Prayer changes destinies
Dr. Roberto Miranda
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: The passage in First Chronicles 4 tells the story of Jabez, who was named after the pain his mother experienced during his birth. Jabez prayed to God to bless him, enlarge his territory, be with him, and keep him from harm. God granted his requests, and his life became a contradiction of his name. The message is to be careful with the names we give our children and to be people of sound word, using our voice to declare blessings and open doors. We should also learn to pray like Jabez, believing God for miracles and rebelling against negative identities placed on us.
The story of Jabez in the Bible teaches us about the power of prayer and the importance of suffering and desert times in our lives. Jabez was given a name that meant pain, and he prayed to God to bless him and free him from evil. His suffering prepared him to make a distinctive prayer, and he was more honorable than his brothers. Jabez's cry to God was full of hope, frustration, rebellion, and delight, and it touched the heart of God. We need to get to the "Oh" point in our prayers, where we visualize something different and rebel against the chains of the enemy. The second week of prayer and fasting is an opportunity to put our "Oh" before God and ask for the visitation of the Holy Spirit.
In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10 and its relevance to our lives. He highlights four specific requests that Jabez makes to God: a blessing, God's hand upon him, enlargement of his territory, and protection from evil. The speaker emphasizes the importance of seeking God's blessing and power in our lives, asking for prosperity and influence, and praying for protection from the devil's attacks through spiritual warfare. He encourages generosity, holiness, and adherence to God's word as essential elements of a blessed and protected life.
The speaker shares about a health situation God warned him about and how it made him aware of the fragility of human beings and the dark forces that can distort the image of God in them. He had a dream of being in a dangerous forest with blind beings trying to touch him. He prayed for deliverance from evil and understood the power of Jesus' name. Despite the enemy's attack, he feels God performed a surgical operation on his spirit and neurological system, blessing him in a strange way. He encourages others to pray and claim God's direction over their lives.
The story of Jabez in the Bible teaches us about the power of prayer and the importance of suffering and desert times in our lives. Jabez was given a name that meant pain, and he prayed to God to bless him and free him from evil. His suffering prepared him to make a distinctive prayer, and he was more honorable than his brothers. Jabez's cry to God was full of hope, frustration, rebellion, and delight, and it touched the heart of God. We need to get to the "Oh" point in our prayers, where we visualize something different and rebel against the chains of the enemy. The second week of prayer and fasting is an opportunity to put our "Oh" before God and ask for the visitation of the Holy Spirit.
In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10 and its relevance to our lives. He highlights four specific requests that Jabez makes to God: a blessing, God's hand upon him, enlargement of his territory, and protection from evil. The speaker emphasizes the importance of seeking God's blessing and power in our lives, asking for prosperity and influence, and praying for protection from the devil's attacks through spiritual warfare. He encourages generosity, holiness, and adherence to God's word as essential elements of a blessed and protected life.
The speaker shares about a health situation God warned him about and how it made him aware of the fragility of human beings and the dark forces that can distort the image of God in them. He had a dream of being in a dangerous forest with blind beings trying to touch him. He prayed for deliverance from evil and understood the power of Jesus' name. Despite the enemy's attack, he feels God performed a surgical operation on his spirit and neurological system, blessing him in a strange way. He encourages others to pray and claim God's direction over their lives.
I want to invite you to go to the word of God in First Chronicles, Chapter 4. A wonderful passage, in this time of fasting and prayer I want to talk about one of the most beautiful prayers recorded in Scripture, which is the prayer of Jabez. If you haven't heard about this prayer, I know it's going to touch your life in a very special way and we're going to start right off the bat with First Chronicles 4 verses 9 and 10.
That sentence is sort of tucked in there like a secret treasure. For many centuries, very little was said about that prayer and God raised up a man, in this 20th century, rather at the end of the 20th century, from the '90s or thereabouts, Bruce Wilkings, I think he is, I don't remember his last name . The fact is that this man of God understood something more about this prayer and wrote a book The prayer of Jabes, and that book has sold about 11 million copies. A very, very powerful book where he recorded the impact that prayer had had on his life. And it kind of caused a great commotion in the nations about that prayer.
And how beautiful it is when God awakens a generation to certain treasures of his word. And that prayer, the truth is that it contains many beautiful things and in this week of fasting, of prayer, I want to encourage your heart to pray and seek the face of God with the content that emerges from this prayer. It says there in verse 9 of Chapter 4:
"... And Jabez was more illustrious..."
Say with me illustrious. Let's see what that word means, in English they speak of honorable, he was more honorable, he was more honorable than his brothers.
"...he was more honorable than his brothers, whom his mother named Jabez, saying, for how much I gave birth to him in pain..."
The name she gave him in Hebrew alluded to the pain she had experienced when she gave birth to Jabez.
“…because I gave birth to him in pain…”
Now, watch the second part here:
“… And Jabez called on the God of Israel… ─ you know that instead of e, it means it is a conjunction, it means and, I would put but, because in reality that is what is there.
“…But Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying, “Oh, if you would give me blessing and enlarge my territory, and if your hand were with me and deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me…”
And do you know what happened? God granted him what he asked for. The word is inviting us, brothers, to pray and cry out to God, to believe God for a miracle in our lives. As I was saying, that sentence, that pearl is inserted in a desert, in a sense, because it is inserted in one of those genealogies that bore us so much in the Old Testament.
You know that so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and from there came four more so-and-sos and from there, etc. And we pass that to a thousand miles, right? because we want to go to meat.
But tucked in there in those genealogies is that beautiful prayer, that spiritual treasure. That's why I tell you, let's not underestimate anything in the Bible, because God leaves everything there for a purpose. God has something when he puts a name there, he wanted to record something. And when we simply mention that name, we are honoring someone that God wanted to honor, recording it in Scripture.
So there is something beautiful about all of Scripture, and many times I have found that when I set out to read things like that, which seem boring at first, wow, at the moment I stumble upon a jewel that opens something up, a different panorama of my life and God. He blesses me and says, see, since you neglected my word, there I had that for you, a tip. That's good. So you always have to read the word of God with great reverence and expecting something.
So this story is a fascinating story. It tells us about a child who was born through a critical, dangerous and painful delivery for his mother. So critical, so painful that it impressed his mother's heart, that she innocently, and one would say almost recklessly, decided to mark that moment in her life by putting a burden on her poor son, calling him Pain, because she conceived him in pain.
You know that the Hebrew mentality, in the Bible you see that a lot, for the Hebrews the name they gave their children embodied something special for them. Many times it was, for example, a destiny that the father wanted to declare about his son or the mother, pointing out a moment in the child's birth, it could be the function that the child fulfilled in the family, or the order in which the child was born in the family. For the Hebrews, giving a child a name was like assigning or imputing an identity to it as well, a function in life. The name embodies authority, embodies the person. The name is the vessel that contains the life of a human being, that is why God gave Christ a name that is above all names, so that in the name of Jesus every knee of what is in heaven and on earth should bow. and under the ground. The name has power.
That is why when you go before the principalities, the powers, the diseases, the lack of finances in the name of Jesus, you are using a magic key that opens doors, because the name of Jesus has that power. You are hiding behind authority. Names contain power. The mouth of the Son of God pronounces things and gives life.
We speak, we open, we close, we bless, we curse, with our mouth. That is why the names we give our children are important. And not only the name we give the son when he is born, or the daughter, but also the names we give him, stupid, you don't know how to do anything. If God has no mercy you will end up in jail. I have never met someone as disobedient and as bad as you. This boy does not listen and many times we say quantity of...
I have heard parents talking about their children there, and talking about them in very derogatory and critical ways, while the child receives all of that. How many times have we seen frustrated mothers in the city malls, dragging their children, yelling at them, cursing them, accusing them of negativity. Let's be careful, brothers, with the names we give our children. Let's speak well, let's speak blessing, let's be people of good words.
This woman did not understand. This morning we present a little girl named Trinity Grace, Trinity Grace and her parents intentionally named her that. How beautiful it is when we choose names and say in the name of the Lord, I believe that this is what God is going to do in the life of my son.
God wants prophetic people, people who think according to the patterns of the word. This woman did not understand that. She was imparting to her son, well intentioned, she did not want to hurt him, but she wanted to make a statue to remember that moment of suffering in her life and she named the poor Jabes, Jabes, Pain, and that child had to walk with that burden, that negative burden on your life.
The difference is that Jabez did something that was important. There is another similar story where Raquel, one of the wives of Abraham's children, when she gives birth in this delivery, the delivery was so terrible that she died. But before she died, while her son was being born, while she was giving birth, she gave him a name, she called him Benoni, which means son of my sadness. imagine. The last thing he said, put him Son of my sadness, before he died.
