The greatest of all is love (Part 2)

We are talking about the fruit of the spirit. A couple of weeks ago we began this reflection on how to express the character of Jesus, the heart of Christ in our lives and how important it is that the fruit of the Holy Spirit be manifested in us.

And, I started talking about love, you'll remember, and love is such a vast thing. Obviously volumes have been written on love and the subject has not yet been exhausted, it is something that could take us centuries, probably, and there would always be something. Because love is what encapsulates the very character, the personality of God himself.

So how does one explain the character of God in a few sentences? My intention was to dedicate a single presentation to love, but I realize that even in the modest aspiration I had, I fell short, and there is a part that I still think is good to spend a little more time on it.

So I'm going to give two sessions, two sermons, on the subject of love. And we will also remember that last week Judge German Smith was with us, a personal friend, a very illustrious man, very simple as you will see, as you saw and who also exemplifies what forgiveness is. This man was, as we know, abused at one point, in a very violent way, and he found within himself the capacity to forgive his offenders.

And I think it was very perfect, because we had actually made that agreement for him to come preach before I started the meditation on the fruit of the spirit, and he came with tremendous propriety at the appropriate time.

Because forgiveness is one of those derivations of love too. In this passage that we are going to read now, it says that love does not hold a grudge, one of the qualities of love. And I'm not going to dedicate all the time to each phrase, each verse of First Corinthians: 13, which is the passage par excellence on love, but we do remember that, right? That love has a great relationship with forgiveness.

But I want to declare prophetically about our church, about all those who are here, above, on the balconies, here, this text from the Apostle Paul about love and declared that that word, that essence, that content of First Corinthians:13 becomes a truth and a presence in our lives, in my life and in yours too.

The Apostle Paul, in his sublime meditation on love, says, "... if I spoke human and angelic tongues", and for you who perhaps do not know much about the gospel, there are visitors here, those human and angelic tongues is the gift of tongues, No? The gift, one of the nine gifts, I believe it is, of the Holy Ghost.

And then Paul says, look "... if I spoke human and even angelic tongues...", let's not just say human, but angelic. "...and I have no love, I become like resounding metal or a tinkling cymbal".

Do you know what that means? You have seen those movies where someone very important is going to enter a palace, and someone is there with something, with a device like that, that hits a metallic wave, something metallic and sounds that offensive tone in the ears. Well that is what Paul says here, it is something that shocks the ear and the human and angelic tongues, they are supposed to be pleasant to the ear, they are the divine expression. But if it is not pervaded by love, it is completely shocking for the human being. Because love is what gives life to gifts.

Then he says, "... And if I had prophecy and understood all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I had all faith, in such a way that I could move mountains and have no love, I am nothing. And if I distributed all my goods to give to feed the poor. And if I gave my body to be burned and I have no love, it is of no use to me".

And now, he goes into something positive, first is, look, if I lack love, these things happen. Now he goes into a description of love itself, he says "love is long-suffering." That means that he is patient, he bears everything. "Love is benign, love does not envy, love is not boastful. It is not puffed up, it does not do anything wrong, it does not seek its own, it is not irritated, - it is not impatient, it is not easily irritated, - it does not hold grudges "Injustice is not enjoyed, but the truth is enjoyed. Everyone suffers, believes everything, expects everything, bears everything."

“Love never ceases to be, but prophecies will end and tongues will cease and science will end. For now in part we know, and in part we prophesy. But when the perfect comes, - when we are already glorified in heaven, - then what is in part, now, will end. When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I judged like a child, but when I became a man, I left what I was like as a child."

Now we see through a mirror, darkly. He knows that now we know, perceive, intellectualize, approach reality, but we do it imperfectly, as through a veil. An interesting note here, Paul is talking about first century mirrors, in two thousand years mirrors have improved a lot. And today, you look in a mirror and it's like looking at a picture of yourself, right?

But in those days mirrors were polished metal, that was all. There was no glass, as we know it, nor the coverage that gives a mirror the ability to reflect the person who is looking at it. It was burnished metal, until it could reflect as much as possible, but what one looked at was something blurry, of his person. Or it was, sometimes, like one of those jewels, opal, for example, or something like that, a surface that was also very shiny and translucent, but what one saw was very little. The windows were also made of glass, like colored glass, and what you saw was just a mere approximation of the truth, of what was on the other side.

