Elements of the long journey

Today I want to share with you one last part of this sermon that I have been preaching about becoming what God wants us to be, or what God has already said we are. How to become all that God wants us to be. And this is part of that larger series that has to do with what we have called resilience, the ability to rebound from the tragedies, the struggles, the losses, the heartbreaks and trials of life, how to be people who hit home runs all the time. that the devil pulls in our direction, that we can come out of our crises, our struggles better than before, that we not only not be overwhelmed by the difficulties and the losses and the tragedies of life, but use them as a springboard to become something bigger. That is the trajectory of the children of God. We use situations like this pandemic and then we learn new things, we develop new skills, we learn to trust the Lord more, we confirm God's faithfulness and then we are more ready to be more effective and happier too and make others more happy.

As I say, this is interestingly the third sermon within a single sermon. I started this sermon a few weeks ago, talking about that topic, going forward, growth, development in the Lord, and there was so much material that I had to divide it and I think this is the third, it may be even the fourth as well. from that series. What I want to do today is deal specifically with, I call it, elements of the long journey. What are those elements that we use to reach our goals through what is a long trajectory? And what I have done is summarized in a series of practices that we must put into practice, despite the redundancy, at any time in our lives when we are in the process of development and on that journey towards personal and spiritual greatness. What are the practices that one always puts into practice? Everything that I have been talking about in these last weeks and months has to do with that, with those practices that we must always apply to reach our goals. And what I have done is to summarize and put in a structural way the components of what that long journey is.

And remember that in the last sermon, I specifically spoke about how the journey towards personal transformation, towards achieving our goals, towards overcoming our personal limitations or the limitations of our circumstances, is arduous and long-term, and it is difficult because it involves all aspects of our being. It involves our emotions, it involves our mind, our will, our body, our habits, our memories, the traumas we've been through, and God wants to take all of those things and heal them. Because when God works He operates at the deepest level of being. God is not a careless craftsman, caring only for the surface. No, God goes to the very root and from there, He works in our lives to take us where He wants to take us. And so that we can reach that point where He wants us, He takes us through the past, reminds us of things that we had even repressed from the past, and that are there like stinking things, like a meal that we forgot one day and It makes the whole house smell bad. And God likes to go into all the corners and recesses of the psyche and soul, and find those things that are hidden from ourselves. And He uses the events of life to bring those things to light, so that we then submit them to Him for Him to heal and deal with. And sometimes that requires a long day and that is why the work of personal transformation takes many years, brothers, and in reality it never ends.

Do you know when it ends? When we die, when we pass into the presence of the Lord and then we are totally transformed. But while we're on earth, we're going to be working on a lot of things and healing things, and failing and getting back on our feet. And God uses all the materials, everything. He is like an artist who puts ten strange things, a can, a piece of wood, a stone, a bit of water, and he makes something precious, a beautiful work with common materials. And so is the Lord. He uses all the ugly and dark and rejectable things in our lives. There is nothing that God wastes. God uses all the elements of your day, that is why you should not lose heart. And I have sister Blanca, so don't worry, dear, because I want you to have the opportunity to share with us. Sometimes people worry and think that I'm going to forget, but no. I'm going to that address. Because I have asked Blanca to share some of her testimony with us, as an illustration of what I mean.

Again, that's what it's all about. And I am going to talk about elements that we have to use in the journey towards self transformation, elements like confessing, acknowledging, embracing, renouncing, rebuking, community, praying, persisting, these are the fundamental key elements of any journey towards transformation. . And I'm going to start, and then I'm going to ask Blanca to come over here, with Psalm 32, a few verses from Psalm 32, because here we see some of those elements. David, as he speaks here, he's talking about confession, the acknowledgment of sin, working out the things that are within us so that God can enlighten us. He begins in Psalm 32 and says, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered." Blessed are we when God helps us move beyond where we are, from our sinfulness, our fallen condition, to something greater. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit." And so, he says in verse 3; "While I kept silent my bones grew old in my groaning all day..." He is speaking there of many times we repress our sin and what does he do? It pokes us like a nail that grows inward, when we keep quiet, when we repress, when we don't confess, we don't recognize. "... because by day and by night your hand was heavy on me, my greenness became in dryness of summer."

When we don't recognize our faults, what happens? That God is kind of sullen against us. Nothing mortifies the Holy Spirit more than when a man or a woman does not recognize their sin, does not recognize their fault, their weaknesses, and simply gives them another name or blames it on others, instead of recognizing what it is, because as that the hand of God is then placed on that person and he does not progress. And God says, "I'm going to leave you there until you learn." And then, that's what it says, “my bones grew old and your hand grew aggravated. My sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity." Here he is now talking about that moment when he recognizes what he needs. He has stopped covering up his sin and now he confesses it. It says, "My sin I declared to you and I did not cover my iniquity, I said, I will confess my transgressions to Jehovah." An intelligent man, an intelligent woman, the one who recognizes that she is doing wrong and repents and changes her behavior.

"I will confess my transgressions to Jehovah and you forgave the wickedness of my sin, for this all saints will pray to you in the time that can be found." And in verse 7 after David has said, I am not going to repress any more, I am not going to hide my sin, I am going to admit it, I am going to confess it, then, he goes from the crisis and the anguish to a moment in which he says… he changes the tone of that psalm, he says, “You are my refuge, you will keep me from anguish…” He is already confessing a change of condition now, “…with songs of liberation you will surround me.” And then he hears God say to him, "I will make you understand and I will teach you the way in which you should walk, upon you I will fix my eyes." You see, in this spiritual journey of David, he goes from repressing his sin, shutting it up, not confessing it, and then when he does, he changes his life and God starts talking to him and says, “You know what? I am going to make you understand and I will teach you the path you must walk.”

