A Simple Life (Romans 12:1) - Part 2

Paul is saying, brothers I beg you, this is the general call that he will explain later with more specific calls about different aspects of life that are the verses that follow. What is this to present the bodies, the living sacrifice to the Lord. Obviously this does not mean that you make a pyre, that you take wood and light it and throw yourself into the fire. That is not what the Apostle Paul means, he is talking about something symbolic, something more of a spiritual nature, clearly referring to the sacrifices that the Hebrews brought to the altar to be burned as a holocaust and as an offering and consecrated to the Lord. That life that had been sacrificed symbolically ascended to God in the fire, because it ascended towards heaven. That animal had been completely surrendered, consecrated, set apart for a single purpose, it was to bring honor to the God who received them at that moment.

So Paul is making a reminder of that by saying now brothers I ask that you not necessarily bring a lamb to the altar when you go to the temple but go yourselves. Present yourselves, instead of the lamb, place yourself at the altar table and present yourself before God.

I looked up the word that Paul uses in the original Greek, this word that is translated “to present” –parastesai- and refers to the idea of presenting, delivering, surrendering something to someone as their property for their exclusive use, converting something into an object, to enter something under the control or domain of someone or to make something available to someone. That is the idea of presenting. In other words Paul says: take your bodies and all that you are and present it to the Lord, give it to Him for his control, for his disposition, for his government, for his exclusive use. Consecrate yourselves to God and that is what God asks of each believer that our lives be completely presented to the Lord as an offering exclusively dedicated to Him and to no one else.

How are we doing in that sense? Have we done that? We have reached that point in our lives where I know that I do not belong to the world, I do not even belong to my wife or my husband, I do not even belong to a nation or to my social position. No, I belong to God, my life has been presented to the Lord for his disposal. That means that God uses me, God has a right over any aspect of my life. ...that you present your body.

Another interesting thing in that call from Paul is the idea of bodies, somata in Greek, this flesh. It's what he says: present your bodies. Why the bodies? Why doesn't Paul say for example, present your spirits or present your mind, or present your person to the Lord. Why the bodies? Well, first of all, because that is what was presented before the sacrifice was the body of an animal, but there is also something interesting here and it is the following: the body is like what is most in contact with the world and many times also the word meat, sarcos, is the part that many times we do not surrender to the Lord. It is easy for us to say: my spirit I offer it to the Lord, my mind I offer it to the Lord, but this rebellious meat and that normally we do not want to give it to the Lord because this meat with its intense appetites is what is most rebels against God, is what most resists the work of the holy spirit. And Paul says: Look, present your bodies to God for good. Let the Lord deal with your emotions, let the Lord deal with the impulses of your flesh, let God gradually sanctify and heal this aspect.

The other thing that strikes me about the fact that Paul says "the body", I was reading a comment from a famous Christian commentator who knows Greek culture very well, and he says that for the Greeks the body was something impure, the The body was a prison that held what was truly good in man, in the human being, which is the spirit and for a Greek to say that the body was presented to the deity, to God it was like an insult in a sense for that God. Well, supposedly for the Greek culture, God would not be interested in the body, because the body had to be left here on earth as something impure that when it was left, what really mattered, the soul, could ascend to God. And Paul changes that sense and says: No, your bodies are important too, your bodies have value for God, present them too. Actually we have to present to the Lord all that we are, mind, body, soul, spirit. Everything belongs to the Lord, we cannot leave a part. For God our bodies are valuable, matter is important for God too. God created us, God created our bodies as well and therefore all that we are we have to surrender to the Lord.

This idea of presenting seems to have been working in Paul's mind because if you are looking at Chapter 6 of Romans, in that same epistle that we are reading look at verse 12 of Chapter 6 of Romans. He says: "... let sin not reign in your mortal body, so that you obey it in its lusts."

In other words, Paul tells Christians that sin does not govern the actions of their bodies, but that their bodies are governed by another, more powerful faculty. Do not obey the appetites and dominance of the body so much so that you are as if enslaved to the dictates and appetites of the body, nor present - there is that same word, the original paristemi of presenting, delivering, consecrating - nor present your members , that is to say, your arms, your legs, the different parts of the body, nor do you present or consecrate your members to sin as instruments of inequity, but rather present yourselves.

