The attitude of triumph (Part 4)

Hebrews, let's go to Chapter 12. I'm going to read verses 1 and 2 and from there I'm going to extract my thoughts, my meditations, my words that I hope are absolutely in alignment with the words of the Holy Spirit, that's what matters truly.

Hebrews, Chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. The brothers who do not have their Bible, well listen to me and simply follow me. Says the word of the Lord, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2: "Therefore we also -and put your name there, that we are you, it is me- we too, having such a great cloud of witnesses around us, let us strip ourselves of all weight and sin that besieges us and let us run with patience the race that lies ahead of us. Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the reproach, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The Lord bless his holy word. Let's see how we enter this very interesting text. I shared with the brothers in the 9 o'clock service about my experience with these two verses. You know that in these last weeks, and I hope to have much more continuity in these next Sundays, I could not be with you last Sunday because I was preaching in another place; but I want as much as possible to continue with this theme of the life of prosperity in the Lord, the life of success in the Lord.

How to achieve success in life? What are the elements that make up a successful life? What are the practices, attitudes, mental habits that lead us to live a life of achievement, success, self-improvement, a successful life in other words? Because I always say, you will remember, what we have said that the Lord said that he has come so that we may have life and life in abundance. But there is a method behind it, there is a science, we could say, of the spirit behind it. And what we want is in these meditations to explain what those elements are so that you can receive them and incorporate them into your life.

So I shared with you, I think, the last time that one of the things that the Lord had put in my heart was this idea that in success it is very important to visualize, to be able to visualize things, to be able to see the things that one desires, to be able to capture them on the screen of the mind and sensitivity and to be able to visualize what one wants to achieve in the Lord. That's so important.

And in my search for texts that support this, one of the texts that was offered was precisely Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. However, when I started reading it, because one kind of remembers words from a text then When he looks it up, examines it again, I realize that in these verses 1 and 2, there is a wealth, a treasure trove of elements that are very important to living a successful life.

Now, you may be wondering how we can get that out of here, because I believe that if you look, I believe that the first intention of the writer of those two verses in Hebrews, was more of a purpose, let's say that we focus our eyes on Christ. It's almost like an evangelistic purpose, but also of spiritual life for the believer, right? To keep his gaze fixed on Jesus, who is the source of power and encouragement, etc.

But guess what? I believe that this is the upper part of that text, but underneath there is a whole structure of some elements that can be applied, I believe, to any noble, lofty purpose that one has in life. The purpose here is: look, follow the race with your eyes fixed on Christ because he is the source of all authority, of all power, of all encouragement, and if you do that you can reach the goal.

And that is precious, but that goal can be something material, it can be something emotional, it can be something personal that you want to achieve in your life, it can be a purely physical goal like buying a house, or having a college diploma, or go to seminary and get your diploma like our brother Stephen Johnson did yesterday afternoon. Whatever the goal, there is here, I believe in these two verses a structure that you can apply in any aspect of life. And it is what I want and I am sure that I am not going to reach all the text today. And I've told the brothers that I want to take my time.

In these weeks we want to take the Gospel and bring it down to the level of practical life, of daily life and put into practice those precious elements that are in the word of God to live successful lives.

Then let's get down to business. And look at some of the things that I see here, some of the key elements to a life of success, a life of continuous improvement. I see it in the next few words of these two verses. For example, when the writer says: "having such a great cloud of witnesses around us...", there is something very important for a life of success and excellence. The fact that we have a lot of people with their eyes on us.

The concept of letting go of all weight is important for one to achieve success. You have to get rid of things. "......and the sin that besieges us"; there is an important element there of the siege of a whole series of negativities around us that push against us and want to prevent us from entering a higher level of life.

It says to "... run with patience." Patience is a very important element in the pursuit of success and goals. It says “..... the race ahead of us”. It is important to have things in front of you, to direct yourself towards them and align your life according to what you are pursuing.

It also talks about “....let us fix our eyes on Jesus”. That idea that with your eyes set, you have to set your eyes on things to reach them. He says that the Lord ".....because of the joy set before him", and the joy of reaching the goal is important to be able to go through the next thing, he says "....he suffered the cross despising the opprobrium". When we put joy before us, we can then forget the difficulties, the vicissitudes of the search for success and encourage us to reach the goal. And finally he says that by belittling the reproach ".... he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.", which was the final goal.

And that happens, when you carry out and put into practice these principles that are exposed here, you also, in a sense, sit at the right hand of God, in the sense that you reach your goal. You are exalted, you are lifted up, you reach a higher level of life. You improve your situation as a result of practicing these habits of mind and these attitudes that lead to success.

