The power of visualization

Genesis chapter 30, we're going to go to verse 25 and I'm not going to read the whole passage because it's too long so I'm going to set the stage for you and then we get into the very passage that I want, the verses that I want to emphasize and use as a starting point. departure. The story is about the years that Jacob spent in the house of his uncle Laaban who was a very cunning man but Jacob was much more cunning than him, he did not know what he was getting into because Jacob was very cunning and that is why in fact, Jacob had to run from his brother who he tricked, Esau, and you know the story, and this is a titanic fight in malice, Jacob and his uncle Laaban.

And what happens is that Laaban had deceived Jacob, you remember the story, many more years than they had originally agreed for Laaban to allow him to marry his daughter Rachel who was evidently Jacob's cousin if she was the daughter of Laaban his uncle. The fact is that Laabán deceived Jacob several times and he was always postponing the number of years that he had to work for him in order to marry Raquel, but Jacob always took advantage of the matter.

And on one occasion Jacob said to Laaban: okay, do you want me to work with you? well, don't pay me money, what we are going to do is the following: in Laaban's flock there were goats, there were sheep and there were other animals, and they were all rather solid colors, and only occasionally, it is very rare when one of these animals came out with spots or splashes of color, sheep for example, but it was always a solid color.

Then in verse 32 Jacob proposes to him: “Today I will pass through all your flock, putting aside all the spotted and speckled sheep, and all the dark-colored sheep, and all the speckled and speckled sheep among the goats, and this will be my salary” but what they agree on is the following: from the existing flock that Laaban has, Jacob is not going to take a single one of those sheep, but he is going to take out those that are painted or with different designs, he is going to put them aside , but simply he is not going to touch them, he is going to take the ones of solid color and those are the ones that he is going to feed because pel was a shepherd of Laaban's sheep, and what's more; to make sure he didn't do any trick, Laaban separates the sheep that are like this of different colors and takes them away, and gives them to a son because he knew who Jacob was and that he could do a trick, and he sends them to three days away from where Jacob is so he couldn't get close to those sheep.

And then Jacob proposes to him: look at all the sheep that are born from now on painted with paint, with strange things on their skin, they will be mine and those will be my salary, and Laaban thinks: well, the ones that come out like this are so rare, wow, how silly, how stupid, of course we are going to do it that way. And he says: okay, no problem, he goes in according to what Jacob proposes, thinking that he is going to get away with it, but Jacob has something else in mind.

Then Jacob goes off into the distance with his colored sheep all solid colored and here we get into verse 37, it says, “Jacob then took rods” and before reading the passage, why am I using this passage? because it has always caused me curiosity and it is that I want to talk about the power of visualizing, the power of what one sees in the mind, what one visualizes, what one anticipates in the mind. In other words, the rare power that the mind has to govern the world of matter and how many times what we visualize, what we see on the screen of our mind in one way or another in life has a lot to do with the results. that we experience in life, that's why I talk about the power of visualization, and this passage in a very curious and very strange way, and very controversial in fact, shows us I think the power of when you fix your vision on something of what happens and how the world of the mind and the brain can affect the world of matter and time, and space.

So it says here that: "Jacob then took some green sticks" that is, it was from a tree that was young and flexible, "green from poplars, hazelnuts and chestnuts" three types of trees, he cut the branches and took sticks from those “and peeled off the bark on them soft peelings” in other words the bark of those trees he took with a knife and cut pieces of the bark so that there were interspersed in the twigs pieces where there was still bark and pieces where there was just the whitish part of the bark. rod, "thus revealing the whiteness of the rods and he placed the rods that he had peeled in front of the cattle in the channels of the water troughs where the sheep came to drink" that is, where the channels where the water was poured came to drink, he would put the rods before her, those rods that were cut with different designs.

Not only did he cut them in rounds like this along the entire length of the rod, but he also seems to have cut them as different designs to break the monotony of one color on the rods. Then he says: "he put them there where the sheep came to drink, which procreated when they came to drink" it seems that when they were relaxed, they were happy there because they had their love affairs and many became pregnant when they were at the trough and that is why he chose that place .