That idea of presenting the totality of who we are. Present yourselves to God as living from the dead, and your members, that is, the parts of your body, as instruments of justice. They see the difference instead of presenting ourselves as instruments of inequality, let us present ourselves as instruments of what?, of justice. The idea is that we come to be under the control of the holy spirit, that we come to be as an instrument that God can use for the blessing of humanity and for the strengthening of society, ... because sin will not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under grace.

In other words, no Christian is called to live under the domination of the flesh, under the control, under the slavery of the flesh. At most we are going to be wrestling with, as Paul speaks in another famous passage in Romans, of being wrestled with the body and flesh but the idea that the flesh has already dominated and that we are completely subject and abandoned to it. it is an aberration for the Christian. We are supposed to be in control through the holy spirit in us.

So the whole idea that is there circulating in Paul's mind when he says in Chapter 12 that we are going to read: "... that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God", and then I am interested what it says later. He says "... which is your rational cult."

For years, that expression has intrigued me, I think it's your rational cult. It does not cause you a little bit of curiosity, what does that mean. What is your rational cult? Because rational, look here, I think the Spanish translators failed in the translation, because yes, literally the word used in the original Greek is logikh technh, where the word logical or logical comes from, and they translated rational in a sense. That understanding of the word does exist in the Greek word, but there was another sense that they could have chosen to give a clearer idea of what Paul means. The word logikh technh in the original Greek also means "spiritual." For the Greeks reason was both spiritual and purely rational, mental.

So I think that a better way, and in the original Greek, it does not say what it is, but rather it is like a total equivalence relation, which is your adoration, the word cult here translated into Spanish, is a treia in Greek that It means "adoration", from where the word idolatry comes from in Spanish, to worship idols. A treia means "worship or worship." So the idea is “that it is your spiritual worship or it can also be your true worship”. What difference does that make?

If you read the passage again. "... present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing which constitutes your true worship", which is your true worship. In other words, when you present your body to God as a living sacrifice, when you have given the Lord your life, the members of your body, of your being, to serve the Lord, to obey the Lord, to be used as a instrument of God, that is your true worship. They understand? That is spiritual worship, the worship that truly pleases God.

And that, brothers, is not just playing with words. I take the time because I want you to understand the importance of what I am saying. In other words, what is it that truly pleases God, brothers? Is it that we come to church and get down on our knees, and raise our hands and speak many languages and dance and then go out into the world to live as we want, contradicting everything we have done here in worship? Lots of people do that, right? He comes to church, and there is a compartmentalization of being, in church everything is dedicated to the deity, to God and everything is very beautiful, very perfect, much reverence. They are angels in the church but when they come out devils again. They have taken off their Christian hat now again like little children when they are released on the beach, we are going to live, we are going to enjoy, we are going to enjoy life and we have already forgotten our Christian identity. Is that a way to please the Lord? Is that a worship that pleases God? No, Paul says: "... present your bodies, consecrate your life to the Lord" give God all aspects of your being because that is the worship that pleases the Lord. It is a life consecrated to God, a life delivered to the Lord, a life where we have been delivered to the control of the holy spirit. A holy life.

That is true worship, reasonable worship –another word that would have been better- worship that pleases the Lord. God does not like the gestures and things we do to worship him as much as we obey him. The Lord Jesus Christ once said: "why do you call me, Lord, Lord and do not do what I tell you to do, do not obey me." It's not that we don't adore the Lord, it's not that we don't come to church, I always make it clear, it's not that we don't dance or raise our hands, but on top of that we live a life that is consistent with what God asks for, that there be consistency between one thing and the other, is the totality.

It is of no use to us that we adore the Lord and schizophrenicly live as if we were idolaters or pagans who do not know the Lord. The true worship that pleases God is the worship that is integrated in all its parts. That is why I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he spoke to the Samaritan woman, told her that the day will come when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth because God seeks to worship such worshipers. What did the Lord Jesus Christ mean by in spirit and in truth, precisely that, because the Samaritan woman was speaking to him that we had to worship the Lord. Was it in Jerusalem or there in Samaria? and she wanted to get Jesus into a religious dispute between those who had things clearer, the Samaritans or the Jews, and the Lord said: "Woman, the day will come when God will not be worshiped in Samaria, nor in Judea, nor in Jerusalem but it will be inside the spirit, the soul. And that is the adoration that the father is going to seek and want.

