Genesis 37 - The life of Joseph

The best is yet to come. Let's go to the Book of Genesis. Genesis, Chapter 37. It has been about 3 weeks or so since I began a study on the life of Joseph and different things have intervened in the interim, and perhaps you have even forgotten a little bit about what we talked about, but we are going to refresh your memory and also delve deeper into the life of José.

In the meantime I encourage you to look there, Chapter 37 of Genesis and we're going to start with verse 2. It occurs to me I want to put something in the sensitivity of Terry and Bruce Lopez who control over there..... I know there are ways to put the letters and the words of the Bible, we haven't done it in the past but in the future maybe we can see how we can do that and that the brothers who don't have, the visitors and other things, because I know that everyone from León de Judá brings their Bible. Amen, right? But the others, those who are beginning the ways of the Lord, so we can make it easier for them so that they can also read the Scriptures, in Genesis Chapter 37, in verse 2:

Says: “This is the story of Jacob's family. Joseph, being 17 years old, grazed the sheep with his brothers and the young man was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpa, his father's wives, and Joseph informed his father of their bad reputation (not good!) and Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he had had him in his old age, and he made him a coat of various colors. And seeing his brothers that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. And Joseph dreamed a dream and told it to his brothers and they came to hate him even more. And he said to them: “Now hear this dream that I have dreamed, behold, we were tying bundles in the middle of the field, and behold, my bundle stood up and stood straight, and your bundles were around and bowed down to mine.” His brothers answered him, "Will you reign over us or rule over us?" And they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words. He dreamed yet another dream, and he told it to his brothers saying: "Behold, I have dreamed another dream, and behold, the sun and the moon and 11 stars bowed down to me." And he told his father and his brothers, and his father this time rebuked him and said: “What is this dream that you dreamed, will I and your mother and your brothers come to prostrate ourselves on the ground before you? And his brothers were envious of him, but his father meditated on this."

The old man knew that there was something strange in that dream, and although he rejected it for the moment but since he stayed for a while truly thinking and evidently marked his sensitivity in some way, he discerned that something of God was in this process. This morning I took this passage and talked a little about dreaming, dreaming in the Lord, the dreams that God puts in our spirits, how God sometimes visits us with dreams and impregnates us, impregnates us with his dreams and his visions, and This is very important for the people of God because the people of God have to be a dreaming people. God is a God of dreams. We see throughout Scripture over and over again that God speaks through dreams.

Jacob had a dream, while climbing from Esau he came to a place and tired he lay down on a stone. And the Bible says that Jacob dreamed that angels went up and down a ladder from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, and in that place, there was the presence of God. And in that place Jacob had a powerful encounter with the angel of the Lord and that marked his life, it marked him literally, physically for the rest of his life. There Jacob had a fight with the angel of the Lord and God gave him something very special. He also had a dream, but he had to pay a price. All dreams have their price.

But what we see is that throughout all of Scripture there are dreams, there are visions, God speaks to his people through dreams and visions. Peter, in the New Testament thousands of years later, was given a vision, he was given a dream and Peter saw a vision where there were a number of clean and unclean animals, God used that vision and that dream to give a greater revelation about the plans that He had with the Gentiles, how He was going to further His work on earth.

So God speaks, brothers. And I want to encourage you to be a people of dreamers in the spirit and not of vain dreamers but of dreamers in the spirit. I am asking the Lord, and ask him also that God bring revelation to our lives, that we be a congregation that receives the word of God. Do you know that the Lion of Judah is the product of a dream? And the name of our congregation is the product of a dream, and the town where we are is also the product of a dream, because God still speaks through dreams.

Some years ago, more or less 92, 93, in the year 93, for those who don't know the story: one night I had a dream where I saw the city of Boston, the skyscrapers of the city of Boston , like on a screen, likewise, as if I were here and I was watching wow..... they took me seriously..... people are dangerous, you have to be careful what you do says. It was as if I were looking at a big screen like that and I saw the skyscrapers and specifically the financial area of the city of Boston, and at the top of those skyscrapers some huge gigantic poisonous spiders began to glide, the size of airplanes, and they began to settle silently and cover the whole panorama, above those big buildings. And I could see those beings that were demonic beings, full of poison, their skin tight and shiny from all the poison they had inside them. And I could see that they were intelligent and malevolent beings, but intelligent and I understood that they were demonic entities that were exerting their dark influence over the city of Boston.