But look what happened here, it says that:
"...It happened that when he left his soul, well, he died, he called his name Benoni, but what happened, that his father understood spiritual things and immediately he said, well, Raquel, I love you very much, but when he died, I love you very much, but I will not allow that name to be on a son. So it says that he called him Benjamin, which means, Son of the right hand.
How nice when in the family there are people who know how to calculate life in spiritual terms, know the spiritual patterns. It is so important, brothers, I told the young adults the other days, study the word of God because that is where you will understand how the spiritual world works. When your mind, as you read the Bible, the thought patterns, the reasoning patterns of Scripture, get into your brain and you begin to think as Scripture thinks.
Then you understand how to deal with the spiritual dimensions that govern the world. This father understood that he should not call his son Benoni, son of my sadness, because that curse was going to be on his son, but he said, no, you know what? I see you as my right hand, I see you blessing your family, I see you as the chosen one in the family and then that put a blessing on his life.
I share a personal secret. My grandson, Caleb, Meche and I were walking around Maine, Caleb was just born and I found a small statuette made by an American sculptor, of a young man who is about 14 years old, more or less, attractive, athletic, manly, sitting on a pile of books, this size, sitting on that stack of books reading a book very into what he's reading. And when I saw that, I said, you know what? That is the destiny that I would like, although his parents are the ones who obviously have the last authority over their son, but I said, like his grandfather, I want to bless and I am going to declare that this is how Caleb will be, a child who likes studies, wise, curious about the world, with a desire to know the mysteries of life. He's sitting on that pile of books tucked in, but he's also manly, he's attractive, he's not just any weakling, a bookworm. No, no, it's a man, although he's not naked, but I hope he has chest hair. No, because that combination of masculinity and wisdom, who said that these two things have to be apart? A man is spiritual or manly and not both together. We can be both.
The woman can be extremely feminine, but also a warrior in spirit. Both. God is masculine and feminine. We are feminine and masculine, I say with an appropriate balance, brothers, it is not either... understand what I mean.
What I want to say is that every time I look, and this is not witchcraft, but every time I look at that little statue of Caleb, I say, Lord, that this vision of a man who is knowledgeable, wise, curious about the world is fulfilled, and also physically strong.
So, I believe that we have to learn to pronounce words, to be a prophetic people, a people that moves believing God, that declares a blessing, that uses its voice to say powerful things, that opens a gap in the world, that declares , to open doors, to close doors, to tear down walls, to build walls with his voice, to go around the world healing and declaring healing and blessing over the nations, over his neighborhood, over his house, over the places where they work, a people who know that words have a lot of power.
Let's be people of sound word. May healthy words resonate in our homes. May the music played in our homes be a blessing. That since we get up the word of God is in our mouth. Our mind is pronouncing the word and our children are continually blessed with fresh word, prophetic names.
This woman did not understand that, she names her son Jabes, and you know what? I believe that the life of Jabez, from the text itself, suggests to me that Jabez's childhood was a sad and negative childhood. Because first, the writer clarifies that his mother named him Jabez because she had pain during her delivery and he considers that important for us to understand. And secondly, the prayer that Jabes makes, when Jabes finishes the prayer he says:
"... you will deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me..."
The Hebrew word that is translated into English 'hurt' is actually the word pain. It is the same word that his name represents. That's why I titled this sermon A Contradiction of His Name, because Jabez's life became a contradiction of his name. His name was pain, his destiny was pain, but Jabes, through his prayer, changed his situation, changed his destiny.
And then when Jabez says: "... Lord, that you free me from evil so that it does not cause me pain..." he was rebelling against that identity that his mother had declared over his life. And that is why I believe that this word begins with pain, giving his son a name of pain, and ends with the word pain, where Jabez, through prayer, confronts that unintentional curse that his mother placed on him.
Brothers, prayer changes destinations. Prayer changes our situations. But it is not that religious prayer to which I am referring, that we evangelicals often do, it is a prayer that is born from the soul, it is a heartfelt prayer, it is a prayer that responds to an acknowledgment of the giants we are confronting, of the situation we are experiencing. As I was saying, we have to know our situation, we have to define our giants, we have to know what battle we are fighting. We have to take stock of where the pains in our life are, and we have to accumulate that pressure within us so that when our prayer leaves our mouths, it is like a fireball that reaches directly to the heart of God.
And that is why God many times does not answer our prayers immediately, because he is waiting for our prayer to acquire the necessary pressure so that it can arrive before him. Many times God waits for our life to reach the level of despair before he responds.
The Bible is full of desperate people like Jabez, tired of their situation, fed up with their situation. And they can't take it anymore and when Christ passes by their side, they cry out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. And the Lord stops and does what he has to do.
So was the woman with the issue of blood. Years bleeding drop by drop, cut off from her community, impure, unable to enter the spiritual community of Israel, feeling lonely, ashamed, cut off from God. And she said, you know what? I'm already tired of that. And violating all the laws of religious purity, he got into the crowd, made his way and approached Jesus.
I imagine her hand reaching between the legs of the men who were around Jesus protecting him, and she reached in and touched the hem of Jesus' cloak. And he wrested a blessing from the Lord. The Lord had no intention of healing her at the time, but her faith connected like a powerful electric wire and the current of Christ passed through her and she says the source of her bleeding was sealed at that moment.
And the Lord felt the discharge that came from him and said, Who touched me? Lord, what do you mean, who touched you? If everyone is touching you, you are around a crowd. No, someone touched me, but they touched me desperately, they touched me with faith, they stood out from the crowd. Because you know what sets your life apart from the crowd? Your faith. That is why this beautiful chorus: With my faith I will touch you, with my faith I will reach you, I will receive my miracle, etc. Etc. Why? It is my faith, it is my miracle, it is my trust in you.
When you touch the Lord in that distinctive way is when God responds to your need. That is why it says here that Jabez was more honorable than all his brothers. Why does the writer say Jabez was more honorable than his brothers at the beginning of the story? There was something in Jabez's heart that prepared him to make that distinctive prayer.
Jabez was one of several brothers, but there was something in his heart that distinguished him and separated him from all the others. Do you know what I think distinguished him and made him more honorable? His suffering. Paradoxically, that sad childhood, those years of feeling away, those years when perhaps the children would laugh, oh, look at his name. Pain. They laughed at him. complexed.
I believe that this pain pushed Jabez to seek God, loneliness. Brothers, many times the desert times in our lives are the times that bring the most blessings to our lives, are the times of being in the desert, are the 40 years of Moses in the desert, are the 40 days of Elijah walking day and night to reach the mountain of the revelation of God, are the years that Saul spent, we do not know where he was at that time until they called him, after his conversion and his baptism in the Holy Spirit, they called him to enter into the community of believers and there began his ministry.
These are the years that David spent running from David, having already been anointed king, but with an evil king who wanted to kill him because he did not want his queen, who had already lost legitimacy, to be taken from him. And David had a few years running away and learning to be a warrior, learning to be a leader, learning to command men as desperate as he was. And David's character was formed at that time.
Moses, in those 40 years just taking care of goats, while listening to the wind at night, from the desert, while he walked through those places and did not have much to see and therefore, his soul had to go inward and look inside of him, he learned, cultivated depth, introspection, the ability to understand the mysteries of God.
Brothers, in times of suffering and suffering, do not curse God. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom to discern what God is saying to you in those times. Bless the hand of God. Ask God to free you and take you out, but as long as he has you there say, Lord, you know what? I'm going to get used to it, after all a little mud isn't so bad, a little dark isn't so bad after all. Teach me to discern what you want from this time, what are you teaching me? I'm going to stick closer to you, I'm going to learn to pray more, I'm going to learn more.
There are times, brothers, that you pray in the middle of the night and when you are going through tribulation and difficulties, you have to entrust yourself to the Lord and say, Father, have mercy on me. How many times has it happened to you that you get up at dawn, you have to go to work, you have problems in your marriage, there is a terrible financial situation, you are full of anxiety, you had a terrible night and when you go to get up you don't have the strength and you only have to say, Lord, in your command I entrust myself.
But you know what? In those times of sadness and suffering, a man or woman of God is forged. In those times the soul is tempered and one learns not to flee from the enemy, and one learns faith, and one learns dependence on God, one learns humility. God breaks you, God bleeds you, God imparts you and seals your identity with fire. And if it is necessary that we be tested for a time so that our faith, tested like gold, which when burned is purified, so we can result in praise and glory for Christ Jesus.