I hope you can see that I am not stretching the text too much, because what God has given us here is simply a structure, a skeleton on which we can put whatever clothing we want. Like those dolls that girls use, the toys that are like a little paper doll and then they put different dresses on top of it. Well, the paper doll is the structure, on top of that you can put any goal you want, be it to be a stronger man in the Lord, to be a more self-confident woman, to be a more studious and disciplined young man. , get to the ministry, or whatever, these elements are important.

Now, let's go to the first one. It says here "... having around us such a great cloud of witnesses." Look, brothers, one of the very important things that we have to understand as men and women of God is that there are many people who are constantly looking at us. When you enter the Gospel there are many eyes on you: the eyes of your family, it may be your husband who has not yet believed in the Lord; your kids start to see if mom is going to change or not; your neighbors want to know if the Gospel that you are preaching is truly worth following or not.

When one receives the Lord Jesus Christ, brothers, one becomes a public entity. You are no longer a merely private being. Now you have to walk as ambassadors walk, as presidents walk, as the directors of a great institution walk, you are representing the institution, the kingdom to which you belong.

So, I believe that is why, brothers, that we as children of God, as people of a redeemed race, cannot afford to live a mediocre life, because the spirit that God has made dwell in For us it is a spirit of excellence, it is a spirit of power, it is a spirit of transformation, and for us to live a conformist life, a truncated life, a life that does not represent progress, is a waste.

That is why the Apostle Paul told Timothy "I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you by the laying on of my hands because God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of what?, of power, of love and of self-control”. Amen.

So, that is what you have inside of you and the world expects to see that it is inside of you because of your works, because of the lifestyle you live, because of the achievements you achieve, because of the excellence of your behavior. Brothers, we always have to live with that awareness that I represent the Kingdom of God in my walk. When I enter a place I take the Kingdom of God with me and I have many people who are looking to see if the Kingdom of God works or not in me.

We have to be aware of this idea that we have a great cloud of witnesses, not to live paranoid as they are always watching us and guilty. No, but to know that we have to set an example for others because God has made us bearers of the word of reconciliation in Christ Jesus. Amen.

God has made us, brothers, reconcilers. God has made us examples, he has made us a showcase for the Kingdom of God and when people look at us they want to see the Kingdom of God exposed in us. And that's why it's so important that we set an example for each other in the way we live, the goals we set for ourselves, the achievements we achieve.

Parents have to be aware that they have a cloud of witnesses around them, their children are called, for example. How are you going to produce disciplined children, children who excel themselves, studious children, children who love to read books, if there are no books in your house, if you don't read, if you don't set goals, if you don't Do you exemplify the glory of God in your life? Our children learn from us bad habits from good habits.

So one always has to be aware: my children are watching me. And you know that the way you form the character of your children is sometimes not so much what you tell them, but what you are, what you experience, what you project. A small change, the slightest change in the character of a child, sometimes requires thousands of interventions, words, actions, silences, everything.

We are always declaring things with our actions. When I asked the men to come forward to agree and to..... is it why? It is because, brothers, I have in my mind a church where both the man and the woman walk together before the Lord. Communities decline when only women are seeking God and appetizing for God's anointing and broken before the Lord. What example are we giving our children if they only see women here in front of them? That teenager who is there with a single mom and who has been told over there that religion is only for mommy's sons and for the effeminate, if he doesn't see men with their hair on their chests here in front of them seeking God, how are they going to fall in love with the Gospel? You understand?

So, with an intervention like this we are an example to others, we are declaring something. We want to be a church that exemplifies the balance of the Kingdom of God. So we have a cloud of witnesses. I am continually aware that what people see is just as important as what I can say from the pulpit.

If people only see men or women in the Kingdom of God, then they will identify with that. And we have to say: No, we have a cloud of witnesses, meaning that everything we do has to give a consistent message. That's why we have to live in a way. It says ".... having before us such a great cloud of witnesses let us behave in a certain way."

Human beings need models to form an image. That is one of the arguments, precisely about homosexual marriage: why am I against it? I had a series of conversations with a highly developed man, a theologian, who I love and who loves me, but who told me: "I am disappointed", with much love and respect, when I was now in Indianapolis.

He told me: “I feel a little disappointed”, he told me “because I have realized, I discovered your role in all this homosexual marriage”. And all this causes me pain. I had to explain to him why I have adopted that position, not because I like it, but I believe, brothers, that God wanted there to be a man and a woman in each home so that the son, looking at his mother and father, would develop a balanced sexuality There are things that man projects and models. There are things that women project and model and we as integral human beings need both.

