emotional and spiritual health

I want to briefly pick up the train of thought that I finished the previous Sunday and continue in the Letter to the Ephesians, in chapter 6. As you know we have been talking about emotional healing, spiritual healing, but not only healing as something that is a remedy defensively, but also aggressively, we want to talk about emotional and spiritual health because God calls us to health. The Word says in one of John's epistles that God wants us to prosper in our spirit, just as our body and soul also prosper, that our whole being prosper.

And we have said that God does not want us to live captive to the deformities and pains, and the sufferings of the past, but rather that God wants us to be healthy, healthy people, who reflect the vitality and joy, and the health of the Holy Spirit.

We have said, however, that in life there are things that happen that do negatively affect the lives of the children of God, and we have wanted to present what I call a dynamic model of the reality of the spirit; and it is that in the Christian life we are always battling with difficult situations, with situations of loss. This morning we mentioned, and I ask you to pray for Sister Sandra Barbieri and her family, that her father, after undergoing open heart surgery, an eighty-year-old man, went to visit him a couple of weeks ago at the hospital, full of encouragement and of hope, and we thought that this operation had already been a success, and unfortunately yesterday, in an almost routine intervention, his life was given to the Lord and he passed into the Presence of the Lord, brother Elpirio.

And Sandra is a woman of great faith. We have just celebrated right now the victory that our sister Dilia has experienced. And I say that life often moves between those two extremes. And in my desire to glorify the Lord and to exalt His Name, I can never forget that we also have to remember that many times we are going through difficult processes and we cannot deny them. Now what we do believe is that in the midst of all these things we are more than conquerors. May it be as the apostle Paul says, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Whatever happens in our life, God uses all events in life to form in us the image of Christ Jesus; be it trials or difficulties, God can use them for His glory.

I do know that in the life of the children of God there is no such thing as a defeat but that God always glorifies himself in everything. And through these presentations that we are doing, we are trying to provide our brothers with those weapons, those resources that can be used for our emotional health, for our healing, that help us fight infections and life threats.

Today there is a lot of talk about the Ebola virus, everywhere they are talking about this terrible virus that kills more than 90% of the people who are affected by this virus. And we remember that the world is full of spiritual viruses; there are hosts of evil, there are demonic powers that rejoice in wanting to snatch the image of God from human beings. Paul says that: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against wickedness in heavenly places." Because wherever we move in this fallen world we are battling the evil principle that claims to rule this world, and we are all part of that battle.

Now, the Bible says that Christ came to undo the works of the devil, and the Word of God also says that on the cross of Calvary the Lord defeated principalities and powers. There is no infection that can destroy the life of one of God's children if we stand on what God has declared, God wants victory for us.

And many times in the Christian life God enters us into processes or allows us to enter into processes that are difficult and that can be harmful, but if we go through them in the Spirit, when we come out of there we come out strengthened, stronger and more beautiful than when we enter them.

Now, what often happens is that there are Christians who, when they enter these times of trial, since they don't know what are the resources that God has provided, since they don't know that God has declared victory in our lives, they don't know how to fight. against these attacks from the enemy, and the Word is full of good advice, statements of truth from God that can serve as a platform for our emotional and spiritual health. And my desire is, through these meditations, to provide my brothers with some of those tools and to talk a lot, freely, about that God who wants us to prosper in all things, who wants us to use all the experiences of life. life, good and seemingly bad, to grow and be more like Jesus Christ.

There are tools that God has provided, there are lists everywhere, there are principles in Scripture that, if we analyze them through the lens of that health and that desire of God to provide us with these weapons of health and life, can be of great help. in our continuous battle against the germs of evil that threaten us in our lives.

I started like this, very casually, because I only wanted to use it as an illustration on the way to other principles that I considered much more important, but when I began to talk about this armor of the Spirit that God provides; and by the way, if you can get, if you go to: armor of God, images, and you can find one where it puts the different parts of the armor of a Roman soldier, I know it's there because there are many of them, so make it even more graphic than what I'm talking about.

