Who is Your Hero?

I remember, when I was a child (last century, man I’m old), someone in family gave me a collection of books called “The Heroes of the Bible”, I just loved it. After reading the stories of David, Sampson, Joshua, among others, I got so impressed that I dreamed to be like them. In my childhood, my dad used to manage a huge farm, many times I went with him to bring the bulls to get vaccination, there were a lot of them and they were big. I remember whenever they fought each other (it always happened), we had to get out of their way, otherwise we’d get killed. A couple times I was chased by them, but I rode a horse that was a lot faster then they, so I always manage to run away. I was never afraid, I was extremely courageous. But, growing up, the enemy (devil) turned me into a coward person, going from a courageous teenager killing a giant (David) to a coward adult hiding in a cave (Gideon). If you read my Personal Testimonies you’ll understand it. But, along came Jesus Christ, my biggest hero, to deliver me from my enemies. I know for sure the difference between slavery and freedom, as Jesus says in John 8:36. I know a lot of people who are trying to be free from sins, addictions, etc. by their own efforts, by trying to apply biblical principals to their lives, by being morally correct, by doing Christian things, so they fight and fight… but never win! Why? Jesus explains that in John 8:34. I can assure you that Jesus is speaking the truth! I was slave of my own sin! Until we are set free from our sin, we have no other option but sinning! You can try to rebel against your sin, but after a while you’ll go back to it, because you’re slave of it! That's what Peter says in 2 Peter 2:22. It was true for me before Jesus Christ set me free and it’s true for everyone else who needs to be set free. Nowadays, the church is putting a lot of effort in behavioral change, trying to get people to be morally correct, but the real problem is: They are spiritually dead! At the end the church's efforts are worthless, even if looks like everything is going great, it’s like giving a Tylenol to a person who's dying of cancer, the headache will go away, but, sooner or latter they will die, because they never dealt with the cancer. It works the very same way concerning sin. How many times Jesus tried to make people morally correct before dealing with their condition (sin, disease, etc.)? You can see that Jesus’ priority was always the spiritual one, even when he physically healed people, there was always a message preceding or following it, like: Go and sin no more, for example. Of course He healed the sick, He taught how to behave in order to please God, but the reason He was called “friend of sinners”, was because He saw the sinner’s need for deliverance (freedom) before addressing the behavioral issue. We see (if we want to) this truth in Matthew 7:17. The only way to bear “good” fruit (I talk about it in the post The Tree, the Branch and the Fruit) it’s being “in” Jesus Christ, the Good Tree. Let’s go back to the “hero” part. We see in Hebrews 11 and throughout the Bible, a lot of heroes, all kind of people like, strong and weak ones, young and old ones, ex-thieves, ex-harlot, ex-coward, ex-murder, none of them were better nor worse than us today, the difference between them and us is Faith and Obedience! My modern heroes, among other few, are my parents. They gave their lives to serve others. I’ll try to be brief, but I want to speak about them a little bit. As I said in the beginning, my dad use the be a manager in a big farm, after quitting that job, he supposed to have a percentage over all the livestock in the farm, but he didn't get anything (the reasons are irrelevant), after that, the tried doing other things, until he met my brother’s father-in-law. My dad “saw” Jesus Christ in this man (he was a pastor, a real one), after a while my parents became born-again Christians. Then this pastor invited them to run an orphanage (like oasis) for street and poor kids. There they gave their time, money, life for those kids, my parents treated them as if they were they own kids, some of them did very good, at least one became a pastor. After many years my parents were “replaced” by another people (the details are not “nice”). From there, they went to run a public shelter, were the poor, the destitute, the forgotten (by society) came for food and shelter. Again, they gave their lives to serve people they never saw before and never saw again after that. I never saw my dad and mom discriminating or mistreating anybody, they made no exception of people and they treated everyone equally. James 2 talks about it. I never understood why they did it and honestly I thought they were wasting their lives for nothing, until I read what Jesus says in Matthew 6, where He talks about “reward”, that’s when my dad and mom became my heroes. Today in our “Christianity”, the “hero” ones are those who are “famous”, who have “diplomas”, who are “eloquent”, who sold millions of books and cds, etc. If we pay attention to Jesus Christ, He was impressed with a poor widow who offered all she had: Mark 12:42-44. Or the centurion who understood all about authority: Matthew 8:5-13. Or the greek woman who had a tremendous faith: mark 7:25-30.
Conclusion: We must review our “list of heroes”, check if we don’t have any “American idol” among them and realize that the heroes in the Bible were persecuted, rejected, despised and even killed. Before God they were heroes but before man they were the enemies. Of course God considered them heroes because they were faithful until death. Revelation 2:10.

