Your kindness be known

Philippians in chapter 4. I'm going to start with verse 4, but what I'm really interested in focusing on is a word found in verse 5, but to give you some context we're going to read from 4 to 7. Word of the Apostle Paul so well known.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I tell you, rejoice. Tell someone next to you, rejoice. But that is not what I want to deal with although we have to rejoice in winter when we see that winter is coming. Rejoice in the Lord. But look at what the Apostle Paul says in light of that rejoicing, that joy that should characterize the children of God. He has some very, very interesting advice. It says: "Your kindness be known to all men." I want you to focus on that word, courtesy. What do you understand by kindness? What associations does the word kindness bring to your mind? And he says let your kindness be known, let there be a reputation for kindness, that when people think of the Lion of Judah congregation, when they think of one of our members wherever they are in the city, they think, wow, how nice that is. person.

“Your kindness be known to all human beings. The Lord is near for nothing be anxious. If your requests are not known before God in all prayer and I pray with thanksgiving. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Amen.

Father, thank you. We entrust this beautiful word to your administration. Administer it, Father, manage it, Lord, give it to your people and configure it and prepare it as you want in our hearts in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I want to talk about the friendly attitude, the attitude of kindness and generosity that God wants us to manifest as a hallmark of our life and our human relationships. And I conceived this meditation, actually mostly this morning, in light of all this conflict and this polarization that characterizes our nation in these times, where there are, like, two nations, two peoples here in the United States right now, in an irresolvable struggle. one with the other.

There is what is called red America and blue America, red being associated with the Republicans and blue being associated with the Democrats. A conservative America and generally very religious and fundamental in its biblical beliefs and very insistent on orthodoxy and on the Bible and the word of the Lord and moral values, etc. And a blue America, generally associated with Democrats, liberal, intellectual, generally urban, located in big cities like New York, like Los Angeles, like Chicago, and that conservative America that is generally associated with the southern United States, with the middle range of this country.

Two Americas that are in conflict and hate each other to death, red hot. Fox News America, conservative, and CNN America, liberal. The America that loves Trump and believes that he is the incarnation of the Messiah and the America that hates Trump with all its heart and would like a spaceship to come and take him to the planet Jupiter, as far away as possible. Two Americas that believe that the other America is the pure devil. And two Americas that are in continuous conflict with each other.

I read both newspapers, I read the New York Times, which is the source of liberalism here in the United States, and I also read very conservative magazines like the Weekly Standard and many, the New Republic or others like that, the Washington Times, because I like to know what they are thinking both sides.

This situation that has affected right now in about two or three days there will be very, very significant elections in the United States in Alabama, which has to do with Judge Roy Moore, who is the object of tremendous conflict and there is a whole America that identifies with this man and that wants him to be elected to the Senate despite all the scandal that has been surrounding him and that does not believe that the accusations that are being made against him are not fair or therefore unless they are not true.

And that other America that says, how is it possible for a man of this ilk to be elected to the United States Senate. But it is because these two Americas come from two completely different perspectives, two different world visions, two ways of conjugating the world, they start from two very different positions and two ways of seeing human nature, the human condition, sin, the times in which we live, morality, etc.

So, each one sees it through a different lens and they both hate each other to death and they criticize each other and they can't see anything good on the other side. And that very conflicting position is what characterizes the tone that exists today that one sees and hears and reads in the news and in magazines and on television and that explains a lot of what is happening in this country and throughout the world. world.

It is a time of extreme polarization. Before, people could disagree with many things and more or less live together, but not today, everything is very polarized and as if defined in black and white, in a very strong way. That posture, that attitude of criticism, of judgment, of accusation, of not being able to see the goodness on the other side or at least the reason on the other side, is what characterizes this world and we see that this happens everywhere, in Israel, with the question of whether or not Jerusalem is the legitimate capital of Israel, whether the Palestinians have the same right and that evokes a number of things.

In Germany the nation is also divided, in France the same, in Poland, in England with Brexit, the world is divided, polarized, there is conflict. In this nation, each group asks for their rights to be recognized: African-Americans speak and say that the issue of black lives matter, the working class, blue collar, here in the United States feels ignored and feels harassed and violated by the liberal class. The liberal class, in turn, feels that their rights are not being considered and are being abused right now.