When a man or a woman is humble, we are humble about our condition and we are not making false pretenses, hiding who we are, blaming others, then the Lord comes and sits beside us and walks with us and guides us. accompanies and teaches us how we should walk and lights our way. “Upon you I will fix my eyes. Do not be like the horse, like the mule without understanding that must be restrained with a halter and with a bridle, because otherwise they will not approach you.” It's that idea of not being stubborn. There are so many people you know in the world who are hurting and being hurt and don't change their ways. You talk to them and they don't understand, they don't listen to advice, they are stubborn and they are always blaming others for their problems. And they are just like the horse or the mule that you have to put a bridle on and pull and put the iron in their mouths so they can hold on. And so God has to do sometimes. The stubborn person is not going anywhere. The humble person God then recognizes, but I am preaching too much before my sister.

Meche was speaking when we were coming down the road this morning, about the testimony that Blanca gave yesterday to our sisters, the women in the women's group, who had a beautiful service, and she was talking about precisely when I was telling her what I was going to talk about, She told me, “Look, that's exactly what Blanca has experienced in her life,” and she told me, “And Blanca is a different woman, she's even prettier,” she told me. So... the Bible says that the wisdom of God beautifies the face and there are still paths to walk, right? But God is going to take you more and more each day. So, God is using Blanca in Honduras, in a very beautiful work that she is doing there. And God took this simple woman, an ordinary woman like we all are, and transformed her into a witness of the Lord. But her trajectory of how she went from fear, during Covid, to a position of trust and being used by God there in Honduras when she lived there. That's what it's all about. She is going to give us a brief testimony about that. Thank you, Blanca.

Blanca's testimony

God bless you, brothers. In our country they say, who lives? Christ. And to her name… Gloria. We are very expressive and I am one of them. But now I am here acknowledging, as the pastor says, that I have weaknesses, I have many things. But for the pandemic I was praying and a fear came over me, brothers, that you cannot imagine. I had a fear. I want to say the same thing I said yesterday but it almost never comes out. God knows what he wants me to say today. I started with fear, we started praying and I started with that fear inside of me. I couldn't tell anyone that I had that fear because I didn't even recognize that that fear was there. I start to pray and I begin to see how God was glorifying in one way or another but did not recognize that I was afraid. I begin to see how my children began to say, "Nobody can come because it can make my mommy sick." Well, yesterday I said the lady because in my family, everyone sees me as very strong, a courageous woman, they see a woman who is not afraid of many things, and I have an impact on the life of my husband, my children, of my grandchildren. And I, “No, don't be afraid, no, don't worry,” but within me was fear.

And I began to pray, I sought more the presence of the Lord, I began to cry out, I began to look for him but there was fear. Sometimes it stays still there and we can't understand that it's there, and we can't recognize it. And that is, as the pastor was saying, to recognize what is. It's not just fear, many areas of our lives, admitting it, there it is, I don't want you. Jesus Christ set me free. You have the authority, Lord, to tell her to leave, because I am your daughter. We are the King's creation and He formed us. And I start to hear my children, “No, don't let them come. Nobody can come here. They can infect my mom.” And then something kind of woke up in me, like saying, wow! My children are putting me, but they are also afraid. And the biggest thing was my granddaughter. My granddaughter tells her dad, “Do you clean yourself up before you come over? Don't come here. And if you can stay at work, then stay.” imagine. Daughter of a daughter of mine, granddaughter of mine, let's see, as they say, tiger... how come you say? There is a saying that says... they have that temperance, they have that courage and they say what they feel and they are right.

But when I listen to my granddaughter, like something inside me said, something is happening. And I feel that… I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel that something comes out of me. And I sat down and started crying and said, what's wrong? What is happening, sir? And I start to cry and to identify and to recognize that there was something inside of me, and that it was affecting everything around me, everything. And I start to pray and I remember that I said to the Lord, "Father, I have always prayed, and I have always believed in my spirit that I have a powerful God, that nothing is impossible for you and that if you are with me, I will with you, because you have always been and will continue to be, both in my house and in my life itself. And I begin to recognize, I begin to sit down with the Dad I have, to tell him what was happening to me. Unquestionably, brothers, it is a wonderful thing when we see that the Father comes and says, “Here I am. Here I am, take it out, because if you are with me there is no reason to fear. He has not given us a spirit of cowardice but of self-control. But it is very difficult. We speak the word but when we live it, it becomes alive in us, it becomes alive in a way that you grow, and one grows as if in accordance with that wonderful God who takes you by the hand and says, "Here I go." with you." And well, I feel that, the fear goes away, I admit, I renounce and that fear goes away. I got up and the first thing I thought was, I'm going to Honduras because I'm not a woman who's going to be locked up.

And I'm going to Honduras. No, I'm lying, first I tell my husband, "I'm going to go to Honduras," because that was what had made me anxious, how am I going to do, today I can't go to Honduras, everything is closed, how am I going to do. And well, when I already felt that it was because of my own fear that I did not want to go, and I recognize the fear, the fear leaves. And I already tell my family, "I'm going to Honduras." When I already make a decision, when one has a determination, that sometimes we don't know what God is pushing you to continue, you see it as, oh, it's me. But in my house, in my family, everyone knows that if I tell them, "Tomorrow I'm going to New York," they know I'm going to New York tomorrow. And so, that day I told them, "Dad, I'm going to Honduras, and I'm going to go to Honduras, I'm going to feed these children, I'm going to cook for them." Like now that there is no food, that a situation is happening, we are not going to bless these children. I was going for the children.