Well, that's our ability to know now. Now we know obscurely, but he says, "...more then we shall see face to face." One day we will see God as He is, you know? Now, we simply see God as a reflection through the word, an indirect vision, but one day, brother, you are going to be able to see the very face of God. I don't know what that face will be like, but we will be able to see his face, because there will be no longer any sin that prevents us from seeing his perfection.

Then Paul says, "...now all this is imperfect." Everything we experience is very imperfect, but it says, “…then I will know as I was known. And now faith, hope and love remain, these three but the greatest of them, is love.

Do you know why? Because when we are in heaven, brothers, faith will no longer be necessary, because we will already be seeing everything exactly as it is. You no longer have to think, Oh, what God promised will or will not come. There is no longer any need for faith, because he is living the very actuality of everything that has been promised. So faith one day loses its usefulness and hope too. Because hope is what we wait for, what has not yet arrived.

But when we are in heaven, everything that had to come will have come. Everything that God had promised came. So I don't have to wait for anything, either. Hope and faith are a convenience for this time in which we live.

Now, you know what if it's going to stay for eternity? Love. Because we will be in an ideal relationship with the Father. There will be a feeling of love, of rapport. Love will never stop being.

So imagine how important love is, that's why Paul in his account of the nine fruits of the spirit, the first thing he puts is love. Love is more powerful than any other virtue, any other gift.

Imagine Paul, a man who knew almost all the gifts. Paul was a prophet, Paul was a teacher, Paul was a pastor, Paul was an evangelist, he was an Apostle. Paul had all the gifts in an unusual amount, like unique, and yet he could speak with authority and say, "Look, if I had all the gifts and if I..." - for example, he says and he exaggerates, it's hyperbolic, He says, - "Look if I gave my body to be burned...," one would think, well, what more sacrifice could there be than a man, a woman giving their body to be consumed in the fire. What an agonizing thing, and yet it is possible for someone to give up their body to be burned, out of pride or revenge for someone who wants to scandalize with their body, or to denounce something, a social injustice, but who does not have love inside he or she that impels you to do that.

There are people who give millions of dollars, there are philanthropists who give billions, they make philanthropic foundations and they give a lot of money, but many times, what they want is for their name to resonate. A building in Harvard that says the family such donated this building.

But there is not necessarily a compassion, an identification with human pain, a desire to bless that consumes the heart. And Paul says, "... look, the Lord discerns all these things." And if what you do is not signed, it is not penetrated by love, don't dress because you're not going.

You can come to church as many times as you want, give your tithe, and I encourage them to give their tithes, but if they don't do it out of love for God, out of love for their church, out of love for the charity that the church does in the city, then it is useless. That is why we have to reflect deeply, when we do something and ask ourselves, what motivates me to do this?

When I go to church, what is it that is impelling me to come to church? Every time you do something for the Kingdom, ask yourself why am I doing it? Because God looks at the heart many times and therefore, it is important that when we serve the Lord in the church and in everything we do in the Gospel, we do so by discerning the spirit.

What does it mean to discern the spirit? It means knowing why I do something. Paul criticizes, for example, those who take the sacrament. Notice that in the Corinthian Church, those who took the Lord's Supper, it was a complete dinner. And then the rich people would go, who belonged to the church, and they would bring, perhaps their servants.

There was the rice with chicken, the pupusas in large quantities, the refried beans. They eating and the poor there looking, ah, ah, ah, their mouths running, unable to eat anything. Others came early, and said I'm too hungry, so I'm going to eat.

And what was supposed to be the agape, as they called it, the Lord's Supper, which today we celebrate, there, with a little thing, what was supposed to be done, which was an act of unity with us. themselves and with Christ and his Spirit, became something that precisely exemplified the opposite, social divisions, those who have and those who have not.

And Paul was saying, "…if you don't discern why you are doing what you are doing, then you are doing sacrilege."

So brothers, that's how love is, love is such an important thing. That's why I say, brothers, let's love, worth the redundancy, let's love love. I was saying last Sunday, or the day before, that we have to feel great urgency, because love becomes a governmental attribute in our lives. We can aspire to all other things, and that is good, but brothers, I ask the Lord to make me and make us loving men and women who exemplify the love of Christ.

