You have to hate what God hates

Book of Revelation chapter 1, we are going to read together today the first letter in the book of Revelation from Jesus Christ directly to the local churches of the day of John, the Apostle. The Lord spoke directly to certain churches, prophetic messages. And we are going to start today with the First Letter that the Lord in the book of Revelation spoke to the church of Ephesus.

But first I would just like to say that the book of Revelation is something important for us today, because I believe that we are living in the last days. I don't know if it's our generation or the next, but as the word says, time is short. And it is important for Christians to be awake as we have spoken before. The book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John when he was in exile on an island, the island of Patmos.

Now being on an island sounds like a vacation to us. But I assure you it wasn't Punta Cana, or Roatán or I don't know what, or Luquillo or Hawaii. No, no, he was in punishment exiled by the word of God. Imagine, have you seen the movie Cast Away? That man who lived on that island like this, more like that than vacations. But there he was in the spirit and the Lord revealed a message to him, but it was more than a message, it was a vision of the spiritual world. And he was able to see what was behind the physical reality, and he was able to see the spiritual reality.

The Lord used symbols in a prophetic vision, it is called apocalyptic literature because it uses many figures to communicate spiritual realities that a human being often does not have the capacity to understand. That's why many dragons and other things are symbols that represent something else. But the Lord spoke to him and revealed to him what was behind it and he began with the vision of the most important thing that is in the spiritual environment and that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, more important than any angel, any demon, any nation or message, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ himself to the church. Amen.

And he began with that vision, because John knew Jesus well, he was an intimate Apostle, close to Jesus. But now he sees that the Christ who lives now is a very different Christ than he knew before. He knew the human Christ before, a human Jesus like us, who got tired, who lived as a human being, divine, God, but also human, but the Christ that he saw now, before his revelation, is the exalted and glorified Christ. , the Christ who has already defeated death, the devil and sin and is at the right hand of the Father reigning forever and ever. That Christ revealed himself to John. So we start with the vision that he had in chapter 1, verse 9.

“…I John, your brother and your partner in the tribulation, in the kingdom, in the patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, 'I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the last, write in a book what you see, send it to the 7 churches that are in Asia to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and the Odyssey.' And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me and turning I saw 7 golden candlesticks and in the midst of the 7 candlesticks one like the Son of the a man, clothed in a garment that reached down to the feet and girded around the chest with a golden belt and his head and his hair were white like white wool, like snow; his eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like burnished bronze shining as in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of many waters. He had 7 stars in his right hand, a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face was like the sun when it shines in its strength.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead and he placed his right hand on me saying 'Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last and the one who lives and was dead, more behold, I live forever and ever, amen . And I have the keys of death and hades, write the things that you have seen and those that are and those that are to be after these, the mystery of the 7 stars that you have seen in my right hand and of the 7 golden candlesticks . The 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches and the 7 lampstands that you have seen are the 7 churches.”

So this letter, this revelation and those letters were written to certain specific and historical local churches that existed in the area called Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, hence the map. And if we were to see it, there is an island next to Ephesus called Patmos. So I believe that John was looking at the coast of Turkey and he was thinking about these churches there, and he saw in the spirit what God was doing and what he was going to do. And there came the revelation of the messages for these churches.

The churches are golden lampstands. In the spirit, the Lord used that image to communicate what a true church is, it is a golden lampstand. If you can put the photo of a golden candlestick used in the temple, it is called in Hebrew menora, to shine in the temple as a symbol of the presence of Jehovah among his people, and a symbol of the constant prayers of the people before of God.

The priest was very careful never to let the light go out, he always had to shine before God on the candlestick the light of the flame of fire, of the adoration of his people in his presence. So for Christ, for God, the church is a lampstand. If you notice there are certain branches, there are 7, they symbolize something in the Bible that also has branches, which also burned but was not consumed, you can think of the Bible. Something with branches that burned without being burned, the burning bush, there Jehovah, the Shekinah glory of Jehovah appeared to Moses in the burning bush.

