God wants us to be healthy people

We are in the middle of a series of sermons whose message is: How to live healthy lives emotionally, spiritually, mentally, how to be healthy people that reflect that abundant life that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to make possible in us. How to be people who reflect the good Will of God, the gentleness of the Kingdom of the Lord, the emotional health that God wants us to manifest.

There is nothing that contradicts the beauty of the Gospel more than a hateful, offensive, depressed person and it is not that you feel guilty if you are dealing with depression because that is part of God's work to heal us, but those things are like a direct contradiction of what the Kingdom of God is supposed to reflect.

Every time we are imprisoned, we find ourselves imprisoned in some negative area in our life, that sort of tends to contradict the good Will of God in some way, and that is why we cannot hold on and say: I cannot change this. .

Whatever situation you are going through in your life, there is always hope, right? We can never throw in the towel and say: no, I can't keep fighting anymore. Be it a long-term chronic disease, you always have to believe in your life and have hope that God can heal you today, or tomorrow, but never lose hope and say: you know what? I'm going to stop praying, I'm going to stop looking for God, because God always, hope is the hallmark of the Christian life.

So God wants us to be healthy people, that we be people who, even in pain, can reflect a smile and love others, and serve others. That even in the midst of life's losses and painful experiences we can still have a positive life, and that reflects God's love and kindness, and joy, and hope, and all those beautiful values of the Kingdom of God.

And that if we have experienced traumas and experiences in life that have somewhat distorted our character, and that make life sour or bitter, God wants us to be healed of those wounds.

The woman sexually or physically abused in childhood, God can heal you of your pain. The boy who did not receive approval in his childhood and who today is already a man with an inferiority complex or some kind of sense of deficiency, God can heal you. The depressed person with God's help can get out of his depression, amen? The person suffering from chronic anxiety, God can heal you. The person who has some kind of sexual bondage should not say: "oh God made me like this, I have nothing but" no. God can intervene in your life, whatever it is; It can be pornography, it can be homosexuality, it can be lust, whatever, God is powerful to heal your life. We cannot say: no, I cannot.

I can't I think it should be banished from the conceptual vocabulary of the children of God because the Word says: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." So God wants us to be healthy people, positive people, enterprising people, hopeful people, and that we can instill hope in others no matter where we are, at what point in life and let me tell you, we all deal with things. This one who is speaking here has his own emotional struggles and his own wars that he has to fight every day, but I have seen the Lord bring down the giants time after time and that is why I believe, I speak to you from my own experience. A powerful God, a God who breaks down barriers and walls, and who promises to be with us every day until the end of the world.

Last Sunday we talked about the fact that we have value in God and not necessarily in others, do you understand? I said that we have inherent value. I said that this is one of the most important principles of emotional health. The fact that you believe that you are worth it because God gives you value, not men.

We talked about how important it is that we stop depending on others for our self-esteem, that we stop looking to others for validation of our worth, and that we even stop looking at life's acquisitions, even life's achievements. Many times we believe that a university degree is going to give us value, no. What a university degree does is that in a sense it adorns and blesses, but it does not give you value, your value comes from the fact that you are a child of God, that God loves you, that God blesses you, that God is a witness of your struggles, that God created you with courage.

Someone has said that God does not make garbage, that is true. If God made you there is something good and noble in your life. No one can take away your value or give you value, stop looking for value in others. And I said that one of the reasons why having that conviction is so important is because it frees us from the fluctuations of the world.

If your sense of satisfaction and self-esteem comes from what others think of you, what will happen? The day they celebrate you and look for you, and they celebrate you, you are in the clouds. The day they did not call you on the phone, they did not send you a birthday card, you are in the greatest depression possible. Then you are like a weather vane in the wind, subject to the ups and downs of life.

Why do so many people commit suicide when they reach a certain age? because perhaps their esteem was in their beauty, in their triumph, in their popularity, when they reach a certain age and look older and have lost the glow of youth they want to shoot themselves, hang themselves from a door or whatever because? because its value was placed on something fleeting, circumstantial.

