Prayer changes situations, changes destinations

I want to continue with this series of messages, we have been talking about the power of prayer to change and I believe that our service has been a demonstration of the power that prayer has to intervene in different life situations.

When we are starting our career as these young married couples, we believe that God is powerful through the power of the prayer of God's people to bless. When there are losses too painful to even understand sometimes, we believe that God can be there too. When a community is in a moment of transition, like this election of the new superintendent of schools, we believe that God can also intervene, and the Church moves under the wind and energy of prayer and trust in the Power of God.

Last Sunday we talked about the importance of living lives of prayer, of making prayer a lifestyle, of praying without ceasing, of praying continuously, that when we are going through difficult and persistent situations, when there are processes in our lives that they do not respond to a quick prayer, that we have to persist in prayer continuously.

Prayer must penetrate all the processes that we experience. We are a people as the chorus that Jessie sings says: "we are one of those who believe that with the Power of God barriers can be broken" walls can be broken down, impenetrable areas can be penetrated, giants who are in our lives can be decapitated , prayer changes destinations.

And we have also dedicated time to the idea that there are truths in Scripture, there are teachings in the Word of God that it is important to know and use as the basis and foundation of everything we do. I believe in the truths, I believe in the principles of the Word of the Lord.

But I have also told you that there are times when we need to come directly to the heavenly Father to minister to us through His Spirit and that is where prayer is irreplaceable. When all else fails and we do not have the answer, we can come before God so that He can sovereignly change the circumstance, so that He can operate in the very circumstance of life and that ship of ours that is heading towards an abyss, God turns it 180 degrees and takes it towards Safe Harbor.

We have to be a people of prayer and of all the things that we must remember is this: prayer changes situations, changes destinations. And I want to use an example of a prayer that changed a destiny, a prayer that changed a life. Remember that we have used cases and examples that illustrate the truths that we have exposed.

And in the Bible there is a character that I have always loved as an example of faith and prayer that changed a condition that seemed unchangeable. It is about a man who was born under a dark and gloomy sign. His very birth was a painful and sad birth and this man grew up with a load on him, a stone that he dragged every day of his life and even its name reminded him of his painful origins.

But one day this man, something happened inside him that inspired him to speak directly with God. And in a very brief prayer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, this man touched the heart of God, reached the Throne of God's Grace, and the Bible says that this prayer totally changed his life, changed his destiny. And I want us to look at the condition of this man and the prayer that he declared before the Lord, and that we use that prayer as a model for our own prayers, to change those situations of pain that we are experiencing in our lives.

It may be like one of these families that we have blessed this afternoon or there may simply be something, another situation in your life, but I encourage you to believe that through your prayer, if you manage to enter the Presence of God through your prayer God can also change the situation in which you find yourself.

I mean, maybe some of you already know who I mean not because you heard the sermon this morning, but because you know, I mean Jabez. Jabez is a character who is like a comet that crosses the firmament for an instant and then disappears, but that moment illuminates the entire firmament. There are only two verses that speak of this character in Scripture, but they are two verses that are full of teaching for us and are found in First Chronicles chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.

The interesting thing about this character is that he is surrounded by a desert of names. You know those lists of names in Scripture: so-and-so fathered so-and-so and so-and-so fathered the other, and the other fathered this one, and they are passages that one passes at a hundred miles an hour because one says: this doesn't say anything, this is It's just there, something that's there to just set a record but it's not teaching anything.

However, in that endless list of names where the names of the descendants of Judah are specifically being pointed out, one of the twelve children of the tribes of Israel, right? and among the sons of Judah and their descendants is this name.

And let me read verse 7 and 8 so you can see how different this is, verse 9 and 10: "The sons of Hela, Zeret, Izhar and Etnan. And Cos begat Anub and Zobeba and the family of Aharhel the son of Harum" but then he stops there and says: "And Jabez was more illustrious than his brothers" at the moment he is highlighting Jabez and that is why he separates him from that endless list "Jabes was more illustrious than his brothers, whom his mother called Jabez saying: because I gave birth to him in pain" that's why they called him Jabez because he was born in a painful and sad birth.

