God's discipline produces in us qualities that allow us to be happy

We have been talking about the tribulations in life, the trials, the difficulties, the failures, the struggles of life and how these things in the hands of God and through the eyes of faith, can work out for our good and can being a part of God's work in our lives, how God can use past hurts, past sufferings, hurts, and actually if we can look at it through God's eyes, we can squeeze through a tiny crack and into the other side and discover that those things can be for our blessing and our edification. And we have seen different passages where I think we can verify that God sometimes deliberately, intentionally uses certain life experiences to provoke changes in us, transformations that bring us closer to being like Christ, they form our character, they instill in us those qualities that he wants us to have.

I was saying some time ago that I believe that God's greatest purpose is not to give us money, nor to give us a comfortable life, nor to give us the profession we want or whatever, but to form in us the character of Jesus Christ, that we glorify him through him being like his Son and that he can also use us then, as we have that character of Jesus that he can use us as an instrument to bless others, even when the character of Christ is formed in us, by means of the chisel, the sculptor blows from God, we can then be happier ourselves.

God's discipline produces in us qualities that allow us to be happy. There are attitudes in us, there are character traits, there are behaviors, mental patterns, that if we continue with them, they lead us to destruction, they lead us to hurt our loved ones, they lead us to make wrong decisions. And when God sees those things in a son or daughter of hers, as he wants them to be happy, then he puts us through a training plan and like all training it produces anguish. An athlete running or doing exercises feels anguished and exhausted but that leads him to expand and become better, stronger, and have more resistance.

And sometimes God puts us through those exercises in life. Of course, God's exercises are not to make us stronger physically, but to make us stronger spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and then the exercises that he has to devise are exercises of circumstances, situations in life, experiences that will suit us. forcing forcing too. And that then produces in us attitudes that actually allow us to be happy later, allow us to be lighter, allow us to be more understood, wiser and then we can make good decisions. And also the spirit of the Lord in us can then run more freely, we have more power, more authority in our prayers, we know how to ask better, how to solve life's problems.

What defeats the devil is not necessarily power, what ultimately defeats the devil is the character of Jesus, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I have learned that. Sometimes we put so much emphasis on spiritual warfare and all of that, and I believe in all of that. It is very important, but I have understood that what defeats Satan the most and keeps him neutralized, so that we don't even have to fight him, is when the character of Jesus is in us. And that is only acquired through a very strong training program, through a continuous God dealing with us, each day getting more into that discipline of which we speak in Hebrews.

He says that God disciplines those he loves, but he does not discipline in the sense of punishment, but also in terms of treatment, training, work, a system that shapes us like the braces that they put on our teeth, that work on us. Or like the yoke that the ox has on its back that forces it to go in a certain direction until it trains, then it learns.

You know, the story of how a young ox is trained to walk straight and to obey? An ox is so strong that it kicks a man and kills him. How can one control such a large animal and force it to always follow the same path? They take an old ox, already trained, and yoke the two of them, the young ox with the old ox, and when the young ox wants to go in another direction, the old ox grabs it and forces it to keep in one direction and pulls it. it breaks down until the young ox then learns to behave like the other and to be disciplined.

And that's how it happens in life, that the Lord sometimes catches us, we are full of strength, full of spirit, but you know what? When we are full of spirit, the devil fights us as he wants because we are stupid, we are brutish, full of strength like the young, like the undisciplined horse, it runs everywhere but is useless. Then God has to take us, bleed us little by little, weaken us until then we become more meek, more humble, we listen better to the voice of God and then God can work more through us and we can be much more useful.

But that is a process of breaking, those are the blows of life that make us like this. The Lord uses all those circumstances. We believe that only God knows how to give pleasant, beautiful, easy things. No, God deals with us in many ways.

and we have to learn to appreciate that, God's treatment. We have to open our eyes to that dimension of the Christian life that God wants to work for us that he is going to use experiences, circumstances, that are going to be dark and unpleasant and that it is not necessarily going to be the devil who is going to be working through these negative experiences, it will be God allowing them or devising them himself, on purpose, so that they produce in us a fruit of life, of blessing, that pleases the Lord.

