Honor Jehovah with your possessions

My desire in bringing these meditations has not only been to inspire you to give, to keep your commitment alive, and that in this way our church benefits from your project, mine and the Lord's first, to build a new temple, but you will also remember that one of the purposes of my meditations has been to invest in your lives, enrich your lives, sow in you principles that go far beyond this time of construction

, when that temple It is finished that you have this knowledge and this word of inspiration to live a creative life, an entrepreneurial life, a visionary life, a life that does not settle for barriers, but breaks down barriers and goes beyond, God wants a people aggressive, God wants a visionary people.

I believe, brothers, that this community and all the others that God wants to bless, but I am going to talk about my community, look, God is going to bless us far beyond what we expect.

And I see your children, and I see your personal life being enriched, I see a community that grows from growth to growth, that is what I believe that God is doing through you and in my life as well, we are going to be prosperous in many ways, in the world right now there are announcements of storms and dark clouds and destruction, but the people of God are protected by the blessing of the Lord and God tells us, I know the thoughts I have about you, they are thoughts of good and not bad, to give you the end you so desire.

So what we want is to put the beams and the foundations for that prosperous life that God wants to give to all of us, so these meditations have had the objective above all of sharing principles of Christian life and practical life that you can always use, yesterday In fact, when we crossed one of the highways in New York, around Queens, I saw the remains of the world's fair that took place in New York, I don't know how many know about that world's fair, it took place in the years, I think that it was in the 60s, something like that around there, I had not been born yet but they tell me that this fair was held in New York.

The interesting thing is that there are still several of those buildings there in New York, I don't know how many have seen them, from that world fair, I don't know if there is a stadium, I saw a stadium there, I don't know if it's the Shade Stadium What remains, if the Shade Stadium remains as the result of that world fair. In other words, that fair was an event of a few weeks, it marked history in the world and when the fair ended, a number of buildings remained, there is a huge restaurant that I saw up there in one of the towers they built, there is that stadium and other things, that park stayed there as a memorial of something that happened, but that exceeded its immediate usefulness and became something that has lasted decades and so I want this effort to fulfill that purpose as well, that it not only be for this moment, but that structures remain in your lives that you can use for all the things that you undertake, I see a couple here who recently got married, in Italy, in fact they are members of our congregation, we bless them in the name of the Lord, they returned, God bless you in your company, but you are young and God wants those young couples like José and his wife, eh, to be prosperous and to live according to biblical principles that allow them to be a p Areja is blessed, prosperous, successful, influential in the best sense of the word, and so are many of our children and other individuals.

So what I want to do is share these ideas with you and today what I have for you is like the very essence of everything we have been saying, it is like the main lever for a successful life and this, I have titled this, this meditation: "Honor Jehovah with your wealth." And it's a very eh, I think it's fruitful meditation and I'm going to do everything possible not to stop in the way it deserves, because it's a lot of material, but I want us to at least pay attention to that text that the Lord gave me last night, While I was already at the airport, it came to my mind when it says Lord, give me a word that is not a generic word, I have a dozen sermons in there that I have published over the years on finances and on stewardship and all these things , but I didn't want that, I wanted it to be something for today, a freshly baked bread for you, this has just been taken out of the oven and it gave me that text that I didn't know where it was, but I remembered the first words of the text.

Proverbs 3 and 9 says: "Honor the Lord with your possessions."

Say everyone, Honor. Honor, and also says: And with the Firstfruits, repeat after me, Firstfruits.

With the Firstfruits of all your fruits and then it says: "And your barns will be filled with abundance." Hey, they won't be full just like that, they are three quarters full. No no. With abundance. And your presses say, they will overflow with must, and you say that he eats that, presses and must. That word "lagares" can be confused over there with another word that is not very good.

But presses will overflow with must, I am going to explain to you for a moment what that means, so it is one, I say that it is the most basic rule of the way in which we relate to God and that God relates to us here in life is like the very structure of functioning. If you apply this lesson today to your life and integrate it, I assure you that you will experience radical changes in your life, for me that verse Proverbs 3, 9 and 10 is the very basis of prosperity and blessing.

