Gideon, symbol of Pentecostal life

I want to end with the Lord's help this series of messages on life in the Spirit, life in the Power of the Holy Spirit, life filled with divine energy, life not lived in our own strength but in the Power of God, how to live that life Pentecostal, how to access the anointing and filling of the Holy Spirit, how to touch that source of power that is the Spirit of God and make effective believers who live the Christian life victoriously.

Ending this series, and closing, I want to take a character that for me exemplifies many of the issues that we have discussed, that we have dealt with about the Spirit-filled life and I want to go back to the Old Testament because as I have told you before, one of the Through this series, we have seen that in reality, the visitation of the Power of God, the Spirit-filled life is not a theme that begins in the Book of Acts or on the day of Pentecost, it is a theme and a process that given from the first page of Scripture, I would say, because one sees the Holy Spirit there at the very beginning of creation resting on inert, formless matter and creating life, and giving structure as the Holy Spirit does with us when he enters our life.

So we have seen that the Spirit has always been present and we have seen that the great men and women of God accomplished their great deeds because the Spirit of God visits them and fills them with the endowment they need to carry out the work they they require.

I want to use Gideon as an example of what a life filled with the Holy Spirit is like, with all its different themes that we are going to see in a moment and I hope to have the opportunity because there are so many, at least touch on some and reinforce the idea it is to summarize and reinforce some of the things that you have already heard.

This morning I was reading the New York Times for a little bit, I always like to catch up on the news, and there I found an article about a man called Jack Philipps, and Jack Philipps is a cake maker, in the Caribbean we say biscuits, a pastry chef of a certain degree of skill. He owns a bakery, a bakery too, one would say, very successful in Colorado, and Jack Philipps some time ago refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, a gay couple's wedding because of his sincere Christian religious beliefs, he He felt that by making this cake, which for him is a work of love and art, he was implicitly entering into something that he could not recognize as a Christian of those convictions, and he refused, and for that reason this homosexual couple sued him. , submitted it to justice, and a lower court in Colorado decided that he was violating the rights of this couple, and this case has been going up in the courts until now it is going to be audited and heard by the Supreme Court of the United States.

And his life, the life of this pastry man has risen to national prominence, and this relatively ordinary yet highly talented being has become a powerful symbol of Christian belief and of the spiritual battles currently being waged in this nation, to the the point that the New York Times and many, many news outlets have profiled this case and spread it. An ordinary human being has become a powerful symbol of Christian belief and has served to confront this nation.

You can think anything about whether he did the right thing in denying himself so openly to these people, if he should have addressed the problem in another way or anything else, you can think differently in that area but the important thing is that he felt in his heart that he did have to do it and this has led him to be a spokesman for the faith of many of us who believe the same as him.

Gideon is a similar figure only in Scripture because Gideon like Jack Philipps was an insignificant man in his nation and very timid as we are going to see, and he became a powerful instrument in the Hands of God to free a nation from oppression. of his enemies. The Gideon narrative sums up many of the things related to the Spirit-filled life, as I have said, that we have been discussing.

For now, I want to go to the passage itself, chapter 6 of Judges, where we are told about the trajectory of this man Gideon, and the passage begins in chapter 6 saying that: "The children of Israel did evil in the eyes of of the LORD, and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian” staunch enemies of Israel for 7 years and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Israel in David's time had reigned, had had superiority over Midian and the Philistines, and other similar groups, but now due to their abandonment of God and their practice of idolatry that rejected precisely the God who had given them power, had given them the land that they inhabited, as a consequence of this they had lost effectiveness and now they were dominated by those who in a sense governed and had military and political superiority over them, and that is the pattern of the life of a nation when it leaves of the Will of God, when it does not operate in God's endowment, and when it rejects God, suffering often comes, national inferiority, especially when a nation has been a nation that has stood out, although not perfect, but yes for being a God-fearing nation like this nation, America, has been.

Many other nations perhaps never had the anointing that this nation has had and the spiritual profile that this nation has had, but the United States is a nation that from its very dawn, from its beginnings was like the Israelites, and that's how the Puritan pilgrims who they came from Europe to found this nation, that they loved, well, maybe they understood a little bit that God had something special for them by coming to the United States, to what was simply the new world as they called it.