But when I arrived in Honduras they were no longer children, everything changed, the hurricanes came. The first hurricane comes, we began to pray and pray because the hurricane was there, wanting to know what was happening with our brothers in San Pedro, in Lima. It was so big what happened. They start calling that we have families in… In La Lima we had family, my aunts are with my cousins, a lot of family and everything was lost there. And my children begin to say, “Mommy, there's my aunt, mommy, this, mommy, the other one,” and something grows in me, like saying, you have to go. You have to go. And I wasn't hearing it, but rather my spirit was feeling, Blanca, you have to go. So, I grab my car and said, I'm leaving. I'm going to go see what's going on, or I'm going to see what God wants. And I'm going there. It was something terrible. What was happening was somewhat painful and I begin to see people sleeping on the street, they had nowhere to be. Children, the elderly and in my spirit I begin to see how these people are going to be helped, how I can give a grain of sand, because one would like to do a lot of things, but God knows specifically what you can do. He knows what is the capacity that I have, that you have, to do what He wants us to do.

So, I start to see what I'm going to do. We did many things, we made food bags, soap and pasta kits, but an idea occurred to me, it was to make flour tortillas. I thought, flour tortillas, because we eat corn tortillas. And then, flour tortillas, on the coastal side they like flour tortillas and they have beans and rice, but I couldn't make a hundred flour tortillas. It was illogical for me to bring 100 flour tortillas seeing that there were children, the elderly, and adults. I said, "Sir, I am going to give you 1,000 tortillas." Sister, but I'm telling you, I'm going to bring 1,000 tortillas, but the work that it implies and everything, I didn't think about it then. I said, "Lord, I am going to give a thousand tortillas, and I am going to bless them with food, but they are going to be flour tortillas." So, we began to see how the flour tortillas were going to be made, and God was putting everything in its place. Well, I planned that I was going to bring the flour tortillas. We couldn't buy the flour tortillas made because it was going to be more money, so we would help once and the next time we wouldn't be able to. So, I decided to make them at home, but we didn't have tortillas. There were a thousand tortillas and I knew that I was not capable of making a thousand tortillas and making them in the morning.

So, I went in the car, as I was telling my pastor, and while I was going, I saw a man who parked his car, lowered some packages of tortillas and when I saw him, I immediately went with my sister, I tell him, "Go, and follow that man." And she said to me, “And for what?” “No, it is what he is carrying in his hand. He brings tortillas.” So, my sister leaves and is going to ask her where she bought the tortillas. I don't know what she did, the sound is that she even bought her tortillas and we went to try the tortillas at home. And I told him, “These are the tortillas.” He called the man and he tells me that he makes them at home and distributes them in all the little stores there in Siguatepeque. And now I ask him, "Are you going to make me a thousand tortillas?" And he told me, "Yes, when?" And I, oh, Father, you already provided the tortillas! And He provides everything. He has everything in control. When we already dispose our hearts to the Father, He will dispose of everything even if it is small or big. What he wants is for us to recognize that we need him and that he is with us, that he fights with us. So, well, I'll tell you about the tortillas.

But later, about two days later, I go to eat at a house, and when I get home the lady has a little store and she told me, "I'm going to leave it, sister, because notice that a man is coming to sell the cheese , but he came late today, so I have to go to attend to him.” And when she said cheese, and so did I, something activated, the cheese. And I said to her, "Sister, could you buy me 25 pounds of cheese because you see that I need it, sister?" You can't imagine me. And she calmly tells me, "Yes, yes, Sister Blanca, I'm going to buy her 25 pounds of cheese." Brothers, that day I left full of joy. A joy that had no understanding. I came home joyful, happy. I told him, Lord, thank you. Thank you because you already provided. Thank you because you already know what I have to… You already knew what I was going to do, you were just giving me a little push to do what I… He was helping me to do what He had planned, including the fact that I am giving the testimony here . It is because He already planned it in heaven, it was already in heaven a long time ago. Blanca will one day say how afraid she was. Because? Because I have been strong, I have been a strong woman, full of courage, but there are moments in our lives as human beings when we falter, when we have weaknesses.

I come here to Boston and I walk into the class. There is a beautiful class here that if you hear about it, sign up. It is called Free in Christ. And I tell him, I am going to take this class to minister to the children who are there in Honduras. And the sister tells me, “If you enter the class, don't enter with a spirit of just going to listen. You are going to enter to see what God is going to do in you, what God wants from you.” And I enter the class and there I understand that everyone has areas where they need to confront their fears, they need to surrender those areas to the Lord. And I start to give up many things, do you know why? Because my whole family is always watching what I'm doing. My legacy, that the day I leave with my Lord, I want my family to continue seeing that woman that God has been forming little by little. God is good. God is wonderful. He is in control and there is nothing impossible for Him. And here I leave you for my pastor to continue preaching.

How many tortillas did you distribute? A thousand tortillas and we go every Monday to distribute the tortillas. A thousand every Monday? Yes. Wow! Yes, a thousand tortillas. Amen. In this case it is the story of five loaves and two fish, but instead of loaves they were tortillas and instead of fish cheese. Tremendous. What a blessing, right? Glory to God and even if I don't reach the end of my sermon but that testimony alone is worth it. Blanca could have remained in fear, in the confinement, but she decided at a given moment to get out of that fear. He knows the best way to overcome fear is by doing things, moving in spite of fear. It is through fear. Because sometimes we wait for the fear to go away to then do something. And sometimes it's the opposite, sometimes you have to do something to make the fear go away. And that is a key in the Christian life. Actions often break negative attitudes in us. Sometimes we are waiting for God to take this away from us, to take away the other, for then tell us to serve him. But sometimes we have to start serving it and those ghosts, those demons then run away from us. It's very interesting. That is something very biblical and very powerful spiritually.