Wisdom vs. Foolishness: What kind of Believer are You?

Matthew 25:1-13. Let’s find out who are the characters in this parable:
Virgin (bride): Christian (church) – Revelation 21:9.
Lamp: Word of God (Bible) – Psalm 119:105.
Oil: The Holy Spirit – Ephesians 5:18; Exodus 29:7; Acts 10:38.
Bridegroom: Jesus Christ. Mark 2:19.
This parable is very interesting, because Jesus shows us that it’s not enough to be a Christian and to know the Bible. Jesus is showing us the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Let’s see the process Christians go through: When we confess Jesus as Lord and Savior and repent of our sins, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. After that, we are commanded to be baptized. The baptism with water is the first one, it’s a public declaration of our repentance. Matthew 3:11. In the second one, Jesus Christ will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. We all need the second baptism, we can see that in Acts 19:2-6. This is the time when we receive the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. But, there’s also the Process called being filled with the Holy Spirit, there’s the first time event and the Process. How many believers confess Jesus as their Savior and Lord, are baptized with water and with the Holy Spirit, then they drift away from God and the Church or they still go to the church but their “fire” is extinguished? I have friends like that! That’s exactly what Jesus is talking about in this parable. Those are virgins (Christians) who have their lamps (Bibles), who have the Oil (Holy Spirit) in their vessels (lives), the wise ones have enough Oil and the foolish ones don’t. You may be asking this question: How do I know if I am being filled with the Holy Spirit? To me, the only “visible” characteristic is Obedience, not Gifts. The more you obey God, the more of the Holy Spirit you have in your life, or I should say, the more control the Holy Spirit has over your life.
Conclusion: We need to be born again, to be baptized with water (repentance), to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and also to continue to being filled with the Holy Spirit, otherwise, when Jesus Christ (Bridegroom) returns for His Bride (Church), we won’t go with Him.

Are You a Dreamer?

Everybody, at least once in their lifetime, dreamed about something and some had their dreams become reality, others didn’t. My point is: If you don’t dream, you’ll never see your dreams become reality. Through the Bible, we see “dreamers” dreaming impossible dreams. The best example is Joseph, the King of Dreams. He was a young man with impossible dreams. Like the one where his family would bow down before him. It’s hard for us to comprehend the deepness of his dream, because we don’t have the same cultural background, for us, the birth right of the first-born means nothing, or at the best, that someone is older than someone else and has some priorities. For them, it was a matter of rullership, a matter of sovereignty, it showed who had the blessings. See how powerful it was in Genesis 27:28-29. Jacob, with his mother’s help, deceived his father to get that blessing. Let’s go back to Joseph’s story. Joseph’s dreams caused him many problems, read his story in Genesis 37. He was sold by his brothers, he was slave in Potifhar’s house, he was thrown in jail unjustly, God remembered him and from being a slave in jail, God put him as a second in command over all Egypt, only pharaoh was more powerful than Joseph. If you pay attention when reading Joseph’s story, you’ll see that it was only God’s treatment for him, God was building His character in Joseph’s life, to accomplish one purpose: Save not only his family, but, all Egypt from dying of hunger. I’m a dreamer, I always had dreams, even if I didn’t see many of them become reality, I still kept dreaming. After being saved, God gave me new dreams, my old dreams were very selfish ones, God’s dreams are unselfish. One of them, I remember exactly when God put it in my heart. I got home from working, got something to eat and also started watching tv. As I started flipping channels (men are good doing it), I stop in one where I saw many children, in Africa, in a big line waiting to get food, the food was something like oat meal with water in a huge pot, then the children started running to get the food, they beat each other, it was chaotic, the little children were behaving like “hungry animals”, all because they were starving to death (literally). That was the most shocking scene I ever saw in my whole life, I was shocked, I couldn't eat, I started crying, crying… For months I couldn’t take that scene out of my mind. At that moment, God put a dream in my heart: Open Orphanages around the world. You can see God assuring me that those dreams will come to pass in the Post Personal Testimony: Fasting, this is the part concerning my dreams: You are also a thinker, a dreamer, a planner, I’m here to tell you that your plans that never worked for you before, because you started to dream something wonderful and started to work and it crunched, but at this time as you put your trust in God, those plans that you’re dreaming of, that are burning in your heart, they will come to pass, the dreams that seemed to be so impossible, they will come to pass, because they were given to you by God, they are come to pass this time, you know why, because now you have decided to concentrate on God, in the past you was fluctuating like a yo-yo, but now God will bless and use you. Until hearing this prophecy, I honestly thought many times that I was crazy, my dreams don’t just "sound" impossible, some of them "are" impossible, but, as they were given by God, they will come to pass, because God is the “God of the Impossible”. After 120 years He sent rain in the desert (Noah); He gave a son to a 100 year old man (Abraham); He turned a slave into a Ruler (Joseph); He turned a coward into a might man of valor (Gideon); A teenager, with God’s power was able to kill a lion, a bear and a giant (David); If they were thrown in an extremely hot furnace, they were not harmed (Daniel and friends); They turned the world “up side down” (Disciples). Why? Because they dreamed God’s dream, they thought God’s thoughts, they walked in God’s ways. Isaiah 55:9.
Conclusion: Don’t be contempt with your “little” dreams, dream God’s dreams. It will take your life “out“ of you, but, God will put His life “in” you. You will loose your life, but, will gain God’s life.