But then in verse 10 and we don't know how much time passes between verse 9 and verse 10, I assume that many years pass and that possibly this is a young man in his early twenties or thirties, who knows, that in In a moment of despair he does the following: "And Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying: Oh if you would give me blessing and enlarge my territory, and if Your Hand were with me and delivered me from evil so that it does not harm me, and God granted him you asked for", how beautiful. Two verses and yet they are filled with great blessing.

And I want to apply, because I have preached this sermon in previous years, but I want to apply it to how to get out of painful situations, how to get out of spiritual impasses, how to get out of conditions in our lives that mark us and as if they destined us for a life of suffering and loss. There are entire families and generations in our community that are born as Jabez under a sign of pain. There are families that are plagued with disease from generation to generation: cancer, divorce, incest, alcoholism, there are different types of ailments and much of our community if you look, and if you look at the generations of grandparents, great-grandparents, great-grandparents, descendants, they are families that are populated by different types of difficult situations, and when they know the Lord, however, there can be a change, something can begin to change through the Power of God that begins to heal a family, begins to heal a lineage.

And I encourage you my brothers, if you belong to one of those families that has been under poverty for generations or under some sign of failure, that you believe that you can be the defining point that changes destiny and that you can be the beginning of a blessed family and a blessed lineage. Or if your life has been marked by suffering, by sadness, by pain, that you believe that God can do something different; that you rebel against a life under a sign of darkness and sadness.

Jabez's prayer tells us about the importance of the direct ministration of the Holy Spirit in a circumstance, because prayer and God's ministration have power to transform our feelings, our ties if we believe. God can operate directly and sovereignly on our wounds and our emotions, on our circumstances and miraculously change our attitudes, and launch us in a new direction.

The story of Jabez proves this because Jabez's fate was negative but his prayer changed the course of his life. Jabez's mother inadvertently sentenced him to a life of suffering and pain. The very name of Jabes in Hebrew means pain, the word oseb and the word jabes for puns in Hebrew, which does not translate well into Spanish, the word jabes means: pain and his mother wanted to mark the birth as sad.

The very birth of Jabez was a birth of pain, painful, his mother almost died from his birth, that is to say that he himself was already marked from his birth with a sign of pain and his mother, who did not understand spiritual things, gave him a name that in a sense condemned him.

And what one understands from Scripture is that Jabez lived with that pain and that is why the Bible points it out in two verses. One of them is dedicated to pointing out the fact that he was born in pain and his mother gave him a name that meant pain, and that then he came to a moment in his life when he wanted to change that situation.

And in the end he talks about God freeing him from evil so that it doesn't harm him, and in the translation, for example, in English he says for example: "Keep me from evil so that I may not cause pain, so may I not suffer pain" in the end that which says "do not hurt me" the idea is that "do not cause me pain." In other words, this painful and sad situation was part of the identity itself and Jabez had been marked by it.

And the first thing I want to tell you is that, the importance of words. This mother did not understand the power that a word has and she marked the fate of her son with pain, because every time people named him they were strengthening their painful situation, and we as Christians always have to be very careful with the words. words that come out of our mouth number one: regarding our children. Brothers: let us get used to praying with them, to encourage them, to inspire them, to stimulate them with visions about what they can do, to tell them that they are good and intelligent and that God has a good destiny for them, that they can study, invest on your children and declare blessing on them, pray with them and declare God's blessing.

I know that Meche, when our daughters were little, prayed Aaron's priestly blessing every night and those girls depended on their mother's prayer every night, and now, thanks to the Lord, they have been able to follow that chain of blessing, but Meche sensed the importance of blessing, the power of blessing. Let us bless our children and in our minds let us visualize them as successful, as open to the blessing and good Will of God in their lives.

And the second thing is the importance of words. The Bible says that the power of life and death are in the tongue, the tongue has the power to bless or curse, you know? and what you confess with your mouth has the power to rebound back to you. If you are a person whose words and conversation are negative or if you often put up with positive words because you have a slightly sad or sour temperament, or are cynical about blessings, accustom your mouth to speaking good things.