So, we see in the journey that Blanca took and so many of us could talk about moments like this in which the Lord got us out of a quagmire. One sees some of those elements that I am talking about, recognizing where you are, giving it up, confessing it to the Lord, looking for allies, as in their case, these people who helped her, many elements there that are part of the journey of transformation, the elements of the long journey of transformation. And everything begins, brothers, in life with recognizing. The first act that one must always put into practice on the journey of transformation is to recognize. Acknowledge what? Sincerely internally recognize who we really are, our needs, our specific conditions, our limitations, our persistent sins, give it a name and recognize where you are, because that's where it all begins. Who you are honestly, bringing it to the Lord and acknowledging your need.

I think of the psalmist in Psalm 51, David's famous confession psalm. "Because I know my transgressions," says David, "and my sin is always before me." David acknowledged his sin when alerted to his sin and confronted, he immediately bowed his head and acknowledged. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging your sin. The problem is when you reject the knowledge of your sin, when you do not recognize that you are a resentful person, or that you are too critical, or that you are demanding, or that you have a bad character, or that you hold onto offenses, or that you you abuse others, you are too authoritarian, all those things that are part of the journey to transformation. And many times we do not recognize it and the journey to transformation begins when you recognize your sin, because then God says, now we are going to work. There is no shame in acknowledging our sins. We have all failed in one way or another, but there are some who persist in thinking that they have nothing to confess. And there's the thing. When you recognize your condition of fear, for example, yes, I am afraid, I am afraid. You don't call it anything else, because many times we can disguise the monkey and we dress it up very pretty and everything, but as they say, the monkey, even if dressed in silk, remains the monkey. And sometimes we have labels and names for everything. This generation is a specialist in taking names and things and sins and calling them something else. Or disguise negative impulses and call them something else. And that's in many situations today where we use excuses and call it grace or love, whatever, but it's just disguising people's flaws and our own flaws, and calling them something else. So, God can't work with them.

So it all starts when we specifically acknowledge our shortcomings. And right there in that psalm, David in verse 14, 51:14 says, “Deliver me from murder, O God, God of my salvation.” He knows that David was a homicidal man. In fact, he had Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, killed to hide his sin. But it also killed a lot of people. He was a skilled warrior. He killed, I imagine, hundreds of people in the course of his life, so much so that God told him, "You will not be able to build me a house because you have shed too much blood." So, David knew that this was a persistent sin in him, that he had a fierce, violent character, and so, that's why he says, "Deliver me from murder, O God." You see that there he has recognized what one of his persistent sins is, and he names it and asks the Lord to free him from it. What is your persistent sin? What is the area of your life, your defect that you need to name and recognize? And there your transformation process will begin. So, recognize our sins and our faults.

Number 2. Confess it. Because it is one thing to recognize it internally and give it a name, but it is another thing to verbalize and externalize it. And we have to confess before God and even before others verbally, in prayer, outwardly, our true condition and our sinfulness. It is even important, first, to verbalize. When you know that there is something in your life that needs to be changed, talk about it with God, confess it verbally. There is something healing in the verbalization and physical expression of our defects, which is not replaced by simply acknowledging it internally. And above all I believe that there is a healing when we confess it before others as well. Never be afraid to denounce yourself. It is important that others around you know which foot you are limping on. Now, it doesn't mean that you're announcing it all over the place. You have to choose wise people, at the right time, not put too many burdens on people that they can't even carry. Do not denounce all your things, but it is good to be humble and at appropriate moments, denounce yourself, because that is a very important exercise in humility and honesty.

And do you know who benefits from that? Our children, for example. And that also refers to spiritual children. I believe that spiritual leaders, pastors and others must be honest before others and acknowledge our sins, acknowledge our failures, acknowledge our weaknesses, acknowledge that we do not know everything, that we have been wrong, and that our spiritual children benefit. . If you are a discipler, a teacher, a pastor, it is important that others know that you are also under construction, you are in process and at work. And parents, children benefit a lot when parents share their weaknesses, their fears, their shortcomings, their mistakes, and let their children know that, hey, I don't have it all worked out. And the children, then, feel included in the process. They also know that wow! My dad, my mom are under construction, I must also live that kind of constructive life. And then they get used to seeing life as a project that always needs to be improved, working on something. And so you're creating a generation of men and women who are always honest and in process. And that is very important too. So, we have to confess before God and even before others verbally, in prayer, our true condition. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us." God already knows what you are, so confess it and that will help you, not so much for God but for your own benefit. Confess verbally, externally as well as recognize internally and for us.

Number 3. Another very useful practice of the self-transformation journey is to renounce. If you are involved in any self-improvement trajectory, you are going to use these elements and everything that I have been saying in these last weeks about resilience and transformation has to do with these practices. What I am doing is decanting them and reducing them to their structural elements. Give up. As? Sincerely, resolutely, focused. What does it mean to give up? Sometimes we use that word a lot in the evangelical world. Giving up means no. to renounce means to reject, to put a wall between us and our structural sins. And you have to learn to give up. You have to learn to say even I renounce, I renounce fear, I renounce anger, I renounce resentment, I renounce depression, I renounce anxiety, I renounce eagerness. How many of us live busy lives? Sister, if you are as anxious as Marta, and worried about many things, and I think I am speaking to some here, men or women too, but give up your anxiety. I myself have been giving up the rush lately. Sunday arrives and I get anxious. I get up in the morning and I'm thinking at once what awaits me ahead. I was saying to the Lord this morning, “Father, you can't be busily ministering. You have called us to peace, to joy in you. I give up the desire. Let the day come when I joyfully welcome Sunday.” Because that's how it should be. We are eager many times. It must be said, I renounce anxiety and embrace the blessing of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, the peace of the Lord, the trust in the Lord. Give up and hug, hug and give up. Give up and embrace. That is a practice.

