, but you're a lily. So don't
deprecate yourself.

Don't make yourself say to yourself, I'm good for nothing. I'm good for
nothing. The devil will keep telling you that.

Don't repeat the devil's lies saying you're good for nothing. You're
precious in God's eyes. Even if you feel you're an ordinary person, like
you're so ordinary, you look at other people in NCCF and you say they
are, oh, they are so much ahead of me.

They are better than me. They know the Bible better. They can share
better.

Okay, okay, okay, fine. You feel you're ordinary and the Lord will say
to you, my darling among the thorns, you're a lily. I don't compare you
with others.

You know, a good husband will never, never compare his wife with anybody
else. The Lord has shown me that a husband who compares his wife with
some other woman is in his spirit an adulterer already. Now, some people
may not have that standard.

Some people may say only if you lust after a woman, it's adultery. Good.
That's true.

But I've gone a little beyond that. I feel that the Lord showed me that
if you compare your wife with somebody else and think she's better,
you're an adulterer. You've got adultery in your mind already.

The little seed of it is there already. And the Lord doesn't do that. He
does not, the Lord is not an adulterer.

He does not compare you with somebody else. He says, you're precious.
Let me hear your voice.

Your form, your face is beautiful, Luke 2, Psalm 214. And Psalm of
Solomon 4, verse 1, how beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you
are. And he describes her.

I praise God. If I sit at the Lord's feet like Mary, those are the words
I will hear. Those are the words you will hear if you sit at the Lord's
feet like Mary.

And I tell you, I've been a believer 61 years. Let me give you my honest
testimony. I still want to hear it.

I still want to hear it. I'm desperate to hear the Lord's commendation.
You probably know so many people around the world commend me and thank
me for this and thank me for that.

And I hear many appreciations. I say, I mean, I accept it. I don't act
super spiritual and say, no, no, no, I'm not interested.

Thank you, brother. I'm glad you were blessed. I'm glad you were
blessed.

I'm glad you were helped by something I shared. But when that's all
over, when the voices of the men and women have died down, I come to the
Lord and say, Lord, I want to hear you. What do you think of it? That's
far more important.

I believe these people are sincere in what they say. They're words of
appreciation. But Lord, I want to hear you.

I want to hear you. And if there's something in me to be set right, like
that's also you read in Song of Solomon in chapter two, take away the
little foxes that are spoiling the wines. It says here, if you don't
know that verse, that's a good verse to remember Song of Solomon.

And in chapter two, in fact, chapter two is a good chapter. Verse 15,
catch the foxes, the little foxes, not the big ones. The little dirty
thoughts that come in, the little thoughts of jealousy, the little
thoughts of comparing yourself as better than the other person.

Maybe you've got some ability, preaching ability, musical ability or
something, and you're comparing yourself with the other person. And
you're either jealous that he's better, or you're proud that you're
better. Both are foxes.

The jealousy is a little fox and the pride is a little fox. Catch it.
Because they will ruin Song of Solomon 215.

They'll ruin the vineyard. I want to hear that also. It's not only
appreciation.

It is a warning. Warning the little foxes coming into your mind that are
ruining this vineyard. My beloved darling, the Lord says, catch them,
get rid of them.

And let me hear your voice. Song of Solomon 47, you are altogether
beautiful, my darling. 47, there is no blemish in you.

Is it possible for a woman to have no blemish at all? In the eyes of her
husband? Yes. That depends on the extent of his love. Some of you
husbands who do not value your wives enough, who loved your wife once
upon a time and thought much of her the day you married her.

But now you don't value her sufficiently. Go to Jesus and learn how he
appreciates his bride. There is no fault in you.

Song of Solomon 47. Is it possible that Jesus looks at me and says,
there is no fault in me? I can myself see so many faults in me. I'll
tell you why.

Because I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ. There is no fault in
that. Many of us, we've heard so much about judging ourselves and
cleansing ourselves, which is very important.

But as I've always said, that must be based on the foundation of you are
clothed in the righteousness of Christ. If you don't begin in that
foundation, don't build a building. No, don't build a building without a
foundation.

