Romans 8:18-27

I invite you to look in the letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, we are going to continue with verses 18 to 27, Romans 8:18 to 27. And we are taking a tour of that Chapter that the Lord has placed in our hearts, a Key chapter, very beautiful of the Scriptures, full of teachings and concepts, very powerful spiritual principles. I think of the new brothers in the faith who need to learn certain terms. When we use terms like damnation, like heirs, like walking in the spirit...,

My brother God bless you, good to see you. Nice to have you with us this morning. God bless you greatly.

Heirs, walking in the spirit, there is no condemnation, the redemption of our bodies, hope, all these words that are so powerful and that we need to know their biblical background and handle them correctly. So there in Chapter 8 of Romans, we go to verse 18, the Apostle Paul says:

"...For I have it certain that the afflictions of the present time are not comparable with the coming glory that in us it must be revealed.....”

Verse 19 says: “... For the burning desire of creation is to await the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity not by its own will but because of him who subjected it to hope. Because also the creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption to the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that all creation groans together and travails together until now. And not only her, but also ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, we also groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption. The redemption of our body, because in hope we were saved, but the hope that we know is not hope, because what someone sees why wait for it, but if we wait for what we do not see with patience we wait for it. And in the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness, because what should we ask for as it should be? We do not know, but the spirit itself intercedes for us with unspeakable groans. But he who searches the hearts knows what the intention of the spirit is because according to the will of God he intercedes for the saints.” May the Lord bless his divine word. Such a quick tour in the previous verses. This Chapter 8 has taken us, we read from 1 to 11 a couple of Sundays ago and we saw that call of the Apostle Paul to each believer to live in the spirit, walk in the spirit. We talked about what it means to walk in the spirit, which is to give priority to eternal things, to give priority to spiritual things. The Apostle Paul says that there is no condemnation for those who believe in Jesus Christ. We have said that the man who is without Christ is under the condemnation of sin. It is a gloomy and gloomy scenario that traces us of the person who is without Christ, tied to the world, tied to the prince of the power of the air, it says in Ephesians Chapter 2, and also tied to the passions of the flesh.

He is a slave and lives under condemnation, reserved for the wrath of God. The Bible says that we are children of wrath if we do not have Christ. But Paul says, no, but for the believer, for the one who already has Christ there is no condemnation. It is a call to live, what? Free, to live contentedly, to live a clear life, not always looking at our backs to see if God got up in a bad mood with us today and we missed our salvation because we ate a sweet that we shouldn't have or got up at 2 in the morning to eat something from the fridge that we shouldn't.

But, the Christian is no longer safe in that..... I believe that all of this Chapter 8 is designed and directed to increase our confidence as children of God, to strengthen our security that we have a God that everything is designed to take us to the goal, to make sure that we will reach the other shore. And that we can enjoy the trip, there is no condemnation, but we have to walk in the spirit, we have that is the condition, right? Those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. That is the recipe for a successful, powerful Christian life, full of authority and trust in the God we have.

Then, the Apostle talks about the great blessings that there are as Christians. It says in verse 11, for example, "...if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you." you..."

In other words, that is the last card that God is going to play with us, the fact that, as he raised Christ from the dead, says the Apostle Paul, so He will also lift us up, through Jesus. So that leads him to make a transition in his thinking and he then went into the next passage, which we discussed last Sunday, which was from verse 12 to verse 17 where he adds another element.

It says, how you are going to receive so much, and have received so much as a consequence of your relationship with Christ and of walking in the spirit. That means that you have to be clear about one thing, and that is that you owe nothing to the flesh and to the world. Ok, because your loyalty and your treasure and everything you receive comes as a consequence of your walking in the spirit so what do you owe to the flesh? What good has meat brought you? And what is walking in the flesh?

We saw in Galatians, Chapter 5, the works of the flesh: anger, malice, filth, sins, strife, poverty, death, all the destructive things that are in this world and put other things like these in there , as the Apostle Paul says. That is what the flesh gives and therefore the children of God redeemed by the blood of Jesus, people who live with their eyes set on eternity, whose inheritance comes from their alliance with the spirit, should not give so much importance to the meat.