But like the Israelites, this nation has also turned away from God and this is not my concern right now, but it is interesting that this nation of Israel that had been mighty in God, by abandoning God for other gods now she finds herself under pressure and living a rather defensive life because it says here that the Israelites “made caves for themselves in the mountains and caves”, verse 2, “and fortified places, for it happened that when Israel had sown the Midianites came up and Amalekites, and the children of the east against them, and attacked them" and left nothing, like a plague of locusts they took everything, Israel is now living on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and they cry out to the Lord.

And this is a pattern that is repeated over and over again in the history of Israel, the blessing of God, prosperity on earth, national prosperity, comes comfort, comes carelessness, comes the thought that, ah.

This week I was speaking with a young woman from the ministry, well, a young woman from León de Judá and God used a conference that I had with her, an interview, and she came with a great need, and God has blessed her in a very special way in terms of professionals, and we met this week for a moment to catch up and she told me about, and she tells me: when I'm tight I look for God and now that God has blessed me in this way, I feel that I have left him a little , that I am no longer so faithful to come to Church and these things, and so I took advantage of that moment to talk to her about that part because she is in the process of knowing more of God in her life and changing her mind, a very achieved in secular terms, but the idea is this, which is the human pattern.

Many times when God blesses us we begin to think: oh, that's natural, it was, I reached it through my skill, preparation and we forgot. When we are up to our necks in water then we become spiritual giants, and Israel had that pattern because it is human nature itself, this sense of sufficiency when everything is fine, and we must never stop recognizing that everything we have comes from God. Let us not only seek the Lord when we are tight but when everything is fine, then it is when we have to bless the Lord the most and serve Him, and give Him, and honor Him.

Israel seeks God, cries out to God, repents, asks for forgiveness and the pattern repeats itself, God listens and prepares the liberation, but before the liberation comes the confrontation, and God sends a prophet who speaks to them and reads them the primer, and he says to them: I have blessed you and yet you have abandoned me. "I delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians", verse 9, whom I drove out from before you, and gave you their land, and said to you: I am the Lord your God, do not fear the gods of the Amorites "etc.

What's in here? Before liberation, confession, recognition, must come. If God is going to bless this nation, bless your life, the first thing we have to do is acknowledge our sins, prepare the land. God has to go first like a doctor who cleans the wound before putting medicine, because if he puts medicine on an infected wound it won't do anything, and we have to understand this.

It is important that we alert people when they are seeking God, they are seeking deliverance in a beautiful, powerful way, but we also have to confess our sins. If we want God to bless us we have to express repentance, clean the house, we have to purify ourselves, God wants to do something great, powerful in this Congregation and he is telling us: Sanctify yourselves as he told Joshua before entering Canaan, sanctify the people, be circumcised every man, prepare every woman because I am going to do great things among you and so says the Lord to this Congregation, God wants to do great things but we have to purify ourselves and I direct that Word to all of us who are here brothers: the new ones, the ancient ones, those who are more advanced in the things of the Lord, those who are just beginning, God wants us to sanctify ourselves, amen? God wants to send His prophetic Word into our lives and tells us: people, get ready, cleanse your life because I want to do great things within you.

So God sends this prophet, he speaks to the people and then his liberation process begins, and he finds a young man who was precisely exemplifying what the Hebrews are experiencing. Gideon is hidden in a cave from the enemies so that they do not see him, threshing wheat to be able to retain what he has prepared so that his family can eat because this is how this people of Israel has been reduced, he embodies the sufferings of his own nation , and there an angel of Jehovah appears to him, they call it a theophany, it is a powerful manifestation that God uses at very chosen moments, and he approaches Gideon, and speaks to him about the purposes that he has.

Verse 11 says that: “the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that is in Ophrah, which was Joash's Abiezerite; and his son Gideon was shaking the wheat in the press, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, mighty and valiant man." The angel declares to Gideon: Gideon, the Power of God dwells in your life.

And what does Gideon do? instead of saying: oh thank you Lord, glory to God, what do you want me to do? Gideon responds with a plaintive response and says: "Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has this happened to us?" an accusation rather than recognizing that the fault is not God's but the Hebrew people.

When the Power of God is not manifested in our lives or in a Church, it is not because God has failed in His promises, it is because generally we have not been able to obtain the full benefit of God's promises, we have not done everything that is right. our part for it.

Here begins one of the themes of Pentecostal life. Gideon is a very unlikely hero, Gideon is a very inadequate hero for what is required and this is put there for us to remember: one of the great themes of Pentecostal life is that it is not with sword nor with army as the Bible says. Word but with My Spirit says the Lord.