So the lampstand represents the bush of God's presence among his people, and now we know that if the lampstand is the church, then we are the bush. God is the fire and we are the bush that is not consumed but burns with the shekinah glory of Jehovah. The reason for a church to exist is to carry the flame of God's presence in the world and a modern light does not work. How does a modern light work? You have to plug it into electricity. An old light, that candlestick, only works if it has oil, without oil there is no light, without light the candlestick is useless. The candlestick only works if there is oil. What is oil for us? The oil is the presence of the Holy Spirit among us. A church without the spirit has no light, it has no life, it ceases to be a church. We'll talk about that later. But thank God we can celebrate that a genuine church has the privilege of being a bush that burns with divine fire, because the oil of the Holy Spirit keeps us lit with this flame. That is a church in the spirit.

And the stars. Jesus had the stars in his hand. We can see the photo of stars on the right hand, under his domain and control. And the Bible says that each star is an angel of each church. There are different interpretations, some believe that each angel is a literal angel, that each church in the spiritual environment has an angel that wars for us. How nice! I believe that ours is a warrior angel and half crazy and multiethnic, but each church has its angel.

But I think about it, how he writes messages to angels to carry the message. I don't understand that much. It's interesting. But he is on an island and in the book of Daniel angels carry prophetic messages to Daniel, and it may be something like the message is going to be carried to the churches in the spirit by the angels.

There are others who believe that the Greek word angelos means messenger and that they are human leaders, that they are pastors of the church, that each star represents a pastor over the church, that he is a messenger of the Gospel for his people and that the letters are addressed to these shepherds who are at the right hand of Jesus under his rule. How nice! That's another cute interpretation.

On Monday I thought they were literal angels, on Tuesday I decided no, they are shepherds. Then on Wednesday I decided that they are angels, so I don't know what I'm going to believe tomorrow but they are one of these 2 things, angels from the churches that are receiving this message and so God is there sending messages to the churches.

And this is the message to the church of Ephesus. I take every prophetic message, not only for them but for us as well. Each letter has principles of how to be a winning church and uses this word, I will give such a thing to the one who wins. So every letter, every message is that Jesus wants churches to be winning churches because we are in a fight. There are many forces that want to defeat the church and to overcome the spiritual opposition that we have, we have to take to heart what God tells us in these letters. We must read these letters to ourselves.

The Bible says that if we read these messages and take them we will be blessed. So just by reading it with an open heart we are going to be blessed. So let's read in Revelation 2, the first letter to Ephesus and first let me pray.

Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that every word we read, Lord, we savor it as a direct word from you and to us. Thank you Jesus that you reign in the spiritual environment, that you walk in the midst of the candlesticks and that you put the oil and that you take care of the candlesticks and you are speaking to us today. Your people are listening to you, in the name of Jesus.

Revelation 2, “To the angel of the church in Ephesus, who holds the 7 stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the 7 golden lampstands, write, says this, 'I know your deeds and your hard work and patience and that You cannot bear the wicked and you have tried those who say they are Apostles and they are not, and you have found them liars, and you have suffered, and you have been patient, and you have worked hard for the love of my name and you have not fainted. but I have against you that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen and repent and do the first works, otherwise I will come to you soon and I will remove your candlestick from its place, if you have not repented. But you have this, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Let him who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God."

Lord, may we as a church eat from that tree in the name of Jesus. The Lord is calling and writing to Ephesus as a warrior church. It had to be, because Ephesus was not an easy city, it was the center of idolatry of a goddess called Diana. When Pablo first preached there, there were the children of Esgueva, there was a lot of spiritual struggle, people burned their magician scrolls and all the magic things they had. And there was an event in a large shopping center, a large auditorium because there was a man whose job was to make idols, he was an artisan who was afraid that he was going to lose money, because everyone who is in love with Jesus is going to leave our little goddess. . So he said, 'This is dangerous,' and people would gather in the theater, in a large auditorium and everyone shouting for 3 hours, 'great is Diana of the Ephesians,' a demonic spirit in this city. And that church was there in the midst of evil, it had to be a fighting church, a warrior church, a victorious church, it knows what it is to fight for Christ.

I listened to this word very carefully, fajarse. That means work really hard. Sweat for Christ, be a fighter, not come to sit down and be comfortable, if I have not gotten down to work. I have not come to warm a bench, I thank God because León de Judá is a warrior church and I am proud of that.

