Practice Proverbial Mastery

We are talking in a series of meditations on how to live a successful life, how to live a fulfilling life, a life that reflects the beauty of the Kingdom of God and how we can benefit from all the resources that heaven offers us when we enter into spiritual citizenship to become all that God wants us to be.

God has called us to a life of power, a life of self-control. When saying that, a word comes to mind that I have not used in this context but it is very wonderful, Paul says to Timothy: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind." "and the word that is translated as cowardice rather what it means is: timidity, a conservative character, living from the plate to the mouth, a mind of scarcity with small and minuscule ambitions but God has called us to a spirit of power, of victory, of power, that is why it says of love and self-control.

And the word that is translated by the way, self-control in Spanish is a word that in the original Greek means rather a healthy mind, a lucid mind, a mind that sees reality in a correct way as it should be seen, that is what it wants. To say that word that I believe we translate inappropriately: self-control, but it has a reason why it is put there, because a mind that has the Power of God is a mind that has its own control, which is in control of itself.

So I have been speaking in many different ways as a cameraman from different perspectives on the same scene and I hope that with the help of the Lord as we finish this walkthrough of what constitutes a life of power and a life transformed we will have an understanding. full of that territory that extends in front of us that is a territory of plenitude.

Know what? God has called us to continuous and constant victory, to a perpetual ascending to different levels of height. I would like each son of God, each daughter of God to be saturated with that image of power and authority to which God calls us when we enter the ways of the Lord.

In many churches there are many very good things, many good things are preached: justice, love, many healthy things, holiness and other things, but sometimes people are not preached that we have been called when we enter the ways of the Lord to win everything that opposes the good purposes of God in our lives, amen?

The apostle Paul says that: "Taking captive every thought to the Lord and every haughty thing, everything that stands against the lordship of Christ we have to bring into captivity the values of the Kingdom of God." And I believe that much of what you acquire and achieve in your Christian life will depend on what you believe is possible to achieve.

If you believe, God simply called you to clench your teeth until the Lord frees you from this cruel world and you die and then go to the Heavenly Homeland, that is all you will receive. But if you believe that God has called you to live a life full of joy, of victory in your struggles, of perpetual growth, of blessing, of provision in every need, then as your vision is great, so will be what you achieve in your life. .

And that's why we have to fill people with this idea that the Christian life is a life called to fulfillment. A passage comes to mind that at some point I am going to focus on it in a very deliberate way because it is also one of my favorite passages in Scripture, but I am going to go ahead a little now to give an idea that the Bible is always calling us to that life of fullness and far-reaching in what lies ahead when we enter the ways of the Lord and that if we do not arm ourselves with that great expectation and that healthy ambition we are going to lose and waste a great resource that has been placed in our way and we will be like princes who have inherited a Kingdom and who nevertheless live as beggars because we have not alerted ourselves to the level of our inheritance.

So Isaiah chapter 54 is a precious image that I am going to dismantle again later but notice how Isaiah 54 verse 1 says: "Rejoice, oh barren, the one who did not give birth" and I am going to resist starting to expose that passage because I don't want to get lost there at this moment but look at the image of sterility, the person who is in the world is thus sterile but when he enters the ways of the Lord he is different. "Rejoice, oh barren, the one who did not give birth, raise a song and give voices of joy, the one who was never in labor; for the children of the forsaken are more than those of the married, the Lord has said."

Look with what certainty the Lord speaks, He is not saying: possibly or will be, no, He says: "Because more are the children of the forsaken." The Bible says that in God everything is yes and amen everything depends on us believing what God has declared about our lives. He knows that much of the battle for fullness of life and prosperity, joy and power in the Christian life depends on how big your mind is to believe the Lord and how big your faith is to aspire and envision powerful and powerful things. beautiful that God has delivered into your hand.

If you spend your life rehearsing scenarios of horror, defeat, deprivation, lack, disease, negativity, pessimism, fine rain all day falling on your life, that is what you are going to receive. Now if you visualize in the Lord and in the Power of the Holy Spirit and His Word blessing, joy if you continuously irradiate your mind with expectations of good things that come your way, of victory that you are going to achieve, of valleys that are going to being lifted up and mountains that are going to be brought down and stones that are going to be moved out of the way by the Power of the Holy Spirit in you that is what you are going to receive.

Which of the two do you want to saturate your mind with? change the program of the past. Remove the old recording that the devil put you to play and install a new program on your computer, a program with the expectation of great things, that is why the Word always calls us: raise a song, rejoice because I have said that the children of the barren they will be more than the children of the fertile says the Lord and look at that precious call: "Enlarge the site of your store and the curtains of your rooms are extended, do not be scarce" in other words: do not be conservative.