I was contemplating that image and for a moment above, far above, like to the left, so above the firmament of that screen, I could see the image of a lion's face, and it was like a circle, like a plate in the upper left corner of that screen. And that lion was looking, he was way above those demonic beings and he was looking over that scene and I could see his eyes up close. They were human eyes, even though it was a lion's face, the eyes were human, and they were eyes of authority and trust and goodness that told me that by simply looking over that scene, he was exercising his authority and that he was in control of everything, that there was no need to worry, because he had the last word. And from where I was, I pointed my finger and I remember that I was semi-conscious at that moment and I pointed three times towards the lion, and I said three times "You are the Lord, you are the Lord, you are the Lord", And there my dream ended, and from that day on the idea of coming to Boston was born in my spirit.

We had our church in the city of Cambridge. I know that many of you have already heard this, but I do it because I feel that the Lord is in this moment and because it fits well with what ....... and many people come sometimes and do not listen and do not know why we We call it the Lion of Judah. It says, an animal, what a strange name “Lion of Judah2, what is that?, but it is a biblical name.

I understood in the dream that the lion I was seeing was the Lion of Judah because I knew from the Bible, but in reality the Lion of Judah had not been a very impressive image in my life, no I had meditated on it too much, or anything like that, it didn't have much meaning, except the biblical meaning, but I came out of that dream shocked, with that image, and from there the desire and intention to come to the city of Boston, and moving from Cambridge, where God had given us a beautiful temple, free of charge, we had adopted it from a church that had died, an American church, had literally given up the spirit and they had ceased to exist and we barely had 6 months of life. having been founded as a church and we moved from here from Boston, from the Center to Cambridge and there we took possession of that beautiful church, in a very beautiful area of the city, middle class, upper middle class, houses of one family, two families, and there we moved, and we were there 15 years s growing as a church, becoming more or less strong, defining our identity, fighting some battles and when the Lord's time has come... because God has his moments, do you understand? The Christian life is a life of processes, and God is in control of each moment. And when the time of maturity comes, God says: now you have to move to another place. It is so good when one walks in the will of the Lord, brothers.

It's so good when you know that your life is governed by God's timing, that you don't just move because they offered you a better job, or because you got tired of the cold, or whatever, your you move because God gives you the freedom to do so, because God puts a weight and says: now, take your tent and move to another place. Or when..... that is to say that you know that you move in the divine will, because then God gives you directives. And God told us at one point, through that dream, "I want you to move out of here." We had no reason to move from that place. We had a fully paid temple, we were in a very convenient area and as I say, a good, very comfortable neighborhood, central to a certain extent, in terms of trains and other things. However, God told us “it is time for you to move out of there”.

That dream is like it uncovered something and activated another component in our spirit. And I shared that dream with the congregation, and I shared... some of you know why you were there and a search began for a new place to move to and now I understand how stupid I was at that time. If I had known everything that awaited us, I would not have gotten into that mess. But God sometimes blinds us so that we do not understand what we have to go through so that we throw ourselves into the waters, and we begin to search and find this place where you are. And before we moved here, I had also shared with the church, the idea or the vision, that our church change its name from Iglesia Bautista Central, which was its original name, to Congregación León de Judá and we discussed it, and this and the other, and we determined that we were going to call ourselves the Lion of Judah Congregation when the time came to move here. And I remember that when I came here, I visited this place that God provided us in a very providential, very beautiful way, and with the second or third visit that I made, while we were negotiating with the owner of this place, which was a store here, I I went out into the street for a moment and when I looked ahead I saw the facade of the church and there was, and there is a lion's face that is placed there. If you go to the glass door, you look up, you see the lion's face there. And I felt that this was the confirmation that God wanted us here. And after years of work we moved here and here we are.

And I know what God put in the spirit when he spoke of the Lion of Judah and gave that mark to us. We are not lions yet, we are lion cubs, but we are not lions. God still wants this church to come to be, to reach its "lionity" and we are going to get there in the name of the Lord, we are on our way to that. But it is so, brothers, God speaks through dreams, but we have to dare to dream and we have to appropriate it. When God puts an image in your spirit He doesn't necessarily put it perfectly drawn, with all its mustaches, and its little things, no... what the Lord puts is simply an embryo in you, a seed, like when man impregnates to the woman and plants a seed and that seed grows and multiplies and develops inside the woman's womb, until she gives birth.