I have said that the children of God must disconnect the cables that emotionally bind us to those changes in life and we have to put our faith and our anchor in Christ Jesus, He is the rock, He is the solid foundation under our feet.

You are worth because God has made you, because God loves you and no matter where you are, you can do something positive in life. No matter what limitations you are dealing with, you are worth it and can contribute positively.

I am happy about that celebration that we had yesterday honoring women over seventy years old because we live in a culture that glorifies youth, and if you are not young and beautiful, don't dress, you won't (laughs), that's right, right? ? We glorify beauty and vitality, and what about the beauty of long experience, wisdom, life that creates substance in a person? how much value is given to that?

Brothers: God free us from a world governed only by young people, I tell you. Glory to God, we need the young, but we also need the wisdom of a more advanced age and I'm not saying it because I'm getting there (laughs), I've always believed it and one of the things I've always tried is look for the warmth of people older than me and with more experience, always look for someone with more experience than you and let yourself be mentored. Young people, look for people with experience and stick with it. Young sisters, find a woman of experience and age and ask her about life, and learn from that woman. Find a partner who is experienced as well and has been through your struggles, and ask them: how did you get to this point in your life, and what can we learn?

One of the most beautiful things about that is valuing gray hair, valuing the old boundaries because the world is very superficial. And when we become attached to the values of the world and say: oh, this is what makes me valuable, when that dissipates then you are hanging in the nothingness, in the air. And that is why our faith has to be in God, in what He has made of us.

Now there is a chorus that occurs to me: "If my hands are missing I praise him with my feet, if my feet are missing I praise him with what do I know what, and if my body is missing it is because I went with the Lord" always in life is worth something, you can do something, you can comfort someone, bless someone.

Stephen Hawking, one of the great cosmologists in the entire history of humanity, one of the most famous men in the world right now, his books sell millions of copies, his mind has conceived some of the most fertile ideas in the area of astrophysics, and if you see this man, physically it is a thread that connects him to life; in a wheelchair he speaks through a machine, his body is already twisted in a totally painful way because, and he is a being that well, he is physically limited almost one hundred percent, however he has a mind capable of conceiving some of the most creative thoughts of science.

Because the human being is like that, the human being is one thing, it's like we have the breath of God within us. That is why Genesis says that God blew into man's nose, and what did God blew? God breathed His essence, shared His essence and infused it, that is why man is capable of doing so many great things.

Do you believe that your body is what gives you value? your body is simply a container, your body is simply a scaffolding, it is a vessel that allows what is valuable in you, your spirit, to move in this physical world, that is the body. We have buried several people these days and I always tell my brothers that they genuinely and legitimately mourn the departure of their loved ones, I always tell them; Sister Carmen Rey who was here this morning recently lost her beloved husband Persio, and Carmen told me: Roberto, I don't know how I'm going to be able to see my husband's body enter that tomb, I don't have the strength.

And God led me there in the funeral home to tell her: Carmen, remember something: that what is entering that grave there is not your husband. Your husband is with the Lord, his spirit is with the Lord. What is going in there is his body and that is valuable, and beautiful, but that is simply the vessel in which the life, the personality, the creativity, the beauty of Persio was contained, and that, you know what? She tells me that this totally changed her perspective, to the glory of the Lord. Sometimes you don't know that a word said clumsily like that can, and that gave him strength.

Because brothers is that, all the circumstantial things in the world: your body, your appearance, your pedigree, your achievements, the esteem of people, that's nice but that's not what makes you valuable. What makes you valuable is that breath of God that is within you, that spirit that reflects the greatness and creativity of the creator of the universe, that is within you. If we began to tear you apart finger by finger, hands, everything and we could enter into the irreducible in your life, that is called the Spirit of God, and that is what matters within you.

Always remember that if one day you find yourself in a painful situation that limits you in every way, what makes you valuable is the Grace of God in you and that can be used powerfully, greatly in anything. So that's the idea that I wanted to isolate because that's the source of a lot of emotional health, stability, confidence in ourselves, not being constantly trying, striving for the next achievement, the next shoe to wear so that people know that I I'm cool and I'm cool, right? the next dress, the next color of the fashion that the sisters wear, right? All of that is nice, very good, but that's not what gives you value, okay? it's your spirit.