Then in verse 39 it says that: "Thus they conceived before the rods and gave birth" and later, of course, when they were pregnant they conceived the ewes before the rods "and gave birth to lambs striped, painted and dotted with different colors." This is something strange and in fact it has been a point of controversy because they have said: no that is impossible, that does not obey the laws of genetics, they see it as a reflection of superstition in the Bible but here we are being told that That was what happened and I am going to explain a little more about it.

So when they looked at the rods, when they conceived, when the moment of conception came, it occurred as an interaction between what they were looking at, the intensity of that moment perhaps or whatever, and what they conceived inside changed the genetics of those young, and in fact when they were born they reflected the experience of having looked at those, like an impartation of the symbolism of the rods on the womb of these sheep “and their young came out with those same designs; sheep striped, painted and sprinkled with different colors, and Jacob separated the lambs, and put with his own flock the stripes, and everything that was dark from Laban's pack, and put his pack by itself and did not put it with Laaban's sheep .”

Can you imagine Laban's reaction after weeks and months go by, and the sheep that are born are all this colored? I imagine that he must have been very frustrated and very angry with Jacob like that, and wondering what the hell is this man doing to make this happen?

And then verse 41 says: "It happened that whenever the sheep were in heat" that is to say when they were in their time of heat, wanting to have contact with the strongest sheep, Jacob put the rods in front of the sheep in the troughs to that they conceive in the sight of the rods” listen to me, how malicious was this man Jacob and how cunning, but when the weaker sheep came he did not put them, so they were the weakest for Laaban and the strongest for Jacob, and the sheep became rich He was very male, and had very many flocks, and female servants, and male servants, and camels, and donkeys.”

How interesting. First of all, again: in reality, I don't even care so much about entering into the discussion that if this is it, I think look, if rods had come out when the sheep saw the light instead of sheep, I would have believed the story, I believe that what the Word of the Lord says is so and so it is. Now: I believe that very possibly God was in that matter too and honoring Jacob's faith because he was a man blessed by God and that God had a great purpose for him if he was the progenitor of the entire Hebrew race after Abraham and Isaac. , the Lord blessed with Joseph everything he did and the power of faith is incredible, and it can return.

What I see about the world and that is what the poets, the artists will tell you, that the world is affected by symbols and that is what we continually believe when we raise our hands, when we kneel, when we dance, when these young women are here executing acts of power, these things that are symbolic affect the world of the spirit and then also affect the world of time, space and reality; that is why religion exists, that is why art exists, that is why literature exists, that is why sculpture and all other things exist because man knows that symbols, metaphors are like magic keys that operate on abstract reality and then they directly operate on the real world.

So I think that somehow these actions of Jacob he understood, who knows, if these sheep in that intense moment of having sexual contact, excuse the graphic of, if that affected the focus in a much more powerful way than if It would be in a much simpler way if they were looking at them when they were walking, you don't know, or maybe God in His Power said: Look, you know what? I am going to bless my son and he is using this method of doing things, he is being diligent in seeking his welfare, I am going to bless him and I am going to give him what he is doing.

How many times, brothers, when we undertake things in the world believing that God is going to bless us and confessing and visualizing it, God does it even though we are using methods that are not correct, but God straightens things out anyway? because what I see about the power of visualization, I am not talking about magic simply, like visualizing things and go to bed, don't worry, don't look for a job, just visualize that God is going to give you a car, a house and a pretty wife and it will come to you, no. You have to work, right?

If you don't ask the girl for her hand, if you don't declare your love, it's not like God is going to tell you: look so-and-so is dying for you and tell him you're going to marry him, right? you have to do your part, but it does help when we undertake things in life to change our circumstances, it also helps to believe that God is with me and have confidence that what I do will have results, that changes a lot, it's like a gentle wind behind you that propels your ship.

Because again: let's say in that of a ship, there is an interaction of two things, there is an interaction of a ship with some sails, let's say in a sailboat that has to be there and the other thing is the wind that pushes the sails. If there are no sails, it doesn't matter how much wind there is, the boat will not move because the sails make such a big space, the wind bumps into them and wanting to get out pushes the sails and pushes the boat, which means that the world It is always a combination of actions that we undertake and also of blessings that God gives us, and it is both, as that great verse that we all know says: help yourself and I will help you, the other: to God praying and giving the mallet, Just in case the new ones in the Church those are not verses they are said, I do not want to confuse them later they are, where did the Pastor say this? I can not find it.

