Christian Fellowship Church (CFC)

10/05/2026

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Word For the Week

Do Not Love Money

Zac Poonen | 10th May 2026

Recommended Sermon: https://www.cfcindia.com/the-glory-of-the-new-covenant/12-freedom-from-the-love-of-money-to-love-god

Jesus said, “do not lay up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust will destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourself treasure in Heaven, where no moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves cannot break in or steal” --the reason is – “because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). Many people do not believe it is wrong to love money. To have money is not a sin, to love money is a sin.

It is very easy to understand whether we have obeyed this command or not. If your mind is thinking more about earthly things than heavenly things -- If you are thinking more about your earthly assets and properties than heavenly things -- you can be pretty sure that your heart is on this earth, and that your treasure is also here. The way to know whether we have obeyed this command is to ask ourselves during the day where is our heart set. In the middle of our work (or anything else), if we are terribly disturbed because of a little financial loss or excited because of a financial gain, this could indicate that our treasure is on this earth.

I remember many years ago, when somebody gave me a small financial gift, the Lord asked me a question – “Has your joy increased?” I suddenly felt convicted and confessed to the Lord that my joy did increase because I got this little money. I learned that day that I must rejoice only in the Lord and not in money. I also learned that the increase of money should never increase my joy. If it does increase my joy, it means that my joy is in money.

The Bible says to rejoice in the Lord always - and the Lord is always the same - so if you gain money or lose money, your joy in the Lord should not increase or decrease. It should be the same. If your joy decreases because you lost some money, you can be pretty sure that your heart was there. If your joy increases because you got some money, you can be pretty sure your heart was there. We must trust God. He will provide all we need for our earthly life, but we must not find our joy in these earthly things. We can use these earthly things but should not find our joy in them.

Money is a wonderful servant, but it is a terrible master -- just like fire. We cannot live without fire in our houses, to cook, for example. But if the fire in that stove becomes a master, then the house will be burnt up. It is a terrible master - capable of burning down your whole house - but if you keep it under control, then it is a wonderful servant. (When you turn the k**b say, “I am going to control when I turn you on, and when I turn you off. I am going to decide that. I, not you.” Thus you are master of the house.). Money must be like that. Just like we need fire, we need money to live on this earth, but it must be a servant. You must say, “Money I am going to decide that you are not going to control me; I am going to control you. You are not going to control my mind and make me think about you all the time. I am going to think about the Lord and things of Heaven, but I am going to use you.” This is the position of a spiritual man.

Gold is a very good thing if it is used as a servant. The Bible says there is even gold in Heaven! But there, we read about streets of gold. That means you walk on it, it is under your feet. This is the difference between a heavenly-minded Christian and an earthly-minded Christian. A heavenly-minded Christian has put gold under his feet - it does not rule him - but a carnal Christian wears gold on his head and it is on his mind all the time.

So if money is on your mind all the time, then you love it, whether you like it or not. It is like a boy who loves a girl and is always thinking about her. One who is always thinking about money is in love with money, and the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. You do not have to be rich to love money. I have never seen a beggar in India who does not love money. Every beggar loves money. If you gave them 50 paisa they would despise it. They love money and want more. Thus, it is not wealth that makes a man love money. Poor people love money too just as much as rich people.

It is also the case that you can be free from the love of money irrespective of how much wealth you have. It is a question of your attitude towards it. If you have one servant in your home, and he takes over your house, it would be terrible. You can have a little money (like having one servant), but he has taken over your house and rules your thinking. On the other hand, you can have 318 servants like Abraham had, yet they were all his servants and obeyed him. Like Abraham, you can have a lot of money, and if you rule over it, then you can use it for the glory of God.

The love of money is the root of all evil, (not necessarily having plenty of money). It is very important to understand this distinction. I have seen many poor people who love money tremendously, and I have seen rich people who do not love it. I have seen that it is not a question of how much you have, but what you love. This is what Jesus was speaking about. Your mind must be set on the things above. Lay-up treasure in Heaven. Check what are you thinking of, where your heart is, to discover what are you in love with.

Then Jesus goes on to speak about the eye in relation to money in Matthew 6:22, “The lamp of the body is the eye, and if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” This means that it is a question of how you look at money. If your eye is bad, it means that you look at money as something very important, as most important for your life on earth, and your body will be full of darkness. “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great that darkness is.” (v23) It is amazing that many people who have all of their doctrines right, and are good Christians in the eyes of others, who go to church services regularly yet they love money tremendously. They may even look down on other dead denominations without knowing that people in dead denominations are free from the love of money than they are, who claim to be in New Testament patterned churches.