We recognize meat because we live in a material world, and meat is the way to interact with that world of matter and time and space. But, meat for us is simply a convenience, it is a comfort that we use but it is not an alliance pact that we make with it. Our love and our inheritance are.... Our inheritance, our loyalty, our hope is in the spirit.

Then, the Apostle Paul says, so brothers, in verse 12, "... we are not debtors to the flesh, that we may live according to the flesh,...."

Again, just as walking in the spirit is prioritizing the spirit, walking in the flesh is all that... and it doesn't have to be evil, walking in the flesh doesn't just have to refer to sensual sins , or let's say homicide or death of some kind, or things like that, the flesh is everything that does not glorify God, they can even be things as we have said, very laudable and admirable, but they have a sinful root, of pride, of selfishness, vanity, and clinging to the world, at the cost of the total and exclusive loyalty that we owe to God.

And God is always going to have enmity with everything that is in us, and in each one of us there is always something that we love more than God. And God is going to point that out, the holy spirit is going to point it out and he's going to have war against it.

That's why look, something as good as the love of a child; Abraham loved Isaac, he was his son that God had given him, the son of his old age, hope of his spiritual inheritance for humanity. God had given him his son, and what is the tendency of a man who has a son at the age of one hundred, to love him so much and cling to him and idolize him. And what did God do? God tested him, he said, 'Look, give me your son, your only son and give him over to me, sacrifice him to me,' because God wanted to see if there was an idol there in Isaac. Because sometimes even the blessings that God gives us can turn into a curse if we love them more than God. Love nothing but God. Love nothing but the Kingdom of God. Identify everything that you love more than when God tells you to give it to me, you experience it as a protective pull and analyze it and do prophetic acts to get rid of it in some way and exercise yourself in the detachment that God wants.

So, Abraham showed that, no, although I love my son but I am willing to sacrifice him. And at that moment something was torn in Abraham's psyche and God was glorified. So, we owe nothing to the flesh. Our alliance is with God. God has given us as a consequence of that a spirit of adoption.

We talked about adoption. Before, we were slaves to all those things that we pointed out, but God adopted us, he redeemed us through a complex process that we described last Sunday, God freed us from the ties of the past, from the debts of the past, from the lordship of Satan and the darkness and darkness and transferred us to the lordship of our new heavenly father.

And the word says that even all the old things have passed away. In the Roman adoption the adoptive son died to his previous life, including debts and all the negative things of his previous life, his previous identity and now he went on to enjoy, if he entered a noble family, all the benefits of a noble family as if he had been born biologically within her. And that is why that word adoption, in a letter written to people who lived in Rome had a lot of meaning given the Roman legal and judicial system. The word adoption had a power, a judicial weight, legal according to the Apostle Paul, he used that word.

So it says that we are now heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. The adopted person could inherit with the other biological children. Christ is the only biological son, so to speak, of the father, but we, through adoption, can inherit with Christ. Praise the Lord for that. You are sitting at the right hand of God the Father, you say the word with Jesus, that means that here on earth you can withdraw from that bank account from which Christ also draws. The same power that Christ has, you have, says the word through the holy spirit that works within you and raised you from the dead. That is our inheritance, that is our inheritance.

So, the Apostle Paul now, in verse 18 that we just read enters, as a consequence of meditating on all that glory, that blessing that we have received, his mind directed by the holy spirit now analyzes something else . And he says, "... well, I have for certain, as a consequence of meditating on all these things, that the afflictions of the present time are not comparable with the coming glory that has to be manifested in us...."

Brothers, let me tell you something, of all the things for which you can thank God, of all the blessings received here on earth, there is something that is unique and that surpasses all, because if God Give here money, health, family, all this will stay when you leave, but one thing will last for all eternity, and it is the eternal life that God has promised you. That is the most beautiful thing that nobody can steal from you, that nobody is going to tarnish you, nobody is going to oxidize it, it will not lose its shine. God has that reserved for you and that should be the most powerful hope, the greatest concept that you can have in your life here on earth.