That is why the Bible says: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and his justice, and all other things will be added to you" are additions. Enough there, I don't want to overwork that point. But I want to isolate another element that for me is important for emotional health and that follows from the first, it is what is called in logic a corollary, that is to say, it is a principle that follows from the other and that is intimately linked to the first, and looks the same but is very different, and is as follows.

It is the fact that God is with us and is for us. It may seem like something very simple to you but I think that when I elaborate it a little more you will understand the importance. You have to continually tell yourself in your life: God is with me and is in my favor.

The context of that statement and that belief is the fact that we are always at war in the world, we are always at war with something. This is a world hostile to the well-being of the human being, it is a fallen world penetrated by evil forces that deform the human being. It is a world that has an inertia that pulls us down like the force of gravity that does not allow us to ascend to the heights freely, we are always fighting with the force of gravity that pulls us down.

Any creative impulse that we have, any desire to do something great, beautiful, beautiful, to free ourselves from some chain, from some weight, will always have to contend with the inertia of the world and with negative forces that want to prevent us from reaching our goal. greatness or that we free ourselves from the ties we have. That is why we have to continually say to ourselves: no. There is a no there but it is a contradictory no of the evil of the world: God is with me and is in my favor.

And that principle is what allows us to undertake many things that if we did not understand that we would not do it, we would not undertake it. And that principle is everywhere, that's why I say to you: look, learn to read the Bible in light of that idea of emotional and spiritual health, and of living a creative life.

The Lord put Psalm 46 in my mind this morning out of many texts that we could discuss, unfortunately we don't have time. But in Psalm 46, a Psalm that many of us know by heart, is stamped the idea that I have a great and powerful God, and that great God fights in my favor, and he is my ground, he is my foundation, my anchor.

Look how the psalmist says in verse 1: "God is our refuge and strength, our quick help in tribulations; therefore we will not fear even if the earth is moved and the mountains are moved into the heart of the sea." The fact that God is my refuge, God is my strength, why does he say that? because he knows that God is in his favor. God is your companion, God is by your side fighting the battles of the psalmist. And he says: therefore I am not going to fear even though everything around me seems shifting and frightening, I will be confident in my God.

So he continues in that chapter inviting us to set our gaze on that powerful God, that is why this Psalm is made of two substances, one is: praising the Lord, glorifying Him, establishing His greatness, His might, His control of the universe, His unchangeable character and on the other hand the confidence of the psalmist in that Almighty God.

Then he speaks for example of the sanctuary of the dwelling of the Most High, the city of God, Jerusalem, so loved by the psalmist, and he says in verse 5: "God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved."

In verse 6 he speaks of the changeable character of nations. We are at a time in the history of humanity where the idea of "wars and rumors of wars" is truly justified everywhere. The Middle East is on fire, Asia is a swarm of negative possibilities for the world. Africa with Ebola and slavery, human trafficking, misery, poverty, the conflict between Christians and Muslims, Boko Haram and all these groups, everything that is happening there is terrible. Latin America with the gangs, the poverty and the pseudo-Marxist movements in several countries, all these things.

It's like the world is on fire. And the psalmist says: "Nations raged, kingdoms wavered, He gave His Voice, melted the earth. The Lord of Hosts is with us, our refuge is the God of Jacob." When you know your life is secure in God you don't panic about what is happening in the world.

The Bible says that when we see these things, these signs, we raise our heads because the day of our redemption is near. The Christian who knows that God is with him, with her, even though the world becomes cloudy and dangerous, looks to his God to receive confidence, and he does not have to look far because God says: I will be with you every day until the end of time. world. The psalmist says: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because You will be with me." In the midst of life's tribulations and struggles you can be sure that your refuge is the God of Jacob.

Verse 10 says, "Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on earth; Jehovah of Hosts is with us, our refuge is the God of Jacob."

