Each improvement process begins with a real diagnosis

I want to share with you: Principles of success in life. You will remember that we are talking about how to turn your dreams, your visions into reality; how to go from the vision in your mind and the desire to be successful, to live a powerful life, to achieve things, achieve your goals, realize them and see them come true in your life and what it takes to accomplish that so what step we simply now consecrate this moment to the Lord: Father bless us and guide us in this time that we are going to have, Father in the Name of Jesus, amen.

Then again: from vision to action how to turn our dreams into reality. We have said that it takes more than faith and noble feelings to achieve success it is not enough to simply pray and ask the Lord and declare things of prosperity as we sometimes think is all we need to do. We have said that there is an inconsistency among Christians between what we confess and what we live, what we say we are in Christ. We say for example: "I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me" right? and but then in our life we have a lot of ties and when people look at our marriages there is destruction, when they look at our finances we are not up to what we aspire to, when they look at our emotional life they see all kinds of flaws and ties and of things that hurt around us.

When we look at our own ability to overcome past hurts and distortions, we discover that we have a number of invisible shackles around us that prevent us from moving from what we conceive in our minds to action because it takes more than just many such statements. super spiritual right? Ahm, the mechanism of success we say is a gear of many interlocking parts and my purpose is to alert us all through this series of meditations about some components of success, components that go beyond faith, spirituality and declarations of faith vain at times and merely superficial.

By the way, I think that many of the problems that exist in the Pentecostal charismatic world is that, that people believe that simply going to Church and we have created a show and an event almost like a theater; when people go to Church and there are experts in theater then many of us Pastors have established ourselves in that and then what we do is we do a collective drama and a show where we participate together as actors all conspiring to produce an effect and So we get intoxicated with rhetoric and with some statements and this and choruses and lights but we don't affect reality.

So for a moment we feel like giants and it's like an addict taking a drug and for a moment we escape our reality out there but when we get out we see that reality continues exactly as it was before because we are not being given the necessary nutrients, we are not being going deep enough into the Word and into the practical concepts of life. Because what the Congregations want is pizza and French fries, that's all, don't give them spinach, don't give them well-cooked meat. We are like children: what we want is the jam on the bread and we lick the jam and give the mother the bread so that she can put more jam on it.

And many Congregations are like this: what they want is simply a lot of rhetoric, a lot of cheap words that say: amen, glory to God, hallelujah, sweat and jump, and then they go home, so we Pastors give the people what they want, They want to listen to the rhetoric but we don't have the spiritual and ethical courage to tell them: no, the Word of the Lord calls me to be a prophetic voice, a teacher and give you what you need, not what you want in its superficiality. Do you understand what I'm saying? ? So that is what we have to go beyond the declarations.

The Bible says that: "Faith without works is dead" much rhetoric without action leads nowhere. I have also talked about how successful people have a great capacity to execute and turn their visions and projects into action, not necessarily the people who talk a lot, the person from whom you want to learn or want to imitate.

Do you know our countries? one of the problems due to which our countries do not progress in Latin America and we are always entangled in the same terrible reality of corruption, of inefficiency in our governmental systems, of terrible poverty, of exploitation of the poor, of total dysfunction in all dimensions of our governments is because in our countries a tradition of the caudillo has been created; the strong, big, loud-voiced man who talks and gives a good speech and intoxicates people with his rhetoric.

And then people believe that this person who dazzles them with a good speech or with a continuous ability to speak in a way that attracts attention says: this man is the one we need and so we are continually putting people who are demagogues, the who exploit us and push the button of our emotions and then when they come to power they have no capacity and many times it is a terrible corruption and many times the people who can truly change our societies are sober, quiet, simple but thinking people and with a lot of character and it is precisely people of character who do not lend themselves to all this fuss and all this foam and all this shouting and talking.

And then we never put them in power because people who talk a lot, people who are physically impressive, always take power. And that is why it continually and sometimes happens with the Pastors as well. Excuse me for entering at this point, but sometimes the Congregations get carried away by rhetoric and believe that this is the Spirit, right? Poor Paul suffered from what he was always being compared to what he calls the super apostles, the ones who controlled such sensational statements from Greek and Latin rhetoric and who had learned to speak to people like this using all the techniques of speeches. and Pablo would come here calmly with his good stick in his hand of his anointing from God and teaching and people would say: oh no his letters are very powerful but his figure is weak and his sermon does not impress much.

