Samson - the importance of not wasting the call and the gift of God

There are two characters that have been floating in my mind and disturbing me a lot that are like graphic illustrations of this concept of holiness and consecration that we have been talking about. There is nothing like a good illustration many times to tighten something that we have been told in a theoretical, abstract way, a good illustration like something that we have learned settles well in the heart and in the mind. And sometimes people don't even remember what we preach but they remember a good illustration, a good image.

And there are two characters that God has brought to my mind and that I have been meditating on them. And I've been building myself with them too and they've been warning me, to use that word too, about the importance of taking care of our gift, taking care of our calling, not wasting the call or the gift of God.

I am going to talk about these two characters in the next two meditations, and there are others as well, who knows if I will continue later, because I think that this is a topic that is nice to see from different perspectives, as we have done so that it record well the importance of holiness and a life consecrated to the Lord. This has to be engraved in our mind starting with me first.

These two characters are Esau, Jacob's brother, and Samson. They are two negative illustrations, they are two negative characters. Because? Because the two characters wasted their gift, they wasted a sublime call that God had for them since before the foundation of the world and from their mother's womb and even before.

And in both characters we see something, and that is that when God endows you and God calls you and God anoints you, and God has a purpose for your life, there is a price to pay. And you have to appreciate and value and treasure the call and the anointing that God has placed in your life. If you do not assign the price that it deserves, there are negative consequences and there is waste.

When God gives you a gift and let me tell you something, every Christian has a gift, every Christian has a calling, every Christian has an endowment. What I am going to say is not only for special and extraordinary characters like Samson. You can say, oh well, that's for the people that God has something very big for them, so I don't have to stick to those principles. No. all, all, each one of us God has an extraordinary purpose with each one of us. God has a calling and an endowment and each one of us has to live appreciating and treasuring what God has placed in us, within you there is a treasure, there is a jewel, there is a furnace that produces power and heat and light, and your You have to protect it, you have to keep it, you have to pay the price.

Esau and Samson are two characters who did not know how to pay the price, they did not know how to appreciate their gift, they underestimated it, they lived as if they did not have the sublime call that they actually had. And because they wasted their gift, and underestimated it, they ended up in failure, defeat, and tragedy. Although interestingly in both cases God gave them a second chance, that's what's interesting too. Keep track of that too. God is the God of second chance but don't trifle with him. Because God gave Samson several opportunities, and Samson squandered them over and over again, and ultimately came to great tragedy in his life and humiliating and utter defeat.

So, what I want is for that to be recorded in our minds this day and for us to be warned. I believe that God wants to speak to us through these two characters. So think about it and listen with great sobriety to what the Lord wants to say to his people.

Let's go to Samson, there are 4 chapters that obviously we are not going to read all of them. I advise you to read it at home, make this your meditation this week and read these passages. Samson's life. I have never preached on Samson in my entire life although I am intimately familiar with his drama and narrative. But it blessed me to refresh my memory and remember the sequences of his biography, the key moments in his life and in his ministry.

Now I understand it much more intimately. So do that, meditate and make your own use of Samson's life. And as I tell you, later we are going to look briefly at the life of Esau as well. By the way, if you hear me make a mistake and say Gideon instead of Samson, it's because I have a neurosis with the two names, Gideon, Samson, you make the appropriate correction in your mind.

Chapter 13 of Judges, I'm going to read just a few verses at the very beginning so you can see the context of his life. And then I hope that in the course of meditation we can get the rest out. It says in verse 1 chapter 13:

“…The children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of Jehovah, and Jehovah delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. And there was a man from Sora, from the tribe of Dan, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren..."

When you see a barren woman in the Bible, say hm, good things come, because God loves to fertilize barren things and do extraordinary things out of barren wombs. It is one of the important things because everything comes from him and he is the one who has the power and that is very important that we remember him for what is to come.

“…and his wife was barren and had never had children. The angel of Jehovah appeared to this woman ─ he is a character that appears several times in the Bible, some think that he is a type of Jesus Christ himself, or an emanation of the glory of Jehovah himself ─ … and said to her, "Behold, your you are barren and have never had children, but you will conceive and give birth to a child. Now therefore, do not drink wine or strong drink, or eat unclean things, for behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and a razor will not pass over his head because the child will be a Nazarite… ─ that is a technical word ─… to God from birth and he will begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines…”

Let's leave it there and then we'll get into the story itself. How many are well acquainted with the story of Samson? Raise your hand. If it isn't, don't worry. Many people have heard of Samson, a man who had extraordinary Hercules-like strength with extraordinary, supernatural endowment from God. But they don't know everything. How many have heard of Delilah, Samson and Delilah, these movie characters.