I'm going to talk a little bit about hugging later. Titus, chapter 2, verse 12, says, "For the grace of God has been manifested for the salvation of all men, teaching us that by renouncing impiety and worldly desires, we may live soberly, justly, and godly in this age." You see, impiety must be renounced. Impiety does not mean those ugly sins, but everything that is defective in us. You have to give them up. You have to name it and that's why you have to recognize it, you have to confess it and then, renounce them with your mouth. I renounce this, as a martial, militant declaration and give a name to what you renounce. Ephesians, chapter 4:22 says, "As for the past way of life, put off - there is the word renounce in another way - of the old man who is corrupted according to deceitful desires..." To put off means to take off something, a garment , a dress. Get rid of her. “…and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” We have to get rid of ourselves, give up, but we also have to get dressed because otherwise we will walk around naked. You have to put on a new dress. You take one off, put on something new. If you are going to undress something, dress in new things. The old man renounces him, but then welcome him. And it says, "And put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and true holiness."

Giving up has power, brothers. That is a statement. In Latin, Catholic priests speak of ab renuntio which means I renounce, reject something. Satan must be renounced. I renounce Satan and his powers. I renounce the rule of hell in my life and embrace the grace and power and light of God in my life. Giving up, that has power. We must renounce the sins that are overwhelming us in our lives. Give up. If you are in a transformation process you must identify your sins and renounce them with resolution and clarity. That will strengthen your resolution and your decision to separate yourself from those things, from those burdens that overwhelm you.

Number 4. Confess. We have already said the confession, but look, I am going to tell you this. We already said that we must confess our sins. Now I want to talk about confessing in another way. It is confessing positively. It is no longer giving up or confessing something negative, but it is positively confessing, positively declaring the image that God has for you and for your life, the positive things that God has for you. You must confess them verbally. You have to say what God wants you to be, and say it as if it were a real reality, worth the redundancy. Because when you verbalize what God is going to do in your life and declare it as if it were already a reality, that will be like a prophetic declaration that will attract the creative power of God. The Bible says that God calls things that are not what they are. God confesses them and He makes them real through his powerful confession. We have to learn to verbalize with our mouth the things that we already feel that God has declared about our lives. And we can't wait until it becomes a reality, we have to talk about them. When you have a transformation project in your life, when you feel that God is calling you to do something great, creative, announce it, confess it, verbalize it, share it with others because that will be a way of unleashing the powers of the kingdom through favor of that life project that you have. Whatever you are anticipating, share it with a group of spiritual friends. Don't tell everyone because there is a type of person that when you tell them you want to do something creative, they will want to pull you down so you don't give up. They are going to want to drag you to where they are and they are going to feel threatened when they see you go in another direction. But share it with loved ones, with people that you know will listen to you well because that will help you move forward.

Ephesians 2 verse 6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” When you speak that way, that you are seated with Christ, you are not here at 20 Reed Street, you are in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father, Christ at your side, above all circumstances. That will help you take resolution and strength in your life. Get used to speaking positively. There are people who don't even get killed say something positive. You give them a compliment and they find some way to wriggle out of the compliment and not take it. And I think it is important that you add that element of positive confession in your life, that you know that God is with you, that God is in your favor and that He is going to do great things in your life. Prophesy even about your children and talk to them about how good they are, what they are going to be in the future, how God is going to use them, how God is going to bless them, how productive their life is going to be. Speak with your mouth and confess God's blessing. I have found that people who are positive in life speak positively. And perhaps they are positive because they speak positively, and they speak positively because they are positive. It's a virtuous cycle of things reinforcing themselves. So, confess positively. Speak the goodness of God in your mouth. Get used to having good conversations, positive conversations, that the goodness and goodness of God circulate through your mind through your words and your conversations. Confess positively.

Number 5. Claim God's promises to us. The word reclaim, one not only has to confess, admit, speak positively, renounce things, but one must also reclaim the promises of God and the visions that God has placed in our hearts. In other words, God has made so many promises to us in life and in word and we have to learn to claim those things for ourselves. In these last weeks, due to a personal circumstance, God revived some verses from the book of Isaiah in my life and as it has happened to me in other moments of my life, I took those verses, wrote them by hand and read them continuously. Every time I find that, I carry it in my bag, I take it out, read it, confess it and do it for myself. Although those verses refer to Israel but you know that God's promises are for all of us. The Bible doesn't record it for us to say, oh, that was three thousand years ago, how cool. No, it is for you to make it yours, so that those promises become a reality in your life. And then, you have to claim it as your own. When God promises, for example, in Joshua 1:3, "I have given you every place that the sole of your foot will tread on." God is speaking to Joshua before they enter the Promised Land. He has to take the people to that land where there will be giants, where there will be enemy tribes, where there will be a lot of resistance, and He tells Joshua, “Joshua, don't worry, I have given you all the land that I walk on. the sole of your foot, from the desert and Lebanon to the great river Euphrates, all the land to the great sea where the sun sets will be your territory.” And he addresses him directly, “No one will be able to face you in all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you." Glory to God.

Do you think those verses were only for Joshua? It's for you in the 21st century, it's for you when you go looking for a job, it's for you when you want to learn English, it's for you when you want to study for a better position at work. it is for you when you are facing a health situation. It is for you when the devil is yelling at you, "You are worthless, you can't do anything." In the name of the Lord God, he has given me all the land that the sole of my foot can tread on. And that means, your emotions, your past hurts, the failures you have had, the times you have failed the Lord, the times your parents did not tell you good things, the moments when you had a great dream and it came down, and God says, "All those wounds, all those places inhabited by bad memories, I have given them to you and step on them, trusting that I will give you those giants." And you have to claim those promises. There are so many blessings. I have told you about that verse that for me is a motto verse "because the path of the just is like the light of the dawn that increases until the day is perfect." What a beautiful promise.

