A retail town

The text for this meditation is found in Luke, Chapter 7. Let's go to verse 40, Luke 7:40. I would like to talk about a thoughtful town, a thoughtful town, details, the importance of detail. Perhaps this is not a topic that you have heard many times in a sermon and I myself have not heard it either and I have given it, but we are going to see what the Lord has: the details, the importance of details in life, to be retailers, which also has to do with excellence.

I want to address this word to all our leaders who work in the congregation, to the hujieres, I want to address it to the praise group, which I hope are also listening, to the brothers who work in sound and transparencies. I want to direct it to the teachers of the congregation, I want to direct it to our deacons and elders of the church, to direct it to those who work with young people as well, and to our pastors, and leaders, and of course also to myself, because it is my turn and I already know the part that touches me in that sermon. I already processed it, I assure you. And the Lord already gave me my two or three lashes, too, so I am preaching as a wounded healer too, from the word of the Lord.

It says there in Luke, Chapter 7 verse 40: “...Then answering Jesus said to him 'Simon, I have something to tell you', and he said 'tell me, teacher'. A creditor had two debtors”, -this is a parable now, a story, a story that the Lord tells Simon, the Pharisee-.

“...A creditor –that is, a person who lends money or who is owed money- ....had two debtors, one of whom owed him 500 denarii –it is a very large amount- ... and the other 50. And not having them with which to pay, he forgave both. Say then, which of them will love him more? Responding, Simon said 'well, I think that the one to whom he forgave the most, that is, the one who owed him 500 denarii, right? And he said to him 'you have judged correctly', and turning to the woman he said to Simon 'Do you see this woman?' – he is referring to this woman of bad fame who has had these details with the Lord, right?

“....Do you see this woman? She says to her, 'I entered your house and you did not give me water for my feet, but she has watered my feet with tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn't kiss me, but since I came in she hasn't stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume, therefore I tell you that her many sins are forgiven her because she loved much, but he who is forgiven little, loves little.' 'Your sins are forgiven.' And those who were sitting together at the table began to say among themselves, 'Who is this that also forgives sins?', but he said to the woman, 'Your faith has saved you, go in peace.'” Amen.

Father, thank you for your word which comes from you, Lord, passes through us and returns to you having blessed us and having deposited its sediment of life and joy and hope and wealth in us . Open your word, Lord, before us. We open our mouth believing that you will certainly fill it with good thoughts, edifying thoughts, Father, that will result in health and edification for your people. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

If I was there I actually had another topic to share with you, but at the moment it came to my mind how important details are in life. Someone has said in English that the devil is in the details, 'the devil is in the details', and it is so, brothers. A small detail can destroy a whole great building.

The Challenger spaceship, which was destroyed a while ago and the big rocket also that years ago with this teacher, you will remember about 10 years ago, maybe more than that, that it exploded in midair causing a tremendous tragedy, traumatic for this entire nation that in a sense did terrible damage to the space program for a long time and that is still in the American psyche, these great accidents that cost billions of dollars were created by little details.

The ship that was destroyed in the air as it was about to take off, for a rubber band, something simply that would not cost, I think, in a hardware store, if we bought it like this for regular consumption, 79 cents. But, it developed a series of imperfections that multiplied throughout the entire structure of that ship that caused it to burst under the pressure of takeoff and caused billions of dollars of loss.

So, one detail, brothers, that seems like something minimal in life, in conduct, in character, in the relationship with God can undo all the other things we do to serve the Lord and to please the Lord. And that is somewhat frustrating for me, that so much can be lost for something small.

The Bible says that a lifetime of good works, of good testimony can be undone by just one thing. I didn't find the quote because, as I tell you, this thought came to me this morning as I was sitting there, but it is so. You can build a lifetime of good works, and a single act, a single event can destroy and spoil all of that.

How many times have we helped people in our lives, for example, too, and we have invested in them and we have done many things to serve and help them and something happens, a small detail, a disagreement or whatever and Like everything falls apart, because of that little thing.

How many times as a pastor, I, have known during twenty-some years of ministry and the other pastors here may not have as much time as I do, but they also have enough to know that many times you can sow a lot in a life and spend years of blessing and relationship in the church and one day, something happens, something small, someone offended you, something happened that you didn't like, you made a mistake, or simply said something pastorally that you didn't like , and there went the whole building, all these years of building.