The children of God, our aspirations for a fruitful, successful, productive life rest on this foundation that Proverbs advises us. It says here: Honor the Lord with your possessions, with the Firstfruits of all your produce, and your barns will be filled and your presses will overflow with must.

What he is saying here is the following brothers, there is an action that is a pre-condition that leads to a consequence and a result, that "And they will be filled", if you look for the English translation for example that is: then, your bonds will be filled with abundance, in other words that "and" is, and as a consequence of you honoring the Lord with your goods and with the Firstfruits of all your fruits, something will happen in your life. It says that your barns will be full and your presses will overflow with must, eh, it is not a coincidence that this great principle of life is contained in the book of Proverbs, because, because Proverbs is a book dedicated to practical wisdom, prudence, It is a book that was written by a man that God endowed and other men in the Old Testament, that God endowed with practical knowledge of life, supernatural knowledge, if you really want to acquire wisdom in life, look, read the book of Proverbs, put it in in your Spirit, cultivate it, read it continually, and let all the life and wisdom that is contained in that book seep into all your veins, and your nervous system, and your brain, and become something special in your life and you will see how that energy that is locked up there will do great things for you.

So it is no coincidence that this essential advice for success in life is found in this book of wisdom, because it is a fundamental rule for life, it is the secret of success and abundance, today there is a whole book industry, videos, cd`s, conferences on “Self Development” and “The Self Mastering”, and all these things, how to be successful, how to be a great leader, how to live a successful life, you know that, already 2,000 years ago. years God wrote, 3,000 that and he lay down to sleep for a while, what people are doing today is actually giving them bad advice, there are many very good things indeed in the circular world, but actually for happiness and for an integral, complete prosperity that covers all dimensions of life, there is no better formula than the one given in the Bible.

"Honor the Lord with our goods", because that is the secret of success and abundance, so we are going to see something here, firstly when I hear the word "honor" it is a very strong word, the language of this text is a language very radical, it is not a lukewarm, medium, average language.

There everything is “yes or no”, “much or nothing”, “commitment or indifference”, “totality or zero”. Do you remember what I read last Sunday that the Lord said: "He who does not share with me scatters, he who is not with me is against me." The Bible is like that, the Bible is radical.

You are or you are not. Christians of lukewarm waters, look, God does not like that, that is the truth, I am not telling you that to make you depressed, I am saying it to encourage you to put your batteries together and seek more from God, I have every day, we all have to go to another level and that is why you come to church, to be challenged, to be encouraged, to be informed of how you can live that life, living fire with God and be greatly blessed.

So look at all the language here, it's a tremendously enthusiastic and radical language, it says: Honor! no, it's a strong word, honoring God means preferring him, flattering him, exalting him, giving him a special place.

When you honor a person, you put them in a special place and prefer them above many other things. I would say that this is the essential ethics of a Christian. What is the principle that should always define your life when you enter the Kingdom? of God? It is putting God above all else, loving him above all things, our life must reflect a red-hot passion for God, what is the first commandment? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength" and there is another version that says: "You shall have no other gods before me."

God is radical. Either you give yourself completely to Him, or look, go your way, because, because God is so powerful, God is, God is the totality of everything that exists, there is nothing outside of Him. Look at that idea of God as everything, It has reached the point and the great sages of humanity in other religions, Buddhism, Hinduism have reached the point and I was almost going to say it, but I said wait theologically, Christianly it is not totally true, but look I could say that, not even I am going to say, let me say it in another way, I do not exist outside of God, I am going to say that I am God or God is me, in the sense that my atoms, my cells, my existence, my reality is real because God exists. Amen.

Look, I would say that we are God's dream, I believe that I am a tiny particle of God's cell, so to speak, I am almost entering heresy by saying all this, brothers, but there is no other way to say it, look is that existence, I was watching a documentary about the origins of the universe and how cosmologists, these philosophers of creation, uh, who don't necessarily believe in God and don't ascribe the creation of the universe to God, try to explain what that it is, but in any case, looking at the scientific cosmology of the 21st century, one realizes how mysterious the universe is and how everything has been created, even if you blame God, that is what we believe , or that you attribute it to a "Big" a giant explosion, a "Big Bang", the truth is that it is something that is overwhelming, it is a terribly mysterious thing and that is what God is, the truth that nobody understand the origins of the universe and what it is that you and I are .