Brothers, no denomination saves, no religion saves except, of course, it has to be Christian. What saves is knowing Jesus Christ and having a life consistent with Jesus. It is not the denomination to which you belong, it is not that you come to León de Juda or go to the harvest or to the Methodist church, that is not what pleases God, but wherever you move, a heart that has surrendered and delivered to the Lord. You can worship the Lord in the bathroom of your house and that becomes a temple if your spirit is surrendered to God.

One thing my brothers that I realize more and more is that God is very simple and we have made it very complicated. There are many people who live with a tremendous paranoia that they are not pleasing God, that God is upset with them, and all their lives they are trying to make God seem like it is a very complicated thing to please the Lord, and they know that brothers, I believe that pleasing God is the simplest thing, it does not require large rituals of spectacular worship and all that, but God says over and over again: Look, gentlemen, what I want is for you to be simple-hearted and fair and to do the things well. Look how Micah says.

Micah is one of the most beautiful passages, Micah Chapter 6 on what the Lord asks. He says, I love this passage, Chapter 6, verse 6. He says: "...with what shall I appear before the Lord and worship the Most High God?" This is a rhetorical question, it has its own answer. “I will appear before Him with burnt offerings, with one-year-old calves, the Lord will be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousand streams of oil, I will give my firstborn for my transgression, that is, for my sin, the fruit of my entrails for sin Of my soul."

He is asking what can I please the Lord with? Will I have to go to the ATM and take out all the money I have and rob a bank, to give the Lord money? Will I have to take my daughter and slit her throat so that God will be pleased with me, so that he will forgive my sins? That's how many people think. Whatever little sin they committed, they already believe that they committed the unforgivable sin, that God no longer wants to hear from them, and we are continually in that fear. We believe that we have to give everything and be there continuously, look at the same person who told you that you have to give everything to the Lord, he also says relax before God. You can't do anything to make God love you more than he already loves you. God already loves you. Now whatever you do, do it within the love of God because no matter how much you squeeze yourself, God will not accept you anymore because, no matter how much you do, you will never earn God's love because you will always be unclean. It is by the grace of God that you are acceptable before God, now once you know that, live a holy life, but do not live a holy life to bribe God, but holiness is the product of an established relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Now look how the writer answers his own question: "Oh, man, woman, He has declared to you what is good and what Jehovah asks of you, only to do justice and love mercy and humble yourself before your God." How simple is the Lord. He does not ask for so many things, and so much to twist one but a heart delivered to the Lord. That is what pleases the Lord.

Look at another passage that struck me regarding the thought of true worship, true worship. It's in Deuteronomy Chapter 10, right there in the very bowels of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is a book that has to do with offerings and sacrifices and feast days that the Jewish people had to keep, and look how it says in Chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, in verse 12:

“...now For Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you?" Doesn't it remind you of what Micah says, what does the Lord ask of you? What does the LORD your God require of you except to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love and serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD and his statutes, which I prescribe for you today so that you may prosper."

In other words we don't have to squirm so much. God is a simple God. He likes quite simple things, he does not have to go looking for 5 legs for the cat to please the Lord. God is simply looking for a heart given to Him, a mind given to Him, a body that lives for Him and wants to please Him. If in the course of that delivery you fail, God says: Come, we are on account, settle with me and we will be fine and move on. Because you don't have to look for too many things to please God, so if you are thinking that only what you do eternally pleases the Lord, that is not what God is looking for.

God told the Hebrews in the book of Isaiah, for example, another important passage says: "Do not bring me any more vain offerings, incense is an abomination to me, a new moon and a Sabbath day, calling assemblies, do not I can suffer, your solemn festivals are iniquity.” He was saying this to a Jewish people who believed that by giving them festivals and keeping holy days and all these kinds of things and rituals, they were going to please the Lord and yet they were living lives that were abhorrent in the eyes of God. And in verse 16 He tells them: "wash and make yourselves clean, put away the iniquity of your deeds from before my eyes, stop doing evil, learn to do good, seek judgment, make restitution to the wronged, do justice to the orphan." protect the widow."

In other words it is not the solemn festivals and sacrifices that please the Lord. True worship, the rational worship of which Paul is speaking, the worship that pleases the Lord, is consistent worship, it is worship that unites the ritual with the experience, the body with the spirit, the mouth with the mind, all the parts of being integrated and surrendered to the Lord in sacrifice. That is what pleases God. So do you understand what he says? Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God because this is worship, this is praise, this is true adoration that pleases the Lord, your rational worship.