Samson is born in the context of a history of oppression and war in Israel. As it says here, God's people have sinned, they have turned away from God, this was a continuous story. The Israelites went after other gods, they corrupted themselves. God punished them and sent enemies to oppress them. They repented, because they realized that this came from their misconduct. They cried out to God, God forgave them, he sent someone to set them free, liberation and peace came, then prosperity came and the cycle repeated itself again. The same forgetfulness, the same betrayal of God and the same thing again.

This is such a time. God calls these judges in the book of Judges, they were men and a woman, Deborah, to free his people. They were like military political characters, and God creates this man from his mother's womb, God conceives a liberator for his people in this time of oppression. The Philistines oppress Israel. And an angel appears to him, an emissary, not just any, because this is important, note how great the call of God was for Samson and this angel appears to his mother, then to his father and tells them exactly what they have to Do so that your child grows as God wants him to.

How many have heard of a Nazarite? What is a Nazarite person? If you go to the book of Numbers, in chapter 6, the Nazarite vow was when a man decided to dedicate time, it could be a year, two years, to a special consecration to the Lord. It was like a fast but extraordinary. This person entered into a tremendously strong regime of consecration to God. During that time he did not cut his hair, he did not drink wine in a culture where wine was like drinking water, and he could not touch any dead body, be it human or animal, anything dead because any of those things neutralized his consecration time. They made it totally worthless.

Because any contamination... these people were supposed to consecrate themselves to Jehovah, to remain pure before the Lord, it was like an offering, a holocaust that that person gave of his life to the Lord, it was a very strong consecration to God. God likes those moments, brothers, that's why when we fast, when we decide to take a time off to seek God, when we are tired and don't want to pray but we give the Lord that time, those very beautiful moments, very precious, they are a holocaust, it is an offering. That is still valid, brothers, you know that this did not happen with the Old Testament, God still likes it when you make a special offering to his heart and when you dedicate something special to God.

Never lose that concept that God likes extraordinary offerings and that generates power. It is not that you try to manipulate God. No, it's that God has told you, I like that, I like from time to time that you agonize a little and remember who I am, that you remember that your life belongs to me and that you dedicate it to God something that you love very much. Don't make it a routine either or something manipulative. no, but do it sometimes when that comes to your heart, a desire to take out a morning of fasting or a day, or go on a weekend retreat, or give the Lord something extra, do it in the name of the Lord and offer it to God.

So, the Nazarites were such people. In the case of Samson, God tells the mother and father, "he will have to live his whole life like this, he will be a Nazarite all his life, and in that action I am going to act and my power is going to move in a extraordinary and exceptional way through him. But he has to keep himself pure and clean all his life.” You shouldn't cut your hair, everything a Nazarite did, as you can see in that passage from Numbers, that's what Samson had to do all his life. Because? Because the call that God had for him was an extraordinary call, and one sees the strength that Samson had, he was a Hercules, he was a totally exceptional strength for a man who had to be a warrior to be able to deal with these Philistines who were oppressing the God's people.

But Samson did not do so. When Samson became a young adult, even though he knew that God had a calling on his life, and he served God, because it says that he judged Israel for 20 years, he was like the president of Israel, he was the champion, the military man who released and who was evidently also a ruler and brought peace, a measure of peace to Israel, and began to throw off the yoke of the Philistines on Israel.

That is to say, he moved in his ministry, but he did it in a mediocre and partial way and that's the thing. He had some level of anointing on his life but he was not living up to what God wanted. I think if Samson had lived up to it, he might have done even more powerful and extraordinary things, but for 20 years he was the leader of Israel.

But we see that he did not behave. On at least three occasions, we see that this man did not discipline himself in the sexual area, above all, but it could be any other area of a person's life. But Samson liked women, it must be said that way, he was a womanizer. And that process is interesting, because Samson had so much vital force, he was a physical man, and it is one of the things that happens. Brothers, when God gives you a gift, he knows that, I always say, that every gift has a dark side. Your gift is often also your danger.