You know what? Glory to God is not only given in the praises of joy but also in sadness. That is where many times God forms a man or a woman. Pentecostal evangelicals flee from pain, we flee from illness and that's how we should be in a sense, but you know what? Don't curse the disease, don't deny it, if that's what God puts in your life, suffering for a while, ask him to take you out. Pray, cry out, but while you are there enjoy what little you can and eat those drops of water that are in the cactus in the desert, drink it and receive a blessing from it. Learn to drink from the little things too.
Because many times we need a lot of abundance to enjoy and sometimes we have to learn to eat bread with a little bit of green oil and a little bit of salt and enjoy it as if it were the greatest delicacy. Boys today have dozens of toys in their homes, electronic games, computers, televisions, music, lots of things, and they don't know how to enjoy themselves. The toys thrown over there don't know how to use their imagination, they don't know how to enjoy a book, they don't know how to pick up a little toy with wheels without a motor. Today, everything has to be motorized and children do not develop an imaginative, intuitive capacity.
In Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, the boys take a piece of stone, put cloth on it, take tape and tie it up and with that they play baseball very well. They take a bicycle wheel, just the ring and a bit of wire and they are kings in the neighborhood. Because they have learned to develop their imagination. They can converse with adults, they have a sense of humor, they have imaginative capacity. Because? Because where there is a desert, the inner capacity develops.
The blind develop an incredible sense of touch and hearing. The deaf learn to read people's lips. Because? Because your brain adjusts to the deficiency and develops others...
So, what I am saying, brothers, is that many times God puts you in times of drought and that is the preparation for the blessing that comes into your life. There is no great blessing without a great wait, always remember that.
Jabez spent his childhood there in that crucible of his name and I believe that he had an initially painful life. But there came a time in his life when Jabez got fed up with sadness and came before the Lord. And you know, again, that sadness had set him up. And it says that Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. Because? Because he had suffered more and was already ready to receive.
That suffering imputed an identity to him, Jabes had a weight. I was telling the brothers this morning, the word honorable in the original Hebrew also refers to weight, to be heavy. Jabez was heavier than his brothers, not in the sense that he was fatter, but that he had more weight, more gravitas, more character, and that came a time when Jabez said before God:
“…Oh if you would give me blessing…”
All of Jabez's pain was squeezed into a ball of passion and frustration and hope. I was telling the brothers this morning, my favorite part of that whole story is the word 'Oh' if you would give me a blessing... in that 'Oh' was the entire personality of Jabez.
I don't know if I'm reading too much into the text, but I don't think so. That's why one has to read literally. That 'Oh' was pregnant with hope. In that 'oh' there was visualization of something different. In that 'oh' there was a desire for a different life. In that 'oh' there was hope that God would hear him. In that 'oh' there was delight of what could happen in his life. In that 'oh' there was also frustration and rebellion against his past.
All of that was tucked into that 'oh'. It was a cry that came from his bowels. And that was what touched the heart of God. Brothers, I say that we have to get to the 'oh' point in our prayers. There comes a time when you have to look at your situation, look at that addiction that has tormented you all your life, look at that depression with which you have struggled for years of being in the church, look at that character trait that creates problems for you in your family and in your social relationships, look at your life of financial lack and material dryness, look at your lack of product in the things of God. Look at your dilapidated situation familiarly, look at your lack of progress and knowledge of the things of God.
Look at your neglect in things of the spirit and say, 'oh' if God changed my situation. If God changed my character, if God changed my attitude and my condition and you dare to visualize something different. In your spirit you receive and greet a situation... and you can see it in three dimensions and in technicolor, a change in your life. You can see and touch your finances being blessed, your health returning to you, your marriage being fertilized with seeds of passion and affection and good words and blessing.
You can contemplate your children. 'Oh' Lord if my children loved you, if my children developed an appetite for knowledge. 'Oh' Lord if my home was a place where praise flowed easily, where there was peace and joy. 'Oh' Lord if my mind was flooded with your wisdom and your knowledge and I could know the mysteries. 'Oh' Lord if your grace ran through my hands so that I could lay hands on a sick person and get well. Oh Lord, if you would change my rebelliousness, my resentment, this attitude of rejection, this easily offended me, these fears that hold me back and you would make me a warrior of God, a person with the character of Jesus Christ. 'Oh'
You understand? That 'Oh' means that you can see something different in your life. And many times we are not changed because we do not reach that point of 'Oh' where we already say, you know what? I'm fed up, the same old thing, always. I want something new. And today, I declare, a twist, a change in my destiny. Today I declare that the devil will no longer get away with it in my life. Today I declare that God is doing something new in my life and I rebel against the chains of the enemy and I declare my emancipation in the name of Jesus. Today I am going to start serving Christ. Today I am going to say, Father, if I perish, let me perish, but I am going to enter the most holy place. That is what we have to do, brothers.
This second week of prayer, of fasting, is an 'Oh' that we put before God, because sometimes we say, a week, wow, tremendous. Look, a week is nothing to offer to God, to ask for the visitation of the Holy Spirit.
When I declared that it was like, you know what? Look, we are already tired of the routine. A week there and we'll go home just the same. No, no, we are going to go deeper, we are going to break through. God wants you to be passionate, God wants passion, brothers, God wants commitment, God wants delivery, God wants a word, enough of the past, now I look to what God has ahead for my life.
Jabez said, 'Oh, if you would give me a blessing...
Four things, quickly. If you would give me a blessing, and if your hand were with me, before that I say, if you would enlarge my territory, if your hand were with me and free me from evil so that it does not harm me.
Four specific things. I believe each one is more specific than the other. If you gave me a blessing, if you widened my territory, if your hand was with me and if you delivered me from evil. I believe that there were four elements in code that should forge our prayers and our prayer life.
First, oh Lord, if you would give me a blessing. What does blessing mean? That means that the grace of God is on your life, that the positive sign of God is on your life. If they ask you, well, what sign are you? Tell them, I, the sign of Christ Jesus, the sign of the blood of Christ. I'm not Leo, I'm not Virgo, I'm not Jupiter or whatever, no, my seal, my sign is the cross, the blood of Jesus.
I want to live my life under the sign of God's good will. Blessing means that, look, the good of God follows you. As the psalmist says, the good and mercy of Jehovah will follow me all the days of my life.
When a man or a woman has the sign of God's blessing, it means that God breathed a blessing on your life, he blessed you. You are my son, you are my daughter, you walk with my seal before you. You go and the blessing will follow you.
Another text, Psalm 128, read Psalm 128 after so you can see what comes into the life of a man or a woman when they follow God. But I liked that expression because I remembered it in my mind “…and you will be fine.” you will be fine I like that. And I said, where is that? I looked it up in the concordance, psalm 128, blessed is the man, the woman who serves the Lord, will be blessed in her house and it will go well for her.
Having God's blessing means, brother, that you are God's chosen one. You are the son of the right hand of God. You are not the son of God's sadness, you are the son of God's right hand. We are seated, he says, in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And where is Christ sitting? At the right hand of the Father.
That means that you are a son of the right, not of the left, you are not sinister. The sinister means the one on the left, right? no, you are from the right and that is why God's blessing follows you all the days of your life. Ask the Lord, Father, that my life, that if you could take a spiritual x-ray of me, when I walk through the streets of Boston, you would see a cloud of glory that covers my life, and wherever I go the cloud goes with me. If I stop, the cloud stops, if I go to the other side, the cloud accompanies me. If I lie down, the cloud lies on my bed. I am covered with the cloud with the blessing of God.
Oh if you would give me blessing. I ask the Lord every day, Father, do not let me get out of your blessing, preserve me, Lord, because there is nothing like walking with the Lord every three hours, giving you a little blessing vitamin. He opens his mouth and gives you your blessing. And three hours later another blessing, and you walk your life with God's blessing. Our families walk under the blessing of God, our children grow up with the blessing of God. Our church is prosperous because God's blessing is upon us. Our finances are blessed because God's blessing is upon us. Our health is strengthened and the vigor of God is with us because the blessing of God...
Tell the Lord, Lord, I want your good diction. That is what blessing means. Your good word, uttered over my mouth, your good pronunciation over my life, may it follow me all the days of my life. The man, the woman who serves God, who loves God, who is distinguished by being a person who loves the things of God well decided, well pronounced by God. give me blessing
Second, may your hand be upon me. What does hand mean to me? I understand that when Jabez is inspired by the Holy Spirit in a prayer that was going to be recorded for all centuries, he said, may your hand be with me on my life. For me the hand of God in the Bible means the power of God.
