Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?

Let's go to the word of the Lord. I want to share with you this morning precisely, I believe that God has sovereignly directed, without any kind of previous effort, our worship towards a focus of hope, of gratitude to the Lord, in the midst of situations of trials and difficulties such as the ones he is experiencing. this nation.

And I want to bring a message this morning that I hope its effect will be an effect of comfort, an effect of advice and an effect of trust and blessing for our brothers, in times of trials and financial difficulties we have help and relief , and foundation in the word of the Lord.

And I want to direct your attention to a passage that is found in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, in Chapter 12. Let's go to Chapter 12 and actually let me dwell mainly on verses 32 to 34, although I want to also go to verses 22 to 31 .

In fact, we are going there directly because I want to make sure that we have a well-established biblical foundation for what I want to share with you.

Luke Chapter 12, let's go to verse 22 specifically. The word of the Lord says there, "... then he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life..."

We are going to be a little Pentecostal this morning, turn to the person next to you and say, don't worry, tell him like that, don't worry. The Lord is telling me this morning, don't worry. Hopefully that's this week's motto for us, okay? Don't worry. Housewives, when you are there struggling with the turkey, the ham, whatever, and things are not going well, tell your soul, don't worry, okay? And wife, tell your wife, don't worry, woman, and the wife to the husband if he's complaining about something, don't worry. The Lord tells us, do not worry, do not worry about your life.

How many need to hear that counsel from God this morning? Amen. I know I need it so I'm the first to raise my hand.

"... don't worry about your life..." And what things do we worry about? "... what will you eat, nor by the body, what will you wear..."

What's more, I think that many of us need to take clothes out of the closet, there are too many clothes in those closets. Sometimes they look like they're going to explode if we open them and they're going to attack our clothes, because they're so cluttered in there.

“…what will you wear? Life, brothers, life, Roberto Miranda, is more than food and the body is more than clothing….”

Do you know that you are more than your matter, than material things? There is something in you that is infinitely broader, richer, more reaching than the material. You are a spirit living within a body, you are eternity that is in the process of reaching its full nature and destiny.

Life, brothers, is more than food and the body more, much more than clothing. Consider, brothers, think of the crows that neither sow nor reap….”, and I would add that they are also quite ugly, they are not the most sympathetic animals or birds on earth, the crows.

“…they don't sow or reap, they don't have pantries, they don't have a barn, and you know what? God feeds them. If he feeds the ravens, are you not worth much more than the birds? And who among you will be able to add to his stature three inches, six inches, four inches, whatever, because if you can't even in what is less..."

In other words, if you can't change those little things that are actually relatively small, insignificant in life, with all the efforts you make.

"... if you can't even what is less, why do you worry about the rest..." If you still do not have control over relatively insignificant things, why do you try to control things that are quite deep and considerable?

He says, “…consider the lilies, think of the lilies, think of the flowers, brothers, how they grow, do not work, do not spin, more I tell you that not even Solomon with all his glory and all his wealth was ever dressed as one of they…."

Think of the beauty, color, softness and delicacy of a lily and no matter how many clothes are invented and dyed, there will never be clothes as beautiful as those worn by a lily. And even though they do nothing. The Lord was using there as poetic images.

“..no one has dressed like one of them, not even the richest and most powerful man the earth has ever had. And if this is how God dresses the grass that today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven..."

In other words, if those things that are perishable, so tiny, so quickly that they vanish from the earth, if God cares for them, provides for them and attends to them, how much more to you men and women of little faith. That is a rhetorical question. This is a rhetorical question that Jesus is asking us. If God takes care in such a delicate manner, such a detailed manner of seemingly insignificant things such as flowers, and birds, how much more so will he take care of us and be attentive to our own, much more significant needs.

Verse 29, “…you therefore do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink, if you are anxiously anxious….”

This is very important, do not be in anxious restlessness. I know that many of us this morning need the Lord to stand next to us, put his arm around us, around our shoulders and tell us, don't be so anxious, don't be so anxious, don't be so worried, don't lose sleep, don't lose your taste for life or for the important things in life.

"... do not worry about what you have to eat, nor what you have to drink, nor be anxious because all these things are sought by the people of the world..."