But they are said because they reflect an understanding of humanity, humanity instinctively knows that success in life is a combination of efforts that we undertake but also a blessing that God provides, the support, the backing of God opening the way and our efforts Helping. That is why Paul tells Timothy: "I advise you to fan the fire of the gift of God that is in you because God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, of love and of a sound mind." God had blessed Timothy with an impartation, with a gift, but now Paul tells Timothy: take that gift and revive it, you have a part to play. My blessing is going to be with you, but if you don't do something, you're going to stay there flattened and the gift is going to stay there like dead, right? there is a part that we have to do.

That is why I am not proposing that simply visualization or a type of evangelical witchcraft, no, it is not referring to that, we are talking about that you need to believe and you need to visualize, and you have to use the principles of faith, then also launch in the Name of the Lord and God supports your efforts. And although you may be clumsy in the way you are understanding things like God blesses you anyway and brings you forward.

So I believe that something like this is what could have been happening here, of course the Bible does not tell us all the details of things, it does not matter that genetically this is not true but what matters is that the God who was behind Jacob he blessed his efforts to provide himself with a positive life and to get out of the traps his uncle had misled him into.

But note that I do not want that, I am simply explaining how I can believe in these things and I assure you that this does not disturb me at least, that is easy to believe for a person who moves in the supernatural vision of the Gospel and of the Word of God one should not have any problem with what happened here even if you are a scientist.

But what strikes me about this passage is that it makes very graphic this idea that I want to convey to you about the power of visualization, the power of what we see in our minds, the power of how you see yourself. yourself, how you see your future, how you see the Kingdom of God, how you see your relationship with God and how you see God, what is happening on the screen of your mind continuously even when you don't know that you are visualizing things because one is always seeing; the mind is working 24 hours a day, 60 minutes per hour. You never stop seeing things in your mind, either subconsciously or consciously, and those images that you entertain in your mind can be positive and optimistic or they can be negative and pessimistic, and many times it depends on how you see things. life.

That makes me think of a saying I once read on a poster I saw, it says in English I'm going to translate it: I'm not going to think negatively because it wouldn't work anyway. It's like the person doesn't even bother to think negatively because not even that, they think that nothing can change their existence, what does it matter anyway, if I complain it won't do anything so I'm not even going to bother to complain, it's not that they don't complain because they think something good is going to happen but because they don't think it's going to make a difference, and many times our minds are like that, we believe that even for the negative we don't believe they can change things, like we already believe that everything is done, my destiny is determined, I was born like this, I am like this, the world is negative and it doesn't matter what happens.

There are many people still in the churches, for example, when I told you about coming to the conference workshops, what do you think at that moment when you hear the Pastor invite you to take a weekend and the Pastor tells you: this It is going to be a blessing for your life, God is going to do something, it is going to change your way of thinking, you are going to have a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit, at that moment, what are you thinking about?

Many of you may think: ah, I have so many things to do and anyway that is one more event and it will be three days that I have to invest or many hours, if you were to analyze what you are visualizing, simply a commonplace, routine event and therefore you don't flinch from trying to internalize that invitation. Others perhaps who have a more positive spirit, more expectant, will say: wow the Pastor is saying this, well look I am going to have to make some arrangement, yes I need this, I am going to make the arrangements and I am going, maybe one who could be blessed just the same, another who is thinking of something positive.

Because perhaps already in his life he has learned to appreciate opportunities, he has seen that when he invests doors open, he is a person who already has a track record, he has a record of doing other things that he tried and they turned out, that person is much more open to the possibility that it will work and when you hear that you visualize an experience that will be a blessing to your life and it is a blessing. The other person says: no, this is going to be one more thing and he's right, it's going to be one more thing and he's not going to go.

I think it was Confucius the great Chinese sage who said: he who thinks he can't and he who thinks he can are both right. In other words, the one who thinks he can't will see his negative prophecy come true and the one who thinks he can will see his positive prophecy come true, both are right, and that often happens in our lives, right? that some have a black and white screen of those thick and deep televisions from 20 or 30 years ago, others have a very thin HD high definition screen, very large, of a good size that can project images in high definition, it depends on how it is the image of the screen of our life and how many colors, how much definition does our screen have with which we visualize the things of our life, that is how our life will be and that will determine a lot.