"Because if you have love," says Pablo, "there is no law that can be against you." Love makes it waterproof, makes it invincible, makes it inviolable, makes it indestructible. Love is a wonderfully strong and powerful thing. It is one of the things that, I think, that we have to understand, I am going to be here as "Free associating", making a free association in my head, besides that I have other notes here. But sometimes we see love as something weak, we think that if a person is loving, a man for example, if he exemplifies love and expresses love, he is effeminate or weak, or they are going to take advantage of him or her and that's all. otherwise.

Look how the writer of, I think it's Proverbs, says that “…love is stronger than death”, he says “…that rivers will not drown it, fire will not drown it.” And the images that he uses are strange, that love is as strong as death, imagine, who resists death, when the moment of death arrives, no one escapes.

And Paul says, love is the same, or not Paul, the writer of that text, Love is so strong, the bonds of love are powerful, love is something strong, and that also includes the truth.

I'm going to anticipate a little here, because I say that love, in case I don't have time later, but love and truth go together. Many times people believe that love is accepting everything. You know, because there he says "he believes everything, he hopes everything, he supports everything," but that also has its poetic meaning. But many times love compels us, sometimes, to resist the people we love, it compels us many times to call someone out, it compels us to confront someone who is behaving in a certain way, it compels us to punish a child that you are on the wrong path.

Christ took up the whip and whipped [sic] the money changers who had turned the house of God into a money exchange house. That is to say that love has its virile part, love has its strong part, too. It is not that you are a person, that they make you what you want. The person who loves is capable of telling the truth, the person who loves resists evil, says that "he is not pleased with injustice but enjoys the truth." That is, the person who loves is a very strong person too, but you have a quality, too, that tempers the truth with grace. There are many people who say, there are men whose words are like sword blows, he says, he slaps someone on the back with his word.

And that is not what love is, the truth of the son of God, the daughter of God, it is a truth that heals, it is a truth that blesses, it is a truth that inspires, even while it hurts it is also taking the wise to put it about the person who hurts, that's love, it's a wonderful thing.

And then for that and for other reasons, love, Paul puts it... it is the "summa cum laude", it is the "sine qua non", that is another Latin expression, it means that without which the rest is not possible. And we have to fill ourselves with an appetite for love.

And we also know that love is not something that you express biologically. Love is against nature, love is against human biology. No man, no woman can express love spontaneously, because love is not born of the flesh, love is born of the spirit of God within us, expressing itself through us. That is why it says, it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit within his character has all these virtues, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, temperance, fidelity, etc.

The Holy Spirit has all those attributes within Him, He is a complete personality. And when the Holy Spirit lives within you and you are longing for that part of the Holy Spirit to manifest in your life, the virtues begin to express themselves, which are the fruit of the Spirit. And then we begin to be like Christ, to be like God, we are little Gods in a sense of the word, because we borrow the generous character of God.

How does God love, how does God love? You know that the original Greek, in the Greek culture there were several words to express love. There was, for example, “storge”, which is love, which is also called brotherly affection in another part of the Bible. It is the love for your nation, it is the love for your friends, it is the love of relatives for each other, “storge”.

There is also “philia” of love, which is filial love, the love of friendship, the love that loves the nation, the clan, the tribe to which one belongs. There is "eros", which is erotic love, the love of lovers, the love of husband and wife.

And this “agape or agape”, which is the love of God, the perfect love. Agape is the word that the Bible and the New Testament use the most to express love. But there were other expressions for love in Greek culture as well. And agape is the love of God, it is the perfected love, it is the love that expresses the divine personality, and that is the love that we have to yearn for, and ask the Holy Spirit to give it to us.

And experience a sense of urgency, if we ask for it God will give it to us. And you know something that He's going to do too, that He's going to start dealing with you. And therein lies the danger, do not ask God to make you a person of love, loving, if you are not willing for God to treat you, put you on the operating table and begin to break you, and begin to break the grain of Wheat, as I was saying, created, the Sunday before that too.