It will collapse. Judging yourself, cleansing yourself, examining
yourself is part of the superstructure. What is the foundation? We are
cleansed in the blood of Christ.

Christ is our righteousness. I'm accepted by God in the beloved. Have
you got that foundation strong? Is that a rock or is it sort of moving
sand? I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure whether Christ is my righteousness. I'm not so sure
whether God has accepted me. I'm not so sure whether all my sins are
forgiven.

I'm not so sure whether God still remembers all the evil things I did in
the past. Brother, then forget about building the superstructures.
Concentrate on the foundation until it's solid.

I believe I have to say that word to many, many believers nowadays. They
get all shaky. They're trying to build a third floor, fourth floor, and
that cracks in the wall.

The crack in the floor, in the fourth floor is because of the fault in
the foundation. It's got nothing to do with the wall. You're wondering,
what am I doing wrong here? I'll tell you what you're doing wrong here.

You haven't got your foundation right. You don't accept Christ as your
righteousness. You're always trying to be good enough to be accepted by
the Lord.

You'll never be good enough. I'll tell you that right now. I'm not good
enough to come before the Lord.

How do I come before the Lord today? Exactly the same basis as you,
youngest believer in NCCF, come before the Lord with Christ as my
righteousness. I am equal with you, the youngest believer in NCCF, when
it comes to acceptance before the Lord. And when we get to the gates of
heaven, what shall we say? I am a sinner, but Jesus died for me.

His blood has cleansed me. He is my righteousness. I have no other
passport to get into heaven, just like you don't have.

My foundation is clear today, but in the early days, it was not. In the
early days, I used to think I have to be good enough. I'm pretty good
enough.

Always there were cracks coming in the building because I didn't get the
foundation right. I thank God that I woke up to that. Many years of my
backsliding in those early years before CSC was formed was because I
didn't have a spiritual father to teach me.

I didn't have a teacher who got me foundation right. I was a unlearned
construction person trying to build a structure without a proper
foundation. So anyway, you guys are not in that position.

You've heard many times from me. You must lay your foundation. Christ is
your righteousness.

Your righteousness, when you were converted, was a filthy rag. A hundred
years from now, if you live, it will still be a filthy rag. Don't ever
try to build on any other foundation.

Don't make that your foundation at the beginning and then build
somewhere else. That's another thing I was doing. Yeah, I knew the
theory.

If you had asked me to answer a question paper, who is your
righteousness, I would get the right answer. Christ. How are your sins
forgiven? 1 John 1.75. Confess my sins.

1 John 1.9. I knew all the answers. I got the correct answers, but I was
building on somewhere else, not on that foundation. And I believe many
people are doing that.

Listen to the Lord. Yeah, I have a lot more to say, but I'll say one
thing now. Here's a verse which I'd like you to think about.

Can you read it? God is always silently planning in love for you.
Zephaniah 3.17. Never forget this verse. That passage around Zephaniah
3.17 is a passage which is the one passage in scripture which says God
is singing in love for you.

He's singing. Thinking of you, he's singing. You know how you rejoice
over some child of yours whose heart so much that you feel like singing?
Well, God is singing over you, believe it or not.

And it's around this verse that it comes. God is always silently
planning in love for you. Okay, now you've got the verse in your mind.

I want to tell you some things about it. First of all, the first word,
God. Start with that.

The first four words in the Bible are in the beginning, God. You open
your Bible, the first page. In the beginning, God.

That must be true of your life. It must be true every day of your life.
In the beginning, God.

Think of the days when so many things went wrong in your life. I'll tell
you why. Because in the beginning, it wasn't God.

You had some argument with your husband or your wife or something was
wrong in the house or your children or this, that. In the beginning,
something else. Well, you say we are in a busy world, so many things
have to do.

But when you wake up, why don't you spend a few moments? In the
beginning, God. I've just developed that habit now. Before I get out of
bed.

It doesn't have to be long, even if it's one minute. In the beginning,
God. Think of Jesus' love for you.

Rejoice in that love. That's the first thing. God, think of him.

That's the first thing. The next is the last word. What's the last word
there? You.