And he said: hey, don't measure the verbal word, measure the essence, measure reality. I invite you my brothers in that in your life: always go beyond the external foliage and look for the essence. When you go to a church, when you examine a spiritual movement, when you see a sermon on the Internet or on television, don't be looking at the rhetoric, okay? examine the essence, examine the doctrine, examine the teaching, examine the substance.

What do I leave with at the end of the sermon? What piece of gold, what spiritual jewel do I take with me after forty minutes of listening to a person? No? because that is what happens many times; people say: oh the sermon was tremendous today! Yes, and what did the Pastor talk about today? Well I don't remember but it was tremendous anyway. And that's how it happens so many times, right? we have to be people of essence, of character. Judge people by their content, judge people by their reality, not by the glare of the external, and we have to be like that in our lives as leaders, as parents, as spouses, as friends, as members of a Congregation.

You always have to ask yourself: when I am naked in front of a mirror in the bathroom, what kind of person am I looking at? What kind of man, what kind of woman am I looking at? how does God see me, how do I see myself? No? if we asked ourselves that question more wow it would be very different. At least we who live a public life where we are always aware of playing a role as actors never take off our mask so I believe that we have to ask the Lord: Lord help me to see myself in my nakedness in the light of Your Spirit, in the In the light of Your Word, in the light of the principles of Your Kingdom, how is my plummet in the light of the truth, of Your Truth and of the Truth of Jesus Christ and what Christ exemplifies?

Jesus Christ is the plumb line, Jesus Christ is the perfect man next to whom you should always compare yourself. Do not compare yourself with the Pastor because you will betray him and disappoint him. Do not compare yourself with the leader of the Church or with the elder, no; we are all going to fail him. Compare yourself to Jesus Christ. Study the character of Jesus in the Bible and then say: that's how I want to be because that's the perfect model, right?

So all this is tied up with this issue of success because if you are simply a person who lives on good thoughts, personal statements and good spiritual rhetoric and you don't cultivate that attachment to solid actions and decisions and at the end of the day ask yourself: what did I achieve today, how did I change today? How did I advance one millimeter in the pursuit of my goal in life? or my goals because there are many different goals. That is, not who did I impress, not what did I do to dazzle my boss or fool the Pastor whatever, not what did I actually do in the end?

What did Jesus Christ say when he said this?: You will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free. We have to have an insatiable appetite for the truth. That is why the psalmist also says: "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there are in me paths of perversity and guide me through the eternal path" because we have to ask the Holy Spirit: enlighten me because we we are masters in deceiving ourselves always and the problem with many people, that is why we do not progress in all dimensions in our life because we do not love the truth enough and we do not allow ourselves to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit because in the long run the human being has a terrible ability to deceive himself.

Know what? I don't trust myself. Honestly, I have already learned that I cannot even trust what I see of myself because I know that we are perversely skilled at deceiving ourselves and we are like anorexics who look fat. Do you know that an anorexic person is dying of skinnyness? or I don't know if it's skinny, skinny or skinny whatever and yet in the mirror her mind makes her look fat and people outside see her and say: wow this person seems to have disappeared, he's gone, when he's in front of him he seems that is on its side, when it is on its side it seems that it is gone.

However, the person sees himself and we are like that sometimes, we believe that we are spiritual giants who are doing this, that and then we do not understand why others see us in a very different, negative way and we blame the people who do not appreciate the greatness that is in me but it is not, then we have to do as the Psalmist who says to the Lord: Lord enlighten me You, teach me You, tell me You.

While I think about it and that's what happens with it, getting stuck is part of the process, that's why, Pedro, the classic case and perhaps what the Holy Spirit is leading me to share at this moment to share with you to achieve my goals, their goals is to tie ourselves to the truth, it is a very important issue and see ourselves as we have to see ourselves to use that real diagnosis of where I am so that I can then go where I should go but I have to know myself first myself as I really am, as I truly am.

And it occurred to me that Peter is the classic case of man, the individual man or woman self-deceived about who he truly is and how then God takes charge of taking a very finite needle and puncturing that balloon in the bladder and destroying it in order to then create a reality. When the Lord tells the disciples: you are all going to abandon me around the time of the crucifixion, you are all going to abandon me, you are all going to leave me Peter says to him: "Lord, even if they all leave you, even if all these scoundrels who are here leave you I will never leave you I am ready to go with you until death itself" and the Lord smiles sadly and says: "Pedro, Peter, truly I tell you that before the rooster crows three times you are going to deny me no once, not twice but three times."