In Ephesians chapter 6 the apostle Paul points out a series of resources that we have, he says that: "So that when the bad day comes into our lives we can resist, and not only resist, but when the process of fighting has passed, we can be firm" in our position, stronger than ever. And some of those resources, because it is not an exhaustive list either.

You know that many times we have constituted the armor of the Spirit, or the armor of God as a talisman, and in the Pentecostal world there are people who recite the armor that Paul points to here as if it were something magical. And Paul was just giving an illustration like any preacher does, and he used the armor that a Roman soldier wears to protect himself and to fight effectively, and he applied it to certain aspects of the Christian life that we have to take into account.

And last Sunday I only managed to touch a couple of them, and in verse 14 and 13, where the apostle Paul says that we take on the whole armor of God, and that word: all, is very important, because if there is a part of all the Truth of God that we are not putting into practice we are fragile on that part.

In Scripture there is the story of a king who had been prophesied to die and dressed in all his royal armor, and since God had declared that this man was going to die, even though he was dressed in full armor, there was a small gap says in one of the areas that joined two parts of his armor, a tiny gap. And it says that a soldier, in the middle of the war, randomly shot an arrow, and that arrow went like a dart directly into that little hole that was in his armor and that's where this man died.

And so it happens many times in our lives. We apply ourselves to many areas of the Christian life but there are other areas that are fragile, and the devil is a very cunning hunter, and he studies us, and he detects where the weak areas of our life are. And that is why the Christian life must be an integral life where we put on everything that God provides, all the truths of Scripture, we have to use them.

Because many times there are fragile areas in our lives and we say: Lord, what is it? If I'm doing this, I'm tithing, I'm praising, I'm going to church, I'm serving, but you know what? perhaps there is a practice in your life, perhaps there is something that you need to strengthen and that is why we have to take on all the armor, we have to see all the areas that God wants us to provide ourselves.

It says: "So that you can resist in the evil day." What is the bad day? the bad day can be a twenty-four hour day or it can be a moment in life, or it can be a run of trouble, or it can be a long-term process that we enter into, it can be a moment in our life that wants us deform, wants to destroy us, and that if we let it, it can become a destructive fortress in us.

The bad day is anything that obeys and reflects the principle of evil that governs this world and God wants us to be able to resist. Perhaps in your life, in your childhood there was a bad day, that bad day could be a father who did not affirm you or who sexually abused you. It may be a teacher who ridiculed you in the midst of your peers at a formative age in your life. It may be a failed marriage. It may be a terrible sin that you committed that has harassed you all your life and does not let you have peace with God, and the devil uses that to hammer out that you are not worth it, that you cannot, that you are not going to arrive, that you are not going to never achieve anything from God. It may be an inferiority complex, it may be a tendency to depression, it may be an anxiety that you don't know how to get rid of.

There are many different things that can constitute that bad day in our life and we have to look for the antidote, the medicine of the Word of God and the truths that the Word of God contains in order to counteract those weapons that the devil wants to use to destroy us. And that when we have gone through that process, having finished everything, and having completed the process that God wants us to follow, we can stand firm.

And I can tell you something about that too. It says: "Having finished everything." And when I said that, although I have meditated so much on these passages, something else also occurred to me. And it is that, I believe that this comes from the Spirit of God for you, we have to follow the processes that God determines and we have to complete them. Many times God initiates deals in our life and because they are difficult and unpleasant deals we don't want to complete them and you know what? we got out of them early.

There are brothers who enter a time of trial in their lives and God wants to do a surgical work, he wants to cleanse them, he wants to use the trial like a fire to burn things that are in them. But since the cross weighs and hurts, and we often feel these struggles in our lives, many times what we do is that we stop going to Church, we stop praying, we deny God, we get cold, we stop serving and the devil He gets away with it, and the process that God wanted to happen in our lives is cut short. We have to drink the cup that God has served us to the last drop as the Lord drank it.