And we have seen many ways that. And I want to indicate one more passage, give me 10, 12 minutes. Let's go to Deuteronomy, chapter 8, where God speaks to the Hebrew people before entering the promised land. The Hebrew people have been in the desert for 40 years, wandering around, and that experience of the desert on the part of the Hebrew people is like a symbol for us also in our lives, of the deserts through which we have to pass many times in life before to enter the promised land, which is the land flowing with milk and honey.

Before entering into abundance, into joy, into power, into success, into the realization of our dreams, sometimes we have to spend time in the desert. When God is working in your life, many times when God is doing great things in your life is when you are going to feel the driest. It's interesting. The great mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote a wonderful poem in the 16th century, he was a Catholic priest, he was also a mystic, he had great experiences with God and wrote a very famous poem in Spanish-American literature, not even in the religious literature, it was a very, very developed, very sublime poem called "The Dark Night of the Soul."

He wrote that poem, it's a very long poem, and then he took that poem and interpreted it, he wrote the interpretation of that poem that he had written, what each thing meant, and from there came a book of about 300 pages, it's called "The dark night of the soul." And one of the things that Saint John of the Cross says in that poem and in his interpretation is that what happens is that when the soul is getting closer to God, seeing the purity and beauty of God, then it realizes of his impurity.

You know what happens when one fixes the house, when one paints a wall, for example, at the moment the old furniture now looks older, more dilapidated, right? It is not like this? Then the carpet that seemed more or less tolerable because the wall was also dilapidated, but now with the very pretty wall, the carpet looks very ugly, so the carpet must be changed too. And after you change the carpet then the living room furniture looks horrible. What's happening? There is a contrast. When the good comes out, then what seemed acceptable is seen as already...

And Saint John of the Cross says that when God is doing things in your life and is purifying you and is working on you, then you realize how much you lack. And that provokes in you a sense of dissatisfaction, of sterility, of unpleasantness, but it is not because you are bad in yourself, it is because in contrast to that approach that God is allowing you to see his glory, you look at yourself and you look, wow, I really miss so much. So that sterility and that drought is rather an indication of growth and of getting closer to God. And you have to get used to that desert.

I have always found that deserts are very special times when God is working in us and doing very profound things and if we know how to spend that time in the desert and wait there until the desert fulfills its purpose in our lives, when we go out from the desert we then enter into a greater blessing. The desert is a good place to be.

I have been in the desert in the Negev in Israel, I spent there about three weeks several years ago, it is the most interesting place in the world. It is a privilege to be in the desert. That is why I understand why Elijah and Elisha lived like this in somewhat deserted places, because the desert teaches us many things. One gets closer to God because there are not many distractions, everything is very flat, very dry, very monotonous. But there you can see God and see your interior better.

So many times in your life times of drought will come, times of loneliness, sadness, need will come. Do not be filled with fear and horror and run away immediately. Stay there for a while and ask the Lord to teach you, Lord, what do you want from this desert? And learn to cry if you need to cry, learn to think within yourself. Those deserts are good, they are part of God's purpose.

So Israel spent 40 years in the desert, but that was a symbol of the deserts that all of us have to go through in life. And God used the desert to do things in that town. That town, for example, was a sensual town, they were suffering in the desert for the meat pots of Egypt, and for the garlic of Egypt and here God had them eating manna. There is nothing else. So they had to eat every day, they went with a can to the desert to look for what God made fall, and they filled the can and were fed up with the blessed manna.

That sensual and gluttonous town needed something like that, a simple meal and a forced fast, God had them there. And sometimes that happens to us, God has to take us and break us and that big and strong animal that is in us, God has to bleed it and bring it down, because what that animal does is damage all around, it scratches everyone and bites everyone and it roars and scares everyone, then God has to weaken it. And that's why sometimes he makes us eat...