Why did God choose a man like Gideon? because precisely it becomes clear that this is not the man who by his own strength, and God always chooses like this, one always sees through Scripture.

God chooses David when David is not even listed in his dad's plans as one of his sons who can possibly come up with something, he's not likely to happen as they say in high school, he chooses Gideon for that very reason. Send Jesus says unattractively so that no one desires him or glory in him, he chooses a pagan Ruth who is not a member of any tribe of Israel, God always chooses the unlikely heroes and that should give us encouragement because, If you feel like an unlikely hero, you are the best candidate for the Power of God to manifest through your life.

If you have never been to school and have not earned a college degree, God can use you. Now if you have it, glory to God, but you have to know that it is not by that degree but by the Power of God in your life that can take your knowledge and set it on fire, and do great things through it.

But one of the great themes of Pentecostal life is that, that we cannot do anything with our own strength. Gideon, if you look at him from his emotional perspective, is a timid, complaining man, who continually doubts, that God is continually giving him signs of His favor and His support and it's like he doesn't learn, and that is something typical of the Pentecostal theme. in the Scripture of the visitation of the Power of God.

Moses is a man who at first we see full of life, full of strength, so much so that he kills an Egyptian believing that there is going to be a revolution through him and the Jewish people are going to be set on revolutionary fire and then he gets in, flees , forty years in the desert failed, and when God finds him visits him with His Power, a miraculous manifestation of His Presence, Moses responds with: no, I can't, I don't know, I can't speak in public, I have no experience, what about What if the Jews I'm going to talk to reject me? And what if Pharaoh gets mad at me and sends me to cut off my head? and God is upset with him.

Because it is a theme and here we see that when God sends the angel he tells him: the Lord is with you mighty man. Gideon cannot believe that he is referring to him, he says: I am the smallest in my family, my family is the smallest in my tribe and my tribe is the smallest in Israel, how are you going to use me?

My brother, I encourage you in the Name of the Lord that you always know: no matter what situation you find yourself in, God and you are the majority, God and you are more than enough. No matter what you are going through at this moment in your life, God tells you: You can get ahead because with My Power in your life you can do the work, we have to believe that, brothers, we have to believe that.

I tell them that this is the only thing that sustains me in my spiritual and ministerial life, is believing that the Power of God is with me and that it is not because of my strength, it is not because of anything I can do, not even because of my emotional strength because many times I do not have it except by the Power of God within me, and that is the key to the Pentecostal life.

It is a life that you live almost as if you were watching yourself live it because many times your emotions are not going to accompany you, your sense of personal affirmation is not going to be with you, you are going to think: how dare I do this? but you do it in the Name of the Lord, you launch yourself and God is there to meet you on the way.

Do not be afraid of what lies ahead, no matter how big the sea is in front of you, if God told you: Come in, come in the Name of the Lord and the sea will open up in front of you, that is the great theme of Pentecostal life. God calls us to do impossible things that are off the resume, but with Christ within us we can pull it off.

You remember the story from the Book of Acts when the Lord ready to ascend in His ascension tells the disciples: Go and disciple the nations but do not leave Jerusalem until you have received power from on high.

The Christian life, brothers, the effective life, because God continually calls us to do things that are beyond our capacity, but that life has to be lived not in our personal strength but in the strength that God gives us. And the Lord himself tells the disciples, right? You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Then Gideon does not believe that God can use him given his limited capabilities and a dialogue is unleashed, and this dialogue also reminds us that it is with the Power of God that we have to accept it, receive it, declare it, confess it, move by faith in it.

In verse 14 when Gideon responds in a negative way to the angel, verse 14 says that: "And looking at him the Lord said to him: Go with this your strength and you will save Israel from the hand of the Midianites." I see here a moment of impartation, I have always seen it that way. There are two moments of empowerment in Gideon's life and one of them is this moment.

I believe that in that look of the angel, "and the angel looking at him said to him", when Gideon's eyes met and the angel was like the life of God penetrated into Gideon's life and that divine look was a look of commission of Power of the Holy Spirit, that is why the writer gives that detail "and looking at him the angel told him" that was the moment of transfer, I believe, and that other moment where the angel says: "I am not sending you?" , there is a teaching there.