Because love is something that God has to operate in you, and it comes, sometimes, through many experiences, sometimes even painful. Because when a man or a woman is full of verve, virility, physical strength, they cannot express the love of God, what they express is rather the other energies of the flesh.

But when a person has been treated by God, that person, by being broken and diluted, then becomes a bearer of God's love. How ironic, that God sometimes has to break us so that we can be strong and express God's love in us.

And don't be afraid, when God has dealt with you, when God is dealing with you and I tell him so, many times, when God deals with me I am terrified, for fear that I am going to die. But no, you know that I know, in the long run, when God deals with you and operates on you, you will never die, but you will be stronger and live longer.

But sometimes we are going to scream in terror because God operates, but do not fear because God is going to do it, he is going to use all of that to make you a stronger, more dignified, kinder, simpler, more humble, more compassionate person, able to identify with the pain of others. And that only does God's treatment. So tell him Lord, with fear and trembling I tell you deal with me, and make me a man, a woman who expresses the love of God.

Now let me share with you some qualities that I think are important in understanding God's love. The first quality: God's love is unconditional, unconditional. That means that God does not put conditions to love you, God loves you just the way you are, mischievous and sometimes even a scoundrel, a little ignorant, sometimes not very nice.

Sometimes we think that… we believe that we must be good for God to love us. And we are putting the cart, the cart in front of the horse. God loves us unconditionally. What mother does not love her son? It doesn't matter that the son is a serial criminal, the mother loves her son.

God's love is unconditional. It is like the love of the prodigal father, there is the prodigal son. The word prodigal, incidentally what it means, outrageously generous. A person who spends lavishly is a person who wastes money because he throws it away with full hands. The love of the father of this prodigal son is such an unconditional love that after this son has offended him and squandered his money, he still loves. Because the father's love is like that, he loves unconditionally.

And so we have to love too. Never love people only when they do you good, when you like them, when they are attractive, when they are nice and talkative. Love because loving is good and necessary, because you are a lover, because the child of God loves in all directions. So God's love is unconditional and we also have to love unconditionally. There is a lot of cloth to cut.

Number two: the love of God is sacrificial, there is the word sacrifice. What more generous love than the love of Christ, who climbed the cross and sacrificed his greatness, his perfection to come and dwell among us. And it was given on the cross so that we might be saved. And so we too have to be. Just as a mother stays awake and sacrifices for her child's health, we also have to be sacrificial, we have to sacrifice our privileges.

On Friday, two days ago, we had the bilingual service, and when we finished the service, I told the brothers that they were about to leave, brothers, and it was bilingual so we had members of the ministry in English and the ministry in Spanish. And I told them, "Brother, before you go look for someone you don't know, look for someone who is different from you."

Because what is it? When the service ends, we look for those who are close to us, those we know, right? The Dominican seeks the Dominican, the Salvadoran the Salvadoran, the Peruvian the Peruvian. But how good it is when we extend ourselves, the white one looks for the dark-haired one, the dark-haired one looks for the one who is tan, or something like that, the blond.

And that is the strongest love of all, it is when we sacrifice ourselves. Because our appetite is, hey, I want to be with my people, with those who have my sense of humor, speak my language, whatever. But when one sacrifices himself for the sake of love shining in our midst, that is what is important, it is sacrificial. Sacrifice yourself for others, the person who sacrifices himself for others, brothers, is blessed. And God takes care of giving that person more. When I have the courage to sacrifice something that I want to do and that I like so that another person can be blessed, I tell them, brothers, that God immediately jumps in to bless me too and that always encourages me.

Love sacrificially and you will be a happy and prosperous person. The love of God is sacrificial, the love of God loves what is not kind. And we also have to love people who are not nice.

Do you know how I see that? For example, the Bible says that when we were immersed in our sins and crimes, what does it say? That "Christ gave himself up for us." It wasn't when we were already well ironed and sanctified, no, it was when humanity couldn't even think about God because it was so bad. And that's when Christ died for us. That is to say what is not kind God loves him.

That little boy who is causing so many problems in the house, love him and defeat him with love, take him with love. The person who causes you problems at work and that you dislike, love him and defeat him with love. Loving what is not kind is very important.

Fourth: love allows God to forgive the greatest offenses and continue to express himself.