Ask yourself some fundamental questions like these: do you get excited when you get little more money? Do you get depressed when you lose money? Then you love money. Our joy will be completely unaffected if it is in the Lord alone. If our joy is in earthly things, it will be affected by changes in our income.

No one can serve two masters. “Either he will hate the one and love the other.” It is quite a radical thing Jesus says here, just like Jesus speaks about hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters in Luke 14:26. Jesus was radical. Jesus says that if you want to love God, you have to hate money (Matthew 6:24). Mammon refers to money, real estate, stocks and shares. Jesus says that if you want to love God, you must hate all of that. You can use it, but your love for God must be so supreme -- like the brightness of the sun -- that your interest in money disappears as stars disappear in daylight. If it is not like that for you, you cannot serve God.

Jesus says, “If you hold onto one, you despise the other.” Put “the Word God” and “mammon” into that sentence and this is how it reads: “No one can serve God and material things (material wealth, money). Either he will hate money and love God or hate God and love money.” The implication of what Jesus is saying is that anyone who loves money, hates God. You may not have known it before, but now you do. Jesus is saying that if you love money, you hate God. You may think you love God just because you sing a lot of songs to Him, but that is not what Jesus says.

Jesus says that if you hold onto God, you will despise money, and if you hold onto money, you despise God. You can have money and earn money, but the moment you begin to love it you begin to hate God. God may have given a good job or an inheritance where you have lot of money, and that is fine. But if you love it, and hold onto it, you despise God and you hate God. It is so important for us to understand and to have a right attitude in this if we want to serve the Lord faithfully.

©Zac Poonen – [email protected]
http://www.cfcindia.com

18/04/2026

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12/04/2026

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Word For the Week

Building a Sanctuary for God

Zac Poonen | 12th April 2026

Recommended Sermon: https://www.cfcindia.com/sermon/building-a-godly-home

When God brought Israel out of their bo***ge in Egypt and was leading them through the wilderness, He commanded them, “Let them make a sanctuary for Me that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). This sanctuary was called the Tabernacle and was later replaced by the temple after the Israelites entered Canaan.

We see from this verse that God had a desire to dwell in the midst of His people. Since the coming of Christ, God no longer dwells in any earthly building. He now seeks to dwell in human hearts and homes. The Lord speaks even today, “Build a sanctuary (holy place) for Me that I may dwell with you.” It is with that purpose that God unites a husband and wife in marriage. They must build their home as a holy place for God to dwell with them.

Building a Home for God’s Glory

Generally, when people get married, they think of building a home for themselves. That is what every non-Christian couple has as their aim. But as believers, if we are to honour the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word, we should not build a home for ourselves. We should build a sanctuary for God to dwell in. This is the fundamental difference between a truly Christian home and a non-Christian home. It is because this is not the aim of many believers that we see so much misery and ungodliness in their homes. They built their home for themselves and not for God.

When people get married, they have great hopes about how happy they are going to be. But six months down the line, as reality settles in, it is a different story altogether. They constantly bicker and yell at each other. By the time they reach their tenth anniversary, many couples are sick and tired of each other. Why is that? Because they were selfishly building a house for themselves. But the word of God teaches us that we can have a happy married life only if we seek to glorify God and build our home for Him.

The purpose of God for married couples is the same as His purpose was for the Israelites in the Old Testament. He brings people together in marriage so that they might build a home for His glory. In Exodus, God gave the Israelites precise building plans for the tabernacle, and they were to build it exactly as He commanded. The Israelites were humble enough to follow God’s plan exactly. As a result, the glory of the Lord rested upon that tabernacle (Exodus 40:34). You also must build your home exactly according to God's plan if you want the glory of God to dwell in your home. Seek to build your marriage exactly as the Lord has commanded in Scripture. Then the glory of God will rest upon your home as well.

Building a Home According to God’s Order

We see bitterness, jealousy, grumbling, and the love of money in many Christian homes. This is not much different from a non-Christian home. The reason is clear: God's glory cannot fill the home, because the couple has not sought to build it according to God's word. Instead, they built their home according to their own reason.

In 1 Corinthians 11:3, we see clearly God's order for the home: “Christ is the head of the man and man is the head of the woman.” We often see these words on a wooden plaque in Christian homes – ‘‘Christ is the head of this home.’’ But in reality, Christ is not the head of the home. When God made Adam and Eve, He gave Adam as the head to Eve. God Himself was the head of Adam. After God joined them together, the very next thing we read in Scripture is that Satan entered the scene. This teaches us that, even today, as soon as God joins a man and woman together in marriage, Satan will come. So, we must be alert. Satan must not be able to enter our homes.