What this passage suggests to me is that, right? that these sheep, for some reason, in the state they were in, seeing this design, somehow that was transmitted to their interior and determined what they gave birth to, and I believe that this is the case with many of us too, that sometimes God tells us something or we conceive something in our hearts and for some reason some of us can believe that this is so and it happens, and others simply: what's up; It's like when you throw out a word of encouragement and it's like a pebble that you throw into a deep well that falls so far down that you don't even hear it when it reaches the bottom because we don't have a capacity for resonance in us, and God it is there wanting to bless us, wanting to move us forward telling us: No, you can, I am with you, you can change your destiny, make an effort, do your part and I will be mine, you will not be able to fail, try, and some say : yes Lord, they are launched and others are so sleepy that they cannot hear the words of encouragement from the Lord.

And I tell them, brothers: what we visualize, what we see in our minds, the type of life that we believe there is for us in the future, if you believe that your life is going to be a disaster and that it is simply going to be the same thing as always, very possibly your prophecy will come true. If you believe that when you reach old age you are going to be alone, decrepit, toothless, nobody wants to talk to you stuck there in a little apartment looking at a horrible urban scene down there, very possibly your dream is going to come true or your nightmare as you want put it, everything depends on what we believe and see about the future, what is on the screen of our mind, and I believe that this is the problem of many of us, that the screen was turned off when we were young or they determined that It was not going to have many colors because they did not encourage us to believe in our dreams, they did not celebrate the small achievements we made when we were starting something, we were not told: you can, you have, you are, God has a purpose for your life, and so we never developed that ability to visualize positive things to be encouraged about life.

So when the time comes for us to enter the ways of the Lord, we simply transmit that same mental, visual inertia, we transmit it to the Kingdom of the Lord, we realize that we have entered a Kingdom pregnant with possibilities where God says: I am with you, I want to take you forward just strive and be brave, I will be with you wherever you go.

And that is why we have to ask ourselves: Lord, how is the quality of my mind, of my ability to visualize? and this ties in with what I have been preaching as I told you from time to time, and we are going to be preaching about mental and emotional health, about changing our circumstances.

This topic connects with everything we have been saying about the importance of mental and emotional health, changing our lives, using life's circumstances to move forward, I believe that among the things that determine emotional health and success of people is that, it is the ability to visualize good, positive things on the screen of your mind and to see things in three dimensions. I asked the Lord to give me the ability to communicate to you this point that seems very subtle and exotic, I don't like to preach on topics that people cannot grasp, my desire is that the simplest can stick to what that I am teaching and that you can receive something practical for your life, I do not expect that I am not with very exotic and very abstract things up there.

This idea that what you envision, what you anticipate, how you see God, how you see God's purpose for your life, the dreams that God has for you, your ability to dream to see the future as something good, Positive in Christ, in the Lord, your ability to see things in three dimensions, that has a terrible impact on one's life either negatively or positively.

I can give you many stories from my life of how the ability to see things changes. One of the examples that perhaps I have alluded to before is perhaps this building, like before 1998, we first bought the building back in 1993, December 1993 and it was around 1994 when we were still working on that building that I saw sitting in one of the rooms on the second floor there while, remember one of those old metal milk crate that came, sitting there with all the rubble around me, from the building still, this building came to mind . Notice we weren't even very far along on the first one, but this building came to mind; this was still a desert, a building with a small parking lot on the first level, with an auditorium, with a balcony around it, like this one, and a room above.

I told myself: the day our Church grows enough to fill this building twice on Sundays, it will be time to build that building and I had it in my mind. And some time later, after already being here for many years, like ten or more years before we started this building, I approached the architect who designed it, Glenn Knowles, I remember well where in Roxbury in a meeting where I met him Because I had it in mind, I had met him before, I told him: Glenn I want to meet with you and I proposed that he be the architect; we had no money, we had nothing but I asked him if he could give me some drawings, years before we even started doing anything and glory to God look where we are, we are in that building today.

Throughout my life I have benefited a lot, that's why I talk to you about this, about that ability to visualize things in three dimensions and to conceptualize and dream, and see things in something, there is a screen in your mind , and that is what helps us, for example, in mathematics. When you can hold a number in your mind, do a math in your mind, hold the number 13, 9, 12 or whatever, you are seeing the numbers and it is as if you are seeing them on a blackboard. If you do not have that ability to visualize it is very difficult for you to advance technologically or artistically.