The Lord said: "Father, take this cup from Me if it is Your Will, but Your Will be done and not Mine" and took the cup from the cross completely. And God uses the cross in our lives to accomplish His purposes, and we have to be obedient. When God puts the cross on your back, don't try to get rid of it prematurely. Discern if it is the cross of Christ, and if it is the cross of Christ let it fulfill its purpose in your life completely, because there are elements in life that God uses for His glory and they are not for your destruction, but for your spiritual formation .

God uses all the experiences of life to carry out His purposes, so finish God's purposes, ask God for discernment so that He fulfills everything He wants to fulfill in your life. Many times in the Pentecostal world, in the world of the Spirit that we embrace and confess, I say that in us there is too much superficiality about what the mysterious purposes of the Lord are. God not only works through the beautiful and the joyful, and in the place of health and prosperity; God sometimes works in the place of affliction and trial, and God often uses these situations to form us.

Now what happens is that when we look at it through the lens of the flesh we say: oh, this is the devil who is doing something in my life, and then we turn what is God's for us into something diabolical. We have to ask God for discernment, God does not work only in healing.

If God heals you, celebrate and glorify him, but if God tells you: you know what? I want you to be there in the test oven for a while longer and to take your little pill obediently say: Lord, Your Will be done. Fulfill Your purpose in my life. It is not only through the obvious miracles that God works, we have to fulfill everything that God wants in our lives, and I believe that is the type of Christian who can go through the tests, through the storms and always come out graceful, always victorious, stronger than ever, more dangerous for the hosts of the devil.

Enjoy yourself in every situation. As the apostle Paul says: "Before in all these things we are more than conquerors" hallelujah. And once we have completed God's purpose in our life then we will be strong and more like Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that Christ was made perfect through afflictions. I do not know how the Son of God could be perfected by being perfect but that is what the Epistle to the Hebrews says, He learned obedience, He was formed through trials and difficulties. "So having finished everything, we must stand firm."

God wants us to be healthy beings, but many times there are things that He has to extract in our lives and He can only do it through the crucible of difficulties and trials. And perhaps what you believe was an indication of the devil's work in your life, in your childhood, you know what? God put it there as a mark of blessing for you. It just requires that you change your perspective and that you stop seeing yourself as a victim, like where was God when that happened to me? God was there next to you preparing you to use that one day, as something to bless others, to be a better counselor.

And God stops me at that passage right there instead of going forward. Let's think about the apostle Peter, this man that God was going to use greatly as one of the great apostles of His Church. When the Lord calls him, he is a man full of imperfections and full of character flaws. He has a heart that is a wonderful raw material that the Lord knows can be used greatly but it is full of deformations, deformations of character, attitudes that cause him to stumble.

How many Christians I know that in this Church there is not that type of Christian, but in other churches I have met people who have great potential for God, they have great endowments but likewise they also have great character defects that they have not delivered to the Lord. And so they're secretly disobedient kids, they're denying the Lord entry into areas of their life because they don't want God to deal with them in those areas, and so they want to put deodorant in those smelly areas of their life, serving in church, giving money, worshipping, claiming the gifts of the Spirit, but God says, you know what? That foliage won't fool me. There is something that I want that is there within you. And God wants to deal with us, God wants to extract those imperfections.

And God wanted to do that in the life of the apostle Peter, because the Lord Jesus Christ knew that in Peter, that pride that was in him, that impulsiveness that was in him, that sense that: I am better than all the others who serve you And even if everyone leaves you, I will never leave you. There was a trust in the flesh in the apostle Peter that is not suitable for the children of God and those who are going to serve God above all. There was a masculine, biological verve in him that God did not want in a man who was to be a spiritual pillar of His Church, and God wanted to deal with that area of Peter's life.

That is why Peter at one moment had great outbreaks of illumination, and at another time he muddied everything with his imperfect character. At one point, for example, the Lord says: "Who do people say that I am?" "ah! they say that you are Elijah, they say that you are John the Baptist who rose from the dead." "And who do you say I am?" Peter says: "You are the Son of God, the Son of the most high God, You are the Lord of lords" and the Lord says: "Blessed Peter, in that Word God has made you a rock for My Church, you are stone, you are living rock."