God is silently planning in love for you. Once you have thought about
God, like the son of Solomon is. Son of Solomon is just the bride and
the bridegroom.

There's nobody else there. It's just two people. Think of that.

God and you. Lord, I'm so precious in your eyes. Sometimes I think of
myself as, I'm the only human being in the world.

I was the only one who sinned and Jesus came and died for me. It's
absolutely true that he concentrates on you in a way in which only God
can do. God can concentrate on each child of his, with all the millions
and millions of children there are, as if that is the only one.

I want to think of that too, that God concentrates on me as if I'm the
only one. Then the other word, God, you've seen what God is and you see
how precious you are in his eyes. Once you've got that clear, if you
haven't got that clear, then don't proceed.

How precious you are to God, you've got to believe that. And then,
planning. God is silently planning.

Planning. You know what planning is. We all make plans.

And the cleverer you are, the better your plans, right? Imagine the
cleverest person in the universe, God Almighty, making plans for me.
Wonderful. You know, these people who inherit a fortune, they have to go
to these financial counselors, how shall I invest the money? I've got a
whole life ahead of me.

Count the number of minutes, millions of minutes. Isn't it good to go to
a counselor? Say, how to spend this life, Lord? Planning. Let me tell
you something that the Bible says about God's planning.

Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Speaking about the time when we were in our
mother's womb, verse 13, when you were in your mother's womb and God was
forming your inward parts.

At that time, Psalm 139, verse 16, Lord, your eyes have seen my unformed
substance. When you were an embryo, before you even became a fetus. And
in your book that is in God's mind, all the days of my life were already
written down.

When I was not even born. My first day on earth had not started, but
already my entire life was written down in God's mind. That is planning.

That's what I mean by planning. God is silently planning. He doesn't
advertise it so much.

He's planned. I thank God for this, to know this. I never knew when I
was converted 61 years ago that I'd live up to the age of 81.

No. How long do you think you'll live? I don't know. I'd like to live up
to a hundred, not because I love this rotten old world, but I say, Lord,
if you've got something for me to do, I'm available.

I don't care if I'm weak and stumbling and whatever it is, I'll serve
you to my last day on earth. I never retire. My retirement days are in
heaven.

And so, but I don't know how long God has planned. And if God has
planned only a certain period of time, I don't want to live one day
after that. In Jesus' case, it was only 33 and a half years.

I'm not saying a long life is a useful one. No. Hezekiah lived 15 years
longer than God planned for him.

And he messed up those 15 years. You know that? God told the Hezekiah at
one time, your time is over. Go.

He said, Oh Lord, please have mercy on me. And God said, okay, you plead
and ask for 15 more years. And during those years, his son Manasseh was
born, who would never have been born if he had gone when God told him to
go.

And that Manasseh became for 50 years, the worst thing that Israel, that
Judah had. God's ways are best. Remember that.

When God tells me it's time to go, I don't believe I will bless his work
anymore if I stay one more day. So I don't believe in long, but he's
planned my days. He's planned your days already before you were born.

And if you bow and say, Lord, that's all the plan I wanted in my life. I
don't cannot make a better plan. I don't want a better plan, but I want
to finish your work.

Like Jesus said at the end of his life, father, I've finished the work
you gave me to do. Like Paul said, I finished my course. I run the race.

I want to say that too. And I hope every one of you, not you will
accomplish great things on the earth, my brother, sister, but that you
will finish the work God planned for you before you were born. And I
don't mean Christian work.

I mean, just maybe raising a good family, children who love the Lord,
maybe spending time with your children, being a good father, being a
good mother. Maybe that's what God wants you to concentrate on, whatever
it is. Being a blessing to the two, three people who meet with you.

Maybe you're in a small fellowship somewhere. Be a blessing to them.
God's got a plan.

It's a wonderful thing to be addressed. I'm not in competition with
anybody in the world. I've never sought to compete.

I mean, in my early days, I was stupid and foolish. I wanted to be a
great preacher and try to prove myself, but it's all gone. I have no
interest.

I can stand before God and say, Lord, I have no interest in impressing
anybody in the world with my sermons or my preaching or my books or
anything or my spirituality. I have only one passion. I want to finish
the plan God made for me and walk in that plan every day of my life.