Do you remember what I told you last Sunday? I think it was about the fact that energy is often required, that we have to sow seven, eight, distribute, throw our bread into the waters, continually invest. The person with low energy and low vision does not reach the blessings that God has for us. Don't be skimpy.

Again: I know that I run the risk of repeating myself but I believe that you should always be looking for the next avenue of blessing that God wants to open for your life and you have to be seeing everything that happens in your life as an opportunity for the Lord open a channel of glory and blessing for you.

So for example: let's say an event is announced, there is an opportunity to come to Church and adore the Lord, there is a training retreat, there is a new course for something, there is a women's retreat that is opening and you say: look, what? Who knows if the blessing can come around? that is to say: you always have to be sowing, don't be scarce, don't be scarce, don't be conservative with your energies.

Do you know that sometimes one gets more tired staying in the house than leaving the house? Many people get carried away by what they are feeling at the moment and that is what determines what they do, so if they come home tired, troubled, loaded, depressed and suicidal, what they do is throw themselves on the bed and fuck the thickest blanket and they cover their heads and cook their depression there over a slow fire.

Do you know what you have to do? what you have to do is the opposite of how you feel. If you feel bad, dress up, decorate yourself, put on the most beautiful earrings you can find around there, the most beautiful dress and celebrate and sing a song, put on pleasant music in your house. If there is an opportunity to go to Church and adore the Lord, tell the devil: I am not going to let you dominate me, I am not going to let my flesh control me.

Many times we have to do the opposite of what our flesh is asking of us at the moment. Do you know why many people do not get out of depression or anxiety? because they let anxiety determine what they do and the way they react instead of saying: no, anxiety and depression and sadness and pain are telling me: go to sleep, take some pills and that's it it ends but I say: not in Christ I am more than powerful, I get up, dress myself by faith and declare victory and start walking.

And you know what? in the process of walking those scales of death miraculously fall off you and you discover that after all it was a fiction, it was a cold and damp cloak that the devil throws over your head but if you leave it there it becomes your skin and that is why many people sometimes have a moment of sadness in their life or a tragedy and what was a moment becomes a destination because it becomes an identity, so they remain imprisoned within that instant and that instant it becomes a shell that covers them and hardens around them and they never get out of it.

But when you come to the feet of Christ, the Lord breaks that spell, the Lord breaks the scab, but you have to believe that and move as it is already a reality in your life, that is the key. Do not operate on what you feel at the moment operate on what God has declared over your life and as you begin to walk by faith in what God has declared not by feeling but by faith what God has declared begins to become a current reality in your emotions, in your mind, in your feelings, in your actual experience.

I have experienced that many times, I was in the car full of loads and so many things and what I want to look for is the most tragic music you can find, Juan Sebastian Bach there the solemn mass in B minor or whatever one of those things is, because what you want is like cooking in your own juice there, right? continue, you do not want to break that moment of sadness, do you know what I do? I find the loudest music I can find and put it on as an antidote even though I don't like it but put it there to make the demons run away simply by stating otherwise.

And I have learned that when I move not in what life declares to me nor what my nervous system declares to me but what God has declared and if my feelings do not want to adjust that is their problem.

Do you know what happens? The more you practice that truth in your life, the easier it is for you to get out of those emotional moments. Yes or no, Maria, am I telling the truth or not? amen, amen I have learned that how many of us? there was a stage in our life when depression, sadness and things in life and we kind of got into hypnotism, a spell of hours and days, how difficult it was to break that! until a day comes when one says: "no more" and you then begin to praise the Lord simply with your mouth, do not worry if your feelings are at ease or not simply declare the Truth of God.

And if your spiritual reason tells you: there is a service in the Church, I am going to go and adore with my brothers, I am going to praise the Lord, I am going to contradict with my actions what my feelings are telling me and what the devil is trying to throw over my life then what you do is that you prophesy about your evil with your actions.

Have you heard of the expression a prophetic act? many times we have to carry out prophetic acts in our life, that is to say: do the opposite of what our flesh dictates to us at a given moment and with our body execute actions that we believe are like keys that operate in the world of the spirit and that they then open up a new dimension in reality.

If there is pride in you, for example, and you know that pride is killing you, do you know what you have to do then? exercise acts of humility continually. Humble yourself before your brothers, confess that you are simply one more of those who are fighting in the ways of the Lord.