In English they have called it "the blessed hope", the blessed hope of the believer. I am going to talk a little more about that concept of hope. But, there is something that should animate our lives as children of God, as Christians, as heirs, it is that promise that God has for us that one day when we die here on earth we will pass into the incorruptible eternal life of God and that one day Even in a greater future, all creation, all mankind, all living beings will be redeemed, the entire system that God has created will be totally changed, redeemed and entered into a glory that we cannot understand now.

And that hope of that future redemption should continually encourage us, because here on earth, yes, what do we have? Affliction, says the Lord Jesus Christ, "in the world you will find affliction", no matter how well you live here on earth, in one way or another that is what the world gives, but it is important, I believe that is what the Lord wants to impact our soul this morning in that text, is that we must cultivate the awareness of that future life that God has promised us. Our tendency is to focus so much and concentrate so much on the pleasures of this world and what this world can give, and on the struggles of this world because its stimulation is so immediate that we sometimes forget and absolutely minimize the awareness of that future life, of that eternity that God has destined for each one of us.

When this world ends, when your body has already given up, may you be encouraged by the memory of the promise that God has a body reserved for you, which is completely new and perfect and that is what he says...

I keep in mind, says the Apostle Paul, that "the afflictions of the present time are not comparable to....", and Paul knew what he was talking about, because he had been to heaven, he had been.

We have sometimes read testimonies of people who for a moment physically died and their spirit was able to enter a glimpse of what the glory to come is, and they were able to return to give testimony. There are many, what are called "near death experiences", near death experiences, which speak of the glory of seeing lights, of seeing the... I was recently reading a dramatic testimony that has all the hallmarks of the authenticity of a man who died in a terrible way, in an accident and God allowed him, and he talks about the pearly gates, he says, it's not that they're made of pearl, but they're like a pearl-like substance. He saw the walls of the new Jerusalem, the lights. He experienced sensations of joy and well-being that he... after he returned, he did not want to be in the world, he returned to a bruised body, terribly destroyed, he survived, no one wants to believe that this man survived. And he, throughout his recovery, which lasted several months, did not want to be there, he resented the fact that they had brought him back to this world, because he had seen the glory of the life to come.

And the Apostle Paul had that experience, in Chapter 12 of Second Corinthians, he says that I know a man, if out of the body I don't know, or if in the body I don't know, God knows , who was caught up to Paradise, that was the Apostle Paul where he heard ineffable words, that is, inexpressible, which is not given to man to express.

In other words, he was there, he got to see the glory of Paradise. And for this reason, Paul when he was imprisoned, for example as we see in the epistle to the Philippians, which is called the Epistle of Joy, despite the fact that it was written by an imprisoned man who was not sure if he was going to survive that prison. or not, he talked about his joy in the Lord, the fact that he didn't mind being in jail. He says, "...but for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Because? Because he knew that here on earth it's good to be alive and still in Christ, but if I die it's even better because I know where I'm going.

He says “.... but if living in the flesh results for me in the benefit of the work, then I don't know what to do, because I'm stuck between both things, having the desire to leave and be with Christ which is so much better...”

Do you see? He knew that being with... departing from this flesh, brothers, departing from this earth, dying... and it is something, the very expression departing is very important because it indicates our concept of death. Death is a journey for the believer, it is a journey to eternity, it is a journey to the glory of God, it is a journey to the interrupted presence of God. And I believe that this should be a challenge for us because many Christians love the Lord, we have entered the Kingdom of God, but some of us are even afraid of death, we are afraid of death. If we are honest, I am not going to ask you to raise your hand, but... there are many here who are afraid of death.