I want to sit at Jesus' feet like Mary and say, Lord, what do you want
me to do? You know, one of the first words of Jesus in his public
ministry, first words, it is not, man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God. Matthew chapter four, the very first words he
spoke to the devil. What are the first words? Same thing which he told
Mary, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, every word
that proceeds, not proceeded from God's mouth 1,500 years ago, or that
proceeded from God's mouth through Paul and John 2,000 years ago.

No, that proceeds, present tense, man shall live by every word that
proceeds from God's mouth. I have to read the Bible and I have to hear
what God is saying to me through it. Present tense, present continuous,
for it proceeds from God's mouth, man shall live by that.

It's not man shall live by the Bible, man shall live by every word that
proceeds from God's mouth through the Bible or through another servant
of his or whatever it is, whatever comes to my heart, I must hear it
from God. That's how I live. Anything less than that is not life.

Life with a capital L is when I hear God speaking to me every day.
That's what Mary had. That's the one need for the first words of Jesus
spoke in ministry.

And so here it says, if I want to fulfill that plan, I have to hear.
Otherwise, how do I know? And it's not something that I hear. I don't
hear God's voice with these ears.

No, the devil would be able to fool me because he could say things, but
when I hear it in my heart and my heart is clear with a clear conscience
and I'm willing to humble myself only two conditions, I won't make 10
conditions, two conditions. Keep your conscience clear. Always
immediately confess everything you know, immediately apologize to
anyone.

You hurt your wife or your husband, anybody immediately and forgive
everybody immediately. Don't wait. I have the habit of forgiving people
as soon as I heard that they said something or did something with me.

I never try to read about it or anything. I say I've already forgiven
because I want to live in a constant state of forgiving others and being
forgiven by God myself. That is a clear conscience.

We all want to have God forgive us constantly, forgive others
constantly. Let there be not a single dot in your conscience of somebody
you're not forgiven or something you're not forgiven yourself. That will
ensure that your spiritual years are clear to hear God, you know, or
whoever wrote Hebrews told them in Hebrews and chapter five, you're
deaf.

You're not able to hear. You're not able to hear what God is speaking.
John the apostle said on the island of Patmos that he heard God's voice
like a trumpet, but a deaf man can't hear a thing.

Trumpet? I didn't hear anything and John hears it like a trumpet. There
are people around you who are hearing God's voice like a trumpet and you
say you can't hear it. That's the only way you can't hear it.

Let me tell you honestly, lovingly, something in your life you're not
set right. Somebody you despise, maybe another brother, maybe your wife,
maybe your husband because he's so foolish compared to other men or your
wife because she does some things in an awkward way or some brother or
sister. Don't despise one of God's children.

Don't do it. He will not take it lightly if you despise one of God's
children because they're not as smart as you or not so spiritual as you
or some foolish thing like that. Value them.

If you keep those things clear in your conscience, you will be able to
hear God's plan for your life. So that's the next word, planning. The
other thing I want you to do is in love, silently planning in love.

Everything God plans for you is in love. Never forget that. He never
plans anything which is going to bring a calamity for you or create
problems for you.

Of course, he'll allow you to go through trials. Yeah, I remember when
my children were going to school and some tough examination was coming
up in the school in India. The final examination is very important to
get promoted to the next standard or the next grade as you call it here.

And you know, if they don't pass in their final examination, they stay
in the same class. So even if they got a fever or a stomach ache or a
headache, I say, go, you got to finish that examination. And that child
of mine may think I'm being very hard on them.

I say, I don't care, just pass, get on to the next class. And but you
can't avoid the examination. And it doesn't matter if they thought I was
hard.

When they get promoted to the next class and they go and they do well,
then they thank the daddy. God is like that. He's not going to hold you
back just because a trial is going to be tough.

He says, I want you to face it because you're going to get a promotion.
Remember, every trial you face will give you a promotion. It's the final
examination.

In love, his trials are sent in love, his blessings are sent. He doesn't
keep on giving us trials. You know, in Psalm 23, it says, we go through
the valley of the shadow of death.