In other words, life is full of this idea that details are important. Things that seem small, insignificant, are of great, great significance and importance.

The wise Solomon also says that a fly can damage an entire expensive perfume. And it's true, one... there are people who get a little ant into their food, forget it, they don't even touch it anymore. So tiny that little insect is, but it can damage a mountain of food.

Because the details are important. Never judge the importance of something simply because it is tiny or because it seems disproportionately small compared to everything else. Let's adjust our minds, brothers, let's accustom our minds to thinking about small things. I think that this is actually what differentiates extraordinary people from basic, mediocre, average people, are the details.

When you enter, for example, the Olympic competition, in reality, the differences there are hundreds of seconds. A world record is set at the Olympics by one tenth of a second. There the athletes all run, for example, in sprints or something like that, or even in long distance races, actually a great athlete is defined by a tenth of a second, or by a second. They all run at an extremely developed level, enviable by any athlete in the world, but those athletes when they get to that level of greatness, what sets them apart is matters of....

That's why You see Olympians do things that would seem ridiculous to strengthen their performance, to improve it minimally. For example, swimmers shave their entire bodies because even those little hairs, the hairs on the body with the rubbing of the water, the friction of the water can mean that thousandth of a second, that hundred of a second that makes the difference in whether they reach the finish line. first or not and if they take the gold medal.

Runners alike wear suits that are fully aerodynamic, tight-fitting, of a certain type of fabric, because rubbing in the wind can incredibly make a difference to your performance.

In other words, the details, brothers, that was what came to my mind and certain ideas came to me. Why this passage that I chose as an illustration of this, because... and I am going to do other illustrations so that this idea of the importance of details and small things in life remains graphically engraved in our minds.

Let me say something else because I know I'm going to forget. I don't have notes, so... and again, cultures are characterized and the greatness of cultures, I believe, is defined by attention to detail, attention to the concrete things in life. Success in life is defined, I believe, by that ability to go to that level.

Nations like the US, like Israel, for example, which is a.... so much has been said these days, it is a nation the size of New Jersey, one of the smallest states in the US. However, Israel can battle and fight with all these great nations around us that are much more numerous, in terms of land, much larger because they have very great technology, and that technology depends on attention to detail, on scientists developing computers. , and that they train their soldiers very well, and that they are continually exercising and rehearsing the same things over and over and over again until they have created an efficient and highly technological army...

No You can have high technology without attention to detail, without people who pay attention to the smallest things, to the concrete things, who can repeat the same thing over and over again, who can do things repetitively for discipline. Those are the things that determine what is a great nation or not.

In this country it is not that people are more intelligent than in Latin America, on the contrary, I believe that many times, observing objectively, I know so many Latinos, for example, or from other ethnic groups that are so intelligent and many times more sophisticated in their culture and in their way of seeing life, than many of these Anglo-Saxon and European nations that one sees.

But the difference that I have seen, for example, going to these great universities where the Lord allowed me to study, is that there are people there who are not geniuses, they are not brilliant, in the strict sense of the word. Word, they are not necessarily creative in their way of thinking, but they are able to discipline themselves and give a book 8, 10, 12 hours and peel their eyelashes and write notes and discipline themselves to read and to investigate and by sheer force of will, they perfect discipline and get ahead. It's not necessarily that they are naturally gifted, it's not that they have brilliant minds, but they are disciplined and pay attention to detail.

And that is why these nations surpass and go far above other nations. I wish, for example, and our countries in Latin America and Africa and other parts of the underdeveloped world, our leaders would understand that part: that it is not because of how attractive a person is, it is not because of the charisma they have. We choose our presidents, why? Because they talk a lot, they recite a lot, they're very macho or attractive or whatever, and that's what makes people choose leaders.

Sometimes the best leaders are boring people who can't seem to kill a fly, but pay attention to detail. I was reading a book recently and there is a Chapter called 'Level 5 leadership', the highest level of leadership according to these researchers and it talks about the greatest executives, the biggest and best, and excellent companies in the US who have had a successful 50-year run, for example, and have risen to true corporate greatness, the great executives who have built and founded those companies and who have brought them to their level of greatness, hardly any of them seemed very promising. They are not necessarily attractive people.