But, brothers, the believer has incredible comfort. There are repetitive words in the Scriptures that tell us, do not be afraid of death because what awaits you is much better than what you have here. For the believer, death is a pinch, it is a little insect bite that enters the presence of God. It's like when the nurse tells you, I'm going to give you an injection and the pain is when it enters, when that pulley enters the vein, but yeah, that's all, then there's a little discomfort there, but that's that punctured, right? When you go to the dentist who gives you anesthesia, that little thing, that is death for the Christian.

Moreover, says the word that Christ took away even that, his sting to death, says the word of the Lord. So, for us it is simply a minimal transition from an imperfect life to a perfect and superabundant life. Therefore, tell your spirit, I am not afraid of death. God has made us free from the fear of death. God took the sting out of death. And the believer must be sure of that promise.

That is why he says, "... well, I have it for certain." The Apostle Paul used these expressions a lot: I have for certain, or and we know, for example that to those who love God all things work together for good. We have to have that security. We have to cultivate it. And if you and I do not have it, we have to go to the father and tell him, 'Father, give me that assurance of what you have in store for me.'

The Christian has to be sure, brothers, there is no doubt. The word says that when we ask the Lord for something, we ask for it believing it, not doubting it, because the one who doubts is like the waves of the sea that go from one side to another like a leaf swayed by the wind. In the Christian it is yes and love like the father. God has promised eternal life for you. You can say, yes Lord, I have it in the name of Jesus.

There are Christians out there who ask you 'are you saved? And they say, well, I don't want to... they want to be humble, right? I don't know, God knows, I think so, I want to go to the kingdom. Look, manganzón as they say out there, if they say to you 'are you saved?' Say 'Yes, Lord, I am saved in Christ Jesus.' If you die today, will you go to heaven? Of course I do, what do you believe me? I am a child of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I am sealed by the holy spirit. I have the promise of the inheritance of the Kingdom of God. Hallelujah! do not be afraid of the promise you have received.

Confess it by faith. You are saved, not by work, so that no one can boast, but by the spirit of God that is in you, by the blood of Christ Jesus, the merits of Christ Jesus. It is not for any merit that you or I have, but the merits of Jesus make us worthy of that salvation. You do not have to use false humility because you are not depending on your merit but on the merit of Jesus. When the Lord looks at you, he looks at Christ through you, and that is what makes you accepted in the presence of God. Brothers, let us cultivate that certainty, that certainty that we are saved and that what awaits us is something glorious.

There is another sublime thought here in this passage in verse 19. Furthermore, there are so many beautiful things even in verse 18, one could stay there, “.....the coming glory that in us It has to show up."

Brethren, let me tell you that someone has said that if we could see any of us here in his glorified state we would be tempted to bow down and worship him. What you are going to be at the moment of your glorification cannot even be conceived here on earth. Aside will be the aches and pains of life, any defect, any scar from a fall or a childhood wound, the ugly wounds of the soul, all of that will be left behind, and you will be more glorious and I believe than the same angels. You will be a resplendent spirit, full of glory, full of the light of the Kingdom of God, you will be pure energy, conscious energy like the father, like Jesus Christ. The limitations of the flesh will remain, says the word, ".... death is swallowed up in victory."

All that will be overwhelmed, the negative will be absorbed by the positive, corruption says that it will be removed by incorruption. The animal body will be destroyed and will remain like a garment next to it, replaced by the heavenly body that God has for your life. Hallelujah! and that's why Paul says, "...the glory to come has no comparison with this world...", with the headaches, the migraines, the colds, the germs, that will all just remain as a memory, overwhelmed and absorbed for the perfect glory in which we have been called to dwell.

And I believe that this should keep us there, when there is difficulty in our life, when we are going through problems, divorces, family difficulties, illnesses, financial lack, betrayals by men, we have to say the coming glory the glory to come. I know that all this will pass, replaced by a glory without any contamination. The glory to come and that should....

Brothers, we must cultivate that vision continuously, we must take a pill of glory to come, every day of our lives. When Monday morning rolls around and you feel like a ton of bricks are falling on your body when it's time to get out of bed, say 'glory to come' and when winter comes and you get out there and the first thing you step on it's snow and from a slip say, 'the glory to come'. I have for certain that the glory to come has no comparison with the sufferings and sufferings of this earth.