And that was what God put in Joseph's womb when he gave him that dream. What God put in Joseph was his life that was going to guide him for the rest of the years, and from that moment on, Joseph's life gravitated towards the dream that God put in him. Joseph already now, was on his way to what God had put. And that is why I tell you, brothers, we have to learn to dream because what God, that we see in the Scripture of dreams, God wants to reactivate that in his people. And God wants us to dream dreams again.

When I say that, I remember what Joel's word says that I didn't think of this morning, if you want find it before I do, where he talks about the end times...... the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, where it says that... 2:28 "... after this I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions". This is the time now, brethren, "....and also on the servants and on the handmaids I will pour out my spirit in those days." This is the time of dreams and visions. And it occurs to me that we have to stop for a moment here and pray to activate that word in this Congregation so that God begins to give us dreams and visions. May our old men dream dreams, our young men see visions, and know what it says, that your male servants and your female servants, why did the Lord add your male servants and your female servants? That is to say, your slaves and your slaves, because God's visitation was not only for good people, it was not only for privileged people, it was not only for people obviously capable of dreaming dreams, but it was also for humble people, simple, that they felt that they had no right to enter into that inheritance that God had for the last times.

What God is saying is that in the last days God is going to pour out the ability to dream and envision not only on those who are prepared but on the little ones in the congregation, on the people who feel that they are insignificant and not having much to give. On you God also wants to pour out your dreams and your visions. What's more, God is going to enjoy starting with the little ones in the congregation, with young people, with people who are not very educated, the Lord wants to make you dream dreams and see visions. And we have to say to the Lord: “Father, I want that, I desire it”, because the gifts are received when one invites them to come and when one is hungry and thirsty for them, then God activates them. And when we say holy spirit we are ready for you to come and visit us and impregnate us with your dreams.

How about we take a moment now? Stand up for a second, we are going to ask the Lord, we are going to take a break, ask the Lord to visit us with his dream now.

This is the time for God to activate in us, get well, pay attention to this moment. You feel the presence of the Lord right now. Father, we want to be a people of the spirit, a people of gifts, Lord, a people saturated with your spirit, we want to be a people saturated with your spirit, we want to be a Pentecostal people. This time, Lord, we believe is the time of your visitation. We open our hands, we open our spirit, Father. We ask right now that you implant in this congregation everything that is here, Lord, dreams and visions, ability to move, to live in the spirit. Unleash your gifts in Jesus name. We release gifts, Lord, in the people of God. Ability to dream dreams, to see visions, to conceive things at night, Father. You are going to disturb us at night so that we receive the implantation of your spirit. Lord I release in the name of Jesus the ability to see in secret places. You are going to be speaking to us, Father, because you want to give us instructions. We believe that this is the time Joel speaks of, times of dreams and visions for your children, Father. In the name of Jesus receive that ability. We unleash the ability to dream to envision in the name of Jesus, in the people of God, receive it in the name of Jesus. Receive in the name of Jesus.

This is the time to dream dreams, to see visions, to speak in tongues, for revelations, for healings, for miracles, for prodigies, for prophecy. It is the time of the Lord. Thank you Father, thank you. Give us the capacity of Joseph. Give us the ability of Daniel. Give us the capacity of Jacob, Lord. Revelation, Father to receive dreams and to interpret dreams, Lord. To receive visions and to interpret visions and to declare them, Lord in the midst of the earth. Hallelujah! Receive in the name of Jesus and begin to dream and when you dream, declare the dreams, write them down and ask the Lord to give you the interpretation of those dreams. And if you think it is something, share it with the leaders of the congregation. Because God wants to bring revelation. Cultivate the ability to dream. That is a gift that is developed through practice. And ask the Lord to remind you of your dreams when you dream them, because many times we dream and then we forget our dreams, but cultivate them in the name of Jesus. We drop that ability now. Thank my Lord. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Glory to God.