So Samson had incredible life force, he was a warrior, he was physically strong. But I imagine that this was the food that this guy ate. Eight chops and a bowl of rice with beans on top, and ten tortillas. He was a physical type because God had given him life force, had given him physical vitality. God gave him strength, but that strength also had its price and its danger. It's one thing you always have to know.

Look, we all have our weak side, let me tell you right now. Each one and the devil knows where... I have said it before, that the devil... remember the tip that he is always feeling to see where it is. The Bible says that we never accuse God that he tempts us, because he does not tempt anyone, but we when we are tempted by our own concupiscence, then each one, you and I, have a weak side and the devil passes them by groping to find and discover where your weak side is. Identify your weak side, or weak sides because that's where the enemy will try. And one of the things that one sees throughout this entire passage is the Philistines looking to see where to grab Samson, where is the secret of his strength. Take care of yourself.

And Samson was a man who loved women and he loved food. One sees, for example, when he kills that lion, he takes the honeycomb from the decomposed body of the lion and eats the honey. There he was already sinning, they were getting intimate with a dead body, he was not only touching it but he was intimately eating from it. He was a man with large appetites. And on three occasions we see it, his weakness, women. And that's where the devil dealt him the fatal blow. It can be other things, some the devil gives for food, others for women or men, others for money, others for pride and vanity, others for some past injury that torments them and It weakens him and makes him fragile to people's attention, or to people's manipulation, or an insecurity that this person is always looking for approval or wants to prove himself to others, or to heal that doubt that he has inside. To others it may be the stubbornness of believing that this is mine and I am going to get it and it is so and it does not take anyone's advice. There are many things brothers that kill people.

What is your weakness? Remember that. You have to try in your life and I, we have to always try in our lives to be honest with ourselves, where is the fault in me, what are those cracks in my life where the enemy can deal me a mortal blow and destroy me, because he's going to be looking.

So, Samson didn't live up to it and he ended up in failure, he ended up in destruction. In the end the source of his power was discovered by the Philistines, which was not his hair, but Samson's hair that had never been cut, he was like a woman, his hair was never cut and that was like a sign of God's authority about him. I think that was it. Why was Samson's hair so important? Because he was the authority.

In the Bible I believe that the hair, the woman, for example, wears a mantilla when she goes to church, has authority over her, says the Bible. Long hair. There is a sign of authority from God and I think that this was a sign that, look, I am willing to be strange before people, a man with hair down to his waist, causes strangeness and perhaps Samson felt uncomfortable, perhaps Not even his little friends when he was little asked him, oh, look at him, a little woman, out there. They laughed. And why do you have hair like that? Haven't you cut it?

Samson had to live with that issue. I imagine the blows those boys must have taken. I think that perhaps they didn't accuse him so much, two or three good slaps and they remained calm forever. But the fact is, it was like a sign of authority and control from God over his life. He had to humble himself and he had to be willing to sacrifice his self-image for God. That was. It wasn't the hair, it was more the signal behind it.

But when he allowed himself to be cut, because God told him, you are never going to cut your hair, that was a spiritual transaction that he made that weakened him and God's anointing left him. And then he came to be like a totally ordinary man. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But I am giving the story so that you can see the trajectory. And in the end they seized poor Samson, they destroyed him because he did not know how to keep his anointing.

This story tells us about a person who failed to appreciate or protect the powerful calling he had received. He did not know how to value or care for it. He wasted and despised. You and I have to take care of the anointing of God in our lives, the call of God, the word, the treasure that God has placed in us as children of God, the great inheritance that we have as children of God.

Note the grandeur of Samson's calling, the exceptionalness of his endowment, the solemnity of the divine purpose. That is important. God had a purpose. Not that God was there, I'll see if I use it or not. no, God had determined, I want to use this man. But note that we can do things that can even divert God's purpose in our lives. No matter how determined God is to bless us, if you don't do your part, God is not going to fulfill God's purpose in your life.

How many people can be here right now that God has incredible things for them, but they are not living up to the call and yet the call is latent, it has not manifested. Others, God has used them in great things, they wasted their gift, they fell and then the purpose that God had for their life was not fulfilled.