But it also says he takes us by green pastures and by the still waters.
Don't forget that. Green pastures, still waters, valley of the shadow of
death, all necessary.

The Lord is my shepherd. And where does it finally lead you in Psalm 23?
I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So he's silent.

Everything is in love. Don't ever doubt it. Don't look back at anything
in your life.

I'll tell you something wonderful. Even your mistakes, the blunders you
made, God can turn it for good. I've seen that in my life.

Nobody can go through life without making mistakes and blunders. But
I've got a father in heaven who turns those blunders and mistakes into
something good. Think of the blunder and mistake Adam and Eve did.

You know that Jesus would never have come if Adam and Eve had lived a
perfect life and all his children lived perfect lives. Where would we
have seen the love of God in Calvary? Oh, I wouldn't miss seeing the
love of God in Calvary for anything I say. Thank you, Adam and Eve, for
sinning.

Thank you for sinning. Because of that, I see the love of God in a way
I'd never have seen. God does the greatest proof that God turns the
mistakes of men for his purposes for glory.

And he can do that for Adam and Eve. He'll do for you. He's silently
planning in love.

The other thing I want you to see is two more words. Silently. You say,
I can't hear him.

No, he's silent. But he's speaking. Don't worry if you can't hear him.

Silently. He doesn't come with big thunder and shouting. There's a
wonderful verse in Isaiah 45, which I love, which says, Isaiah 45 and
verse 15.

Please remember this all your life. Isaiah 45, 15. Oh God, surely,
truly, you are a God who hides yourself.

I love that. Because many a time, I think God is not there. And I've
discovered afterwards he's there.

He's just hidden himself. He's a God who hides himself. When the sun
rises, God doesn't appear in the heavens and say, hey brothers, I'm God.

No. He allows the world to be full of atheists every morning to say
there is no God. Because he has hidden himself.

But those who have eyes to see can see he is there. In your house, if
you and your wife live together in humility, with a good conscience,
Jesus is there. Not because you hang a board on your wall saying Christ
is the head of this house.

That counts for nothing. Live in humility with each other, with a good
conscience and love, and he will be there. But he hides himself.

He's a God who hides himself. So he's silently, all the work he does is
silently. You think he's not there.

Afterwards you say, who did that? That was God. Haven't you had
experiences in your life where you wonder how in the world did that
happen? Because someone was silently planning for you. How in the world
did you get that wonderful wife when you could have messed up earlier on
with somebody else? That was God who silently held you back somewhere.

He pushed you forward somewhere and got you married to the right person.
That may not be the most perfect person in the world because you're not
the most perfect person. How can you get a perfect person? Just humble
yourself and say God gave you the person who was most appropriate for
you to make up for you.

He's silently. You know, very often when people come to me for marriage
counseling before they're married, I draw a diagram of an egg, which I,
and I draw a diagram of the egg which I break with my hand and all those
jagged edges on this side. And you know how you break a eggshell with
your hand.

It's full of jagged edges. And I said, both of you are like that. Full
of jagged edges.

You can hurt each other. Try and poke your face with it. You'll get
hurt.

But now see, I put those two halves together and all those jagged edges
go into each other's gaps and it's a whole egg again. That's how God is
a husband and wife. You see all those jagged edges in your wife or your
husband, brother, sister, there are jagged edges in you.

But they are corresponding to the, where there's a projection there,
there's a gap in you and that's how you fit together. God silently
planned that. You didn't have to go searching all the world for it.

God silently planned it. Be thankful. Even if you made blunders in the
past, God forgives.

It's amazing what he can do. Even bring up blunder that Adam and Eve
made. And if you want more proof of that, I'll tell you, just to
encourage you, God's silent planning.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter one. Matthew chapter one. This is the
genealogy of Jesus Christ.

And the one person who had the opportunity to plan his life before he
came to earth was Jesus. You could not plan your ancestors. You can go
to the ancestor website and find out who your ancestors were, but you
can never plan them.

And if you find among your ancestors, there were some prostitutes and
thieves and gamblers, you would not want anybody to go to that site and
discover who your ancestors were, right? Now let me show you the
ancestral line of Jesus Christ, which he chose. From heaven he chose. He
watched right from Adam onwards.