Now, there may be people who have come in hurt, who need time to rest in soft grass and be by still waters and heal. Thank God, do it if you have to, but all of us who are here know that we are not here to always rest and not work. We rest and we work, both because God has called us to be a strong, warlike, sweating church for the Lord's work, a church fiercely dedicated to the truth of the Bible, a church that can't stand a false preacher. I wait, it scares me a little if I mess up.

But the churches of Ephesus tested the false Apostles who arrived and there were impressive Apostles who put on a great show. There were some Apostles who used to be magicians, there was one named Simon, the magician, and he saw the power of the Holy Spirit through Philip. He says, 'wow, I want that, I want to do the tricks with the Holy Spirit. Give me that. How much is it?' And Peter said, 'Look, you can keep your money, son of the devil, because you're not going to be a Christian magician,' but he might have become. There were many who combined spiritualism with Christianity and performed miraculous signs. It was difficult to tell the true from the false, but the Ephesians knew that one must test the spirits.

Jesus says it 'beware of the false prophets who come to you dressed as sheep but inside they are ravenous wolves, you will know them by their fruits.' Look at the fruits, look at the manipulation, control, double life. You have to be very careful because today more than ever on the internet anyone can present themselves as the Apostle from I don't know where. Careful. Because on the internet it is difficult to discern the fruits. Be careful, you have to discern the spirits and look for not a person, a perfect ministry because they are not, there is no, there is no perfect person, I assure you. You only have to ask my wife and you will know that there is no perfect pastor.

But what if there is no other option, has to be authentic, sincere, not a hoax. The Apostle Paul says thus, 'our exhortation did not come from error or impurity nor was it by deceit, on the contrary, if we speak it is because God approved us and entrusted us with the Gospel, we do not try to please men but God who tests our hearts .' This is what we are looking for, authenticity, not perfection, but sincerity.

But mind you, someone can be honest and be wrong. There are many cult leaders who sincerely teach falsehoods. So it is more than seeking sincerity but evaluating the content of the message according to the word of God. There are many messages, you have to listen and study and study to know if what I am hearing matches what the word of God says.

The church of Ephesus was a victorious church because it knew how to test the spirits and rejected what was false. They were hard-working people who never got tired, people who suffered for being Christians. Jesus warned us very strongly, if they hate me they will hate you, because the disciple is not better than his leader. If they called Jesus Beelzebub, what are they going to say about us? If they call Jesus a demon, they are going to say uglier things about you and me for being Christians.

If we want to be loved by the world we cannot be a winning church. Now our church is interesting because politicians love us, every 5 days one is bumping into some politician here. Governors come, he had his cult here, Senator Warren came when we were talking about health, the mayor comes and our faith is if a politician comes, we honor him and give way, we do not say that we are going to vote for him or her, but we we honor as a civil servant and give him his place from any party, from any side.

But after many of those same politicians who love us, respect us with many things that we do in society, many the next day have to say that they do not agree with many things that we believe, they have to say 'but we do not approve of certain beliefs that they have.” Thank God, if we are a church that politicians agree with everything we believe, what do we believe? We are not going to look good with everyone and we should not try to look good with everyone.

But if they hate us, let them hate us for being faithful and not for being bad. That's the problem. Many times they hate us for being bad, not for being faithful. But that's how it will be. This church was a faithful church, a church that had not lost the scandal of the cross. If we are going to be a winning church we always have to be a scandalous church in a certain sense, that our belief offends because it is saying that sin is sin. A winning church, a faithful church that did its duty, but a church does more than fight.

An overcoming church cannot only be a warrior church, it must also be the bride of Christ. It is not only doing our duty and sweating and fighting, it is also loving Jesus above all things with an endearing and passionate love. Jesus said, 'but I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first things, for if you do not repent soon I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.'

Brothers, it is possible to be faithful and fall out of love, fall out of love, lose love for Jesus, is it possible? There is an interesting parable, the beautiful parable of the prodigal son. We know the story of the son who asks for all his father's goods and he goes out and wastes everything and then he comes back and says, 'look, in my father's house the servants live well, I go back to my father's house and I'm going to ask you to receive me as one of your servants.' Do you remember the story?

