Commit to your vision

Proverbs 4-18 to 27. It says the word of the Lord, and I want to talk about committing ourselves to our goals, committing ourselves to our visions that we conceive in the Lord, 4-18 says, "More the path of the righteous" How many here are fair? I hope they all say yes. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you're just, you know? Because otherwise forget and go home and lie down to sleep. Because in Christ we are just. "Justified by faith we have peace with God" says the word of the Lord. If you are in Christ, you are righteous even if you are a scoundrel. No, no, I'm judging. No, our righteousness comes from Christ, not from us, right? We are righteous in Christ Jesus, so it says here, "But the path of the righteous," that's you, identify yourself as this passage. The path of the just is like what? "... like the light of the aurora that is increasing until the day is perfect."

That's one of my theme verses. The path of a son of God, a daughter of God, who is justified in Christ, who lives a life of integrity, is like an arrow going up, up until it reaches its target. The life of a Christian is a journey, it is a walk with purpose. Let me skip, to save a little time, to verse 25. So remember, "the path of the just is like the light of the dawn that is increasing until that day is perfect." A statement, right?

And now comes a call in verse 24 it says, "Put away wickedness from your mouth and put away iniquity from your lips." Then he says, "Your eyes look straight and direct your eyelids towards what you have in front of you." That idea of your eyes looking straight ahead, the idea is that you look straight ahead. In English, if you look for the English version, the idea is to look straight ahead, look at what is ahead of you, the target ahead of you, right? "Your eyes look straight and direct your eyelids towards what you have in front of you."

Notice that he is calling us to a life of determination, of clarity, of purpose, of definition, right? When you walk in life, look ahead, as the Bible says, right? Leaving what is behind and focusing on what is ahead, we must continue to the target, right? That is a life, which has purpose. "Examine the path of your feet and all your paths be straight. Do not turn to the right or to the left. Your paths must be straight, forward." That's the idea, there are times to talk about, of course, rectitude. But, in reality, this translation into Spanish kind of distracts us a little from the topic that the writer is pointing out to us, right? The idea is not to deviate to the hand neither to the right nor to the left, your paths be straight ahead. Your paths be straight, do not deviate to the right or to the left. Keep your foot from evil. Bless the Lord his holy word.

The year 2022 stretches out before us like an expanse without a map. We don't know what is there. I was thinking, I told them that when I was in the Dominican Republic, recently, they put me up in a hotel that faced the Caribbean Sea. And every morning that I was there - it was like four nights, five nights - my delight was getting up in the morning with a cup of coffee and sitting in front of that stained glass window, quite large, and looking at that sea that stretched out before my eyes. . In front of me, directly from me, were the waves coming in on the shore and after that, it was a sharp expanse that was lost in the firmament. All the same, without definition, a panorama as well as flat. And so the year 2022 stretches before us, right now. In front of you you have an expansion, January, February, March until December and you do not really know what things are in front of you.

And that new year, for us, must be a time of new beginnings, of expectations, of what God has for us. This year must be a year, now, in these days especially of the beginning, a year of looking back and recounting the past year. Because it is also important to look back and look forward. Looking back but only to learn things, not to, you know, cry over spilled milk, not to condemn ourselves for what we didn't achieve. It's about learning certain things, gaining certain lessons for the future, making a sober count. And so look ahead with great resolve, with a great sense of purpose. And that's what I want to talk to you about, living purposeful lives, setting goals for ourselves and doing everything we can to achieve those goals.

I want to invite all of us, brothers, to propose concrete goals for this coming year. Living a life with purpose, with healthy goals is something very good and very necessary. Set clear goals for the future. I don't know how many have heard of Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, that book has sold tens of millions of copies. It's one of the great books of all time, very influential, Purpose Driven Life. And in that book he establishes, Rick Warren establishes, some of the goals with which a son, a daughter of God must live, and it is such a specific book that it has gained the attention of millions and millions of people over the years. Living a life with purpose, brothers, is important, with concrete goals, with achievements. What is the alternative of a life with purpose? A life of improvisation, a life of every day we get up and do the same thing, we make coffee, we have breakfast, we go to work, we come back from work, we watch television, we eat, we go to bed, until we die.