What do people do when they have, in Santo Domingo, for example, when they want to make a dog angry, I've heard, I don't know if it's true, they add glass to the food, ground glass, to annoy him and make him angry. Well, God is the other way around, when God wants to make you sweet, soft and gentle, he gives you a slightly bland meal so that you get used to it. And in this process God bleeds you and then, paradoxically, interestingly, that soft food, that porridge that God gives you, makes you more like Christ and more meek, more humble, more understood, more open to the voice of God, more capable of hearing the whispers of the spirit, better able to discern the soft little things.

Many of us need to be yelled in our ears in order to hear, and God wants us to be so sensitive that just skimming the surface and we know what he wants. So it is that God wants to train us, so sometimes He puts us in a very smooth process and only gives us the minimum we need to live and sustains us for a while.

So, if you read Deuteronomy chapter 8, I already did the interpretation, now I'm going to read the reading to you. God says, verse 1:

“…You will take care to put it into action – he is speaking this to this people who is now going to enter the promised land. 40 years in the desert, they are finally going to enter their inheritance, their blessing, that for which they left Egypt, now they are finally going to enter. Then God gathers them together and reads them the primer through Moses and tells them:

“…You shall take care to put into practice every commandment that I command you today so that you may live and multiply and enter and possess the land that Jehovah swore to your fathers. – And here comes what I am telling you − … and you will remember all the way that Jehovah, your God, has brought you, these 40 years in the desert…”

Brothers, when the time of blessing comes in your life, do not forget the bad times, the times of trial. When God passes you through a time of dealing in your life, mark it, and go back to those times to remember what God did, how God got you out of certain things, how God dealt with you. There are things that have happened in my life that I remember, not to get depressed, but to remember them, so that I don't forget the lesson, learn and see God's treatment. That's good. So, remember that time, when you are in the land of great abundance, remember those times in the desert where God has brought you these 40 years.

“…To test you – and here it is – to find out what was in your heart…”

You know that's one of the big benefits of testing. Now, God knows what is in the heart of a man or a woman, he always knows it. I think it is more for us to know what was in our hearts. It's like to bring it to light.

Tests often allow us to get to know ourselves better. The best psychoanalysis in the world is the proof because it is like God squeezes you and things that were there in your subconscious, in your past, then begin to sprout and come to light. And you know yourself better, you can expose to God the things from which you suffer and you can then submit those things to the Lord.

There is nothing like knowing yourself. That is the best thing in the world, the man, the woman, who knows himself. There are many things in us that we don't even know, and every force in you that you don't know controls you instead of you controlling it. Only what you know with your mind and have brought from the subconscious to the conscious, over which you can then have control and master it. But if there are things in your life that are affecting you and you don't know what those things are, those things are going to rule you and you're going to find yourself doing things that you don't know why and that's because they are out of your knowledge and control, they control you.

The psychiatrists and psychologists who understand that, all of psychology and psychiatry is based on that point, of making people aware of those unknown things in them that are affecting them and are leading them to do self-destructive or self-destructive actions. your loved ones. So, the role of the psychologist, the psychiatrist, the counselor is to help this person understand his past, the experiences that shaped or distorted him so that by knowing these things, he can gain control of them.

Perhaps he will never completely free himself from these things, but by learning about them he will then be able to fight and handle them better. That is why Christ said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. When you know certain things about yourself and your personality, by knowing those things, you are going to have much better control of them. That is why the main goal of a man, a woman, should be to know himself and the springs, the distortions of the past, how your family past has affected you, how the problem you had with your father, for example, or your father's treatment of you, your relationship with your father affected you, how a sexual abuse you suffered deformed you, how some past failure traumatized you and now you see the world through that trauma, how some loss, some lack, some omission, some betrayal, some abuse, some insult, something big could affect you and deformed you and then that is affecting the way you behave.