One day when we get to heaven, look, we're going to laugh out loud, when you know what you really are, Paul says that when I get there I will see how I am seen, all the secrets of the universe and while I say all this I realize I'm not obeying my promise to be brief, but these things are wonderful, they're not beautiful, it's just that brothers one day I laugh seeing these cosmologists trying to explain, hey, what nonsense, I know they are tremendously successful people, but What nonsense, they accept myths that require so much faith, like this belief in Christianity and they insist on explaining something that is so mysterious, nobody knows, nowadays they talk about parallel universes, universes within universes, eh, times that are past , present and future all in one, energy that is converted into matter and matter into energy, it is an incredible thing.

The world is mysterious, the universe is mysterious, what I see is this, that God is everything, God is the center, without God nothing exists, if his mind were not observing and conceiving us, our atoms that make up our personality would disperse and we would be nothing, what gives you cohesion and coherence as a thinking being is, I believe that God keeps his gaze on you, otherwise your atoms disperse and become pure energy, it is incredible but it is so, then, I already I went so far that I don't even remember what I was telling them.

What we have here is not this, that the essential ethics of Christianity is to put, it is like being amazed and overwhelmed by the mystery of God and living only for Him, loving Him above all things, understanding the mystery of your life, so that You are going to spend your time, your life accumulating metal and cement and cloth, when you can live your life as a member of the Kingdom of God, serve an Angel, an exalted being who lives for eternity and who lives beyond time and from space.

And the son of God, the daughter of God who has been touched by divine revelation, understands that there is nothing outside of God, lives for him, through him, in him and everything we have and are and aspires to be what we summarize in it, and that is why when we say look, give something to the Lord of your offering, it sounds banal, when all that you are is from God and is God and without Him it does not exist or have meaning, our life must reflect that sense of amazement, of total reverence, for the generosity of God and when we generously give tithes, offerings, help others, it is to honor the Lord, it is to honor the Lord, it is to please Him, it is to say Father, we understand that this is a fiction and that the only real thing is what we invest for your Kingdom for eternity.

Honor Jehovah with your goods, what are our goods, our belongings? Eh, it's all we have, it's money, profession, talents, time, material possessions, our bodies, our knowledge, aspirations, dreams, all the essence, the totality of our lives, those are our goods and It says “honor the Lord with your possessions”, “honor the Lord with everything”.

Many times we say that honoring the Lord is giving him money, no, you have to give him your time, you have to give him your dream, your privacy, your energy, your vision, your anxiety, everything, everything. You have to give everything to the Lord, everything has to be consecrated and set apart for one thing, "honor the Lord", you are a factory, a machine of honor for God, you are a producer of honor and glory for God, for that is that you exist, apart from that, everything else is totally illusory, vain, fiction. This is the primary use of your goods, to honor the Lord and for that they have been designed, for that you have been designed, it is to glorify God, your goods exist to bring honor to the Lord.

This is very different from how the human mind works, the secular human mind, which has not received that illumination. Why? Because the man without God, the woman without God, what you think, you know what, my goods are for me, I earned them, I had to fight at the university and peel eyelashes taking exams and now I have this penny title here, and Now when I work it's my money, it's my house, it's my car, it's my bank account and I can do with it what I want so that I earn it, I'm going to use it as I see fit and many Sometimes people do with that.

Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to philanthropic foundations and philanthropic efforts, uh, Jobs, Steve Jobs God rest his soul I hope, he also gave billions of dollars and a good part of his fortune was dedicated, but you know that, the secular man, the The difference is that even when he gives things to noble causes and dedicates his talent, for example, to making great works of art or scientific inventions, all of that, there is an interior position in the secular and redeemed man that says, this is mine, I have developed it. and I can use it however I want, the horse's neck is still hard, it has not broken before the divine rider, that is the difference, while the man, the woman of God has lowered his head before the divinity and says, What I have God has given me and it exists for him, I have no right to determine what I am going to do with it, God says what I have to do with it.

The apostle Santiago says let's go to those who say tomorrow we are going to be in one city and the next day in another, and we will stay for a certain time, instead of saying if God wants, the man, the woman touched by God, is like a tamed horse that already knows that it has to go where the divine rider leads it, its strong legs and its wonderful neck and its back that can support a lot of weight now goes where the divine muzzle directs it.