The Bible says that God brought Israel out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. The hand of God is his strength, his strength. I began to think, Lord, what did he mean by your hand? May your hand be on me. Why did you put that there? Well, because Jabez understood, Father, I want your power to go with me. I want your strength to go with me. I want that when I undertake something, I undertake it with your powerful hand opening the field.
The word says, it is not with a sword, it is not with an army, it is with my spirit that the works are done. The Bible says that our weapons are not carnal, but powerful in God for the destruction of strength. We war with weapons that the world does not know. And we, as children of God, have to ask the Lord every day, Father, today I am going to get into a difficult situation at work, may your hand be with me. Today I am going to enter some streets full of snow, dangerous, slippery, may your hand be with me, Lord. Today I am going to have to present myself to that boss who doesn't like me well because there is something in his spirit that rejects me as your son, and I want your hand to tame him and gag his mouth. I have to appear before a judge, oh, Lord, that justice be done to me, that I receive what I need, that your hand be with me.
The man or woman of God is so aware that they need the hand of God for all the things they undertake. We know that we are eminently weak and that we need the hand of God. Every day that you undertake something, say, Lord, that your hand be with me. Do not try to do things in the world only with your own strength. Tell him, Lord, that your hand extends over my life. Do not undertake anything without requesting the hand of God on your life. Bathe all your needs, all aspects of your life with a request that the hand of God be upon you.
Jabez asks for a third thing, he says, Lord, that my territory be enlarged. Widen my territory. Think what a man from three millennia ago meant, expand my territory. The key is in the word territory. Jabez lived in an agricultural culture. Land is essential, very important. Peasants, acquiring land is acquiring a treasure. They measure their power in terms of the land and cows they have.
A man who says expand my territory, means, Lord, expand my power. Isaiah 54 says:
"...Enlarge the site of your tent and lengthen your curtains, extend your ropes and affirm your stakes because you will spread out to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south..."
Expand my territory, brother, there is nothing wrong with asking the Lord, Father, prosper me, give me a better car than this car that makes so much noise, Lord, I am already tired of feeling the sprints every time I sit in the seat of the car. I'm tired of seeing that smoke that announces my presence from blocks away, Lord. I'm tired of seeing those same pieces of furniture with the same plastic that I put on them ten years ago and now I want a little more subtle, more of the 21st century. I'm tired of looking at the same clothes I wore ten years ago, I would like a better little suit, Lord, with a little thinner lapels and that elongate my body a little more, more comfortable shoes instead of these, the soles weigh three pounds each. Bless me.
Brothers, there is nothing to ask the Lord for financial prosperity, blessing, power, influence. There is nothing wrong with that. God wants to bless his people. God wants to prosper his people. God wants to bless you. God wants to give you influence. God wants to take you out of anonymity. God wants to lift your head above your peers.
I know that God wants to bless, has blessed, is blessing and will continue to bless this Congregation because he blessed his children under an imperfect pact in Israel and now in the new pact in Christ Jesus the blessing is greater. What happens is that we are fools and we don't know how to get the blessing of God. Let's learn the principles of the spirit and we will be blessed: finances, stewardship, giving the Lord first, worshiping the Lord, choosing the Lord above all things, loving him desperately, honoring him, waging spiritual warfare. Those are the things that bless our life and fill us with power and authority.
Ask the Lord for a blessing, I rebel against those Gospels that say, no, simply ask the Lord that his will be done in your life. Don't ask him for anything because that's from prosperity. I had a big argument recently with a young man, not a big argument because I controlled myself a bit because he was younger than me. Samuel was there, the discussion was heating up.
That young man loves the Lord, a pious North American, but he told me that you shouldn't ask God for material things. I tell him, yes, well, that's what you say because you're middle class, upper middle class and your parents have money. Why is it that people who have money say to the poor, don't pray for a blessing to come to you? But they do go to their big hotels, they have their big conferences, they have churches with air conditioning, Mercedes cars parked in the parking lots, but the poor who are asking, Lord, bless me. No, those are from prosperity and they are... the Lord rebuke the devil.
We are children of the blessing. Ask the Lord for a blessing. Tell him, Lord, widen my territory. Widen my territory. Give me influence, Lord. And then give to the Lord and use your money to bless others. Be generous with your money, because generosity attracts more blessing. I have discovered that. Put your money to run in the Kingdom of God, give to others generously and the blessing will come, will come, will come, will come. The more you give in the Lord, the more you will receive, that is the key to prosperity.
But tell the Lord, Lord, enlarge my territory. Don't settle for a little piece of land. Tell him, Lord, I want a lot of land so I can use it for your glory. Finally he says, Lord, and may your hand be with me and curb the evil in my life so that it does not cause me pain.
The evil, the devil. The element of evil in a fallen creation. He covered himself on all sides. This man play baseball, first, second, third, fourth, home. And Lord, just in case, grab that devil there and keep him in checkmate, don't let him touch me. That this pain that is over my life, that this sadness, that fine rain, that mist that has followed me all my life, be cleared and that your sun come shining on my life. Stop the devil, keep him at bay. Send your blessing.
We have to pray because there is a devourer who wants to destroy our family, our health, our mind, our emotions, our ministries. And he wants to sow curse in our lives. The devil is the origin of all evil in the world. He is the quintessential mobster and all his henchmen, who are the demons that rule this fallen world, we need protection from him.
Many evangelicals allow ourselves many liberties because we do not understand that we are walking on a field of war. There are demons everywhere, principalities and powers are around us, they want to kill us, they want to steal God's blessing from us. We have to do spiritual warfare. We have to learn the laws of spiritual warfare. Holiness, adoration, surrender to God, renouncing generational curses, the positive declaration of God's blessing on our lives, speaking positivity in faith, living in holiness, adhering to God's word.
These are the weapons of spiritual warfare that guarantee that God will protect you. And even if God allows the devil to touch you, he will not be able to go beyond where God gives him the possibility and permission. Because many times God will allow affliction to come into your life and the devil to touch you, but he will tell him, you know what? You are going to touch it, number 1, you are not going to touch it to me beyond where I have given you permission, and second, I want to tell you that this touch will end as a blessing for my son or my daughter, not as a curse.
I told the brothers, this health situation that I had, you know that I am sure, God had already warned me about it. Months ago God made me pray, deliver me from evil, Lord. It made me very aware of the fragility of the human being and of dark, unconscious forces.
The devil, brothers, you know that the devil does not hate you. The devil does not feel hate. What the devil feels is a pathology. He is like a psychopath who kills without hate. A psychopath kills coldly. Satan is a blind force that only knows how to kill, steal and destroy. Demons are beings that they do not hate humanity but delight in evil, they delight in taking a creature of God, beautiful, beautiful, with the spirit of God within it. He is born precious.
Meche told me about that, that's why she always when we walk through the streets of Boston and one of those ragged, poor, smelly people that abound in the City of Boston comes and touches the glass, she would tell me something that is very revealing. , says that she always feels inclined to give them something because she reminds the baby that that creature was before it became that man in rags. A child whose mother may have received him with joy, a great promise, perhaps a lot of blessing, a lot of celebration, and the devil little by little sucked the image of God out of him until he turned him into a disfigured and dysfunctional creature, toothless, smelly, a grimace on his face. face instead of blessing.
Because the elements of evil delight in distorting the image of God in human beings and turning them into caricatures of the angelic deity of God in them. Because they are evil beings, that's what they know how to do. His identity is evil. They are not funny, they are not good at all, and therefore everything they touch they contaminate even without wanting to, because that is what they are, that is their nature.
So, we have to be aware of those blind forces. One of the dreams that I had during that time in the summer was, I found myself in a forest, it was night, and for some reason I got confused and went into that forest and the forest was full of weeds, closed, roots , trees. It was like a well-enclosed Amazon jungle. And from the spaces between the roots and the branches of those trees and from that undergrowth, worms came out, I could see an animal that was like a worm, but with a very large claw on the front, and it came out like this. They wanted to touch me but couldn't completely. But I knew that I was in a very dangerous area. And there were different beings as well as blind. I didn't see eyes, I didn't see consciousness, but simply these snakes, reptiles, animals of different kinds came out of the… and they approached me but they couldn't touch me, but I was in a place of great imminent danger.
And there are other things there that I was able to understand through that revelation and two others that God gave me as well. I prayed, Lord, deliver me from evil, deliver me from evil. I understood that part of Jesus' prayer, do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil. Because yours is the power and the glory.
He has power to protect us. The only thing that can protect a man or a woman in this world full of the evil of the enemy is the power of Christ Jesus, the name that is above all names. You have to pronounce that name over your life, you have to walk in the name of Jesus. You have to affiliate with the Kingdom of God, you have to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Because it is the only kingdom that can oppose the kingdom of darkness, the only one. You have to say, Lord, deliver me from evil.