But at another time he says: You know what? I have to be crucified, the Son of man has to suffer, he is going to be scourged, he is going to be crucified, he is going to be buried and he will rise again on the third day and Peter says: "Lord, may such a thing not happen to you." And the Lord said to him: "Get away from me, Satan, because you always have your eyes fixed on men and not on the things of God."

The same Peter who confesses something great and powerful that the Lord says: This is a cornerstone of My Church, at another time wants to deny the cross in the life of the Son of God. At another time the Lord says: I want to wash his feet and I want to show a lesson in humility, and Peter says: Lord, I will never allow You to wash my feet. false mercy. And the Lord says: "If you don't let Me wash your feet you can have no part in My life." Because Peter believed that: how is it possible that such a powerful man claims to wash the feet of His disciples? that did not fit into his mundane scheme that people of power and authority should not serve, but on the contrary, should use them. And the Lord said: No, I have not come to be served, I have come to serve others, and that is the law of the Kingdom of God.

At another time Peter when the Lord says: You are all going to abandon me, you are going to leave me, and Peter says: Lord even if everyone leaves you, this male that is here will never leave you! And the Lord said to him: Peter, Peter... you're not only going to deny me once, you're going to deny me three times.

But notice what the Lord told him in that case, told Peter and told His disciples: "Satan has asked you to sift you like wheat." And he said to Peter: "But I have prayed that your faith does not fail, and you, once returned, go and strengthen your brothers."

And what was the Lord saying to Peter? I believe that the Lord told him: Look, Peter, you are going to go through a test like never before in your life and you are going to do something that will bring you shame for the rest of your life. But when you have gone through that test, why look at this: the mysteries of the relationship between God and Satan are abysses that we better not even get into there. It says: "Satan has asked you to sift you like wheat." Just think about that and you're going to blow your brains out; Satan coming before the Throne of God and saying, let me touch these, let me shake them, let me taste them.

What happened to Job? the same. There are mysteries that it is better not to do much theology about them because we are going to get into trouble. God can, for a moment, and I don't pretend to understand all of that, but for a moment for therapeutic and healing purposes, God can allow the principle of evil that rules this world to enter our life for an instant. Now God, like a perfect surgeon, He calibrates the level of demonic intervention and never allows it to reach the point of destroying us, but He limits it to the point that He knows it will be therapy for our lives. That is why the Bible says that we will never be tested beyond what we can withstand.

But there are rare interactions between the benevolent purposes of God and the principle of evil. Sometimes things can happen in our life that are harmful, they are gloomy, they are terrible, but behind all that is the divine doctor making sure that all of this redounds in blessing and glory for His Name.

Do you know that there are substances that doctors use in very minuscule amounts that if used in much larger amounts would kill and destroy us? but they are necessary. There are metals in the human body that in minute amounts are necessary for the hormonal balance, the chemical balance of the body. Now if they go a little too far then they become terrible and harmful diseases. But in an adequate measure they compose the balance that the body needs for its stasis, its harmony.

And so sometimes happens in the life of the children of God. There are elements of darkness, of pain, of death, of suffering that have to enter our life and managed by the divine doctor, they are a blessing if we discern them in this way and let them fulfill their purpose. And so it can happen with pain, with experiences of our life and with losses, with failures that we have. God sometimes allows them. God sometimes withdraws His protection for an instant, minimally, so that something enters our lives that counteracts pride, false manliness, dictatorial character, critical attitude, lack of forgiveness, impulsiveness in us, anger, resentment.

And many times, as they say out there: one nail pulls out another nail. Sometimes a negative experience brings out a negative element in us. Sometimes a man who is so full of biological and carnal vigor needs to find himself bedridden for a few days and recognize that he is not the macho he thinks he is. And sometimes God weakens us a little bit, you know? so that we can be more like Christ.