A life of improvisation, of inventing our day to day and it's like inventing one's life on the march, in English they say flying by the seat of your pants. Do not fly with a compass in front of us, but simply there, randomly, to the good of God, whatever comes. Puerto Ricans say the ¡Ay, bendito!, you have heard of the ¡Ay, bendito! It's just like, you know, throw yourself into whatever God wants. No, the Christian does not live a life of improvisation. I want to encourage you, this afternoon, encourage those who are in their homes, also encourage myself, at the beginning of the year, to live lives with purposes and concrete goals, with a clear and defined vision. Visions, conceptions with which we can navigate the path of life, that trajectory of life.

You see the connection between Proverbs 4, which I read, because the path of the righteous, the path that the writer of Proverbs speaks of, is life, the journey of each one of us, the journey, right? The believer's journey should be like the light of dawn. How does it begin in the light of dawn? Weak. When you get up at five in the morning, at this time it's like six in the morning, in case you've never gotten up, let me describe what happens, it starts like this, the light is dim, right? And in the next twenty minutes, thirty minutes, the light begins to increase, increase, increase. And, on a sunny day, when noon arrives, the sunlight is very hot, very strong. And the writer of Proverbs says that this is the life of a righteous person, a man of God, a woman of God. It is something that starts little by little but is increasing. That is the journey of life and that is how your life and mine should be.

Lives that begin humbly, many times. Sometimes, when one begins in the Lord, one accepts Christ, the Christian life begins, one's life is full of clouds and contaminations, imperfections and our light is dim. But the life of a son of God, a daughter of God must be that every day, every year we get better, and better, and better and our light increases. And people who see the trajectory we're on have to say, Wow! This person, every time I see her, is more mature, wiser, more like Christ.

The apostle Paul writes like this and says, "My little children, for whom I travail until the image of Christ is perfectly formed in you." That is the desire of the Holy Spirit, that the life of Christ in us becomes brighter and brighter, like the light of the dawn that increases until the day is perfect. That is God's vision for you, that with each passing year, each passing day, you become better and better and better. And the key to that glorious trajectory is that you establish specific goals, that each year you go, with chisel blows, forming more and more the image of Christ in your life. That should be the goal of each one of us.

You know brother, in the spirit each one of us is a prophet, a prophetess, and do you know how prophets work? The prophets speak and declare the visions of God and with their mouth. And by uttering visions from God, those visions come true and we must do the same. We must declare in faith the promise of God, the purpose of God in our lives, because what we declare with our mouths, in the Lord and in his wisdom must be fulfilled. We have to conceive clear goals. And I'm going to talk a little bit later about stating our goals and our visions. We also have to visualize what we want. We become what we declare, what we declare in the spirit. And if you don't conceive big visions for your life, you won't get them.

We have to conceive things in the spirit and then place them before God for Him to shine upon them and make them a reality. Now, our visions, the things we conceive in the spirit can't just be idle dreams, okay? There are many dreamy people, who are always conceiving new things, as they say around there, right? They say, this year I am going to exercise, they buy a running machine for five hundred or a thousand dollars and, after a week, they are hanging clothes on top of the machine because they don't use it anymore. And that is not what God wants for you. God wants you to conceive healthy purposes and that they are not vain dreams but specific and concrete visions in the spirit. And that is my first point that I want to leave with you, my brothers, on this afternoon of the beginning of the year, we have to incubate our visions for the future in the spirit. We have to always be pregnant with a vision or something new and fresh before the Lord, and we have to have an idea of where we are going and how we are going to get there.

Pablo says, “In this way I run”, he says, “or I fight”, not like the one who hits like that in the dark to see if he can catch someone, but rather he says that he hits his body and also controls himself and establishes disciplines. We have to strike with a sense of clarity, definition and purpose, because that is what God respects. We have to aim well and hit the target. We have to be specific in our conceptions and our visions. That is the type of person that God respects and with whom God commits himself. These are the people God takes seriously and the people to whom God dedicates Kingdom resources to help us fulfill those visions. God does not respect the person who is always changing and who leaves things there, in the middle. God engages with people who set a clear vision, name it, write it down, and then set a purpose.

I'm afraid that many Christians we know are like people who, when they conceive a vision or their dream, are like a bladder, that's a bomb, I don't know how they say it in other countries, balloon, right? Very tense because it's full of air, but with each passing day that little bulb goes down, down, down until what's left is just a little bit of rubber on the floor. And to that type of person, God does not honor their dreams, God honors people who define their visions, commit to them and are there every day cultivating them.