You know what? For some reason God allowed the enemy to touch me, but you know, I tell you before God. I feel that what God did was to perform a surgical operation on my spirit and on my neurological system. I believe that God put new components in my life. God blessed me in a strange way.
Because it is that when one walks under the grace of God, even the darts of the devil are turned into injections of life and power, and grace on the children of God. Even if God allows demonic energy to penetrate your life, God will turn it into a blessing, and that crucible of proof will return you strengthened, purified, more prepared to serve the Lord.
In your weakness God will glorify himself. You will learn things and you will then be able to say, I have my marks. I have been in the war. What soldier who has been in the war does not have a mark from a knife, from a bullet, that even skewed him a little?
You do not deserve to be a soldier, it is important, brothers, that we fight our battles, but when God allows us to enter the crucible of trial, in the area of affliction, may his hand go with us and free us from evil so that we do not cause us pain. God wants to change your destiny. You don't have to live life fighting with your own strength.
Your prayer changes the situation. Your prayer changes your destiny. Your cry to God, your say, you know what? I am tired of being under the domination of the enemy or of circumstances, of time and space, of history, of humanity, of society, of culture, I vindicate myself and claim God's direction over my life .
Oh, Lord, if you would bless me. Oh Lord, if you would widen my territory. Oh, Lord, if your hand of power were with me. Oh, Lord, if your divine protection walked with me day by day and you know what? If you cry like this, God will grant you what you ask for. Confidently approach the throne of grace, says the word and receive timely help.
God granted him what he asked for. It's good that he didn't just stay oh, if you gave me, oh if you made me, he says, and God granted him what he asked for.
That sentence is sort of tucked in there like a secret treasure. For many centuries, very little was said about that prayer and God raised up a man, in this 20th century, rather at the end of the 20th century, from the '90s or thereabouts, Bruce Wilkings, I think he is, I don't remember his last name . The fact is that this man of God understood something more about this prayer and wrote a book The prayer of Jabes, and that book has sold about 11 million copies. A very, very powerful book where he recorded the impact that prayer had had on his life. And it kind of caused a great commotion in the nations about that prayer.
And how beautiful it is when God awakens a generation to certain treasures of his word. And that prayer, the truth is that it contains many beautiful things and in this week of fasting, of prayer, I want to encourage your heart to pray and seek the face of God with the content that emerges from this prayer. It says there in verse 9 of Chapter 4:
"... And Jabez was more illustrious..."
Say with me illustrious. Let's see what that word means, in English they speak of honorable, he was more honorable, he was more honorable than his brothers.
"...he was more honorable than his brothers, whom his mother named Jabez, saying, for how much I gave birth to him in pain..."
The name she gave him in Hebrew alluded to the pain she had experienced when she gave birth to Jabez.
“…because I gave birth to him in pain…”
Now, watch the second part here:
“… And Jabez called on the God of Israel… ─ you know that instead of e, it means it is a conjunction, it means and, I would put but, because in reality that is what is there.
“…But Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying, “Oh, if you would give me blessing and enlarge my territory, and if your hand were with me and deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me…”
And do you know what happened? God granted him what he asked for. The word is inviting us, brothers, to pray and cry out to God, to believe God for a miracle in our lives. As I was saying, that sentence, that pearl is inserted in a desert, in a sense, because it is inserted in one of those genealogies that bore us so much in the Old Testament.
You know that so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and so-and-so fathered so-and-so, and from there came four more so-and-sos and from there, etc. And we pass that to a thousand miles, right? because we want to go to meat.
But tucked in there in those genealogies is that beautiful prayer, that spiritual treasure. That's why I tell you, let's not underestimate anything in the Bible, because God leaves everything there for a purpose. God has something when he puts a name there, he wanted to record something. And when we simply mention that name, we are honoring someone that God wanted to honor, recording it in Scripture.
So there is something beautiful about all of Scripture, and many times I have found that when I set out to read things like that, which seem boring at first, wow, at the moment I stumble upon a jewel that opens something up, a different panorama of my life and God. He blesses me and says, see, since you neglected my word, there I had that for you, a tip. That's good. So you always have to read the word of God with great reverence and expecting something.
So this story is a fascinating story. It tells us about a child who was born through a critical, dangerous and painful delivery for his mother. So critical, so painful that it impressed his mother's heart, that she innocently, and one would say almost recklessly, decided to mark that moment in her life by putting a burden on her poor son, calling him Pain, because she conceived him in pain.
You know that the Hebrew mentality, in the Bible you see that a lot, for the Hebrews the name they gave their children embodied something special for them. Many times it was, for example, a destiny that the father wanted to declare about his son or the mother, pointing out a moment in the child's birth, it could be the function that the child fulfilled in the family, or the order in which the child was born in the family. For the Hebrews, giving a child a name was like assigning or imputing an identity to it as well, a function in life. The name embodies authority, embodies the person. The name is the vessel that contains the life of a human being, that is why God gave Christ a name that is above all names, so that in the name of Jesus every knee of what is in heaven and on earth should bow. and under the ground. The name has power.
That is why when you go before the principalities, the powers, the diseases, the lack of finances in the name of Jesus, you are using a magic key that opens doors, because the name of Jesus has that power. You are hiding behind authority. Names contain power. The mouth of the Son of God pronounces things and gives life.
We speak, we open, we close, we bless, we curse, with our mouth. That is why the names we give our children are important. And not only the name we give the son when he is born, or the daughter, but also the names we give him, stupid, you don't know how to do anything. If God has no mercy you will end up in jail. I have never met someone as disobedient and as bad as you. This boy does not listen and many times we say quantity of...
I have heard parents talking about their children there, and talking about them in very derogatory and critical ways, while the child receives all of that. How many times have we seen frustrated mothers in the city malls, dragging their children, yelling at them, cursing them, accusing them of negativity. Let's be careful, brothers, with the names we give our children. Let's speak well, let's speak blessing, let's be people of good words.
This woman did not understand. This morning we present a little girl named Trinity Grace, Trinity Grace and her parents intentionally named her that. How beautiful it is when we choose names and say in the name of the Lord, I believe that this is what God is going to do in the life of my son.
God wants prophetic people, people who think according to the patterns of the word. This woman did not understand that. She was imparting to her son, well intentioned, she did not want to hurt him, but she wanted to make a statue to remember that moment of suffering in her life and she named the poor Jabes, Jabes, Pain, and that child had to walk with that burden, that negative burden on your life.
The difference is that Jabez did something that was important. There is another similar story where Raquel, one of the wives of Abraham's children, when she gives birth in this delivery, the delivery was so terrible that she died. But before she died, while her son was being born, while she was giving birth, she gave him a name, she called him Benoni, which means son of my sadness. imagine. The last thing he said, put him Son of my sadness, before he died.
But look what happened here, it says that:
"...It happened that when he left his soul, well, he died, he called his name Benoni, but what happened, that his father understood spiritual things and immediately he said, well, Raquel, I love you very much, but when he died, I love you very much, but I will not allow that name to be on a son. So it says that he called him Benjamin, which means, Son of the right hand.
How nice when in the family there are people who know how to calculate life in spiritual terms, know the spiritual patterns. It is so important, brothers, I told the young adults the other days, study the word of God because that is where you will understand how the spiritual world works. When your mind, as you read the Bible, the thought patterns, the reasoning patterns of Scripture, get into your brain and you begin to think as Scripture thinks.
Then you understand how to deal with the spiritual dimensions that govern the world. This father understood that he should not call his son Benoni, son of my sadness, because that curse was going to be on his son, but he said, no, you know what? I see you as my right hand, I see you blessing your family, I see you as the chosen one in the family and then that put a blessing on his life.
I share a personal secret. My grandson, Caleb, Meche and I were walking around Maine, Caleb was just born and I found a small statuette made by an American sculptor, of a young man who is about 14 years old, more or less, attractive, athletic, manly, sitting on a pile of books, this size, sitting on that stack of books reading a book very into what he's reading. And when I saw that, I said, you know what? That is the destiny that I would like, although his parents are the ones who obviously have the last authority over their son, but I said, like his grandfather, I want to bless and I am going to declare that this is how Caleb will be, a child who likes studies, wise, curious about the world, with a desire to know the mysteries of life. He's sitting on that pile of books tucked in, but he's also manly, he's attractive, he's not just any weakling, a bookworm. No, no, it's a man, although he's not naked, but I hope he has chest hair. No, because that combination of masculinity and wisdom, who said that these two things have to be apart? A man is spiritual or manly and not both together. We can be both.