If resentment is something that controls you, do acts of forgiveness and mercy. Forgive with your mouth. That person who offended you and for whom you do not want to have any words of blessing, bless him even if he tastes like warm water when you are doing it.

If your problem is the love of money and stinginess, let go and bless others and be generous and share to seven and eight; Do it as an act of faith, as a prophetic act, as a stone that you throw at the giant's forehead.

If your problem is depression look, laugh out loud. Listen to good comedy programs and healthy, healthy jokes (laughs) on the radio, on the internet, whatever.

If your problem is mental impurity and obsessive thoughts of impurity look then: read things that induce you to holiness and self-control and talk to someone and get your problem out of the hiding place of your own mind only and talk to someone you care about. you have confidence and take out that cockroach and put the phosphorescent light of the Truth of God on it, sharing it with someone worthy of listening who will not despise you and then begin to confess: I am free in the Name of the Lord, I will not let myself be dominated by anything .

And I have learned that there are so many other things in life that when you want to break those ties in your life you have to do the opposite of what your flesh dictates at that given moment because what God is waiting for is a small sign of part of you, a small sign of initiative that is all He needs to say: ok they have opened ground for me here in the world of time and space and through that ground I am going to enter and I am going to do what I know how to do so. Sometimes what God needs is a small gesture of humiliation and obedience to His Word so that then the blessing can come into your life.

The illustration of Corrie Ten Boom who was a woman that God used beautifully comes to my mind. She and her sister in Holland were captured by the Nazi army and put in a Nazi concentration camp and suffered untold things there. Corrie's sister, a woman of God, they were two single sisters who loved each other dearly and there she perished, in the concentration camp her beloved sister perished; They were abused and saw the untold abuse and horrific torture and murder in one of the worst concentration camps in Germany.

Corrie Ten Boom walked free, she finally survived in the concentration camp and she says that months later when the Germans had been terribly humiliated and there was a terrible depression in Germany because they realized what they had done and Germany was bombed by the Allies and almost destroyed most of their cities and they suffered a terrible humiliation, she says that one day in a Church she was testifying about the love of God and other things and how God had delivered them and manifested His love on their behalf. of them doing a miracle inside the concentration camp.

At the end of their talk, she says, she was approached by a man whom she immediately recognized as one of the cruelest and most abusive German SS guards in the prison, one of the monsters who had most terribly abused her. the prisoners of the camp and that man approached her to ask her forgiveness and to humiliate himself in front of her and extended his hand to receive her forgiveness.

She says that when that man extended his hand to her, her whole being strongly rejected him, there was so much suffering in her, so much resentment, she remembered so many abuses that this man had executed against defenseless people that she did not have the strength to forgive this man. man even though she had been talking about the love of God and so many other things. She says that in an instant however out of obedience I began to simply do everything possible to extend my hand to him even though my whole being rejected that gesture.

She says that the moment she was activated to extend her hand to him, she says that like a current of God's love it entered her and invigorated her and then her hand extended freely and she was able to extend love and forgiveness to him. this man who needed the Grace of the Lord to cover him and it was a very, very transforming moment in her life for her.

Because many times our flesh, our brother flesh is going to betray us. That flesh that you are, your nervous system, that will only change when you die and enter the Kingdom of God and the Lord transforms you; meanwhile you are going to have to fight with impulses, with inappropriate attitudes, with a lot of things and if you let yourself be dominated, that is the order of the world: let yourself be dominated by appetites, by meat, by the nervous system, by biology , by circumstances, by the manipulation of the world, by the indoctrination of society and the culture in which you live. That is the order of the world, it is slavery to the world and culture.

But the son of God declares his emancipation, declares his inherent freedom from all these things and no longer allows himself to be dominated by any of these things but now his life is a perpetual fight against those low impulses and subject them one by one to the Truth of God and the values of the Kingdom of God.

Then one learns that I am no longer going to let myself be dominated by anything in this world, neither by my biology, nor by my feelings, nor by what my reason tells me; I am going to live says: "From every Word that comes out of the mouth of God." That is what the Lord Jesus Christ says: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

You have to tell your flesh, your mind, your body, your nervous system and your reason every day: I am not going to live by what this fallen nature tells me, I am going to live by what the Lord tells me. manual of the Word of God and anything that is not subject to that Word of God will have to fall on its face as Goliath fell before the stones of David and our life is a life of perpetual emancipation and growth and development in the Power of God.

And then again, here's that word, isn't it: "Widen the place of your tent, the curtains of your rooms be extended, do not be scarce; lengthen your ropes, strengthen your stakes because you will spread out to the right hand and to the left hand." and your descendants will inherit nations and will inhabit devastated cities, says the Lord."