We need to feel the rough and heavy and hairy hand of a dad caressing our skin, and we also need to feel the soft chest of a mother that draws us to her and remember those things when we are still in old age. We need a mother's softness and her nurturing and accepting and clinging and embracing nature. And the father too, who with his rough voice, or with his stronger hand, develops certain things in man. And the man to be balanced needs something of the woman and the man, and the woman to be balanced needs something of the man and the woman within her.

How are children going to receive that with only two dads or two moms? We are recreating truncated beings. And of course, one can say: 'well, you can get it from your uncles or whatever'. No, it's fine, but why look for a remedy when what God established as necessary is there and that is a man and a woman in a home.

So, that's one of many, many arguments one can offer. But it is the idea that human beings learn through example. And we have to be examples to each other. And that is why as Christians we need to live exemplary lives, live lives of achievement, live lives of entrepreneurship, live lives of work, effort, excellence, always aiming for the stars, always having high goals in our lives, always being looking for something better, being conquerors of new territories and not settling for what we are, always looking for more and more of the greatness to which God has called us as his children.

Because God did not create garbage, God created conquerors of the spirit, adventurers. That's what God has. God does not create garbage. And you are someone who can reach the maximum. That is why in our vision as a church we say: we want to be an exemplary church. Because? Because we want to bless other churches.

And God has made us an example for the glory of the Lord because it has pleased him, it is not for us. And I am always aware as a pastor that God has placed León de Judá as a church to which people look and always be for the exclusive glory of the Lord and God keep us. And that is why we have blessed the Hispanic community and other communities, because that is important and that encourages us.

I want us to be an exemplary church. It says “....showing excellence” in evangelism, in administration, in community involvement and in preparing leaders to be effective servants of the Kingdom of God. So, because the world needs excellence. The Latino community needs excellence to have a model to follow and that then encourages us to try to be the best we can. And that should encourage you too because you have a great cloud of witnesses around you who are looking to see the principles of the Kingdom of God displayed in the way you live.

Having before us a great cloud of witnesses. The Apostle then says that he writes Hebrews in the following word "..... let's get rid of all weight". Do you know that for one to change in life and reach a behavior of excellence and greatness, there are sometimes many things that one first has to get rid of before doing the things one wants to do?

I have learned in practice renovating buildings, in which I have been involved for ten years, one thing and that is that in order to put a new structure in an existing building, you have to knock down walls, you have to to knock down things to then put new things.

In the pursuit of success, one must first tear down things, remove things from one's mind, from the practices and habits of life, and then one puts new habits and new attitudes in their place. If you want to achieve success in your life you have to start changing things in you.

To live successful lives you have to get rid of many impurities, bad habits, bad attitudes. The word always speaks of one taking off things to be able to put on new things.

Look, a good part of life is destroying, minimizing. Nowadays in science, it has been discovered that the structures need to be as economical as possible. Look at the cars, for example, look at certain cars like Porsche cars, even some Nissan and Toyota cars and all this, look at how smooth their exteriors are, how they are today more and more aerodynamically made. They have reduced all ornaments and external things.

If you look at cars from the 1970s or 1980s they look so stuffy on the outside compared to today's cars that they are so smooth, because they make them smoother and smoother so that when they go through the wind have less resistance so they can run more economically. Airplanes take all the roughness out of the outer shell and make it absolutely smooth so that when they are racing through the air they can go through the air with little or no resistance at all. And so we must also be with ourselves.

When one is running the race of life, when one wants to reach some goal, one has to reduce everything that is negative in one's life, every attitude, every practice, every behavior, every relationship, everything that drags on your life, take it off. Get rid of it so that you can swiftly run the race of faith that you have before you.

That means that we have to change the things of the past. If there are negative, destructive thoughts in your life, past hurts, bad memories, past mental habits, depressive attitudes, self-defeating words in your vocabulary, get rid of all that. If there is a friendship that drags you down, that causes you to stop in your life, a conversation with someone that is not good, a television program that you watch that does not suit you; throw all that down, get rid of it, throw it into the sea so that your ship can reach the other shore.