Love also equals forgiveness, I already said it. But let me take one more thing here. By the way, I am not exegeting the passage I read, the passage I read was simply for inspiration. But I'm extracting. But there it says in First Corinthians: 13, it says that love, I already said, does not hold a grudge. And the expression in the original Greek is that it does not keep as a record, it is a term that comes from accounting.

Where you know you don't keep and a ledger, everything that comes in and goes out is recorded in the ledger, right? To remind one of it. Well, love doesn't keep accounting records, of offenses. Love erases offenses, does not hold grudges, does not cling.

If someone has offended you, forgive him, forgive him, I would say, judicially, even if your emotions still do not join the act of forgiving, make a decree of forgiveness and then your emotions will come little by little. They will adjust, but forgive first, and say, “I forgive you,” and I forgive that person. Even if you don't feel it, even if you are chewing there, "I forgive you." But no, forgive him anyway and then emotions take their place, too.

Many times we first have to do the things that are closest, “the low-hanging fruit”, as they say in English, the short fruit, the short mango, take that one, and the short mango, in many cases, that is to say it with the mouth, even if you don't feel it in your heart. That is not hypocrisy, it is simply a psychological truth, that when you say certain things and express something externally, little by little it becomes an internal truth, too. The wiring of your brain is little by little adjusted. So let's learn to declare things that are not as they are, as if they were. Sorry, and that's not hypocrisy.

Another thing, when you forgive you are not giving a pass to the person who offended. It is not that you are telling the person, "Don't worry, nothing happened, etc." It's not like you're affirming the sin he did against you. It is simply that you are choosing not to put that person in the jail of your mind and keep them there on bread and water. It's just you decide, you know what? The Bible says "leave vengeance to God." The Lord avenges better than you, the Lord does justice better than you. Perhaps the most that you can give a person is a kick or a slap. When God punishes, he punishes exquisitely, in ways you can't even imagine, and that is the power to forgive too, he doesn't hold grudges."

God's love prevents God from harming anyone, no, he cannot harm him. If you ask me, well, is there anything that God can't do? Say, oh yes, God can't hurt, in the evil sense, anyone. Not because He can't do it, if He doesn't feel like it, but it's simply because it's against his nature, something God doesn't do is hurt.

Now God can punish, God can correct, God can do many things, but not harm, in the sense of perpetrating something in a person's life that does not have some kind of redemption, redemption value.

To the doctors, the motto of the doctors, I believe that in all the countries, I said this morning to the brothers in the ministry in English, “first, do no harm”, it says, first of all, don't hurt anyone, because? Because a doctor is the opposite, a doctor exemplifies doing good to others, curing, healing, blessing with his science and then the number one motto of doctors throughout history has been, first thing, don't hurt him to nobody. And I think it is a very beautiful call for us Christians, too. We always have to say, first of all, don't hurt anyone.

I believe that Christians, brothers, of all beings on earth, should be the most harmless people in the world. This means that when your brother turns his back on you, he must be completely sure that you are not going to hurt him with a gossip, a gossip, the denunciation of something he has done or planting false news about him or her.

The man, the woman of God must be totally trustworthy, that we can entrust him with our reputation, our name, and we know that this person will treat him like a jewel. It doesn't hurt people, it doesn't steal anything, it doesn't violate their rights. We Christians have to be the most harmless people, sharp weapons have to leave our surroundings, be people we can trust. It is very important that God does not hurt, God corrects, as I say, God does many things but what love does not do is hurt people.

Number six, I summarize, unconditional, sacrificial, loves what is not kind, forgives the greatest offenses, does not hurt anyone and number six, which is the corollary of number five, always seeks the highest good of those he loves. . That is to say, not only does he not seek to harm the person he loves, but he also seeks the best, the greatest good for those he loves.

One of the qualities of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is kindness, and we're going to talk about kindness being paired with goodness, but they're not the same thing. In fact, I have broken my head asking the

Lord give me wisdom. What is the difference between goodness and kindness? Because they are two words that the Apostle uses and I know that the Bible is as precise as a chemistry book.

So for some reason Paul said "goodness and kindness." And this, I believe, is what I am saying here about seeking the highest good. He knows that love provides us with a willingness to seek the good of others, that is why it is said benignity, hence the word good, benignity, benignity.