Pay your attention for a moment, brothers, on that expression: the people of the world…. If you are in Christ and I hope that all of us here are in Christ Jesus, you do not belong to that category of people of the world. Amen. The people of the world to which the Lord refers are the people who do not know Jesus, the people whose perspective is a temporary, merely human, social, material perspective, but when one enters into the ways of Christ, when one enters into the economy of the Kingdom of God one is supposed to already separate from that human mass that lives for the now and for the here and now we belong to another race, to another family group.

So the Lord is saying here that all those things, these worries, these things that occupy the mind and that worry the soul and that have excessive attention, that type of attitude rather belongs to those who are in the world, those who still they are tied up in the effort, in the struggle, in the tricky network of the world, but we are different.

“…. But your Father, see there the but after all these things, they look for the people of the world, but, but, that but makes a division between that worldly, temporary, material dimension merely and the dimension in which we inhabit. That but makes a division and now the thing enters another dimension. Says:

“…but your Father, your Father….” Why did the Lord say but God, why didn't he say God or Jehovah or the Lord and put it in your Father's terms? Because he wanted to point out something in the nature of God with respect to us. A father, when he puts God in the Father's perspective, is talking about a provider, lover, protector, fiercely loyal to us, committed to our well-being. It has given us life, we have its nature, it is already another dimension.

“…your Father knows that you need all these things, name it whatever it is, name it rent, let's say rent, I could say rent and sound finer, but rent because that's what we say, rent , the morgage, the mortgage, the car and the car payment, and the food, and the credit card and the debts that we have, and the boys' school, and all these things, it says here that "... your Father knows that you need these things…”

God is aware of the matter, God is not over there worrying only about the orbit of Mars or Jupiter or whatever, God also knows the needs of the people at 68 Northampton Street, right now here and where you live. He knows, he knows, it says here. Wow, that if we understood that right now I could close and everyone go home. I wouldn't need to preach anything else. If you understand that God knows what you need… God understands where you are. Don't think for a moment that when this financial crisis began, God had to call the angels who are in charge of the financial state of the United States and said, listen to me, why didn't you tell me this was going to happen? I am going to fire you all right now and bring me other angels who know what is happening in the financial world. God was not surprised by these things. The Lord has the small details of history and of human life. God is a detail-oriented God and the world is going in the direction that God wants.

Men want control of the world, brothers, and today in the 21st century more than ever people believe that they have control and that they can say goodbye to God and say, well, thank you for managing the world these last thousands of years, but now? you know what? We don't need you because we already have the science, the technology, the computers, we have the ipods and all the other things, we are already fine. Thank you, now you continue dealing with other worlds and other things. And man is trying to do that. And it is interesting that every time that man, the human being, the human race, reaches those points of believing that we have already reached control, we already have things by the handle, as it comes and everything falls apart again, and anxiety, uncertainty, anxiety comes again and we discover that we are not in control, as in control after all as we think.

They are periodic things that God brings to remind the human race that he is still in control. The people of God understand that, the people of God live from the perspective that God knows, God knows, God knows. He is in control of all things, big and small, the macro cosmos, and the micro cosmos. God is in control and as Christians we have to understand and understand that this has to do with my life, I have to put my name there. All matters, my marriage, my children, my future, my past, my finances, my health, my professional or work life, all the Lord has control. He knows, your Father knows that you need these things. And here is the punch line, here is the climactic statement of that reflection from the Lord, it says:

“…. More…”, this is the alternative to the mentality of the people of the world, the people who live in the eagerness of life and God says, but you have another alternative, you have another practice.

"... but seek the Kingdom of God, seek the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you...", says the Lord.

Oppose there to the kingdom of this world the Kingdom of God, oppose these material things, the Kingdom of God. That is the alternative that we have to pursue, brothers, in our life, in our search.

Now, the Lord continues and if you look, all this wonderful passage, this Chapter 12, is a passage that has a lot to do with the second coming of Christ, with the Kingdom of Heaven, the world beyond, the heavenly earth. in opposition to this land. And if you read this entire passage from Chapter 12 and even before that and after, there is a lot to put the human before, what is of this time, what is of this earth, what is of this world with what is eternal, what is to come.