That is what should encourage us, brothers. We don't think enough of the glory to come. Some of us say 'I am too young for... and when I reach old age then I will start thinking about the glory to come'. No, start now and cultivate that awareness because there will come a day when it will be sorely needed. And even in youth it is necessary to think about that coming glory that is to be manifested in us.

And again that leads the Apostle Paul to the thought of creation as well. You know, our dilemma is not only ours, the dilemma of the flesh, the impoverishment of the body and matter is not only a human problem, but Paul, inspired by the holy spirit, says that all of creation is experiencing that same drama: the trees , the fish, the birds of the air, matter itself, the mountains, the earth, the lava that is embedded in the depths of the earth, everything moans, moans, moans, the sea is in those same things. All of that will be redeemed.

The Bible says that there will be "... new heavens and a new earth." This land with everything and its skyscrapers, museums, airplanes and all its metal and all its cement, everything is going to burn. It says "...the elements are going to burn in the furnace of God" and they are going to be purified. He says that everything is going to roll up, like a roll. Like those, I see, when I said that, those blinds, the blinds that you open, sometimes you see when it comes loose and ququququ... it enters and closes violently, that's how creation will roll up, like a roll God is going to roll it up and he is going to create... he is going to unroll new heavens and a new earth. Everything is going to be perfect. All created, the mosquitoes, if there are any, they will not bite anymore. Hallelujah! say glory to God. Even cockroaches are going to be beautiful if God keeps them, I don't know if he's going to let them. But it's going to be a renewed, redeemed creation.

So, he says "... the burning desire of creation is to await the manifestation of the sons of God." you know what? creation itself is waiting to see that day when the children of God are renewed and transformed. We are going to have a great creative choir looking at and celebrating God's creation, God's creature being renewed, transformed. The apocalypse, he says, the revelation of the glory of the sons of God when it is revealed, creation will clap its hands and say Glory to God, it will rejoice.

But guess what? she will also rejoice because now without realizing we come inside... our biology groans. When you are walking the streets and living this life something inside you groans for the day of your release. And God willing that we can unite our conscience to that subconscious groan of our being and say 'come, Lord Jesus, yes, come Lord Jesus, redeem me, transform me, change me according to your glory'.

But there is something in creation, says the Apostle Paul who is in labor pains, creation itself has been violated by sin. Man lost his glory when he sinned, was sullied, was polluted. But you know what? creation too. And creation is also captive: the trees, the fish, the birds, the earth groans and is in labor pains.

When I hear that expression 'travail' and the idea is that together, all together are in labor pains, all these different aspects of creation are groaning and travailing together waiting for the day , when will it be, he says.... We say so, but creation also says so because the earth is not... the earth that bears its fruit today is not the fruit that God designed. The earth today gives its fruit reluctantly, man has to hurt it and put metal and teeth in it to extract its fruit. When God created the earth he created it so that it would give its fruit spontaneously. Sin made the man then with sweat had to remove food from the earth. But there will come a day when the creation will also be released from its chains, and the creation groans. That is why I believe that volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, all these things are expressions of the torture of creation, it is moaning when it expels its lava, that is anger and frustration, it wants to see the day of its glory, of his salvation, of his redemption too.

She moans together, she is in labor pains, longing for the day “....because the creation itself will also be set free”, says verse 21 of the slavery of corruption. We were slaves without Christ and now creation is also enslaved, but one day its chains will be broken and then creation will sing and give its praise.

I think of Psalm 96 that says “... say among the nations, Jehovah reigns –96:10- he also affirmed the world, it will not be moved. He will judge the peoples in justice – here comes the part of divine judgment, the time of redemption – he says, let the heavens rejoice, the earth rejoice, the sea roars and its fullness, rejoice the field and everything that is in it. Then, he says, all the trees of the forest will rejoice with joy before the Lord who came, because he came to judge the earth, he will judge the world with justice and the people with his truth."