God didn't just say that to say, oh, how beautiful, how poetic. He said it for you to claim it. And so, I believe that my life is going to be an ascending life, one of growth every day, that my path in life is like the light that begins at 5 in the dark morning and at the moment there is a small glimmer of light and then it keeps getting bigger until noon comes and the light is bright. This is your life, this is what God has called you to be, a perpetual process of ascending. Claim that promise in the name of the Lord. The devil is going to tell you, "No, you are destined to end your life old, ugly, broken, decrepit, nobody is going to love you, everyone is going to run away from you." You say, "Lie in the name of the Lord, for the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn." And you are filled with that faith that no, the devil wants to say, "You are going to die," but God tells you, "Not only will you not die, but you will live," and you claim that promise. Believe that it is for you. So many beautiful promises in the word, learn them, write them down, memorize them because that is the great key. So, if you are in a growth process, confess and believe that this is for you. Embrace it like it's yours. Claim it for yourself.

Number 6. If you want to grow in your life and continue as a continuous construction project, you have to learn to prophesy your triumphs. You have to learn to prophesy your new anticipated condition, like David did when he fought Goliath. There is something beautiful, brothers, when we prophesy what God is going to do, and we do it in that prophetic posture. We dress as a prophet and in our spirit we prophesy the word of God. We put on our priestly robes and say things that God has told us in the night and declare them and send them like a projectile against smallness, against weakness, against darkness, against gloom, against the losses of life, and we destroy to the giant and we say what God has said he is going to do with my life.

I think of David, in First Samuel, verse 17, there we have David who is the quintessential [sic] expression of prophesying when we are before something that seems immovable, something big, threatening, terrible, insurmountable, and David has that giant, 8 feet says more or less than Goliath measured. And I think Goliath's sword is higher than David himself at that moment. And then Goliath sees this inexperienced, unarmored young man and looks down on him. And First Samuel 17 says, “The Philistine said to David, “Come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” And instead of leaving, wriggling and running away, David says that he faced him and said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts." Hallelujah! "The God of the squadrons of Israel whom you have provoked." And I imagine that David, his voice went up and up while he saw that hey, I'm doing well. I will continue. And he remains enthusiastic about his own rhetoric. “The Lord will deliver you into my hand today, and I will defeat you and cut off your head and give the carcasses of the Philistines to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. And all the earth will know that there is God in Israel.” Glory to the Lord. What is he doing? He is prophesying. "And all this congregation will know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle belongs to the Lord and He will deliver you into our hands." It's like David was reading the newspaper the other day, because that's exactly what happened. David defeats the giant and cuts off his head and the Philistines flee. That was the headline, the headline of the news the other day. But David had already prophesied.

And we have to learn, brothers, to speak like lions even if we feel like mice. We have to learn to say things that scare us when we say them and that one is afraid that when people hear it they say, this guy is dreaming of little birds in the air. One has to learn to declare the virtues of God. One has to learn to prophesy and create what is going to do in our life. Say it and prophesy it even if you don't believe it. Much of what happens in the believer's life, as I said at the beginning, occurs in the spirit before it occurs in matter. But we have to learn. I was trying to remember the chorus that the worship group sang and I looked it up on the internet and since there are so many translations one already… God is with us, what does that chorus say? I will live, I will not die. What else does it say? With your power I will be reborn, etc. What I like about that chorus is that it is a prophecy, it says, I will live, I will not die. In other words, one has to speak like this in the spirit. I am not going to live my life as a child. I will live, I will not die, with your power I will be reborn. What else does it say? You live in me, I am free at last, Jesus my King. It's a beautiful chorus because again, it's the way we have to talk.

We have to prophesy what God has for us. Learn to be a prophetic person. Learn to write down your dreams and then declare them, like they are going to come true. Because we create with our mouths, you know that? We have a Father who creates with his mouth. Let there be light, and there was light. The stars rise in space, the moon rises, the sun rises. Birds grow and fly through space. Boom, it fills up with birds. The fish in the sea run and swim, and at the moment full of whales and all kinds of fish. Because? Because the mouth of God creates. God is very cheap. He does not create with his hands. He creates with his mouth. And we are the same. We create with our mouth. When our mouth puts on the prophetic garment and stands up to declare the truths of God, at that moment we are almost like God, we could say. Understand what I say, with proper proportions. We have power. The mouth, says the Bible, that in the mouth is the power for death and for life. So confess life, confess the good things that God has for you. Prophesy them in action. Put on your prophetic ministerial priesthood and talk about the things God is going to do in your life. Learn to be a prophet of good things in your life. This is very important. Prophesy.

Seventh. Every person who grows and progresses in life is a person who has learned to visualize the things that God has for us. We have to learn to see ourselves for what we can become. We have to rehearse in our minds that image of what God has for us over and over again. I remember that since I was a child it has been a pleasure to visualize, to daydream. And there is nothing like a vision, when you see yourself flying an airplane, or driving a race car, or playing a sonata before a crowd of people like Beethoven. There is something when one learns to conceive things and enjoy them visually. Visualization is something very important in life. When you learn to visualize in your mind what God has put in your heart that you are going to become, visualize yourself as a person in control of your passions; visualize yourself as a person who is blessing others; visualize yourself as a person who is taking a thousand cheese tortillas to hungry children in a country; visualize yourself as a person who is teaching people to overcome their weaknesses; there is that ministry Free in Christ, which is doing great blessings.