When God sends us, God trains us, always remember that, if God has given you a task, He is committed to you. If you are a mother or a father, God has given you children so that you raise them in the fear of the Lord, God gives you the ability to be a good father, a good mother. Your part is to eat the Word of the Lord, give of your time to disciple your children, live a life that is exemplary in everything possible before them, that your home be a prosperous home for the Word of God, good land , and you have to say every day: Father, I receive from You my portion to be the best Father that You want me to be.

If you are a teacher in a school in the city of Boston and you do not feel that you have the strength to do what you have to do, you need to clothe yourself with the Power of God every day and you need to say: Lord, today I get up, and I believe that You You give me everything that I require for this day, and you have to launch yourself believing that because the angel of God is over your life, the Power of God is in you.

The angel tells Gideon: Jehovah is with you, strong and brave man. Gideon did not know that he was a strong and brave man, perhaps he looked around and said: where is that man to whom they are speaking? but the Lord saw it that way and we have to see ourselves as God sees us, not as the world sees us, in fact we do not have to see ourselves as we see ourselves.

God often gives a Word, the Bible says that God calls things that are not like they are, amen? and we have to believe that, you are pregnant with the life of God my brother, my sister even if you don't know it. There are women who get pregnant and don't know it until they say months later, I don't know how that is but there have been many cases of those supposedly.

There are many Christians who are inseminated with the Power of God and yet they walk as if they were jerks out there all careless. Brother, remember that you walk with the Kingdom of God above you, within you, the Lord dwells in your life. The Spirit that God has given us is a Spirit of power, of victory, of great effectiveness to live life, the problem is that many of us do not feel it, we do not cultivate it, we do not believe it.

Do you know that there is a lot of controversy about what constitutes the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? and I have researched and read a lot of theology around this, and I have watched I would say literally thousands of people over the years, and I would say that the fullness and effectiveness in the Christian life is not dependent on artifacts and how do you call this? the accessories, that's why this sister here, my wife, me, she's always there helping me, my support, accessories, thank you, the accessories; As a woman, she knows what accessories are, right? the accessories of life in the Spirit.

Do you know which brothers? the accessories, we sometimes get stuck in this of tongues and this and that, in the end brother I have seen people filled with the Power of the Holy Spirit, frankly I tell you: we can all speak in tongues and I I speak in tongues more than all of you, as Pablo says in a sense, but it is not that you dance in front of the service and your bow falls off or that you throw yourself on the floor, all of that is very nice, very beautiful, but ultimately For instance, an effective life in the Power of the Holy Spirit depends on that individual believing that they have it and living as if they have it, and that they use it and affirm it, and confess it, and practice it, that is where the key is.

And that one day at a given moment I say: this is mine, I receive it, I have it and now I move in that Power of God that dwells within me because the Power of Christ is within me, and if the Power of Christ is Within me I have all the Power of the Kingdom of God, so move in that power. Even if you don't feel it, move in the Power of God, live that Pentecostal life. Scare yourself by undertaking things that when you see yourself in the middle of them you say: how did I get into this mess? and God will always take you forward.

I believe that the Christian life should be lived in deficit, you always undertaking more than you think you have, and then you will discover that the Power of God simply increases. I always say, the Power of God is x + 1, x being what you need, the rest you have ahead of you and we can live a life of scarcity or sufficiency, everything depends on us.

The two spies all had the same initial anointing, but ten of them chose to look at the circumstances, to see the giants around them, to see the earth swallowing its inhabitants, to see the enemies that were much bigger than them, see how little military experience they had, but two, Josué and Caleb said: if God is with us we are going to eat them like bread and they will have said: and a little butter on top too, you know? they had confidence that God was with them, and that is why the others died and only two of them entered the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb, all that pusillanimous generation remained buried in the desert.

My brothers, it is you to believe, confess, solve that problem now. I believe that there must be a moment of crisis, yes, in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, just as there must be a moment of crisis in the moment of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. I have always said, many people do not know, you ask him: did you receive Christ? yes, but that is something general, that came to her by osmosis, because they go to an evangelical church and one already assumes that he is an evangelical and his mother was a Pentecostal, and she also assumes the same thing, but there has not been a time when the question en: yes, but did you invite Jesus into your life as Lord and Savior, did you receive him, did you confess him?