The Lord gave the psalmist, from Psalm 96, he gave him a forecast of that coming glory, when God comes and the trees will overflow with contentment, the earth will rejoice before the God who comes to judge all the earth . And we say, 'yes, Lord we want that precious drama. We want to see that glory that is to be revealed.

On First Corinthians, Chapter 15, I'm going to end there. There is so much that can be taken from this passage, in verse 42 it says “... so also in the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption, it is raised in corruption; it is sown in dishonor....”

They know that our bodies, we are in dishonor right now, there is sin in us, there is darkness in us and we rebel against it and it hurts us when the flesh manifests itself . As we saw in Chapter 7 where Paul says "... wretched me, who will deliver me from this body of death."

Well, “....it is sown in dishonor but it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness but it will be raised in power; It is sown an animal body but it is raised a spiritual body.

And then in verse 51 he says “... behold, I tell us a mystery. We will not all sleep but we will all be transformed.” Every child of God will be transformed.

You are not going to enter the Kingdom of God in that body sown with weakness and imperfection. That body cannot enter the antiseptic, perfectly antiseptic place that is the Kingdom of God. Just as one cannot enter a surgical site without having gloves and a suit, most likely it will never be perfect against germs either. Have you seen the hospital rooms? They have to be totally antiseptic or as humanly possible as possible so that germs are not transferred to open bodies. You cannot enter that perfect place with a contaminated body, because it would immediately contaminate it. Your sin would run like a virus through the entire Kingdom of God, so there has to be a transformation, a metamorphosis, there has to be a metamorphosis before you enter the Kingdom of God. Your body has to be conformed to the perfection of the Kingdom of God. So we will all be transformed.

Not all of us will sleep because not everyone is going to die, there are some who are going to see Christ come and they are not going to have to wait even to die. They are going to be changed in thin air, he says, as they are brought to unite with Christ. Uuuff for now you will be able to be a Superman, you did not realize when you went from being Cinderella to being the precious princess. No? It's going to be something like that instant.

But we will all be transformed in a moment, says the Apostle Paul, in the twinkling of an eye when tuning the trumpet because the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we will be transformed because it is necessary that this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. And when this corruptible has clothed itself with incorruption, that is, all creation, everything, everything, everything created, the atoms, even the subatomic particles, the winds, the waters, the feathers of the birds, the scales of the fish, everything, human skin, everything is going to be... that corruption everything, everything, everything is going to be changed into incorruption. It's going to be new. You are going to have a recognizable body.

I think we will be able to recognize each other. Hey, do you remember when we were up there on Route 93 wondering if a piece of concrete was going to fall on us when we went through the tunnel, and do you remember that day when we got mugged there in Roxbury? Oh, we will laugh and look at each other but they will be transformed bodies, glorious bodies. Now that will simply be a distant memory, devoid of all its pain. The headaches, the illnesses, the skinny legs, the baldness, that we are smaller, or taller, all that sucked in victory, all that disappeared. Glory to the Lord. You are going to be a movie star, and if you sang out of tune here on earth, you will sing like an angel there in heaven. So there is hope still for you. Hallelujah!

“...It is necessary that this corruptible put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality. And when this corruptible has clothed itself with incorruption and this mortal has clothed itself with immortality, then the word that is written will be fulfilled, death is swallowed up in victory. Where is your sting, oh death, where is your victory, oh grave, since the sting of death is sin and the power of sin, the law. More thanks be given to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hallelujah! That is the blessed hope of every believer, brothers. That one day the entire drama of creation, including us, will pass to another Chapter. What's more, it's going to be a completely new book, not even another Chapter, as radical as it will be the change to another reality completely. So, that is why the Apostle Paul says that this is our hope, that is the blessing that we have. We must live in it.