You see: Peter had an image of himself as a man of integrity, of moral courage and physical courage and totally attached to the Lord and he saw others as insignificant spiritual freaks and he saw himself as this spiritual titan and Sometimes there are so many people in the Church who do not understand why they are not either preaching or converting multitudes, why they are not given a higher position as they see themselves and we have to start the painful and arduous process of individual improvement. That is the most difficult thing for a leader.

Peter, for example, the Lord had great purposes for him but he had to go through a long process of purification, death, crucifixion and confrontation with himself and his needs. Never be afraid to recognize where you are with the help of the Holy Spirit because I tell you that you will not know as I was saying and I emphasize, you will never truly know who you are except through the eyes of understanding and wise and mature people who they can see you and they can tell you the truth; don't measure yourself, ask a wise and understanding person to tell you: ok, what can you improve?

The fact is that Peter tells the Lord: I am not going to leave you, Lord, and the Lord tells him: yes, not only once, several times. Now here is the question: I am not sure if it was that in reality Peter was so cowardly as to deny him three times with curses to emphasize that he was not from Jesus or if the Holy Spirit seeing that there was a root in him reality of imperfection and heightened it to make it more dramatic that he was a man like any other because sometimes the Lord manages to put us through experiences in life that make us stumble and recognize our human weakness and imperfection.

We have all gone through that, including the one who is speaking to you, that is why I am speaking to you because I have vast experience in this, I can take a doctorate in knowing myself through failures and moments. And then the Lord tells him: you are going to betray me three times and I am sure that Peter protested: how can that be? never in life and you know the story; When the time comes, Peter is there in the courtyard where they are torturing Jesus, they are questioning him until dawn and this humble servant comes.

It is that the Holy Spirit is very subtle in His things. Peter denied Jesus Christ through a small, weak woman, a servant girl, not through a Roman soldier. It was like the Lord wanted to put the knife deeper, right? show him what he was, humiliate him well. And when she asks him: I think I saw you, I saw you with Jesus and Peter knows the implications of being associated with this man who is now being treated as a criminal, he says: no, never, three times he says it the third time. Once cursing so that there would be no doubt, then Peter remembers the Word of the Lord and says that he cried.

What happened there? the Holy Spirit at that moment confronted him, he saw himself exactly as he was and recognized that he was not the great man and as spiritual as he thought he was and wept bitterly. We have in life, you know what? Many times, to get to where God wants to take us, we sometimes have to stumble several times and sometimes we have to tear down many things in order to receive more from the Lord.

A couple of Wednesdays ago I was saying, we were discussing what the Apostle Santiago says, right? it says: "Depriving ourselves of all" it says "of all filth and abundance of malice let us receive the implanted Word" that can say to renew our lives or guarantee our lives. Because sometimes I said that sometimes you have to get rid of things to be able to receive things and sometimes the first thing we have to do is recognize where I really am and how weak I am and how little I am worth and how much I have to learn and the terrible flaws in my life so that I can then begin the process of assuming a new identity.

Colossians 4 I think it is? where it talks about putting off certain things and then putting on, that image of undressing and putting on is all over Scripture many times. You have to get rid of the old man to put on the new man that is in Christ Jesus, you have to get rid of many attributes of evil in us to then put on the different blessings, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, etc.

So my point is that Peter had to first be emptied in order to then become the man that God wanted him to be. The road to success is full of failures, never let yourself be defeated by a failure in life, on the contrary, consider it a starting point towards greatness.

I think it was Wilston Churchill who said: success consists in failing time after time without losing enthusiasm because he knew what he was talking about; he had failed several times in his political career, he had lost many times in electoral campaigns and had done as a soldier and officer in World War II, he had had a couple of failures in battles that severely judged him by the public for that and now he is He was Prime Minister and perhaps this was already said by him in his time of glory after having played the most exalted role that any human being has played in modern history in his fight against Nazism and the German forces in London when they are bombing and he was practically the embodiment of the English spirit that kept the English nation clinging against Hitler and his terrible attacks and that saved I believe the western world humanly speaking.