I believe that the benign person is a well-intentioned person, essentially, he is a person who has good intentions towards others, he is a person who wants the people around them to be well.

I believe that kindness is the mother or sister of hospitality, for example. Think of a host concerned about the comfort of his guests, he is solicitous at all times. It takes you… do you want something to drink? Here I have a sandwich, are you okay, or do you need a chair or whatever? We have to be like that with people, in the broadest sense of the word, we have to be benign.

The Christian, the man or woman who loves, has a benevolent, kind disposition towards others. Ask the Lord to make you someone who loves so much that you care. When there is someone who comes to church and is there like a wet chick, sitting there alone, and everyone is here happy with their relatives, you notice it, you go to them, greet them, and make them feel good.

I try to do that as much as I can as a pastor, but you can do it too, because you are a kind person, worry, get in tune with the needs of the other and go at once. If someone is uncomfortable, if you see a person, a wanderer [sic] or whatever, go to them, someone who smells bad, run where they are.

May there be in you an instinct towards comfort, blessing, good, "enhancement", how do I say, the increase in someone's value and happiness. That is something that has to be in our lives, brothers, kindness, the willingness to do good to others.

The last thing about that, I think of the words of the Apostle John, when John writes to Gaius, a friend, he says, "Beloved, I want you to be prosperous in all things and that you have health just as your soul prospers."

It seems to me that it is one of the most beautiful verses in the entire Bible. One man saying to another, "My dear, I long for you to be prosperous in all things and to be in health as your soul prospers."

How cute no? And I believe that it is the fundamental disposition of a person who loves, wants the good of others and that they be prosperous. That is why he also says love does not envy, in First Corinthians.

You know what, because there are many people who do not want others to be prosperous. They see the prosperity of others as an impoverishment of themselves. If so-and-so hit the jackpot, they're a ticket, why wasn't I the one who hit it? And it ruins their day.

But you know what? Love rejoices with the one who rejoices and suffers with the one who suffers. Love does not disown someone when they are blessed. Love has been enjoyed since so-and-so graduated with a doctorate, he bought a four-bedroom house, glory to God. He enjoys himself and sent him a little gift so that he can enjoy himself even more.

Love enjoys that another is blessed, it is not envious, it is not boastful, it rejoices with the good of others. And we rejoice in being agents of good to others and pray that God blesses others, too. It is very important. You see that in reality within all those attributes of the fruit of the Holy Spirit it is there, at the very center, there is that generosity, that goodness, that lack of selfishness, it does not seek its own.

All these are, brothers, they are a series of elements that have an essential affinity between them all. And you don't have to be a scientist, a philosopher, or a theologian to understand what love is, because love is understood viscerally. Love is that which jumps from one and goes to the other and seeks to bless the other, that is love.

And finally, number seven: love overlooks faults and focuses on the intentions of the heart. Love could stay in the sin of the person and criticize and attack him for the sin he committed, but love goes back further or deeper and sees the reasons why that person did what he did, tries to understand the "springs" ”, the springs that are behind what happened.

God does exactly that, God knows our hearts. Why can God forgive us so much? Why can God be so patient with us? It says, “Because He remembers that we are dust, He knows what we are made of. As the father of children pities, Jehovah pities those who fear him, because He knows our condition, He remembers that we are dust: "He knows that you are like a little matchstick doll made like that and that if you are blown on you go sideways a lot.

We are prone to sin, we are prone to error, we are prone to misjudge, we are prone to failure. But the person you love has a grandfather mentality. Grandparents when they see their grandchildren doing something, they say, "Don't worry, you'll pick it up later." The mother is fighting with them, "I'm going to beat you up." "No," Grandma says, "Don't worry, leave it there, we'll go and pick it up later." Because he has seen a lot and he sees the creature, so fragile, and he loves and forgives. A lot of us, you know, when people fail, we're secretly glad, we use that as a way for me to gauge myself and say, “Ah! look what he did”, and that makes you feel better.

But it's something demonic, that's unhealthy, that's sick. When someone falls, fill yourself with compassion, see why, pick him up, hide his failure, comfort him, encourage him to improve and move on, don't kick him when he's on the ground, do you understand?