So this was actually what touched me the most, this part, verse 32, the Lord kind of brought that to me, and that is why I have put aside for a moment the sustained meditation that I have had on authority and all this, and I wanted to do as a parenthesis, because the Lord put on my heart this week, hey, bring the people a word of hope, bring the people a word of comfort, of perspective and shepherd them and talk to them about where they are and bring them my word about it, and my advice on what I want to tell them so that they are calm, at peace.

Then, this passage the Lord brought to my mind, he says, “·…. Do not fear, do not fear little herd, do not fear little herd because it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. Sell what you own…”

You know what? Rather, that was where the Lord, that was the mental association that God brought to my mind this week, it came to me just like that, that verse 33 passed through my mind like a soft breeze, so I had to go to the Bible and look it up. where it was and from there to everything else.

He says, "... sell what you possess and give alms, make bags that do not age, treasure in heaven that does not run out where the thief does not arrive, nor moth destroys...."

You know what? That was precisely. That was concretely and specifically the word that crossed my mind, very specific. That word was inserted in the rest of the verse but that of, where thief does not come nor moth destroys. That was what was recorded in my spirit, where thief does not come nor moth destroys.

“…. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be..."

So, notice that the Lord is asking us, where is your treasure, where is your emphasis in life. Where is the focus of your mind, where are your affections, where is what truly counts for you, because from the answer to that question many things will start. Depending on where the focus of our life is, what we give more importance to, where is the framework of our existence, where is the seat, we could say, the seat of our life, the foundation. Everybody lives life without realizing it many times with a foundation, a base, a frame of reference and the word says where is the frame of reference of your life, where is the focus, the foundation, because depending on that, that It will determine your priorities, your actions, the options you choose, and it will also determine how you react when moments of crisis and difficulty and threat and suffering, loss, suffering, disappointment or whatever come, when things They are not going as you expected, depending on where the frame of reference of your life is, the focus will determine how you react.

And the word tells us what the frame of reference should be, but it also says there is another frame of reference that belongs to the people of the world, the people who do not know about eternity, the people who do not know the word of God, it tells us , that frame of reference is not for you, children of God, that is for the children of the world. And then he describes to us what are some of the attributes of the correct frame of reference, which is the eternal and the spiritual.

This week I was reading the news on the internet and I always like to keep up to date on that, and I was struck by an article that I later lost and tried to find it this morning in a hurry but couldn't find it. Anyway, I got into Google, that sector of the Internet where you can, Google is magical, how many praise the Lord for Google? It gets us out of a bind today, if I had had Google when I did my doctoral thesis, I would have been a genius, brothers, I had to use one of those ancient razors there, I don't even want to say how old it was, so as not to give them a lot of information. But Google, I went into Google, look, I put suicides and financial crisis and I got a number of articles that have come out about the current financial crisis that we live in and what is happening today in many segments of the United States, regarding this financial economic crisis that this nation is experiencing.

Let me read you one of the articles I put out and I'm going to just read you some very short passages, because I have to simultaneously translate it from English to Spanish, but the headline of that article is, Suicide numbers due to financial crisis are on the rise. Financial crisis suicide numbers mounting.

And the article begins, an unemployed financial manager in California loses a fortune and destroys his entire family in a murderous suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to remove her from the modest house she has called home for 38 years. That happened, a 90-year-old woman shot herself in the chest while the authorities were arriving because they were going to take her out of her house. Thank God he survived but imagine that, the desperation a 90-year-old feels because he hasn't been able to pay for his house.

In Massachusetts, she says, a housewife who had hidden her family's growing financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the Mortgage Company warning them by the time you try to repossess my house I will be dead and then Carleen Valderrama , after writing that note, he injured himself, killed himself, committed suicide leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on the table. Her husband of 3 and a half years did not know that there was a financial crisis that they were going to repossess the house. She desperately hid this from her husband and finally committed suicide, leaving an insurance policy for them to pay, she told her husband that they should pay for the house with that. just imagine.

He quotes here now a pastor from Trinity Church in the heart of Manhattan's financial district, he says, I've had a number of people tell me that what's happening is the most reminiscent of the 9/11 crisis, says the Reverend Cannon Anne Malonney, pastor of that church. It is about that sense that the ground below has been torn from us.