That is, there is an incredible accusation position. What we're also seeing, for example, with this whole women thing that has accused so many politicians and so many artists and news people and all that kind of stuff, everybody is fighting. Homosexuals fight for their rights, they want their rights to be recognized, immigrants fight for their rights and they want their rights to be recognized. It is a swarm of accusations that we have in this nation at this moment, which contrasts with that tone that tries to establish the scriptures that should characterize the children of God, that should characterize the churches, that should characterize the places where the presence is of the Lord. A call to harmony, a call to generosity, a call to patience, a call to put yourself in the opponent's place and try to see their perspective, a position that takes time to weigh things before acting in a way impulsive

And I believe that this is what this passage is talking about, your kindness be known to all men. You will not be able to understand all of this to which I am referring and the connection that all of this that I have just said has, unless you do not understand that word kindness and what Paul means by that word when he uses it. And to understand the full weight of the word that Paul uses, which is translated into Spanish kindness. In English the translation of the New International Version translates it as gentleness, your meekness.

You have to go to the original Greek that Paul used when he wrote that letter in his language that he was using, which was the Greek that was known, Koiné, by all the people to whom he was writing because he was writing to Philippi, a Greco-Roman city, AND Paul uses your epieikes to be known to all men.

What does the word epieikes mean? It is such a complex word that is why different versions of the scriptures, different translations use different words, because it is a word that covers a lot and it is difficult to contain all its meaning in a single word in the languages to which the Bible has been translated. But for the Greco-Roman world the word epieikes had a number of resonances, some of them, your kindness be known to all men, moderation is another word that includes the word epieikes, softness, tolerance, generosity, magnanimity, mercy, patience, all these words are included in the word epiieikes that our Spanish translates as courtesy. I like it better than the word gentleness, gentleness is more like what Paul had in mind when he called us by extension to let all people know of our gentleness stance.

And the Bible uses it on several occasions and we can better understand its universe when we look, for example, if you look at James chapter 3, verse 17, you see how James uses it, he says, speaking of the wisdom that comes from on high, the God-like wisdom in contrast to the carnal, human wisdom of man.

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle – there is the word epieikes again. Paul could say, let your kindness be known to all men – benign, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or hypocrisy.”

If you are thinking of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5 it is because this word epieikes as summarizing the fruit of the spirit, goodness, benignity, good will towards people, generosity. That's the idea.

In First Peter, chapter 2, the Apostle Peter also uses that word in verse 18, he says:

"Servants, be subject with all respect to your masters, not only to the good and affable ones - there is another word, affability, when a person is kind he is an affable person, with a good disposition, good humor, good will - do not hold only the good and affable but also those hard to bear.”

In other words, kindness, gentleness has its greatest resonance when we use it in situations where the opposite would be natural, in conflict, going against it, seeking revenge. Titus also, the Epistle to Titus reminds us of this word also in 3:2 says about how Christians should behave:

“That they are willing to do any good work, that they defame no one, that they are not quarrelsome, meaning… you know that the word quarrelsome does not mean a person who is always meddling in what does not matter to him. The word quarrelsome is rather a person who is always fighting, a quarrelsome person, who is always involved in some struggle, some fight,– who are not quarrelsome but kind, showing all meekness towards all men.”

So you see wherever that word epieikes, gentleness, appears, it is associated with resonances of meekness, humility, kindness, affability, gentleness. According to one of the great critics of the Bible, Biblical scholars, William Barkley, an expert on the original Greek, he says that Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, who used that word to great advantage, defined epieikes as justice and better than justice. In other words, it is a kind of justice that goes beyond the stark and naked judgment of you did this, you deserve this. No, it is a justice that takes into account many different factors, intent, past, context, all these things before making a final judgment.

I was this week visiting a court in Boston, not because I had anything to do with it, I was just there as a pastor, just in case. The thing was that I realized how overwhelmed the courts are with so many cases, so many trials, and how superficial the trials that the courts of this nation make are often, because that judge had to process dozens of cases. and I imagine that it is the daily bread of her and the lawyers who were there, all very bored, I am sure that thinking about the novel they were going to see tonight, the series that was waiting for them or the lunch they had to eat, because they are there continuously, case after case after case after case. Superficiality, there is no occasion, there is no opportunity really to sit down and listen to why you did this, what happened, etc., because there is no time, everything is fast. Come next.