That is that love that ignores faults, because love is empathic, love gets in tune with what the other person is feeling, love becomes neutral and can stick to someone and feel the current that comes out of them. and going through one and one understands why they do something, why they feel something.

Love is like Christ Jesus, who can understand what is in our hearts, He knows why Peter perfectly denied it, He knows why he was left alone on the cross. Because he gets in tune with the fear, he gets in tune with the temptation, he gets in tune with the person, what the person is going through, he understands. May God help us to be empathic men and women, men and women who understand others, as a mother understands her son who got dirty, "Ah, but if he's a baby, what else is he going to do?"

That is love and I believe that if the churches had more love, among us first, the Holy Spirit would manifest itself in incredible ways. Because many times the lack of love stops the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. There is much more, a lot of fabric to cut, thank God that I'm done.

But there's something I want... it's an anecdote, an anecdote is a story. An illustration that I leave with this, from the great evangelist, Dwight Moody, a great evangelist of the 19th century. Dwight Moody was a great man of God, he did many things and Moody, among the many things he did in his life was to create Sunday schools. Sunday school comes from that time, in the 19th century, when Sunday schools were done, here in the United States and many children from different neighborhoods and everything, they went like going to church, but it was for children.

There was a Sunday school in a neighborhood and there the children went to have their classes and all that. There were many Sunday schools in all parts of the nation. Moody raised that ministry. Then Moody says this: "Show me a church where there is love, and I'll show you a church that has power in the community. In Chicago," he says, "a few years ago, a little boy was attending a Sunday school I know. When his parents moved to another part of town, the little boy still attended the same Sunday school as before, even though this meant a very long and tiring walk back and forth.” The boy continued to go to the Sunday school he used to go to even though it is far away."A friend asked him why he went so far, and he said there were many other Sunday schools just as good near his house." - Why didn't he attend the one that was most convenient for him - "Well," he says, "they can be just as good," the boy told him, "for others, but not for me," was his answer. Why not asked the friend. Ah, because they love you there."

If we could convince people that we love them perhaps there would be fewer empty churches and a smaller proportion of our population that would never darken the door of a church. Brothers, this afternoon I ask that love replace duty in our relationship with the church and the world will soon be evangelized. God bless you and let us be men and women of love. Let's lower our heads.

Let's ask again, desperately, the Lord make me a man, a woman of love. I will be up here with you. Break me Lord, break us. Break the hard and rough bark, vengeful, spiteful, harmful, rough, insensitive. Break the hardness in us, Father, and give us baby skin, give us a crust like a new plant, make us penetrable to human pain, Lord. Make us penetrable to the suffering of others. Give us so much love that we yearn for the triumph of others, that their pain and suffering hurt us, that we postpone our preference and our personal convenience so that others may be blessed, that we forget the offense and that we love the one who is not kind.

That we see beauty in the ugliest person morally, because we can get in tune with that germ of life and beauty that is in them that needs to be brought to light. That we can be people who bring about the hidden goodness of others, that they themselves do not even realize but we will see it, prophetically we will bring it to light loving them and seeing the value within them.

Help us to be a church, Father, Father, in the name of Jesus, that León de Judá every day be more and more a kind, loving, loving church. Oh Lord, break us and make us again. Disassemble us and re-form us. Like the pot, break it if you don't like it, make it clay again and then shape it in your image.

Holy Spirit, may this church be an expression of your love in the city, may it be a prophetic sign in Boston. Father, where the immigrant is blessed, the homeless [sic] is blessed, the alcoholic is welcomed, the drug addict, the effeminate, Lord, the perverse, find a place where people bring out the beauty that is in them, because bless the goodness of God that is hidden within your heart.

Make us people with a radar like Christ's, oh, God, help us to forgive one another. Help us to ignore the evil that is done to us, Father. If the keys step on us, help us Lord, to love and bless the person, not keep a record of offenses, Father.

Make us harmless, Lord, make it Father, so that this people, this nation may be blessed, oh, God, may our own lives be blessed.

We love you and we thank you for this day. Bless this wonderful town, their families, their children, their homes, their health, their finances, I bless you with a heavenly blessing.

And prosper this tribe, Father, prosper it and bless it and make it something beautiful for the glory of your name, in the name of Jesus, amen and amen.