I end with verse 58 of First Corinthians, it says, “....so brothers....”, after he has said all these beautiful things that are going to happen: the glory of God that is going to replace the dishonor in which we currently live, says:

“...So, my beloved brothers, be firm and constant growing in the work of the Lord always, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Brother Grullón you have worked hard, you have struggled a lot, you have sweat a lot and you have traveled a lot. The Lord tells him 'your work is not in vain', 'your work is not in vain'. Do not get tired of doing good because one day the Lord will give you your reward.

When we think about all the efforts and all the struggles, when we are there in heaven we will realize that all this has simply been a simulation that God allowed. Our efforts, our struggles, planting churches, traveling to find money for the kingdom, preaching to people, building temples, investing money, sacrificing our health, all of that was a game that God simply allowed. We will understand everything in the light of perfect knowledge. We will see how we are seen. We will understand how God understands us now. And we will understand that all this was just a little game. What seemed dark and overwhelming to us, that is nothing in the light of eternity.

And that should encourage us, he says, "...so as a consequence of what God has in store for us, let us be firm and constant."

Brothers, even if the tribulation comes, the test comes, the fight comes, be firm, be constant, serve your God. Even if problems, vicissitudes, difficulties, tests come, because this is what ......... give this corrupted creation, the only thing it can give is corruption.

We wonder why God allows this? Why does God allow the other? Because we are involved in this nature that itself apologizes when there is a volcano or a flood. She says 'I'm sorry, but I can't do anything else. I myself am subjected to the same corruption as you.

But God has a day in store when He will say 'no more' to all of those things. Meanwhile you must cultivate that hope, in the midst of your difficulty, your illness, your struggle, your poverty, your need, your lack of documentation, say 'but God has something very special in store for me. I am going to continue serving my Lord, I am not going to throw in the towel. I will not deny my God. I will not stop loving him. I am not going to stop serving it. I am not going to stop testifying of Christ because I want others to accompany me to that glory. And I am going to be firm and constant and I am going to take steps of faith remembering that everything here on earth, the good and the bad, is simply an illusion compared to the reality of that world to come.

Be firm and constant, always growing in the work of the Lord. Exercise in faith. Don't be mediocre. Don't be comfortable in the Christian life. Keep growing, keep exercising. Develop your gifts. Take discipleship classes. Read the word, read books. Develop yourself in what God has given you.

The Apostle Paul tells Timothy 'I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you'. Preach the word in season and out of season. exercise. Strive. Busy yourself with fear and trembling for your salvation. He says, negotiate while I come.

While we are here on earth, let us serve the Lord, let us grow in the Lord. Let's give the Lord the most knowing that our work in the Lord is not in vain. The reward awaits us. The crown of victory awaits us. The "come, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little, I will put you over much" awaits us, if we remain until the end, brothers, if we are faithful, if we persevere.

Oh, may the Lord fill us this morning. Lower your head there and that you can visualize. Visualize paradise, visualize the heavenly homeland. Visualize the glorification of your body. Visualize a renewed world. Visualize a world where the lakes will no longer have any pollution, the forests will be perfectly pure, the skies will have no pollution, the atmosphere of contagion, pollution. Your body, your blood will be completely clean, there will be no germs or diseases. There will be no poverty, there will be no oppression of the rich over the poor, the powerful over the weak. No more depression, no more trauma, no more sin to fight and feel ashamed of. No more forgiveness to ask. No more faith to exercise because everything will already be fulfilled and seen and confirmed. Only God's love for you and your love for him will remain. The only thing that will remain of this creation that can be recognized.

So celebrate the great promise that God has made to you and tell him 'Father, I want the vision of your glory to permeate every aspect of my life. Today I open my spiritual eyes to see the glory that you have promised me. Help me keep it like a seed in my heart so that when the devil comes to torment me I can go to that secret place and sit there and listen to your voice. The one who started the work will be faithful to finish it. Faithful is the one who promised. Faithful is the one who promised. He is not a man to lie. He is not the son of man to repent. He told you you will reach the goal and he will make sure that you reach the goal.

Oh Lord we thank you.