And since you don't know, you don't remember that, you think you got over it but no, you didn't get over it. So, when you know it and can bring it to the Lord, enlighten him and give it to him, and know that nothing destroys you, if you are in Christ you are not a victim of anything, all God will use you and can use you for his glory , for his honor and for your blessing, whatever it is. And that is what allows us to be healthy, is to understand that whatever has happened in my life, no matter how gloomy, no matter how sinister, if I can give it to the Lord, God will turn it into something beautiful. precious to his glory and my blessing, whatever. Write there, sexual abuse, abortion, divorce, moral failure, poverty, trauma, physical, emotional, verbal abuse, whatever has happened in your life, some crime committed, whatever, all of this if you hand it over to the Lord, he takes it in his hands and in some mysterious and magical way transforms it into something glorious and beautiful.

Look what he did with the cross, the most sinister instrument, the death of his Son transformed him into salvation for humanity, into redemption for the earth. So, you have to understand that, that no matter what you have been through, whatever has happened in your life, if you look at it through the lens of Jesus, he can take that and transform it into something glorious and sublime. Don't see it as something redeemable, it killed me, it destroyed me. No. Take it and let the Lord recycle it and show you how you can use that trauma, that tragedy, that suffering, that failure, that loss as a stepping stone to grow and reach another level in your life.

Don't fear him. The pains of life are terrible and destructive for those who only see the terrible and destructive. The pains of life, for those who can see them in the light of God's benevolent purpose, can be a wonderful weapon and a beautiful surgical instrument for the formation of a powerful man, woman, who can bless others, who can have compassion. from others, who can advise others, who can put a hand around someone who has suffered and say, look, don't worry, I've walked that same path, I know what you suffer. And I can tell you that there is light on the other side and that there is hope because I have been there. Marvelous.

So, that is why God says to them, look, remind yourself of the desert, where I took you to afflict you, to test you and to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments, speaking of God, and He afflicted you and made you hungry and fed you with manna, food that neither you nor your parents had known, to let you know that man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Jehovah, man will live. man.

Many of the things that we go through are used by God to teach us very powerful, very deep spiritual lessons. God is always speaking to us. God is always instructing us. God is always teaching us, what happens is that we are too dull to understand God's coded language. And part of what God does through trials is to teach us a new language, learn how to interpret the events of life and extract their great teaching from them and make us better, stronger, more powerful, nobler, higher.

He wanted to teach him through trial and affliction, he wanted to teach him, look, first, you lacked nothing. Listen to me, how many of us think, I'm going to starve or how many when you lose a job, you think, disaster, I'm going to see myself in the street, I'm going to die. And somehow God always provides something for him. Incredible.

I say that there are two big phases in life, one is the phase of manna and the other is the phase of the land flowing with milk and honey. And many times when you are in trials and in a physical, material, financial drought, God simply gives you the basics to live, he gives you a little room somewhere, a bed more or less, basic clothes, not very luxurious, and he keeps you there. a time. That is manna, that is the simple food. But the interesting thing is that always at the last moment he puts his hand in you and you get two pesos, five pesos, for milk, for bread, someone gives you a shirt, someone invites you to eat something, or invites you to a restaurant and they pay you for food, like the Lord is giving you manna, even while keeping you in a bit of drought but like mysteriously, miraculously, he provides you with the basics for your subsistence, and he tells you, be patient, I have you there, I am teaching you how to live by faith, I am teaching you that man does not live on bread alone, that I can provide you. If you pray to me, if you believe in me I can provide you.

When you believe you are going to step on the air and you are going to fall into the abyss, an angel comes and puts his hand for you to step on. And you learn to live by faith, learn not to live by your intelligence or by your cunning, or by your preparation or by the people you know, or by your profession, you only learn that you have to cling to God. And if you hold on to him, he will never fail you, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, my right hand will always be with you in your favor. And learning that truth is amazing, learning that truth is wonderful.

But how are we going to learn it if it is not simply when God removes all the scaffolding and leaves us simply in the air, and we have to walk believing that the Lord is going to provide each step, when our plant steps there will be the step. You have to learn that. And the only way is like this, when God takes everything around us and leaves us with just the basics, the manna. But there we learn that man does not live by bread alone.