Unlike modern man, the man without God, the woman without God who believes that he is still with the steed walking in the jungle, without anyone riding him doing what he wants, like a lawless goat, as Gregory says, no, very different the thing no.

So the goods of man, the woman of God are those, there you have the example of the rich fool, do you remember the story of the rich fool, in the Bible? That the Lord says that this man had created so many things, he had so much money, he did not know where to put it, a lot of grain, a lot of wheat, many possessions and what he did was tear down his barn, he wanted to make it bigger and he went to bed saying wow! Now, I reached the peak, now I am simply going to enjoy everything I have, and he says, I will tell my soul: Soul has many goods stored for many years, rest, eat, baby, rejoice.

But what happened? He lay down and an Angel appeared to him, I imagine. And he said to him: Fool, fool, tonight they are coming to ask you for your soul. And who will it be for all that you have provided? Hey, I was thinking about that, these days Steve Jobs is one of the greatest geniuses, one of the men who has affected culture the most, if you have a Mac around, an Apple computer, thank Steve Jobs, listen to me, that man had a Incredible impact on design, technology, science, culture in general and yet a cancer.

All that intellectual building, that great creative power collapsed in an instant because behind that great creativity there was a nervous system and a fragile and brittle biological system, which only required a small malfunction to make it completely collapse and disappear from the map. All that creativity, all that creative power, all that genius disappeared in a moment, that's how human beings are, that's why the only thing that is worth, the only thing that lasts is what you invest for eternity, that everything.

And that's why we have to live that way, this man believed, no, I'm here, I'm going to enjoy life, everything I've done, invested, foolish, stupid. Tonight you are going to die and when you get up there we are really going to see no, and then the Lord said this serious and sober opinion, so is the one who makes treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. Listen to me, brother, I ask the Lord, help me to be rich for you, even if I am starving here on earth, but when I get there to heaven, they will say: "Come, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will put you on much”. Amen.

This is how the Lord will tell you: Daughter, you sacrificed many things but look, now I give you that planet so that you can cultivate it, it is completely yours, not a little house, a whole planet, a galaxy, why not? There are galaxies upon galaxies say the cosmologists, so who knows what God is going to give you, make sure you put in good foundations for eternity now, because this world is only a prelude to what really counts, here we are as a waiting room and behind it are halls, after halls, after halls eternally great and this world is a mystery, this life is a pure experiment here, a riddle that God allows for, proposed that only He knows and yet we live in this world as if it were all this is simply, you are an instrument for the glory of God, live as an instrument for the glory of God, use your goods and be rich for God and not for yourself alone, how sad when things are lost, falls into a well and falls, and the end is not heard, so are many of us human beings, our life does not go beyond our own efforts, our own achievements and when we die the light goes out, and leaves no trace,terrible that.

So we are going to be rich towards God, the paradox of the rich fool is that the more he retained, the more his hope faded, the paradox of the woman and man who do not use our goods to honor God is that the more we retain, but we lose, if you consecrate your goods to God and serve him with them, the paradoxical thing is that the more your goods grow and the more you will have, the more you will be blessed and here I like to make a clarification that this can add a little bit of water to the party and it is the following, because I believe that we have to be fair and clear in the things not.

When saying that God prospers and blesses those who honor him with their goods, we have to remember something, it is a general rule of life, it is not like, if you turn the Saint upside down, God is going to have to give you what that you ask him no. There are many people who also believe no, I take, I put 20 dollars here and the girlfriend who asked the Lord for the latest model car comes out here, the purebred dog that I have been wanting all my life, the six-room house that I wanted the university degree, no, and we have a magical mentality that believes that I give to the Lord to do something to me, to give me this, to give me that, it is not like that, it is not about white magic, it is it deals with what God says, it is that look, honor me with your goods and your life in its entirety, the processes of your life will have a net, positive result, blessing, why? Because in life there are moments, there are times when we lose a little bit, but later things are fixed and we gain more, many of you may be going through difficult situations in your lives right now, tests, illnesses, some loss in his life, whatever, but remember this, don't just focus on the moment, think about the end. The Bible says that the end is always good, perhaps this moment is a time of, a little bit of bleeding, but in the morning it says that the blessing comes, the song comes, so what God tells you is, my son, daughter honor me with your goods and you will do well, your life will be prosperous and blessed, the curve of your life will always be upward, there will be moments of difficulty but in the morning the sun rises again and the blessing comes.