For example, with all this cold and snow, I recognize it but I also try to say: but God is powerful and it's good that we are well and spring is coming around, and there is hope!" because if we don't we will be throwing plagues about the blessed winter there and winter will not want to leave, I believe that we also have to speak positive things and expect good things from God, because the mouth has tremendous power. The names we give to life, the conversations that we have, the things that we confess with our mouths; always remember that words have great power.

This mother when naming her son and every time people said to her: Pain, Aching, and I don't know how the concept of pain was incorporated into Hebrew, but we have to be very careful with these things because obviously Jabez grew up with this, his name condemned him to a painful and negative life.

But the other thing that he says here is that Jabez was more illustrious than his brothers. I looked up the word illustrious because I found it intriguing and as a significant word, I also looked it up in the original Hebrew, and the word "illustrious" translated into Spanish, in Hebrew is "cabad". Cabad is a word that refers to something heavy, to something that has weight.

And the idea is that Jabez was like more substantial than his other brothers. Jabez had more substance, more weight in that sense. You know that the word "poise" has the idea of lead but it is also the idea of a poised, substantial person who moves with confidence. The idea is that Jabez, his personality, his person had something different from the other brothers and that is why he stood out in the middle of this list, he came out as. An illustrious person is a person who, the word illustrious, has the idea of light. Jabez shined in the midst of his other brothers, he had substance.

And this was, I believe, what was in him, in his heart and in his person, that allowed him to express this distinctive prayer. Because think something: I imagine that the reason why they point to Jabez's name is also, because if Jabez's prayer had remained in the private area and it had simply been something that he said there in secret and it would not have had a greater resonance , perhaps there would have been no reason to point it out. I believe that Jabez became a truly outstanding man in his community. A prosperous man, perhaps a businessman, perhaps a man who had many children and a large family and was renowned in his community, perhaps he was a great spiritual teacher, we don't know but he says that God granted him what he asked for, what he wants to say that the blessings that Jabes asked God for were fulfilled and Jabes became a man of great resonance in his community.

And then this leads me to think something, and that is that this idea of substance and weight probably came to him, ironically because of the pain he suffered in his life. Do you know that there are children who are sometimes a little sickly and delicate but become great men and women of God? because instead of hanging out with the boys playing ball and doing athletic things, they dedicate themselves to reading or music, or to philosophical reflection and study, and they become famous people despite the fact that the boys made fun of them. them and all this, but their delicacy and fragility led them to guide their lives to another dimension than when one is an adult, because it is a dimension that pays many dividends.

And so I think that because of his sadness and his somewhat lonely and sad childhood, Jabez became a spiritual man, a man of principles, a man of deep thoughts, a man of concern for the important things in life.

So that is important to me because I believe that there are situations in life that, although painful, redeem us and enable us to understand a dimension that we would not otherwise understand. Perhaps the same pain paradoxically prepared him for that moment of blessing and definition.

Many times the tragedies of life create in us the character and the weight, and the disposition to do and conceive great and exceptional things. Pain can be one of God's great fertilizers and I encourage those families that are going through these painful moments to perhaps get into their pain and use it as an ally to reach another spiritual level, because pain I I say that it makes you bitter or sweetens you, pain either hardens you or empowers you, it all depends on how you receive it and the key is not to rebel against pain, not to let pain make you bitter, not to resist it but to let it pass through you and use your tears and your sadness to come and shed them before the Lord and to ask the Lord to bring you out in His time renewed and strengthened, and He does.

All these teachings that we have had in these last months are oriented towards that fact, that pain can come to anyone, even the people who love God the most and who serve the Lord the most and who give the most to the Kingdom of God can experience by terrible and sad experiences, because no one is exempt. This world is a fallen world and it is a world full of evil, and we have an enemy that populates this world and wants to kill, steal and destroy.