He comes with his speech all memorized and he comes home and the father comes running and hugs him and the son starts his speech, and he says, 'Dad, I have sinned against the heavens and against you, I am no longer worthy of to be called your son, receive me as one of your…' and the father says, 'No, no, no, you are not a servant, you are my son, and we are going to put on the ring and the beautiful robe and we are going to kill the fattened calf and we are going to celebrate because you are my son and I love you.'

But there was another son, do you remember? The good son, the well-behaved son, who stayed at home working, making out. This son comes home and hears the sound of music and says, what's going on? They tell him, 'well, your bad son came home and this scoundrel was given a party and everything was fine...' and the good son gets angry. The father, because the father is loving, leaves the house and he begs him to come into the house to celebrate. And the good son says, 'Look, all these years I have struggled, I have worked and I have never disobeyed any of your commandments, I have complied with everything and you have never given me even a kid to celebrate with my friends.' that he looks at his dad? He looks at him not as daddy but as a slave owner, as a boss and not a good boss, a bad boss who forces a lot and gives him nothing. The father tells him, 'My son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours, you don't understand. Have you forgotten when you were a baby and we were together and we played in the field together? And you always wanted to be with me and spend time with me in the fields and play and listen to stories by the fire at night, and now you just work but don't love me.' That's not Christianity.

An overcoming church not only serves Christ, but loves Christ and enjoys Christ. I want, God wants us to be a church in love with Jesus, full of oil, full of fire for him. The lampstand may be removed from its place. That's strong. A church can stop being a church in the spirit. Perhaps the building continues, perhaps the organization continues, perhaps there are saved brothers in the church, but a church that has stopped being in love with Christ can lose its place as a church before the Lord in the spiritual environment, it can become a beautiful candlestick that shines, but that no longer works, that the light goes out because there is no more oil.

This happens. In fact, I believe that this has happened to most of the churches that have existed in history. Almost every Christian church started in revival, it started with people praying and fighting and preaching and suffering for the Gospel, but after the years it became an organization and it lost its life and it stopped being an organism before the Lord, it lost its oil, it lost its light and ceased to be a functional church in the presence of the Lord.

May this never be the case with us, may we never lose the oil of the Holy Spirit between us and the fire of love for him. How can we make sure of that? thank God Jesus gives advice to them. He says, 'remember therefore from where you have fallen.' Remember, remember the days at the beginning, remember your first love, your honeymoon with Christ. I spent some time thinking about my first few months as a Christian. Me, a 16-year-old fanatic for Jesus. My parents were sure that I was already in a sect because I had gone completely crazy. Because I was on fire for Christ. Remember the amazement, the joy of meeting Christ the first time.

I remember going outside and looking at the trees and the skies and thinking, who put everything in HD? The colors are prettier, the air is fresher. But it wasn't the world that had changed, it was me. The word… I was able to read the word and see wonderful things in the word, I understood it and I thought wow… And I became addicted to the word of God, I ate it like candy, like popcorn, like cotton candy, crying, memorizing the word of God.

I remember long walks with the Lord at night looking at the stars and talking to him day and night. I spoke in tongues so much that my family was thinking of sending me to the child psychologist. My mom told me, literally, don't tell your dad because he sends you to the child psychologist. And there's nothing wrong actually but… my sister asked me one day, “Gregory, what were you doing in the bathroom? You were in the shower and you were talking that stuff. We all listen to you." I had forgotten because it was a constant conversation with Jesus.

I remember my crazy friends for Jesus, crazier than me. Our hero was Charles Finney, a revivalist and we read and we wanted…we're going to do revival everywhere because we know better than anyone else, because we're 16 years old. But there was a joy, we evangelized like crazy. We talked to any human, animal, object, we talked about Jesus. That's how it was, do you remember?

One day, I remember, there was a beautiful, fresh snowfall, and we decided to go to our high school and put messages in the snow. And we walked and made the word big, gigantic, Repent, Save Yourself, Jesus lives, and big and then the next day… I felt like Gideon, the next day what did he do, who burned the idol. Everyone looking out the windows and it was great. It looks. Crazy for Christ.