Samson was conceived for great things. God had a great purpose for him. There was no wavering in God concerning his destiny and calling. Samson had been destined to bring salvation and deliverance to Israel. And therein lies the tragedy of his story. Because Samson grows up in a corrupt society, like us, that society will try to undermine your calling. Israel was a corrupt people and the Philistines were even more corrupt, the culture that surrounded them did not favor Samson or his extreme call of consecration and abstinence. You are a person who lives in a rotten culture, unfortunately, and the devil is going to take care of everything possible to contaminate you and that you live like the culture.

Samson wanted to live like the other youth of his culture. And that's why he fell into what he fell into. Samson had received a call to live his entire life as a Nazarite, but he did not fulfill it.

What I want you to understand is this, that every gift has a cost and to the extent that we protect the gift and refrain from anything that could contaminate it, to that extent the gift will continue to function and improve, but if not the gift declines. and disappear from your life. Everything, the call of God, the anointing, the spirit, the presence, the move of God, the purposes of God in your life, everything depends on your vessel, how it is. That's what's important.

Now I want to talk about 4 quick things. I want to talk to you about the origin of the gift. The story leads me to this. The origin of the gift, where the gift comes from. Second, I want to talk to you about the cost of the gift. Third, the power of the gift, and fourth, the danger of the gift. Those are the 4 things I want to quickly discuss with you in the time I have left.

Let's look at the origin of the gift first. Obviously the origin of the gift comes from God. Why is this important for us to know? Because God is the one who has that gift in his hands. He does what he wants with that gift. It is borrowed from you. God gives it sovereignly to whom he wants. Our power comes from God. Our ability to do great things comes from him. Samson was perfectly ordinary without the Holy Spirit working in his life.

You see that every time Samson goes into a crisis, they come to kill him or destroy him, he says that the Holy Spirit came upon him and then he received extraordinary strength and he could do what he had to do to protect himself. Our ability to do great things comes from God and his spirit within us.

When we enter the ways of the Lord, the power of God comes upon us with all his gifts and resources. When you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, the power of God enters your life. It's there latent. We can live powerful lives as a result of those gifts that God has placed in us. God has called us to do feats like he called Samson.

The most ordinary and common person can do extraordinary things like Samson, if the spirit of God is with him or her. Samson was a man of a limited mind. He was a very ordinary man, he did not have great intellectual or cultural gifts or anything else like that. It was simply something that had a call and an anointing that God had given him, because God wanted to.

This weekend I met at this conference, a Hispanic pastor spoke to us, a completely ordinary man, actually a very imperfect person as well, from what one could see there in his presentation, many things. However, this man has done some extraordinary things in his life, very strong. I could see this man on the street, on Albany Street asking for pesetas. He was a criminal indeed when young, and God in jail rebelled against him. Today he is a successful person in the ministry, very successful in the ministry, with a lot of prestige. But one listens to that person and says, what is extraordinary about this person? He's a run-of-the-mill guy, but eminently run-of-the-mill, but the power of God is in him. And that man dedicated himself to the Lord and gave his life to God, he repented of his sins, he changed his life, he has dedicated his life to the Lord and God has used him to do great things. He can do it with you, with anyone.

Many of the people who do great things in the ministry are not naturally gifted people, but they are consecrated people and that is the difference. The Pentecostal world reminds us of this fact. So many Pentecostals that you see and they are people, as I said, eminently, the Pentecostal world is a very imperfect world, however, those people, in a very imperfect way, also know what the search for holiness is because many times they do not understand what which is holiness perfectly, but they are consecrated and wherever there is consecration and dedication to something, there is strength.

Look at the Muslim world, the Muslim world serves a God that is not the God that I believe we serve, they are very related, they have Scriptures in common and other things, but that is not the God that the Bible records. It is certainly not the God who records the New Testament. A cruel, violent and aggressive world with practically no mercy. There are many good people and a culture... it takes a long time to explain, I don't want to get lost. You know what I mean. There's always good everywhere and there's a lot of bad as well, but predominantly the tone of Muslim culture is a fierce and Old Testament tone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, violence in many things. And yet these people, why do they have the power they have? Go at the time of Ramadan, that week of fasting and prayer, those people don't even taste water from morning to night, for I think it's a month, the month of Ramadan.

Now yes, at night they give a fill up that replaces everything that was not eaten during the day. But all day they are without tasting even a drop of water, and they do that every year for a month. And these people have a force, I would say, in a way that is demonic, but they have power, because there is consecration. The men, those men, I have been in the Middle East and I see the virility of that Muslim world. Is incredible. It's not the women for the most part... you see those men filling the mosques, men devoted to their cause and their faith and they see only through the lenses of Islam. And he lives for his cause. And that gives them tremendous power.