Why should we raise song when we are still barren? because when we raise a song, sterility is going to go away and because God has called me to a life of success, power, victory and the situation that I am experiencing at this moment is simply a starting point towards the glory that God has intended for my person. This is simply the ground from where I take off on that upward journey towards the totality of what God has for my life.

Remember that image: "Because the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn that increases until the day is perfect." Fill yourself with that image in your life. Young man who is just beginning the paths of life: do not settle for being one of those little boys who are out there doing stupid things with a head full of cockroach wings doing all the stupid things that young people do, wasting your time all the time there with the fingers these thumbs that are going to develop. I believe that in two generations children will be born with thumbs about a foot in diameter.

Hey: take advantage of your time, invest. If you are going to use the internet, use it for so many incredible things that are in it to learn more, to read the news, to listen to history, to listen to good music. If you come from a family that has not been educated, look, don't tell yourself: you know what? I am simply going to be a continuation of those ignorant people, no. Say: I am Joshua, I am the first of a new generation, God has given me the land and that land flows with milk and honey and has giant clusters of which I am going to enjoy and enjoy and I am going to live my life as a king, like a princess, like a person who has inherited a great fortune and to the extent that I invest my time in positive things God is going to use that as fuel for a powerful and wonderful fire that He is going to use to illuminate the world. Dark world in which I live.

Fill yourself with a great expectation, raise a song. It is interesting that in this text the woman who has to raise a song is a woman who is still barren, she has not yet been filled with children but God tells her: in anticipation of the children you are going to have rejoice and raise a song. You see? do not wait then to have children then to praise the Lord, praise him in the midst of your sterility and that praise will then bring your abundance and your fertility.

And that is one of the keys. There you have a secret for abundant life, is to believe that this is what God has called you to, God has called you to freedom not to slavery, God has called you to prosperity not to failure, God has called you to fullness not to scarcity and you have to live like one who already has it. And then as someone who has it with all that that implies you will see that you are going to have it.

Many people tell me: Pastor, I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and I was talking to a sister that I don't want her to think that I'm pulling hints, that's something that came to my mind a while ago, right? We say: I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I want to speak in tongues, and I want to experience miracles in my life.

Well, I think that many times people have an erroneous idea of what is the way in which God works in the realization of the gifts in our lives and what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, there are times when the baptism of the Holy Spirit will come upon you like a thundering rain and it will overwhelm you and it will overwhelm you and it will drown you in His glory and in His blessing but many times you see that the infilling of the Holy Spirit it can come as a Word that God declares over your life or a gift can come into your life as a seed that God puts on you and that then develops little by little from use and practice in faith.

Why do you think Paul tells Timothy: "I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands"? Look at what Paul says and what happens is that many times we Pentecostals are not good Bible students, that's how it is. There is an inverse relationship between anointing and knowledge of the Word, that is terrible but it is a reality.

Then Paul tells Timothy: "I advise you to fan the fire of the gift of God in you" it is already in you. Now what is that "stir up"? If you go to the Greek word that is translated into Spanish: fan means to fan like when a woman, I know that many of the sisters here have never been in front of a stove with a piece of cardboard there, fanning the coal so that it turn on, look, some are laughing but it's uncomfortably nervous so they don't see me (laughs) if you lived through that, give glory to God because it's an immense privilege, that's good.

And it's like when a fire, when you take the embers that are there as if asleep and you blow them so that the oxygen that that breeze throws on the flame fan them and then they catch on fire. So look, he says: "I advise you to revive" there is a part that we have to do in our life and it is to revive. God's part is to put the God in you and your part is to fan the gift, to fan it until it becomes a flame.

"May you stir up the gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands." There are many people who I believe have already received the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit but do not know that they have it because they have been given the idea that they had to fall to the ground and roll around for half an hour and come out with all the shadows in their eyes. dripping, looking like a racoon over there (laughs) no, and if they don't have those marks, no, we have to go back again, we're going to sink it again, right?

There are people who believe so: you have to speak in tongues immediately and if you don't speak in tongues we are going to slap you four times so that you speak somehow or we are going to give you a recording there so that you can listen to it and start: ablbdablbaadbl speaking nonsense so that you say that you are speaking in tongues. And then people allow themselves to be influenced by all this bad teaching and then expectations are created.

I have always believed that what we have to do to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is: believe that if we ask for bread He will not give us a stone, and we have to believe: I have it, I have received it, I have asked Him for it to the Lord, I believe; there is no objection, there is no then I have received it and then you begin to live in faith as you have it.