I was talking to a group of men up there, at the end of the service in English, this afternoon I met them, they were sitting there, encouraging each other to good works, as they say. And I told them about that, look, if you get carried away by emotions, forget that you were fried, you died in the movie. And I told them that I have learned that I cannot let myself be carried away by my emotions. When one conceives something, one has to live despite the fact that emotions want to betray you. Many times your emotions will betray you and as soon as you start something, the devil will tell you, look, forget about it, those are vain dreams and it will fill you with discouragement. You have to say, no, I have made a commitment to something and I am going to fulfill it, because I am a man or a woman of honor, and I am a child of God, I am a warrior, I take myself seriously and God takes me seriously. . God will respect you when you commit to your visions and you stick to them.

The writer says, the path of the just, that path is your life, it is a journey, it is a journey that must have a sense of direction, a sense of purpose. You have to think, what will the journey of my life consist of? When I finish my journey, will something substantial remain, will I have made a mark in the world, will they miss me when I disappear from this world, will my name remain in future generations, in my children and my grandchildren, will they remember that I I existed, that I made a difference in their lives, the community in which I lived, will I be needed when I leave?

And we have to live our life in that way, to make a difference, a mark. Another writer, the writer of the book “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People,” he says that we have to live our life in such a way that when people do our, what is this thing called at the end at funerals. Yes, like a celebration of life, let's say, or a eulogy [sic], exactly, thank you. A eulogy. Live like you're listening to what people say about you when you're dead and live that way every day of your life. Because when you die, people say all kinds of virtues and good things that you did. So one should live life that way, as if in accordance with what I want people to say about me when I reach the end of my life. You have to live a life with purpose and clarity. Because life is a journey and when you start a journey you have to know where you are going, yes or no? And you have to have a sense of whether you're going north, south, east, or west. And you have to know how you are going to get to that place, because if you don't have specific goals, if you don't have a clear vision of who you want to be and you haven't outlined your vision, you won't get there.

Someone said, Lewis Carroll, a very famous English writer, he said that if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. And it's mysterious, that's deep. If you don't know where you are going, what does it matter if you choose here or there. You're going to get to the place where you're not exactly going anyway, right? That is the idea, if you do not know where you are going, look, take any path, live life as you want, because you have no purpose, there is no name, you will not know if you arrived or not. Another person also said, Yogi Berra, who was a baseball coach, well known for his aphorisms, his sayings, he says, "if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else." Meaning that if you don't know where you're going, look, you're probably going to get to a place where you don't want to go, or you're going to go to another place because you haven't defined where you want to go.

The person who gets where they want to go is the person who knows where they want to go, yes or no? Think about that, it's logical. So, that's how it happens in life, if you don't set goals in your life, you might as well go home. Lie down to sleep until they take you to the other world. Because the Christian life must be lived with a sense of purpose. How many people in the gospel, brothers, waste the endowment they have within them. They know that Christians should be the people who reach the most goals, who conceive the most purpose, who accumulate the most greatness through life. Because we have within us the mighty spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead. If you are not reaching goals every day of your life and achieving new things and ascending new dimensions, you are wasting the power of God that is within you. Because the spirit that God has placed within you is a spirit of power, love and self-control, says the word of the Lord.

“I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you”, Paul tells Timothy, because the spirit that you have within you is a spirit of power. My brother, my sister understands that God has put in you the spirit of a war tank, more than a war tank, don't waste it. Use that endowment that you have within you and every day set yourself goals of greatness, of accumulating. He spoke to the young people, I'm speaking to you, young people. I see these beautiful young people, right here, these young men and this young lady here. And others who are here today. You know, think about great things, conceive great goals for your life, and right now it's not too early. Today, is not too early for you to begin planning out a great life. A life of great achievements and greatness and excellence because you have the power of Jesus Christ inside of you.

If you didn't understand what I said, receive it by faith anyhow. And you know what? Perhaps one of the goals for 2022 is to learn English, because you are in a country where English is spoken. Esta bien? There if I put the knife well into the gossip, right? Say ouch! The first English word, ouch, instead of saying ouch, say ouch. That's the equivalent of woe in English. Set yourself a specific goal, this year I'm going to learn to speak English, at least I'm going to start the journey. A good goal to conceive, isn't it? It is that we have to live a life of excellence, for a child of God there is no alternative.

Young men, let's get to work, okay? And we are going to live big lives in the Lord and set specific goals. And he knows that when you set a goal, you may not reach one hundred percent of the goal you set for yourself, it doesn't matter, the very effort of reaching the goal will already have achieved something, you will have grown. And then continue with the goal, how are we going to say in a moment, until you get there. Don't be disappointed, keep going, keep working. But set yourself great and powerful goals because that is the heritage that you have within you, that is the blood that you have within you. You have the blood of the Son of God running in your spiritual veins and that should encourage you to set specific goals for yourself, because that is what God respects.