Yet it's not listed from Adam, but from Abraham. And God, remember this,
Jesus is watching from heaven. Which line shall I be born in? All the
hundreds of thousands of, I don't know, millions of people on the earth.

And he's watching, watching, watching. And he sees Matthew one verse
three. Pyrrhus and Zerah verse three.

Born to Tamar and Judah was the father. And by the way, Tamar was
Judah's daughter-in-law. So not his wife.

It is son's wife. He committed adultery with his son's wife. Incest, we
call it.

And they had twins. And Jesus says, I'll choose that line. And the
angels say, Lord, why that line? Because there are many people who will
be born of incest.

I want to identify with them, but I love them. They should not think
that they are outcasts. No incest is, a person born of incest is an
outcast for Jesus.

God so loved the world, including them. He chooses that line. Would you
choose that line? Ask yourself.

If in your ancestral line, you've discovered someone who was born of
incest, would you like to advertise it? Or you'd block the ancestral
line at that point? Not Jesus. You see his humility there. It's the
first page of the New Testament.

He puts it right there. Okay. We go down the line.

Verse five. Oh, Rehab. Salmon was born to Rehab.

Rehab, the most well-known prostitute in Jericho. Not even an Israelite.
Supposing in your line, there was a well-known prostitute.

And you were born in that line. You see, I come from a state in India
called Kerala. One significant thing about Keralites is they're very
proud of their ancestral line.

They put the name of their family, even sometimes in their name, such
and such a house. And they're proud of it. And they call themselves
Christians.

I don't want to say anything more on that. Here's Jesus' ancestral line.
Prostitute, Rehab, a child born.

Okay, let's go down. Ruth, another non-Israelite. Good girl.

But what was Ruth's ancestral line? She was a Moabite. You know who Moab
was? Moab was a boy born out of another incest. Lot, when he ran away
from Sodom, his two daughters got him drunk and committed adultery with
their father.

And one of them got a child called Moab. Incest again. Lord, a second
incest? You need another one? Yes.

Another incest person in my ancestral line, Moab. From that comes Ruth.
And then in the official line of all this work, the ancestors of Mary
and Joseph.

So Jesus' physical ancestral line. And the official ancestral line
includes one more name. That is verse six, Bathsheba.

Aha. How about having her name in your ancestral line? Somebody
committed adultery with that woman, murdered her husband, married her.
Fine, I'll take that line and put it down in the first page of the New
Testament.

Four women, all with a shameful past, every one of them. And they were
the only four women mentioned here. What about the other holy women not
mentioned here? Why only four sinful women mentioned? God is silently
planning for you in love.

He planned Jesus' line and he planned yours, my brother, sister. Be
thankful. One last word.

Always. 24-7. He's still planning.

He's always silently planning for you in love. That's the word the Lord
spoke to me as I sought to listen to him in this past one month. It has
rejoiced my heart and the Lord said, tell others about it.

I've told you. God bless you all. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I pray that everyone who heard my message today and
everyone who will hear it in the days to come will believe what you have
said, not what I have said, but what you have said. Whatever my words
were your words will go to people's hearts and change their lives and
prepare them for a wonderful, glorious life, at least from now onwards,
from the time they heard it. In the coming days, we can't do anything
about the past, but we thank God that you blot out our past with your
precious blood and you clothe us with your righteousness so that we
don't live in condemnation.

We listen to your voice. You're saying, let me hear your voice. We want
you to hear our voice every day, Lord, and we want to hear your voice as
well.

Bless every one of these dear brothers and sisters. You've raised a
wonderful new covenant church here in San Jose, in California. I pray
that it'll glorify your name for many years to come to the day you come
back to receive them, that you will add to the number of those who
should belong to them and bless many others throughout the world through
their ministry.

Thank you for the leaders you've given them. I pray you'll bless the
three of them and all the brothers and sisters who make a part of this
wonderful church. We commit them to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

========================================================================
Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/P6MTs_O4Mp8.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/listen-daily-to-god-who-has-planned-your-life/
========================================================================