The God of details

Let me share with you a couple of thoughts from the word of the Lord. When I have been able, I have been devoting time to the epistle of the Apostle Santiago and from there I am extracting some meditations, why don't we go to the first chapter of Santiago. Sometimes so much time passes between one meditation and another that one does not remember much of what was studied the previous time, but I am going to remind you of that. And there is always a message that we can take home with us.

What we have been seeing in this epistle of Santiago, he began by talking about the wisdom that comes from God and that if we need wisdom we should ask the Lord for it. And then we talk about trials, how God uses trials many times to strengthen us and show us his love and deal with us and make us, break us and impart to us the character of Christ. Trials come in the lives of God's children because we are in a deformed and fallen world. We are in a world that says that the prince of this world is Satan.

There are powers on this earth that all they want is to kill, steal and destroy, says the word. And it is a world permeated by sin, it is a world distorted by negative things and it is as if one lived in a jungle full of beasts around one. Or think of a city that has been bombed and is full of craters and destroyed buildings and this is the world we live in. It is a precious world, beautiful but also sinister and terrible. And the power of God is manifested in the world but also with limitations because sin limits the hand of God.

It is not that God could not if he did not want to turn the world in an instant into something perfect, but God works through human freedom, free will. God cannot force man, to whom he gave dominion over the earth, to do his will. God has to work through the will of men who decide to accept them, receive it, and that is what his church does. That segment of all humanity that is here on earth representing the will of God, abiding by the will of God and keeping this world from falling apart and from breaking into pieces. The church of Christ is humanity's defense against these demonic powers that want to destroy the world.

But the truth is that it is a war, it is a war that is going on in the world between the power of God that is limited by the respect that God has for a humanity, which has given dominion to Satan in a sense, and that demonic, satanic power that is served with the big spoon in the middle of this world. So people sometimes ask why God, if he is so good and so powerful, allows this or that to happen? Well, God has his limitations, not in himself, because he has no limits in himself, but in terms of his relationship with humanity and the freedom that humanity gives him to manifest his power in the world.

I say this so that we understand when terrible things happen, one wonders, why if God is so good and so merciful? God has his limitations, and I repeat, it is not that he is limited, but think of a father who has an adult son and that son persists in doing things that are against his harm, and that father tries everything possible to defend his son, but that father cannot take that boy and put him in the house, and lock him in a room, because he is now an adult, he now has to give him freedom. You can't tie him to a table leg and feed him when he gets home from work. He has to set him free and that young man or woman is going to do things, and the father's pain... the father could perhaps put him in jail or whatever, but he doesn't. Because? What's happening? When a child is 4, 5 years old, you control him, but when he has grown up you have to reason with him rather and use other means.

And so it is with God. Humanity is like that adult son who has his freedom. God has given her that freedom. God says, “son, let me cover you, let me protect you,” but humanity persists in turning away from divine protection. And so that's why the things that happen in the middle of the story happen.

Now we know that one day God is going to put an end to all that and when he has fulfilled his purposes, then the end comes and new heavens come, a new earth, a new system. But it will be in the time that God has already determined, meanwhile we are in the middle of that fight, that war.

And in that war there are often victims, there are casualties, as they say in English. In a war, sometimes it is the soldiers who perish and sometimes it is the civilians who perish, and that is why we have to understand that as long as we are in this world, anything can happen. And that does not mean that God loves us less or that God is less merciful, the good thing is that we, the children of God, have a final card that we can play, and that is that we know that if we leave, we will go with God. . This world is a passing world.

The Bible says that time and occasion happen to everyone, the most faithful and noblest person and most loved by God terrible things can happen to him. But we know that if we die for him we die, if we live for him we live. Whether we die or live, we belong to the Lord. This world is something purely fictitious and fleeting compared to eternity.

I say this because we have experienced a loss as great as this and other losses in these days, and this so that you may be strengthened. The Apostle Santiago, the letter of Santiago is a very pastoral letter. It is written by a man who has an eye like a shepherd's and who is writing this letter advising you, giving very simple advice, homemade food, rice with beans and tortillas and basic meat. But it is very nutritious food.