A Lee Iacoca, for example, that you always saw him even in the soup, on the news, even in the movies, on television, and you would think, 'wow, that man really eats the raw kids'. Well, in the end, he did have a moment of height but since he did not have that sobriety and that attention to detail, when his car company came out and all that, he fell into crisis because he paid attention to other things, he went to buy vineyards in Italy. , and to write books and all that. I didn't have that marathon mentality, go there, attention to detail, point to point.

Other great leaders of multi, multi-billion dollar corporations that have lasted, have been very sober, very quiet, very quiet people who haven't been in the news much, they didn't show up... Look at Vice President Chaney, It doesn't matter what you think of him in political terms, whether he is a saint of your devotion or not. But Vice President Chaney, you see, that man would not win any popularity contest, or attractiveness, or charisma contest anywhere in the world, but he is a brilliant guy, very competent and who has had a career where he has accumulated different types of skills and knowledge and for this reason, whoever says so, is one of the most influential and key vice presidents this nation has ever had. Generally, vice presidents in this country are more ceremonial, they are symbolic, they don't have as much influence. But this man has had it, quietly there, nobody realizes many times but he has an incredible influence on President Bush. Because he is a man who turns him on... and that is what defines greatness in life.

That is what defines greatness in marriage, in fatherhood or motherhood, it is those details, it is persistence, it is staying there in things and doing things that we do not like, that we don't like, and simply do them there on principle, just because, and that's what takes something from mediocre to excellent, to outstanding.

Again, look here in this passage because I want to make the connection before continuing. This passage speaks of Simon, the Pharisee, and the woman who anointed the Lord Jesus, it does not tell us her name here, it says a woman who was a sinner, that is all that is said of her name. This woman arrives at the house of Simon, the Pharisee, where Jesus is being cared for. Simon has invited him to his house and this woman enters, uninvited, because she is a woman of bad fame in the city and she breaks a glass of very expensive perfume and pours the perfume on the Lord's head and bathes his body with that extremely expensive perfume. expensive, and everyone is amazed at what they are seeing there. She did not ask permission to enter but she entered and wants to honor the Lord.

It says that he anointed the Lord and that passage says, we did not read that part, it says that ".....standing behind him at his feet, -verse 38- crying he began to water his feet and wiped them with her hair and kissed her feet and anointed them with perfume. And the Pharisee who is a well-behaved, decent, respectable man sees... he does things well up to a certain point. That is what I mean, in 90% of his life he is very well: he invited Jesus, he did something that many Pharisees did not do, he invited him to his house, he gave him a place to sit, he waited on him. He is a man who has most of his life is in order. Now this woman comes and with her passionate love she honors the Lord in an extravagant and unusual way.

Hello brothers, now I realize you are up there. Excuse me. God bless you. I always have to force myself, it's good to have them. We are glad to see you there.

And this woman honors the Lord with details. Then Simon is scandalized that the Lord allows this woman to touch him and being a woman of bad fame, what are they going to think of him, right? Then Jesus says to him, 'Simon, let me tell you something. Rather, the Lord discerned that this was happening, he discerned the heart and said, 'Look, I'm going to tell you a story.' There was a man who had two people who owed him money, one owed him $100,000, another owed him $10,000. He forgave both of their debts. Which of the two do you think is going to love the Lord more and thank him more? Well, the one who forgave him the most. So, he says, 'Simon, when I entered your house you gave me a basic welcome, you had me there in your house, you sat me down, but you didn't do anything, you didn't go out of the ordinary, nor did you get too uncomfortable.

Look at something, brothers, the Lord receives what we offer him and sometimes he does not tell us anything, but if you press him you will discover that there are things there that he would like to receive from you and that you do not is giving And this is one of the things that we have to understand in our lives. We come to church, we look at a ballot sometimes in the offering plate, we pray from time to time, we do not make big mistakes in life, we have ordered the basic things of our lives, and some of us give more than that, we work on the church hard, we serve in the hujieres, in the ministry of music or teachers, whatever, and we have reached a certain level.

That is what I want to say, we have reached a certain level of competence in our moral, spiritual life, and the Lord receives all that and is pleased and we are blessed as a consequence of having given to the Lord up to a certain point. basic level. But sometimes the Lord would like us to give him more and he doesn't tell us anything but his heart is willing us to go, to get out of the mediocre, from the average, to the excellent, to the great.

