Sometimes you have to take off your shoes - even in the desert

I want to invite you to open your Bible to the book of Exodus chapter 3, Exodus chapter 3, and in this time that we have left, I want to invite you to reflect on something. As many of you know and some of you probably don't know, I am the pastor of a church born in León de Judá in the city of Waltham, the church is called Centro Cristiano Tiempo de Dios, and the Lord moved us this year to have a fasting and prayer time every month, specifically the last week of each month. So each week has had its, let's say its motto, its phrase, what we want to achieve.

And this last time of fasting and prayer we base ourselves on the book of Acts chapter 1 verse 8, which is a text that all evangelicals should know, does anyone know it by heart? Acts 1:8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And do you know what was the motto that we took that week? We must learn to seize the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That was a motto and a theme all week, we talked about the Holy Spirit, all week we invoked the presence, the power, his anointing in our midst.

You know, I personally believed that the Lord was going to give us a word of encouragement that week so he was going to make us run in a tremendous way, where the Holy Spirit made us have wings and fly faster than the fastest plane in the world, and the Lord led me to this verse, and told me: to seize the power of the Holy Spirit, first you have to remove your shoes from your feet. And here we will see why.

Here we will see why. And the Lord led me to this topic. It is a familiar story, the burning bush in the middle of the desert. He says, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: "While Moses was feeding the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Marian, led the sheep through the desert, and came to Oreb, the mountain of God. the angel of the LORD appeared in a flame of fire in the midst of a bush, and he looked, and saw that the bush was burning with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now go and see this great vision, for What causes the bush not to burn? When the Lord saw that he was about to see, God called him out of the midst of the bush and said: Moses, Moses, and he answered: Here I am, and said: Do not come near, remove your shoes from your feet, because the place where you are is holy ground".

We close our eyes, thank you Lord for this time, that you are going to allow us to reflect on your word, Lord, allow each one of us to take the portion that is personally designed and directed as You have prepared it. Thank you for the opportunity that you give us Lord to feel your presence and to hear your word, in the name of Jesus, amen and amen.

It was interesting what the Lord was saying to Moses. Here you can take many conjectures, many lessons. First, because Moses was being prepared for a great task with the people of God who were in Egypt. Some of us already know something about the history of Moses and how he came to feed the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro. You know, but here the Lord is calling us to reflect, because each one of us is called to a mission that God has entrusted to him in his life. Not because you may not believe that you are not a pastor or because you are not an evangelist, or because you are not a missionary, or a prophet, you do not believe that you are not called to do anything, you and I, regardless of what we can do in the kingdom, we are called to a specific mission that He has designed for us.

And there is a great mission that we all have which is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of salvation to all those who today need the Lord's salvation, so you and I cannot get away from that idea. And here Moses represents this man, this woman of God, who is being treated by the Lord, who is being treated by the Lord in areas of her life, to be able to use it at an opportune moment, at an opportune time. We call that the Cairos of God, the time of God.

Moses presents us with a man or woman of God who is always concerned about doing the things he was entrusted to do, here he had a job that was to feed his father-in-law's sheep, and he was doing it well, it seems because he was going to a geographical region a little difficult, a little complicated where there wasn't much grass for that flock, but Moses seemed to know the land, Moses was doing his job excellently, he had learned, over time, to do his job well.

Verse 1 shows us an active Moses, a Moses who was always worried that the things entrusted to him would turn out the way the boss wanted them to. But if we look at verse 2, verse 2 also speaks of a Moses who also while working, while tending his father-in-law's sheep, it seems that he also had a good relationship, an intimate relationship with the Lord. He was attentive, he was attentive to what the Lord was causing around him. Many of us make a separation between work and service to the Lord. At work many times we do not hear the voice of the Lord, many times we are not being very sensitive to what He wants to speak to us at the time.