Look what it says, your dress never got old on you. Knew that? That while Israel was in the desert, they couldn't make clothes, there were no machines, there was nothing. But unbelievably during those 40 years in that town, every day people woke up and the dress was the same, it was strong, the sweaters were very sprinky, they didn't get old. Incredibly, all that time even though they only had a skirt and a blouse and some shoes, it says that your dress has never aged nor has your foot swelled in these 40 years.

Those people walked in the desert, in the drought, with the stones, with very basic little shoes and their feet never swelled. God did not provide him with fine shoes, but he made sure that his feet were protected. Nowadays people have very thin shoes but full of calluses and they can't even enjoy them. I prefer a basic shoe but health better than all the clothes in the world, and then I can't...

And God says, look, observe this that all this time that you were in the desert your foot did not swell, your dress did not get old, you never lacked basic food and I wanted through that lack and that basic suffering, teach you that ultimately you do not depend on yourself, it is on me. And that when you have nothing, I can provide you with the basics and I am training you.

Then, he says, recognize also in your heart, that as a man punishes his son, so Jehovah, your God, punishes you. humble yourself He knows that you are dealing with a very serious God. Walk straight ahead of him and let him treat you. There is nothing like that sublime respect for God. When you humble yourself, when God has disciplined you and you have learned how serious that God you serve is, you walk straight.

This morning I was reading about precisely that, how important it is to cultivate the fear of God. He says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. How important it is that congregations cultivate the fear of God. Today people do not want to talk about the fear of God. No, we see God as a provider, a spoiling Daddy. Everything we want the Lord will provide for me. No. God is a severe God too, he is generous, but he is severe. You have to fear him, you have to live with a healthy fear, a terrible reverence for that God we serve, he is a God who does not marry anyone. If he has to slap you, he gives it to you, the most beautiful, the one he loves the most, he gives his good slap too. You have to live straight and that is something for health and healing and for the blessing of life. Walk fearfully before God, not in fear of God but in fear, because he is sublime and deserves all reverence. You have to walk gently in front of that almighty being.

“…You shall therefore keep the commandments of Jehovah, your God, walking in his ways and fearing him because Jehovah, your God, introduces you into the good land, a land of streams, waters, fountains, and springs that gush forth in valleys and mountains. That poetic! Land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees and pomegranates, land of olive trees, oil and honey, a land in which you will not eat bread with scarcity, as in the desert, nor will you lack for anything in it, a land whose stones are iron and from whose mountains you will dig copper and eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he will have given you.”

After God has put you through the test, times of freshness, restoration, rest, celebration, eating well, and enjoying the good of the earth come. God tells you, okay, now son, I took you through the sugar mill, but now look at the banquet. Sit down and eat from all the abundance that I have for you.

Because ultimately, God wants us to be well, brothers, times of drought and trials are times of training but after that, like the soldier, after being in the field training, he returns home with his wife, with his children, eat well, get stronger again and that is the life of the believer. For a while he throws you into the desert and then he marries you stronger, ready to move on and life becomes a cycle of strengthening and enjoying, strengthening and enjoying, and each day one becomes more and more like Christ.

How wonderful. So may the Lord bless us with this truth and let us remember that, trials, difficulties are necessary, they are the greatest demonstration of God's love. We do not shy away from them or avoid them. Let's welcome and when God does, let him fulfill his purpose in your life.

I have taken a little more time, excuse me, but I wanted to end this series with that message. Remember that we are talking about Santiago, have great joy when you find yourself in various trials, because the trial of your faith produces patience, among other things, it produces many other things, but one of the things it produces is patience.

Thank you, Father, we adore you, we bless you. Thank you for tonight, Lord, thank you for your blessing, thank you for your sons and your daughters. Father, renew our strength now. Take us to our homes with your blessing, give us a peaceful sleep and restore us and take us tomorrow to our jobs and our daily tasks with more joy and more strength than ever.

Thank you for this town. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. May the Lord bless you, my brothers, may the grace of the Lord be with you.