The letter of Santiago is not a complex, theological, deep, comprehensive letter like the letter to the Romans, for example, which is a very, very complex letter. It is a letter rather at ground level, basic. So he talks about things like, again, the tests, how important it is to have our faith in that. He talks about the importance that if we ask the Lord for wisdom, we ask him with faith, believing; The importance of praying with faith.

He then talks about the trials, which says that the man who endures the trials that God will give him the crown of life at the end. And then he goes into a time, remember that we are talking about when someone is tempted, do not say that it was God who tempted him, but that we ourselves, when our own internal passions and weaknesses, inclinations that we have, when that interacts with the temptation, is where sin comes from.

So, we talked about that, I call it an x-ray of sin and how these things happen, why the things that happen in life happen, even of the children of God, when we fall into those things.

When he finishes that, in verse 15, where he talks about lust after it has been conceived, gives birth to sin and sin being completed gives birth to death, he goes into verse 16 on another topic. And sometimes one wonders, well, what is the relationship, what is the connection between one subject and the other? Because Santiago sometimes jumps from one thing to the other and it would seem like there's no connection, that it's like just a string of pearls with different tips attached to each other, but each pearl is separate from the other, but no. there is a secret but very strong logic in the way the Holy Spirit leads Santiago in his reasoning and how he goes from one thought to another, to another.

It's like everything, directed by the Holy Spirit, everything has coherence, everything makes sense and everything is related. So, I always wonder in the Bible, why does this continue? In light of what is before and in light of what comes after. Why a theme, what secret connection is there in the mind of the spirit to unite these different thoughts?

So I wondered when I read in verse 16, after he talks, for example, about temptation and how it occurs and how sin is and all this, then he says, "My beloved brothers, do not err, that is, Make no mistake, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights..."

Who is the Father of lights, by the way? God right? “…It comes from the Father of lights, in whom there is no change…” That does not mean that God moves from one house to another, by the way. What do you mean there is no move? There is no change, there is no variation, God is always the same, his character is always the same.

Just as he was a thousand years ago, ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, he is just the same. He has never changed. God never learns anything. Do you know that God does not learn? Why doesn't God learn? Because he knows everything. I mean, there's nothing that can be taught to God, there's nothing that he can say, “Oh, I'm sorry I did this. Now I am more mature." God is always the same.

He says, “there is no change, no shadow, not even a shadow of change, of variation. He of his will made us born by the word of truth so that we may be the first fruits of his creatures."

So one wonders, after Paul, James talks about all these issues, why does he say then, my beloved, make no mistake, every good gift, every perfect gift comes from above. What connection is there? If you look at the following, if you look at verse 13, when he says, "if anyone is tempted, let him not say that God tempted him..." What he is saying is, do not impute malice to God, because if God tempted us to fall, that means, like God has something against us, like God is tripping us up so we sin. God is a good God. God is perfect, his character. God is never going to cause a man, a woman to fall and then be condemned or experience. No.

James is like defending the character of God and is saying, God is never the cause of a sin. So he develops that theme in the next few verses and in verse 16 he returns to that theme that he suggested in verse 13 and reinforces it. He says, then, in light of this, that it is not God who sins, making people sin, but rather that we ourselves are the ones who make mistakes and err, so brothers, let no one be mistaken about it, because God instead From giving bad things and temptations and difficulties for people to sin, the only thing that God gives is good things.

It says, "every good gift..." God is not the source of evil or sin or temptations in man. No, the only thing that God knows how to give is blessing and good things. God is rather generous. See the connection? He went the other way developing the theme of sin and how it occurs, but he returns again to what originally led him there, which was to say, do not say that God is the origin.

It's like when people sometimes have a crash, for example, they get drunk and go to a disco and after the disco drunk they get into the car, boom, they crash into another car, breaking 4 ribs and one leg. He says, "Oh, why did God let that happen?" It wasn't God, it was you.

So, it's the same idea here. God is not the one who condemns and punishes us. No. The only thing that God knows how to give is good things. That is his character, that is why Santiago is saying here, make no mistake, do not come saying that God did this, that God is guilty of that, the other. No. God is a good God and everything good in your life comes from him. That is why we always have to be grateful.

Let me tell you one detail. God is so good to me, he is so merciful, that he gives me the simplest things in my life. It has always been like this. And sometimes I see such minute things that he does with me, I say, "Father, you are so generous with me." Let me share a very intimate detail at this time.

