Pray; with desire or without desire, Pray!

Last week Pastor Roberto preached a powerful message declaring that despite what we hear on the news the Gospel of Jesus Christ is advancing, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is still penetrating the barriers that the enemy puts up to stop them. And I would say it's not just around the world, but we can authoritatively certify that even in Boston the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Power of God is penetrating the Boston school system, it's penetrating government offices. Last Monday we had a time of prayer at the invitation of the City Hall in Jim Rise Park, about forty souls were there, more or less fifty-one city officials, the director of the city police department was there , the leaders of the school system, and I would say that most of those who were there in that 90°F heat were members of this Congregation, Lion of Judah Congregation interceding for Boston and turning over the government offices of this city to Jesus Christ.

It is still penetrating the neighboring hamlets of León de Judá as Pastor Roberto Miranda testified this morning, our neighbors are sending their children to I Wanna. Despite everything the enemy has tried to stop the wave of the Kingdom of God, God is advancing, God is winning, the Kingdom of God continues.

I have a question for you: if you could do one thing to keep the Kingdom of God moving forward, would you do it? okay, let's suppose it is one thing that would both advance the Work of God in your own life, one thing that would simultaneously increase your level of anointing and at the same time lower your level of anxiety, improve your relationship with your family and your work colleagues , and offers countless other benefits and advantages; What product will Pastor Samuel be selling this morning?

If you could do one thing capable of achieving all of this, would you do it? amen, this morning some people looked at me like does that thing exist? it's called prayer. We invite you to Colossians chapter 4 verse 2, 11 words but we are going to get the most out of this verse this morning, Colossians 4 verse 2.

Spirit of God: teach us to pray, make us uncomfortable so that we pray, anoint us and send us to pray we beseech you in Jesus Name. The Word declares: "Persevere in prayer, watching over it with thanksgiving" 11 words but behind this verse is a code for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the irreplaceable role of prayer in the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

In this verse Paul calls the Colossians to pray and why the priority over prayer, and here is an interesting detail about how the Gospel is spread to the world, a detail that describes us, it is as if it were a study of the way the Holy Spirit chooses to spread the Kingdom of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Knows? the apostles did not have a strategic plan to expand the Kingdom. The Spirit of God worked in an organic, spontaneous way, the apostles were shepherded in this process, they equipped them in this process and they did not control this process, the one in charge of this process of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world was the Holy Spirit and so it was in this case.

The Church of the Colossians was not founded by Paul, at least not directly, did you know that? In the first century like today, the Gospel had a life of its own and spread wherever the Holy Spirit sent it. Let's go to the first chapter of Colossians for a moment beginning with verse 6 from 6 to 8 as an example of this.

Taking part of the previous verse: "This Gospel has come to you as well as to the whole world, and it bears fruit, and also grows in you from the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth as you have learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant who is a faithful minister of Christ to you, who has also declared your love for us in spirit.”

Most likely brothers is that this brother Epafras heard the message of the Gospel perhaps in Ephesus which was a commercial and cultural center of that region and was very close to the community where Epafras did come from, Colosse very close. Epaphras heard this message in Ephesus, converted to Jesus Christ, returned to his Colosse community and there began to share the Gospel bringing his neighbors to the Lord founding this Church, the Church of the Colossians.

And Word comes to Paul from this Church, precious, a most beautiful Church but threatened by Satan who wants to confuse and discourage it just in the cradle. Satan wastes no time and from the beginning is attacking this Church, and Paul would like to reach them but he cannot at least for the moment because he is confined, imprisoned by the Gospel. Well, he sends him this letter, this Letter to the Colossians with several pieces of advice, but none is more important than this simple piece of advice: pray, pray, or as he insists in this chapter 4 verse 2: "Persevere in prayer, being vigilant in it".