It says: “Don't conform to this century”. What the word century means - aion in the original Greek - is age or time, or epoch, was. Don't adjust to the culture, maybe also, in which you find yourself. Do not conform to the system of things, to this administration of the culture in which you currently live, do not conform to it, do not surrender to it, do not present yourself to it so that it controls your life, but be transformed through the renewal of his mind, of understanding. What does that mean? Brothers, if you want to change inside you have to start by transforming your mind. Every day that your mind is exposed to the word of God, that you continually meditate on noble things.

As Paul says: "... everything good, everything noble, everything just, everything perfect, everything that is of good name, if there is any virtue, if anything worthy of praise, think about this" . Through each day we must submit our minds to Biblical thoughts, to ideas. I believe, brothers, that every time you turn on the radio, or open a magazine, or watch television, or have a conversation, something is happening in your mind. You are subjecting your mind to a stimulus. Every time you read a novel or make a decision to spend your time on something, you are in some sense renewing your mind. Sometimes he is renewing it for worse, sometimes for better. Sometimes the stimuli that your brain is receiving, what it is doing is reinforcing the flesh, reinforcing the animality that is in us, so that is why every day we have to be good administrators of what our mind is receiving because every day we we have the opportunity to renew ourselves a little more for God. What happens is that cumulatively over the years, if you are careful what you allow into your mind and what forms your mind, you are going to have a failing mind or a mind approved of God. Over the years, the accumulation of stimuli to which you submit your mind will produce a transformed person or a person who is raw and who is the same as when he began the paths of the Gospel.

You have to be careful. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about being careful of what we eat physically, keeping the body, etc. The most important thing is that you guard your mind too. Renew your mind every day, submit your mind to the treatment of the holy spirit. Subject your mind to positive stimuli. Think that every little thing that you allow to enter your mind will color even a little bit the way you see the world and that you feel and are. The idea is also, in the original expression of the Apostle Paul, in the Greek, the idea of renewing is of continuity, that is, continually renewing your mind. In other words, this is something that has to happen 24 hours a day, many times a day, 365 days a year, you have to be renewing your mind. This is a matter that lasts for a lifetime. Transform yourselves through the renewal of your understanding so that you can verify what is the good will of God, pleasant and perfect. What does that mean? That if you renew your mind and transform your being through that renewal, what will happen, that you will be able to verify the good will of God, that is, we spoke at the beginning of this preaching that God wants the will of God is that we have a happy life and everything that God does for his children is to bless their lives and lead them to improve their existence, then the person who cooperates with God by submitting his body and his life to the Lord and letting God transform his spirit, that person will be able to experience in his own flesh the good will of God.

There are believers however, who cannot experience God's good will because they are not following the instructions. Last Wednesday in the prayer service God led me to talk about First Corinthians, 6 or 7, where the Apostle Paul talks about how in the desert everyone saw the glory of God, everyone experienced the blessings of the cloud and the pillar of fire, and manna, and the stone that made water flow, and all these things, but it says that God was not pleased with most of them, but their bodies were left dead in the desert. None of them except Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land of that original nation. Because? Because they did not please God even though they experienced all these things, what God wanted was for that first generation that came out of Egypt to enter the Promised Land and enjoy the land flowing with milk and honey and to enjoy good houses and a prosperous life that God wanted to give them, but almost all of them died in the desert. Almost none of them entered the Promised Land, why? Because their lives were not what God wanted, their attitudes were not correct. They had the life of the pagans who had come out of Egypt and did not allow God to change them and therefore could not enter into the enjoyment of the blessings that God had for them. Those blessings were enjoyed by a second generation that was born in the desert and was able to enter 40 years later. The rest remained dead in the desert without being able to verify God's good will, which was that they enjoy the Promised Land. And that is why I believe that Paul says here: Look brothers, live in this way so that then you can verify the good will of God.

If in your life right now you are not experiencing that prosperity, that blessing, that joy, that sense of belonging to God, that fellowship with the Lord, something is going on there that has to be adjusted. I don't know exactly where it is because each one of us has his own condition, but to the extent that you and I adjust our lives, to that extent we will feel the joy of the Lord in us, we will feel peace, we will enjoy of the approval and prosperity that God wants for his children.