This jacket that I am wearing, I was thinking of going back home in the afternoon and getting ready and coming to the service, but for different reasons it was not possible. I had to stay here all day. And I wasn't dressed, I always like to wear even if it's something more representative. What I had was the shirt and pants, which is fine, it's not like you're there either... but I forgot about this jacket like two, three days ago, and I hadn't realized it was there in the office and I saw it this afternoon and I put it on. And when I was sitting there it was like God remembered me, I felt much more comfortable with this jacket on. I told him, "Lord, you made me forget, that I forgot my jacket." I never forget it, for me to have it so that I can be here today in the service.

Now, you may think, no, that's nonsense. But no, first God reminded me while I was praying there and told me, "no, that little detail was for you." So I am used to seeing, brothers, I live as if God were sitting next to me, always standing next to me, and I see his hand of mercy in the simplest and most foolish things. The cravings of my heart, God gives them to me. That's how it is.

The Bible says, "delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart..." and throughout my life I have seen how God is so detailed in the things he has given me. Now I say that, I put myself in the place, not at all, but simply to tell them that God does the same in your life and can do the same according to your faith.

The only thing you have to do is believe in that God who does not fall asleep or numb, says the Bible. We do not receive more from God because we do not believe that way. But if you get up in the morning believing, God goes with me, and God loves me and has his eye on my life, my children, my health, my destiny, my career, my old age, my work, and if you live like this By cultivating that sense of closeness and love and God's meticulous care over your life, that's what you're going to receive. What happens is that many of us doubt, we do not dare to believe that God can be so careful with us.

So our faith does not activate the detailed move of God in our lives. But to the extent that we alert ourselves and are able to believe that no, that God is so detailed that he can worry about the smallest details of my life, the desires of my heart, the secret struggles that I have, and God can be as detailed as giving you a shirt that is the exact color you want, because he not only cares about the movement of galaxies and universes, he cares about the little things in your life.

He says that he takes care of the birds, a leaf, he says, does not fall from a tree if he does not first give his word. He is aware of everything. Look, I wasn't going in that direction tonight, but that's where God has focused me, on that particular word, that every good gift, every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, and that you always focus on mercy. of God, in the attentive, simple, detailed care of the Lord.

God loves you more than you think. And when we think about it, again, that moves us to be grateful, first. When you are drinking that little black coffee, in the morning, with a little bit of brown sugar, not white sugar, but sugar from those big granules, and you put it there, that first sip of coffee that you take, that you feel that goes up to your brain right away and opens your eyes, especially if you ground it that same morning. Thank God for that. And may your gratitude be expressed, no, yes, how good this coffee is. No, say, "Lord, thank you that I get to enjoy that little cup of coffee."

We have to be thankful. The Apostle Paul says, “and be thankful,” he says. Gratitude is something very special, and you have to connect everything good that happens in your life to the mercy, the love, the goodness of God, and always say, “Lord, thank you. Thank you for that pleasure." As I thanked the Lord for this jacket that is nothing, but it is a detail that God has for me and God wanted to remind me, to tell me, “I love you so much that I worried about that little detail. I am not so big or so important that I cannot worry about what you are interested in having."

Gratitude. Another thing that we have, when we think of the goodness of God and his generosity, is that of not fearing either, not living with anxiety, although I tell them that and I often struggle with uncertainty, we all struggle. But I always remember the voice of God telling me, don't worry. The Bible says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but rather let your requests be known before God in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving."

And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ also said a famous expression, “do not worry about tomorrow, what you will eat or what you will drink, because each day brings its own worry. Think of the birds that neither work nor spin, and think of the lilies of the valley that do nothing productive and yet not even Solomon was dressed like one of them.”

Look at the beauty of a rose or a flower, no human fabric, no matter how delicate and exquisite, can be compared to the texture of a lily or a rose, or one of those exquisite flowers, an orchid. There is nothing. However, what do the flowers do? Just whistling and being pretty, that's all, they don't produce anything, they don't even give food, nothing, just being pretty and God dresses them that way.