Declare things in the Name of the Lord. Start praying: if the cat has a cold, start praying for it to heal, exercise the gift of healing. Start declaring blessing left and right right? If the patient died, pray for another one that may be better for you the second time, whatever, but continue declaring anointing. Believe that the Lord is going to give you a revealing dream tonight and that you are going to receive something powerful.

And he begins to speak by faith in a new tongue. When you are in such a moment of free worship, do not look at your wife if she is looking at you and the boys, put your hand like this if you want and start talking, say something. Open your mouth in faith and believe that the Lord is in you and then start declaring whatever comes to mind by faith. Maybe you're going to make a fool of yourself, but you know what? that many times you have to break the ego for God to manifest himself in us.

There are many people that God is already telling them: look, open your mouth now and get out of this at once, open it because I already gave it to you, "oh Lord, give me the gift, give me the gift!" you already have it open your mouth and speak simply in faith.

How do children learn to speak? they learn by saying: gugu, dada and then they begin to speak and then they say: mom and not even mom say: ma and little by little they then begin to say complete sentences and a grammar emerges and all of this takes years and that's the way it happens with gifts, they must be exercised by faith. You have to believe by faith: I already have it, God wants to bless me with His Spirit, I have confessed, I have declared, I have believed, I have opened my life, my mind to the Lord so I already have it, I believe it and now I am leaving to move as a man, a woman filled with the Spirit and that Spirit is going to become a reality while I walk in the daily life; As I live as a woman, a man filled with the Holy Spirit I will become a man, a woman filled with the Holy Spirit. For me, that is the ethics that I believe the Word of the Lord tells us.

And at that time you are going to speak in tongues, you are going to pray for the sick, you are going to rebuke demons, you are going to do a number of things. When I look at our Church how it started 20-odd years ago when we first began walking in the Spirit-filled path this Church was a traditional Baptist Church. And when the Lord touched my life 20-odd years ago, I don't remember when we started, I started in faith. I had no model because, frankly, the Pentecostal model I had seen had never impressed me so much; respect but I did not feel that this was what God truly had for my life and it is not what I saw portrayed in the Word although I respect that and I know that there are so many good things in the traditional Pentecostal model.

These are learning to be Pentecostals up there by the way (laughter). But we started by faith, I didn't know the slightest thing; It was like a person who has been told: you are a mechanic and from now on you are going to learn to fix cars and I didn't even know how to put the key in a car door. He had no way, he did not know the techniques or the technology of the Holy Spirit.

Our Church had been a relatively traditional Church, although it was never a dead Church, I must say, but you had no experience in rebuking demons. When I began to practice the pastorate like this, I had never seen someone rebuking a demon, I had never seen anyone imposing hands like this in reality to impart the gift of the Holy Spirit, we did not worship the Lord like this with many instruments or many things; Our service was a very beautiful and very blessed service, but it did not have that fire and that identity of the Pentecostal world.

So I had to start inventing the world in the Name of the Lord. I only knew that God had touched me and that our Church had to enter into a journey of learning to handle the technology of the Holy Spirit as a Congregation.

So we jumped in by faith and the Lord began to speak into my life and one of the things I had to do was declare by faith that we were going to be a Spirit-filled Church. Some who have been here through that journey in Cambridge know what I'm talking about and they smile because they know I'm telling the truth, I have witnesses here who can tell whether or not I'm telling the truth.

We started like that with nothing but I believed that if the Lord had touched my life He was going to do things, right? The road at the beginning was a bit rocky and stormy, I tell you, but the fact was that one of the things was that God began to bring people to the Church out of nowhere who moved in the gifts of the Spirit, imperfect people I tell you, one thing that one can say people with imperfections like everyone else were not spiritually better in a sense than others who did not have but they were soldiers who had learned to handle Pentecostal weapons and began to come to the Church and began to help me.

They were like Apollos being instructed, who were they? Aquila and Priscilla and they told me: Pastor, sometimes they frankly annoyed me because they said things that I didn't like, it's fine but one has to be humble and I thought: God is bringing these people to help me and teach me.

Musicians also began to come who could play different instruments. I began with fear and trembling to pray for the sick and to speak the Pentecostal language and sometimes I even felt ridiculous and people began to fall without me even laying hands on them in the middle of a time of intercession. And I remember the first time a demon showed up in the service on a Wednesday night I think it was, and I didn't have any idea how to rebuke a demon, I did have a few things.