That is why I say: this idea that God is with me, but he is not only with me but he is in my favor, in other words: God is supporting me, God is encouraging me, God is the cheerleader, do you know what it is? a cheerleader? In American football it's those young girls and boys who are always jumping up and down and cheering the athletes on to believe that they can win the game. Do you know that the Holy Spirit is your cheerleader, is your cheerleader? it is the title, the parakletos, the one who stands by your side and encourages you and says: keep going, I am with you. That is what God is in your life.

When you have God as the one who is with you, that gives you encouragement, that is why I think that idea that God walks with me 24/7 is so important for emotional health. When I get up in the morning and get on that train along with a huge crowd around me I don't feel like an ant in the universe, I feel like my God is standing there with me. When I get to the factory, God will help me to be gracious to my boss, he will give me the strength to keep going, God is my provider. My marriage is in trouble but I believe that God is powerful to heal me and take me forward, bless my children at school.

This idea that I am not fighting my struggles alone, I am fighting with God by my side. Doesn't that give you peace in your heart, doesn't it help you to move on? For emotional health it is important to know that God is your partner in the struggles and projects of life. Trusting that God is with me and on my side gives us the confidence to undertake bold and creative things.

If you tell a person who has been depressed for many years of his life: look, you can get out of that depression, generally the person will say: no, man, if I've been doing this for so many years, I can't, this is already part of my life, no, you can in the name of Jesus because God is with you, God wants you to win that battle. It's going to take time, you're going to have to fast, pray, seek counseling, read the Word a thousand times, confess positive things, fill yourself with spiritual vitamins, but you can get out of that test, my brother, my sister.

The woman who never achieved anything in her life because she didn't have time, she had to dedicate herself to her children or whatever she can in her older days, she can go to college, learn to drive, get a degree, learn a language, learn to play an instrument why not? you can do it in the Name of the Lord because God is with you and is in your favor, He wants you to be a creative, beautiful person who reflects excellence and greatness, and the excellence of the Kingdom of God. The person who thinks they are alone does not have enough energy or stamina to believe: I can do this, I can do that.

There are so many passages in Scripture that I would like to elaborate to develop that, but I am joined, for example, by the case of Gideon. Gideon is scared, hidden in a cave hiding from one of these enemy tribes that has taken possession of Israel cracking the hidden wheat because he wants to hide and preserve his family's food in a cave, in a defensive position and an angel appears to him.

That is in Judges chapter 6, help me look for it there, Judges chapter 6 verses 11 to 19. What Gideon has least in mind is that there is greatness within him and that God has a purpose for his life. Gideon is a young man from one of the most insignificant tribes in all of Israel and as I told you, he is hidden, fearful of the enemy, cultivating wheat and he never thinks that something great and powerful can come out of his life, but God intends that Gideon serves to deliver His people from the Midianites, that God wants him to be a spiritual and political leader of great proportions for His nation.

Because he's looking down, he's looking in: a dark cave and he lives life on the defensive like so many of us, that if we can even eat a piece of bread and butter at the end of the day we're happy and we think that's it. It is all that God wants from us, but God wants other things.

So the passage says here that an angel appeared to him and here is the story: "And the angel said to him: the Lord is with you, a strong and brave man" and Gideon says, instead of saying: how good, thank you! he says: aha and if God is with me, then why are we enduring all these troubles, all these problems? Gideon is always looking down.

Look at the story: The angel of the Lord came, 6:11 and sat where he was in the oak, a tree, and Gideon is there shaking the wheat, the angel appears to him, says: "The Lord is with you, strong man" Gideon replies: "Ah, my lord, if Jehovah is with us, why has all this happened to us?"

Look how the angel's encouragement for Gideon is summed up in that idea: "God is with you." Because? because if God is with you, who can be against you? says the Word. If you have the most powerful being in the universe in your favor, who can hurt you? Who can prevent you from reaching your dreams and your goals? That's why the angel doesn't say: oh, God is going to help you do this, no no. He is with you and if He is with you you have all the nutrients you need for your life, just make sure when you undertake something that God is blessing you and is in your favor.