Interestingly, in his letters to the Church of Jesus Christ, Paul makes dozens of mentions of prayer, but he only uses the expression he uses in this verse from Colossians at this moment. He uses this expression "proscaltereo" he uses it in other contexts. For example, it's an expression that Paul uses elsewhere in Romans 13 to describe look, civil servants who are diligent in their work regardless of how they feel or the obstacles they face, that's how he uses it in Romans 13, and the idea here that he is communicating to the Colossians is: do the same with reference to prayer: do your job, be procatereo in prayer, it can be translated: be persistent in prayer or be diligent in prayer.

With desire or without desire, feel it or not, rain, snow, wind, lightning, hear angels or not, be consistent in prayer, why? Why so much insistence on prayer? Because confined by sending this Letter to the Colossians, he knows that if they listen to him, if they pray, they will receive practically everything they need to be a victorious Church. “If you pray you will receive wisdom and revelation from the Holy Spirit and you will know how to conduct the business of the Kingdom of God in your community. If you pray, the Lord will pour out His anointing and will support His message with grace, with favor, with signs, with miracles, with wonders, with evidence of His Presence. If they pray, the Holy Spirit will awaken gifts locked up within them and leaders, prophets, teachers, pastors, intercessors will arise. If you pray, the Lord will send His provision and you will lack nothing of what you truly need."

"If they pray, conflicts that arise between them" inevitable, we are human, "conflicts that arise between them lose the resentments and rancor that feed them giving rise to harmony, love, brotherhood." So he urges them: Colossians, whether you feel it or not be consistent in prayer, persevere in prayer.

The enemy is very strategic, you hear? the enemy is very economical in the use of his weapons. Why use? Last Wednesday a sister shared, I don't know if she's here, I think she's here but I was captivated by her testimony, that she learned a lot about how Satan, how spiritual warfare works and that not everything is like the movies of horror that heads spin and that one runs like a snake on the floor. Satan wants to use a neon sign that says here I am, when he would rather use less dramatic weapons.

Why use a flashy weapon like a cancer, a financial crisis if it is much more effective to simply attack your prayer life? 90% of the attacks that you will receive in your life as a Christian from the enemy are directed at your prayer life, you know. That is why Paul adds: "watching over them." For him the idea is to detach yourself from prayer, distract yourself, occupy yourself, accuse you, scare you, depress you, discourage you, whatever as long as you stop praying, did you hear?

Pastor: look, I have that blessed sin and I come back and fall again, and I am ashamed to come before the Lord and pray. Brother: precisely for this reason it is urgent that you go to His Presence, it is urgent that you speak to Him, the pity is that you do not pray in that instance. Pastor: My wife and I had one of those again, I'm not even in the mood. Pastor: That man you hit me with again, we had, pray, even if it's you on the second floor and she on the first, but pray.

Pastor: I go from one to another, from one crisis to another, I live Pastor, I no longer get out of one dramatic and depressing situation than I enter another, I know that this is not a very Sunday phrase, in my Puerto Rican Pentecostal church we would say that the enemy has you from tingo to tango, from tingo to tango running after your tail yes, so distracted, always depressed, always too depressed to pray Pastor. Sister, brother, do you want to break this vicious circle? pray anyway, anyway.

And maybe this is my favorite: Pastor it's so hard to pray and sometimes I'm not even sure if God hears me, I spend days and hours in prayer, whole weeks and I don't feel like God hears me, radical advice, even though the Pastor Roberto is here. If he has to fix it, he'll come up shortly and cut me off, but a radical piece of advice from me: pray even if you don't hear anything from God. Pray even if His answer is late, pray even if the angels do not sing, pray even if the doors of heaven do not open, why?

There are wonderful transforming things that happen through prayer, whether the Lord answers or not, the mere fact of your praying does a worthwhile work of transformation in our lives. Here I write down at least four of these wonders that happen in our prayer lives whether the Lord responds to His answer or not. First, they are writing down: the mere fact of setting aside those minutes, that half hour, that hour dedicated to the search for God is a holocaust of time that we dedicate to the Lord.