And God, however, has guaranteed that the children of God will always come out of all our trials and all our difficulties, and He has made sure that what destroys others makes us stronger. That is why it says that: "All things work together for good" tribulation, anguish, hunger, nakedness, danger or sword, all these things God uses to get us ahead. Believe that your pain can be used by God to prepare the platform for your leap into greatness and spirituality.

Jabes in his sadness as a child that people would look at him and say: wow, this little boy is so sad, look at how he was born, look at his childhood like this, so sad, so lonely, but I imagine that Jabes would go around in the fields and think, looking at the stars or looking at a little bird, or seeing water running in a stream, and Jabez thought of deep and powerful things while he also meditated on his sadness, that he also wanted to be popular with the children and this, but God was using that background to prepare himself a special man, a powerful man.

And then there came a moment when something came out of Jabes, something great, that greatness that he had, that noble heart that was being formed in him led him towards a prayer that was like a pressure that came from his very bowels.

And I see in this sentence some key elements that we should not overlook. Number one: the "Oh" of Jabez. I've always been captivated "Oh, if you would bless me." I believe that our prayers should always have an "oh" somewhere because remember that I have said that our prayers should be specific, they should be passionate, they should be intense, God loves people who approach Him with a sense of urgency. The people who have measured their prayers, the people who have simmered their prayers. People who by dint of praying over and over again for the same request have come to want it desperately.

The Bible is full of people who have made desperate prayers like that "oh" from Jabez. One of them, Ana, wanted a child, she was barren and wanted a child like nothing else in life, and she said one day she approached the sanctuary and she had so many tears and so much grief that the old man, the high priest, thought she was drunk, and It's true, I was drunk; she was drunk with pain, she was drunk with despair, and she poured out her soul before God and from there she came out with the Word of God, and she not only had a son, and that son was not just any son, he was the prophet Samuel and with him came other children too.

I remember the friends of the paralytic. Desperate for an intervention from the Lord, they broke the roof, lowered their paralytic and the Lord said: Wow, what great faith you have, it healed him. The woman with the issue of blood went into the crowd breaking the law, touched Jesus' cloak and stole his power, and came out healed. The Cyrophoenician woman with her demon-possessed daughter comes before the Lord, the Lord insults her almost with a word, he was testing her but she keeps her request and leaves there, her daughter from a distance is healed of a demon. God believes in desperate prayers.

And I sometimes believe that our problem is that our need is not intense enough at times and that God needs us to cultivate our pain like this in a sense, right? and that we reach a point where our prayer is like a fireball that goes off and reaches the Throne of God. Passion is required in prayer and until we reach that level of commitment to our dreams and our passions we cannot receive anything from God.

I believe that the problem of many Christians is that they do not dream enough, they do not conceive in their minds enough big things, they do not daydream, they do not visualize what they want, you have to put a name and address, and last name, and specificity to the things that you ask the Lord, be specific in your prayers to the Lord.

And I think that "oh" from Jabez suggests that we have to think of an alternative for our lives. Jabez's "oh" suggests that he was not happy with his condition, he wanted a change, he was sick of living under a sign of negativity. It is important that we rebel against our situation and that we determine to change it once and for all, and that there comes a time when we say: ok, this is it! I will present myself before God.

In his expression there is a vision of something new, there are dreams, there is the consideration of a different life. And the interesting thing is that Jabez instead of continuing to complain about his situation, he turned to the Lord and directed his cause directly to God, how important it is that we pray when we have needs in our lives. How important it is that we present our requests with all prayer and supplication before the Lord.

There are four requests, four things that Jabez asked for and I want to quickly go through them. The first thing he said was: "If you would give me a blessing," he asked for a blessing. Secondly, the key word "and if you widened my territory", widening. The third thing "if Your Hand were with me" there I would say the hand, the term the Hand of God, and fourth "and you will deliver me from evil" deliver us from evil, here "evil" is the key word.

These four things: "blessing" "widen" "hand" and "evil" are four things that we should always keep in mind in our life and in our relationship with God.