And when the last breath of your life has finished, you will say that it is good that I lived it in God, how good that I honor the Lord with my goods and you know that your light will continue to shine when you leave, in your children, in your grandchildren, in the people that you discipled, in your spiritual children, in the works that you did, your life will not end, but will continue until God puts an end to history, so it may be that you are going through a time of trial, scarcity, difficulty but remember that what God tells you in the end son, daughter there is no loss, the good guy always wins in my movies and God has good things for you.

I'm landing I think, let me say something more about this wonderful and pregnant passage, not being generous towards God, I'm talking about being generous but, let's look at the alternative for a moment, not being generous towards God and his purposes is not only an omission, it is not just an omission, it is not that you decide not to do something and that is all, no, what the Bible tells me, the model that the Bible establishes from Genesis to Revelation is that, not to honor God aggressively with your possessions is a sin, it is an active lack, it leads to ruin and scarcity, that is what the parable of the foolish man, this rich, foolish man and many other texts through scripture tell us, it is not that simply, well I stayed there calmly, I made myself invisible while the people of God were doing projects and things, and simply well I said this is not with me, no, no, it is an active omission, it is our fault when we do not live red hot for with God, when we do not honor the Lord with our goods is a sin, it is a failure, because you entered the Kingdom to bear fruit, to be useful, to be an instrument in the hands of God.

Even the abundance of goods knows what happens, when you do not honor God with your goods, you may have a lot, you may have great wealth, great achievements but those goods will turn into water in your fingers, they will not provide the happiness they should to provide, because they lost their essence, their nature for which they were designed, not giving to God is to withhold, it is to turn your goods into something illusory and into instruments for evil, that is why many people their beauty and their youth is an evil for them, their artistic talents become neurosis, depression, destruction, their riches and their professional excellence become destroyed marriages, resentful children, neuroses, diseases that arise because, because even though they have material things, but the material when they look at it at the moment it is a skull, because in reality that is what it is, things without God are death and are daggers that stick inside you, your rod on which you lean becomes a snake in your hand, but with God you retain its identity, so when you serve the Lord and give to the Lord that is what happens, that then it recovers its true identity and retains its true identity.

The Bible says that there are those who distribute and more is added to them and there are those who retain more than what is fair. What does it mean to retain more than what is fair? It is to grab and keep for yourself something that belongs to God or something that should have a positive use in life, it is when you simply accumulate, and you make Gods of material things, instead of allowing them to flow for the benefit of others , withhold, when one withholds in this way and endures what belongs to God and keeps it for one, that then becomes something contrary to you, the more you withhold you come to poverty and there are other brothers who give and know that, as that become a womb that stops endlessly, always gives and gives, and has more, becomes a flowing river, I say that we have not been made to be ponds, we have been made to be flowing rivers. Oh, give glory to God that sounded nice, that's from Him, but not good.

Look, if you are a pond you stagnate, if you are a river you laugh, there is another one too, not something else. It is like this, if you retain more than what is fair, it will turn into rotten water like many ponds do not, but it says something else, it says that the generous soul will be prosperous and whoever satisfies, he will also be satisfied. Here this now enters a horizontal dimension, because we must not only give to God, we must give to our brothers.

Hey, if you have a cousin out there who just arrived from Honduras or Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and the poor person needs a little money to start his life here in the United States, look, share after all that money you have there in the account who knows if you will be able to use it at the end of the day. Be generous, perhaps your children need help, a little push there, with a deposit for a house, for Keny that when I die they are 60 years old then I give it to them, and what good is it for them, give it to them now and enjoy, then Tell him, you know what, I'm going to give you that but I'm going to visit you there and you prepare me a good meal when I go home.

The idea is that you have to seize the moment, you have to be generous, give to someone who needs it, be generous, I say that we have to live with an ethic of generosity and grace, I try, I want to live like this all my life, I want give and serve, I don't always succeed, but you know that this is the secret of mental and emotional health.