I say then, by the grace that is given to me, to each one that is among you that does not have a higher concept of himself than the one he should have, but that he thinks of himself with sanity according to the measure of faith that God distributed to each other.

Here starting with verse 3, remember that I told you at the beginning that the first part is just a general expression, a general principle that Paul wanted to mention, now in verse 3 onwards he's going to start and we're going to discuss it Later on, he will begin to present specific advice that has to do with that life completely surrendered to the Lord. Paul is going to be elaborating different ways of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to the Lord, and one of the things that Paul says here is that there is a very important attitude that the Christian must have, it is the attitude of humility with respect to in addition. One of the things that most prevents people from enjoying God, brothers, is spiritual pride, arrogance, rebellion, believing that one is unique in a sense that no one comes close to me and glory! That sense of being something better than others and that brings judgment to one's life.

Brothers, let me tell you that many of us sin without realizing it. We have this arrogance and this idea that there is no one like us, and we are always trying to express our selves, to make our selves feel and we have an exaggerated sense of our own worth and so that brings problems to our life, brings problems to our marriage. It causes problems with our children, it causes problems in our social relationships with others, it causes problems with our work because it is like that person is not aware that he is part of a team, he is part of a community and he is simply one among many.

That is why Paul here in this passage enters into a meditation in what follows, where he says: “... because in the same way that in a body we are many members but not all the members have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ and all members one of another”.

That is linked to this idea that nobody thinks of themselves higher than they should think. Because, brothers, it is very important that we think of ourselves sanely. I looked for the word that "sanity" in the original Greek and the idea is that we do not think of ourselves with more esteem than is necessary, than justified, but rather modestly, balanced, sober, measured, accurately. How important it is, brothers, that each one of us, in fact, are there, they are alive. Raise your hand if you're alive, amen.

It is important, brothers and sisters, that we ask the Lord: "Lord, help me to see myself in a sane way, not in an exaggerated way like half crazy." I have discovered that human beings sometimes do not know how to measure ourselves, or truly who we are. It's like looking in the mirror, sometimes you look in the mirror and I think that you're not really seeing yourself as you are.

They know that the anorexic person can be skinny and look in a mirror and see themselves as fat. Because their mind is distorted and that's why the anorexic person is compulsively starving themselves because they think they have to disappear. It is a disease of the mind, they look in the mirror and say; "I'm fat, or I'm fat" and then they stop eating because their eyes are not sending the correct message, or their mind is not correctly interpreting what their eyes are seeing. And we are like that too. Many times we do not have a clear idea of what our defects are and what our virtues are, what are the things that we have to change in our character. I see that continually. I see people who are suffering in this life continuous problems and conflicts and troubles and failures and I would like to put them inside so that they see themselves as I can see them. But they do not have the ability to see themselves objectively.

We have to ask the Lord: Lord, help me to know myself as you know me. Help me to see myself with my virtues and also with my defects. Help me to interpret myself objectively, that I am not a criminal but that I am not Mahatma Ghandi or Mother Teresa either, that I can see myself exactly and then from there I allow you to work in my life to improve more and more every day. .

One thing we need, brothers, is to admit our mistakes, admit our failures, admit the things we need to improve and start from there. What the writer of First or Second Chronicle says: "If my people humble themselves, cry, seek my face, I will heal their land" and many of us have to humble ourselves before God, acknowledge our sins, acknowledge our faults, recognize our defects and then from there allow God to work in our life. And that's going to heal our marriage.

Many times we have to stop blaming the husband or wife and say: No, the problem is me, and I am the one who has to change this. Father have mercy on me. Help me and forgive me and there one begins. That is thinking of yourself sanely, instead of thinking that you are a spiritual titan when in reality you are still a tadpole that needs God to heal you and raise you up and because two and two are four, you think that you are in physics Nuclear, but you're still in basic arithmetic.

And we have to ask the Lord: “Lord, take me out of this anorexic madness in which I live and let me see myself as I am”. As the psalmist says "...examine me, O God and know my heart and see if there is any wickedness in my path and guide me on the eternal path".

Brothers, we are going to ask the Lord: "Father, help me to think of myself with sanity, with modesty, with balance, neither exaggerating more than necessary nor seeing myself as a nobody." Because neither does God want you to think that you are a worm. God wants you to see yourself with sanity, that is, that you see the good things you have and the bad things, that you are not a serial criminal who needs to be locked up in jail either. No, you are a person who is worth too, you have good things. Perhaps God has given you the chance to study, and you have good attributes. Thank the Lord for that, but also see the other so that you can think of yourself in a sane and balanced way.