Have a seat, brothers. So I said, brothers, we have to cultivate that capacity. José was marked by his dream and when José received that visitation his life immediately began to move towards the dream. Everything that began to happen, including the hatred of his brothers, the plan they had to harm him, all of God made him conspire so that Joseph would get to where he had to go. And one thing is the following, when you dream, when God places a vision in your life, if God has placed a concern in your life, do not be discouraged if it takes time for the dream to come true, because many times the dreams of God are not fulfilled overnight. It takes a long time. A child is not born immediately after the woman conceives, but it takes 9 months of great anguish and a great process for life to finally come to light. And so too many times God's dreams will take time. Jose took a long time. When God told him that, he himself did not fully understand what he was referring to, but God gave him little pieces of what He wanted to show him and they passed, I think it took more than 10 years before Joseph received his dream. If God puts in you, God has put in you something, a concern, a vision about life, something that you want to do, something that you want to achieve, a calling that you feel He has given you. Cultivate that, you have to water that little plant, do not allow that even if a long time passes you throw it aside, but keep it alive always and be attentive to what God tells you.

Another thing about dreams. Be careful who you share your dreams with. José shared his dream with people who did not understand. What's more, they felt threatened by them and many times the dreams that God puts in you, will disturb the principalities and powers or will even question the structures around you, will, as I said, disturb the status quo. , they will sometimes be dreams that are going to confront and in the case of José, his dreams were very, very disturbing and unpleasant for his brothers who did not want to see him in that position of authority, and even for his father who did not I understood all that God was doing. If we sometimes share our dreams prematurely, brothers, and with the wrong people, they will want to kill our dreams. So when you conceive a dream, keep it quiet for a while, pray about the dream and when God gives you the freedom to start sharing it, then start sharing it. And meanwhile be careful with whom, make sure that they are people of vision, that they are people who understand the mysteries of God, that they are people who believe in these things, because otherwise the danger is that your enthusiasm will be killed before its time and that you begin to think that those are simply creations of your imagination.

So it is very important that you allow the precise moment to begin to declare what God has placed in your life. Only in this time I have begun to feel a little freer, as I said in prayer this morning, to declare dreams that God has placed in my life when I was little, and that I have fed them all these years and I feel that The time is drawing near to begin to declare it more clearly, because I believe that a time has also come to begin to speak about what God has placed in our lives. But meanwhile you have to be very careful. One has to be very sober with the dreams that God gives us because many times, if we also launch ourselves prematurely instead of maturing the dream and making sure that it is from God, we discredit the art of dreaming. Sometimes many people are saying: Oh, God told me this, God told me that, and it's not like that, so that precious gift is cheapened. So we have to be very careful how we farm, how we declare, when we speak, who we tell. It is very important that we move in God's time.

But another very important thing is that, when God puts a dream and you are sure that it is from God and the time comes for you to speak about it, he begins to declare the dream. Start sharing it because by sharing it with your mouth, you will be prophesying about that dream and you will be activating it even more. So you also have to dare, when it is God's time to start speaking and prophesying about the dream.

Another thing also about dreams. It is important that if God has put in you a vision about something that God wants you to do, a concern, a ministry, an achievement that you feel that God wants to bring you, it is important that you celebrate that and that you look at it and that you visualize it in all its details and that you see yourself inside that dream. God likes us to cultivate and celebrate the dream. In the Book of Hebrews it says that many expected the city that was built by the hands of God and not by the hands of men. She says that they greeted her from afar and celebrated her from afar. And it is important that we learn, when God puts a concern, a desire in our lives that we visualize those things, that we take time to meditate on it, that we take time to write it down, develop it, think about it, so that this dream becomes active. more and more. I think there are many people who dream, but they dream in general terms, they don't dream in specific terms. And it is important to put such dreams that we dream and it is also important to add intensity to dreams.