Look at the first: "if you gave me a blessing." I think that Jabez was asking for something general for his life, it was like: "Lord, if my life were under the sign not of pain and sadness from my past but under the sign of prosperity, well-being, Your good Will, if the The wind of Your blessing was behind the sails of my boat all the days of my life and that everything I undertook would have that seal of approval from You."

Do you know that we have the right and I even believe that we have the obligation as children of God to expect a blessing in your life and to ask the Lord for a blessing? Brother, if you do not expect a blessing in your life, you will not receive it. I don't know about you but I live in love with God's blessing and I believe that my life is blessed and will be blessed, and has been blessed, and I want you to have that same desire. Do not allow anyone to kill you the hope of God's blessing in your life because I believe that is a reality.

I could be here for days pointing out how God's blessing has followed me all the days of my life. The psalmist David says: "The Lord is my shepherd, I will not want, and the blessing of the Lord will follow me all the days of my life." Ask the Lord that your whole life be under that seal and all the things that you undertake because there is a right there.

Many people want to take that idea away from Christians: "oh, this is prosperity preaching", no, God calls us to be prosperous, God calls us to be blessed. Of course, in this process times of pain may come, but I believe that the net balance when you mix the pains, the losses and the blessings and the gains in the end, the child of God has a very positive net balance of blessings, and those sad moments and loss are simply those colors that enhance God's blessings, because without contrast what there is is a monotony, a contrast is needed so that there can be clarity.

Look how the Lord tells the Hebrews in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy: "If you listen attentively to the Voice of the Lord your God and keep, and do all his commandments that I command you today, also the Lord your God will exalt you above all the nations of the earth, and all these blessings will come upon you, and they will overtake you." It's like God throws blessings at you and those blessings follow you until they reach you. God's blessing is behind you my brother, the hound of God's blessing will follow you all the days of your life.

It says: "Blessed be you in the city and blessed in the field, glory to the Lord. Blessed be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land, the fruit of your beasts, the young of your cows and the flocks of your sheep. Blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough." These are blessings that were directed at an agricultural town. Nowadays God would say: Blessed is your ATM and your bank account, blessed will be your exit and your entrance, blessed will be at the university and at home, blessed will be when you wash the dishes and when you go to sleep, when you go out in your car and when you return home, when you are with your family enjoying at home or when you are at work, God's blessing will follow you.

Read Deuteronomy 28 when you can and see what happens when a man or a woman pleases the Lord and you will see that what the Bible tells us is that when; I don't know about others but I have certainly had my share of pain in life, but I can also say that this Word has been fulfilled in my life and in the life of my family, there is blessing. My ministry and everything else, God has been a God who has kept His promise and don't stop believing in that.

I think Psalm 128 has words of strength for us as well because it is important, "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and walks in his ways. When you eat the work of your hands, blessed are you and it will be well for you; your wife will be A vine that bears fruit around your house, your children like olive plants around your table; Behold, thus shall the man or woman who fears the Lord be blessed."

The Bible is full of these words of blessing and that is what Jabez asked of him. I believe that the blessing depends on two things, number one: that we obey God, that's what it says there, right? We have to love God, include him in our life, we have to prefer God above all things, we have to be obedient in everything we can, we have to love him above all things, that is very important because wherever that you see promise you also see that condition.

Where is your heart towards God, do you love God above all things? Can you say that the Kingdom of God is your preference? If you live like this, I believe that you have the right to expect a blessed life and that is what Jabes asked the Lord: Father, bless me, apart from all specific things, give me your blessing.

Second: "If you enlarged my territory." This is blessing but even more specific. For me, what Jabez is asking for here is a material blessing, prosperity, influence, may God expand him. Perhaps Jabes was living in poverty, perhaps Jabes was without human company, lonely, perhaps Jabes was an anonymous person in his community, but he asked the Lord: Father expand my territory, give me land but not only physical land, but Lord: help me to dwell in something different, get me out of the quagmire, get me out of anonymity and enter a greater space for my life.

My brother: I believe that we as Christians always have to be looking at the next horizon. If you reached a moment of success in your life, well, give thanks to the Lord but look from there from that height and go to a more distant land where you can also reach, and that is not that you are selfish or anything like that, is that that is your right.