Let me tell you something, too, and that is that it amazes me, it amazes me, really, how seriously God takes me, it amazes me and scares me and it must scare you too. Do you know that God takes you very seriously? And that when God hears that you say, "Lord, I want to reach this goal", the Lord pays attention and listens to you and takes you seriously. God takes committed people seriously and that is why we need to give God assignments. God is there wanting you to tell him what you want to achieve in your life, what specific goals you have for yourself, what achievements in your person you want to achieve. The Lord is attentive to those people who ask him.

James says, “You don't receive, why? Because you don't ask." Many times we do not ask the Lord for anything, we say Lord, I want to be a man of faith, I want to be a woman of courage, I want to be a man who does not allow himself to be crushed by the reverses of life, I want to be a person, a noble father and exemplary for my children. I want to be a good husband, I want to be the best worker at my firm, I want to be an excellent student. And since we don't tell the Lord specifically what we want to do and with determination and deliberation, the Lord then stays there waiting, circling the airport. He knows that God is like that, like a plane over an airport, waiting for people to tell him, come land inside me, here I give you a clue so that you can land in my life, through the requests that we give, the achievements that we undertake, the dreams in the Lord that we conceive. God wants to hear from you, and God wants you to see great visions.

I was thinking about the Prayer of Jabez, do you remember the Prayer of Jabez, First Chronicles, chapters 4, 9 and 10? It says that Jabez was more illustrious than his brothers, “…whom his mother called Jabez, saying because I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabes's mother conceived Jabes and had a very painful and dangerous delivery, it seems. He knows that children, sometimes, when they are born with a lot of anguish, live lives that are just as anguished, too, and with the shadow of their suffering. And, Jabes, she lived that life as sad, because her mother had called it pain. That is what Jabez means. And Jabes in his youth had lived a dark and cloudy life, but there came a day when Jabes revealed himself and said, I don't want to live that life anymore, I'm sick of living like this. And look at what Jabes says, the word says, "… and I call Jabes to the God of Israel saying, oh! If you would give me blessing, and enlarge my territory and if your hand were with me and if you delivered me from evil so that I would not harm".

Jabez got tired of his mediocre and sad situation and got up with determination. And that oh, it was an oh of passion, of commitment, of intensity, of strong emotion. And Jabez asked the Lord for four things: if they would give me a blessing, if you would enlarge my territory, if your hand would be with me and if you would deliver me from evil so that it does not harm me. Jabez was specific in what he wanted for his life. He was already tired of a mediocre and shapeless life and he came before the Lord, presented himself and said, Father, this is what I want for my life. And what does the word say? It says, “…and God granted him what he asked for”, God granted him what he asked for. First Chronicles 4, 9 and 10.

When you ask the Lord specifically, when you undertake a life of purpose, God commits himself to you and God grants you what you ask for. I can say that in my life I have seen so many times that I have conceived visions for the Lord and I have seen how God has committed himself to my vision and sometimes it has taken longer than I thought, but I have reached the goal because He is committed to me. Jabez declared his vision and God answered him. When you state your purpose before God, God walks up to you, rolls up his sleeves, and says okay, let's get in there, let's work together, and He walks with you to make your vision a reality.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, says, “…But without faith it is impossible to please God,” it says. “Because it is necessary that he who draws near to God, what? Believe that there is, believe that there is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him." In other words, if you want to deal with God, you better be sure that He is real, and that He is going to answer your prayers and that He is going to reward you with whatever you ask of Him. Do not come near the Lord to, we will see, to see if. No, approach God with a clear purpose and hoping that you will have an answer from Him.

James 1, verses 6 and 7. What does James 1:6 and 7 say? It says, “…But when you ask how should you believe and not doubt.” When you commit yourself to a vision and present it before the Lord, believe in it, get inside yourself and find that place, that place where there is certainty, confidence and believe that God is going to answer you. He says, "... because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea dragged and shaken by the wind." How many people do we know like this, brothers, like the waves of the sea, carried by the wind? One day yes, one day no. One day they are hot, another day they are colder than a piece of ice. They conceive dreams, they don't fulfill them. One day they are, another day they are not. Sometimes they are red hot and they eat the world and take it with them. And another day they are there flattened, lying on the floor all depressed and they forgot the illusions of the beginning. That person does not believe that God is going to honor him, does not believe that God is going to bless him. Such a person, he says, "should not expect to receive anything from the Lord." That is what James says, 1:7. "Such a person is double-minded and unstable in everything he does."