Personal Testimony: Anointing or Annoying?

I remember, right after being saved, because God also anointed me (read the post Personal Testimony: New Life), that I became really emotional when seeing the “results” after praying or speaking to people, it had to do with the manifestation of gifts. Other day I was watching my 3 year old son playing with his new car toy. In the beginning he was playing with it as if it was a car toy, but after getting bored (they say a child can concentrate 1 minute for each year they have, 3 minutes in David’s case) he started playing with it as if it was a plane, after that the toy became a ball, he was throwing it all over. This reminded me of what happened to me, in the beginning, concerning to gifts. As I was a child (spiritually speaking), I started using the gifts childishly, driven by emotions, immaturely misusing them. You’re probably thinking: “I didn’t even know it was possible to misuse spiritual gifts. Yes it is! One’s the most chocking stories I ever seen, is about a little girl named Grace, she had (or still has) a condition called “muscular dystrophy”. She started watching a televangelist, you probably heard about Hinn many times, then she asked her mom to take her to his crusade (sounds more like a medieval battle), a the time of prayer for healing (after making sure the offering was “in the plate”, the bigger the miracle, the bigger the offering), Grace asked her mom to take her to receive prayer. They didn't even get near Hinn, probably because of her “visible” condition (muscular dystrophy), she wasn't allowed to receive prayer from Hinn, otherwise if she wasn't healed at the platform, people would wake up from their “spiritual hypnosis” and see that their money wasn't buying the expected healing. At the end of the “show”, they didn't “show” Jesus Christ’s Grace to the little Grace. Why people receive prayer and are not healed? I don’t want to be simplistic, but here are some reasons: It wasn't God’s will to physically heal them to begin with; the “healer” didn't have the gift of healing or enough faith to heal the sick; it wasn't the right time, because through that sickness God was dealing with the person’s heart (read the story of Job); some people won’t be healed through prayer, period (Paul had faith and the gift of healing, but Timothy (1 Timothy 5:23) and Trophimus (2 Timothy 4:20) were not healed). Let’s talk about spiritual gifts. People think I’m a musician, well, I play some instruments and I probably have some hidden talent, once I tried to study music, but it was “greek” to me, way too complicated, because of it I kept playing “by ear”. As a musician, I can understand what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:7.That distinction is necessary when using our gifts, there must be “order” in our minds first, then in our churches, otherwise, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:23. There will be evidence to the unbeliever that we are “out of our mind”. We need all the gifts in our churches, but we also need to learn how to use them. God has promised He will give me the gifts of “faith” and “healing”, and during this time (about 10 years), He is teaching me how to use them. 1 Corinthians 14:31-32. Here Paul is teaching how to use a gift in the church, and he says that the spirit of the person is subject to the person (prophet in this case). Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 14:33. If there’s confusion in the work (service), God is not the author of it, and at the end, the work (service) is a mere work (service) of a man. I know, many times I sound repetitive, but, as the Baroness Edith Summerskill said: “Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths”. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to listen to a hard truth then a smooth lie.
Conclusion: 1 Corinthians 14:1. If you don’t know what spiritual gift you have, ask the Holy Spirit, He will tell you. But, desire other gifts too. We need to have spiritual gifts and learn how to use them. The spiritual gifts are given to edify (build) the church.