Most Christians stay. And brothers, 90% I would say of Christians we stay at the basics. We go to church, we get dressed on Sundays, and that's fine, instead of having a hangover as the Mexicans say and being hungover from having been messing up the night before, we go to church. Glory of God. We take our children, we live decent lives. Amen. But, sometimes we stay there and say 'well, that's enough, okay, I already gave the Lord what I had to give him. Let him settle for that because I'm not a spiritual genius either. But the Lord would like more, the Lord would like us to get out of the mediocre and enter that level of 10% of Olympic athletes.

This woman did just that. Simon stayed at the basics and then the Lord told him 'Simon, when I got to your house you didn't give me water for my feet, but it watered my feet with tears, not with water but with tears, and it wiped them dry. , not with a towel but with their hair. You didn't even give me a reception kiss, why? Because I was a Pharisee who saw the Lord with a little distance, but since I entered it has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, and these were all signs, brothers, of respect for a special person, which was given when they entered one's house, as a sign of preference and care.

He gave the Lord Jesus just the basic reception of any other being. You cannot treat the Lord like this, but you have to do much more than that. This woman went above and beyond and gave to the Lord with extremes and the Lord blessed her greatly.

See, the illustration of this passage is that. You and I can be like Simon, giving the Lord the very basics, but the Lord... what brings out the greatest blessings from the Lord, the greatest revelations for our lives, what brings us to the level of miracles and the abundance of life, of joy, of the repair of our relationships, of the healing of our emotions and our memories and our marriages, which allows us to have enough oil to share not only with ourselves but with our children, so that they also enter into the same love of the Lord that we have.

What guarantees that abundant life that God has for us is when we enter that level. Otherwise, we are simply left with a punched-out passport to go to heaven when we die, but here on earth we do not enjoy the greatness that God wants for us, because we have not given at that level, at that superabundant, generous level, let's say ambitious, what God wants.

I encourage you in the name of the Lord, brethren, to look at that. The Lord noticed the details of this woman and the details brought out of him that extra measure that Simon did not receive.

It says, 'therefore, this woman, because she loved much, her sins are forgiven.' That woman walked away having received a personal direct touch from Jesus Christ because she invested heavily and attended to details.

Now, that's one level. I don't want to just talk about the spiritual because it's more, I'm even more interested in the practical aspect of life, brothers. Because I also want to encourage them to be thoughtful in other aspects of their lives.

My nephew Omar, who is perhaps listening to this message, because he listens to them, and not only tells me that he listens to it, he speaks in a way that I know he listens to them. He starts tomorrow, for which I congratulate him, and I am very proud of him in that sense, he starts an extraordinary job tomorrow in New York after much, hard work and study and interviews everywhere. The Lord has given you a good job, an extraordinarily good and lucrative job, etc. and we were talking... we were together a few days recently and he was wondering about, 'well, what advice would I give him now that he was starting his job in this large corporation and what advice could I give him about his behavior, about his performance there in that corporation'.

And one of the things I talked to him about was precisely being detailed, when he made a report, looking at how the spelling, the spelling, the spelling, how he spelled the words, the format that was well done, that their bosses saw a person who arrived on time to meetings, and who knew the history.... And I told him 'Look, the first thing you have to do, study the history of that corporation where you are, read everything you can from that corporation. Something so... and I'm going to take a liberty with it for a moment, it's a company that has an acronym, HSPP, let's say and that's how everyone knows it.

It's like these corporations, like HP, that many people don't even know what Hewlett Packard means, because the letters are what distinguishes it, right? And when he told me that he was interviewing with a company and he told me the letters, the company's acronym, I asked him 'well, what do the acronyms mean?' And he said, 'Ugh,' I wasn't sure at the time. I told him 'well, look, the first thing you have to do is, before you go to the next interview, make sure that if someone asks you, you can say exactly... they were actually Chinese names. But make sure that you know exactly what each letter means and go and study the history of that company, who founded it, in which countries does it have its branches, what are the things that characterize it, because that could be the place where you end up working. and where you have to.... And if a boss is around one day and they ask you and hear that you don't know, that can... it's not something deadly, but it lowers your image before... because if one He is working, let's say, on bank and finance issues, it will be better...

I look at my brother Dr. Luis Valles here, I think a detailed doctor. Imagine a doctor who operates, who removes your right lung instead of your left. A small mistake, nothing, the lungs are all the same. But, oh, if it takes you out, how many medical errors and how many millions of dollars do the lawyers take from you, because a tiny error in an operation. Imagine, in one of those extremely delicate operations, that for a thousandth of a millimeter an eye or a life can be lost. The details.