Just as in the Old Testament a calf or a sheep was tied to the altar and burned as an offering to the Lord until there was nothing left of it, just ashes, now in this modern age, now the most costly sacrifice we can offer to the Lord. It is our time, that is our calf, for many the fattened calf, our time.

In prayer it is to incinerate those minutes, that hour, one does not see it again or use it for anything else, burns it, reduces it to ashes, offers it to the Lord and we declare to the Lord in this way: You are the boss, You are my priority, You are my God, you are worthy of my time, you are worthy of this sacrifice, feel it or not, whatever happens you are communicating to the Lord: you deserve this time with me and you are reminding yourself that He is your God, the truth brings us to the second point.

Second: that time with God humbles us, allows us to see who we are in the light of His deity and His Glory adjusting the harmony between the Creator and His creation. Yesterday I had the privilege of sharing a devotional with the board of an institution of which I am a member, many of them are businessmen and I used a phrase at this point that they understood very well but it is difficult to translate into Spanish: right size, to right size, is a modern corporate phrase that means that you are correcting the perspective knowing, meditating with sanity who we really are and who He really is and prayer is super effective for this especially when you pray alone.

My brothers: especially you who are graduating from the conferences and are new to all this experience, perhaps at the beginning this is the most difficult, perhaps at the beginning you pray, set aside your prayer time and say: well, what am I going to say, Pastor? ? Hey here we are, Lord I know I'm sitting in this empty room, I'm here by faith, I'm here because I need you and I can't live without you, and your mind will say to you: boy, what a nutty are you, who are you talking to the wall? ? who are you talking to Acevedo?

Did you know? that is good, that is good because prayer is breaking our pride, that is necessary, and allowing us to know our littleness so that we can know the greatness of God. Give him time, keep talking to that chair, keep talking to that painting, keep talking to that wall because at the moment and there is no way to explain that to them, only you can experience it, because at the moment you will know that this room is not so empty, At the moment you will realize that there is someone there with you.

This is not a psychology game, you will feel that the Lord is filling your emptiness, I am not talking about the room, this emptiness (the body) with His Presence. He appears and as you dedicate yourself to this more and more you will become more in tune with Him, you will know the tune of God. What's more, don't even worry too much about words, what He wants is for you to arrive, for you to appear, the Spirit of God intercedes with our spirit with unspeakable groans, you appear and He will appear and embrace us in His greatness, caress us with His Presence and you hear it saying to you: You know what little one? My Grace is enough, the Lord tells you, My Grace is enough because My Power is perfected in weakness, and finally in those moments alone with the Lord you understand that Word and all the others.

And third: speaking of right sizing, we begin to see our chores and problems in the light of God's glory. How does this happen? when we pray we take them out of their caves, we give them names, we bring them to the feet of the Lord and they begin to lose their power over us, only by confronting them, by naming them, to see them for what they are, to surrender them to the Lord and you begin to think : You know? this is not as horrible, this is not the end of the world as I thought, it is not as important, it is not as essential as I thought and I don't know if this has happened to you but maybe even before we finish praying, still we are already seeing a solution, even before you say amen the glimpses of a strategy to overcome them will be revealed to you by the mere process of communicating it to the Lord.

The idea is to turn our worries into prayers and many of us have Philippians chapter 4 verse 6 and 7 memorized: "Do not be anxious for anything but let your requests be known before God in all prayer and supplication" and add "with thanksgiving" put an asterisk because we're going to come back to that shortly, “and the peace of God that passes all understanding” see this. This is beyond our understanding, it goes beyond our mind. Your mind is part of the problem, your mind brought you to this point and nothing more. Your ability to analyze, your ability to solve your messes, your ability to find an escape only gets you so far. The idea is to surrender that mind to God, that He build it up, that He heal it, and that He use it for His purposes, and that we have the mind of Christ, and in the process this peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds. will guard your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

Father: guard my mind, guard my heart, guard my thoughts and lastly, there remains that idea of in all prayer and I pray with thanksgiving or as Paul writes to the Colossians: "Persevere in prayer, watching over it with action of thank you."