Don't you see what the Word says? says: "That is why there are many among you who are sick, and still sleep." The Bible says, it's talking about the sacrament, remember? people who when the Lord's Supper is served do not discern the most sacred character of that act, and He is referring to people in the times of the Bible, that the Lord's Supper was a complete meal, an agape where people brought their beans, brought their pupusas, they brought refried beans, they brought sancocho and a padlock, and everyone ate together, right? and that food was offered to the Lord as a holocaust to the Lord.

But what happened? that there were people with a lot of money who brought their large meals and even their servants to serve them, and there was a little brother there with a tortilla with salt just eating it, and these here enjoying themselves, and these over here eating minimally. And some would arrive early and they would immediately eat, and others would arrive late, and they could no longer even find the bones. And Paul said: that does not glorify the Lord, that attitude is an irreverent attitude, it is a sacrilegious attitude and the Lord is offended by that; and for this reason there are sick among you and some who have even died.

If you, he says, examined yourselves you would not be judged, and that is a great truth. I don't know why the Lord has stopped me in that because that was not my subject at all but receive it as the Word of God what I am developing here, that sometimes there are negativities that God will allow to enter to deal with us, God sometimes it will weaken us, and there are experiences that we have gone through in our life and are going through that are God's discipline, because God not only operates through beautiful and good things, let me tell you in the light sense of the word .

God is a sinister God, you know? He gives a tabana'a to the prettiest. I have learned to respect the Lord because sometimes the more he loves us, our good spanking is given to us without any problem, and God, if he wants to kill, kills, I do not take away any right from the Lord. I believe that at this time in the 21st century we have wanted to tame God, remove his teeth and nails; God cannot be pulled tooth and nail, God is a warrior and God does what he wants, and God still works as he worked in the first century and as he worked in the fifth century BC. He has not changed his methodology; We have wanted, so to speak, we have pretended that He has changed but He continues to work in the same way, no matter what the superficial preachers out there on television say.

If God wants to kill, God kills, if God wants to make you sick, God makes you sick, if God wants to weaken, God weakens, if God wants to put you through a probationary period, God will put you through until you fulfill His purpose in your life, and what you have to say is: Yes Lord, amen, thank you, how long do you want me to be in the test oven? take me out whenever you want and meanwhile I'm going to learn everything you want me to learn.

Perhaps you have gone through difficult and painful situations in your life, believe that God can take that and turn it into something that allows you to be more like Christ Jesus, change your perspective. Stop interpreting it as something negative and victimizing, and start seeing it as God allowing something He wants to do in you and through you, and that will change your perspective completely. Because many times the narrative that we adopt determines if life experiences are good or bad, write me that there so I don't forget, it's good.

The frame of reference that we adopt many times for the experiences of life, the label that we put on the experiences, determines their final result in our lives. IF you believe that something is bad and for bad that prophecy is going to be fulfilled. If you see it as something that God wants, if you can discern it as the divine purpose being fulfilled in your life, then, by transforming your interpretive lens, it will become a source of blessing for you.

And I submit to your consideration that those painful things that have happened in your lives, enter the prayer room and ask the Lord to give you the ability to discern it as part of God's holy and benevolent purpose in your lives. Do not shy away from the cross because the cross is the most beautiful element that God has to promote health among us.

There are many habits that we have in our life, our marriages, ways we treat our husbands, our wives, our children, ways we behave at work, secret practices that we have. All these things prevent us from being healthy and healthy, and truly happy. And with these things we sometimes exploit our loved ones and the people around us, apparently we get away with it, but they are bleeding us and killing us inside, and they prevent us from truly being happy.

And that is why many times there are anxieties and depressions and insomnia that we have, and even physical afflictions that exist in us, and we wonder why, not always, understand me, but sometimes it comes from areas that we are not giving up to the Lord so that He I treated them. So apparently, we get away with it in a very limited area but lose infinitely in other areas. And many of the ailments of human life and the deformations of us is because we are not discerning the true and negative role that they are playing in our lives.

That is why the Bible says, again, that if we were to judge and examine ourselves we would not be judged. Sometimes God judges us and sometimes the devil judges us because both have, mysteriously; although of course, God is infinitely more powerful than the devil, but Satan does have his role, and there are practices and habits in our life that are giving Satan a foothold to do destructive things in us.