Let us ask the Lord to eradicate, to erase from us the inconstancy, the lack of definition, the vane in the wind, that which we often have within us. He says, and let us conceive clear visions, let us present them to the Lord with purpose. So let's chase our visions. I am going to leave you with qualities that we must have to fulfill our visions. Listen to this, because this is the meat of the sermon, rather. Some qualities that you must have to reach your goals:

Number 1: and some of these things I have already referred to, but if you can prop it up there. First, incubate your vision over a period of time, develop it slowly and deliberately. Incubating our visions, that means hatching them, taking time to define them and to know exactly what we are conceiving. Take time to take your vision and refine and hone it until it's well, well defined. Because, many times, we have general, generic ideas about our goals, but we haven't taken the time to define them. If I ask the Lord, for example, "Father, give me patience." Look, what does that mean to be patient. "No, give me patience with my wife, give me patience with my children when they break into my office and I'm there working, give me patience with the neighbor who plays music too loud."

We have to ask the Lord for a vision, a clear one, "Lord, when I'm on 93, at five in the afternoon and the traffic is full of people, give me patience so I don't be honking at the person in front of me, or shouting at through the glass or whatever." You have to be specific. We must be clear and define our visions. Incubate your vision, take time to define before God and refine what you want God to provide for you.

Number 2: Visualize your visions in the spirit. Here, in our mind, we have a very high definition screen. I have always believed in the importance of visualizing what we want and seeing it in three dimensions. Hebrews 11 says, that "Some of the heroes of the faith were looking towards that city not built with the hands of men, it says, and although they did not reach it, they visualized it and greeted it from a distance." You don't greet something you haven't seen and those people believed in the vision so much that it encouraged them to go ahead and they could see it with their eyes.

The word also says that the Lord, for the joy that was set before him, denigrated suffering and reached his goals. When Christ was on the cross he was not seeing the nails, he was not seeing the soldiers laughing at him, he was not seeing the Pharisees who despised him. No, he was seeing this multitude of people who were going to be healed and saved by his death on the cross, and that held him steady. When he was walking in the world and people despised him, they left everything alone, he was not looking at that, he was looking at the goal, the resurrection, the salvation of billions and billions of people through the centuries. And that it is important that we visualize what we want and that we bring it to red hot and clear definition. Visualize your goals, the ability to have a clear vision.

Number 3: Write down your vision. I'm glad to see some of you writing there, in your books, writing the message. That is important, because when one writes things down, it captures and reminds us of things. Because otherwise it's easy to forget about it. When you conceive a vision, a dream for God, write it down somehow, because that's what the teachers say, those who teach, they say that if you use more than one sense, of the five senses you have, you learn more strongly. If you listen to the teacher, what he is saying, but you also write it down and then if you read it out loud, too, and then if you have to rephrase it [sic] in an exam and express it in another way, all these things reinforce the vision. So, get used to writing down your visions, keeping a journal. I admire people who keep, who write diaries, I don't but I admire those who do, because it's a nice practice. Write down your visions and don't just leave them there, in your mind, in the air.

Number 4: Declare your vision to God and to others. Declare your vision. Because? Because when you share with others what you are dreaming of in Christ, in God, your goals, that makes you commit yourself more to them and because you already have someone else who has told them what you want to achieve, then you already you feel more engaged. You have to declare the visions to others, you have to share them with others and you have to declare them to God, too. I like to declare my goals before people, because that commits me to them and also, when I am declaring them or prophesying them with my mouth. Remember what I said, that we are prophets in God, in Christ. Because God creates, how? With his mouth and us too when we declare our visions, that's a way of taking them out of ourselves and objectifying [sic] them and putting them out there, too.

Right now, for example, I have some personal goals, I'm in my life, financial, and I wrote a document, about a year ago, about twenty pages, about that financial goal, just that, in great detail until I'm 93 years old. . Note that I am modest, 93 and I think I have little faith because I should say until I am 110, frankly, if I were a man of more faith I would not put 93. But I said, well let's put 93 years and I have written a document, Mecha is there to tell me if I'm lying or not. I took my time and there are all the financial trajectories of our family for twenty-three years, I mean, up to 93 years. And, for me, writing that document is like a prophetic document that I lay at the feet of the Lord, and I say, “Father, would you like to honor that vision of mine?” And every day I refresh it, I revisit it, I am refining it, because I believe that by doing that I am strengthening the vision and I am making sure that I reach the goal. Let's see what happens at 93 years old, if I'm alive, I'll come back here to visit you, I don't know if I'll still be with you, or whatever, and they'll tell me, “Pastor, what happened to that vision you said you had? had in the year 2022?” I hope to tell you, I not only met it but exceeded it, in the name of the Lord. Declare your vision to other people.