In my mind comes the image of Abraham when he is with his nephew Lot and God tells Abraham after God leaves, he says: "Abraham, look south, look north, look east and look west, all that land that you see around you I give it to you." And later to his descendant Joshua he said the same thing: "I have given you all the land that the soles of your feet will tread on."

And we have to live brothers with the expectation of greater spaces that we are going to occupy. I believe that God still has greater things for our Church. You see us always building, it is not because we are obsessed with buildings, it is because God calls us to expand and grow, and to do greater things.

The moment a Church stagnates in a routine, it died, you know? The moment your marriage stays where it is and you are not looking for more intimacy, more companionship, other things to do in your life that is where monotony comes and death comes. Those young couples who were up here don't settle for what you saw only in their parents, glory to God if they were a blessing, no. You have the right to aspire to be better marriages than your parents, have better children, be a greater blessing, and honor your parents with the greatest achievements you are going to have, do you understand?

We Christians have to be better than our ancestors. Our Church has to be more blessed in 10 years than it is now. Our ministries, our fatherhood, motherhood, our understanding of the Word of God, we have to always be looking for something more, reading new things, exploring new paths, developing new habits, expanding our territory.

What does Isaiah chapter 54 say, one of my also favorite passages that I use as a motto of my life? "Enlarge the site of your tent and the curtains of your rooms are extended, do not be scarce. Lengthen your ropes, strengthen your stakes because you will stretch out to the right hand and to the left hand, and your descendants will inherit nations and inhabit the devastated cities. "

Latino community and all those who are here of other nationalities: let's not settle for the space that our ancestors inhabited, let's not settle for bad habits and limitations, let's aspire to greater things, let's aspire to greater achievements and invest. There is nothing wrong with you asking God to enlarge your territory.

The third thing that Jabez asks of the Lord: "And if Your Hand were with me." When I think of the hand, the Hand of God, I think of the Power of God over his life. Jabez was asking him that the Power of God be with him, that the divine energy be with him. Do you know that the Bible talks about the strong hand and outstretched arm of God? On many occasions when the Word wants to refer to the Power of God it speaks of His Hand, for example when it says that God brought the Hebrew people out of Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.

And Jabez, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was asking him for the Power of God to come over his life, and brothers, we as Christians have to be people who have an appetite for the Power of God. I encourage you to be power hungry people but the Power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ told the disciples: "Do not leave Jerusalem until you receive power from on high" because they already had the teaching that the Lord had given them, they had experiences with the Lord, they had seen great things but they needed authority and power in his own life and that came through the anointing and baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I encourage all my brothers, when your energy is waning, when your spirit is waning in the things of the Lord to go directly to the altar of God and spend some time in prayer, and not get up until you feel that you have received renewal.

I was talking to a brother this morning whom I love very much who told me about the need for something different in his life, I told him: look, take off for a while, take off for half a day and go in by yourself, and seek an encounter with God, fast, pray , cry out, adore. Because in the Christian life we need power, authority to be able to prosper, it's not just good intentions, right? we need the naked Power of God. Sometimes we need the power to break patterns of poverty and stagnation in our spiritual lives. We are a Pentecostal Church, we are a Church that believes that we come to the altar and that God does things, we are not content to simply be there in the seat, we believe that we have to fight, we have to do powerful things, we have to be filled with the authority of God, you have to have an experience with the Holy Spirit, you have to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The people of God is a people that is oriented towards considerations of power, I encourage you to have that experience of encounter with God in your life.

I have been speaking with the pastoral team and I take this opportunity to, I have been gaining momentum and for various reasons it has not been possible but I commit myself here publicly before the Lord because God has put it in my heart to invite a group of you to be a pilot group, and I want to take three, four Sundays up there on the fourth floor. And my problem right now, above all, I confess to you, is how to identify these people, but I see here many of you who are new to the faith and I believe that you are the first in your family, in your generations to seek the Lord and be in a Christian Church, up there on their balconies or here.