As He says, right? I am at the door, if anyone listens and opens the door. We have to open the door to the filling of the Holy Spirit, there has to be that moment, and I tell people: look, it can be in the Church, it can be in a retreat, it can be in a moment of adoration, it can be when someone imposes his hand on you, it can be you sitting on the toilet, sorry for being so blunt, wherever but at that moment God can come and fill you with His Spirit because God does not live in the physical world, God lives in the world spiritual, human circumstances that is the least important, it is what happens inside your spirit.

In that virtual room of the spirit, that is where God does the work and that is where, when you create and solve that problem, and that controversy, it is where the Lord will say: Okay, this is what I was waiting for you to step on the accelerator. and grab and move, that's what God wants for you. I ask Him in the Name of the Lord that each member of this Congregation feel that that moment has come in their life to say: Holy Spirit, today I receive you, today I am filled with You, today I will stop asking for You and now I am going to move. in Your Power.

Gideon already had what he needed, he already was, by God's endowment and by God's choice, he was already a powerful and brave soldier of the Kingdom of God, a general rather, but he needed now then to believe that and move in that endowment of power.

It does not tell us that he did this, that he did that, and we have seen that on several occasions, in the case of Saul, God touches him and look, how interesting. In the case of Saul, Samuel anoints him and then tells him: you are going to walk and when you go to a certain place you are going to meet men of God and then God will change your heart at a given moment, and after that yes, Saul enters gifts and prophesies, and praises the Lord, we do not know what it means that he prophesied. It may be that he just started declaring the greatness of God, he started talking like one of those prophets about what God does and glorifying the Name of the Lord, that's what the Word says when it talks about prophesying in that way, prophecy is many things.

Prophecy is an exact word, precise at the moment for a person or a special situation, but it can also be the declaration of the active Will of God. There were prophets who never entered the predictive part but also prophesied in the Name of the Lord.

The fact is that there may be different ways, in the case of David Samuel anoints him and doesn't tell us anything else, what's more, I think he simply poured oil on his head and David continued in his most peaceful world, most well But the Spirit of the Lord was already upon him, he was already pregnant. I didn't know it, but he had a special anointing, and at the given moment when David hears this giant that Power of God that is within him wakes up and stands up, and then the Power of God kicks in when he strikes down the giant .

God has things for you, God has a special endowment that is within you. The problem of many people in our Congregation and in many other congregations is that they do not understand how easy it is, and how difficult it is in another way, but everything is in the individual who believes that what God has promised and declared in His Word is true and you then start moving in that envelope.

Your Church says, for example: we are going to evangelize, we are going to go to the streets, do not think so much about the fear that is within you, do not think about how threatening it may be to your mind that you go and tell someone: look I have a Word to share with you about Jesus Christ and get rejected; rather look at God's promise that "those who trust in Him will not be ashamed" and launch yourself in the Name of the Lord.

If there is a call from your Congregation: we need teachers to work with children, with young people, do you know how much need there is right now in the I Wanna ministry? it needs a lot of people because they are growing and God is using that ministry in very powerful, very special ways. There are dozens of young men and women who are eager and appetizing for the Word of the Lord. What more strategic ministry than something like this?

But there are people in the Congregation that God needs. Perhaps you are thinking: no, I'm not good with young people, I don't know the Bible well, you have to dare. And there are others who are here, they are teachers in schools, a number of things, they want to be used greatly by the Lord, but rather we think that: I don't have time, I don't have energy, I get tired and I get home late I work with boys during the day, why should I have boys at night too? You can make twenty thousand excuses.

And what happens then? that what God has said that you are, perhaps God has said: you are a teacher, you are a discipler of young people, I want to do something special for you and in you, but if that Power of God if you do not confess it with your mouth and you move in it by faith like taking two aspirin, you just take it because you know it's going to have an effect, and you do what you have to do the effect is going to stay inside you, it's going to stay stagnant.

Gideon needed to believe God and God told him: Go with this power that you have, I tell you likewise my brother, my sister, go with the power that you have. For every situation that you are facing, whether you are a mother, a father, a truck driver, an office worker, a school teacher, a businesswoman, whatever, God wants to use you there in that place where you are and He He says: I go with you wherever you go, do not fear or dismay, strive and be brave, I have given you all the land that the soles of your feet tread on, now go with that power that you have.

I will be with you as I was with Moses, as I was with Paul, as I was with David, as I was with Moses, so I am with you today, go with the power. The world needs a Congregation like this one filled with the Power of the Holy Spirit in a city as incredulous as this, people who are willing to die for God, who give themselves to the Lord, who give their lives to the Lord, who believe that in God there is no failures.

