The importance of a life totally surrendered to the Lord

I want to take a few minutes to speak based on the text of Romans chapter 12 that I did this morning because, in the process of this new 9 o'clock service, I wanted to add my own words that I know I already add and I have done an extraordinary job of teach that ministry, but now that we are bigger and that there are other groups I have also wanted to instill in the heart of that service and as I do with you also about certain important values for our Church, values that we hope our Church will always have as essential in its constitution, its spiritual DNA, which are the things that we consider fundamental, which I believe are the foundation of a blessed life, a prosperous life, a successful life, a life spiritually sensitive to the things of the Lord, a life that be able to receive from God and be able to move with power in the world, and meet the inevitable attacks that come to the life of a believer and overcome in you Every situation, a prosperous life in other words that we believe is the destiny of every believer.

What is the secret of a prosperous and blessed life, what is the foundation, where does this process of blessing begin in the life of a believer? and I hope this meditation helps us understand this. Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2, a long time ago I preached about this passage but it is worth remembering it again: "Therefore, brothers, I beg you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your rational worship; do not conform to this century but transform yourselves" that word is very important "transform yourselves through the renewal of your understanding so that you can verify what the good will of God is pleasant and perfect" may the Lord bless His holy Word, amen.

"So, brothers, I beg you for the mercies of God" is how Paul begins in this solemn and very important passage. What I want to talk to you about is the importance of a life totally surrendered to the Lord, a life surrendered to God in a radical sense, a total surrender of one's being to the Lord, an unambiguous, unconditional commitment to God, the total surrender of our being to Mister. When you surrender, when I surrender, we surrender our being to God, our destiny, everything we have, everything we are to the Lord and we give Him the lordship, the first place, that is where triumph in the Christian life begins.

A total consecration of the being that allows us to receive all the nutrients of the Word of God, total commitment, total surrender, total surrender of the being to the Lord, that is the beginning of the invincibility of a believer. And I also believe that the origin of a prosperous and blessed Church, when a Church is made up of men and women who know what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, know what it is to be a believer, a follower of Jesus, a Christian, not a group of religious people who come to Church simply because it is Sunday and because that is what a decent person does, but convinced people, consecrated people, people who would not want to be anywhere else but in the House of God, who They can say as the psalmist says: "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand outside them."

How good it is when there is a people that loves the Lord so much, that knows the Word of God, that has had dealings with the Holy Spirit, that knows His call, and that is so penetrated and saturated with love for God and total surrender that Coming to the House of God is not a commitment but a privilege, a celebration: we come to celebrate, we come to recognize the Lordship of God in our lives, we come to look at each other and say: wow I don't think we are so lucky to be part of this group of people who are saved, sanctified, consecrated and on their way to the heavenly homeland and to eternity with God.

When there is a people like this, a people that each one has had their moment of crisis with God, their moment of colliding head-on with the Word and the Spirit of God, we have to look for that, brothers, we have to look for that conviction. Until you feel that sense of commitment to God, the personal of your spirituality, the personal, the intimate.

Because when we come here to the House of the Lord together, each one of us has to come, it is something individual and it is something collective. Individually, it is that you are there receiving from the Lord, loving the Lord, loving the Word of God, receiving this Word in what is applied to your life, bringing your offering to the Lord of a whole week of communion with God, of longing for Him, His courts, His principles, and then you come charged, you come with your battery full, and then we come together in this beautiful organism that is the Church of Jesus Christ and together we bring an offering to the Lord made up of our individual offerings, do you understand? ?

But there has to be that sense of commitment from each one of us first and I am glad for you and for my own life, is that the Lion of Judah is made up of people who have presented their lives to the Lord as a living sacrifice as it says here: " I beg you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God." He doesn't say it just once, it's not like he says: well one day I came here to Church, the Pastor made an appeal, I gave my life to the Lord and okay, now I just put the car in cross control until I die and reach heaven, no, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice is something every day, it is something even many times a day. It is something that sometimes your flesh, your biology inclines you in one direction and like a horse that wants to run away you feel the impulse in one direction and you stop and say: no, I have to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy , pleasing to God, how many times does one have to do that.

An offer of a dishonest profit that promises to free you from many economic burdens but you say: no, that is not from God because my life belongs to the Lord, a dishonorable act to the Lord and you feel the impulse but you say: no, my life, that is what is called presenting your body in a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God.

When the Apostle Paul speaks of the body, he says here: your bodies, the word in the original Greek is: somata which means: your flesh, it is not simply about the biological body, rather it is about biology, everything that is human , everything that belongs to time and space, everything that is material, everything that is contrary to the spirit, that dichotomy between what is body and what is spirit, right? The Apostle Paul speaks right there in Romans that our flesh leads us in a certain direction, our spirit pulls us in another direction and we have to choose under which of these two principles we are going to live our lives.

We cannot totally eliminate the call of the body because we inhabit a body and a biology, and that body can sometimes betray us, and it will not give up until we come into the Presence of God one day when we are released from it, while we are here on Earth we contend with the demands of the body but God says: Present your meat, and meat can be not only let's say the sexual appetites, it can also be the material appetites. The love of a profession, the love of beautiful clothes, the love of affection from people, your social position, your career, a man, a woman you are married to whom you sometimes adore more than God, and God says: Take all that and sacrifice it to Me, present it to Me as a living, holy, pleasing sacrifice.

'Parestesai', which is the word that says: present, 'parestesai', in the original Greek means that, right? deliberately presenting something to a person or an owner and handing it over to him, and surrendering it to him, as the priests presented to the Lord a victim sacrificed to God and in the middle of the sanctuary they offered it to the Lord as a holocaust, Paul says: look, I am not asking you to put a knife in and take your own life, and then present yourself to the Lord, no, I am asking you that while you live your life, that is why it says a living sacrifice, thank God, thank you Lord that you are not asking me take my life, no, a living sacrifice, a living sacrifice.

Our life as Christians and if you are a Christian that call is for you and me, our life as Christians must be to present our biology every day, that lower part of our being, the part that calls us to want to stay here in the world and wanting to make the world a God, the part that wants to put those who are us above God and Paul says: I invite you to take that and present it to the Lord as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to the Lord, and that as I say is something that we have to do every day of our life every day in order to truly receive what God wants us to receive in our life.

Paul makes his call for that kind of attitude in light of all that God has done for us and all that God has invested for us before we ever go back inside.