How did Satan get into that first home? It is that Adam and Eve did not follow God's order. When Satan came to Eve and suggested that she disobey God’s command, she should have said, “Well Satan, I cannot take this decision on my own. God has given me a head. Let me consult him first and then I will answer you.” What a different story it would have been if she had done that! But she carried on a discussion with Satan and finally took a decision without consulting her head. She violated God's law, then told her husband also to disobey God. Adam should have told her, “God is my head. Let me consult Him.” But he also did not follow God’s order. If only they had followed God’s order for their home, all the sin, misery, and confusion that there is in the world today would not exist. That is how Satan penetrates many homes and ruins them even today. Psalm 127:1 says, “Except the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it.”

The only way the Lord can build our home is if we obey His word exactly.

©Zac Poonen – [email protected]
http://www.cfcindia.com

28/02/2026

04/01/2026

Word For the Week

The Path of the Righteous in the New Year

Zac Poonen | 4th January 2026

Recommended Sermon: https://www.cfcindia.com/sermon/the-fullness-of-the-spirit-in-an-enlarged-heart

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, That shines brighter and brighter until the full day. (Proverbs 4:18)

This is really a New Covenant promise. We know that a person is righteous only when he comes to faith in Christ, when his sins are forgiven and he is declared righteous by God, justified with the righteousness of Christ clothing him. But then, it is not God's will that his life should be only like the sunrise. It says, “The path of the righteous is like the sunrise...” But we know when the sun rises, there is light, but the sun is still not at its brightest. Think of the sun rising in the sky; this light shines brighter and brighter and brighter until the noonday position, when there is perfect brightness. We can say the shadows decrease as the sun rises; the shadow of our self-life keeps on decreasing, decreasing, decreasing, decreasing, and finally the sun is overhead where the shadow disappears altogether. And that is God's will for us. From the time we are born again, it is not God's will that any child of His should have an up and down experience.

Now, most Christians have an up and down experience, and when we hear that other people have up and down experiences, and some preacher has an up and down experience, then we are comforted in our defeat. We get our standard from some carnal believer or some carnal preacher instead of from the word of God, which says that the path of the righteous is not up and down. It is not bright and then dark, and then bright again and then dark again. On top of the mountain, then down in the dumps. Praising the Lord and rejoicing, then gloomy and miserable the next day. If that is our experience, I just want to say that is not God's will. That is not the path of the righteous. If a person is walking that way, we can clearly say he is not walking the path of the righteous.

The path of the righteous is called, in the New Testament, “The New and Living Way.” It is not a doctrine to understand; it is the path of the righteous. Now, we hear of people who believe in the New and Living Way. I got a letter about someone who spoke about “New and Living Way brothers and sisters.” What is a New and Living Way brother or sister? Not somebody who sits in Christian Fellowship Church. Not someone who understands the doctrine, but someone who is not going up and down. A person who is going up and down is not in the New and Living Way; that is the old dead way. The New and Living Way is brighter, brighter, brighter, brighter. That is the ONLY New and Living Way the New Testament speaks about: The path of the righteous. This “down in the dumps” business only proves that we have understood the doctrine, but we have not gotten onto the actual way at all.

The path of the righteous is like the sunrise that shines brighter and brighter; and the sun does not go back and forth. It does not change its mind suddenly. It just keeps going steadily, and that is God's will for our lives, brothers and sisters. That is the will of God that it becomes better and better and better and better. That means I get more and more light on what dwells in my flesh. I get light on what dwells in my flesh now which I did not know 6 months ago. If we are not in that condition, we are not on the path of the righteous. Let us learn that very clearly so that we do not deceive ourselves by just understanding some doctrine. No; it is the path where the light gets brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter, where I get more and more light on my flesh. Or like 1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light as God is in the light...” God is light, and if I walk in that light, the closer I get to God; the light is getting brighter and brighter. That means I'm getting more and more light on what dwells in my flesh. I'm able to put more and more to death in my life and I'm becoming wiser. That is how Jesus grew in wisdom: He walked the New and Living Way. It says in Luke 2:52 that he grew in wisdom. And that is what Solomon is saying here (in Prov. 4:18), inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It says in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that the Holy Spirit shows us the glory of Jesus. That glory is a light, and it becomes brighter and brighter in our life as the Holy Spirit changes us into that same likeness from glory to glory. Proverbs 4:18 is the Old Testament verse which corresponds to 2 Corinthians 3:18. If you want to understand this verse, you have to turn to the corresponding verse in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 3:18, and see there, "...from glory to glory to glory to glory."