God recycles everything, everything, even the failures in your life. God uses them for something. Even in times of crisis, God uses them to strengthen us and then form men and women who are not afraid of anything in the Word of the Lord, all for the best. God works for good in those who love him, everything turns out to bless our lives brothers.

There is no loss, God always puts a safety net under us and we can, like the great trapeze artists, do somersaults in the air knowing that if we fall we are on God's net. Dare in the Name of the Lord is the Word of God, move in the Pentecostal Power of God, do not look at yourself says, Gideon, do not look at yourself in what you are at this moment. Look at what God says you have inside of you and live in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Live by faith, live by obedience, don't live by feelings and you will see that the power is already within you.

Paul tells Timothy and we've talked about that before in one of the sermons: "I advise you to fan the gift of God that is in you, through the laying on of my hands" I advise you to fan the fire, there is Two things here: the Power of God is within us already and now we have to stir it up. Fan it into flames.

The Power of God is like, is sometimes. I don't know when they have a barbecue, once in a while in the summer I like to put a steak there, do you know the first thing to do? Put the coals. I am not one of those who use those automatic things, I am one of the ancients (laughs), there is a controversy between the modernists and the traditionalists. You put a pile of coals, you put them there, you set them on fire and sometimes it takes time for you to see a little thing in there start, but you see a little thing that glows in the center and you sometimes pick something up and blow it a little bit. a little bit, and then you see it start to catch fire and catch fire and catch fire, and then there's a fire, and then those coals are just like the Bible says.

That is where the word glow comes from, fervent in spirit, that is what it means, it is the idea of a coal, a glow means that it is lit, that it is phosphorescent, that it shines, and that is the fire of God in us, it is there. Every one of us has to be like E.T. That character in the movie is from science fiction, right? that he has something that begins to shine and people can see like this, something that is inside him, I would like that we all walk in the city of Boston like this and that we believers could be identified like that because when they see us they see something that is there shining under the cloth that reflects the Power of God, that is within you, make it shine, make it manifest, believe that it is within you! let us live a fervent life in the Spirit, hallelujah and that means that we have to blow that flame continuously.

One of the things of the Pentecostal life is that idea that we are responsible for the anointing of God that is within us, that is something that sometimes we do not understand, in our desire to give so much glory to God and we forget that God holds us responsible.

Do you know how much God values you, do you know how important your action is towards God? God is not so big, so powerful, so overwhelming, so sovereign that he crushes your dignity, your free will, your initiative, your power, you are worth and are important for what God is going to do in your life, much of the anointing depends of you. God puts the anointing but you have to fan it and bring it to a boil and manifest in your life, if you don't do it, it won't happen.

That is one of the great principles of the Pentecostal life, that the manifestation of the Power of God depends in large part on what you do with it, it is already within you and it depends on you reading the Word, eating the Word, Get up half an hour before or an hour before and spend time fanning again that anointing that is within your life because if it is not going to go out, if it is not going to stagnate, God is not going to do it for you. There comes a time when God already tells you: You are now an adult, I already told you what you have to do, don't ask me for more, now move, amen? God has already given you the rod of authority, move now.

When Moses is in front of the red sea, he is there: oh Jehovah have mercy on us, the Egyptians are coming to kill us and destroy us, and God says to him: What are you doing there? Get up, take the rod that I have given you, hit the sea and the sea will open before you, and pass dry, God already had a rod of authority for Moses, now he needed to use it and believe that the Power of God was with him and that this sea was going to open up, and that's how it is in your life, there are many things that are happening in your life right now, and you know what? I would say that you no longer have to ask God for more, now use the Power of God that is within you.

God already told you a while ago: Son, I grant you that request, you have it, now run with it and notify me when you have done what you have to do, you have already achieved victory. The Christian life is by faith, it is using what God has given us and that is why Paul tells Timothy: I advise you, revive the gift of God that is in you, Gideon is in you, Timothy is in you, because we are not God has not given a spirit of cowardice but of power, of love and a healthy mind, he says of self-control. I have always said that the original, sophronism means: a mind that thinks sanely, scientifically, exactly, precisely, a sober mind, a very precise mind in its judgments.

God has given us power, love that tempers power and a thinking mind, a sane mind, that is what God has given us and that is within you. It is not the shyness that many of us carry inside, if the musicians can come here.