The woman can be extremely feminine, but also a warrior in spirit. Both. God is masculine and feminine. We are feminine and masculine, I say with an appropriate balance, brothers, it is not either... understand what I mean.
What I want to say is that every time I look, and this is not witchcraft, but every time I look at that little statue of Caleb, I say, Lord, that this vision of a man who is knowledgeable, wise, curious about the world is fulfilled, and also physically strong.
So, I believe that we have to learn to pronounce words, to be a prophetic people, a people that moves believing God, that declares a blessing, that uses its voice to say powerful things, that opens a gap in the world, that declares , to open doors, to close doors, to tear down walls, to build walls with his voice, to go around the world healing and declaring healing and blessing over the nations, over his neighborhood, over his house, over the places where they work, a people who know that words have a lot of power.
Let's be people of sound word. May healthy words resonate in our homes. May the music played in our homes be a blessing. That since we get up the word of God is in our mouth. Our mind is pronouncing the word and our children are continually blessed with fresh word, prophetic names.
This woman did not understand that, she names her son Jabes, and you know what? I believe that the life of Jabez, from the text itself, suggests to me that Jabez's childhood was a sad and negative childhood. Because first, the writer clarifies that his mother named him Jabez because she had pain during her delivery and he considers that important for us to understand. And secondly, the prayer that Jabes makes, when Jabes finishes the prayer he says:
"... you will deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me..."
The Hebrew word that is translated into English 'hurt' is actually the word pain. It is the same word that his name represents. That's why I titled this sermon A Contradiction of His Name, because Jabez's life became a contradiction of his name. His name was pain, his destiny was pain, but Jabes, through his prayer, changed his situation, changed his destiny.
And then when Jabez says: "... Lord, that you free me from evil so that it does not cause me pain..." he was rebelling against that identity that his mother had declared over his life. And that is why I believe that this word begins with pain, giving his son a name of pain, and ends with the word pain, where Jabez, through prayer, confronts that unintentional curse that his mother placed on him.
Brothers, prayer changes destinations. Prayer changes our situations. But it is not that religious prayer to which I am referring, that we evangelicals often do, it is a prayer that is born from the soul, it is a heartfelt prayer, it is a prayer that responds to an acknowledgment of the giants we are confronting, of the situation we are experiencing. As I was saying, we have to know our situation, we have to define our giants, we have to know what battle we are fighting. We have to take stock of where the pains in our life are, and we have to accumulate that pressure within us so that when our prayer leaves our mouths, it is like a fireball that reaches directly to the heart of God.
And that is why God many times does not answer our prayers immediately, because he is waiting for our prayer to acquire the necessary pressure so that it can arrive before him. Many times God waits for our life to reach the level of despair before he responds.
The Bible is full of desperate people like Jabez, tired of their situation, fed up with their situation. And they can't take it anymore and when Christ passes by their side, they cry out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. And the Lord stops and does what he has to do.
So was the woman with the issue of blood. Years bleeding drop by drop, cut off from her community, impure, unable to enter the spiritual community of Israel, feeling lonely, ashamed, cut off from God. And she said, you know what? I'm already tired of that. And violating all the laws of religious purity, he got into the crowd, made his way and approached Jesus.
I imagine her hand reaching between the legs of the men who were around Jesus protecting him, and she reached in and touched the hem of Jesus' cloak. And he wrested a blessing from the Lord. The Lord had no intention of healing her at the time, but her faith connected like a powerful electric wire and the current of Christ passed through her and she says the source of her bleeding was sealed at that moment.
And the Lord felt the discharge that came from him and said, Who touched me? Lord, what do you mean, who touched you? If everyone is touching you, you are around a crowd. No, someone touched me, but they touched me desperately, they touched me with faith, they stood out from the crowd. Because you know what sets your life apart from the crowd? Your faith. That is why this beautiful chorus: With my faith I will touch you, with my faith I will reach you, I will receive my miracle, etc. Etc. Why? It is my faith, it is my miracle, it is my trust in you.
When you touch the Lord in that distinctive way is when God responds to your need. That is why it says here that Jabez was more honorable than all his brothers. Why does the writer say Jabez was more honorable than his brothers at the beginning of the story? There was something in Jabez's heart that prepared him to make that distinctive prayer.
Jabez was one of several brothers, but there was something in his heart that distinguished him and separated him from all the others. Do you know what I think distinguished him and made him more honorable? His suffering. Paradoxically, that sad childhood, those years of feeling away, those years when perhaps the children would laugh, oh, look at his name. Pain. They laughed at him. complexed.
I believe that this pain pushed Jabez to seek God, loneliness. Brothers, many times the desert times in our lives are the times that bring the most blessings to our lives, are the times of being in the desert, are the 40 years of Moses in the desert, are the 40 days of Elijah walking day and night to reach the mountain of the revelation of God, are the years that Saul spent, we do not know where he was at that time until they called him, after his conversion and his baptism in the Holy Spirit, they called him to enter into the community of believers and there began his ministry.
These are the years that David spent running from David, having already been anointed king, but with an evil king who wanted to kill him because he did not want his queen, who had already lost legitimacy, to be taken from him. And David had a few years running away and learning to be a warrior, learning to be a leader, learning to command men as desperate as he was. And David's character was formed at that time.
Moses, in those 40 years just taking care of goats, while listening to the wind at night, from the desert, while he walked through those places and did not have much to see and therefore, his soul had to go inward and look inside of him, he learned, cultivated depth, introspection, the ability to understand the mysteries of God.
Brothers, in times of suffering and suffering, do not curse God. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom to discern what God is saying to you in those times. Bless the hand of God. Ask God to free you and take you out, but as long as he has you there say, Lord, you know what? I'm going to get used to it, after all a little mud isn't so bad, a little dark isn't so bad after all. Teach me to discern what you want from this time, what are you teaching me? I'm going to stick closer to you, I'm going to learn to pray more, I'm going to learn more.
There are times, brothers, that you pray in the middle of the night and when you are going through tribulation and difficulties, you have to entrust yourself to the Lord and say, Father, have mercy on me. How many times has it happened to you that you get up at dawn, you have to go to work, you have problems in your marriage, there is a terrible financial situation, you are full of anxiety, you had a terrible night and when you go to get up you don't have the strength and you only have to say, Lord, in your command I entrust myself.
But you know what? In those times of sadness and suffering, a man or woman of God is forged. In those times the soul is tempered and one learns not to flee from the enemy, and one learns faith, and one learns dependence on God, one learns humility. God breaks you, God bleeds you, God imparts you and seals your identity with fire. And if it is necessary that we be tested for a time so that our faith, tested like gold, which when burned is purified, so we can result in praise and glory for Christ Jesus.
You know what? Glory to God is not only given in the praises of joy but also in sadness. That is where many times God forms a man or a woman. Pentecostal evangelicals flee from pain, we flee from illness and that's how we should be in a sense, but you know what? Don't curse the disease, don't deny it, if that's what God puts in your life, suffering for a while, ask him to take you out. Pray, cry out, but while you are there enjoy what little you can and eat those drops of water that are in the cactus in the desert, drink it and receive a blessing from it. Learn to drink from the little things too.
Because many times we need a lot of abundance to enjoy and sometimes we have to learn to eat bread with a little bit of green oil and a little bit of salt and enjoy it as if it were the greatest delicacy. Boys today have dozens of toys in their homes, electronic games, computers, televisions, music, lots of things, and they don't know how to enjoy themselves. The toys thrown over there don't know how to use their imagination, they don't know how to enjoy a book, they don't know how to pick up a little toy with wheels without a motor. Today, everything has to be motorized and children do not develop an imaginative, intuitive capacity.
In Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, the boys take a piece of stone, put cloth on it, take tape and tie it up and with that they play baseball very well. They take a bicycle wheel, just the ring and a bit of wire and they are kings in the neighborhood. Because they have learned to develop their imagination. They can converse with adults, they have a sense of humor, they have imaginative capacity. Because? Because where there is a desert, the inner capacity develops.
The blind develop an incredible sense of touch and hearing. The deaf learn to read people's lips. Because? Because your brain adjusts to the deficiency and develops others...
So, what I am saying, brothers, is that many times God puts you in times of drought and that is the preparation for the blessing that comes into your life. There is no great blessing without a great wait, always remember that.
Jabez spent his childhood there in that crucible of his name and I believe that he had an initially painful life. But there came a time in his life when Jabez got fed up with sadness and came before the Lord. And you know, again, that sadness had set him up. And it says that Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. Because? Because he had suffered more and was already ready to receive.