But there is something very important and this is the fifth thing I say: Choose well those to whom you declare your visions. It is important, be careful, because if you declare your dream to flattened people, without vision and without dreams, they will want to demolish your vision. Because you know that pessimistic people with no vision feel threatened when someone says, I want to do this and they have big dreams. I can't tell you how many times, over the years, when I've shared a vision with the wrong people, what they want, they pour water on the vision. Because people who don't have vision can't understand those who do. Also, many times, the people with whom you share your vision have not lived within you and do not know why you have come to that vision. So, yes, you have to declare your visions to others but be very careful who you declare them to.

Declare your visions to people who can understand you, people who have vision, too. That is why it is important that you associate with people with vision, not associate with people, over there, full of, you know, cockroaches in their heads. No, make friends and a company of visionary people, people of excellence, people of healthy ambitions, committed people. Don't surround yourself with mediocre people. If you are going to surround yourself with mediocre people, it is to bless them and bring them to your position, not to let yourself be carried away by them. Okay, so, state your vision, important, but choose the people you state your vision to, too, to encourage you and encourage you to keep going.

Number 6: This is important about a good vision, a good goal. Keep it real. And at the same time make sure that the vision stretches you a little. It's a mix of things. On the one hand, you have to be realistic, because, you know, if I say to people right now, "Look, what would Pastor Miranda like to achieve?" And I say, "well I want to be an astronaut." Well, look at 66 years of age, I think, probably, unless they pay me for the trip on one of those rockets that goes over there, probably, who knows, maybe yes, maybe not. So one has to be realistic with their visions. The Bible says “No one thinks of himself more than he should think of himself, but think of himself with what? With sanity.” In other words you have to know what your endowment is. If I said right now, look, I want to be a major league baseball player, well, or a basketball player, imagine. There are things that are realistic. And you have to know what God has endowed you with. And you have to know yourself and know your limitations and your potential. But neither can you choose mediocre and too easy visions. The visions that we conceive have to stretch us, they have to challenge us and sometimes they have to even terrify us, you know?

When you conceive of something really big and you get scared because it's something amazing. And so our visions must be realistic and they must also be idealistic, a tension between the two. They must stretch you, they must encourage you, they must challenge you, you must feel like I have to go a little further than I can. Both things are important, be realistic and be idealistic and also, the two things have a balance. If someone young tells me, sometimes I ask young people, "what would you like to do in your life, what would you like to study?" They tell me, "Well, I want to be a brain surgeon or a surgeon, a cardiologist." But they don't even know how to add 3 + 3. They don't do well in math, they don't try hard in school. So that's not being realistic. Maybe the goal should be I want to get better at math and after that, then I want to study some science and then become a neurologist. But you have to be realistic with your goals and also stretch a little. The two things have to be in balance.

Another very important point, when you set goals, be specific about it, I have already talked about it, you have to be concrete and specific. See the details of your vision and its components. Again, in this plan that I have proposed, in the financial area, for example, one of the things that for me - and Meche knows this because I have talked about it a lot with her and also with my daughters, our daughters, - is to leave a legacy for our grandchildren and our children. Actually, I don't care so much about benefiting from that financial vision. Actually, one of the aspects of that goal is that they can benefit and start a financial legacy for my generations, our generations. It's something specific about her. And another thing has to do with another aspect that I am not going to mention too much, it does not fit, it is not relevant. But, that is why we must define our visions, be very specific. You have to see its details, you have to name the land, you have to define if it is north or south, if there are mountains or valleys, if you have to cross rivers or seas. The goal has to be specific in your life, that if they ask you what that means, that you can tell them in great detail, exactly what it consists of, the components of your vision. Be specific about it. Because that will give God coordinates to bless you and to give you what you need. Again, remind Jabez, "Oh, if you would bless me, if your hand were with me, if you would enlarge my territory, if you would deliver me from evil." You have to speak clearly. Jabez didn't always say, "Oh, Lord bless me." No, what does the blessing consist of?