My brother, that is what God says to Gideon, Gideon: God is with you, and that is what I would like to say to this Congregation, brothers. This Congregation is like Gideon, not because of us, because like Gideon we have nothing to justify God's choice, it is because God wanted to do something special, but we are still like Gideon in great potentiality and God tells us: You are a mighty and courageous people, and I have something very special for you, and it tells you on a personal level too, remember it. God is with you and God is preparing to do great things with His Power within us, and we are in a time to be on the verge of something wonderful, like the Israelites before the Promised Land, the Jordan is ahead of us, we have to prepare ourselves, circumcise us because the destiny of God is already moving within us, within your life, within my life, within this community that is the Lion of Judah and God wants to do something extraordinary.

He tells us: Launch yourself, get out of the cave, move in what I have given you, look at My eyes that tell you: you can, My endowment is within you, and now go and confront the idol of Baal, knock it down with the Power that I give you and take the trumpet, and play it so that everyone can hear you, and come to the meeting place.

The Bible says that when that moment arrives the enemies of Israel come together to come against Gideon and God clothes him with His Power. There is a very nice image there that I was pointing to this morning in the service in English, it is not that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon but it says that it is like God clothed Gideon, and I see it as, if you can imagine a garment, a garment coming down from above, a glorious garment that takes Gideon and clothes him and fills him.

I imagine that this investment of power, if you see the word investment is an endowment, it was an investment on the outside and inside, it was an investment of his nervous system, it was an investment of his brain, it was an investment of his bones and his muscles, and his will, and his memories, his personality and clothed all of that with the Power of God and the values of the Kingdom of God.

And when Gideon blows that trumpet in that power that God has given him that trumpet must have sounded like no other trumpet has ever blown, some mysterious quality was to the sound of that trumpet blown by a man clothed in the Power of God, and by that all the Hebrews who heard that trumpet went to this young man who until then was an unknown young man, and they joined, thousands of men came under the leadership of God, why? Because he believed God, Gideon came out of his cave with everything and doubts.

Because you will always remember that, when I preached about Saul I told you, Saul continued to be a failed man because the Baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you a perfect person.

Paradoxically, some of the most anointed people I have known are very failed people on a personal level and their temperament, and other things, that mixture of strength and weakness is interesting. God takes unlikely people, inadequate people and clothes them with His Power but those people are still human people with all the flaws of a human being, but now they are supposed to use that power.

By the way I tell you brothers, to grow in the Word, to hold your personality, because this is the thing, I'm going to finish. Something very important this, anointed people of God: do not fall so in love with the Power of God and the gifts that you forget that the character of a servant of God is as important as his spiritual endowment. There are many Pentecostals who fall so in love with the Power of God that we forget the character of Christ and the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

That is why many of us have a great anointing but that anointing is embedded and integrated into a very fragile framework, and then we do very little justice to the beautiful anointing of God, and sometimes we damage the manifestation of God's Power due to structural weaknesses which we have not addressed to strengthen, and that is why you see great men and women of God throughout history who have made serious mistakes to discredit the Kingdom of God because they did not use that Power of God to strengthen other areas in your life .

The Power of God gives you dominance over many other areas of your life, and when you receive the Power of God you have to tell him: Father, now strengthen my personality, my dealings with others, my sexuality, my way of living life in so many ways. other ways, my character, my human relationships, my marital relationship, my treatment of my children, that is part of God's anointing as well. God gives you power to subdue everything you need to overcome, to overcome depressive tendencies, anger, criticism, rebellion, submit all of this to the Power of God in your life and then you will have an instrument in your hands perfectly capable of doing what you want. God wants to do through you.

Gideon is still a very, very failed man and he made serious mistakes later in life but he was able to do something he would never have done without the Power of God, free a nation, be used by God for great deeds in his life, so God calls us and it is the call of God for this Congregation at this moment: come out of the cave, live with this Power that I give you, keep growing.

I want you to stand up right now, everyone stand up here and again, God speaks to you, He tells you: Stop hesitating, stop hesitating between doing this and doing that. Let's lower our heads for a second, I want to ask if there is anyone this afternoon who has not taken a step of faith yet and who needs to receive Christ, resolve that step that you have to take, start a walk with Jesus in your life and you have You have come this afternoon or you have come other Sundays and God has already been speaking to you, and you need to make a pact with the Lord and give your life to Jesus Christ forever, and get out of the cave, and start walking that life of faith to which God calls you.