This little man who was about 5'2" tall but he was a titan, a giant but he had failed many times in his life in many things but he was always there, he continued, continued and he said that, right? That success consists in failing time after time without losing enthusiasm.The people of greatness, success and prosperity and power are people who have used their failures as allies and as stepping stones forward.

If you did not reach the goal in something that you have pursued, if you had a very big failure in your life, if you come from a background of suffering and abuse or exploitation, do not let that defeat you, ask the Lord: Father, how Can I take this impure matter and recycle it into gold for my future growth? Because many times the great sufferings of life, the great losses, the great deserts of life are times of waiting, that is all, and preparation so that when you leave there you will come out like a titan and the devil cannot take what you You have accumulated. Do you understand what I am saying? Can you say amen just to know that you're there that I haven't fallen asleep?

I'm going to continue with Peter but let me put Moses in the middle and I hope I don't forget Peter and that's where the Lord had me, this was a summary but it's important because these are all lessons that we can use to live a powerful life . Then look at Moses. Since Moses was born, God has a purpose with him. Furthermore, from the foundation of the world there is a passage that says that God knew that Moses was going to live, he was going to exist and that he was going to be the liberator of His people.

So God puts Moses through a process, he makes Moses be born at a time exactly when he has to be born in the development of the Hebrew people who are in Egypt and are going to come out sometime decades later but Moses is born at the time of God and that's something else. You have to understand what I was saying to the brothers from the English ministry down there about God being a builder par excellence, a planner par excellence, God is neither ahead nor behind. We are in a hurry, God is never in a hurry.

And part of being able to run the race of faith in a wise and non-weary way is to run at the pace of God, not ahead or behind but to see how God is running and then you run with Him forever to be with God, okay? ? Because many times God is going to take a long time to lead you to the realization of your dreams and your life. God is not in a hurry, God is like a barber who sits you there and says: forget that I am in control now let me do the work, okay?

God is like a surgeon who gives you an anesthetic and tells you: go to sleep because you can't do anything, tie me up, no. He does it as He wants and He is not in a hurry. And when God works in your life many times you have a goal: I want to do this, I want to achieve that, I want to be used by God in this, I want to obtain that and I want it in six months; God says: I'm not sorry if you want it, it will take you ten years because there are a number of things that I have to do in your life so that you can obtain what you want and you have to cut a lot and you have to tear out many things and I have to give you a lobotomy and a blood transfusion and put in a new heart and that takes a long time.

You say: no, what I want is a house, Lord, what I want is a happy marriage, well, if you want it, you're going to have to do a number of things. So people say: do not ask the Lord for patience because he will give you tests because people say: oh Jehovah give me patience oh hallelujah glory to God I receive it, God does not touch you with a magic wand that gives you patience; now God puts you through a process that produces patience in you through many struggles and tests and brokenness you are going to say: wow I no longer yell at the woman like I used to yell at her. I no longer go out on the leash immediately to blindly give out leashes when I get home and the boys are bothering me because there is a process and God takes time.

God doesn't crack our brains out and poke us with a wand and rewire our brains, He works through His engineering. Events, inspirations, moments like this, falls, successes and all of this gradually builds the personality of an individual and takes it where it needs to go to achieve its goals and retain them. Because there are many people who achieve goals in their life but they didn't get them by legitimately running the race, they cheated so when they get the goal the devil comes and takes it away immediately after they get it because the devil is a cynic and he doesn't mind giving you things to that you destroy and then take them away and destroy yourself emotionally because you failed.

But when man runs the race of faith and ministry legitimately then no one can take it away from you because God gave it to you and you won it with Him. Many Pastors in a moment produce a large Church and people say: wow Pastor, you? Have you seen the Church of so-and-so how big it is growing? they say it as a scare as if to say: where are we? I have always said what a king said to Ahab, I think it was, he said to him: "Let not the one who girds on weapons praise himself like the one who ungirds them."

That means that anyone who is going to war can put on his uniform and all that and brag a lot, but it is when you come back from the battle all shabby, they have beaten you everywhere and all covered with whippings, it is then that you you have to say: ok how did it go there? No? It is when you truly end the battle that you can then say: ok.

So I believe that the Ministry is full of superficial people in history, of superficial Pastors, superficial leaders and Congregations that accompany them in their superficiality. So great ministries are being built, great churches based on demagogy, on attractive lights, on experiences, on technological procedures, on a manipulation of the details of the culture and on what the people want and anyone who is skilled in exploiting the elements of culture can artificially produce a Church and be successful in the Ministry but it is not building on the rock it is building on the sand of the carnality of the people.