Eighth: Put your vision in prayer and pray for it continuously until you see it realized. I firmly believe that when we conceive our visions we have to pour water on it, as in prayer. Our vision is, when it starts, they are like a small plant and every day we have to add a little water to it. How many talk to your plants? Tell me the truth, how many bless the bushes they have in their homes? Confess, don't be afraid. I think, I don't know, the world is mysterious, right? And when one speaks to these plant entities, one is sending positive energy. The world is full of energy and this is not Walter Mercado here speaking. No, this is just so. There is something beautiful when one blesses things and those beings, those entities receive the energy, the tone of your voice, they receive the tenderness that is in it, and I believe that this has incredible power. So, our visions have to be like this, we have to bless them, we have to talk to them, we have to celebrate them, already in anticipation. Every day we have to remember them before the Lord. Incubate your visions in prayer and pray for them every day. Because when you pray for your visions that will attract the power of God over them and it will gradually remove obstacles that may be ahead of them. Pray for your visions and bless them every day of your life until you see them come true.

Ninth, I don't know if they are keeping an account there: Recruit others to support your vision, find allies for your visions. Visions and life goals must be incubated in community. You must seek others to help you achieve your goals. In the case of this financial vision that I am talking about, I can tell you that I have recruited other suitable people to help me in that vision, because only I know that I could not achieve it. So, I've recruited my wife to say, "Yes, you can do it," first and endorse the vision. Because if she doesn't approve of it, it's not going anywhere, you know? That's how it is. Wise is the man who recruits his wife in his visions, write that down, and that's free. Recruit others, because visions must be achieved in community. No, not alone, but you are going to need mentors. For example, young man if you want to live a life of excellence, get good mentors to help you, to advise you, to encourage you, to exemplify the greatness and excellence to which you are aiming. Search, find mentors to help you to achieve your visions. Look for people with resources, too, maybe if you want something, let's say, in the financial area, well, talk to people who have achieved success in the world of finance. Read good books, too, on finance and so on. Seek people to help you pray and reach your goals to achieve your vision. Recruit other resources and allies to help you achieve your vision.

I'm almost done, tenth: Set a specific time for, like a deadline, a deadline, to achieve your vision. Because? Because when you put a date, that anchors you to a specific time. For example, I told them, my goal is to have achieved certain things at the age of 93. Imagine all that time, but between now and that goal there are a lot of things in between. But it is good to set a goal and every year, by 2025 I hope to have achieved this, by 2027 I hope to have achieved that, by 2037 I hope to have achieved something else and by 2047, which is precisely when I would be 93 years old, we hope to reach that other goal. You have to date your visions, you have to set deadlines. Because if you don't set deadlines then you're going to spread out wherever you want.

We have been reading the bible for a year, haven't we, many of you? It is good to say that by January 17 I will have read the Bible. I set myself the goal of reading it twice in a year and you know what? Last week I reached the goal, I read the bible twice in one year. I'm not saying it to impress you. I am saying this so that you understand, it helped me a lot to say “by January 17 I have to have read the Bible twice” and that helped me. When I was going around June and I saw that I was a little behind, I caught up. And, glory to God, that the last two weeks of that year have been spent revising some of the readings to reinforce them more and more. Date your goals that's important, too.

Next, I'm missing three or four. 12: He's willing to pay the price for your vision, because there's always a cost, you know? If you want to lose weight, you're going to have to tie your mouth shut, because you're not going to be able to eat all that chop you want and drink all the milkshakes you want, or sleep. No, you're going to have to exercise, you're going to have to hold your mouth, you're going to have to discipline yourself. Because it is important. So align your life with your vision and pay the price. They are two different things, but if you want to achieve a goal you also have to align your life to the vision, you have to live a life consistent with your vision and you have to order. If you want to exercise, let's say you want to lose weight or whatever and you want to exercise the next day, you're going to have to go to bed a little earlier and get up a little earlier, maybe, to have time before you go to work. , to school or whatever. We have to align our life to our visions and pay the price for our visions. Visions are achieved by paying a price and knowing what the price is and then achieving it. Because there are many people who want to achieve great goals but, forget it, they are not willing to pay the price. That is very important.

One other last thing: Commit to your long-term vision. The people who achieve visions are people who have a long-term vision, Habakkuk 3 says, "Write the vision and even if it takes time, don't let it go, because it will come to fulfillment." Even if the vision is late, believe in it and continue cultivating it. Maybe you took longer than you expected in the vision but you are still planted in it. There are visions that I thought I would have achieved twenty years ago, brother, and I still haven't achieved them, but you know I won't let go, I won't let go until God grants them to me or until I die. But I will continue to trust the vision and chase it to the end. Commit to the long term. Life and success in life is decided by people who have a long-term vision, those who stay there until the end.