So I told him the details are very important. And I think that this is what makes, for example, that an employee reaches a certain level of height in a corporation, it is because that attention to detail, that punctuality, that well-dressed clothes, does not necessarily have to mean that he wears a suit, but at least a shirt that represents, that if you are going to wear a tie, that the knot is at least straight, right? Sometimes a poorly done report, a person who has to be watching and what did I say and goes back to the notes again, and that... two or three times you do that, forget that you lost, in an interview you ... If you today the competition is so great, that if you do not have all things ironed well, do not dress that does not go, as they say out there.

The details, brothers. At work, now, we don't have to talk about the big corporations, in your own work in the office, in a factory wherever it is, a factory, if you want, you can spend your whole life being a basic worker, medium worker or you can to achieve greatness, to be a supervisor or to earn the trust of their bosses by being attentive to detail. If not, don't worry that they are simply going to put you on the tab of the vast majority, mediocrity.

In the ministry it has to be the same. Here came the screwdriver, I'm putting it in the meat. Our leading brothers who serve in all things: praise, slides, sound. You know that I definitely make a lot of mistakes, but one of the things that I am, I'm not going to say a perfectionist, because I don't think I'm a perfectionist but I do like excellence and it drives me crazy when the details... He holy spirit may be here, angels floating above my head, but there are things that take away my blessing. Details.

And I, once again, want a church of excellence because I know that this is a blessing for the people of God because we are an exercise. When you come here to this church, I know that there are many things that you are receiving subliminally, without realizing it, in your subconscious, so we have to do everything possible... we have to represent the best because we have the spirit of God, We all have the blessings of the Kingdom of God, God has given them to us, we have the mind of Christ, says the word. We have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, brothers, how is it possible that we, having all these things, are mediocre? It is a contradiction of the Kingdom of God. God's children have to be the best, but do you know what happens? And the problem is that many times the more we sometimes emphasize power and anointing, the more careless we are in details.

You see those evangelicals out there who don't even believe in electricity, but they have beautiful, clean churches, all their processes are in order, their people are disciplined, their services are impeccable, their finances are well blessed, their shiny cars, and we who emphasize the glory of God, the anointing, the power of the holy spirit, we live ramshackle lives, churches upside down, church services, messy, our programs don't work, because we don't... we believe that God it will do everything and we do not apply energy to detail, to tiny things.

If you are assigned something make sure you become the best person in that small area. The person who directs, for example, the hujieres... I love the hujieres because they are people who make an effort, I ask you to make more effort every day, make sure that when the time comes to collect the offering you are already there ready to collect it. Be attentive to detail, that things are always the same in the positive sense of the word.

If on Sundays we are supposed to have those sheets to give to the visitors, those sheets must be in their hands because if we do it two Sundays but the third we are already declining. That is what often happens, the world, the third world is like that. The underdeveloped world is like that. We started but after three weeks we forgot everything we had promised and everything we had done and someone has to give the handle again to pump us again to... oh yes, excuse me I remembered.

Brothers, the details. Details are so important in life. Trying to do the best possible. If you're going to lead you have to make sure that you know... you have to sit down first, because it's not just praying, I believe in praying. I believe in seeking the anointing of the Lord, I believe... all that, but apart from that, once you have done all that, which is the main thing, then learn each chorus by heart and make sure that you already know the sequence perfectly. each chorus, when one finished you already know what comes next. While you're singing one, you're thinking about what I'm going to sing next, and you're already looking for it.

Those mechanical aspects that we God's people have not learned to attend to in our lives: the mechanical aspect of things, making sure that the slides are in place, that we know what is coming after; that we have gone up there and that the person who is working with us knows exactly the signals that we give him, we understand each other well, and if not we are going to meet to talk about it, so that when we come to the house of God and the holy spirit is flowing, the details are ironed out and we don't have to worry about it. That is what leads to excellence, my brothers, to the beauty of the Kingdom of God.

I've been watching our neighbors next door, we have a family, in fact that... well, I'm not going to go into too much detail... the fact is that I've been watching an experiment here of a truck that is being put on, they are building a box on top of the truck to load things, etc. The truck had nothing but just the bed, small and they have hired a carpenter.