And I believe that one of the solutions that God has for us, because there are many people who come to Church over and over again, and they come and receive the Word, and all this, but they need a frontal encounter with the Holy Spirit, they need the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And what I want to do, and I hope this will work for me because I'm probably going to have to miss two or three Sundays from the 9 o'clock service, but what I want to do is go up there with you to the fourth floor and spend a few three or four Sundays exploring this dimension of power of the Christian life, and helping them with other brothers who have had that experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and helping them with that part of the Christian life, and sealing them with that experience, I think that it will be transformative in their lives.

Because many times we come to Church and we come, and we come but our minds are dull and coarse, and what the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the filling of the Spirit does is it opens us up to the Power of God and puts spiritual steroids and vitamins inside us. of our spirit, I promise before the Lord to do that well, very soon, help me and pray for it because I know that this is going to transform our Church and we want to do that two or three times a year in the future. But I denounce myself because there are so many obstacles sometimes in the Christian life that intervene so that this is not done, but I believe that many of you, the solution for your spiritual growth, to get out of the quagmire and enter a new dimension it is through the Holy Spirit in their lives.

So with the help of the Lord, the next meeting of the pastoral team, Wednesday, please I beg you, let's see how we get out of this dishonor and get into it because I feel that God is harassing me to do that, and I let's do it right.

So I believe that this was what Jabez asked the Lord: if Your Hand, if Your Power, if Your active favor were with me, we need that to lead powerful lives in God. And the last thing is, he says, "If you free me from evil so that it doesn't hurt me" what is evil? the devil, demon, the forces of evil, the demonic that tries to do harm in our lives, and I believe that therein lies the importance of spiritual warfare.

We need in our lives to know that Satan is real and that is why holiness is so important in the Christian life, because it is a defense against evil. We have to know that to rebuke Satan, to declare God's active blessing in our marriages, in our home, to stand up when the enemy wants to come and destroy our marriages, when he comes to sow doubt and to sow depression in our hearts, to understand what is passing by and denouncing Satan, and declaring God's blessing upon our lives. In our next sermon we are going to talk specifically about the importance of spiritual warfare.

What Jabez was asking for was that the Lord free him from the demonic force that wanted to destroy his life and that had done so much damage in his life, and he said: Lord, keep me from evil so that it does not cause me pain, so that it does not cause me pain. damage. And know that when you ask for the Lord's blessing, many times when God is doing great things in your life, the test will also come. Many times when God is beginning to work in us is when we have to be most alert because the enemy will want to do something to take your eyes off God's blessing.

That is why the Word of the Lord says, right? "Let us be sober and watchful because our adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." I believe that God wants to bless you, God wants to do great things in your life but you have to cover the lintel of your house with the blood of the lamb so that the angel of death cannot enter your house, that he may pass by as he did over the Hebrews in Egypt and may God cover your house. We have to be people of spiritual warfare too and that is why we have to live in a way that the enemy has nowhere to grab us and where to enter our lives.

So I bless you in the Name of the Lord, that this prayer of Jabez makes a dent in our hearts and in our spirits and that we are a people that believe in the Power of God, when difficulties come we can oppose that Word of faith and that Word of cry to the Lord.

Let's lower our heads. Father: thank you because Jabes illuminates our way in the Scriptures and we believe that You can change our destinies, and that whatever situation we are facing at this time, Your Power is enough to get our spiritual car out of the quagmire, get us Lord out of the miry mud, from the pit of despair and put ourselves on stone Lord, put our feet on firm rock, and that is what we ask for Your people on this day, blessing Lord, strength, expansion of their territory, Your powerful Hand flowing in our favor and Your coverage over our homes, Your protection from all evil. Fill us with that energy of yours, Father, and I bless your people on this day.

Thank you for such a good attendance this morning, for new people and for families that You are blessing, Father, and for which You have good intentions, thank you. We leave here strengthened Lord with our hearts full of hope about the future, in the Name of Jesus. And the people of God say: amen, I bless you my brothers, may the Grace of the Lord be upon you, amen and amen.