The justice to which God calls us is not like that, it is a justice that takes time, when someone offends us, when someone makes a mistake, when they commit a sin, when they do something we do not like, it is assumed that before giving up judgment we think carefully about that person, that we look at their context, what led them to do this, perhaps it is that they were hungry, perhaps they did not sleep well, perhaps their wife burned their food the night before, anything, but look the totality of the situation and try to be patient and generous with the person before putting the x and saying, you are useless, you are worthless, you are not good.

It is justice and better than justice. It is going beyond strict and general justice and entering the realm of mercy and taking the context into account. Someone has said that epieikes, the word kindness or kindness, is practically untranslatable, it cannot be translated into any language because it is a very encompassing word. It has to do with tender tolerance for others, despite having the reason to be intolerant of a person.

Do you know who was the model that illustrates to us very well what is that gentleness to which the Apostle Paul calls us? Who do you think? Jesus Christ. Observing his behavior one sees that gentleness with which he judged others. Think looting. Sacking is a homeland seller, Sacking is a collector of internal income who has abused his position. Looting like many tax collectors of his publican time, he oppressed the people and kept part of the money and collected more than the taxes he was entitled to collect. He was corrupt, he was a thief, he was a person that the Jews did not want to know about the publicans for that reason, because they were traitors and oppressors.

And this man, Jesus, had every right not to even give him the time of day, and yet, Plunder has an internal drama that he has not confided to anyone. People only see the thief, people only see the oppressor, the exploiter, the corrupt, but that's why Sack climbs a tree when he hears that Jesus is coming to town, because he has heard about this preacher who loves people and that I think the tree was a little taller than that. But it was a good illustration. And I think there were many more people, but that's art, it's very beautiful, it helps us see the idea. There is a huge crowd and Jesus is walking with them and the crowd follows him everywhere.

Plunder, since he was small in stature, he climbs a tree, gabbling, as the Dominicans say, to see even if it is. Because? Because Plunder is being eaten up by guilt and Plunder feels like a sinner, feels rejected by men. He is alone as so many people are lonely today, with their corruption and their sin eating them alive. Looting has heard that this preacher speaks of the love of God, that he is a true prophet, he does not sell himself to people. It is not like the religious who accuse you and deny you entry to their synagogues. There is hope for him. And that's why he climbs that tree even if it's thinking if I just see him, that maybe it will give me a measure of grace and rest. He doesn't expect anything else.

I think he didn't even want Jesus to see it, but when Jesus passes, the mercy of Christ draws him towards Plunder and when he sees it, the Lord totally understands his drama, he understands sinful man but also understands the man who wants redemption and change in his life. life. He understands the man who wants to do good, but as the word says, I see myself dragged, as Paul says, towards another power that leads me to do what I don't want to do. The Lord gets in tune with this man's condition and knows his psychology and that's why he tells him, "Plunder, get down from there because today we have to eat a banana with cod at your house and I'm going to your house, so prepare it for me." .”

You know that people like it, I've seen that, look, you're a criminal and you treat him as if he were your friend and you have him for life. It is so, because they are used to contempt and fear from people. Look, when you see sinners treat them ordinary, don't walk around like the most pious person in the world, oh my son, God forgive you. Don't talk like that because my ears hurt.

And sometimes when I'm present people let go of a bad word, oh, pastor, forgive me. I tell him, no, if that's what you say every day, so don't worry. One more won't do as much damage. We have to be transparent, we have to be simple, sometimes Christians walk around with that cheap spirituality as if God doesn't know what we really are behind the scenes.

And the Lord was like that, he was easygoing. Plunder, get off there, we're going to eat at your house tonight. Prepare me a sancocho or whatever. That posture. The Lord knowing, allowing himself that kindness, that gentleness, gets in tune. And what does that do? devastate, destroy Plunder. When Looting is there, the constipated Pharisees are saying, oh, if he knew who this man is, he wouldn't come near, and there are all the fellow publicans, oppressors, friends of Looting, the Lord is calm because he likes to be among those people , because it was to seo that he came. And Looting, impacted by the love of Christ, by the epieikes of Christ, says to him, Lord, I give up. I give half of my goods to the poor and if I have defrauded someone right now I give double what I stole from them. Because love that's what it does, kindness that's what it does, more than the law, kindness, love breaks.