Many people come to Church and want to be told that God is going to prosper you, God is going to give you money, God wants you to have ten Mercedes cars and they come as much as you want and they come every Sunday to get one prosperity drug and they come and give money and create great palaces to celebrate their carnality but it is not being built on the principles of the Kingdom of God and sooner or later the devil comes and kicks that castle of sand and undoes it.

And that's why ministries and life, your marriage, your emotional life, your lay ministry whatever make sure you build it on solid Biblical principles not what people want from you because you're going to build quickly but you're not going to hold on to what that you win is not going to be a blessing to your life. The only thing that is a blessing for a man, for a woman is what has been earned using biblical principles of the Kingdom of God and the truth, any other way to reach victory is illegitimate and is what Paul says: Let's run legitimately the race of faith

Because there are many people running shortcuts but God is not like that, when God builds He goes piece by piece, system by system and he intertwines one thing with the other and that is why he takes time. And that is why we cannot rush or want to produce an Isaac or a what was Isaac's other brother? an Ishmael than God. I'm mixing now and there are three, Peter, Moses and Abraham because these two principles are repeated throughout the Bible, right?

God tells Abraham: you are going to have a son at 75 years old and at 100 he still hasn't given it to him and Abraham tells him: hey, I'm already drying up completely and what's going to happen? I'm going to die and I'm not going to have that son so let me help God, he says and there's an appetizing servant over there and he says: ok help me here I'm going to sacrifice myself and then she has a son, Ishmael but it wasn't the time of God. Because God wanted to craft a spiritual lesson that would serve humanity through generations.

Because many times your journey in life is not only for you but it is for your children, it is for your community, it is for your Church, it is for the people for whom you work who are going to observe your walk and are going to learn from it and God is using you as a metaphor, an illustration of the principles of His Kingdom and that is why sometimes God is not going to give you everything you want at the moment because God wants to get the most out of your life and for you to be a blessing. to much. And then in the end God gives you what you want and gives it to you soft, fresh, clean and you can enjoy it for a long time.

So Abraham anticipates God's plan, and you know what happens? Ishmael has caused problems for the whole world and all of history; there are those Arabs still throwing bombs at us wherever they want and with terrorism. Do you know that the Arabs descend from Ishmael? Ishmael was Isaac's brother and Ishmael is always the strain of a culture that is exactly how he was, examine that story and that is why I believe that the Bible is real because when you examine the character of Israel you see the character of the Arabs and the Muslims who have the spiritual and genetic strain of this man in them.

And there was always controversy between Ishmael and Isaac from the beginning, Ishmael hated Isaac from a very young age, the Arabs hate Isaac and he was a fierce and contentious and strong man and blessed by God as these Arabs were blessed with all the oil they have because God He told him: I am going to bless him, he is your son so I have to bless him. But look what happens when a man anticipates God's plan, he gets what he wants but it is for his destruction. Never get ahead of yourself, never use manipulation to get a position in the Church or put pressure on anyone to give you something because you are using the devil's weapons and if you do, the devil is the one you are giving the right to take from you because the devil of what he gave, therefore he can take it from you. If God gives it to you, the devil can't take it away, but if the principles of hell gave it to you, he can take it away.

If you use the principles of hell in your marriage, in your relationship with others, in your treatment of people or in your work, hell has power over your life and can manipulate you and can borrow or give or take away or manipulate or do whatever he wants with you, but when you work according to the principle of the Kingdom what is of God the devil does not know how to get into it.

So our goal is: what is not of God, what does not respond to the essence of God, I am going to get rid of it because it is a runway for the devil. The Lord has spoken to me a lot lately about a subject that I am going to share in a moment, it came to my mind: do not give place to the devil and that has been working on me all this time and I have to talk about it at some point because many of us give way to the devil. And giving to the devil does not mean going to the apothecary and buying one of these saints or one of these rare ones and putting a candle on Satan, no; giving place to the devil means: using principles that are not of the Kingdom of God.

Anything that does not manifest the essence of Christ is of the devil, carnal, earthly, diabolical as Santiago says so that nothing is left out. And we have to learn to discern: what is of God and what is of the devil? what is of the Kingdom and what is of darkness? and always tie ourselves to the Kingdom and discern; Anytime there's a little demonic leaven creeping into our lives and saying, ha! No, I already saw you, I don't want you, get out and opt for the Kingdom of God. That is what leads to success, that is what leads to a strong life, that is what leads to a clear mind, to peace when you lie down and put your head on the pillow you can sleep peacefully, you can be at peace.