We wish you all a very blessed year 2026 - as the Holy Spirit changes you into the likeness of Jesus from glory to glory.

©Zac Poonen – [email protected]
http://www.cfcindia.com

28/12/2025

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21/12/2025

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Word For the Week

The Real Truth About Christmas

Zac Poonen | 21st December 2025

Recommended Sermon: https://www.cfcindia.com/sermon/living-by-the-word-of-god

Men are likened to sheep. And sheep have a tendency to follow the crowd without questioning. Jesus however came and taught us to examine everything by God's word. The Pharisees exalted human traditions. Jesus exalted God's word. We are to live by every word of God – and to reject every human tradition that is against the Word of God (Matt. 4:4).

The battle that Jesus was constantly engaged in with the Pharisees was the age-long battle of God's Word versus the traditions of men. In the church, we are engaged in the same battle today. God's Word is the only heavenly light that we have on this earth. And when God first created light, He immediately separated it from the darkness. The darkness is both sin and human traditions. So we must separate both sin and human traditions from the pure word of God – so that there is no mixture in the church.

Christmas

Consider Christmas, which is celebrated by many as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Shopkeepers of all religions look forward to Christmas, for it is a time when they can make a lot of profit. It is a commercial festival – and not a spiritual one. Millions of dollars/rupees are spent on Christmas cards and gifts. Sales of alcoholic drinks also go up at this time.

Is this really then the birthday of the Son of God, or of ‘another Jesus'?

Let us look at God's Word first of all. The Bible tells us that there were shepherds with their sheep out in the fields of Judea, on the night that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:7-14). The shepherds in Israel never kept their flocks out in the open fields at night after October, and until February – because the weather in these months was both rainy and cold there. So the real Jesus must have been born sometime between March and September. December 25 then must be the birthday of ‘another Jesus' that has been dumped on an unsuspecting Christendom by unconverted men!

Further, even if we did know the exact date of Jesus' birth, the question would still be whether God intended His church to celebrate it. Mary, the mother of Jesus, would certainly have known the exact date of birth of Jesus. And she was with the apostles for many years after the day of Pentecost. Yet there is no mention anywhere of Jesus' date of birth. What does this show? Just this – that God deliberately hid the date of Jesus' birth, because He did not want the church to celebrate it. Jesus was not an ordinary mortal whose birthday was to be celebrated once a year. He was the Son of God "Who had no beginning of days", unlike us (Heb.7:3). God wants us to recognize Jesus' birth, death, resurrection and ascension every day, and not just once a year.

An understanding of the difference between the old and the new covenants will also enable us to understand why God does not want His children to celebrate any special “holy days” now. Under the old covenant, Israel had been commanded to celebrate certain days as specially holy days. But that was only a shadow. Now that Christ has come, the will of God is that every day of our lives should be equally holy. Even the weekly sabbath has been abolished, under the new covenant. That is why no holy days are mentioned anywhere in the New Testament (Col.2:16,17).

How then did Christmas make its entry into Christendom? The answer is: In the same way that infant baptism, tithing, priestcraft, salaried pastors and many other human traditions and old covenant practices, have made their entry – by the subtle working of Satan and unconverted men.

When the emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, multitudes became Christian – but only 'in name' – without any change of heart. And so, they did not want to give up their two great annual heathen festivals – both connected with their worship of the sun. One was the birthday of the sun-god on December 25, when the sun that had gone down to the southern hemisphere began its return journey (the winter solstice). The other was the spring festival in March/April, when they celebrated the death of the winter and the birth of the warm summer that their sun-god had brought. They renamed their sun-god 'Jesus' and continued to celebrate their two great festivals, now as Christian festivals and called them Christmas and Easter!!

Today’s Christmas customs have evolved from times before the Christian period in Europe – and have come from pagan, religious practices, coupled with legends and traditions. The exact date and year of Christ's birth have never been satisfactorily settled; but when the fathers of the church in A.D . 440 decided upon a date to celebrate the event, they chose the day of the winter solstice which was firmly fixed in the minds of the people of those days – and which was their most important festival. As Christianity spread among the people of pagan lands, many of the practices of the winter solstice celebration began to be joined with those of Christianity.