And I believe that what churches and ministries often do not know how to balance because either we go to the side of self-righteousness and legalism, or we go to the side of liberalism that accepts everything and everything is fine and God loves you just as you are, don't worry, you are still the shame of the world because God loves you and he already died for you on the cross. We don't know how to cook with seasoning, a little bit of ham and a little bit of garlic and a little bit of salt. No, we cook well salty or bland. When God wants balance. God wants different species mixing to produce something truly tasty.

That kindness that characterized Jesus and we as churches have to live in attention between justice and love, between patience and truth, between goodness and clarity, between the position of truth that God demands and also his mercy. And that balance we need. Sometimes in preaching you have to be like that, sometimes there will be times when you sound like a fire and brimstone prophet, and sometimes you'll sound like that gentle shepherd that people need because it's the balance.

The Bible says that love and justice kissed each other and we have to live at that intermediate point. The men who lowered the paralytic through the roof, what a beautiful example of the generous posture of the Lord Jesus Christ. These men have a friend who is paralyzed, they know that the answer is in the house where Jesus is and that the house is completely full of people. And what do they do? They get to the front of the line, break through the roof and lower their friend down a rope and there's the Lord preaching and all of a sudden straws start falling and everyone looks up and a hole opens up and they're lowered on a stretcher to the paralyzed man.

What does the Lord do? He tells them, how dare you do that, how dare you get in front of the line. Go back and wait and take a turn. No. The Lord gets in tune with this man's situation, the love that these men feel for their partner and that moves him, touches him and leads him to attend to this man's need.

How much is needed at this time, in this nation, that posture of generosity and mercy. They know that there are many evangelicals today and people on the right who say that these illegals, these undocumented, who have gone to the front of the line and have not done what all of us have done, which is fill out our papers and come. They are not in tune with the urgency that these immigrants sometimes feel when they are fleeing violence, extreme poverty. And then they use the law, justice, they have to be removed, they have to be returned, they come back and enter as they should.

And I tell you that the issue of immigration is very complex, brothers, and I know that in our church there are people of many different positions on the matter, and again, that is what we have to understand. There is a place for justice, it is true, there is also a place for grace. I think that grace is incredibly, and what this nation has had many times is generosity towards immigrants, the poor, the destitute. The generosity of this nation is incredible in many ways, and I think it is a time to use generosity, not justice because justice would demand deportation, but grace and mercy and goodness because that is always a great blessing to the nations.

And if this nation uses that at this time, it will be greatly blessed. You have to adopt a position of generosity, like Christ who instead of saying, no, you don't have the right, where is the passport to put this man here? No. he attends to it because he understands the love of these men and it moves him.

The woman with the issue of blood gets into the crowd violating the ritual law that a woman with the issue of blood should not touch anyone because she is unclean and makes others she touches unclean. But she does it because she is desperate and she has had her disease for 12 years and no one has been able to treat her and her illness is eating her alive. What does she do? She gets into the crowd, breaks the law and steals Jesus' grace, because she doesn't ask the Lord for permission. He does not say, Lord, I would like to be healed. No. She steals from him, she snatches it from the Lord, touches him and the Lord feels a current coming out of him and says, who touched me? A desperate woman. And she thinks that maybe he's going to scold her. No, what he wants is to bless her and when he listens to her story of 12 years of loneliness, sadness, rejection, he tells her, woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. He blesses her, validates her and returns her home without feeling like she clandestinely stole that grace.

Can you imagine, she perhaps feeling all her life, I don't deserve this, I stole this. No, the Lord wanted to tell him, it's okay, don't worry, go in peace, you did what you had to do. My brothers, the mercy of Christ is so great that we will never be able to understand it. And the Lord calls me and all of us to exercise that kind of kindness and it's the way we should treat each other.

The only thing that preserves a marriage, that preserves a church in harmony, that preserves a city, that preserves races and ethnic groups from biting and eating each other, is that posture of gentleness and mercy, that is patient with the another and that is in tune with their need.

That is what we have to ask the Lord. Because the protocols and the laws and the procedures and the rules of debate. That never brought a nation to peace. I have always said that if in a church there are no people of mercy, patience, goodness, love, gentleness, no matter how many manuals you have written, or how many laws, there will be no peace, quite the contrary, we are going to use the laws as stones to throw at each other.