A woman, Miriam Díaz, and others who help her, are doing feats and feats for God because they have visualized that God can use them, ordinary people who are extraordinary because they have visualized what God can do in their lives. And there are many of you who are unknowingly pregnant with God's dream for you, and you must learn to visualize it and see it in your mind. Athletes use visualization a lot. All trainers of athletes and also professional and life coaches talk about the importance of seeing the result in your mind before it becomes a reality in the outside world. And athletes when they stand before the ball, before the pitcher, they see that ball come off their bat and go through the air and become a home run. The boxer sees his opponent falling with an accurate punch that lands on the opponent's jaw. The ability to visualize and live a life with vision is important, because when you learn to capture God's dreams for you on the screen of your mind and you see them in three dimensions and in color, you are already on your way to the realization of your dream. Many of us life has killed our ability to dream. And sometimes we have to ask the Lord, "Lord, help me dream again." Those dreams that I had when I was a child of greatness. So easy it was to see a doll and in my mind to transform it into a beauty queen. Children have that ability and that is why Christ says, "Unless you are like children, you will not be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." We have to ask the Lord, “Lord, make me innocent again so I can believe your dreams in my life and visualize them.

My favorite passage in that is the 11th chapter of Hebrews. If you read Hebrews in light of what I'm saying about visualization, you're going to find that it's a great chapter on the ability to visualize and see things before they happen. Let me read you a verse, verse 3 of Hebrews 11, it says, speaking of the great men and women of faith who died without having achieved their dreams, it says: "According to faith, all these died without having received what was promised, - but look at what they were doing, he says – but looking at it from afar and believing it and greeting it, and confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth.” Brother, you do not greet something that you are not seeing in front of yourself. These people were so convinced of what they were waiting for that at the last moment of their existence they greeted it. The Bible says that Christ for the joy that was set before Him, despised the reproach. The Lord when he was on the cross did not see the cross. He saw the billions of souls that were to be saved by his sacrifice. And that is why he was able to ignore the cross. And many times when we keep our eyes on God's vision for our lives, we can then better deal with the problems and limitations of daily life. Learn to dream of God. Learn to believe in big things and visualize God's dreams for your life. Be a dreamer in the best sense of the word, a visionary is a better word. Visions encourage men and women to reach the goal.

Number 8, I'm going to finish in about 40 more minutes. I have three or four elements left, but I think this is important. I don't want that to stay in the pipeline. Pray. With insistence. Pray. You have to pray your visions. You have to give them life by prayer. Prayer is the great fertilizer of dreams. Wow! Meche, please write that down before I forget. Prayer is the great fertilizer of dreams. Brother, pray your dreams come true. Prayer gives life to things. When you conceive of a project, be it external or self-improvement, immediately begin to pray, every day. Ask God to give you what you are longing for and wanting. Pray, pray, until that becomes a little boy and a plump, healthy baby girl. Pray your dreams until they come true. Fertilize all your projects in prayer. I fight my battles in prayer, brothers, on my knees before God. And what I need I take from Dad's hands in prayer, and he loves that. So it is important to pray insistently, routinely. We must pray to make that vision of our redeemed selves a reality. Pray.

Number 9. Rebuke. Reprimand, for example, how Blanca spoke about fear. If you are in an improvement project you will have to reprimand. Because? Because the devil is the enemy of dreams. You're writing that down for me, too. [Laughter] You can tell that I have very high self-esteem in this sermon. Brothers, when you conceive a dream that you want to break the moorings of the earth, the devil will be the first to receive you when you leave the door. Satan is going to want to run over you and make you believe that that dream was simply that you ate too much pizza the night before. When one enters into the project of self-growth and self-improvement, you will have to contend with all the hosts of hell because Satan is the same enemy of all dreams of greatness, of overcoming, of being useful to God. So every project for growth, self-improvement, productivity, is going to have to contend with the force of evil, the gravity that is going to want to drag you down. And many times they will be your own friends. Many times it will be the people you love. Sometimes it will be the shepherd himself.

Brethren, when the Lord freed the woman who was bent over, who was the first to protest? The head of the synagogue who said to the Lord, “But how dare you minister on a Sabbath? Today is rest day. No one is allowed to heal.” Imagine what a scandal. The devil himself was involved in that head of the synagogue and he wanted to kill the dream of that poor woman who could now walk upright. And many times when God lifts us up and we begin to walk upright, when life has always kept us crushed, the demons of hell will want to kill the dream within us. And we have to say, no, in the name of Jesus, and we have to rebuke the devil himself. We have to submit it to the domain of the word of God, and we have to take flight. And even as he's whispering to us, “You're going to fail, you're going to embarrass yourself,” we keep going, rebuking and binding in the name of the Lord. When Satan whispers words of destruction, self-condemnation, failure, in the name of the Lord I rebuke you. I tie you up, I gag you, I throw you out of my life. I do not receive your murmurings. Use that against fear, eagerness, depression, low self-esteem, self-condemnation, all those things, it is the devil himself many times that is whispering against you to kill you that self-improvement project. Rebuke in all dimensions always in your life.

Three faster. Embrace. Number 10. One has to learn to embrace. Embrace what? Embrace the new reality to which God is inviting us. Like a baby that is full of potentiality, we have to receive God's dream in us, embrace it, caress it, welcome it, nurture it. You have to hug. We must enthusiastically say yes to a positive life and to the visions of God in our lives. We have to passionately embrace that new reality to which God is calling us and that we are envisioning. We have to fully embrace it, enthusiastically, instead of doing what we sometimes do, that there is a dream that comes into our lives and what we do is, ah, yes, it's beautiful, how good. And so, we are lukewarm in our dreams and we don't fight for them, we don't receive them with force. And God wants us to welcome him, name him and say welcome and greet him, like those men and women in Hebrews 11. Because many times he knows that even what happens is that, look, sometimes God is calling us to a life of freedom from demonic ties in us, drug habits, sexual habits, whatever, but there is in us a secret desire, I have said that before, to retain even a little bit of it. We uproot the bush but we don't uproot it and we hope it will grow a little again. We take a vacation from the project.