The fact was that we were fighting with that demon until around four in the morning and I think he left more because he was tired than because I did something that would throw him out (laughs) Honestly, I think the demon said: look, this looks like he doesn't give up so I'm going to go and I'm going to leave him alone now so he doesn't keep bothering me. And then I learned that you don't have to fight so much with the demons, you have to declare the Word of the Lord, I say this with supreme humility but many times when there is already a situation like this I already feel and I simply don't move much or shout much like a demonic interview and I declare to the demon what he has to do and what the Word of the Lord says about his state in Christ Jesus who has defeated him and those demons sooner or later have to flee and they have to leave if the person also does its part because this isn't witchcraft either is it? the person has to cooperate as well.

But we were learning little by little, the Lord was taking us through the practice and through submitting ourselves to the process because if I had waited to go to a Pentecostal school to be taught all this technology I would never have done anything. The Lord gave me that revelation that changed the destiny of our Church when I saw the Lion of Judah as a lion's face over the city of Boston and under that lion's face a pack of poisonous spiders covering the whole city and I declared the lordship of the lion of the tribe of Judah over Boston and that changed the destiny of our Church and it was what led us to come to this city from Cambridge where we were before, change the name of the Church and what was going to be the destiny of this Congregation.

Revelations came into my life, the Word came. Now in that revelation it was not like two cherubs with immense wings did not come to tell me: my son, behold, the Lord tells you: The Word of Jehovah over your life, God tells you: move from Cambridge to Boston, no. I received that image, I received that dream, I received it because it was the Word of God and not simply because I had eaten too many cakes that night and said no: this is from God; It is so clear, it is so coherent, the revelation is so beautiful, this does not come from man and so I asked the Lord to give me wisdom: what did that mean for the life of our Church?

And one of the things I felt is: God is telling you that you have to move from Cambridge to Boston and leave the comfort of a temple that was not even given to us, a beautiful temple. A most beautiful and decent area of the city, middle class, upper-middle class come to fight here with all these Dominicans and all these terrible people from here; I'm Dominican, just in case, you know? Yes, sister María left me a mangoo, sorry, right?

But we came to this city full of crime and the malice of the enemy broken to deal with a dilapidated building that we had to start investing money that we did not have and start that journey. Throughout this process God was developing the gift that He had declared about this Church over my life.

But if I stay there waiting for a procession from heaven to come to invite us to come to Boston to a temple already made, we would still be there 200 cats there praising in the middle of Cambridge Port. But when God speaks about your life, when God declares something about your life, you have to receive it, process it, internalize it, sanctify it, claim it, put the seal of divine approval on it and then go ahead and then God begins to develop the gift because God declared a Don.

Through that vision of the lion of Judah I felt that it was like God encoded a series of elements in the internal constitution of this Church and put them there within us. And so the last 17-20 years since I had that dream, that revelation has been an unraveling and taking apart of the fire of the gift of God that was implanted in us.

And this morning when the second mayoral candidate came here to Boston and there were two Boston city councilmen and other people here who are influential in the city and who come to our Congregation to introduce themselves to our Congregation and greet it and seek the blessing of this Church I say: wow what a trajectory. We could still be there in the comfort of Cambridge Port but God wanted this Church, because one of the things that I clearly felt in the vision that God gave me was urban genes and being a Church for the city.

And also in the lion of Judah image of being a militant Church like a lion and being a Church of authority and we haven't fully gotten there yet, and being a Church of warfare and spiritual conflict; not a Church that would allow itself to be tamed by the world, but one that would make war against the world and that is why we have to maintain ourselves as a Church of holiness that does not back down.

The Bible says that the lion does not back down. Even though many hunters come, the lion remains in its position and we have to be a Church that never lowers ourselves to the seductions and traps of the devil so that we are a Church like a trained kitten that tells people what they want to hear. God has not put that code in us. God has put a code of war.

We have to be a Church that is sophisticated but ultimately harsh, harsh in the manner of the Kingdom of God like Elijah; It is a Church that has a roughness like the lion and also a royalty like the lion, right? And it is a Church of adoration because Judah is the tribe of adoration and it is also a Church that, like Judah, is a Church that is the head, not the tail, that leads, that heads, that exemplifies, that directs only for the glory of the Lord, right?

But God codified all these elements in us and we had to set out on the path of finding the realization of that gift and we are still there and we have not yet arrived, but the Lord says to the Lion of Judah: Look, I command you to make an effort and be brave. Revive the gift that is in you, it is in you; now simply take it out, put it in manifestation, launch yourself to conquer it and make it real day by day every Sunday when we come to the House of the Lord, that is why when we come here to adore the Lord, we do not come there all flattened to sit there so that the person who it's up here whoever is doing all the hard work: you're called to be a part of that worship team.