Look at what this procedure and the other say here, I know it because I have seen churches full of laws and procedures and protocols and there is no peace because everyone is looking for protocol a to throw it at the other one who has protocol b. It is mercy, it is love, it is patience. Against these things there is no law nor can fights be prevented unless there is in us the goodness and mercy that characterizes the Lord.

Our Heavenly Father, if Jesus is the model of epieikes, of gentleness, God, the Father... knows that people associate Jesus with grace and Jehovah with wrath, fire, and brimstone. But even in the Old Testament God already wanted, the Father wanted us to know his heart of mercy, love and goodness and tolerance. Look how the psalmist describes it in chapter 103, in psalm 103:

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in mercy, he will not contend forever, nor will he guard his anger forever.”

Look here epieikes, kindness. “He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor has he recompensed us according to our sins, for his mercy has magnified as the heavens above the earth on those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, he has kept our transgressions away from us.”

I love that last verse 13, it says, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him because he knows our condition and remembers that we are dust."

That is God's position in the Old Testament. It wasn't that God kind of matured a little bit in the New Testament and all the anger and rage of the Old Testament just went away. No. The Lord always, God has always been a God of compassion, mercy, and goodness. He knows our condition. And that's the key. In English, he knows our frame, he knows the frame, our skeleton, and he knows that we are dust. He knows that we want to do good but many times we are just made of flesh and blood.

And we have to have that kindness, that mercy. Again, you have to have balance but you do need it because the opposite of that kindness is conflict, always being on the defensive, always demanding our rights, quick to take offense, quick to attack. You know that this is what often poisons workplaces, offices, and churches; there is a group of conflicting, vengeful, demanding, gossiping people who are always throwing stones and are like evil spirits who impose their tenor on a congregation, to an institution. You go to offices sometimes and you see that when people attend you they have a bitterness, a dryness inside.

Find out that behind that there are two or three bloody fat who are always poisoning the entire environment and creating that position and there must be people of peace. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ says, blessed are the peacemakers. The world needs peacemakers, brothers. In this time we need to be those peacemakers, those people of mercy and goodness.

Jesus again, our model. He knows that Jesus never demanded his rights. On the contrary, he delivered them. The Bible says, let there be in you - Philippians 2 - the same feeling that there was in Christ Jesus who, being equal to God, did not cling to being equal to God or not, did not consider being equal to God as something to cling to, but he emptied himself, he stole the idea from himself, and he gave up his rights, he gave up all his possessions and became like a man. He came down from heaven, disrobed himself in his divine glory and walked the earth experiencing all the things we experience so that we could be saved.

If the Lord had said, I am equal to God, how do you ask me, Lord, that I give up my rights and go down to this filth of the man who is down there who are not even looking for you, who do not even want you, they are submerged in their sins, as the Apostle Paul says in another passage. When we are mired in our sins and our perversion, Christ died for us. The Lord stripped himself of his rights and we have to learn, brothers.

He knows that if in a marriage there is not someone who strips himself of his rights in a moment, the blockade is not broken, and the two of them are each looking out a window, sleeping with their backs to each other. No, that she apologizes to me because she offended. And she, that he apologizes to me because he was the first to do this and that. Unless there is no one to break the deadlock and seek reconciliation. No, he was supposed to wash the dishes yesterday so I'm not going to wash him today. He's supposed to take out the trash and I'm supposed to make the bed.

Brothers, those people who live 50/50 are not going anywhere. Life has to be 100/100 each one gives 100% and the Lord manages so that there is always a blessing. My brothers, you know that the best way to live an emotionally healthy life and to have peace in your heart is when you are generous and merciful and forgiving, when you do more than what is expected of you.

There are people at work who say, no, this is not in my job description. Look, even if you are not there, do it and set an example and you will be blessed. I am a pastor, that piece of paper is there, they don't pay me, I'm too old to get off and take that piece of paper. The Lord rebuke the devil. You have to, not just one but a hundred. Because? Because you know that when you do that you are entering into the very heart of Jesus and God blesses you and rewards you and prospers you. Always do more than is required of you. Always go the second and third mile. Always forgive not 7 times but 70 times 7, and know that your Heavenly Father who sees in secret will reward you in public because that is the key. That is the difference.