An artist, for example, sees a can of Campbell's soup and says: this is a work of art, just like Andy Warhole, one of the famous artists, did, and do you know how many millions of dollars he extracted from that painted Campbell's can? that is one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century and worth millions of dollars. He didn't see a Campbells soup can, he saw a piece of art in an object about modernism, the consumer world and brands, and all these things, and he painted it, and that piece of art is one of the most famous and faces of the 20th century.

So artists can see something mundane, something ordinary and see something exalted, they can see a microphone and they don't see a microphone they see a ship ready to take off into space, that's what the ability to visualize does, right? and that is what we have to, because many times the correct visualization changes the world.

Many years ago I was about 18, 19 years old, that was about 10 or 20 years ago more or less (laughs), I was in the Dominican Republic on a beach called Boca Chica, my sister Mercedes Antonia was there, I was there and I think One of my other sisters, if I'm not mistaken, Boca Chica is a very flat beach and you can walk quite a bit in, and the water is still waist deep. So my sister Mercedes Antonia and I, this other person, were there in the water, we were talking and this and that, and she dropped her ring and it fell into the water on the sand of that beach.

I don't know what got into me, she was lamenting that ring that she loved so much, I don't know if it was God making me prophesy, I don't know if she said it as a game and then it became something real, but I said : Mercedes Antonia, don't worry, when I put my hand in and take it out, the ring will be in my hand. I visualized that, I don't know what it gave me and that's why I wonder what happened at that moment?

Now imagine a ring that falls into water, like three feet of water or whatever it is, falls into the sand what are the statistical chances mathematically that one could stick their hand in and still in a fairly limited circumscribed area and that one puts his hand in and pulls out the ring? well you know what? when I put my hand in, incredibly I couldn't believe it myself, when I took my hand out there was my sister's ring. Because I think, again: maybe I said something outrageous and God said: look, you know what? I am going to honor the faith of this little guy and I am going to give him the ring, because this connects with another principle that was the last one that I discussed in the last session that we had about this of words, you will remember, what you confess , what you say with your mouth is also what you visualize because the words are connected to the mind, many times what you confess affects what you see and other times what you see affects what you confess.

So it's very important, right? one visualize: I can, I believe. I would like to capture my mental state when I told my sister: I am going to take out that ring because if I could capture it, maybe I could reproduce it and I would be a genius then, I would have millions of dollars, I would have people kneeling at my feet and adoring me continuously, but unfortunately that was only once. But I do remember the principle that was behind that moment and it was that I was able to believe, I was able to visualize the ring on my hand and when I put my hand in, that was the case.

So, brothers, I encourage you because this is something very complex and I even feel tempted to, if I were a wise man, perhaps I would end here but I am not, so just give me a few more minutes and I will finish because for now this is expanding a lot. many other things that I can talk about that.

The Bible is full of references to what you believe in God, because here I am not saying as a motivator of these corporate motivators, no, I believe that in Christ Jesus, in the Power of God, what you envision being a child of God, being in the Kingdom of God, what you visualize, how you see yourself, how you see God, how you cultivate certain things because the Bible is full of this idea that according to what that certain men and women of God saw in their minds, this was the result they obtained and the Bible encourages us over and over again to visualize before receiving.

For example our prayers, our prayers must be a detailed and concrete visualization. Do not ask God to simply give you a house, no, tell the Lord what that house is like, how many rooms, what are the kitchen counters, the floor, the bathroom, the stairs, visualize it exactly, visualize it and present it to the Lord, a detailed, concrete and specific order, and that will help you to strengthen your faith and will further strengthen your prayer, and will then allow you to be more successful in what you ask of the Lord. I believe that the Holy Spirit makes us responsible, and when you say: Lord, give me this, okay, but what is that like, what color, where is it located, what is it made up of?

God likes the person who believes in Him enough to ask for something concrete and specific, because if you knew that someone would be able to grant your request and it is something concrete like a car, do you think I know that I am going to your office? and he is going to grant me the car that I am going to say: give me a car? I'm not going to tell him: I want a Bentley with leather seats and a radio that blows my ears off when I put it on, and the color, and everything, I'm going to ask him exactly like me, and again the model of the car, and everything else, the same is with God.