Moses teaches us that a man and a woman called by the Lord is attentive not only to what they are doing physically or materially, but also teaches us that at that very moment they are attentive to what God is showing them around. Verse 3 and verse 4 tells us about a Moses who wants to, who has that emotion of being able to reach what he is seeing. Here he speaks to us necessarily, a man and a woman of God who must wait for the opportune time that God has given him to be able to access certain, uh, certain opportunities that He is opening up. Moses did not want to wait, it seems that moment, Moses did not want to wait for the Lord's order, but rather he wanted to go see, he wanted to go play, something was happening in the middle of that rock in that desert, which was not normal for him. But I did know that the presence of the Lord was there.

And where I want to stop for a moment is in verse 5, when the Lord speaks loudly to Moses, and warns him and says: "Moses, it is not yet the time for you to touch that, because you still have to leave some things outside of that space. The symbology of footwear in these cultures is super important. Footwear, in Islamic or Arab cultures, has to do with a concept of security, with a concept of trust, with a concept of feeling comfortable, just like each one of us. If you and I walk without appropriate footwear at an appropriate time in this city, we can suffer serious consequences in our physical life, in our physical body.

For Moses, footwear at that time was necessary with so many miles that he had to walk, with so much time that he had to travel with the sheep. I needed a shoe. And I imagine a Moses looking at that scene in the bush, and being a few inches away from being able to enter the middle of that scene that only corresponded to the Lord. When the Lord spoke to us about this verse he told us, shoes can represent many things. And one of those is that when the Lord tells him to take off his shoes, it was because he needed to have extreme reverence for what he was seeing, for what the Lord was teaching him at that moment.

Taking off your shoes involved being uncomfortable in the middle of the desert. With his physical sensitivity in his feet, probably exposed to some injury by some stone or some animal that could not sting his feet, or the very presence of the Lord could somehow cause something in his physical body. You know, when the Lord speaks to us about taking off our shoes at that moment, he begins to speak to us much further. He is telling us that many of us want to enjoy the presence of the Lord by sharing a little bit, with half of our foot in the world.

When the Lord spoke to us about the burning bush that for some commentators the bush represents the church of the Lord in these times, that even though the desert, and even though the temperature, and even though the system wants to take over it, the presence of the Lord does not consume, there it is, always alive, the church of the Lord, always alive in the midst of time. But you know, many of us want to share halfway, we want to see the bush, we want to do like Moses, make sure of what we are seeing, but we don't want to get rid of those things that are not necessary within the holiness of God.

Manifest are the works of the flesh says Galatians 5:19. If you want to read the list of the works of the flesh, you will realize that there are many men and women within the Lord's church who are practicing things that are not pleasing to God, and also want to enjoy the presence of the Lord. That is the church that the Lord is going to vomit out of his mouth. That is the church that the Lord does not want. The Lord wants us to get rid of all malice, all drunkenness, all adultery, all fornication, all attitudes of sin in order to enter into the presence of the Lord and be surrounded by his glory. The church has to learn that this is what it is for, to enjoy the glory of the Lord.

We have to get used to the fact that God does not have to adapt to our way of thinking, and our way of living. The current phrase in the world is, I believe in God, in my own way. In other words, if God wants, he accepts me and if not, fine. But it's not like that. I am the one who has to approach what God is. I am the one who has to approach what God wants me to do. It is I who have to cover myself and mold myself in the image of Jesus Christ. When the Lord's church begins to understand these things, then many bad habits begin to leave our lives, and the Lord allows us to enter into his presence. And although the church represented in the bush may be attacked by the desert, by the heat, by the inclement weather, there is the church, holy, burning in the midst of time, showing the power of the Lord, because for Him there is no nothing impossible, and although the world wants to laugh, God keeps saying, I am the sovereign, I am the savior, I am the great I am.