Remember where you fell from. Remember that craziness of being a new believer. Crazy love for him. Visit places, think about it, listen to music from before. You have to think about that. Repent and do the first works.

To repent this is a gift from God, repentance is not bad, it is good. It is a gift that God gives us that means, no matter what has happened or bad, or how I have messed up, I can always repent and change again. Thank God for the second chances he gives us.

Repenting is something nice, beautiful, changing and starting over with Christ. Repent and do the first works. Now my plan then, in the first snowfall to go to my daughter's school, who is in second grade and… maybe not this, what then? If I'm not going to repeat exactly what he did, I recommend that you spend time with new believers now. I do it as medicine for my soul. I love being with new believers level 1, level 2, in discipleship. I love being with people coming out of addictions, the homeless person that we do Bible studies with them, because they seek God with gratitude. A new believer is thankful because he knows that much has been forgiven. No matter what, we have all been forgiven so much, but we forget how much God has forgiven us. We forget about grace.

Think about the new believers in the Bible, the Gadarene demonic do you remember him? He had a legion of demons. Jesus cast out the demons and afterwards he was dressed and well. And then Jesus was leaving and the man, like a child, begs him, 'no, I want to get in the boat with you, Jesus.' Jesus says, 'No, you have to go back home to preach.' He says, 'No, I don't want to, I don't like them, I don't like them, I want to be with you. I love you.’ Think of the sinful woman who was famous for her bad life on the street, but Jesus forgave her, cast out 7 demons. She became Mary Magdalene.

Think of someone like her who heard that Jesus was in the house of a Pharisee, do you remember the moment? And she didn't mind going into the Pharisee's house, looking for Jesus there in the dining room, throwing herself at his feet and kissing his feet, crying so much that she did everything ugly and decided how am I going to dry my tears? I am going to use my hair, grateful because the one who has been forgiven a lot loves a lot.

Praise Jehovah for his mercy is new every morning. Give thanks to the Lord because his mercy is good. I encourage you as a practice, and it says, go back to your first practices, we don't try to feel something, we try to do something different and the feelings continue. So, the practice of giving thanks to the Lord.

I encourage you to set aside half an hour to thank God for everything, for the tree, for the air, for the oxygen, for the person next to you, for your family, for your boss, because at least you have a job, for everything what God has given you, through Jesus, through the Bible, through your church, through your brothers, thank you Lord. Thank you.

If you take even 5 minutes to do this, the oil will begin to flow and the flame of love for Christ will return to you. Do the first things. New believers hunger to be in God's presence and hear the word, like Mary sitting at Jesus' feet. We know what happened, her sister Marta gets angry, 'Jesus, tell her to help me with the food.' 'Marta, Marta – because she is scolding Jesus – why are you busy and worried about so many things, few things are necessary. Maria has chosen the best.’

We have to have that hunger to be in the presence of God again. Two years ago I preached from Psalm 1, blessed is the man who does not sit in mocking chairs nor has he walked in the path of perversity, etc... If not in the law of Jehovah you are his delight and in his law he meditates day and night evening.

And I began to think that I really have delight in the word of God, like a delicious meal. And I thought, well, I like the Bible, I love the Bible, I study the Bible, I preach the Bible, I went to seminary, all that, but that's not great, and I decided, look, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to look to reactivate the taste. You get a taste for a food by eating it. And I decided to take out my magic phone and one can have an app called the Bible app. Have you heard of that? Find yourself someone, a young person, a 6-year-old child and it will put it on your phone in 5 seconds.

And then you can listen to any version of the Bible written in a thousand years, it's there, in any language, English, Spanish, Swahili, French, German, whatever you want. And if you want you can listen to it. And I decided, I kill so much time in the car why not always listen to the word and listen, listen, listen and the taste began to grow in me again that if I didn't have it it was like hunger, I need, almost like a good drug, I need my dose of the word because it was like honey for the soul.