We have to get rid of everything that is negative. I wrote something this morning and I want to share it with you. It says: to be successful in life and I am emphasizing this idea of less, of stripping away. To be successful in life you have to eat less, sleep less, watch less television, eat less chops and more vegetables, read less destructive books and more of the word, gossip less and have better conversations, throw away some old friends, hand over the cable television, buy less low-cut suits, stop speaking ill of the in-laws, bless our children instead of cursing them, take the stairs instead of the elevator, drink water instead of Coca Cola, buy more with cash and less on credit, give it all for loss to gain it all. A lot of success in life depends on minimizing, putting things off so that God can put a new clothes on us.

How many people are there in the churches, brothers, who are dying because they do not want to detach themselves from destructive habits and practices in their life? The mother who is constantly speaking badly to her children and telling them that they are not going to be successful and swearing at life; the father who abuses his wife and children and makes a negative presence in the home; the person who speaks and with his mouth criticizes and destroys and makes people feel bad; the person who has not surrendered mental habits and moral practices that are destructive to his life; all these things, brothers, are things that we must put off so that the garment of Christ can be put on us.

Stripping us of all weight. If you want to be successful in life you have to examine your life and see what things you need to change. But this element of dispossession, of removing oneself is in all the words.

Look at Ephesians, Chapter 4, verse 22 to 24, for example. The Apostle Paul says there: “as for the past way of living, -that is, those attitudes, those habits, those practices that are not appropriate-, as for the past way of living, get rid of the old man. The old man is not only the moral and immoral, sexual part of life, the old man is all defeatist attitude.

For example, when they set a big goal for you and you say: No, I can't achieve that because... and in your mind you say: my dad didn't do it, my grandparents didn't they did, I haven't seen anyone in my immediate community so I can't do it. It is the attitude that does not allow you to think beyond your moment and your situation. And the Lord says: you have to get rid of that old man, -from those bad attitudes that prevent you from entering an ambitious life, full of great and powerful goals-, get rid of the old man who is corrupted according to deceitful desires... .”

Deception, self-deception, the lies we tell ourselves, thought patterns that project our shortcomings onto others instead of us looking at who we are and accepting our responsibility, blaming others In addition, deceit and lies are the mother of all neurosis. And when the truth of God enters our life there is cleanliness, there is freedom, there is healing, that is why on the road to success one has to make a pact to death with the truth.

I have said it many times, we have to look for people who tell us hard things, even if we don't like it because that is healing for our lives. Don't look for people who support you and affirm you in bad things and bad defects. Look for healthy, honest people who love you enough to tell you the truth because that is what will bring healing to your life.

Then the Apostle Paul says: "Put off the old man who is corrupted according to deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your mind."

Do you know where successful life begins? Where does the life of achievements and personal transformation and improvement begin? It starts in the mind, it starts in changing thought patterns. Change your way of thinking and it will change your way of living. Change the way you speak and your way of thinking will change. Change your way of practicing and living and it will change your way of thinking.

That is, there are many ways but you have to change your mind, because the mind is the seat of every good thing or every bad thing that leads to a positive life or a negative life.

Then, Paul says: “....renew yourselves in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man created according to God in righteousness and true holiness”.

Do you notice? First strip yourselves, and then put on your clothes. You can't put a new structure on top of an old structure because sooner or later the old structure is going to destroy the other one.

The Lord said: do not put new wine in old wineskins, because when the new wine by nature full of life expands, the old wineskin that cannot contain that life will break because it does not can be stretched Leather becomes hard when it ages, it does not have the flexibility of new leather.

And so it is, brothers, if you want new habits, new practices, new successes, the wineskin of your life has to change, which is your mind. Do you remember that I told you at the beginning that one of the things that you have to change is the solar, the mental space? Because that is what allows us to conceive of new things that we can do.

So, you have to ask the Lord: Lord, renew my mind. That is why the Lord also said "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free". When the truth enters your life, when your mind is renewed, then you can conceive new things for yourself and for your loved ones.

So it is very important to first get rid of old things, old things, old attitudes. Brothers, that is the most beautiful thing in the world. I see so many people tied to practices that if they humbled themselves before God and allowed themselves to be changed, extraordinary things would happen in their lives.

I observe them and I observe men for example, and I don't know why I always end up talking to men because sometimes we are the toughest. I don't know, it's not that I have anything against it, but I have seen brothers here for years closed, stagnant, in a position and at the moment I see that they have changed a little, they allowed the light to enter a little and they humbled themselves a little before their wife or before his church. Listen to me and how they become beautiful in an instant, how God blesses them and they become even more attractive, one wants to be closer to them. They changed.