My brothers I suggest to you: praying with thanksgiving is the most effective way to develop our faith. Do you want to grow in your faith, do you want to grow in your way of believing God in His Word? make sure that the expression: Lord thank you for ______ (fill in the line) is never missing from your prayers.

For me this has become an adventure, a spiritual scavenger that I have with the Holy Spirit and God, looking for the footprints of God in what seems to be the smallest things, Lord: thank you for that parking lot that you prohibited in front of my date in the South End, Pastor Roberto taught me that, he parks in crazy places. Give it a try, you're going to find better parking lots if you do.

Father: thank you for that cupcake that held me between services (laughter), seriously, thank you Lord for feet that hold me, thank you for hands that grasp, thank you for a mind that works, thank you and often you start with that and then move up to much more serious things. Lord: thank you for freeing my brother from cancer, thank you for parents who told me about You, who brought me to You, thank you for a Church where Your Name is exalted like today and for allowing me to work in the courts of the Lord. I have not invented any of those things, they are true in my life.

To adore with thanksgiving, various things, just doing that, various things appear in your life. First of all, we dare to believe: if God could do that, what can't God do for me? It seems that I am not alone; I see the silhouette of God everywhere in my life. Five minutes ago look what God did with me, look what he is doing. I do not wander alone in this world, I am accompanied by a powerful God who loves me, who loves me, who listens to my prayers, but not only that. Also when we fill that space with the names of those that God has placed in our path.

Lord: thank you for my brother, thank you for my sister, thank you for my neighbor, thank you for my colleague, thank you for my boss, thank you for my teacher, thank you for my pastor, thank you for my spouse, thank you for my children, Lord grace. In those moments something magical happens, the Lord reveals His Heart for them and awakens in us a love for them. That's why the Bible says: pray for each other, your enemies, pray for your enemies, your pastors, pray for your pastors, your family, pray for them, it's precious.

Something happens, you begin to give thanks for those around you and through those relationship channels blessing begins to flow. You change and you don't even realize you're changing and the people who see you don't know you're changing either but you become an agent of blessing to your constellation, and those the Lord has entrusted in your way, it's wonderful.

At the end, my brothers, what do you think would happen if each one of us, how many we are, 500, 600, if each one of us offered the first fruits, the first hours of the day to the Lord? let's stand up Imagine what am I talking about? If this week you identify a space without distractions, turn off your phone, better if you are in the living room than the phone is in the kitchen or in the bedroom, turn off your phone, or better still, pray where there is no television and we get closer to the Lord with coffee in hand, that first coffee of the day.

I shared it with the brothers at twelve: in your day you only have a first coffee, imagine, offering your first coffee to the Lord, huh? with a little Christian music playing in the background, a Bible on my lap looking for the Face of the Lord and I can already hear the housewives saying: that's very romantic Pastor (much laughter) but I have an unconverted husband and four uncontrollable children, and I don't There is a room where I can hide.

Knows? We have known housewives who have literally entered their closet, their closet and there they were looking for the Face of God, I don't know if their children are grown up, they are married, I am surprised if they are still in the closet looking for the Presence of the Lord because that is where you must seek the Presence of the Lord and I promise you this: He awaits you, He awaits you, He is as eager to be with you as you are with Him, as eager or more eager to be with you than you with Him, is the last thing Satan wants you to discover. He will throw away everything he can invent just to get you off of Him.

But sometimes look, many times my brothers, very recently I found out that I had this privilege of bringing the Word, and I came from a struggle. Brothers, I have been serving the Lord for forty years, until today I fight for every minute that I have with the Lord Jesus, I have to fight for every minute, the enemy does not stop inventing.

I began to think: will the Lord be waiting for me in the living room this morning? looking at his watch. Will Samuel arrive today? he does not know about the email that is going to arrive at 10, he does not know about the discouraging call that he is going to receive at 4; he needs me today, will samuel arrive? and so He awaits us with the anointing, with the revelation, with the encouragement that you expect.