Another thing that is involved in this way that the Apostle Paul is thinking here, when he says “...for we are one body”. Paul is speaking in this passage to the Christian community regarding the life of the church, the life of the community of faith, and it is very important, brothers, I believe that one of the things that preserves harmony in a church is that the people that make up that church, starting with the main leaders down, all understand and understand that we are all part of a body where each one has a function, has importance and dignity and each one has something to contribute that is beautiful. I cannot do everything nor do I have all the attributes that this church needs to be a blessed church. God has given me some gifts but here among you are other gifts that are necessary for our church to move forward. Now if I believe that I am, as they say, the last Coca Cola in the desert, that I have all the gifts, then I try to do everything, grab everything, control everything, but when the leaders of a congregation know that each of us has something precious that God has given to the other. So one sees oneself with their gifts but also with their limitations and one looks for others to complement one, and one appreciates others for what each one has, so how beautiful it is, because that requires humility on the part of we.

I believe that what often kills many congregations and what hurts the life of a church and brings division is that idea of people who have such a big ego that they think they don't need anyone else. Everyone has to pay homage to them but how nice it is when each one of us has that sense of being part of a single body, being part of a team. Each one of my brothers has something valuable, something beautiful to contribute to the Kingdom of God and then each one is treated with preference.

There in verse 10 he says: “...love one another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another”. In other words, giving preference to each other: No, brother, come in – No, please come in. I wish we would fight over who will go to the pulpit first, to pray. No, on the contrary, what we do is push ourselves to get in front. Because we don't have that sense of body. When you know that others have blessings and gifts from God in their life, you admire and respect them for what God has put in them, and you are aware that you have gifts but that you also have your faults and your absences and that those people complement you.

The rich say, don't just boast about your wealth, but remember that the poor have a lot to teach you too. And the poor do not despise the rich because the rich have things to teach him, as poor, but see both complementary.

The pastor does not denigrate the one who has the gift of evangelism, or singing or adoration. And the one who leads the praise or the person who plays an instrument does not denigrate those who have no ears and sing out of tune because that person who sings out of tune is perhaps a good administrator and can help the musician who may not be a good administrator and then they complement each other . And each one sees in the other what the other has. That's how it is at home. The wife may have gifts that the husband does not, and so the husband should respect his wife and love and value her because she brings to the marriage relationship and to the family things that are very valuable. Perhaps she is very good at keeping accounts and he can't even add two and two, so he must value her and give her place in the life of the church. Now perhaps he is very good, for example in carpentry, or in fixing the house or in other things, or he is more prudent than her in managing money, because she keeps the accounts and he makes certain decisions about how it is going to be managed. the week's salary, and then the two complement each other and are a blessing. And that is what it is to work with the body, with a sense of the body. If we learn that, brothers, if we think of ourselves sanely, I believe that in our life as a church and as a family they will function much, much better.

Please God that we can think of ourselves like this, in that modest, sane way. And that will help us live more blessed lives. Brothers, remember God is calling us and in the next Sundays we are going to be discussing these passages, like this. God is calling us to a life surrendered to Him, a life where all the habits, the behavior, the relationships that we have with each other, all of this is directed by the word of God. I beg you on these Sundays that we are going to be talking about these simple things that we open our hearts and see to what extent God wants to bless us, God wants to speak to us and we are willing to admit when we fail, we are going to admit our mistakes. We are going to ask the Lord: “Lord, in what area do you want me to continue improving? In which area do you want me to change? And this is going to help us to be better Christians every day.

We are going to stand up, we are going to pray and thank the Lord for his presence in our midst. Lord we bless you and we thank you Father for the life you have given us, for that call you make this morning to deliver our bodies as a living sacrifice to you. Pour out, Lord, upon us that sanity of which the Apostle Paul speaks, this first quality of seeing ourselves with humility, seeing ourselves with healthy modesty, not giving in to pride, arrogance, always being aware of our failures and our weaknesses so that you can deal with us. Bless this town, Father. May this teaching remain engraved in our hearts. Thank you for your life in us. Take us to our homes with your holy blessing on this day, in the name of Jesus. Amen.-