Here in the United States, for example, and in many parts of the world, the church is a weak church, it is a lukewarm church. People do any little thing, and already they feel like they are spiritual high-ranking people. They get tired of anything. They went to church once a week and they already feel like I'm too tired. Why devote yourself so much? Why do this? why do the other? It's one day, I have to work, and they are already tired and drowned because they gave a drop of something.

Consecration gives power, brothers. And this is something that we understand. The gift of God requires that consecration and that delivery. There is a price to pay. You have to concentrate because concentrating and giving yourself and consecrating yourself is what allows the gift that belongs to God to come into your life and operate. The gift of God operates in the context of consecration and holiness to him.

That is why it is important where the gift comes from. Because it comes from God and God gives it to you while you take care of it. But if you don't take care of him he pulls him and stays with him again. It takes it away. Consecration is the price of that. When a person is consecrated he can do truly extraordinary things. We have to remain deeply aware of that fact. The gift is not mine, it belongs to God, it is lent, it has conditions, the gift comes upon me and returns to the Father. God takes it away if we don't use it correctly. That goes for any Christian, not just those destined for something extraordinary.

Something very serious and important is this, brothers, that makes me tremble. God doesn't marry anyone. He slaps the prettiest. If the person he loves the most does not respect the gift, God slaps him. It surprises me. With all that God had invested in that man, when he violated the commandment, it says that the spirit of God departed from him. All the purposes that God had, all the years that God had invested in him, the historical purposes that he had, all of that, God did not care. When Samson raped and they cut off that hair that God had said, you have to stay consecrated to me, instantly God said, I'm outta here. And Samson was left a purely ordinary man.

His extraordinary power left immediately. And that is something very important. God may have great purposes for your life, God has called you to do great and powerful things, God loves you, God is fiercely committed to you, but when you do something, many times it will force God to remove his hand from you, and God is going to do it with pain in his soul, he is not going to do it because he wants to, but because he has to, because he respects his law.

That is the terrible thing about this, that although God loves me fiercely, terribly, if I do not guide my life according to what he asks, he himself has to remove his hand from me because he respects himself and he is holy, and he operates according to principles that he himself does not allow himself to be violated. And that should keep us very careful. Because so many of us feel, oh, God loves me, God is good, God is gracious to me, God has great purposes, and we let our guard down. No. You have to know that God is always obliged to respect yourself, what he has said that you have to comply with. And that's why you and I have to walk very carefully. Sometimes there are things, I tell them, that I don't do, not because I don't want to do them, but because I am terrified of God. I tell you, I am more afraid of God than the appetite that would lead me to do anything else. Purely, because I know that God does not marry anyone and God is terribly clear in his things.

The gift is from God and if you do not keep yourself consecrated and clean, that is God's property and he takes it away from you. He took it from Samson when he continued to contaminate himself, he continued with women, a prostitute, before that he married a Philistine, and then comes Delilah, three impure women who were not even from Israel. God got tired. What's more, he says that when he took the gift from him, he didn't even know he didn't have the gift anymore. There are many times in your life that you can continue doing all the things and you continue behaving in a certain way, and you say, well, nothing has happened to me, I continue doing this, that, but the gift has already left you. And there will come a time when you will realize that. So you have to be careful. The origin of the gift is God and that is why you have to take care of it.

Secondly, the cost of the gift, we have already said it. Those benefits come at a price. Every gift from God has a price. God established this principle from the very beginning of creation, the Garden of Eden. He told Adam and Eve, I have a lot of things for you, use them, everything in this garden is yours, but be careful, don't touch that tree. Because God always puts as a sign. There is something one always has to refrain from in order for the glory of God to work within one. There is a sign that God always puts. He says, I'm going to give you everything but don't do that. Do not touch it. Do not go there, because that is the symbol of my dominion over your life. And one always has to be careful with that. There is a cost, there is a way that one has to live, it is terrible.

That is the question of holiness. What's the price? And the requirements of the Christian anointing of the children of God? There are many. First, you have to receive the Holy Spirit. God says you have to seek, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Believers have to seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We have to look for that extra blessing that God says he has for us. You have to consecrate yourself, we have already said it.