If the devil trips you, you know that God is going to get you out of it because it is simply a test that God is allowing and it is for a blessing, it is not the devil who is getting away with his life. Going back then, we already abandoned Abraham. I think I've exhausted him, let's go back to Moses then and I'm finishing with that. Moses is born in God's time and God has a trajectory for Moses.

I was saying this that we have to adjust to God's timing and the way in which God builds in our lives. Whatever goal you have in your life name the one you want, whatever: buy a house, have a good marriage, have good children, lose 25 pounds in the next three months, whatever. Ask yourself: how can I use the methodology of the Kingdom to achieve that goal and how can I once God tells me: ok come on, let's get involved but you have to do this and that here and there and you have to ask him wisdom to the Lord so that He will help you to do that?

So you have to flow in God's time and that means that God will sometimes set you intermediate goals that will seem like detours or obstacles, but no, they are simply intermediate moments on your journey towards the goal. And God is telling you: no. I want you to first add this to your psychological, emotional and mental profile and when you have achieved that sub-goal then He is going to tell you: I want you to do this other thing and then He is going to tell you: ok stop here for a while and work on this a little bit and then when you've done a little bit of that then he says ok now go to the other thing and possibly he says ok now you've done that now you can go back and push that a little bit more then go ahead and go a little further forward. That's how God works, it's wonderful.

Now, if you are impatient, you are going to throw in the towel and you are going to say: no, man, this is too hard, too difficult, and then you start doing what you want and you think that the devil has not seen you and God has not seen you. seen; They've both seen you, they're titans, you can't fool either of them. God because he is God and the devil because he is old and has been observing human nature for a long time and he knows when we are deceiving ourselves and trying to deceive him.

So God takes time and that is why Moses is born at that moment, God puts him to prepare in Egypt, there is this story as the adoptive son of Pharaoh so that he acquires a series of experiences as a leader that he needs and acquires the education of an Egyptian prince and study science and grammar, history and politics because he's going to be a statesman who's going to lead a whole nation out of Egypt and God sometimes puts us like that, there's time, you know? you have to prepare, you have to take time for God to do His work in your life.

You have to ask yourself: Lord, how have you been using all the experiences of the past in my life? that I believe are dead ends, how can I see them in a redemptive and positive way? You open your eyes and then you discover that the miserable poverty that you lived in Guatemala was not something that destroyed you, but that you can use that to bless others and to help others to get ahead. That dad who gave you so much trouble over there in the Dominican Republic over there in a little field in Mao or wherever, God was not absent from it, it hurt him but He was allowing it so that maybe one day you could teach others about it. from being tender with their children, using other means whatever, you can use anything.

In the hands of God and through a mind illuminated by the Holy Spirit you can take anything from your past and see the God in it, and go ahead and rejoice in it even and say: glory to God that I was able to experience a aspect of human nature and experience and gain insight into the character of humanity and Christ himself; that is why Paul speaks of completing the sufferings of Christ. It is a rare expression of the Gospel but many times we have been completing the sufferings of Christ because Christ experienced in His being all the dimensions of human life and all human experiences and He wants us to be like Him and have some of those experiences.

I invite you this morning if you have had something in your past that has hurt you, has made you ugly and has made you feel like God was not there, God was there and was suffering with you and was also seeing what you were going to do in the future and how you were going to use that to be redeemed and to bless others in your life. And when you see that, you're going to say: glory to God, I'm not a victim, I'm victorious because Christ has been working in my life to take me where He wants to take me.

Redeem, redeem anything from your past. Whatever is in your past, do not see it as a work of the devil, see it as God working to bless and perfect his son or daughter, and when your perspective changes, your experience will also change, and the effect of those pains will also change. to change. I subscribe to what Paul says in Romans: "To those who love God all things work together for good" that is not only for the present and the future is also for the past, retroactively that can be a reality in your life when you transform everything by looking at it in the light of God's lenses.

Because Moses, do you know the story? after forty years as a prince he commits a failure. Again, all the time he knew that God had called him, he knew in his intuition, something in his spirit told him: I have a prophetic call, I am a liberator of souls, God has called me for a great work and he discovered one day he is to be the liberator of his nation because he discovers one day that he is not an Egyptian but a Jew.