Many times we cannot visualize what we are asking God for and then God says: Look, give me something to work with. And again: how do we visualize God, how do you see God? Do you see him as a dark-haired being there and always in a bad mood with lightning waiting for you to do something and throw it at you to carbonize you? or do you see God as your loving, compassionate, patient, faithful Father, well-intentioned for your life, who knows you from your mother's womb and who is committed to you until the last day of your life, and who says even if you fail: I will always be with you, I am not going to leave you, I am not going to forsake you, I am not going to reject you, I am not going to despise you, as long as you come close to Me I am going to be with you, or you see it as if you you failed once already, account closed, go away I don't want to talk to you anymore because that's how your dad was or that's how another person of authority in your life was, how do we visualize God? Do we see him as that being who is willing to give us the desires of our hearts as the Word invites us to believe?

How do we see the Christian life? Do we see it simply as coming to church, punching out the card on Sunday, and going home the way we arrived? or I see it as an encounter with the Holy Spirit and that every time I come to Church something good sticks with me and I leave with one more vitamin for me, for my day job and the Lord is ministering to me and those waters of the Spirit are Bathing in adoration

How do you see worship? when you go to adore, how do you see it? it's more sometimes we don't even see it. Many of us are there and they are worshipping and these people are breaking down trying to inspire us and we are chewing gum there thinking about tomorrow, we have to iron the clothes when we get home and the beans, I ran out of garlic and I have to go to the market now to season them, etc., why? because we do not pay attention to it, we are not visualizing worship as something wonderful, exceptional that if I do my part God will speak to me, he will bless me, he will inspire me.

How do you visualize all the other things in life? one and the other, young people, how do they visualize their future? Can you visualize a future full of blessing and success, and that God is with you and therefore you cannot fail? so I'm going to make an effort, I'm going to do my part because if you know you're going to be successful in something but it requires you to work, because you're going to work with a lot of effort because that's going to encourage you to keep going .

Now: many times, as we have a record of failures or of very few achievements in the past, an effort is taken as an asset to reach the point that it already becomes something natural in us, so in that case the most important thing, if You do not have many achievements in your life, so you have to believe God and believe that the procedure worked, and that if you begin to trust, to visualize, to confess, to believe, even though there are many doubts that are assailing you, but you begin, give small steps, start with something very small, something that your mind says: I can do this. Don't ask for the Mercedes Benz, ask for a 2010 Porsche because maybe you haven't even had a bike so asking for a Mercedes is too much for you, well ask for a 2010 Porsche Focus there, and then when you get that ask for a 2012 and see growth in achievements because God is also logical, right? it begins with something that you can achieve, that you can believe.

If you want to lose a few pounds, don't think: I'm going to be like Charles Atlas or like Arnold Schwarzenegger right there, no no, think I don't know of someone who is a little more modest but who is better than where you are right now and go for it. that level, and then later on, because many times what happens is that as time goes by, the more you achieve, the more you achieve in God, the more your faith grows.

I remember what the idea of getting $75,000 for the first building of the Congregation cost me and you will have noticed that I have improved a lot in recent years to ask for money from the Congregation, it was very difficult for me (laughter and applause) by the way some say: the Pastor went too far, he learned too well (laughs), but I remember, I see some of the sermons that I preached trying to encourage people in those times to give something and I laugh at myself because my faith was so minuscule, and so are you, you have improved a lot, give yourselves a round of applause (laughs) and I am committed to making you improve more as time goes on.

But we have to start, if you are not used to something like this, start with small things, with small goals, believe that you are magnetized by God and you can then see yourself walking a path in the field that is your life, and you are walking on that road, and I don't know about the goodness and mercy of the Lord, it could be a pretty cloud of colors or a pretty little bird that follows you, wherever you go, the goodness and mercy of God will follow me every day of my life, you can turn that into a vision for your life, and then pour water on that vision like a little plant every day.