Prophecy: "Once more I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land".

First of all, let’s see what prophecy means: 1- the foretelling or prediction of what is to come; 2- something that is declared by a prophet, esp. a divinely inspired prediction, instruction, or exhortation; 3- a divinely inspired utterance or revelation: oracular prophecies; 4- the action, function, or faculty of a prophet.
I remember, when I was part of a church, at that time called Vineyard, one sunday after the service, talking to a couple ladies, I don't really remember the theme, the only thing I remember is that I told them, I didn't even know why I was saying that (now I know it was a prophecy), this is what I said: God is telling us: "Once again, I will shake the earth". Honestly, I had no clue why I said that, but, a couple weeks latter, the catastrophic event called 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake took place, killing nearly 230,000 people in fourteen countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. Next Sunday after the tsunami, I saw the ladies at the church and one of them came to speak to me about it, she remembered me about what I said. Well, today we are seeing many places being devastated by earthquakes and tsunamis all over the world. Throughout the world there are “signs” that God is fulfilling His promises, as He says in Haggai 2:6-9. Jesus Christ also spoke about the events that will take place before His returning in Matthew 24:7. Humanly speaking is really hard to accept the reality of this truth. Unfortunately, here in America the church is sleeping, not dead, but sleeping. It’s time to wake up and be aware that we’re living in the “last days”, as we read in Hebrews 10:25. The Day he is talking about is the Day of the Lord. Since the tragedy of September 11, God is telling us to wake up. Actually, God assured me that this tragedy was only a warning, an alert, because another event will take place here in America, a catastrophic one, where thousands and thousands of people will lose their lives. I personally don’t know when, where or what will it be, but I have no doubt that it will happened, it’s only a matter of time. This is a prophecy. I’m not claiming to be a prophet. I’m only a servant. I don’t mean to scare you either, to bring fear in your heart, but it’s time to speak about it. I confess to you that I was scared to death when God told me about this event, for many months I fought against it, I refused to accept it, but I knew was God speaking, until one day I read this in 1 John 4:18. I realized that I needed God’s love in my life to stop fearing it. It’s still hard to think and speak about it. I believe it could be different, this event could never happened. But as I said before, we are sleeping, if we don’t wake up, there’s no way to prevent the out coming. We have to do what God tells us to do in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Those are the steps we have to follow in order to be forgiven and to be healed as persons and as a nation. Unfortunately, because the vast majority of Christians he in America think everything is good and it’s going to be even better, they don’t bother to do what God tells them to do. I encourage you to pray about this, to test me before God, I’m a spiritual person and you are commanded to “test the spirits”, 1 John 4:1. May God have mercy on us.

Which Jesus: The Narrow Way or the Broadway?

You may be asking yourself: “I didn't know there was another Jesus?” Well, of course there are people called Jesus and others saying they are Jesus Christ reincarnated, but we know there’s only one Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If so, why asking this question? Well, let’s start with the statement made by Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:23. Why is Paul saying they preached Christ crucified? What does it mean? Is Christ Divided? Let’s answer those questions. First, What does it mean Christ crucified? It means unconditional obedience to God. Mark 14:36; Philippians 2:8; Hebrews 5:8. This was the Jesus Christ the Apostles preached: The Obedient One, the One who chose to Obey. Jesus himself started talking about the false teachers and prophets. Matthew 7:15. Paul also talks about them in Acts 20:29-30. Also in 2 Corinthians 11 Paul deals with the ones he calls “false apostles” and “deceitful workers”. From the beginning there are people preaching a different Gospel, a partial truth, a easier way to God. Today we can see it clearer than never, like the sunny day at noon time, how many preachers an teachers spread the “easier Gospel” in their shows, at the end it becomes just another show, like the Broadway shows. Do you see the analogy? The false ones preach the “broadway” and the apostles preached the “narrow way” (Jesus Christ crucified), Matthew 7:13-14. Today we can find many people offering (actually they charge for their offering) any kind of Jesus you want: The healer, the bread multiplier, the prophet (fortune teller in their case), the royal king (prosperity gospel). Again, as Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 1:13. Of course Christ is not divided! So, why is so rare to hear about this Jesus Christ crucified? Jesus explains why in Matthew 7:14. Besides, today is not popular to preach a message that calls people to “die to themselves”, to “loose their life”, to “unconditionally obey God”. The problem with that “nice” message is that it leads to the ‘broad way with the wide gate”, meaning hell. I know by experience, that is extremely difficult to believe in Jesus and His disciples and obey their teachings, but, there's no other way that leads to God, but, Jesus Christ Crucified or unconditional obedience to God. I encourage you to pray about it, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what Jesus you are following, the Narrow Way or the broad way.