What's going on? when he sees a Jew being oppressed by an Egyptian and being beaten he kills the Egyptian believing that by doing so he will provoke a rebellion among the Jews, they will rebel against Pharaoh and they will escape and they will choose him as their liberator; It was not like that, it was not God's time because that proud and violent man that was Moses could not lead a people, violent as he was, he would have killed them all. The Bible says that there is no man more meek than Moses and yet look at how his Congregation took him, learn brothers, eh? to hit the rock and lose the blessing at the end.

The point is that God sometimes has to form a person. So he put Moses to warm for forty years in Egypt and then he put him to cool for forty years in the desert because he had to flee, leave everything, escape for his life, leave his exalted past in Egypt and spend forty years raising goats, despicable for the Egyptians the profession of being a goat herder. Forty years God put him to form there in the silence of the desert looking at the stars at night just thinking and looking within himself only because the darkness of the desert was so powerful that the only thing he could do was look inside.

And there forty years this man is forming, breaking down, his character is preparing and at eighty years God tells him: now is the time, go to Pharaoh and tell him: let my people leave. Everything in life is like this, we have to have a long-term vision, we have to walk and run at God's time and always look at what You are doing in my life? What intermediate goal are you setting for me to take me to the greater goal?

We have to have an incredibly observant eye to see the subtle Hand of God in the processes of our daily lives because He is at work always, always. Whoever has eyes to see sees, whoever has ears to hear hears. The world is full of people who neglect and ignore the works of God in their lives in His daily interventions because they don't have eyes to see, they don't have discernment, they haven't created discernment. If you want to succeed you have to be a tremendous observer of the supernatural and abstract and absolute truths of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of hell as well.

So God had a plan but it was not at forty years that Moses was going to fulfill it and it was not even at eighty, Moses did not even see the fruit of his work in the end he could not accompany his people forty more years later at the age of 120 years, he could not accompany them to the land of Canaan, God only let him spy on it from afar. Who knows many times the plans and goals that you have, perhaps it will not be you who will fulfill them perfectly, it will be your children or your grandchildren or another person that you discipled, inspired or blessed.

Because nevertheless in the process you are going to enjoy the trip, you know? The beautiful thing is that in the Christian life one enjoys either the goal achieved or the trip. Learn to enjoy the journey too, enjoy your life every day, it's another long topic thank God we're done otherwise we'd be here. Enjoy the journey, God is a God of journeys and He is a God of processes and many of us are so focused and obsessed with the goal that we don't enjoy the journey. Enjoy each experience, each achievement, each step you ascend, celebrate it, rejoice in the grace of the Lord today because He is happy with you now. You already have God's approval.

Whether you become Pastor or not, whether you finish seminary or not, God is pleased with you already now with what you have achieved in your life, look at all the good that has been in your life and celebrate and rejoice and use that to build a altar and bless God for what he did at that moment as Abraham did, build altars wherever he went. Look at the things that God has done through your life today, look at your children: the good they have achieved, the beautiful things they have achieved. Celebrate the good things around you.

Don't look at what you don't have, celebrate what you have. Celebrate what God has allowed you to do on the way to the final goal. When you reach the final goal you will be happy; If you didn't get everything you wanted, don't worry. Solomon says it like this in Ecclesiastes, he tells us: "Never lack a white dress on your body or oil on your head, rejoice in your wife or your husband or your friend all the days of your vanity because God is already happy with you." Let's learn to enjoy the moment while we go towards the eternal because God is a God of stages, of moments, of processes and the process is long and you need to celebrate the moments that you have to reach the final goal.

And then ending with Pedro, poor Pedro that we left neglected, let's remember that. That the Lord takes Peter through a process of confrontation and death of his image and when he has already betrayed the Lord and he believes that there is no redemption for him anymore and the Lord knows that no, that Peter betrayed him and failed but it was a stage, it was not the end, that is why he loves us even when we betray him because he knows what we are going to become in him.

That is why the Lord gives Peter that look when he betrays him three times, he says that the Lord looked at Peter when the rooster crowed the third time the Lord looked at him; I imagine that look: it was a look that had a loving and ironic smile as if to say: I told you. But it was not a look of condemnation, I do not believe that the Lord gave a look of condemnation to Peter, God gives him a look that a father gives a son when he falls and his father said to him: if you do that, you will leave to fall huh? the son stumbles and the father then says: do you see what I told you?