The Lord was being poetic that's all. But if you think it is something... look, if he worries about a little bird that is worth almost nothing and that continually die and others are born, they are so fragile and God gives them their food, you who are the crown, the pinnacle of their creation , that you are worth a million, a billion birds, how is God not going to worry about you? So don't suffer, don't burden yourself with anxiety about the future. And that is what keeps me going, because otherwise I would be neurotic by now, I would have been in a sanatorium for a long time.

My concern only reaches a certain level and there is a cover that is the cover of the word of the Lord, which says, don't go from there anymore. I know, says the Lord, that you are a human being, you are going to worry, but at the same time, do not overdo it too much because you know that at the end of the day, I take care of you and I love you and I know what you you need.

So, I think that... knowing how good God we have should lead us to be grateful and should also lead us not to worry, not to be anxious, because God takes care of us and God cares about our needs.

And I believe that the third thing is that we not only have to be grateful, have peace in our hearts, but I also believe that we love God above all things, because God is so good to us. How can I limit God? If he asks me for something, I have to give him what he asks for, whatever he wants because everything I have is his, it comes from him. I have to live grateful and consecrated to him, serving him and doing everything he asks of me because everything I have is his, it comes from him, so how can I tell him, 'No, Lord, this is mine, no? I can give it to you My career, my privacy, my sleep, my rest, my body, my human relationships, my dreams.' That's all of him, if it comes from him. Everything good that is in you, your studies, your talents, your house, your family, your health, everything comes from him and belongs to him. Therefore, all you do is give back to him what he has given you.

That is why David says, "of what we have received we give you." And that is the basis of all generosity towards God. The fact that you recognize that everything you have comes from him. And therefore, what you are doing is simply giving him back a little bit of what he gives to you.

I believe that the children of God have to be grateful, have peace in our hearts, be very generous with God and with his Kingdom, because we know that everything we have...

And I would say, a fourth thing, simply that where that came from there is also more to come. And therefore that means that you can be generous with God because God's flow of blessings is unlimited. God has no limit, he gave you yesterday and he will give you tomorrow. And the more you give, the more you receive. That is the key to the Christian life. When you understand that, that you are directly connected to the unlimited flow of God's grace and abundance and provision, you can be generous because more is coming.

People grab and hold and accumulate believing that if I get rid of this it will go away and there is no more. But it is that God is unlimited. When a man or a woman lives in the grace and mercy of God and in the will of God, there are no limits. You can be confident, you can be generous, you can forgive, you can love, you can share because just as wine comes more.

I'm done with that illustration. Years ago I told you once that there are times... I originally wrote my sermons and pages and pages of notes before I stood here to preach. Then with time, God gave me more freedom and ease and in fact I have a box full, two boxes full of sermons in my house, through the years imagine. And when I started storing those sermons, my notes, I said, well, there will come a day when I won't have to write any more sermons or make any more notes, I'm just going to get out of there and I'm going to take a car ride. so, very smooth, because I already have my sermons written and what I just do is get out of there.

Then the time came when I no longer... God gave me the freedom to depend more on him. I prepare but many times God changes my sermon or gives me something else and there were times when I preached a sermon without having the notes, I said, what a waste, wow. I should have written down those thoughts because now they are lost on me. And you know what God told me? Once he told me, “Don't worry, where that came from there is still more. That is, the one who gave you that message can give you a thousand more messages. So don't be in a hurry to be saving and preserving and writing them, if my wisdom is limitless. I have sermons and sermons and topics for you that there is no limit. Trust me. Just stay close to me and receive and listen. Get ready and then you will be connected to my wisdom that has no limit, and you will always have wisdom to preach many things."

I say that as an illustration of how it can be with everything else, with money, with forgiveness, with grace, mercy, tolerance towards others. Yes, be generous. I have always said that the key to happiness is to be as generous as your Heavenly Father, to your measure, obviously, as a human being, but I have learned that the more generous a man, a woman is, the more generous, the happier she is. and more has and more receives.

Do you know which ones are suffering? The petty, the miserable, those who, when they do something to them, keep that debt until it is paid, do not let go of the person. The one who did it to me pays for it. And when someone makes a mistake, there they are ready to criticize and spank them at home or in friendship or whatever.