Early Church: The Balance We Need

I remember one day, talking to my neighbor, his name is Ted, sharing with him what God was teaching me those days, it was about finding the balance in the Christian life. God was teaching me about the differences we have in the Christian church: Traditional, Pentecostal and Liberal. They are known by their priority. The Traditional is all about Teaching the Bible, the Pentecostal the Powerful Prayer and the Liberal the Good Deeds. We had a good time together, sharing God’s vision for His church and also “breaking the bread”, in our case, barbecuing. At that time, I was part of a church where the sanctuary looks like a modern chapel. What was amazing about it was that a couple weeks after talking to Ted about that balance, the senior pastor preached about it. His message was really good, he was totally convincing that we had to pursue that balance. I thought to myself: “Man, will we have a revival here or what?” Well, like always, my expectations were sky high, but, up to this day I didn’t hear anything about a revival there, because if we become like the early church, having those three components together, we will turn our town, state, country, world, upside down Acts 17:5-6. The problem is when God give us a Vision or a Dream, only God can make that Vision or Dream to become reality, like He did in the early church (Acts). In the early church they had the correct teaching, the Apostles’ Doctrine, Acts 2:42; they had the Powerful Prayer, Acts 4:31; Acts 12:5-10; and they had the Good Deeds Acts 2:44-47. I know is extremely difficult to have this kind of balance (I'm dying to have it), but, if we don’t pay the price to have it, we’ll never have it. It doesn't mean God doesn't want us to have it, only that we’re not willing to pay the price to have it.
Conclusion: Considering that we are the Church, the Temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19, this balance has to begin with us, we cannot tolerate false doctrines, we cannot be contempt with our powerless prayer and we must love our neighbor as ourselves. If we do that, we will “contaminate” others and our congregation (church) will be like the early church (Acts): Powerful Words, Powerful Prayer and Powerful Deeds either gaining the world for Jesus or being persecuted by the world, but, never being conformed to the world. Romans 12:2.

The Tree, the Branch and the Fruit.

This is a very difficult subject, since most believers, like I did, think they are the Tree. It gets even harder to make sense of it, when we read in Matthew 7:18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. So, if we’re not the Tree, who’s the Tree? If the tree bears Fruit, what is the Fruit? Let’s start from the beginning, literally. We read in Genesis 2:9 The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Those trees represented two persons, Jesus Christ and satan, God gave Adam the right (free will) to choose between them and throughout the Bible we see everyone facing that choice. Maybe you never thought about it, but Jesus refer to Himself in John 15:1 as the True Vine and in John 14:6 as the Life. In Matthew 6:13, Jesus calls satan the evil one. Of course we know that Adam chose the bad tree. We read in Genesis 3:23 God banished man from the Garden of Eden and placed cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. God did it because if man ate the Fruit of the Tree of Life, he would live forever in the fallen state, in sin, spiritually dead. As Jesus paid the price for our sin and we become children of God, one day we will eat the Fruit of the Tree of Life, as it says in Revelation 2:7 To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. So, what are we? We are the branches. John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. What is the Fruit? We find the Good Fruit in Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and the Bad Fruit in Galatians 5:19 Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. Let’s think about the process Jesus talks about in John 7. After Adam sinned, we became branches of the bad tree (devil), John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil. Then we are born again, God takes us from the bad tree (devil), transplanted us into the Good Tree (Jesus). This is when we see the work of the Pruner (Father), John 15:2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. Here is the definition of pruning: the horticultural practice of cutting away an unwanted, unnecessary, or undesirable plant part, used most often on trees, shrubs, hedges, and woody vines. This process is called Sanctification or holiness. Even after being born again (in Christ), we still carry the old sap, the sinful nature, and we will sin, as we read in 1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. Is it possible to be In Jesus and yet to be cut off (go to hell)? Of course it is! John 15:2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away. The best example we have is Judas Iscariot, he was IN (disciple) Jesus, and never produced Fruit, then he was cut off.
Conclusion: We are born in sin, after receiving Jesus in our hearts we became a born again person. Eventually we will sin, but if we confess our sins we are forgiven. All the born again people are in the process called Sanctification or holiness, this process is vital to live eternally with God. Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.