When one instead of attacking one says, no, if I stand here in the middle of this church and make a fuss and shout, who glorifies? The devil. And who is shocked? The little ones who see that they are on the edge of the precipice and the devil pushes them saying, look, do you see what the evangelicals do? See how they behave. See how they work things out. What difference is there between one thing and the other?

Now, the one who keeps quiet and suffers the offense for the sake of the advancement of the Gospel and the benefit of God, that person will be greatly blessed, rewarded and prosperous, brothers. Brethren, become poor and you will become rich. Becoming poor in the name of the Lord, not out of cowardice or because you cannot do anything else, but because you do it out of a principle of the spirit, because the Lord seeks that gentleness.

Brothers, when we live like this, I tell you, it is the glory of God because then you have a father who is going to be one hundred percent committed to you. The key to spiritual health is, as I say, generosity and that kindness, that gentleness that goes beyond the call of duty and sacrifices for the sake of the spirit of Jesus may he be glorified.

He knows something else too, that only the truly strong people can be gentle. It would seem a contradiction, one would think that the weak are those who are gentle out of cowardice. Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, thought like this and said that the ethics of Jesus Christ to turn his cheek and go the second mile, that this was a slave mentality and that is why Jesus advised that, because it was a mentality rather of weakness. The superman has a posture of war, of aggressiveness, of resistance.

But I have discovered over time that only the person who is truly self-assured and full of faith in the Lord is the person who can be generous, gentle, humble, forgiving, and patient with others. Because? Because you are like a miser counting your little coins and you think you only have three chelitos when they do something to you, you kind of peel your teeth like dogs when they want to remove the bone. It is so, because you think, this is the only bone I have and if they take it away I will be left with nothing. So, when they do something to you, you immediately pull out your nails, peel your teeth, make your hair go red to appear bigger, everything, so that people are scared of you. You scream, you fight, you scratch, because you say, this is all I have and if they take it away I'll be left with nothing.

When you know that you have Heavenly Father, the Almighty with you, that every good gift, every perfect gift has been given to you, that you cannot lose because God is committed to you, you can afford to lose a lot and to wait for time, because you know that the Lord is part of that battle. When you think that you are the only one fighting, then of course you are going to fight tooth and nail, you are going to be desperate.

But when we know, brothers, that in the world in which we live there are multitudes of witnesses around us. When there is a dispute in marriage, at work, at school, at the university, some injustice, know that there is a cloud of witnesses around us. There is me, there is the opponent, but there is also God, there are angels and there is the devil. The devil also and his demons also looking to see what is going to happen here, if God is going to be glorified or if the devil is going to be glorified.

And sometimes we are living our dramas thinking that no, I am the only one here. If I don't defend myself, no one is going to defend me. But when you live in the light of that God who is present in your struggles and in your battles, then you can afford to wait, count to 3, take a deep breath, give the person time, look at people with greater generosity. , with greater kindness, give people a chance, go home and think.

Brothers, things do not have to be resolved on the spot. Be patient. And many times you absorb the debt and the Lord will take care of blessing you at some point. We have to live life in a more complex way. I am always moved by Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. This man sees this being destroyed and wounded by his thieves, by the people who have hurt him and he stops his chores and his diligence, takes this man, mounts him on his donkey, takes him to the hospital to be treated and He says something that always haunts me, before leaving, he says to the waitress, take care of this man and do what you have to do with him and then send me the bill. When I come back I'm going to pay you.

And I love that idea that many times we have to assume the account. And we have to pay for the evil of others, of others. But what a blessing comes from God when we do that, brothers. Because this world needs people who don't draw the sword, who don't draw it, because everyone already has it drawn. Peacemakers are needed, people are needed who know that God is watching every moment, that the dramas of the world are much more complex than just you and me. There are principles that if you respect and navigate life according to those principles you will be blessed and if you do not respect them, no matter how hard you try, you will not get anywhere.

Do you know who are the most miserable people in this world? the people who are always trying to exploit others, the people who always say, they're not going to do it to me, I'm not going to let it. These are the people who always have to be fighting, they always walk around with black eyes, they are always bitter at home, in a mansion with many things but sterile inside because they do not respect the principles of eternity.