Now the man, the woman of God who is attached to the generosity of the Father, is a generous, kind, generous, forgiving person, who gives and is offended and as if nothing. That when there is a need that someone sees, a brother is in trouble, he helps and blesses. You're not putting away the money and saying, 'This is for…'

No, the son of God, the daughter of God is a selfless person. Because? Because he knows that he is attached to the generosity of the Father. Someone tells them that I have seen the hand, the provision of God and that is why many times... there is someone who sometimes... No, I think we have to save, we have to think about the future, we have to think about old age, everything that is very important. But in my life, God has given me the freedom to not worry so much about being there storing, for an old age that may never come. No, that is for the one who has faith, to live in that way.

I think most human beings have to live on another level and that's fine. But if God gives us the ability to live life detached... and I tell you, I have seen the hand, the mercy, the goodness of God and I would like to infect all my church so that they live that level, because there is no way more beautiful to live, and more blessed, and more prosperous than giving, giving, giving and then letting God supply you and see his hand of mercy prosper and bless you, beyond what you imagine.

I think that is where the Lord stopped me, because I had other things that I was going to deal with. These verses, my beloved, are not mistaken because every good thing, every perfect gift comes from on High, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no change or shadow of variation. God has been generous, is generous and will be generous until the end of the world. And when we enter eternity then we will see the generosity of God. That is where we will know how good our God is.

Brothers, let us then live in that awareness of God's generous, kind, giving, thoughtful character. Get pregnant right now with that sensation and that sense of the God who yearns for you, as the Dominicans say, we say. To yearn means, the Guatemalans say chinear, the God who… what is another word? What other word do you have in your language? Pampers you, that's a more universal word. That is the God that you have, a God who carries you in his arms, no matter how old you are, bigger, God can take you in his arm and pampers you, gives you your cravings, treats you, loves you like a baby.

Think of God like this and fill yourself with that image. He is not a sullen being with a whip, ready to slap you, a whiplash as soon as you offend him. God is a very loving God. I connect what I am preaching with what I preached a couple of Sundays ago on Father's Day, because God is merciful and compassionate, as the father pities his children, Jehovah pities those who fear him.

Fill yourself with that love of God, with consciousness, with goodness and mercy and God brings to mind the words of the psalmist, 'certainly the good and mercy of Jehovah will follow you all the days of your life and in the house of the Lord you will dwell for long days.' May the Lord fill us, right now, heal yourself from all loss of the past, everything that was taken from you, everything that was stolen from you, everything that was not given to you, everything that you did not reach, give it to the Lord and think of all the good that you have and the greatest of all is your assured life, your assured eternity.

One day, when you look at this world from the other side of eternity, you will realize that whatever little thing you lost here will be the equivalent of a child who loses a doll and breaks his arm and cries thinking that the world has been lost to him. fallen on top The adult who sees it says, 'what nonsense.' So perhaps now you think, 'oh, I lost so much.' But you have not lost anything, when you are on the other side you will understand that what seemed like a world here, was not nothing. Above all, you have the love of God that never... and when you lose something, I told Sister Juana, and you kiss the hand of God, despite what you lost, God blesses you greatly and gives you more than anything. what you lost Trust him. God is good, merciful, kind, generous, thoughtful.

The God of details, that's how I would title this sermon, the God of details. God bless you. Let's bow our heads, let's thank the Lord tonight for his provision, his generosity to us.

Father, thank you, we say amen in our spirit. Help us to apply to ourselves what we have declared. I ask that your sons and your daughters who have made an effort to come to your house tonight, receive that special bread of your affirmation right now. Give them those spiritual vitamins that we all need and renew us in our confidence that even though we are going through the valley of the shadow of death right now, even though there are difficulties in our lives, even though there is a time of drought and haste and trial, Father, we declare that you are more than good and that your mercy and goodness will never fail us. We will emerge graceful and victorious from all trials and difficulties that we are going through at this moment.

I declare triumph, victory in your life, and in the life of this church, in all the struggles we have and everything that lies ahead, I believe in the name of Jesus that what is coming is better than what has happened, that the future is positive and we will see the glory of God. That all affliction, all tears will be erased and we will celebrate, those who have sown with tears, we will reap with joy and joy. So it will be and we thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

God bless you my brothers.