You have to do the practice to reactivate the taste. Do the first works and so we renew the love we have and evangelize. Also, and this is very important, new believers have sadness for their sin. I, a new Christian, 16 years old, decided to write all my sins on sheets, it cost me a lot. I had only lived 16 years but I filled out a lot of sheets and after writing everything down, I went into the bathroom and burned them. And again, what are you doing there? There's smoke, what are you doing? Poor family, poor parents, confessing my sin.

You have to hate what God hates. We cannot minimize sin and at the same time love Jesus because this is loving what he hates. You have to hate what God hates. Look what it says, 'but you have this, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.' Nicolaitans, a sect that existed at that time. There are many different opinions, not entirely sure what they were and what they believed, but it seems that they mixed Christianity with immoral practices, that is, sexual immorality, idolatry, saying that you can have your idols and also worship Christ, you can practice sexual immorality and still love Christ. And the Bible says that you have to hate certain works if you want to love Christ, you have to reject certain things.

It's not hating people, thank God there will be some sinner here in this church, do we have some? One or two. Thank God, we are a place that Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but I call sinners to repentance. He calls people sinful, thank God. I rate. I thank God that our church is a place where you can arrive as you are. In the morning you are going to see a lot of people, and now in the afternoon too, people who come from the street, who you see living on the corner, who are homeless, who still have their addictions, who are still dozing in worship, but they are in the house of God seeking the life of Christ. May we always be a church for sinners.

But we don't do anything right, if we change the definition of sin and say that it's okay, that sin is not sin. You have to hate what God hates. Each generation is going to have its struggle and if we want to be a church set on fire, we must be firm in what the Bible calls sin. We love the sinner.

It's not the Nicolaitans we hate, it's the works of the Nicolaitans who they are, the works, not the people. Many churches in their jealousy for justice hate people, they speak as if person and sin are here below, we must come with love, with graces, tolerate the person but never tolerate practices that are not of the word. The church is there to heal, not for people to continue in our sin. If we tolerate evil we quench the flame of the fire of love of a holy God. By the lament of evil the love of the majority grows cold. We don't want cold love.

Now all this ends, brothers, with an invitation. First a warning and then an invitation. The warning: whoever has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Brothers, it is possible to hear without listening. I don't know if this works in Spanish. The child hears the words but is listening to you for the meaning. If we want to be a winning church, let us always have ears to hear the voice of the good shepherd who is speaking to us and tender hearts. Fertile ground for the word of God to enter.

And it ends with an invitation, to love Jesus is to eat from the tree of life in God's paradise. To the one who wins I will give him the right to eat from that tree. What is eating from the tree of life? It is to taste intimacy with Christ, that is like food for your spirit and for your soul. If we stop loving him we are starving the heart.

The word says, taste and see that the Lord is good. Brothers, I want and I pray that we will always be a church that eats well from God. Jesus said, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever believes in me will never thirst. May we be a church full of food, of intimacy with our Christ. Table dressing before me, in the presence of my distressers, you anoint my head with oil, my cup is overflowing. This oil is overflowing from the lampstand of the Lion of Judah.

But you know what? I preach this not because we have left our first love, I don't think this is the case, but you always have to revive it. It was talked about before, I think Sara mentioned, the parable or the event when Jesus changed the water into wine. After the wedding party, the head of the wedding, tasting the rich wine, says, look, but you have saved the best wine for last. Lion of Judah, the best wine is yet to come if we want it. The best food.

I want us to be more in love with Christ now than 15 years ago, and that in 5 years we are even more in love with him, that we be like young people in love with our savior, Christ's bride, the best is yet to come.

Lord, give us that oil to fill our candlestick. Let us stand up and Father, in the name of Jesus we confess that many times, Lord, we have let our love for you cool, Lord. I ask you in the name of Jesus that the flame of the fire of love for you never goes out, that we be faithful, Lord, but never like the good son of the parable, Lord. Before being your servant, Lord, we are your son, we are your bride, Lord, we want to be a church that touches your heart, Father, an adoring church, a church in love with Jesus, a church on fire with love for you, Mister. Oh, Jesus, let us do the first works again.

Father, I ask that we be crazier, although more mature in a sense but crazier than ever for you, Lord. Oh Jesus may we be an overcoming church.