Why do you think the Bible says, "Give no place to the devil"? The word: place is like, in the original Greek it is: aza, like the aza in a cup. Don't give the devil a place to hold you, don't give the devil runways. Some of us have runways so big that a jumbo jet can run free on them.

And we say: no but I don't have anything, no. Check yourself. There are areas in your life that you have to surrender to the Lord. And know? what you have to do is tell him: Lord, if there is something in me that You need to treat, treat it, and say it with fear and trembling, because sometimes God will use his scalpel and scalpel, and it will hurt a little , but in the long run it will be for your healing.

One of the things that the child of God needs most to be emotionally and spiritually healthy and healthy is discernment. Ask the Lord to give you discernment to understand your reality and the reality of life with deep, spiritually sophisticated and accurate eyes. That is what, spiritual discernment is one of the things that I see most lacking among the children of God, and it is because discernment is only developed through many experiences, sometimes painful, through a study continuous where the Word of God gets inside you and becomes an interpretive lens that allows you to examine the experiences of life in the light of the eyes of God, and that allows you then to interpret each experience and get the most out of it, and all its benefit, and that can only be done, again, by the experience itself.

That's why the Bible says, right? I believe that this ability to bear fruit is the apostle Peter, it is for those who have developed spiritual senses through the exercise of it. And one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture is Psalm 39 when it says: "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me." Hey try me, that's not poetry, it's a very strong Word. "Try me" because tests often, like heat, bring out all the vermin that are hidden under the stones of our psyche; "Try me and know my thoughts."

Do you know who the most sophisticated psychiatrist in the universe is? God, the Holy Spirit. There is no psychiatrist that comes close to it. The Word of God says that: "It is a two-edged sword and searches all that is hidden" says: "And discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart." He says that: "There is nothing in this world that hides from your scrutiny."

"Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and guide me in the way everlasting." And many of us say: ah! perversity, that means: yes, perverse people, who are doing bad thoughts, bad desires, adulterers, this and that, no. Path of perversity is everything that is crooked in your life. It can be something as simple as a backbiting, critical tongue. It can be something like an acid sense of humor that hurts your life and does not please the Lord, and grieves the Holy Spirit.

And that path of perversity that is in you illuminated by the experiences of life that are directed by the Holy Spirit, then God can remove it through His intervention. Many times we have to say: Lord, illuminate that area of my life that is hurting my spirit and that is preventing Your glory from manifesting in me, and remove it as You want, Father.

Let me share with you for a moment an interpretive observation of an event that has shaken this nation of late, the suicide of Robin Williams, how many know who Robin Williams is, and what? this has moved the nation. Robin Williams was a much loved man with a unique sense of humor. I confess that sometimes I laughed out loud at his witticisms and sometimes I listened very guiltily because the guy was slipping a few things.

But this gifted man ends up committing suicide. And I always heard and saw that acid and harmful humor, sick, that laughed at things of the Spirit and Christians, with total irreverence for Jesus, and that had no barriers in touching any aspect of human life and desecrating it , and ridicule it, because after all that's humor and that's what makes money, and comedians need material from everywhere, even their grandmother gets ridiculed if they have to, and if they can get a laugh out of it well, all.

But that man, by living that life solely dedicated to that incisive and critical and irreverent humor, was bleeding to death inside, and he was doing himself psychological and emotional damage. Do you know what the solution would have been for Robin Williams? if he had decided to die and surrender everything, like the rich man, everything he held dear, and become like a child in the arms of his Lord. But he decided instead, like the tragic heroes of Greek tragedy, to live in rebellion against the gods and paid the terrible price of death.

Many of us live like this, lives that are bleeding us dry inside. There are things that we do, that we love, that are very harmful to our lives, and giving them up is costly because it is like dying. They give us encouragement, they make us feel important, they bring us fear or fearful respect from people, or money, or whatever, but those things are like a dagger in our spirit that is bleeding us and taking away our joy, and the Spirit of the Lord does not work in us for this reason. And we have to ask the Lord: Lord, help me to discern those areas that are within me. Examine me, know me, determine if there is something in me that you do not like and then guide me on the eternal path.