I was talking to the brothers about Jabez's dream, in First Corinthians, Chapter 4, verse 9 onwards. Jabez conceived a dream, and notice when I talk about a dream, brothers, it can be anything. A young woman told me when we finished our service here that her dream is to go to Boston College, a very good university here in the city of Boston, and for me that is something that God has placed in her. Her mom told me she wants to go to Boston College. Well, there is a dream and I asked him what are you doing to go towards that dream? And I realized that she still needed to take steps for the dream to activate. But it could be something like that, it could be that God has put in you a dream of preaching the gospel or going on a missionary trip, as a group of brothers did to the Dominican Republic this summer, and God blessed that dream in an extraordinary way. It may be that God is calling you ..... a desire to have an ideal marriage, a blessed marriage and your marriage is now far from that, so take that dream and visualize, visualize your marriage, blessed, visualize yourself sitting with your husband eating in a restaurant and good conversation between you, laughter, intimacy being shared at that moment. Visualize blessing others, the arguments they have and fights removed and replaced by a home of peace. And visualize these things and celebrate them and thank the Lord and keep that dream alive. Or it may be for a young man dreams of financial success and professional achievement. Well, take that dream and take it into your heart and ask God to baptize it with his approval and then keep your life there, in light of that dream.

I'm going to share something about that in a little while. But that, brothers, it is important that our dreams have a body, we need to intensify them with passion and emotion. Jabez had a dream, First Chronicles, Chapter 4, verse 9. Go there a little while.

It says that “...Jabes was more illustrious than his brothers”. What does that mean that Jabez was more illustrious than his brothers? I think it means that Jabez was more noble than his brothers, like God gave him the ability to dream something, to desire something, he had a noble heart and Jabez dared to come before God and believe God. Many of us brothers do not have enough knowledge of God to believe that He is a loving and noble and faithful Father, that if He tells us "Ask me, I will give you", we do not dare to ask. There is no nobility in our hearts many times to love God with the soul, with the spirit and then we do not feel that call to come before the presence of God. Jabez had a special gift, and he says that he was more illustrious than his brothers and there is an important detail that says that his mother called Jabez, gave him a name, she says "...because I gave birth to him in pain." The name they gave Jabez was a name of failure, a name that wasn't going to get very far.

Imagine if you were named Sore, right? What a pretty name for you to announce your presence! What is your name? Oh, my name is Sore. Or conceived in pain. His mom gave him that name, Jabez had the mark of failure in his life. Jabez had no chance of being a successful man, but Jabez conceived that and look at what he says, that "....Jabes called on the God of Israel saying: Oh, if you would give me a blessing", and I told the brothers this tomorrow, that "Oh" is what we need to cultivate. We need to cultivate an "Oh" that comes from deep within.

Everyone say “Oh”. That is. It is an "Oh" that has to come from the depths of the earth.

When your desire, when your need reaches the point of "Oh", that is where God responds many times, but while your dreams are more or less general dreams, careless, from time to time, God it's usually not going to give you what you need. God wants to bring your dreams to the point of red hot, where you want something and if you don't receive it, you die.

As Ana told her husband. Her husband told her: “but, Ana, if I love you”, Ana couldn't have children, “but if you are my favorite, if everything I have is yours”. But what Ana wanted was a son. Ana wanted her entrails to be released by a son and Ana began to cry and cheer and God gave her not only a son, but a Samuel and gave her other children. And Jabez said to him: "Oh, Lord, if you would bless me, if you would give me a blessing" -and look how specific Jabez was- "...if you would give me a blessing, if you would enlarge my territory, if your hand would be with me, if you would deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me” – you see how specific Jabez was. This is how you have to be in the requests and in the dreams that you present before the Lord. You have to put hands and feet on your dreams, you have to cultivate them, you have to celebrate them, you have to pour water on that little plant of your dreams. It's the only way God is going to......... but Jabez dared to ask God for his dream, and what happened, what does the Bible say here, what did God do? It says: ".... God granted him what he asked for."

Dare to dream, brother, sister. I believe that many of us have killed our ability to dream, because in childhood they did not bless us, our parents, the poor, did what they could but they did not engender in us the ability to yearn for great things and believe that we could go far. and that we could do great things in the Lord. There is nothing impossible for a child of God, brothers. I would like to plant in you that certainty that God can do anything in your life, if you dare to conceive it and then throw yourself day by day to pour a little water on the bush of your dreams. God wants to give you the nations, God wants to give you your children, God wants to give you your health, God wants to give you peace of heart, God wants to give you a peaceful sleep, God wants depression to flee from your life. God wants pessimism, in defeatism to get out of your life. God wants the afflictions you are facing to be overcome and for you to be free to fly like the eagle. But you have to dare to believe in God's dreams and to conceive great things and then to launch yourself in search of how Joseph believed his dream and God immediately unleashed what he needed to make his dream come true.