The person who is seized is neurotic after all, he knows, and it's not good to be with them, they are terrible killjoys, that's how it is, they are boring and neurotic, Lord have mercy on them. The person who gives and is generous receives a blessing, lives well, lives happily, and God gives him more, and more, and more.

Be generous, you will be satisfied and one day you will find yourself in need and provision will magically appear, because he who has mercy receives mercy, he who lives under an ethic of generosity is blessed and receives generosity, the generous soul will be prosperous Look, I'm going to skip and I'll finish, I left a lot of things here, the important thing is that, one last thing, I'm going to skip some, here and I'm going to ask the musicians to come over here quickly, I'm going to leave you with this, this.

Because I was captivated by the fact that in this text of Proverbs 3 it says something, it says well, "honor the Lord with your goods and your barns will have abundance", but it does not stop there, it also says, it says that: "and your presses will overflow with must”, and I thought, that's not the only thing, because I always see the word of God as a chemical formula, when God puts something it's not simply for decoration, but because it has a structural function, because God puts something there that , "your presses will overflow with must", "presses" is where they are, the grapes are squeezed and squeezed to extract the juice from the grapes that becomes wine, those are the presses, there are many ways to squeeze the grapes and " must” is the new wine, it is the recently squeezed wine, it is an effervescent wine, it is an adolescent wine as expressive and rebellious adolescents are, intoxicating, it is a wine of joy, the new wine is used to celebrate, when the harvest is Vid in societies where there are Vides and Vineyards is the celebration, the new wine or not.

And I believe that God put that there to tell us something very important and God says: "If you always honor me with your life, you will not only have material abundance, but you will have joy, you will have peace." You know, give me a choice between a toaster or a microwave and enjoy, and I am going to choose joy at any time, right?

What good is it for me to have a toaster, if I don't have the joy to enjoy it, there are people who have everything they need and have an ulcer, and what is the use of having wine and meat in the fridge. Joy, if you are depressed you cannot enjoy even if you have a mansion full of material things.

What God is saying to you: "Son, daughter, if you serve me, honor me, prefer me, I am not only going to bless you materially, but I am going to give you the power to enjoy what you receive." I am going to bless your health, your old age, your mind, your emotions and I am going to allow you to enjoy life, it doesn't take much to enjoy life my brothers, you don't really need much, just God's blessing about you and their approval.

That is why he says I am going to fill your barns with must, with new wine, so that you celebrate, so that you laugh, so that you dance, so that you enjoy life, so that you are a happy old man, instead of being depressed because you are alone and nobody loves you, and you're going to die, no. God wants us to have a blessed old age, that if we are poor, look at a little piece of bread with butter and a little salt and a fresh lemonade, you can enjoy yourself and celebrate, you don't need great delicacies, a tortilla with salt and some refried beans there, that's it manna.

If you are happy and God gives you the power, you do not have to be rich brothers to be happy, family, friends, good works, God, service to the Lord, communion with the eternal, knowing that our ticket to heaven is paid, first class , that is what gives happiness, it gives joy, that is what gives emotional and mental health. God says I am going to fill your presses with must and you are going to celebrate as the great cultures celebrate when the time for the vineyards arrives and for picking the grapes, that is what God wants for you, “Lion of Judah” congregation. Honor the Lord with your goods and with the first fruits of all your fruits and He will fill your barn with abundance and your presses will overflow with must. The word of God for you on this day, stand up, receive it in the name of the Lord, receive it now, make it yours, put it deep inside of you.

Say Lord, raise your hands, Lord I receive your blessing, I receive your word on this day and I am filled with it, believe and say Lord I am going to live like this for you, I am not going to be measuring what I give you with a teaspoon, no, no, I'm going to give you more than enough, I'm gonna take all the stuff, and I'm gonna just rejoice in giving and serving you all the days of my life, praise the Lord, hallelujah, glory to the name of the Lord , praise the Lord, we give you glory and honor Father on this day, blessed be your name, Lord there is nothing more to say, now put your seal of approval and blessing on your word in our hearts Lord, we love you, we love you, We love you, we want to be useful to you, everything we can tell you, bless this moment Father and give us your blessing.