The Encyclopaedia Brittanica (an authority on secular history) has the following to state about the origin of Christmas:

“The ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia is perhaps most closely linked with the modern celebration of Christmas. This festival happened about the time of the winter solstice and marked the end of the planting season. There were games, feasts, and gift-giving for several days, and work and business were suspended to commemorate this lively festival. In the closing days, it was common to make presents of candles, wax models of fruit, and waxen statuettes. The influence of the Saturnalia upon the celebrations of Christmas and the New Year has been direct. The fact that Christmas would later be celebrated on the birthday of the Unconquered Sun, another Roman festival, gave the season a solar background and connected it with the Roman New Year, when houses were decorated with greenery and lights and presents were given to children and the poor.”

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/Winter-Holidays)

These pagan customs originated with the Babylonian religion begun by Ni**od (See Gen. 10:8-10). Tradition tells us that after Ni**od died, his wife Semiramis had an illegitimate child, which she claimed was Ni**od come back to life again. Thus began the worship of the mother and child, which centuries later was transferred by nominal Christians to 'Mary and Jesus'.

The birthday of this child-god was celebrated by the ancient Babylonians on December 25. Semiramis was the queen of heaven (Jer. 44:19), worshipped centuries later in Ephesus as Diana and Artemis (Acts 19:28).

Semiramis claimed that a full grown evergreen tree grew overnight from a dead tree stump. This symbolised Ni**od's coming back to life, and bringing heaven's gifts to mankind. Thus began the practice of cutting down a fir tree and hanging gifts on it. And that is the origin of the Christmas tree!

God's Word Or Man's Tradition?

Behind the celebration of Christmas lies the far more deadly principle of following the traditions of men even when they have no foundation in God's Word. So strong is this power of tradition that many believers who follow the Scriptures in other areas still find it difficult to give up celebrating Christmas.

It is amazing that many believers are not willing to accept what even secular writers (like the authors of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, quoted above) have understood clearly – that Christmas is basically a pagan festival. Changing the name does not make this festival Christian!

As we said at the beginning, Jesus was engaged in a constant battle with the Pharisees over this very issue - man's traditions versus God's Word. He faced more opposition for opposing the empty ‘traditions of the fathers' than for preaching against sin. We shall find our experience to be the same, if we are as faithful as He was.

God's Word alone is our guide - and not the example of even godly men, in areas where they do not follow the Word of God. "Let God be found true even if every man is found to be a liar" (Rom. 3:4). The Bereans searched the Scriptures to check up even on Paul's teaching, and the Holy Spirit commended them for it (Acts 17:11). That is a good example for all of us to follow.

David was a man after God's own heart. Yet, for forty years, he permitted the Israelites to worship Moses' bronze serpent without realizing that it was an abomination to God. He did not have light even on such obvious idolatry. It was a much lesser king, Hezekiah, who exposed and destroyed this idolatrous practice (2 Kin. 18:1-4). We can follow godly men in the saintliness of their lives, but not in their lack of light on human traditions. Our safety lies in simply following the teaching of God's Word and not in adding to, or subtracting from it.

Do Not Judge Others

Finally : What should our attitude be towards sincere believers who celebrate Christmas?

It is important to remember that we do not become spiritual merely by not celebrating Christmas. And those who celebrate this festival are not therefore carnal believers. Spiritual people are those who follow Jesus along the way of daily self-denial and the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit – whether they celebrate Christmas or not.

So when we meet believers who celebrate these festivals, we must be gracious enough to consider that they may be ignorant of the pagan origin of this festival. And so, they are not sinning in any way when they celebrate it. On the other hand, we will be sinning, if we judge them – because we know the truth.

Since December 25th is usually a holiday for everyone and the days around it are also holidays for schools, many use this period for end-of-the-year family reunions – which is a very good thing. And since some people attend church-services only on December 25th – it is good for churches to have services on this date, so that they can preach the gospel to such people and explain to them that Jesus came to earth to save people from their sins and that He conquered death and Satan for us.

In the early days of Christianity, some Christians celebrated the Sabbath - which was a non-Christian Jewish religious festival, just like Christmas. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul therefore to write Romans 14 to warn other Christians not to sin by judging them. The same warning holds good for those who judge others who celebrate Christmas.

"Accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. Who are you to judge the servant of another? One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not, for the Lord he does not, and gives thanks to God. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God and each one of us will give an account of himself (alone) to God" (Rom.14:12)).

And that is the best word with which to conclude this study on Christmas.

©Zac Poonen – [email protected]
http://www.cfcindia.com