Let me tell you a story now that I say matita and I'll finish with that. In the patio of my house there was a bush this summer, I hope Meche is here because she won't let me lie, it was something very stunted, for some reason it had dried up and the leaves were already dry and only the stems of the bush that were quite damaged also, they were in a jar in a place where I sit there from time to time in the morning, and again: I have learned to believe that God changes, I love things that seem to promise nothing to work in them to see them come true, there are many plants here that tell that story also from there on the corner, I like the things that one would throw on the ground, on the ground and in the trash, like many of these buildings that seemed totally destroyed and God He has turned them into places full of life and blessing.

God has put us to do that and I have learned, so I have developed a taste for broken things, battered and that do not promise much to dedicate time to them and see the grace of the Lord rise up. So if you saw that little plant in the flesh, it was impossible. But I was interested in the matita as a challenge and I began to pour water on the matita and I also bought miracle growth. How many know what miracle growth is? because again you have to help God, right? not only God there, you have to help him.

So I started and when I saw that little mat I became attached to it, and when I saw it I think that my affection, my love for her, I think that this mat knew that I was there because I felt attached to it and I like to exercise those beginnings where it seems that there is no life and so on.

The thing is, that little bush grew, it's like a vine, there were white flowers, there were red flowers, you could never, ever have imagined all the different colors, and that little bush spread all over the jar, it was bushy and I saw it in my mind as it developed, growing, clogging and spilling and it was like that, it's still there giving flowers even as it was almost entering October and Meche said: no, that's not going, and I understand, it was impossible for that to give, no, that's already dead; no, the matita is precious and for me that is like a pact, I have sometimes gone, I speak to the matita, I tell her: my precious I love you, I pray for her, I pour her special water on her and I have a preference For that matita, I believe that my love for her has revived her and has given her life, but you have to believe.

I had to see that little plant giving birth and prospering because if I saw it just as it was when I first met it, it would have stayed that way, it would have died completely then and that's life. Sometimes our life is like a rickety clump that we get there dragging ourselves to the Gospel, all shabby by life, but if we believe in God and in the long term we see our life sprouting, throwing leaves, throwing flowers, being blessed my brother, but that has That being in Christ understand me, because that is the difference, because you have to believe, that kind of gains power and strength, and traction when you put love and blessing, that goodness of God that will follow you every day of your life that even if you walk in the valley of the shadow of death you will not fear because the Lord is with you, even if you walk in a desert God will go before you.

You have to visualize yourself like this, you have to visualize the good Will of God, the promises of God, you have to visualize. I could be here much longer, in fact, one of my fears was that I would not have enough material to fill this morning's sermon, but the Word of God begins to unravel. Believe, visualize, develop your ability to visualize good things in your life that come to you because you are the chosen one of God, because God loves you and has good purposes for you, and He is happy with you, and He already declared that the exam you you're going to pass it

I encourage you: change the program of your mind and visualize the beautiful things that you want to happen in your life, both at a broad, general level, the general vision of your life and the detailed visions of the details of the minimal projects that each day we start Please: change the program of your mind and replace the decrepit program with a program of affirmation and faith, and believing God for great things.

I want God to help me first with that because I tell you this and I have learned so much through the years but I still frankly doubt, this is a battle like one has to put on that garment of hope every day and cultivate that vision, that expectation of the goodness of God.

Let's hang our heads for a moment, let the Lord saturate you with that idea. Father I, let's believe for good things, I visualize Your song of joy and victory persecuting me all the days of my life as I walk the paths of this world, and I believe that this Church will not die but will live, not only endure but it will triumph and prosper, it will not only persist but it will conquer and advance, and it will achieve, and that all the good purposes and principles that You have declared Lord over our community will be fulfilled. Our children will be blessed, they will restore the fallen cities, the ancient ruins will restore them.

None of our children will be lost, our families will be blessed, our bodies will be healthy, our finances will be solid and secure, and right now we renounce all the images of destruction and death that the devil wants to implant in us, I rebuke them in the Name of Jesus and we embrace good expectations Lord, good things, we forget about the past and with its failures, its defeats, we close that door Lord and we believe that You today open a new and different destiny for my life in Christ Jesus. We believe, we trust, we hope, we will receive, we will achieve, we will undertake, we will achieve, we will be able to, we will have, by the power of Christ in me because of what He has done on the cross, He became poor on the cross so that I could be rich, He made sick on the cross so that I would have health, He emptied Himself so that I would receive so Father, so Father this morning help us to believe that, we appropriate it.