The psalmist writes that Psalm after having committed a terrible sin and had to pay a tremendous price. Sensuality was rampant in the life of King David, a man who loved the Lord, but there were areas of his life that were not addressed, and those areas the devil used to wreak havoc in his life and in his offspring, in his entire family.

But God wants us to be healthy and that we can even help others to heal, but there is a formative process that God is going to use and we cannot escape that formative process. But that process produces something very special and it is a humble man and woman devoted to the Lord.

And ending again with the illustration of Peter, because I did not forget but sometimes one has to take many trips before returning to the starting point, the Lord said to him: "Peter, Peter, you are going to deny me three times, now , once you have gone through that terrible experience." What he wanted to say was: strengthen your brothers, use that terrible experience to be a blessing to others. And the time came when the Word of the Lord had to be fulfilled, he withdrew a little so that the devil could enter and sift Peter and the disciples like wheat.

And Peter found himself facing the accusation of a mere servant girl in the courtyard where the Lord was being prepared for the crucifixion, he found himself denying the Lord just as the Lord said, three times. And it says that when Peter denied him the third time the Lord looked at him. Can you imagine that scene? the Lord is maybe 20 feet from Peter or maybe 30, 40 feet from Peter, I physically couldn't hear but He knew what was going on.

And look how complex the Lord Jesus Christ goes. He is going through His own process; He is being questioned, psychologically tortured, prepared for the cruelest death and the strongest psychological agony that a being could go through, but he had enough lucidity to be attentive to what that man was going through, whom He was going to use greatly.

And he says that when he denied it three times, he saw the Lord and the Lord saw him, I'm sure, and he says that he cried bitterly, he cried bitterly, because that proof made him contradict everything he believed about himself. He believed that he was a man of integrity that nothing frightened him, he believed that he was a man who knew who Jesus Christ was, who was sure of what he had believed, that he would never deny the Lord, and in a moment the Lord allows it to happen to through an affliction so terrible that it denies everything; And the Lord lets that test eat Peter there because God needed a humble man who knew his weaknesses, who knew his limitations, a man who was capable of advising others.

If you're too sure of yourself you're never going to be a good counselor, you know? We first have to be very beaten and humiliated before we can feel sorry for others, because if you have never had failures you will never feel sorry for someone who has. You are going to say: why does this fool think like this or feel like this? Get strong and push forward like a macho! No. Those of us who have gone through tribulations, anguish, difficulties, trials, brokenness, can sympathize with others as well.

And God needed a counselor, God needed a teacher. And that man who was so impulsive, so full of physical courage, could not be a man as God wanted him, and that is why he allowed him to confront his humanity. And then when the Lord rises, that Peter who before would have been the first to receive and celebrate him is now hiding there in a corner with his tail between his legs, remembering what he has done.

The Lord approaches Peter and says: "Peter, do you love me?" See, that question went to the very core of what he had experienced, because he had denied it. But the Lord, I imagine with a look full of mercy and a mischievous smile on His lips said: "Peter, do you love me?" and Peter says: "Yes Lord, You know that I love you." On another occasion I would have said: Of course! You know that I love you more than all these scoundrels that are here.

"Pedro, do you love me? Yes Lord, You know that I love you" a little less sure. And finally He says: "Peter, do you love me? Yes Lord" or he says: "Lord, You know all things" he doesn't even say to him anymore: Yes Lord, You know that I love you, You know all things, " Well, feed my sheep." And for the three times that he denied it, he gave him three opportunities to express his love by neutralizing each of the denials with a positive affirmation. The Lord wanted to minister to him.

And that impulsive, superficial, self-confident man came to write two Letters that are First and Second of Peter, letters written to people who were going through trials, full of the Lord's consolation. That man would never have been able to write those letters if he had not gone through a whole formative process of trials and trials and trials and brokenness.