You have to live a life of abstinence. Holiness must be embraced with all the sacrifice and agony that this sometimes implies. You have to embrace a life of discipline and inner struggle and self-control. We must follow God's commandments as much as possible. That is the cost. That is the price, that is the agony of the gift and anointing of God.

If you want God to use you, you have to know that there is a price to pay. Look what it says in First Corinthians 9:24, Paul says:

“…Don't you know that those who run in the stadium all run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way that you obtain it. Everyone who fights against everything abstains, they, the runners, to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. So I, Pablo, run in this way, not like an adventure, in this way I fight, not like someone who strikes the air, but I hit my body and put it in bondage, lest having been a herald for others myself come to be eliminated…”

Paul says, look, I myself know that if I don't take care of myself, with all that God has given me and has for my life, if I don't maintain a life of discipline, I'll also go… I've served to bless so many people, I I am going to lose what they have received through my ministry and my life. So that's why I live that way. I live like an athlete. I abstain from the things that I have to abstain from, I discipline myself, I train, I read, I pray, I fast, I seek the glory of God in my life, every day I smooth more and more the rough edges of my personality, healing everything I can. I live the life of an Olympic athlete because I want the anointing of God to remain in my life.

You see, that is the price of the anointing. It is a life of seeking. You have to fully penetrate the style and form of Jesus. Ask yourself, does my life, my character, my temper reflect the character of Jesus? Because Christ says, if you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. If I am with you, ask for everything you want and I will give it to you, he says, the life of power requires an affinity with the character of Jesus.

That is why holiness is not only, as I say, that crude thing about not being immoral. No, it is also embracing the style of Jesus and his personality in every way, living yoked to Jesus. May my life reflect the values and person of Jesus. When that is in me the power of God flows through me. That is the price of the anointing, the cost of the anointing.

Samson did not know how to do this, he did not pay the price. His extraordinary calling depended on God and required paying an extreme price. He wanted to live like an ordinary man, with ordinary privileges. He did not know how to refrain from the things that God had forbidden him.

Look, if you want God to use you, I understood something a long time ago, that I cannot live a normal life, I cannot work from 9 to 5 and have Friday and Sunday. Do you know where I would like to be now, brothers? Speaking carnally, I love being here, but there are times, I confess to you, that I would like to be able to get up on Sunday mornings at 9 or 10, receive the New York Times at home and go to a cafe to eat a good brunch and spend until 1 in the afternoon reading the New York Times, go back home and read another book, rest, do whatever, and live a normal life. Waking up on Saturday morning and not thinking about anything except that I'm going to enjoy a long weekend. I am faithful to you, I am honest, do not be scandalized. Sometimes it is like that.

And if other pastors do not admit it, it is because they are liars, because that happens to every pastor. I have learned that I am a priest and I cannot live a normal, ordinary life from 9 to 5, retiring at 63 or 65 with retirement, insurance that I am going to collect or whatever. It is a life of dedication, of sacrifice. It is a priesthood. A lot of pastors today want to live a life like corporate executives and all these kinds of things, and what you're doing is contaminating the anointing. Then maybe I'll talk about another one who also failed, it was Gehazi. You don't hear much from prosperity preachers about Gehazi, because Gehazi is a problem for a lot of people. The one who wants to live a normal life, while serving the Lord, is wrong.

There are many pastors today, I see them want to live a normal life and want to enjoy all the luxuries and all the benefits of normal people, and that is not the thing. The thing is that your blessing and your power rest in your abstinences, in your being an empty vessel where God can make his oil fit. If you fill your vessel with other things, personal benefits, where is the oil of God?

My joy, my privilege and my power is that the anointing of God runs through me. That is my treasure. That is my glory. That is my privilege. That is my reputation. I prefer that to a billion dollars, brothers, honestly. I see so many people who want to serve God and want to secretly serve the world as well, while they make believe that they are serving God, but they do not want to abstain and seek 20 thousand theological justifications to justify their internal corruption. And this is cursing the church and preventing it from standing up to its enemies. Very large and apparently very anointed churches, but the anointing has been gone for a long time, what is there is purely the muscles of a thick and strong man, but there is no supernatural anointing, which is what makes those muscles able to do truly extraordinary things. Big churches, lots of people, but the devil is quiet because they don't do anything, he doesn't hit him where he truly feels it.