Isaiah 54. "Enlarge the site of your tent and the curtains of your rooms are extended, do not be scarce, lengthen your ropes, reinforce your stakes because you will extend to the right hand and to the left hand and your descendants will inherit nations and inhabit devastated cities. Raise a song, give voices for joy, the one who was never in labor, because there are more children of the forsaken than the married, Jehovah has said.

Brothers, God is continually inviting us to believe great things, to believe that He is going to do wonderful things. "Call to me and I will answer you and I will teach you great and hidden things that you do not know." Dare to believe in God's dreams, dreams in God. And finally if you have a dream, and you present it before the Lord, begin to live your life in light of that dream and to make decisions in light of that dream. Align your life with that dream. For example, if a person says to me, I would like to become the CEO of a corporation, a young man tells me that. Well, Glory to God for that, that's good, that's a beautiful dream. But don't think that just because you have that dream, and you pray to the Lord that the dream is going to come magically. You have to take that dream, put it inside your heart, present it before the Lord, pray for it continuously, but it will be better that you get to work hard and study and strive to conceive excellence, discipline, skills, in your being. the character, the relationships that are necessary to reach that position.

When we were there in Israel we met a beautiful couple from Ecuador. This man was in high politics in Ecuador for a time in his life, but he had some great upheavals and even had to flee Ecuador as a refugee, as an exile and he spent some time abroad and returned to Ecuador, and he feels and has received a lot of prophecy from many people, who have told him that he is going to be president of Ecuador at some point. And I believe it because he is a very special man and his wife, a beautiful woman, a precious servant of the Lord, very, very solid people. I believe that one day they could be a couple chosen by God for that, people who love the Lord, noble in many ways, and who have very solid values.

And I was able to share with him on the last day almost when we were going to the hotel where we were going to stay before going back and I talked to him, and he.....I saw, because he was not doing anything, but just waiting on the Lord, that God was going to lift him up and take him to that position. Now I was telling him, "look brother, allow me, with all due respect, I want to come in because I want to plant a seed in you because maybe God - I was very careful, very cautious in telling him, but - I told him "maybe God is calling you so that your first you start and run for the Senate or for the Legislature and that you go creating a name for yourself again. He has a philanthropic foundation that he is running and that he has formed for social work. I told him, “look, there is possibly the key, because by making yourself known as a person who is doing works of social justice and other things, you can go on making yourself known publicly and use that as a starting point. Perhaps God wants to use you then so that you learn about politics, that your name be known, run for a legislature, for a Senate and from there then God can throw you to the next stage, and God can take you. And I believe that God is going to take you to the presidency, but start somewhere in between.

So I think it is important that we be as mystical, as there are people out there who dream everything, in prophecies, and God told me, and God is going to do this to you and it will do the other, but, brothers, when we conceive a dream from God we have to get to work too. Because God is going to meet you along the way, do you understand? And God is going to do his part but you have to do yours too. And you have to use the understanding that God gives you, the wisdom, the skill, the tools that God gives you to go towards the dream. And you have to be living your whole life towards that dream and you have to be diligent too to make the dream come true.

Look what happened to Jose. Joseph was in jail and Pharaoh's cupbearer and the baker had a dream, remember? And José interpreted it for him because José had that gift of sleep as Daniel had too. And then what did Joseph say to the baker and the cupbearer? He told them: “When you go out and the dream that I have revealed to you comes true, tell Pharaoh about me. What happened? Jose was diligent. Many of us wouldn't dare say that, but Joseph said, "Hey, Lord, I've helped you so remember me when you're out there, too." He was diligent and that helped make the dream come true. because? Which was it, again I forget the baker or the butler that... the butler, yes, they cut off the baker's head, he had the basket of bread here on his head. When the cupbearer had spent time, the cupbearer remembered what Joseph had told him and the favor he had done for him, and he told Pharaoh. See then how the initiative of the man Joseph asking him to remember him when he left, and the initiative of God who wanted to take Joseph to the vice presidency of Egypt, met and the dream was fulfilled. It is very important that if you have a vision that you do your part so that the vision, the dream comes true.