It's like when you have a thorn in your finger, of course if it's hard when you pull it out it hurts a little, but it's more painful to have it there day after day, after day, poisoning your mind and poisoning your peace There is a little pain but what a blessing. When you remove practices, habits, attitudes, peace, joy, and the freedom of the Lord come into your life.

And you have to examine life. To get rid of things you have to first ask yourself, 'well, how is my life? I was telling the brothers this morning that life has to be made up of retirement times, every two, three months you have to take 3, 4 hours and take a Saturday, so to speak, put aside your work, leave to the boys at school, whatever, get out of your way. If you cannot go to a place of retirement, stay at home and from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. be before God and renew yourself and examine your life, examine what have I been doing in these last 3, 4 months?; how did it go?; Am I reaching the goals that I have set for myself? Are there changes in my life?; What areas do I have to change?

Life, said a philosopher, that unobserved life is not worth living. And unfortunately most of us human beings live unexamined lives. We live simply, continually improvising. We get up, work, go outside, come back and start cleaning the house or doing whatever, or turn on the TV. We never take time to examine ourselves in the light of the holy spirit and determine what things need to change. How am I doing according to the goals that I am proposing? Am I accomplishing the things that God wants me to accomplish in my life? You have to examine, you have to look critically at life, in the light of God's truth. And that requires honesty, it requires great integrity to determine if you are moving towards the goal that you have set for yourself in the Lord. Strip yourselves, says the Apostle who writes the epistle to the Hebrews, of all weight and of the sin that besieges us, and I am going to leave it there.

One more thing. He says get rid of all weight, that is, every negative structure, every bad habit, everything that is not suitable for a clean and successful life and says, "and the sin that besieges us."

You know what that brought to mind? I thought why the Apostle Paul said “the sin that besets us”. What does the word besiege mean? That was where my focus stopped. The word besiege means as when an army surrounds a city and besieges it and puts a fence around it, and puts pressure on the city to tear down its walls so that they can enter it and take control of it. That is siege. To besiege means to surround with intensity and with intentionality to achieve a purpose for what you are besieging and surrounding.

And brothers, if you stop to think, we live in a society, in a culture that besets us with its sin, with its sinful attitudes. We live in a culture where everything conspires to produce distorted minds, to produce self-defeating attitudes. Life is full of bad examples, the modern world in many aspects, brothers, is a big trap. We are surrounded by bad teaching, bad indoctrination. A bombardment of negative influences is continuously coming to us, on television, in the newspapers, in the news, in the things we read, in the advertisements, in publicity, everything tells us 'consume, spend, buy on credit, don't worry. Don't worry about when you're going to pay it off. Such simple things.

Look, one of the... occurs to me this young lady from Harvard University who got a $500,000 contract to write two novels and was later found to have plagiarized parts of the novel. And when I have read the articles about this girl, it does not seem that she did it like that in a way, nor flagrantly, but it is seen that she is a girl who has great potential, she has great talent, but all the newspapers the only thing that They have pointed it out, they have mocked her, they have attacked her, they have condemned her and I have not yet heard a voice of mercy that thinks about the drama of that young woman who perhaps is learning the lesson of her life and that we must also encourage her. And there must be a word of redemption for her too, and of hope for her.

There has not been, there has not been a voice of mercy raised that interferes in the drama of a 17, 18-year-old girl whose world has fallen apart. And I get to thinking, if I were that age and I was in a Harvard university, they would have given me a contract of 500,000 dollars and everyone thought that I was the great thing and at the moment all that falls apart and I am in disgrace before the world, where are the voices of mercy, where are the teachers, where are the moral tutors of society to tell this young lady: 'there is hope for you. You were wrong but you can move on. Don't let that destroy you. Learn a great moral lesson and move on for the next time.'

Because the world we live in is a world devoid of moral, spiritual wisdom. Modern man, by moving away from God and the truths of the Kingdom of God, his mind is a corrupt mind and even while they try to save the whales and dolphins, they cannot save themselves. And they kill each other, and they exploit each other because the mind of modern man is a disapproved mind that produces disapproved advertising, produces disapproved entertainment, produces disapproved books, produces disapproved entertainment.

Failed means that the test has failed. Modern man, modern society cannot instruct us. And yet I see that many times we Christians accept everything that comes to us and we receive it immediately. There is a siege of modern man today, of sin, of bad teaching and that sin is besieging us and we have to get rid of it. We have to ask ourselves: do I want that influence to come into my life?