I don't ask myself when I start something if it can be done or not, I ask myself: Lord, is this from You? because I know that if I can answer that question convincingly, then I must move on. My question about the connector has always been that, Sir, is this a figment of my imagination, is Roberto Miranda addicted to bricks always wanting to build something else? (laughter and applause). That one came out. Is this something, a neurosis that I have to go to a psychiatrist soon, or is it really You who is telling me: This is mine, I want it there and go ahead, and don't worry, I'm going to touch people to release the money?

And all my struggle and my agony has been that, so I have had to go looking for the signs because God sometimes hides, and He loves to make us agonize guessing if He is there or not, I think He has fun with that up there In the universe. So, I have searched, I am like I don't know, Snow White or the seven dwarfs, who is it that looks for a trail of bread to get there? There's a story like that, right? Hanzel and Gretel, that, yes. No, I am like that person who is looking for a trail in a forest to return home and what he is looking for is: where are the grains of rice or bread?

And I always: where are the signs of the Will of God? because if I discover the signs of God's favor, I'm calm, right? if God is with me I can do anything, you can do anything, we can do anything.

Then the angel tells Gideon: God is with you! but Gideon doubts and fears, and that is another thing about the life of faith. Look, faith is not having no doubts, faith is proceeding despite doubts, do you understand? Don't get carried away by your emotions is what I have told you so many times. The man, the mature woman learns to put emotions in their place, because emotions are that animal, biological part of your life that are conditioned by many moving elements of life.

The son of God looks at the compass of the Word of God, what God has said, what God has declared, what the principles say, the truth, justice. Do you remember the armor of God, the truth, the justice, the Word of God, the faith? These are the elements that allow us to undertake things.

If I wake up depressed, look: that is a problem with my depression, I put it aside, I am going to move forward in the Name of the Lord, the depression is going to have to adjust to my will in God. Do not get carried away by emotions, emotions will betray you a thousand times, ask yourself: what does God say, what does the Word of the Lord say? because that's what helps us.

Gideon was a man full of doubts and fears. You read your drama and even when God, imagine, one says: well, if an angel appeared to me, I would never doubt anything else, would I? One says: Lord, just send me a little angel, the smallest one that You can, don't worry, but with that I will never have faith problems again, lie. After ten angels appear to you you are going to want an angel number 11 to be sure that the first ten were real and not your imagination (laughs) that is the perverse thing about the human mind.

That is why we cannot take away from the mental, the emotional. We must believe in what God says, and because many times our past and our experiences have engendered in us a tendency to doubt and fear, and to question, then one has to learn: no, I live, the Bible says: "Not only Man shall live by bread but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" and that is one of the great principles of a healthy life.

Your emotions will always want to get ahead, they are like a mangy dog that loves you and sticks to you and dirty your pants, push them because emotions will always be there until you die, that is part of your nervous system and one learns to take them with a grain of salt. Ok, you feel sad a little bit today, well, tomorrow I'm going to feel better. Today I am not so motivated to do the homework of the week but I have to do it because if not tomorrow I will have problems. One learns to walk on principle, that is one of the hallmarks of a mature person of God.

So Gideon can't believe that God is with him but the angel tells him: No, God is with you. And at the end he says in verse 14: "Looking at him the Lord said to him: Go with this your strength and you will save Israel from the hand of the Midianites; am I not sending you?" And still look, Gideon says: "Oh Lord, with what will I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor and I am the least in my father's house."

Do you remember Moses when God told him: Go and talk to Pharaoh and tell him: let my people go? what does Moses say? "Oh Lord, I am a stutterer, I do not know how to speak, I am not this, I have been in the desert for 20 years, they exiled me from Egypt, I no longer have any skills to go before a man as great as Pharaoh" and God says to him: "Am I not with you?" That is the key. What you are, what you have, what you have acquired is not what makes the difference. God is the great equalizer of human processes, the question is if God is there.

So Gideon continues to resist. In verse 16 he says, "The LORD said to him, Surely I will be with you and you will defeat the Midianites as one man." Read the story and you will see that Gideon asks for yet another sign and to refute that blessed angel who is trying to encourage him. I imagine that Gideon must have said: come on man, throw me a bone, work with me a little bit here you know? help me a little bit though. Because sometimes God wants us to do great things and we are always rejecting all of the Lord's efforts and at a given moment God gets upset with us, you know?