And God expects us to enthusiastically embrace it, to cut the bridges behind us and say, no, I'm going forward. If I perish, let me perish, but I am going to go after that blessing that God has for my life. That new vision, that creative man, that man who has his own domain, that gigantic enterprising woman. We have to embrace enthusiastically. And it all has to do again with naming, acknowledging, renouncing the past, and welcoming the new reality to which God is calling us. You have to embrace emotionally. God will hear that and God will see when you begin to enthusiastically embrace what you want for your life and what He has placed in you, hell itself will flee and the resources of heaven will be mobilized in your favor, because God says, here's one. who believes in what he is asking for. And the Lord loves resolute and determined people, and there's nothing that can stop him.

Penultimate. Repeat, insist and persist. Those three things go. The repetition, insistence. If you want to be transformed you have to get used to the idea that it will take time. God's projects are long sometimes and God works deeply. God is not one who just passes a little thing over the top of the dust, God opens the organism and puts his scalpel and puts acid in what is rotten, takes it out, cuts it and puts new things in there. He is like a deep craftsman. A good craftsman goes to a house and takes the wood that is rotten, scrapes it, cleans it, and then puts something new on top of it. He doesn't leave the rotten there because it's going to corrupt everything else. God works like this in our lives. God works deep, which means it takes a long time and requires people used to long-term projects. If you do not have a long-term vision, do not dress that you are not going. You have to come up with an idea and many people fail in their projects because they don't have… they're like the records from before, I'm showing my age. Remember the 45s, the 45s? One song only. No, God wants it to be a Long Play, with many songs. Amen. God wants you to be a long-term person, a marathon runner. We're not 100-meter runners, we're 26-mile runners. We are running for the long term and we are going at a good pace to reach the goal. Arm yourself with a long-term vision and when you pursue something, don't get discouraged because the race took longer than you thought. Get there and don't stop until you reach the end, as the Mexicans would say. Important to insist. The persistence.

And the last thing, say glory to God, the last thing is community. We all need allies, right, Rosa? in the race of faith. We all need friends and helpers in the project of life. If you have a project, don't pursue it alone, find two or three good companions, visionary people, enthusiastic people, people who encourage you, and when you feel discouraged, share with them. And you also be a good team integrator. When you see your brother discouraged or sad, cheer him up. When you see that it fell, do not kick it when it is on the ground, but pick it up. When you discover that you have something defective, do not announce it to others. Cover up the fault and bless him and help him. That is the process. So, brother, you need to, don't be self-sufficient because no one is. We all need a community around us. Allies that help us in the self-improvement project. May the Lord bless you and I encourage you to find these elements of the sermon that will be on the internet and review them. I have not had time to do all the revision that I would like, but these are elements, brothers, I tell you, they have helped me in what I have achieved. I was going to say in the little, no, I have achieved a lot for the glory of God. Sometimes we are false modest. What I have achieved in my life, I have achieved by putting these principles into practice. And I'm not charging you for it, mind you, except for the tithe and offering that you give here. That's all. But go over this, brethren, and you will live powerful and fruitful lives in the name of the Lord.

Let's say one last thing now. Stand up and we will acknowledge where we are. Is there something in your life that you need to acknowledge right now? Discouragement, despondency, anger, fear, whatever? Acknowledge it. Tell the Father that you confess it and talk to your Dad for a second. confess it. Reject it and give it up. Embrace God's new vision for your life. Verbalize with your mouth the new reality to which you want to arrive. He rebukes Satan who will want to kill the child before it is born. And ask God to enlighten you about two or three good fellow travelers, and then set out with a long-term vision. You will live and you will not die, says the Lord. You will succeed and you will not fail, says the Lord. You will not return crestfallen and defeated, but with your head held high. And when the end of your life comes, you will not end with deathly silence, but with a shout of joy and triumph, says the Lord. I will bless your generations. I have called you to my Kingdom, says Jehovah, to be a winner, to grow and honor my son with your path in life. I will be proud of you. And Satan will have to leave ashamed when he sees my son, my daughter, raise wings like eagles.

Your present affliction is only temporary, says the Lord. It is the exercise that I am putting you through so that you develop spiritual muscles. And the challenges that are before you are not for you to fail, but for you to build your muscles and become bigger and more powerful, so that you will honor me, and honor my word, and honor the principles of my word. And I place in your hands all the earth that the soles of your feet tread on. I put a sword that is not a material sword, it is not a man's sword, it is not like the weapons that men use, I put in you an armor that no one will be able to penetrate and I put in you a two-edged sword that will penetrate and do flee the enemy ahead of you. I have made you a warrior, I have made you a warrior, I do not create parasites or create people to fail. I create them so that they fly or soar through the air and announce my truth to the generations. And I create men and women who honor me with their walk high and powerful on earth, who announce with their lives the riches of my Kingdom. Move in the authority that I place in your hands. The authority is already in you, do not ask Me for it, because I have already placed it within you. Move in it and prophesy the truths that I have declared and the feats and feats that you are going to do in your life, says the Lord. Thanks, Dad. We receive, we internalize, we absorb your promise and we go against every lie of the devil, every evil action that he wants to exert against us and our dreams. And we declare that we will win and we will never be defeated, in the name of Jesus and the people of God say, amen. God bless you my brothers.