Because you have to pay the price for the anointing, abstinence, you have to suffer for it. You have to suffer. I have to suffer, that's why Samson talks to me so much, let me tell you. I have wrestled with Samson all these weeks because I know what that implies for my life, and he speaks to me hard and this is a very serious sermon for me to preach.

What's going on? When that gift of God is in you and you pay the price, then the power of that gift is amazing. With the gift of God you can move mountains, says the Bible. If you believe, he says, that you will say to this mountain 'transfer from here and throw yourself into the heart of the sea and it will do it'. The Lord used hyperbole but at that level it is the gift of God, power, and if you have an appetite for God to move in your life, pay the price, consecrate yourself and surrender and seek God. Don't live between two waters. That's what a lot of people are doing today and we can't do that. I can not do it. You can't do it.

God is telling us, church, I want to give you great power, but you have to pay the price, because that is mine and I give it to whoever pays the price. I want those words of Paul to become real in my life, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me'. I want that word of Jesus, if you believe in me, greater things than I have done, I am going to do.

I honestly believe that word has not yet been fulfilled. There are many people who say out there, it has already been fulfilled. No, I think not, honestly. I do not think so. I believe that what Christ will say with greater things they will do than what I have done, is still ahead. I would even like to see someone do it. I at least want to be a witness to what Christ has said.

That is the power. That's the power level. Everything we ask God in the name of Jesus if we believe, it will be done for us. God has told his church that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

All those promises are for you. You can live in the power of God. Prosperity, yes, God's healthy prosperity. You can live in the blessing of God. You can live in such a way that the devil does not have power over you, does not harm you, that God gives you wisdom to solve your problems, to live a prosperous, constructive, healthy life, building, moving forward, but all of this requires a price to pay, because the power is great and the cost is great, because the God is great.

When you seek God's power and treasure it, God blesses you and uses you. It endows you with extraordinary strength, the source of the Christian's power is in the anointing of God. This is the greatest treasure that the believer possesses.

Brothers, we are people of power. The power of God is our national currency. With power, the Christian buys and sells, invests and exchanges. That is what we move. We have to be people who have a power mentality. Everything you do has to be in terms of energy, power, dunamis, authority. You have to live like… a person whose brick to build is power and with that you handle the ordinary situations of life. You do great things that God has called you to do with the power of God. You defeat the enemy. You have wisdom and revelation to navigate life with the power of God.

Everything you do has to be the power of God. You are a fragile creature and you need power to have a good marriage, a powerful and prosperous career, a ministry that God uses you so that the devil has no power to harm you, so that God prospers you and you have a happy old age, so that your children can grow in the ways of the Lord, so that God frees you from difficulties and struggle. All of this requires the power of God dwelling in your life and paying the price for that power to stay within you.

Every time you want to go after your appetites say, for the power, the power, the anointing, the company, the approval of God and bite your tongue and back down. And do what God told you, because the power cannot leave your life.

And the last thing is the danger. Why all these things? Why the seriousness? Remember this, the origin, the cost, the magnitude of the gift, but also the danger of the gift. We have enemies. A lot of people allow themselves a lot of liberties because they don't understand that. Every man, every woman of God with a calling has enemies. The Philistines were bitter enemies of Samson because he posed a threat to their lives. And those enemies were like underground insects looking for where is this man's fault, where is his weakness, where is his Achilles tendon, where is it, why does this man have the strength that he has and how can we bring him down?

So what did they do? They looked for their weakness: women. And they used the women to gain access to it and over there, that was the kickstand that broke everything. Because finally after a long time Delilah persevered. He asked him several times, listen to me how stupid is this man. Three times this woman obviously wants to destroy him and he finally agrees with her. Because it is that when one is in sin it blinds one finally.

You are in the ways of the Lord, God is using you, God blesses you, God uses you for good and great things, you are a light in the world, you give good advice to people, you pray for them, your children they are growing in the ways of the Lord and one day they may be something great, the devil is going to try to destroy you for that. And that is the danger.

When you agree to live as a source of blessing in the world, the devil immediately declares war on you. And there are people who want to do both. They want to be positive presences and be with God but they don't realize that this also puts them in the devil's sights and that therefore they have to cover their backs and they have to walk then, because otherwise failure will be in your life , it will persecute you continuously, it is the cost, it is the danger. With the anointing come enemies who want to destroy you too. So you have to walk and you have to always wipe your nose because otherwise the devil is going to hit you sooner or later. He will not rest until he discovers the source of your power and separates you from him.