The Lord is speaking loudly to us. These are times where the army of the devil, and the armies of the Lord are already being noticed. You already know who is on one side and who is on the other side. Which side are you on? Are you willing to get rid of those things that the Lord is asking for his power and glory to be known? What is the mission that you have? Moses had to go and lead the people out of Egypt. Maybe your mission is your family, it's the company where you work, it's the school, it's the university, I don't know what mission you have, but there is a mission that requires you to dress as holiness, that you dress of purity, that we leave the things that God does not like.

In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 22, the word of the Lord says this: "as for the past way of life, put off the old man that is corrupted according to deceitful desires, and renew yourselves in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man created according to God, in the justice and holiness of the truth. That is what the Lord, God, was saying to Moses at that time. Do not stain my holiness with your shoes. Do not enter here with that because that is not worthy of treading where I have been. Do you want to see the glory of God in your life, in your family, in your financial freedom, in your ministerial freedom, do you want to see the glory of the Lord burning in the midst of a world so conflictive, so complicated, so complex? Take off the shoe that is on your foot, begin to feel uncomfortable in your human nature, because God wants to accommodate you to his nature of holiness.

It is a challenge. We could preach about how well you can get along with your neighbor. We could preach today about the influences that Christians can have in political power. Today we could preach prosperity, abundance. But everything starts here in a good relationship with the one who is holy. It all starts here. I don't know what you are preparing for, but if you are not with your feet in the holiness of the Lord, it is useless. I don't know what the Lord is leading you to, but if your life is not applied to the holiness of the Lord, you have to start living in the space that the Lord has designed for us to live. If there are still things in our lives and in our hearts that the Lord does not like, today is the time, today is the right day to be able to leave those habits of life, those ways of speaking, those ways of thinking, that way of acting, that God does not like.

There is the presence of the Lord, it is burning, there is the fire of the Lord, showing itself to you. And it doesn't have more results, not because it doesn't have power, but because we still want to live with bad habits, with bad habits that God doesn't like. Remove the footwear that is on your foot, throw away the strengths that are in your mind or in your heart. Put aside prejudices and doubts that will never be answered, and begin to let the presence of the Lord begin to take what He wants to take in your life. Close your eyes.

The word of the Lord says that we must be clothed with the new man, who is conformed to the image of the one who created him, and is renewed until full knowledge. God has a time for you. God has a time for you to start living within the presence that He is showing at this time. Let your impulses go aside, don't live a religious life for a couple of hours a week, and then have a life outside of what pleases the Lord the rest of the time. Today is the time for a church that rises up in holiness. Today is the time for a church to show the world that it can burn in the midst of difficulties, because it is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Today it is time for a church to begin to define itself, which side it wants to be on. Just looking or being inside, of the glorious fire of the Lord.

Hallelujah, thank you Lord. If there is anxiety or need for prayer in your heart, just raise your hand where you are. And even if you stand up. If there is something that you believe that the Lord should begin to heal in your life, make a decision of faith, make a decision that pleases the Lord, begin to remove your shoes from your feet, from your feet, which should not enter into holiness of the Lord. I'm not going to make you come here in front, I just want to invite you to pray there. Raise your arms and if there are still people who need this strength of the Lord in their lives, we can still stand up and say Lord, I want to enjoy in the midst of the burning bush. I want to leave all those things that are not pleasant in front of you. Thank my Lord.

Lord, here we stand before you, recognizing that there are still areas in our life that need to be restored, healed, Lord, in order to fully enjoy your presence. Lord You know each of those areas. You know how difficult the daily struggle we have is, but You also know that it is the desire of our hearts, Lord, to present ourselves before You, as You deserve. Lord, forgive us, forgive our sins, forgive our faults, forgive those things, Lord, that keep us further away from your presence. Lord, teach me to enjoy your holiness, because that is where my blessing is, that is where my prosperity is, that is where my healing is, that is where you are Lord, and for you, for you there is nothing impossible. Thank my Lord. Thank my Lord.

Sir, thank you for this time. Lord, keep us when we return to our home, and may your blessing be with us, the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen, amen.