He says with nowhere else to go, a lot of people are calling the suicide hotlines. The New York Samaritans, an agency that helps people in crisis over the phone, the New York Samaritans has seen the number of calls rise more than 16% in the last year, many of them financial related. and money. Miami Phones, Switchboard Office Miami, another crisis intervention site, has logged more than 500 foreclosure-related calls lately. So he quotes here, he says, a lot of people are telling us they're losing everything, they're losing their homes, they're going into repossession, they've lost their jobs, says Virginia Cerbasio, executive director of a suicide resource center in Lee County , in the Florida. The article says, but the tragedies continue to rise.

So there is a list, which I am not going to depress you with more... there are many cases here, pathetic, terrible, of people who, given the loss of their retirement plans, given the loss of their dreams as well, concerning the future when their actions and their investments have lost half, three quarters of their value, and their plans for a pleasant, secure life, they were already confident that their future was in their control, because a lot of it has to do with losing control, with the uncertainty that comes to human life when things become unpredictable and when the plans we had were all written down, all pre-established, we already knew how the script of our life was supposed to go, everything changes, and many people then see their plans for sure, this week I read about it, from a man who said, I am going to retire at 55, then I am going to dedicate myself to writing the book that I have always wanted, I am going to dedicate myself to traveling the world and all this type of things, and At the moment he loses half of his investments and says, now I'm going to have to work it seems for the rest of my life, and I've sometimes thought about committing suicide.

So, all these people have reacted in a terrible way and with thoughts of self-destruction because their life, which they had planned, has also lost certainty for the moment and now they are adrift. The reaction of these people has to do with what I was saying about him, where is the frame of reference for them, where is the foundation of their lives, where are their projections about the future and where do they place their trust, because for the moment, when they have ripped away what was at the center, which is their material security and their control of life, for the moment, their identity collapses, their security, their certainty, their definition of the world, what they understand of what life is like. Life collapses so there is nothing to live for, you don't know who you are anymore, and you don't know what you have, you don't know what to expect.

And that is why the Lord speaks here that we look at things in a different way. For example, the man, the woman of God knows that life is not in my control, I only have a limited amount of control, but it is in God's hands. God knows my times, God knows the reasons, God has the sequences, that is in his hands, I cannot say, brothers, what will be of my life tomorrow.

The Bible says that we should not say, oh tomorrow I am going to do this, I am going to be in such a place, but that we should say, God willing, because the son of God, the daughter of God has to abandon himself to the hands of the Lord and many times Brothers, what God does is not going to correspond to what you want him to do. There are times when the Lord is going to do something that is going to be completely different from what you expected, God is going to write a different script for your life and you thought that everything was going to go from a to b, to c, to d, logically, coherently, perfectly, the dream that you had, the novel that you had written in your mind, and God has something different, but you know what? That it is something better, that is the important thing. You know, brothers, that many times God writes something different and he writes it with dark ink and we wanted him to write it with golden ink but God is such a wonderful God, in a novelist, an artist, a creator so beautiful that even when he it writes the tragedies and the sufferings and the sufferings of our life, that what it does is that it adds more density, more richness, more texture, more glory to our life.

Brothers, I tell you the truth, neither of you nor I want everything that happens in our life to be only good, beautiful, pleasant, attractive, because the only thing that would serve is to create superficial people and spoiled people, and selfish people , and people who believe that when babies scream, dad has to come at once and put the bottle in your mouth. And God wants noble people, loving people, humble people, compassionate people, people who can comfort others, people who know that the world is not my home as that hymn says, people who know that even if my father and mother left me with all Jehovah will gather me, people who walk the earth humbly, always looking to their heavenly Father for their food and provision, people who are not in love with the world and matter, people who can tell the world, look, there is another dimension more important and more valid and more permanent, this world is an illusion, do not put your affection in the world, and for that, God often has to write a different script, he has to wedge the cross into our lives, and nobody wants to let the cross come to life, because we always want them to give us what we want, but, brothers, that was never good for creating a man, a woman of God. And we have to abandon ourselves to divine control and believe that what happens in my life is for the glory and honor of God and for my blessing, for the edification of my life, for the enrichment of my life.

What happens in my life, even if it has negative and harmful and ugly elements, God is going to turn it into something precious for his glory. I believe that the total tapestry, the total painting that God paints, although he sometimes paints dark colors, but the total is going to be something beautiful, something beautiful, something worthy of praise. The children of God that I know who have reached a life well advanced in age and have lived it in the Lord, they are people who shine. His face is beautiful. Sometimes they have wrinkles and lines of old age and ailments and all the other things, but what I want is to climb into their arms and be hugged and rocked like a baby because they are people who know God and know the life and are not frightened by things, and shine almost like angels. My mom was one of them, by the way.

And I tell you, brothers, that this glory, that glory is not reached just like that, that glory is reached by suffering, suffering, going through work and difficulties and kissing the hand of God when those times come. Because the mentality of the son of God, the perspective of the daughter of God is different from that of the world. Men want this, I want to know when I am going to retire, and I want to put a year and the age at which I am going to retire, and I know how many hundreds of thousands I am going to have in the account to distribute it in such amounts until I die at 85, 90 years. That's not.

The woman of God, the man of God has his trust placed in the Lord, his affections are set on the eternal, the material grabs him lightly because if he leaves he does not want to be suffering. You can live a happy life and you can even work hard and make great efforts, study, invest a lot of energy because you have plenty of energy, because you don't waste it worrying and clinging to material things unnecessarily.

You know how much energy you spend worrying and anxious and losing sleep. If we could sleep peacefully and were confident in our God, we would be spiritual and physical giants. Because a lot of the energy I think we expend is worry, lack of sleep, anxiety, fights over anxiety, and a number of other things. But if we could be calm and trust in the Lord, life would be very different, then we could dedicate more time to working hard, making an effort but in a different way.

I am not talking about being fatalists here, I am not talking about Christians stopping working, studying, making an effort, undertaking great things. No, on the contrary, I believe that when you stop loving the world and stop putting your affection and your obsession on things in the world, then you have more energy to be successful in life.

Now, what happens is that you don't set your heart on success, and if you go through tribulations and difficulties and tests, you say, well, more was lost in the San Zenón cyclone or whatever, and you say, I'll be back I build again and I come back, because my life is not in this world, totally, if not in heaven God is going to replace everything I have lost. It's a different attitude, you understand? It is not that we do not enjoy, it is more, we can enjoy ourselves because we have our heavenly Father.

There are so many images that come to my mind as I say this. I think, speaking about control, I think of the rich fool in the parable of Jesus Christ who already had his life planned out and who made his barns and filled them, the Bible says, with everything good, with all his harvest and they were ready to explode. the barns, and he said, wow, what a problem I have, I don't know where to put `more food and more business. I don't know how to expand them. You know what I'm going to do, that I'm going to destroy these barns, I'm going to make some much bigger ones and I'm going to rejoice looking at them, I'm going to say, my soul, eat, drink, rejoice because you have many years ahead of you. The Bible says that that same night the angel of death came to tell you, fool, tonight they are coming to ask you for your soul and all that you have reaped and what you have planned and what you have invested, what is the use, what did you do it for? .

Because it is that God has something against what the Greeks called ubris, the pride of man. In Greek tragedy there is much of the tragic hero who is filled with pride against the gods and wants to supplant the gods, wants to escape from the control of the gods and the gods get angry against him and determine his destruction and tragedy. And tragedy is inescapable.

And modern man, the human race, has always been playing that little game, rebelling against God, putting himself in God's place, wanting to control things, wanting to take God out of the movie and God always comes and turns everything upside down like in the movie. tower of Babel, he tells them, now you have to start from scratch again.

And the Greeks even foresaw that. They didn't know the Bible but in the myth of Sisyphus, I don't know how many have read the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is a tragic hero who rebels against the gods, disobeys them and is condemned for all eternity to roll a millstone, a round stone, roll it to the top of a mountain and see that stone come back down again and has again to raise it again, it goes down again, and so he has to spend eternity, raising the stone and seeing the stone lower and raising it again. And that myth talks about humanity. Humanity is always trying to reinvent history, it reinvents new systems, new economies, new philosophies, and believes that it can do without God and God comes in a moment and does so, erases all that castle of sand, destroys it and says Now you have to start over. And they come back and invent another system, another dream, another plan, another revolution and a hundred years later, fifty years later, everything collapses and comes back again because when we put our trust in ourselves, we already lost the battle. Our trust always has to be in the Lord and we always have to know how weak we are, how shifty, how fragile life is.

And you know what? That instead of becoming depressed in that knowledge, we should find liberation, in the fact that we are ultimately in God's hands. And he is the one in control. And if God is in your life, don't worry about anything, even if storms come, difficulties come, even if the boat seems like it is going to break into a thousand pieces, if God is inside your boat there is no possible disaster, in the end .

We have there the other story of Jesus in the boat, he lays down to sleep, a terrible storm breaks out. The disciples are inside the boat with him, the wind roars against the boat, the boat is raised and lowered in the waves. The disciples are filled with panic and there is the Lord sleeping soundly, he does not flinch, he does not worry. He doesn't hear anything, he's dreaming who knows what angels. And the disciples come, all upset and angry with the Lord because, Lord, they say, you don't take care of us, you don't see that we are perishing and you are sleeping there. And the Lord wakes up, looks, and says, what's the problem? He tells the storm, be quiet, be still, boom... everything fell silent, the waves subsided, total stillness, the sea that was raging becomes a mirror and the Lord turns there and says, why did you fear, men of little faith?

Because the Lord is always telling us, why are you afraid, why are you anxious, why are you so worried if I am in control of everything, if I care about you, if I know that you need these things. How long sometimes we are in the boat and how long the storm takes.

The other story is when the disciples get into the boat, the Lord tells them to go to the other shore and they get in and a storm breaks out. And the Lord tells them, I am going to meet them on the other side. The storm breaks out and they are there all night rowing and they don't go anywhere, going around in the lake of Genesareth, which is an immense lake. And he says that the Lord could see them from where he was praying, and he says that around 3 in the morning or something like that, the Lord left where he was and walking on the waters he approached them and got into the boat and calmed the storm Because the Lord saw them and the Lord I imagine that when he saw them he was interceding for them and praying and wanted to strengthen their faith by walking on the waters, reaching them saying, look, I am still in control of the waters. I am in control still of the storm, still of physics. I am in control, you do not have to fear, and if I get on your boat everything will be fine.

And those disciples rowed all night, he says, because the wind was against them. And one wonders why the Lord didn't bail them out immediately, why He didn't. Because sometimes God wants us to be there for a little while, cooking ourselves in our own juice so that we learn, so that we become aware, so that we reconsider, so that we have time to soften up a bit, that pride softens, that materialism softens, that dependence on ourselves, on our own intelligence, that security, that self-sufficiency that we feel because the bill is full and the house is almost paid for and all the economic signs are fine, like pride comes in man and then God says, you know what? I am going to give you a little test time so that you know who is in control and who you have to watch.

I'm finishing and it's actually a different sermon but it's the same as I am... there is a passage that Brother Gonzalo read this morning, at the beginning, perhaps you don't remember. But the Lord is speaking to us from the beginning, that passage was not there in my mind or anything, but God wanted us to read it and it also reminded me again of the same thing, that God sometimes allows us to go through trials, difficulties, brothers , but he is in control. The thing is not going to fall apart, listen to me, your life is in the hands of your God. Do not fear little herd because your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Do not be afraid, do not worry, do not fret as the Puerto Ricans say, the Lord is here. But sometimes the Lord will allow you to go through times of trial, because he is interested in you learning something different, that you do not live like the world, superficial, vain, vain as the world is. God wants to create deep, spiritual men and women, capable of comforting others. And sometimes he allows testing times to come.

But only the person who has the right perspective can go through the testing times and come out unscathed, and stronger. The person who does not have the code to decipher the events of history and of life, when tragedy comes, when suffering comes, dies, wears out, loses strength, becomes neurotic because they do not know how to decode, how to interpret what is happening because you don't have the code. The code is here in the word of God. The son of God, the daughter of God who understands how things happen can go through trials and understand: ah, this is because of this, ah, this is because of that, ah, I understand what God is doing in my life, Yeah, of course. And then it goes through that, of course, we are going to experience a certain fear, of course, but we always take a pill from the Bible every morning, a pill from the word of God and the seas go down, things calm down a bit and we can pass until we have to go back again to take another pill because that's the way the human mind is. Man, this mind is never going to completely submit to God or to the truths of God, that is why we have to renew ourselves with the word of God, with prayer.

Brethren, these are times to pray a lot, let me tell you in parentheses. These are times to pray a lot and not only to ask God how we should do what solves our problems, provides us, blesses us, gives us what we need. Sure, that's important, present your burdens, your needs to the Lord, but you know what? For me, the benefit of prayer in times of trial and difficulty is above all to open the escape valve so that anxiety can come out and so that my mind is renewed and I can understand that I live in eternity and that I am a human being. eternal and that I do not depend only on this world.

When I enter the sphere of prayer and pray to my God and words of eternity and spirit come out of my mouth, my mind remembers that I do not belong to this world and therefore this world has no power over my life. , that if something is taken from me, I have an inexhaustible deposit in eternity and that this can and will be replaced and that one day all my sufferings, my sufferings, my ups and downs will have no meaning in light of the eternal glory that God has for me. And prayer reminds us of that, that we are eternal.

Why does the Apostle Paul say, be anxious for nothing but let your requests be known in all prayer and supplication? And then add and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go? Because the human alternative is to be anxious, to worry. God says, you know what? Pray instead. Let the Lord know your needs, manifest them, express them, enter the vapor of eternity and the spiritual and cook there a little and purify your pores, remove all contamination, all materialistic toxins and as a consequence of that the peace of God it will keep your heart and mind focused on Jesus Christ. You will look at the crisis to Christ and that will keep you at peace and will equalize your system.

These are times to pray. Instead of being anxious, instead of saying, oh me, why me, look, invest that energy in prayer and calm down in the spirit and let the eternity of God take control of your mind. In the morning take time to pray, at night take time to pray, surrender your sleep, surrender your bed to the Lord, surrender your pillow to the Lord, at work, in the car saturate your mind with prayer, renew your pact with God , renew your awareness of the eternal. That is important because that is the only thing that keeps us going in times of uncertainty and difficulty. It keeps us healthy, on the contrary, we are going to shine brighter than ever in these times, brothers, in times of need and trial, the child of God who has the right mind grows and becomes stronger. That's how it is.

But, again, I end with this, what he says, I already made him an Apostle the writer of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy Chapter 8, where he speaks of the divine perspective, the divine perspective in verse 2, one of the deepest Chapters in the entire Bible, the Lord tells the Hebrew people that they are ready to leave the desert where they have been 40 years, eating manna, barely subsisting on very basic food, very unattractive, and the Lord tells them:

"... you will remember all the way that the Lord, your God, has brought you, these 40 years in the desert, to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart whether or not you would keep his commandments and it afflicted you and he made you hungry, and he fed you with manna, food that you did not know, nor your parents had known, to let you know that man will not live on bread alone, more than everything that comes out of the mouth of Jehovah, man will live . Your dress has never grown old on you, nor has your foot swelled in these 40 years. Know also in your heart that as a man punishes his son, so Jehovah your God punishes you. You shall therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and fearing him because the Lord your God introduces you into the good land, a land of streams, of water, of fountains and of springs that gush forth in valleys and mountains….”

I believe that God has, the best is ahead of our life, brothers. I believe that God has good things for us. It has no destruction, it has no death or loss. That is what we sometimes believe, and the devil wants us to believe that. No, this crisis will pass as other crises have passed, times of refreshment will come. I sincerely believe that God wants to bless us and have good things ahead, but before we get to that he wants us to go through a scary and testing time and learn where life truly is and the meaning of life. This is time for us to reflect again and all God wants is to give us a spiritual lesson in this time and remind us that, look, my life, no, I do not live on food, ultimately, nor on material things but on the word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

God says put your mind on what really matters, put your mind on the spirit, put your mind on eternity, put your mind on the things of the word of God, put your affection there, there the moth does not corrupt, the thieves They don't get involved, economies don't steal your investments. Put your emphasis on things of the spirit, lose your life and you will win it, live for the Kingdom of God and that will make you impenetrable, inviolable, invincible even in times of difficulty. The Lord tells you, Christian, where have you placed your affection and if you do not have it in the Kingdom of God, say this morning, Lord, I place it in your kingdom and in your eternity. I am going to serve you rain, shine or wind, come what may, I am on your side, in your dimension and I am not going to worry as the people of the world worry because my mind is set, I have my sights on the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God interceding for me, making sure that the end of my life is good.

In the name of Jesus, God tells you, do not be afraid, do not worry, trust that I have the script of your life already written and the word is good, the word of the Lord for you this morning. Stand up, renew your faith this morning, confess to the Lord, Father, I trust in you, I hope in you. Whatever happens, whatever comes, I'm going to trust you, I'm going to wait on you. Forgive me for being anxious, forgive me for doubting, forgive me for questioning you, Lord, forgive my mind that betrays me at every moment and makes me believe that I was the one in control and that is why now I am worried because I am not in control. But I return control to you and whatever happens, my affection is in you, my hope is in you and I give my life into your hands.

Oh Lord, I ask in the name of Jesus that you begin with me renewing my mind, renewing my understanding.

Father, I pray that you would renew my mind, renew my perspective, renew my understanding, I confess that you are in control of my life, that you explain every, the minutest detail of my life.

You explain, Lord, everything that happens in my life, not me. This morning I ask you to comfort the hearts of your people and to renew your vision and look. We are going to put it in you, Lord, no matter what I have lost, I give it to you, I detach myself from it, Father.

Lord, we release any claim that we have to anything in our lives. We relinquish any clinging to anything, Father and we acknowledge that it all belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it, even with our own lives because we do not belong to this dimension, we belong to eternity and we choose to be at peace this morning, we choose to be resting in you.

We trust in you, Lord, we hope in you, we put our trust in you this morning. Father, calm the hearts of my brothers and sisters, may the peace of God that passes all understanding rule their minds, their hearts in the name of Jesus we declare that you are in control.

You're in control, Father. We declare that this morning.

Oh Lord Jesus, renew us, heal us, strengthen us. Thank you because your word does not leave us without comfort, it does not leave us without perspective, it does not leave us without an explanation. This morning I bless this town, Father, and I ask you to take them out of here with hope in their hearts because you have spoken to us, Father, our true intentions are in a place where there is no corruption, there is no decay, there is no theft , there's no way to get lost. What is true of us is inviolable, completely safe from every eventuality, every upstart circumstance, Lord, every flux, we are sure, our life is on the rock that is Christ Jesus and we declare it so.

We thank you, Lord, we glorify you, we magnify you, we welcome you, Father.

And Lord, if we have lost a job, we tell you, glorify yourself, if we are going to lose our house, we tell you, glorify yourself, we give it to you, Lord. Whatever it is, Father, it is yours, oh God help us to understand even that, that even if the worst happens, our life does not consist of those things, Lord, oh, in the name of Jesus we pray for those who are in distress in this nation, Lord, and in the world, elderly and fathers, and mothers, Lord, send your peace. Send your peace, send your peace. We sympathize, Lord, we feel your pain and we ask that you send your spirit, give wisdom to the administrators of this nation from the president-elect to the last bureaucrat, Lord, of this nation. Bless them, give them wisdom, give them understanding, Father so that we can live peaceful lives, so that this nation can return to stability. I bless, Lord, those who suffer, those who suffer, those who lose jobs, those who are in distress and in need. Supply, Lord, supply, Father, and that this church may, on the contrary, prosper in the midst of difficulties, Father. We ask for solutions, we ask for open doors, we ask for your provision with full hands, Lord, we ask for what you promise your people, which is to save them from the devourer, to save them in the midst of trials.

We glorify you, Father, we give you thanks, we are renewed in you, we wash our minds in your waters, Lord, this morning, we wash our hearts in your waters, Father and thank you because you call us to new levels of trust and faith.

We worship you, Lord. Renew our minds again, Father. We pray and we thank you because you are a good God, never destructions for your children, Father, never ultimate laws, always good things, always a good ending in the name of Jesus, we claim your promises, we claim your blessing, and even if we go through the valley of the shadow of death, Father, we know that you are there with us. Even if there is temporary loss, we know that there is an eternal gain, there is absolute victory because this is not our home and this does not define us. We thank you, we bless you, we glorify you. Be glorified even in our trials, Father.

Thank you, Jesus, we adore you, we bless you. Praised be the name of Jesus. Glory to the name of Jesus. Give the Lord a big round of applause this morning. Amen. Amen.