And the last thing: if you don't comply, if you don't achieve your goal one hundred percent, don't condemn yourself. The devil wants to accuse and ridicule us when we don't reach our goals, when we fail, when we miss the mark and he wants us to throw ashes on our heads and say, “You know what? I'm not going to keep dreaming, I'm not going to keep chasing more visions because I didn't make it." Do not condemn yourself, do not give in to condemnation. If you conceive of a goal say, “Hey! I'm going to do my best and I'm going to try my best and if it doesn't reach the goal, I'm going to thank the Lord and I'm going to push it a little bit further and continue with it.” Long-term vision and do not condemn yourself because in Christ everything is yes and amen and everything is profit. If you did not achieve one hundred percent of your goal, I am sure that you will have learned many things that will be useful for the future. Continue with the vision and do not condemn yourself. Be patient because God is patient with you, He does not condemn you when you do not reach your goal, He tells you "It's good that you tried", now let's move on, amen. So these are some tips from the Lord for you, so that you can achieve that goal that your life is like the light of the dawn that is increasing until that day is perfect.

My brothers, I declared about your lives, this beginning of the year, a year of goals achieved, a year of great visions for you, a year of success, a year of achieving wonderful things for your lives. I declare on you success, I declare on you a life of excellence, I declare on you goals achieved for your marriage, for your health, for your behavior, for your character, for your work life, your professional aspirations. He declared that the Lord is committed to you so that you live a life of greatness and excellence in Him. Psalms 37, 5 and 6, keep that in your heart. "Commit your way to the Lord and trust in Him and He will do, He will display your justice as light and your justice as noon." Glory to the Lord, amen and amen. Thanks, Dad. Let's stand up for a moment, stand up now and always remember that your goals have to be accomplished in Christ Jesus, okay? It is in Christ, the one who is going to give you power is his Holy Spirit within you.

May this year be a year of drawing closer to Jesus and living lives filled with the Holy Spirit, too, which will give us the energy and power to reach the finish line. Father, I bless this community, this family that is called the León de Judá Congregation. I bless those who are near and those who are far away, I bless those who are here physically, those who are in their homes, too. I bless my brothers who are in Colombia, in Peru, in Mexico, wherever they are, I declare God's shalom over their lives, I declare the divine water that will refresh them when the day gets difficult. He declared joy in them and I declare expectations of great things that You will do in them. I declare that the fire will not burn them, the water will not drown them, but they will reach the other shore because You are with them and you are in their boat.

I declare victory in everything you undertake in the name of the Lord. I declare return on any deposit they put in, any effort that You will multiply, expand. And I declare delight in their hearts to live glorious lives and lives of effort and exercises in You. I declare that this is a year for them to get to know you better, to get closer to You. I declare months of increasing intimacy on your way. And I also declare that Your word will bring them closer and they to You, and that all the things that cloud their path, all the things that grieve Your spirit that is in them, they will put aside one, after one and defeating them until their path is cleared before them.

And, Father, I declare revelation in their minds and in their hearts, revelations that You are going to give them in their sleep at night, revelations that You are going to give them in their daily walk. And I declare, Father, that they will be an example to others, that they will be a source of blessing for our community. And likewise, that this church will be an exemplary church, better and better every day, that we will shine more and more like the midday sun. Father, that our life as a community, as a congregation and as a family will be a life that will bring delight to Your heart, and when You look over the Lion of Judah, You will see many things to be happy about and feel satisfied with us as your children.

I declare victory in everything we undertake and I declare that our enemies will be under our feet, that You are going to exile, and cast out every plot against us, against our well-being. May all those who rage against us be ashamed and be like nothing, as Your word says, Father, may all those who want to make war on us disappear from our midst, because You, our God, tells us, because I am your God that I strive for you, I will always help you, I will always support you with the right hand of my justice. So, Father, we present this year ahead and we go towards it with sure footing, with our sword in hand, with the shield of faith in our arms, Lord. That You will protect us from all evil and those we love too. May your peace hover over this place, Father, and over our entire community and thank you for being that faithful God. In the name of Jesus and the people of God say, amen, glory to the Lord. We are going to live glorious lives, brothers, because what God has is good for us. God bless you, Happy New Year.