The man treated by God writes letters that can be a blessing to his Church. And that is what God wants in your life; God wants you to be a counselor, a teacher, a father, a spiritual mother, God wants you to be a blessing in your workplace, that you be a blessing to your wife, to your children, to your spouse in general, for your friends, and God is going to put you through a process. And when you have finished everything, every time you go through one of those formative experiences and you drink the cup to the end, you do not deny God, you will come out stronger and healthier, more smiling, lighter in spirit , more capable of running the race of faith with lightness, stripping ourselves of all weight and of everything that besieges us, surrounds us, attacks us, let us run the race of faith with lightness. May the Lord wish that today His divine scissors come and cut those burdens that are weighing on your back and that you can run the race of faith with lightness.

What's in your life? Lower your head for a moment, what's in your life? ask the Lord for discernment at this time. Ask the Father what is there in your life that needs to be dealt with? What have you not delivered to the Lord or what is still afflicting you in your life? I want you to give that over to the Lord right now. Each of us has things there.

Discern in the Spirit. Father: what is there in my life that needs to be dealt with? I submit to the scalpel of the Spirit and ask you to deal with me, and take me through a discernment process. I want Your process to be fulfilled in my life, I don't want to be superficial in my way of judging or interpreting. Give me experiences that make me strong or complex in my way of measuring Your Truth and Your experiences.

Teach me Your way Lord, I yield to You, we deliver to You Father the compulsive obsessions, the practices that do not please You. Deal with us Lord, I can't do it by myself but with Your Power I will. I want to be like Christ, I want the image of Christ to be formed in me and like Christ, I want to go through everything that You need me to go through in order for His image to be formed in my life. I do not deny you any part of my life Lord, I will not negotiate with you. What you ask me that I will give you Lord.

Surrender to the Lord. Is there an area in your marriage that you need to give over to the Lord? Is there a practice in your life that you know is troubling you? Is there any way you treat your peers at church or at work that you know does not reflect the integrity and mercy of Jesus? there are resentments in you than you, against people, against the world. There is something harsh inside of you that leads you not to love as you should love and that you know you have to give it to the Lord, give it to him now.

Forgive the world, forgive God even if that sounds scandalous, forgive your father or your mother if they offended you in any way, forgive the one who made you suffer in your marriage. Any wound that is inside you because that is like a magnet that attracts the bad. That untreated part of your life is animal, it is diabolical and the devil is going to be attracted to what God has not treated in your life. Where there is infection, where there is dead meat, cockroaches come and all the bad germs in the world come, that's why you want God to take those things out of you.

Tell him: Lord get them out of my life, I renounce them. I reject them, I throw them out of my life, I don't want them, and I accept Your deal Lord. Form me, perfect me, treat me, heal me, I give you everything, all areas of my being because I want to be like Christ. I want to be healthy and laugh in the midst of the test, I want to walk lightly the race of faith, I want to reflect the values of the Kingdom of God and I renounce everything that does not reflect the values of Your Kingdom and Your Word Lord. Do with me what You want, form me as You want, because when Your image has been formed in me then I can be truly happy and healthy, and I can be a blessing to others.

I embrace Your treatment in my life, nothing can hurt me, because You use everything for Your glory, You use everything to bless my life. Thank you for what you didn't give me and thank you for what you gave me that I didn't want. Thank you because Your purposes for my life are extraordinarily good and beautiful, and benevolent, and because You have a glorious destiny for me, for my home and for my children, and you will lead me on a path of blessing, and I can be calm, calm. because everything that happens in my life is going to be for the glory of Your Name, and I receive it, and I confess it so, Lord.

Everything is at Your feet, I throw everything at Your feet. Take what you want and leave me only what you want Lord. Form a people like Your Son Jesus Christ, a smiling people, an admirable people, an enviable people for their health and for their benevolent and generous character. Thank you, thank you Lord, thank you, we adore you and we bless you, hallelujah. Give the Lord a big round of applause. To Him be glory and honor forever and ever, amen and amen. God bless you my brothers.