The Lord gave him a look of mercy and compassion and also of slight warning, be careful, look at what you truly are, remember it. But what matters to me about all this is what happens at the end of the story when the risen Christ sends for Peter. Do you remember that right there when the risen Christ says: "Tell the disciples and Peter that I have risen and that I am going to see them?" "? How amazing is the Lord right? because He knew that Pedro was going to play a tremendously important role in his Church but he had to put him through the mill first, he had to get all the animal out of him.

And here's the thing, what led me to think of Peter was that when the Lord has that intimate encounter with Peter at the end of that terrible day and says to him: "Peter, do you love me?" and Peter says: "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you" notice that he is no longer the Peter who says: no, how are you going to ask me that? You know that I love you more than everyone around you. He says: "Yes, Lord, You know that I love you" He says: "Peter: do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you" "Peter: do you love me?" "yes Lord You know all things."

That third time that Peter answers the Lord is like saying: do you know what Lord? I'm not sure if I love you or not, You will know if I love you or not, You know, you know that I love you despite everything. I believe that the truly useful person for the Lord is the person who has been bled dry, weakened, confronted with his humanity and who already knows that he does not know, the only thing he knows is that he does not know if he knows.

When God truly uses us is when He has bled us dry and put us through many processes and He takes time to get us through then. That experience that Peter had, so painful, so terrible, was a page in Peter's folder for his future because Peter would become a man, he is the leader of the Church when we see him in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus Christ; Catholics consider him the first Pope, I don't think he would have claimed that position.

Christ said: "You are Peter" some mysterious words, commentators have never known what to make of it "and on these rocks I will found My Church" I don't know exactly what he meant by that. But the fact is that Peter was going to become a great man of God. Christ could not use that bambalán as my brother Miguel Prieto says who was there who told him I love you more than everything and I will never leave you, that Pedro could not become the Pastor of His Church, it could not be. And look at this: read the twelve Epistles of Peter, glorious, humble, deep, wise, sober Epistles full of God's wisdom that inspire people to hold firm to the faith when they are suffering from great trials and difficulties and persecutions in life. .

The man who writes these Epistles towards the end of his life could never have written them in the personal configuration that Peter had when he was young. That man at the end who writes those Epistles is a man who has been put through the mill and who knows who he is and who God is. And that's why God wants, He doesn't just want to give you the product that you want, He wants to prepare you, use you, bless you, give you joy, allow you to maintain your achievements, be a blessing to others, inspire others, teach others and then He also wants to give you that little thing that dazzles you and that you think I would die without it; that is not the most important. The most important thing is who you are, not what you have.

Always remember that: it is the character of the woman and the man that is worth not what they have, very important and that is what matters most to God and that is why He works for us and everything that happens in your life is God like a sculptor giving you chisel blows to take you to the image of Christ Jesus, remember that everything that happens in your life. Do not fall in love with the goal, fall in love with the process and you will be a great, great person in the Kingdom of God, amen? glory to the Lord.

Stand up, stand up for a moment, glory to God. If something that you have heard this morning makes sense to you and God has spoken to you in some way, receive it right now. If there is some profound truth that comes from God and you feel: this spoke to me, I encourage you now in the Name of the Lord to say: Father, I receive it and make it mine, let it take root within me. Help me to know myself, deal with me, shape me, break me. Don't leave me without trying Lord, don't leave me without crucifying or hitting me because I want to be like Your Son to be happy.

Teach me how to run the race legitimately. I don't want shortcuts in my life, I don't want deceit. I don't want tricks, I don't want pretensions; I want truth and I want Your processes to take place within me. Father I am praying this prayer for myself and my people this morning, we embrace Your Truth. We want to be a people of Truth and truths of Your Father Kingdom.

I bless your sons and your daughters this morning Father, our hearts are longing for You, we want to be an offering perpetually consuming each day before You. Help us as a Congregation to be a Congregation also that is based on Your Truth Lord and keep us from evil, free us from the enemy who wants to trample on the beauty that You want to put in us. We love you, continue with us, continue working in our lives Father and we will always give you all the glory and all the honor Lord. Thank you, thank you Lord in Jesus Name amen and amen. God bless you my brothers the grace of the Lord be with you.