When you live life according to the heart of Jesus no one can hurt you. You are powerful and you need preventively. My encouragement to all of us is to embrace that gentleness of Jesus Christ. I don't know how you are going to apply that message to your life because each one of us has his own way, but I know that it speaks to me, it speaks to you, and it speaks to all of us. There are ways in the university, in the workplace, in my marriage, my fatherhood or motherhood, my church, my ministry, I can express that gentleness that characterized Christ Jesus, Heavenly Father characterizes him and that all people mature, that lives in the light of eternity characterizes them.

Live your life in the light of the eternal. Live your life in light of the truths of God's word because that's what it says here. is Lord is near. One wonders why Paul said, your kindness be known to all men, and then he immediately adds, the Lord is near. It's like one thing doesn't follow the other, but yes, according to the internal logic of the spirit, only people who live in light of the idea that Christ is near can be Gentile. Whether Christ is close in the sense that he is with me right now, my situation, or that he is coming soon and therefore why should I be fighting over small bones, because eternity is greater, these are issues of life they are much more sublime than that, that little thing. Why fight with that? why lose so much sleep if the Lord is near, if he is with me, if he is coming soon, if eternity is just around the corner.

When the world is placed in the context of eternity, it becomes very tiny. Now, if you only live according to the world, the now and the here, of course you do, everything you do has life or death importance. Let's live life in the light of eternity, in the light of the word, of the principles of scripture and then the Lord will always be in our favor.

Who do you want championing your cause, yourself or the Almighty Father? Then get in harmony with him, live life in light of his generous stance towards others, let's internalize this truth, brothers, and incorporate it into all areas of our lives.

If someone right now that you have to forgive in your life, look, don't keep getting bitter, don't keep keeping him in a cell. Close your eyes for a moment, internalize these truths. Is there someone you have to forgive, did they hurt you? OK. He should be in jail a thousand times, he should rot in hell, but you have the opportunity right now to be gentle and to flow according to the heart of Christ and tell him, you know what? I release you. I open the cell in which I have put you for years and go. I forgive you. Be free as I am going to be free too. Forgive whoever you have to forgive, forgive him.

Someone took your money and didn't pay you? Why don't you forgive him right now? If you pay for it later, amen, if you can ask for it in a kind way, amen. Do it. But if not, look, don't eat yourself up and don't lose your peace of mind thinking about how much he owes you and how he stole from you. Let it go. Let him go.

Is there someone who has treated you badly, has not treated you with the dignity that you deserve? Forgive him. Is there a situation at work right now that is taking away your peace, is it eating you up inside? Why don't you drop that, and say, Lord, you are my defender. I have more than I need. You have forgiven me a thousand times and you still have so many good things for me. So many good things await me. I see that bright future that you have for me, I am not going to live now imprisoned by that. I let go, I let go. Take care of yourself, Lord, I'm going to live my happy life, I'm going to bless you. A new song in my mouth. I'm going to look at the good things. Receive the call.

Brethren, let our church be known for its kindness. That your life, your family, your home, if you start with yourself, don't worry about your husband, your wife, start with yourself because many times that will be your crucifixion. Someone has to be crucified for a drop of blessing blood to go out and bless a home. If someone is not crucified there is no salvation. Many times we do not want to go up to the cross because it is the other who has to be on the cross. Rise up and do what Christ did, who on the cross defeated the power of the devil, on the cross.

Many of us do not want the cross and that is why we say, no, how am I going to get on the cross? It is someone else who has to be there. If that had happened where would we be? Do not cling to your rights, surrender and you will be the most powerful person. Do not think that if you do that they will trample on you, they will abuse you, they will take advantage of you.

Look, brother, I tell you that this position taken as a principle of life, reflected upon, with spiritual rigor and then adopted with a principle of life, is the most revolutionary thing in the universe, bigger than an atomic bomb. The truly gentle person, with all the weight of that word, is inviolable. The devil flees from these people and God blesses them, he defends them like the apple of his eye because they represent the highest values of the Gospel.

You will never be abused or oppressed because you are a man, a woman of peace. And when you give up your rights for the sake of the Gospel, God will give them back to you quadrupled. May the Lord help us as a church. Receive that call from God right now, say, it's for me. That is for me. It is for me, Roberto Miranda, it is for you, receive it in the name of Jesus.