Many times God has called us to do things for Him, He gives us the opportunity, He speaks to us and we are so full of fear and so looking at our past, and what we did not do, and we could not, we did not achieve, they did not teach us, They didn't give us that over and over again we say to the Lord: no, I can't, I don't want to and the Lord says: You can. And if God calls you and insists with you and you reject him over and over again, in the end he will say: you know what? I'm going to leave you alone until you learn a little because you have to use your gifts to develop them. Start with what you have at hand, little by little, and grow in faith until you come to believe that God is with you.

But again: in the case of Gideon, Gideon's drama is that he internalizes what the angel knows and that is that God is with him and that God has called him to greatness, to a constructive life that blesses others, to free His people and I want that; the musician brothers come here. Again brothers, I encourage you in the Name of the Lord: believe, believe in that powerful God that you have, encourage yourself in the Name of the Lord.

I am going to leave it here, next Sunday I am going to resume it because this has so many pieces, so many pieces. Thank you ushers, that is what I need: proactive people, I forgot the sacrament this morning. After I said it in two minutes it left me, that's what we need, proactive people.

My brothers: believe in God, put that energy of God into you, let there be fire within you. I need people to speed up a little who have to catch them, violent, violent men, violent people, people of faith, that is what makes the Kingdom of God powerful. Church: God has great things for us and God has great things for your personal and family life. The question is if you are willing to live as a person that God is with him and with her and therefore has all the necessary nutrients to live a powerful life.

Do not get carried away by your emotions or your fears because those things will always be with you until the last day of your life, fill yourself with the Word of God, the promises of God, the faithfulness of God. If you have Christ within you, you are a giant, the one who is with you is more powerful than the one who is in the world, says the Word. I hope to look at other texts that will substantiate that principle.

Sometimes God is so close and we don't see him because God hides, because if we did see him we would always be like parasites, always with a dose of sight, God doesn't want that. God wants people to proceed by faith, to see things that are not because that is what He does. The Bible says that He calls things that are not what they are and He wants His children to be of the same stock as Him. Ask the Lord to fill you this morning with the assurance that you have your God by your side May it open your spiritual eyes as he opened them to Elisha's servant and saw an army with chariots of fire around him.

Let's trust our Almighty God, believe God for your battles. Right now lower your head where you are and ask the Lord to open your eyes to see him in your struggles, in your projects, in your dreams, in your tribulations, no matter what has happened in your life, there is still hope. You can get up again and move on but make sure your hand is still tightly grasped by your heavenly Father. God wants to do great things through you and through us as a people.

God doesn't want us crawling around, he doesn't want us in a cave hiding from the enemy living on the defensive. God wants us chasing the enemy, chasing evil in this world, announcing the virtues of the one who brought us out of darkness into His admirable light.

God wants us doing works of justice and greatness, appropriating the weapons of our militia that are not carnal but powerful for the destruction of fortresses, weapons of light. Those weapons are at your disposal at any time through the Power of Christ Jesus in your life and God is longing for a people who believe him and pay the price, and a people who put on their boots every day and say: today I I am going to live these truths in the subway, at the traffic stop, in front of the factory machine I am going to say; washing the dishes in the restaurant, cutting garlic there in the kitchen of the Italian restaurant where I work, wherever God is with you to favor you, bless you, make your way. In the classroom, in the government room, in the office, in the university, everything is in that you believe the Lord and live with what God has declared about your life.

Father: in the Name of Jesus we confess our faith in You and in Your faithfulness, and we believe Lord in Your promises this afternoon. We banish doubt, we banish fear, we banish low self-esteem Lord, the questioning of Your promises. We shed that cold and wet cloak of the past, the wounds of the past and the traumas. We confess that we are not victims, we are victorious in Christ Jesus. We put aside the traumas and pains of the past, the offenses of the past, different traumas and we believe that You have a good purpose, we can still float in the middle of the sea and walk on the waters because You are with us.

Fill us with that security, God is with me and fights in my favor, he is in my favor. Thank you Lord, we adore you, we bless you, amen and amen. Glory to God.