That suffering imputed an identity to him, Jabes had a weight. I was telling the brothers this morning, the word honorable in the original Hebrew also refers to weight, to be heavy. Jabez was heavier than his brothers, not in the sense that he was fatter, but that he had more weight, more gravitas, more character, and that came a time when Jabez said before God:
“…Oh if you would give me blessing…”
All of Jabez's pain was squeezed into a ball of passion and frustration and hope. I was telling the brothers this morning, my favorite part of that whole story is the word 'Oh' if you would give me a blessing... in that 'Oh' was the entire personality of Jabez.
I don't know if I'm reading too much into the text, but I don't think so. That's why one has to read literally. That 'Oh' was pregnant with hope. In that 'oh' there was visualization of something different. In that 'oh' there was a desire for a different life. In that 'oh' there was hope that God would hear him. In that 'oh' there was delight of what could happen in his life. In that 'oh' there was also frustration and rebellion against his past.
All of that was tucked into that 'oh'. It was a cry that came from his bowels. And that was what touched the heart of God. Brothers, I say that we have to get to the 'oh' point in our prayers. There comes a time when you have to look at your situation, look at that addiction that has tormented you all your life, look at that depression with which you have struggled for years of being in the church, look at that character trait that creates problems for you in your family and in your social relationships, look at your life of financial lack and material dryness, look at your lack of product in the things of God. Look at your dilapidated situation familiarly, look at your lack of progress and knowledge of the things of God.
Look at your neglect in things of the spirit and say, 'oh' if God changed my situation. If God changed my character, if God changed my attitude and my condition and you dare to visualize something different. In your spirit you receive and greet a situation... and you can see it in three dimensions and in technicolor, a change in your life. You can see and touch your finances being blessed, your health returning to you, your marriage being fertilized with seeds of passion and affection and good words and blessing.
You can contemplate your children. 'Oh' Lord if my children loved you, if my children developed an appetite for knowledge. 'Oh' Lord if my home was a place where praise flowed easily, where there was peace and joy. 'Oh' Lord if my mind was flooded with your wisdom and your knowledge and I could know the mysteries. 'Oh' Lord if your grace ran through my hands so that I could lay hands on a sick person and get well. Oh Lord, if you would change my rebelliousness, my resentment, this attitude of rejection, this easily offended me, these fears that hold me back and you would make me a warrior of God, a person with the character of Jesus Christ. 'Oh'
You understand? That 'Oh' means that you can see something different in your life. And many times we are not changed because we do not reach that point of 'Oh' where we already say, you know what? I'm fed up, the same old thing, always. I want something new. And today, I declare, a twist, a change in my destiny. Today I declare that the devil will no longer get away with it in my life. Today I declare that God is doing something new in my life and I rebel against the chains of the enemy and I declare my emancipation in the name of Jesus. Today I am going to start serving Christ. Today I am going to say, Father, if I perish, let me perish, but I am going to enter the most holy place. That is what we have to do, brothers.
This second week of prayer, of fasting, is an 'Oh' that we put before God, because sometimes we say, a week, wow, tremendous. Look, a week is nothing to offer to God, to ask for the visitation of the Holy Spirit.
When I declared that it was like, you know what? Look, we are already tired of the routine. A week there and we'll go home just the same. No, no, we are going to go deeper, we are going to break through. God wants you to be passionate, God wants passion, brothers, God wants commitment, God wants delivery, God wants a word, enough of the past, now I look to what God has ahead for my life.
Jabez said, 'Oh, if you would give me a blessing...
Four things, quickly. If you would give me a blessing, and if your hand were with me, before that I say, if you would enlarge my territory, if your hand were with me and free me from evil so that it does not harm me.
Four specific things. I believe each one is more specific than the other. If you gave me a blessing, if you widened my territory, if your hand was with me and if you delivered me from evil. I believe that there were four elements in code that should forge our prayers and our prayer life.
First, oh Lord, if you would give me a blessing. What does blessing mean? That means that the grace of God is on your life, that the positive sign of God is on your life. If they ask you, well, what sign are you? Tell them, I, the sign of Christ Jesus, the sign of the blood of Christ. I'm not Leo, I'm not Virgo, I'm not Jupiter or whatever, no, my seal, my sign is the cross, the blood of Jesus.
I want to live my life under the sign of God's good will. Blessing means that, look, the good of God follows you. As the psalmist says, the good and mercy of Jehovah will follow me all the days of my life.
When a man or a woman has the sign of God's blessing, it means that God breathed a blessing on your life, he blessed you. You are my son, you are my daughter, you walk with my seal before you. You go and the blessing will follow you.
Another text, Psalm 128, read Psalm 128 after so you can see what comes into the life of a man or a woman when they follow God. But I liked that expression because I remembered it in my mind “…and you will be fine.” you will be fine I like that. And I said, where is that? I looked it up in the concordance, psalm 128, blessed is the man, the woman who serves the Lord, will be blessed in her house and it will go well for her.
Having God's blessing means, brother, that you are God's chosen one. You are the son of the right hand of God. You are not the son of God's sadness, you are the son of God's right hand. We are seated, he says, in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And where is Christ sitting? At the right hand of the Father.
That means that you are a son of the right, not of the left, you are not sinister. The sinister means the one on the left, right? no, you are from the right and that is why God's blessing follows you all the days of your life. Ask the Lord, Father, that my life, that if you could take a spiritual x-ray of me, when I walk through the streets of Boston, you would see a cloud of glory that covers my life, and wherever I go the cloud goes with me. If I stop, the cloud stops, if I go to the other side, the cloud accompanies me. If I lie down, the cloud lies on my bed. I am covered with the cloud with the blessing of God.
Oh if you would give me blessing. I ask the Lord every day, Father, do not let me get out of your blessing, preserve me, Lord, because there is nothing like walking with the Lord every three hours, giving you a little blessing vitamin. He opens his mouth and gives you your blessing. And three hours later another blessing, and you walk your life with God's blessing. Our families walk under the blessing of God, our children grow up with the blessing of God. Our church is prosperous because God's blessing is upon us. Our finances are blessed because God's blessing is upon us. Our health is strengthened and the vigor of God is with us because the blessing of God...
Tell the Lord, Lord, I want your good diction. That is what blessing means. Your good word, uttered over my mouth, your good pronunciation over my life, may it follow me all the days of my life. The man, the woman who serves God, who loves God, who is distinguished by being a person who loves the things of God well decided, well pronounced by God. give me blessing
Second, may your hand be upon me. What does hand mean to me? I understand that when Jabez is inspired by the Holy Spirit in a prayer that was going to be recorded for all centuries, he said, may your hand be with me on my life. For me the hand of God in the Bible means the power of God.
The Bible says that God brought Israel out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. The hand of God is his strength, his strength. I began to think, Lord, what did he mean by your hand? May your hand be on me. Why did you put that there? Well, because Jabez understood, Father, I want your power to go with me. I want your strength to go with me. I want that when I undertake something, I undertake it with your powerful hand opening the field.
The word says, it is not with a sword, it is not with an army, it is with my spirit that the works are done. The Bible says that our weapons are not carnal, but powerful in God for the destruction of strength. We war with weapons that the world does not know. And we, as children of God, have to ask the Lord every day, Father, today I am going to get into a difficult situation at work, may your hand be with me. Today I am going to enter some streets full of snow, dangerous, slippery, may your hand be with me, Lord. Today I am going to have to present myself to that boss who doesn't like me well because there is something in his spirit that rejects me as your son, and I want your hand to tame him and gag his mouth. I have to appear before a judge, oh, Lord, that justice be done to me, that I receive what I need, that your hand be with me.
The man or woman of God is so aware that they need the hand of God for all the things they undertake. We know that we are eminently weak and that we need the hand of God. Every day that you undertake something, say, Lord, that your hand be with me. Do not try to do things in the world only with your own strength. Tell him, Lord, that your hand extends over my life. Do not undertake anything without requesting the hand of God on your life. Bathe all your needs, all aspects of your life with a request that the hand of God be upon you.
Jabez asks for a third thing, he says, Lord, that my territory be enlarged. Widen my territory. Think what a man from three millennia ago meant, expand my territory. The key is in the word territory. Jabez lived in an agricultural culture. Land is essential, very important. Peasants, acquiring land is acquiring a treasure. They measure their power in terms of the land and cows they have.
A man who says expand my territory, means, Lord, expand my power. Isaiah 54 says:
"...Enlarge the site of your tent and lengthen your curtains, extend your ropes and affirm your stakes because you will spread out to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south..."