First of all, all that wood is going to be exposed to the elements and it's not treated wood so that wood in a year, that's going to be mush, because the elements are going to destroy it, it's not thinking about just what kind of wood to use. And the box is 85% well made but the units don't look very good, the stuff is rickety and a little bit battered and it's going to do what it's supposed to do but it's not going to represent that carpenter well. Obviously he is not a detail person. Everything you have done, all the energy you have invested is not visible because you have not paid attention to the details, the basic things that are going to make that device work well or not, or make it look good, have not been understood. attended. Rather, he did 90% right, but that 10% makes all 90% ugly because he didn't pay attention, he didn't dedicate time to small things.

The last example that comes to mind is in the kitchen. If you, look for example, a rice with chicken. I am not going to go into culinary matters here. Look, 80% of a chicken rice, I use that because everyone knows what chicken rice is, all our countries have it. 85% of an arroz con pollo, everyone does it the same to some extent, you have the most, rice and chicken, whether they cut it into little pieces or you use a whole chicken, or breast, whatever, is the same. All the housewives or the people who cook add to the rice... arroz con pollo, it has rice, it has chicken, they add a little salt normally, they will add a little garlic and onion and probably tomato sauce in some way or another. The basic stuff everyone uses and they do the same thing essentially, they put together the rice with the chicken and those basics.

So, 85% of the rice dishes with chicken will be the same up to almost 90%, but there are some housewives who go into detail... and that is what will make the difference between a memorable rice with chicken, that you remember him and that he manages to invite you back to the house; or an arroz con pollo that filled you up, did the job, but that you are simply one of many that you ate. What made the difference? The excellent housewife, for example, takes a few cubes of soup, one of those, and adds it so that all the rice is better seasoned, right? take a little bit of coriander and cut it and throw it in, take a packet of those Accent seasonings and also. The chicken is rinsed with lemon perhaps before adding the other seasonings and then you take the chicken, perhaps and fry it a bit so that it seals in and doesn't lose all the taste, right? that it does not go into the water, because that is what happens with a lot of meat. When you boil it then all the taste goes away and the rice has taste but the meat has lost it, so what you do is seal it, fry it a little. That is why people fry the meat so that it seals the outside and retains its juices.

So, as you can see, I like cooking and I like food too. So, those little details of that housewife is what makes that rice with chicken a memorable, Olympic rice with chicken, or a mediocre, basic rice with chicken, right? The details, brothers. That's what great cooks know, that's why they say 'what did you do sister?'. 'Well, I don't know, I just threw it there...' No, that woman has details, she knows what she's doing. learned.

So, brothers, that's what life is. It is the efforts that we make, being able to discipline ourselves at work, at home, in human relationships. How beautiful are the details of a person when the person thinks about the small things of the personality. Many of us have already reached a certain level of spiritual maturity in our lives, but still, as we get tired, we already cast out the main demons and we already believe that I no longer have to work. Brothers, we have to be as the Apostle Paul says, I continue to the target, to the supreme calling.

I imagine that Paul every day of his life, until his last breath, until his last breath, was polishing his life, polishing his relationship with the Lord, polishing his character.

There will always be small things in our life, there will be things that we will have to look at ourselves. There are details of our personality, defects in ourselves, there are little things that destroy the life of a man, a woman, a relationship, those small habits, that way of speaking that kills love, those omissions in relationships , that is what destroys human relationships and we do not pay attention to them because we say, 'because if I already did a good job. Look, I'm not a criminal, I'm not a child molester, I'm not adulterating or smoking or drinking my money, or gambling, so what else does God want from me?

There are small things that are going to determine if you reach spiritual greatness or not, and if you pursue there until the goal, day by day, always looking in yourself 'what else can I offer to the Lord? How best can I improve my life, my way of being, my performance at work, in church, in my ministry? What other little details can I add to beautify my life, my human profile? That is what will take you to the other level.

The Lord looks at the details and wants you to dedicate time to that. Those aspects of your life, those character flaws that seem to be unimportant, but are absolutely key, and many times they are the ones that obstruct the full manifestation of God's spirit in your life. And you have to ask the Lord, examine me, Lord, and give me lucidity so that I can understand what other area I lack, where is the area that I should add so that my profile in any area of my life is excellent, whether it is great, whether it is beautiful, be olympic

We want to live Olympic lives. If you want a title for this sermon 'Olympic Lives'. Before I said a detailed town, now I say 'Olympic lives', even better. Olympic lives that is what God wants from you. Don't settle for the minimum. For a person who had doubts about what he was going to preach a little while ago, I have gone too far.