And we have to come here each one of us ready and prepared to stand up, raise our hands, worship the Lord, establish the atmosphere that is required for the anointing and the Grace of God to come down on the place, you have to do that. also. Each one of us has a calling from the Lord.

So if we understand: wow God has called us to be a worshiping Church then when you come here you have to feel a sense of great responsibility and commitment that you are not going to be a force that subtracts and slows down but a force that pushes forward the atmosphere of praise that is required in this place, do you understand?

And when you are praying for a sick person you cannot simply be there: oh look how good the Pastor sounds when he is praying, how beautiful, oh yes, how beautiful; you have to be there praying too saying: amen glory to God I believe, support that prayer Father we send blessing and healing. Each one of us has to say that it has to be.

When your Church has missions to accomplish and commitments to attend to, you are the first to be there because you are a warrior. You are a little piece of that sword that the Lord is using. You are a particle of that arrow that God is going to direct against the enemy. You have to do your part, you cannot simply be a spectator, you have to be an element that fans the fire of God that is in us, the collective that is the Lion of Judah.

That 9 o'clock service and the 12 o'clock service have to be united in the Spirit as if it were one flesh, as if it were one Congregation with one mind. And we have to go towards what the Lord has declared about our life and you have to do that in your own personal life. God has called you to be a gentle, loving, considerate husband, a support for your wife. As Christ loves the Church, you have to love her and support her and care for her and protect her.

And you woman of God have to be a support for your husband, you have to be like a source of power because the woman either impoverishes the man or gives him strength, one of the two things. A woman has the capacity to destroy a man, his ego in many ways and the woman God has called her to be like a deposit of strength. I don't believe in that of women as the weaker sex, the Lord rebuke that devil's lie, women are stronger than us, I say it sincerely.

I know that Meche is going to say at the end of the service: ah, do you remember what you said? But you woman of God, you have to see yourself as a warrior princess. I used to say that to two young women who could be my daughters, they could be Sonia or Abigail there, you are warrior princesses. When I pray for my daughters, I don't simply ask that they be princesses, because for me princesses are those little princesses, right? With very pretty tulle dresses and delicate heels, no. A warrior princess with a sword in her hand and a spear of power.

I have always said: a woman of God filled with the Holy Spirit, no one, no man can abuse her, I'm sorry, I believe in that. If you have the Holy Spirit and the power of God is in you, they cannot put their hand on you because the power of God is going to jump out of you and that man is going to have to respect you if he does not already respect you. But woman, you can be a blessing, you have to ask: Lord, help me to be a woman who exemplifies the glory of Your Kingdom, not a carpet to be walked on, but a column to lean on.

And I tell our young people: believe that God has called you as a new generation, it is the Joshua generation, it is the Samuel generation. You now have the privilege of entering a stage in the history of humanity, I tell young people, in which humanity is desperately in need of the things of the Kingdom of God, wise and understanding men and women, cultured but full of the power of the Spirit. Holy and possessed of a supernatural mentality, learned in the knowledge of the Word of God and in the use of the weapons of spiritual warfare and also highly educated and cultured.

And you have in your hands the power to decide the fate of nations and of this nation and therefore you have to be living as people who have been called to a key moment in young history, not as a beggar who is losing his life over there; they are heirs of the Kingdom of God and they have to live as people who one day are going to inherit the Kingdom and then they have to educate themselves as princes who are going to inherit one day and are going to be kings and priests. They have to take advantage of every minute, they have to redeem the time.

And so we have to be in all areas of our life, we have to align everything according to what God has declared, the freedom to which God has called us, we have to live at that level every day. The devil will tell you: no, you are a beggar, you are a poor devil. You are simply the continuation of the generations that have died in this world and have not left a trace and you are going to say: lie in the face of the devil and you are going to say: I know what I am in Christ Jesus, I know in who I have believed, I know what God has done to me in reality.

I'm going to live up to what God has declared about my life and even if I don't feel it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to live as if it were for it to be in reality. So we have each area in our life, how do you want to live financially? Do you want to live wasting money on nonsense and buying all kinds of trinkets that later boots and you don't know what to do with them or do you want to have your own domain and use your money for good and lasting things that God wants for your life.

The Internet is a very good resource, a dangerous weapon, but the Internet also has good things. How are you going to use it? Are you going to use it to watch pornography and watch silly shows informing you about the latest shoes Madonna or whoever is wearing or are you going to use it to read the news, learn about history and culture, listen to a good piece of music and educate yourself? because you are a king and soon you are going to inherit the Kingdom, soon you are going to be put in a position to do things.