So that's the part. Remember, you are always under the enemy's sights. And live your life, I must live my life, we must always live our lives with incredible sobriety.

I always like to end with a positive word. Samson failed, his eyes were gouged out, they put him in jail, they ridiculed him, one day after being just a distant word, a legend, oh, Samson who did this. They take it out to have fun with it. His hair had already grown by then. And they put it between two columns that held a huge audience, there were about 3,000 Philistines there, and the entire Philistine government was in that meeting. Ah, let's laugh at Samson. And the grace of the Lord came.

Because when one repents there is a blessing. When one seeks the presence of God, when one humbles oneself... humble oneself before the Lord. David sinned, he humbled himself, God restored him and blessed him. If you have sinned, if you recognize that your life is not right with God, repent, don't be stupid and ask the Lord to restore you. Walk with God.

God gave him a chance, Samson, he said, put me between the two pillars of this house and he asked the Lord, 'Lord, one last time let your power run through me.' And God in his goodness and his mercy, commanded the anointing again. And Samson took those two columns that they were holding, and what happened to the twin towers? When there is an alteration of the perfect balance of a large structure, everything else collapses, because there is a force that is on that space that was not there before, and then it puts force on the others and that destabilizes and... the whole structure collapsed. home.

The Bible says that Samson killed more Philistines in his death than in his entire life, because he humbled himself and God is a God of many opportunities. And in the end he was able to redeem his foolishness and died with honor and destroyed.

I believe that God still has something in store. I know that in this society as well. I tell you, God can in a few days cast out all this wickedness of the devil that this society has chosen. I know it, I feel it in my spirit. There are two columns that are the center where all this diabolical framework that has been put on this culture rests. All these rotten values that we have seen, in my own life I have seen how that has progressed. Yesterday I saw a show, I was walking with Miguel and Caleb in a small park and we saw some girls, some corrupt boys at 14, 15 years old.

I believe that God put them there to torture me. I have not taken away the image of those girls. Sexually corrupted at 14, 15 years old. What a horrible thing! They are someone's daughters and two or three little boys too. But it is something that is disgusting, those young women already manipulating. A scene of a young girl, the older one, with another and I saw how the level of sexuality was rising between the two of them, in about 25 minutes. Meche tells me that I am a quarrelsome, but human dramas fascinate me. And I saw how this couple perverted each other in a moment sitting there. And how the level of sexuality was rising.

That is the perversion of this culture in which we live, and many other things too, many. But let me tell you, in that frame, in that building there are two columns that if we truly consecrate ourselves, if we consecrate ourselves, we repent, we pay the price, if the church of Christ unites and pays the price, the church is going to put its hands next to each other, and that spine is going to come crashing down. And the glory of God is going to fall on the earth.

But we have to pay the price. You have to pay the price, you have to consecrate yourself. I tell you, Samson has been talking to me all these days. I am not afraid of the devil, I know that what he has done is purely… the place that we have let him occupy. The day the church fixes itself and pays the price, look, those two columns collapse in an instant.

God is saying to you, and he is saying to me, pay the price of the anointing. Consecrate yourself and understand the seriousness of what you are walking. May the Lord speak to you and me on this day. He has spoken to me. I preached this sermon, Lord, I want to preach this sermon to myself, I want it to be a poem for you, I want it to be a declaration. If there was no one here, I would preach it anyway because that is for God and for the devil and for me and simply for the air to receive these very important principles.

May the Lord want us to leave here with a sense of calling in our lives. The anointing is precious, it can do incredible things, but there is a price, there is a danger and there is a source and there is a tremendous power that it has. It's worth it, brothers, let's sanctify ourselves, let's cleanse ourselves, it's worth it. And God wants it.

Let's stand up. Consecrate your life to the Lord. I do it right now. Lord, we are going to walk with you. We are going to get closer to you every day, we are going to seek your face. Let's go looking, we want your glory, Lord. We want your anointing more than anything. We want your power to run through us, Father. Don't let us waste your anointing. And allow this word to seal our hearts and our minds, Lord, and each of us leave here with a very strong conviction that you have spoken to us and that we have to pay the price. I want to pay the price. Each of us wants to pay the price. That church pays the price. We want to pay the price, Lord, show us what that price is.

We are going to sing that chorus that chorus that we sang at the beginning, at the beginning, "We don't want anything, just you."