Expand my territory, brother, there is nothing wrong with asking the Lord, Father, prosper me, give me a better car than this car that makes so much noise, Lord, I am already tired of feeling the sprints every time I sit in the seat of the car. I'm tired of seeing that smoke that announces my presence from blocks away, Lord. I'm tired of seeing those same pieces of furniture with the same plastic that I put on them ten years ago and now I want a little more subtle, more of the 21st century. I'm tired of looking at the same clothes I wore ten years ago, I would like a better little suit, Lord, with a little thinner lapels and that elongate my body a little more, more comfortable shoes instead of these, the soles weigh three pounds each. Bless me.
Brothers, there is nothing to ask the Lord for financial prosperity, blessing, power, influence. There is nothing wrong with that. God wants to bless his people. God wants to prosper his people. God wants to bless you. God wants to give you influence. God wants to take you out of anonymity. God wants to lift your head above your peers.
I know that God wants to bless, has blessed, is blessing and will continue to bless this Congregation because he blessed his children under an imperfect pact in Israel and now in the new pact in Christ Jesus the blessing is greater. What happens is that we are fools and we don't know how to get the blessing of God. Let's learn the principles of the spirit and we will be blessed: finances, stewardship, giving the Lord first, worshiping the Lord, choosing the Lord above all things, loving him desperately, honoring him, waging spiritual warfare. Those are the things that bless our life and fill us with power and authority.
Ask the Lord for a blessing, I rebel against those Gospels that say, no, simply ask the Lord that his will be done in your life. Don't ask him for anything because that's from prosperity. I had a big argument recently with a young man, not a big argument because I controlled myself a bit because he was younger than me. Samuel was there, the discussion was heating up.
That young man loves the Lord, a pious North American, but he told me that you shouldn't ask God for material things. I tell him, yes, well, that's what you say because you're middle class, upper middle class and your parents have money. Why is it that people who have money say to the poor, don't pray for a blessing to come to you? But they do go to their big hotels, they have their big conferences, they have churches with air conditioning, Mercedes cars parked in the parking lots, but the poor who are asking, Lord, bless me. No, those are from prosperity and they are... the Lord rebuke the devil.
We are children of the blessing. Ask the Lord for a blessing. Tell him, Lord, widen my territory. Widen my territory. Give me influence, Lord. And then give to the Lord and use your money to bless others. Be generous with your money, because generosity attracts more blessing. I have discovered that. Put your money to run in the Kingdom of God, give to others generously and the blessing will come, will come, will come, will come. The more you give in the Lord, the more you will receive, that is the key to prosperity.
But tell the Lord, Lord, enlarge my territory. Don't settle for a little piece of land. Tell him, Lord, I want a lot of land so I can use it for your glory. Finally he says, Lord, and may your hand be with me and curb the evil in my life so that it does not cause me pain.
The evil, the devil. The element of evil in a fallen creation. He covered himself on all sides. This man play baseball, first, second, third, fourth, home. And Lord, just in case, grab that devil there and keep him in checkmate, don't let him touch me. That this pain that is over my life, that this sadness, that fine rain, that mist that has followed me all my life, be cleared and that your sun come shining on my life. Stop the devil, keep him at bay. Send your blessing.
We have to pray because there is a devourer who wants to destroy our family, our health, our mind, our emotions, our ministries. And he wants to sow curse in our lives. The devil is the origin of all evil in the world. He is the quintessential mobster and all his henchmen, who are the demons that rule this fallen world, we need protection from him.
Many evangelicals allow ourselves many liberties because we do not understand that we are walking on a field of war. There are demons everywhere, principalities and powers are around us, they want to kill us, they want to steal God's blessing from us. We have to do spiritual warfare. We have to learn the laws of spiritual warfare. Holiness, adoration, surrender to God, renouncing generational curses, the positive declaration of God's blessing on our lives, speaking positivity in faith, living in holiness, adhering to God's word.
These are the weapons of spiritual warfare that guarantee that God will protect you. And even if God allows the devil to touch you, he will not be able to go beyond where God gives him the possibility and permission. Because many times God will allow affliction to come into your life and the devil to touch you, but he will tell him, you know what? You are going to touch it, number 1, you are not going to touch it to me beyond where I have given you permission, and second, I want to tell you that this touch will end as a blessing for my son or my daughter, not as a curse.
I told the brothers, this health situation that I had, you know that I am sure, God had already warned me about it. Months ago God made me pray, deliver me from evil, Lord. It made me very aware of the fragility of the human being and of dark, unconscious forces.
The devil, brothers, you know that the devil does not hate you. The devil does not feel hate. What the devil feels is a pathology. He is like a psychopath who kills without hate. A psychopath kills coldly. Satan is a blind force that only knows how to kill, steal and destroy. Demons are beings that they do not hate humanity but delight in evil, they delight in taking a creature of God, beautiful, beautiful, with the spirit of God within it. He is born precious.
Meche told me about that, that's why she always when we walk through the streets of Boston and one of those ragged, poor, smelly people that abound in the City of Boston comes and touches the glass, she would tell me something that is very revealing. , says that she always feels inclined to give them something because she reminds the baby that that creature was before it became that man in rags. A child whose mother may have received him with joy, a great promise, perhaps a lot of blessing, a lot of celebration, and the devil little by little sucked the image of God out of him until he turned him into a disfigured and dysfunctional creature, toothless, smelly, a grimace on his face. face instead of blessing.
Because the elements of evil delight in distorting the image of God in human beings and turning them into caricatures of the angelic deity of God in them. Because they are evil beings, that's what they know how to do. His identity is evil. They are not funny, they are not good at all, and therefore everything they touch they contaminate even without wanting to, because that is what they are, that is their nature.
So, we have to be aware of those blind forces. One of the dreams that I had during that time in the summer was, I found myself in a forest, it was night, and for some reason I got confused and went into that forest and the forest was full of weeds, closed, roots , trees. It was like a well-enclosed Amazon jungle. And from the spaces between the roots and the branches of those trees and from that undergrowth, worms came out, I could see an animal that was like a worm, but with a very large claw on the front, and it came out like this. They wanted to touch me but couldn't completely. But I knew that I was in a very dangerous area. And there were different beings as well as blind. I didn't see eyes, I didn't see consciousness, but simply these snakes, reptiles, animals of different kinds came out of the… and they approached me but they couldn't touch me, but I was in a place of great imminent danger.
And there are other things there that I was able to understand through that revelation and two others that God gave me as well. I prayed, Lord, deliver me from evil, deliver me from evil. I understood that part of Jesus' prayer, do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil. Because yours is the power and the glory.
He has power to protect us. The only thing that can protect a man or a woman in this world full of the evil of the enemy is the power of Christ Jesus, the name that is above all names. You have to pronounce that name over your life, you have to walk in the name of Jesus. You have to affiliate with the Kingdom of God, you have to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Because it is the only kingdom that can oppose the kingdom of darkness, the only one. You have to say, Lord, deliver me from evil.
You know what? For some reason God allowed the enemy to touch me, but you know, I tell you before God. I feel that what God did was to perform a surgical operation on my spirit and on my neurological system. I believe that God put new components in my life. God blessed me in a strange way.
Because it is that when one walks under the grace of God, even the darts of the devil are turned into injections of life and power, and grace on the children of God. Even if God allows demonic energy to penetrate your life, God will turn it into a blessing, and that crucible of proof will return you strengthened, purified, more prepared to serve the Lord.
In your weakness God will glorify himself. You will learn things and you will then be able to say, I have my marks. I have been in the war. What soldier who has been in the war does not have a mark from a knife, from a bullet, that even skewed him a little?
You do not deserve to be a soldier, it is important, brothers, that we fight our battles, but when God allows us to enter the crucible of trial, in the area of affliction, may his hand go with us and free us from evil so that we do not cause us pain. God wants to change your destiny. You don't have to live life fighting with your own strength.
Your prayer changes the situation. Your prayer changes your destiny. Your cry to God, your say, you know what? I am tired of being under the domination of the enemy or of circumstances, of time and space, of history, of humanity, of society, of culture, I vindicate myself and claim God's direction over my life .
Oh, Lord, if you would bless me. Oh Lord, if you would widen my territory. Oh, Lord, if your hand of power were with me. Oh, Lord, if your divine protection walked with me day by day and you know what? If you cry like this, God will grant you what you ask for. Confidently approach the throne of grace, says the word and receive timely help.
God granted him what he asked for. It's good that he didn't just stay oh, if you gave me, oh if you made me, he says, and God granted him what he asked for.