Last thing, look at Revelation Chapter 2: the letters to the churches, which the Lord wrote to the churches. It impresses me how many times the Lord repeats this phrase to the churches. Look, for example, at the church, Chapter 2 at the church in Ephesus, the message to Ephesus, Chapter 2 of Revelation, verse 2, the Lord tells him: "... I know your works, he says to the church of Ephesus , and your hard work and patience, and that you cannot bear the wicked and you have tried those who say they are Apostles and they are not, and you have found them liars, and you have suffered and you have had patience and you have worked hard for love from my name, and you have not fainted...”

Look how he praises the church in Ephesus, how he says 'you have done things well. You have suffered, they have persecuted you, you have exposed your life, you have done things that others have not done. Now, look at what verse 4 says:

"... but, I have against you that you have left your first love." A detail, after all the great things that church has done, but I have something against you. I have against you

Let's go to another passage, the message to the church in Pergamum, Chapter 2, verse 13, Revelation 2:13 "I know your works, he says to the church in Pergamum, and where you dwell, where it is the throne of Satan, but you hold fast my name and have not denied my faith, not even in the days when Antipas, my faithful witness, was killed among you, where Satan dwells....”

Good things , great, you have allowed yourself to be sacrificed, you are in the midst of where the devil himself is and you have persisted in your faith. You have not denied your faith, "....but I have a few things against you...." But I have a few things against you.

Those little details made ugly that great and beautiful profile of this church that had suffered and given so much for the Lord.

Look at Atira's message, verse 19, 2:19 “...I know your works and love and faith and service and your patience, and that your last works are more than the first, but I have a few things against you...” It's the same idea.

How many of us would the Lord say that to? I know that you serve me, I know that you give, I know that you have cleansed yourself of many things, I know that you have sacrificed a lot for me, you even serve me in church and testify to others and you have cleansed yourself of many areas of your life, but I still have a few things against you that you need to change, you need to polish, you need to perfect in your life.

So, that's the word of the Lord to us this morning. What are the few things, what are the little foxes that spoil your vineyard?, as the writer of Ecclesiastes or songs, rather, says. What are the little foxes, what are the small details in your professional life, work, in your life as a housewife, in your marital relationships, in your dealings with your children, in your ministerial performance in the area where you are serving? ? What are those little things? What are the little details that you still need to work on so that the rest, the entire framework, that the finishes are fine, the finishes, because that is where the great carpenters are defined, it is in the finishes, the great artists, it is in the endings always, in the details.

The Lord is calling us to pay attention to those things. Don't settle for just doing 90% right. Let us proceed to the goal, to the target with excellence. Let's give the Lord the best of the best of the best because he deserves it. Let us offer lives that do justice to that powerful and perfect God that we have. Do not think that because you simply gave the Lord 90% that he is not looking, give him 100% and seek to be the best, the best offering to the Lord, a pleasing offering to the Lord.

Let us stand up and make a vow of excellence towards the Lord, and a life lived honoring God. And ask the Lord, Father, what area of my life is still loose? where is that nut that can destroy the whole ship if I don't attend to it in time? where is the detail? Where is the area of my life that I have to hand over to you, that fortress where the enemy is entrenched and he says, I'm not going to let you go, I'm not going to let go of that because if I let go of that I'll completely lose you, so it's okay, I won't let you go. I can prevent myself from doing all the other things, but I'm going to keep that one, because as long as I have that footing in your life, at least I have an entrance and from there I can one day, in an oversight, break everything else, so I'm not going to drop it. And he is there struggling at that point and you have become comfortable and used to it and that is the strategic point that when you give it to the Lord and deliver it, that is where the great blessing will come in your life. What is that strategic area in your life? Tiny, but strategic, so tiny that it seems unimportant and that's why you neglect it, but it is precisely the point of support for all the other areas of your life. Give it to the Lord and do not underestimate the importance of details.

We adore you, Lord. we bless you this morning. Father, deal with us. Cleanse us. Search us, oh God. Examine me, know my heart and see if there is something in me that you do not like and take it out Lord and give us the strength to extract it from our life. We love you, Lord. We adore you, we bless you this morning. Remove everything that is not from you, Father, everything that is not convenient. We deliver it to you. Help us to be detail-oriented, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen.