A supernatural mindset

Book of Acts chapter 1. This morning we talked about a supernatural mentality. God wants his people to adopt a supernatural mindset.

Indeed, I know that Lion of Judah, this beautiful church that God has allowed to form in the heart of Boston, is made up of men and women who are being more and more configured into a supernatural mindset. That every time, when God looks over this congregation and looks, he looks at minds that are conjugating life and processing life according to the principles and energies that are contained in this book. A supernatural mindset.

And I feel that it is one of the things that God has given us for this year, to meditate more and more on that supernatural attitude. This week I read a prayer that we had that emphasized supernatural life. There is a very beautiful choir that the Lord has given us in these days to sing precisely with that title, “Supernatural”. And this year, I feel that we are going to be talking a lot about the Book of Acts, because the Lord gave me what we used...

Because if there is a Book in Scripture that exemplifies a church living on the edge of the supernatural, it is the Book of Acts. I believe that God left this Book of Acts there in the position where he left it, after the four Gospels and before the Letters of the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles. He left it there in the center between those two moments. The first four books...

The letters are more like preparatory. They are statements of the principles of the church. They are letters rather advice, statements, teachings. But then, the Book of Acts, it's like God said, 'You know what? I don't want people to think that the miracles and powerful actions of God are only through... only my Son did them. When He finished His work, those things ended.’

Nor did God want God's people to think only of Paul's statements. Because I sincerely think that if we take the Book of Acts from the New Testament, many of the things that the Apostle Paul talks about, for example, or James or John or Peter do not have the same meaning. Now, as we are always reading the Book of Acts, it has become part of it and so without realizing it, we understand many of the things that the Apostle Paul says in his letters through what we already know from the Book of Acts.

But kind of what God wanted – because the Old Testament is all narratives. They are narratives, there are very few declaratory things like that in theory. They are mostly narratives, tales, histories, accounts of what happened in the past. Interestingly, the Book of Acts is like a point of contact towards the past with its stories: the books of the Old Testament and towards the future with the new principles that it explains about the church and how the church of Jesus Christ should live its life in that new economy that Christ also unleashed through the Holy Spirit.

So the Book of Acts is like a connecting point and a bridge between the Old Testament with its stories of deliverance and miracles. Through the Red Sea the fire of God that comes down, healings and resurrections, prophets with great anointing and great power. And the slightly more intellectual, more meditative, more principled and theological way of looking at life that much of the New Testament represents.

And the Book of Acts is there extending its hand towards both ends of the life of God's people. And that is why this Book is so important. I wish, and the Holy Spirit wishes, brothers, that our Church learn every day to look at life more and more in supernatural terms. And may you grow more and more each day into being men and women filled with the Holy Spirit who know that you are made to live a supernatural life.

May miracles happen in your life, may transformations occur in your life. That you can speak like this sister, here, who came to the service today and no psychiatrist could have done what God did in a few minutes with this sister. He released her. Do you know how much it would have cost her and a psychoanalyst? How many times would I have had to sit there telling nonsense and nonsense to a psychiatrist? Glory to God for psychiatrists. Amen.

But it costs money, 125 an hour, I think that's what a psychiatrist costs now. Imagine! She sitting here at one point, God touched her and how that happened, no one can say. God set her free. Because that's what happens. The believer's life when he is seeking God, when he is living life in that supernatural way, is a life of miracles, sudden interventions, things he does to us, liberations. That is the life that God wants.

That is why it is so important that you and I grow more every day in being a church that lives life supernaturally. I know that for many of you who are perhaps new to the Gospel, much of what I am saying may not be perfectly clear. But I encourage you to continue. To continue reading, inquiring, praying and listening and I know that God is going to make this more and more clear as time goes on.

I could end here, but I won't. This is an introduction, but very brief. Don't worry, I am going to be very judicious in the use of time and we are going to finish very quickly because everything we have been doing is part of the teaching.

But, with me quickly, the first chapter of the Book of Acts and I'm going to just read verses 1 through 5 and I'm going to quickly pull out some principles there and that's it. Then we can go to continue enjoying that supernatural life that God has for us.

Acts 1:1 says: ‘In the first treatise or Theophilus’ – this is Luke, he wrote the Book of Acts. Just as Lucas also wrote what other Book? The Gospel according to Saint Luke. Those two books were written by the same man. Lucas was a doctor, just in case. He was a highly educated man. We do not know how the Lord called him to his ways and Lucas was also a very accomplished historian and wrote these two books: The Gospel according to Saint Luke and the Book of Acts. Inspired by the Holy Spirit.

He wrote it to a man named Theophilus who was apparently a noble man, perhaps an official in the Greco-Roman Empire and who…a man of some importance and this man seems to have been God fearing, curious about the Gospel. And Luke wrote Theophilus a report on the life of Jesus Christ and the life of the early Christians. Interesting. And one of the things that characterizes Luke's vision and values is the validity of the Holy Spirit.

If you read the Gospel according to Saint Luke, there is much there, more than perhaps in any of the other Gospels, about the moving of the Holy Spirit. And that is why, because Lucas was impregnated with a very strong impression about the Holy Spirit.

Then he says: 'In the first Treatise', that is to say in the First Book that I wrote, the first Scripture that I wrote or Theophilus, 'I spoke about all the things that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was received up after of having given commandments by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also after having suffered he appeared alive with many indubitable proofs. Appearing for forty days and speaking to them about the Kingdom of God.

And while they were together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said to them, "You have heard from me." Because John, certainly, said the Lord Jesus Christ baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. The Lord bless his Word.

Last Sunday we talked about a harmonious community. We went forward and now we are going backwards. We talked about the life of those first Christians, one of the great miracles that God did in that nascent town was the harmony that existed between them, the love they had, sharing, living together, giving generously to each other. That mentality that became so real in their lives that 'I have nothing. Everything belongs to the Lord, my life belongs to God, my money belongs to God. I am an instrument of God. If the Kingdom of God, if my brother needs something I am going to share it because nothing is mine. And I have it all. In a sense.

That harmony mentality. A community that loved, supported, shared together, nothing belonged to anyone. It was a kind of communism but in the most beautiful sense of the word. And we talk about how God wants that generosity and that attitude on the part of a people because the Book of Acts allows us to look from a privileged point on the roof of the house of that first emerging community. And look through a hole how they lived each day.

And then, when we see how they lived and how they dealt with illnesses, demons, persecution, the call to evangelize, the challenges in different cultures, the natural reverses of the Christian life. All these things and since they grappled with all of this in light of the values that Christ had instilled in them, then we too should imitate them and learn from them.

This is not a perfect community, it has many problems, like us too, but it was a community that could do great things, great feats because they had certain elements in their lives that if we absorb those elements, imitate them, integrate them into our lives, we will to have the same power, the same effectiveness as them too. And that's what it's all about: when you hear these words, ingesting and saying 'this is for me, this is for me. I want this, I am going to incorporate this into my life. I am going to give to the Lord to bring that thing into my life.

So how interesting! This is just the introduction. An introduction isn't supposed to have much to…actually, how many of us read the introduction when we read a book? Be honest. Very few. How many of you read the prologue of a book? What do you usually do? You go to the first chapter. ‘That prologue was only written for two or three people who have nothing to do. But I want to go to the meat, I want to go once and for all to the first stories.

Interestingly, even the introduction to the book already has many elements that allow us to see what makes up and constitutes a supernatural mentality. What is a mindset? A mindset is an attitude. A mindset is a way of looking at things; a mentality is a posture towards life; a mindset is a worldview and a mindset is the lens through which we view the life we live.

It is something that is often so much a part of us and our way of conjugating life that we realize when we lose it. It is an interpretive lens about life. That is a mindset and each one of us has a mindset, for better or worse. So what God wants is that the mentality that we have, that we use to process everything that enters our life. The program that allows us to do all the transactions of life, is a supernatural program, and that incorporates the language that God has codified and has put into his word.

So, as we read the book of Acts and see how these people computed life when situations came into their lives, we are supposed to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be that way. So Lucas was a man filled with the Holy Spirit. He traveled with Paul, he saw great miracles. His mentality was a supernatural mentality. And by still having written his introduction, he is already showing certain elements that are important to a supernatural life.

Look, for example, when he writes that in the First Treatise...'that Jesus began to do and teach'. What is the keyword there? Jesus. Notice that you have not advanced even a single sentence and the name of Jesus already comes up. And I say that one of the things that characterizes a supernatural mentality is a fixation on the person of Jesus. The centrality of the person of Jesus.

The Christian man or woman who has a supernatural way of looking at life, who has supernatural power embedded in his person, is a person intensely aware of the importance of Jesus: his person, his actions, his life, his miracles, his supernatural character and its salvific and regenerative virtue.

So it is very important that we always live attached to Jesus. Jesus is not just a little thing that you occasionally take out of the dresser and put back there with a little picture on a nightstand. Jesus is the essence. You must be addicted to Jesus. I am addicted to Jesus. Every day I get more and more addicted. Every day I know that I have to be close to Him. And it is that Jesus has something that is magical. By force of you meditate on the person of Jesus, by force of his name passing through your lips.

By dint of meditating on your deeds and in your word, by dint of using it as a sword and a magic key for illness, for tribulations, for demonic attacks, to receive virtue and strength, you grow more every day and more in power and authority and vigour. The name of Jesus, the person of Jesus, when you meditate on Him, is something that has incredible life-giving, revitalizing power.

That is why the Lord said: 'Remain in me and I in you' and what? "And you will bear much fruit." As the fruit cannot remain alive and vital if it is not attached to the sap on the tree, we cannot do anything if we do not remain attached to Jesus. From the Lord comes virtue. Even thousands of years after walking the Earth, the person of Jesus releases Grace.

The woman with the issue of blood in the middle of a crowd understood this and stretched out her hand among the people and touched the little edge, the tip, a thread of Jesus' cloak. And what does it say? "Virtue came out of him." And He felt a shock because Jesus is like one of those electrical machines that surrounds the neighborhoods. Have you ever seen those places of electricity that have a very large mesh around them? And that if you go in there you'll probably get charred because that machine has electricity.

If you touch in the wrong place it will hit you. Christ is a source of power and authority. People who have Christ as the center of their life, who love him, who imitate him, who exalt him, who use his name as a sword when life's crises come: "Lord Jesus, I appeal to You", "Christ, I commend myself to You." Use the name of Jesus.

The name of Jesus is a spear, it is a sword, it is a projectile that you can send against the crises of life, against the demons that want to attack your life... Looking face to face as the face of Jesus is revealed we are made more and more like Him. We are conformed like Him. There is something mysterious about simply clinging to Him, meditating on Him, His word, His person. Recognizing his saving character, his lordship, his perfect life gives us vitality and strength.

And that's why Luke couldn't go too far without mentioning Jesus. He wrote about Jesus in his Gospel and is now writing too. There is a lot of fabric to cut but Christ says 'Without me you can do nothing'. This society needs Christians who are radically committed to Jesus, who are not going around letting…

The devil wants us to fool Jesus and just talk about spirituality and faith and love. But you know what? It is Christ. Don't let anyone steal the name of Jesus from you. We have to be radical about Jesus. We don't compromise the name of Christ, do we? If I love Muslims, I love Buddhists, I love all those people. They are sometimes more honest people than many Christians. But you know what? Christ says 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father if it is not through me'

Either Christ was confused or a big liar or what He said was true. And He is the only way to the Father. I do not believe that God would have sent Christ to die on the cross if there had been all the trouble and the problem of bleeding on a cross if there were so many other alternative ways to the Father. I don't know, but I think we have to exalt the name of Christ.

There is so much demon out there today that only the name and person of Jesus can tear down the walls of Jericho so God's people can come in and reap what they have to reap. Only the name of Christ. And we have to be exalting the name of Jesus more instead of letting them put it in a drawer. There are so many people who say “Talk to me about everything but don't talk about Jesus”.

There are neighborhoods, there are people here in this city that when you mention the name of Jesus it's like you drop a bomb in the middle of a meeting. You feel how the demons rise up at once and there is like something, an emptiness is established. That is intimidation of the devil and it must be rebuked in the name of Jesus. And we have to be radically committed to the name of Jesus. Lots of cloth to cut.

But it says about all the things that 'Jesus began to do and to teach'. Why does Luke not only say that He began to teach? Because one could say all the things that He taught so beautiful. The Gospel is full of Jesus' teachings but note that the supernatural mentality knows that the Christian life is more than teaching, it is works, it is action. Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 4: 'For the gospel does not consist in words, but in power.'

And he also said 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes'. Christ was not only a great spiritual genius who went around spouting great spiritual truths. Christ was a miracle worker, Christ confronted the devil directly, hand to hand, and defeated him. Christ went about undoing the works of Satan during his life.

Christ calmed the crowd and fed them through his miracles. He calmed the storm through the word, lifted up the paralyzed and lame. He released the mouth of the mute, gave sight to the blind. His whole life was actions of power and liberation that showed that He was not only a spiritual genius like the others who had come before Him and would come after Him, but that He was the Son of God. Actions and words.

Oh yes, the doctrine is good! The teaching is good, the Bible study is good, it is good to know many things about the Christian life. But the Christian life is above all works of power, brothers. Transformations in our life. A community experiencing changes and being instruments of change in the world. A community that can say: “No, it's not like they tricked me one day and sold me religion. No! I know that Christ lives, because he lives in me and has done things in my life. And it's real."

And it still calms the storm, it still gives sight to the blind, it still raises the fallen, it still raises the dead, it still frees from the chains of the devil. He still works miracles and he works them in my life and he works them through me too. It is not only teaching, but also action. The supernatural mindset is a mindset that has an appetite to see the glory of God manifested. To see works of power and to learn how to do and carry out those works of power.

Every Christian needs to have his or her list of feats that God did in his or her life and that God used him or her to do as well. Like the great soldiers who have been in the war for a long time, who sit down to reminisce and reminisce about the battles they fought and how they did great heroics and the things they saw and now they have their medals there. Every believer has to have their list of feats that God has done in their life and that God has done through them, too.

And if you don't have them, start asking the Lord. Unleash hunger within you: “Father, I want to have a list of feats. I want to have a list of actions that You have done in my life. Of facts that You have fulfilled in my life, that say that Christ is real and lives in my heart”. Because God is not only word but also action and deeds. And that Christ who moved at that time moves and wants to move in your life and in mine and in this church more and more every day.

A supernatural mentality is a mentality of deeds, actions and not just words and teachings. Third –and I am going to miles, excuse me but this is very important– it says here: 'Until the day he was received up after having given a commandment by the Holy Spirit to those who also after having suffered' –how?– 'Alive'.

Say everyone: "I live."

'With many indubitable proofs that could not be denied'. One of the things also of the supernatural mentality, the importance of the resurrection of Christ. The risen Christ. Christ did not stay in the grave, God raised him from the dead. For the early Christians that was an absolutely key fact. The first sermons of Peter, of John, of Paul, of Stephen pointed out the centrality of the resurrection.

That Christ was real, that he was alive. That his presence, his works had not ended with his physical presence on Earth and that even when he had gone to heaven, he was still at the right hand of God the Father interceding for us and even leading a more victorious life than if God had gone. remained on Earth because now He interceded before God the Father and facilitated the works of God in our lives.

For the children of God who live a supernatural life, the risen Christ who walks with us, who continues to perform miracles, who is a reality every day, who speaks to us, advises us, disciplines us, forms us is something central. very important Christ has risen from the dead and that fact is the first and we will follow him one day. And the resurrection is absolutely key.

A town, a woman, a man who does not believe in the resurrection is useless. He has to be thrown away because he is not a bona fide Christian. Today I can say that more clearly. I love those who say that the resurrection is a metaphor and something very beautiful, something very poetic. But look, something that distinguishes a man, a biblical woman from God is to believe that Christ rose physically, bodily and that he moves today among his people through the Holy Spirit.

And that is very important. The resurrections our guarantee that we too will rise again. If Christ did not rise again, we have to go sell tamales out there, but don't come to church because that's not what it's about, brothers. Christ is the center, that risen Christ who walks among his people. The centrality of the resurrection. Absolutely important. From the resurrection comes glory, comes power, comes hope. Lucas stops: 'He showed up alive'.

Christ wanted them to know that He was not a ghost, that He was not a projection, that He was not a three-dimensional video of God when He rose. No. He said 'find bread, find me fish'. He ate to prove to them 'I have a body, I have three dimensions', as it has in your life right now. "Alive" was presented.

Lastly – I will end here – by the Holy Spirit it says here. Mire says in verse 2: 'Until the day he was received up after having given commandments' -by whom?- 'by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom he had chosen'. And then later in verse 4 he said 'When they were all together he appeared to them and ordered them not to leave immediately in their enthusiasm from Jerusalem to preach the Gospel.' He told them “No, wait because I still have the best for you. The best wine is reserved for last. I have a baptism for you and the promise that my Father made I am going to make it real”.

John, a great man of God, had a good word, good teaching. The Gospel of repentance, prepare ourselves but “I have a portion, I have a formula that is going to get you drunk, that is going to make you jump like little lambs. And he is going to put a gasoline that you are going to shout and you are going to dance with power and you are going to do the same miracles that I have done”. And that is called the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit”.

"Don't leave until you take one of these pills and then you can go out and preach the Gospel." Because there are two things: there is the ethical Gospel, the spiritual, moral, theological Gospel. Very important. The Gospel of John. But there is a Gospel that is dynamite, a Gospel that is a sword, a Gospel that is Molotov cocktails, it is an explosive, dynamic, aggressive Gospel, it is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. And God wants you to have that baptism, that fullness, that transformation in your life.

The supernatural mentality understands that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the immersion in the Holy Spirit is very, very important in the life of a child of God. That the miracles and the great works of the Christian life are done through that filling of the Holy Spirit. Let me say, brother, that when you begin to search for the Holy Spirit, even if you don't have everything clear, nobody does; there is much mystery and many things that are not fully specified about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

But there is something the Bible talks about that is a state of intoxication, a state of immersion that is called the "filling and baptism of the Holy Spirit" and you want to look for that. You have to have an appetite for that. Many of you may not have received it. They cannot say for sure “I have it”. I encourage you to continue on this Christian walk longing for that experience. That experience comes in many different forms.

It can come in a moment of adoration when you say "Lord, I open myself to You" and when you come forward, perhaps, and you feel that infusion of intensity that enters your life. I think a lot of people have already received the baptism of the Holy Ghost in this church and maybe they don't know it because maybe they weren't taught that they could open their mouths and speak in tongues and they didn't unleash something there. But perhaps that intervention of God and perhaps they expressed it through an irreprehensible cry.

How many times have we been in church or in our home and it has come to us…? My sister Nancy – I think it is – when she was ironing one day at home, a release of the Holy Spirit came to her. Perhaps it comes to you through flowing tears, perhaps it comes to you through a joy that invaded you and you felt that blameless energy within you. Perhaps you began to speak and glorify God and you did not understand everything you were saying, but how many times have we seen people fall to the ground and have experiences there? And they don't understand that maybe that was the moment.

I don't think the only way to know if you received the Holy Spirit is because you spoke in tongues. I think it's a good thing and there is a model for that. But I don't think anyone can prove to me that they are the only one to receive the Holy Spirit. I don't think God is so mechanical like that. But I ask you "look for that". Now when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, if you feel it, you know. There is something happening, there is a strong emotion. There is something happening. But there are many ways.

And a life filled with the Holy Spirit is a life that expresses that vitality, that joy, that intensity, that passion. You have to look for that, in whatever way it is. You have to say like the psalmist: 'As the servant bellows for the streams of the waters, so he cries out for You, O God! My soul'. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and present myself before the house of God? You have to be crying out to the Lord for that: “Lord, I want to, when am I coming? When will I receive? When am I going to feel that burst of power inside of me?

When am I going to feel that fire? When am I going to feel that irruption of grace in my life? If you look for it, you will find it because God never leaves those who seek him thirsty. Keep looking. That experience is for you, it is necessary and God wants to give it to you. And it is necessary for you to have a victorious and powerful life. Don't settle for simply saying that you believe. Seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit, seek the filling. Because that is what will give you the capacity to testify of Christ effectively, have passion, authority, initiative.

Many things happen, healing also comes from the soul when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. It comes through the word, through being in environments like these, through hearing preaching like the one we're talking about. Fasting, prayer, service to the Lord, spiritual disciplines. All these things are putting air into the rubber and making it stronger and more powerful every day. That's a man, a woman filled with the Holy Spirit.

I think it's that. A person who reflects spiritual vitality because he is eating good food and is doing the exercises and is living the discipline that God wants. And that is undoubtedly going to lead to an explosion because you are going to have so much inside of you that it is going to burst through the pores of your life. Filling with the Holy Spirit, awareness of Jesus Christ, awareness of his resurrection and the centrality of Jesus – the fourth thing – of actions. Supernatural works, works of God in our life.

Those four things, at least, important that we are aware of them. Let's look for them every day and God will continue to raise up a powerful congregation. Let's stand up. We are going to give Glory to the Lord and with that we are fired. I know that our children have been here for a long time. Brother, that's what happens, you know? When God is moving, one-hour or forty-five-minute services become impossible, you know?

When God is doing things that is, one has to come and give in to the consequences. There is a price to pay. When God's vitality is there, many things are happening. Give the Lord your life. Half an hour will not kill you, on the contrary, it will grow more and you will receive more. We give Glory to the Lord for all that we have received. Squeeze this word.

I also want to invite you, when everything is finished, you say goodbye quietly there, if some brothers want to come forward here we will pray for you discreetly. We are going to activate that growing and future work of the Lord. I am going to ask our brother Pastors and Pastors and other brothers and sisters who know that their lives reflect the presence of the Holy Spirit to accompany me here for a little while. Let's pray for these brothers. We are going to ask for.

I feel that God has told me that those times that we have interceded and ministered to the brothers here in front that they have never been wasted. I believe that part of what we see of this growing vitality in the spiritual church comes from actions like these where we have taken time to –prophetically– infuse the filling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of our brothers. And we have opened wells that God then begins to fill with his oil.

We have to continue ministering the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we have to continue by faith, prophesying for the brothers, and creating ourselves and raising up a powerful church. A church that is going to come one day when the roof is going to fly off this church, brothers, the anointing is going to be so great. And the walls go – I don't know what is going to happen here, but something traumatic is going to happen – but very beautiful because we have to continue cultivating, cultivating that warrior mentality, that supernatural mentality.

God wants to heal, God wants to liberate, God wants to anoint, God wants to fill, God wants to transform, God wants to commission and send. We are going to do the work of the Lord. If you feel that God is calling you, come forward here, without much fanfare, without much barking or much, we are going to pray for you and we are going to bless you in the name of the Lord. And we will give what we have. As Peter and John said "We do not have gold or silver but what we have we give you" and the Lord will take care of what it is.

But come with faith, believe and let's pray together here. Let's minister together. We are going to believe that God has something he wants to give us this afternoon, that we are going to come out stronger than we arrived. Amen. Glory to God. I bless you. Receive something there in your heart. Say “Father what I have received keep it inside me. Don't let anyone take it away from me. I receive it in my heart and I take it with me now. And I bless you in the name of Jesus and sent you to live that supernatural life.