All these shows that you see, for example, on television, this reality TV where people exploit each other. You see people talking and gossiping about each other, and they reject each other: 'you have to leave the island'. And they are thrown out and disgraced and people celebrate and we Christians applaud that, and we eat dinner in front of the television watching these shows and our minds are being penetrated with those values. Values of ruthless competition, values of criticism without love, values of ambition for money, and of doing anything simply to achieve a moment of news before the world. TV shows where you see a wife tell her husband's most intimate secrets for the first time on TV. And there are Christians who sponsor those shows and sin by giving the world one more reason to present that crap to us. The sin that besieges us.

And you know what that does? This contaminates our mind, dulls it and then prevents us from having the moral energy to achieve goals in life, because it exhausts us spiritually, morally exhausts us. Why do you think that our young people, in the Latino community, the African American community, are not learning, they are not functioning, they are not getting ahead, they are not going to university, they are not taking advantage of the great resources that exist in this society? Listening to that damn music, listening to those destructive images, dressing as they dress, consuming all that mental crap. The devil has created an entire industry, a hellish economy to wear out the spirit, suck the moral, ethical life out of our youth so that they don't have the strength to aspire to great things, to read their books, to want to get ahead. They are morally exhausted, they are spiritually dry. They are ethically destroyed and how much do we cooperate for that? Are we truly living lives that tell the world a lie? Or are our young people watching us do the same things?

Stripping us. We have to get rid of all weight and the sin that besieges us. We live in a culture in which the only option for a child of God is to live against the culture. We have to have the courage to say 'no' to the world, and to make small and big decisions and to have that curse cloud that the devil wants to put in our homes, in our minds, in our hearts. We have to live deliberate lives, lives where I decide what is going to enter my house, my mind, my heart and the hearts of my children, unless we do not make decisions, brothers, because one thing is connected to the other. . With that I'm done.

One thing is connected to the other: if you do not make small decisions, like those in your life, do not expect that your mind will have the creativity to conceive big goals that you will be able to then, how to live life successfully, that God is going to be able to speak to you, that God is going to be able to put his finger on your soft wax and print his desires on you. You have to strip yourself first of all that prevents you from understanding what God wants.

We want to be a fertile ground for the Lord. We want to be a people, brothers, where God can speak freely and to be successful in life, to achieve great things, there are many things that we are going to have to leave behind. I am willing to leave everything today, I no longer want to live more than for the Lord and for his kingdom.

May God use our lives to redeem this already lost humanity, to win lives for Christ and for that we have to live like athletes, with the minimum. The minimum body that allows us to reach the race, the less weight, the easier we can run, the fewer obstacles, the fewer ornaments, the fewer things that tie us to this world, the easier we ascend to the throne of God.

Let's stand up. We are going to tell the Lord 'Father, I recognize that there is a great cloud of witnesses around me, that I have a responsibility to live an entrepreneurial life, a life of success, a life of excellence because I want to be an example, I want to be a model. Help me get rid of every habit that is not convenient, every attitude, every relationship, every conversation, every practice that prevents my life from being a beautiful garden of which you can be proud. And help me to resist the influences of life that want to destroy me and want to conform my mind to the mind of the world.

You have told me 'do not conform to this century, but be transformed through the renewal of your understanding' and I want to do that this afternoon, Father. Brothers, I want God to create a clean community through this congregation and in this congregation, that God raise up a good town, well economic in its way of living, by that I mean devoid of everything that is unnecessary, a town that just live to please your Lord and that you are changing, stripping yourself of everything that prevents you from reaching your goal.

Receive the word of the Lord on this day. Receive it in your heart because it is a living and effective word. Word that can transform your life. Become a man, a woman who does not hinder the truth of God in any way. Commit to the Lord everything he asks of you, give it to him; whatever he asks of you, give it to him. Do not object to anything that the Lord asks of you and you will see that your life will flourish and you will become a woman, a man that reflects the excellence of the Kingdom of God, your children will grow well, your marriage will straighten out, your financial goals will arrive. Do not resist the words, the concepts, the principles of God and the Lord will give you all the land that the soles of your feet tread on.

Father, I bless this town and we receive your word Lord. Make us an exemplary people, make us a people of excellence, make us a people of great goals and great dreams, Lord. Make us a people that is always going more and more towards the image of Christ Jesus. He is our goal, we can fix our eyes on him and by dint of looking at him let us go renewing ourselves from glory to glory and being more and more like him. Thank you for your word on this day, Lord. We strip ourselves of everything that does not glorify you and we dress in that garment of a new creation. Thanks, Dad. Thank you for this day. Thank you for your word, Lord. In the name of Jesus, amen, amen. Glory to the Lord. God bless you my brothers.