When you are called to disciple someone, are you going to be ready? When the devil wants to steal your son, your daughter or destroy your marriage, you will know what to do because you have been preparing for war. When sickness comes into your life, are you going to collapse because you never prepared yourself or are you going to be ready to do spiritual warfare and seek healing and seek health and seek wisdom and peace in the Lord no matter what is happening in your life?

It is that every minute you have to live it in light of who you are and what God has called you to do, not in light of what you think you have at this moment. I conclude, God has completely changed my sermon because every time I see that God is speaking prophetically at every moment.

What God tells us: don't live as you are but live as you have been called to be, okay? that is the Word of God for your life. Live according to what God has placed in you and make sure that each intervention, each movement that you make in your life is to fan the fire that is already in you, the ember is already in you, now simply fan it until it becomes a blazing fire that gives value to everything around you and your own life too.

Get up, you who were barren, give a song because many more are the children of the forsaken than those of the married, says the Lord. You will spread to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south because God has called you to be a conqueror of nations, a restorer of fallen walls, a repairman of cities; That is the inheritance of the children of God, that is your inheritance that you have and that is what the Lord has called you. Don't let anything steal it from you by living like a beggar when God has called you to all the riches He has in glory.

Let's stand up and now receive that Word of God in your life. I pronounce this Word about this Congregation: "For this reason I have also heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love for all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers so that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, enlightening the eyes of your understanding so that you may know "listen people of God" so that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you and how great the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the super eminent greatness of His Power towards us who believe according to the operation of the power of His might which He operated in Christ raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His Right Hand in the heavenly places over all principality and authority and power and dominion and over every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come."

"And He put all things under His feet and gave Him the head over all things to the Church, which is His Body the fullness of him that fills all in all." I declare that Word over us, may God give us discernment. May God remove the conservative and small mentality from our understandings, may God remove the cobwebs of the devil that says we have to live a poor and sad and failed life, anonymous, defeated and that the devil has power over us and that people control us and moves us like puppets; may the Lord take away all of that and may he give us a spirit of revelation and wisdom to understand how great is the inheritance that we have received through Christ Jesus and how great is the power and authority that we have to win in all the struggles that come to our life and to come out shining like gold from all trials, difficulties, suffering and failure to turn everything into gold.

Glory to His Name, growth for our lives, blessing for our community. The devil is not going to get away with it in your life or in the life of this Church or in this city, we are not going to give him an inch of land because God has given us the land and no one is going to take us out of this land in the name of the Lord.

"So that you may know what is the super eminent greatness of His power towards us who believe" take that promise into your life, that is in Ephesians chapter 1 look it up and mark it there in your Bible and read it several times a day, take a pill of that Word every day when the devil wants to whisper defeat and depression to you and say it until you believe it. Declare it until it becomes part of your blood and your veins and your very marrow.

Father I declare this Word. Lord, because of its greatness and its sublimity, we believe that You have purposes in it and we ask you to help us be that spearhead, Lord, in this place where you have put us, to take us to new heights, Father. We believe that You have called us to be a prophetic voice, You have not called us to simply hold a religious meeting every Sunday and have the people return just as they entered Father; We do not believe that this is the purpose for which You have called us, quite the contrary.

We embrace Your call. We embrace the fire of God's gift that is in us and Father, with Your help we will fan that gift every day in all our interventions. Every time we raise a little child, every time we put money in the offering basket and tithe, every time we serve someone anonymously somewhere, every time we put on our coats to go out into the cold and snow of on a Wednesday night to come to Church.

Every time we kneel down to pray when we don't feel like praying, every time praise comes out of our mouths when what it wants to come out are curses and complaints, every time we have to do something we don't want to do, we will remember the fire of the gift of God who is in us and we are going to live as excellent people, people of the Kingdom, powerful people, people who have been called to possess cities and lands for the glory of the Name of Jesus. Help us to live at that height, Father, and be a window into the Kingdom of Heaven so that others can see and enter it to be blessed.

We declare a blanket of blessing over this town now, a blanket of provision and victory and do not allow the devil to come out now and shout lies about us Lord, we reject them in the Name of Jesus and we will dwell in this curtain of blessing that You have put Around us. Thank you Lord I receive it, I live it, I execute it, I practice it and I receive it completely in my being. Thank you Father in the mighty Name of Jesus we say: amen, God bless you my brothers, the Grace of the Lord be with you, amen and amen. Thank you Lord Jesus.