There are little brothers who want to be, speak to crowds and preach the Gospel like Billy Graham but when it comes time to sign up for a discipleship class they are too busy. you understand? When the time comes to go to a women's congress or something like that, they don't have time, they don't have money, their feet get cold, and sleep becomes inactive, because God expects you to do your part so that the dream come true, come true. You have to be diligent. The dream is simply a vehicle that God uses, but God wants you to do your part too, so push yourself, be dynamic. God gave Joshua a dream, and told him “I am going to give you all the land that the soles of your feet tread on, but I remind you of one thing, look, I command you to make an effort and be brave. Do not fear or dismay, I will be with you. May my word not be scarce in your life. Exercise yourself.”

It is important that you, if you have a dream that God has placed in your life, in your spirit, that you take steps of faith and dare to do things that advance that dream. You have to live watching, spying to see. I live, brothers, I tell you, Meche knows it because we talked about it many times, there are dreams in my life and I am always observing what I live about that dream, that vision that God has placed, and when I see something that ......it seems that the dream is advancing, I am very alert, very attentive and I pay a lot of attention to see if that is something that is going to take me and it is going to bring me closer to the realization of my dream, the dream of God in my life. And then I'm willing to invest.

This trip that I mentioned to Israel, you know because years ago, many of you know that I wanted to go to Israel for years, and there has always been something that interfered and I had never activated myself to go to Israel, but when Juan Carlos and Fanny and others who went to Israel recently came, and they almost forced me to go and put a lot of pressure on me to go. This was the worst of times for me to go to Israel, for me to make a trip of 11 days, so many things that are happening right now in the church, and so much responsibility that one has. But you know what? That I began to listen and I felt that in that call from these brothers and in that pressure there was something from God that was telling me: this is going to take you closer to the dream and it is time.

And so I said, well, Lord, I'm going to take a risk, I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but I said, well, who knows if God has something for me there. And then I dared to take the step of taking that trip with fears and tremors and a lot of doubts, but I did it, because I live in the light of the dream that God has placed in my spirit, and if I am a pastor today and I left my academic ambitions and all this is because one day when God told me: Would you like to shepherd this small congregation, which is just beginning”, I felt that saying yes to the Lord brought me closer to the dream that God had put in me when I was little. And I have been working in this church for 22 years, 21..... 1884, 21 years, pastoring it, still waiting for the full realization of God's dream. 21 years huh? And forty-something that God spoke to me as a child about something that I still don't fully discern, what God is up to, but I know that there is something there that God has put in my spirit, and I live with it, thinking about it, meditating on it, wondering if it is from God, if it is not from God, if it is a figment of imagination, but that dream animates my life. It is like a magnetic compass that predisposes me to certain things and that is what one has to do when God speaks to our life brothers. We have to believe. This is not my imagination, this is from God. And appropriate it, and then we begin to interpret life, the circumstances, the meetings, the events, the opportunities in light of the dream and God imparts more clarity, more precision to the dream and then the dream becomes more concrete in our life. . Let the dream of God fill your life. Cultivate the ability to dream. Incubate the dream in stillness and in prayer and in fasting and God will take you as he took Joseph to meet that dream.

May the Lord bless you. Let's lower our heads, now, and I invite the musicians to spend a little while here. God's dreams. God wants a congregation of daydreamers, of visionaries, that is the word of God for your life. God wants to activate his dreams in us, he wants to impregnate us with a fresh vision. And when God gives a dream He promises to bring it to reality, but work on it, educate it, instruct it, cultivate it and cultivate yourself too so that you have the capacity to handle what God wants to give you. Thank my Lord. We adore you, Father. we bless you

Lord, we believe this afternoon that your word is going to mark the lives of your children. This word that your life has, Lord, within it, and by speaking it, Lord, and launching it into the sensitivity of your people, it becomes a reality. May your children, Lord, be impregnated this afternoon by the good word that comes out of your mouth. We want to be dreamers and visionaries, Lord. Thank you because you are still in the matter of ¿? . we received your revelation, Father. Thanks God. Amen. Amen. Amen.

We are going to sing that chorus that says “...God will make paths where you think there are none”. You may not know how the dream is going to come true in your life, but God is going to make it a reality.