David vs. Goliath: The Battle Between Faith and Pride.

Proverbs 16:18. When Solomon wrote this verse, he probably had in mind a story that he heard a thousand times before: The battle between his father David and Goliath. Maybe Solomon was the one who came up with this saying: "The bigger they are, the harder they fall". The one thing that is very subtle in this story (it is found in 1 Samuel 17), is the difference between Faith and Pride. See what David's brother told him: 1 Samuel 17:28. The first battle David had to win was against his brothers prejudice (do you remember  Joseph's story?), if David didn't continue to speak, he would never be taken to see the king. Than he had to convince Saul that the LORD would deliver the giant in his hands, as Paul wrote: Philippians 4:13, because Saul didn't believe it: 1 Samuel 17:33. Then Saul gave David his armor, but it didn't fit. My take on this is that David didn't need Saul's armor, because he already had the "whole armor of God" that Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:14-17. David knew that he wasn't fighting against "flesh and blood": Ephesians 6:12. David knew that Goliath's pride was as big as his stature and his haughty spirit didn't allow him to believe in the God of Israel, so, Goliath's fall was just a stone's throw away! So, when people see you acting in faith sometimes they will tell you that you are prideful and arrogant, but at the end if you stand, they will understand the difference between faith and pride. My advice to you is: If God tells you to do something, don't worry about what people will tell you, act in faith and God will give you the victory! Always remember: The giant's fall is just a stone's throw away. Choose your stones wisely!

Physician, Heal Yourself!

Luke 4:23. At this point, Jesus' fame already preceded Him, everyone knew what happened in Capernaum and were anxious to "see" the same signs and wonders, but, the problem for them was that they thought they "knew" who Jesus was and where he came from, that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary and He was a Nazarene (they didn't know He was born in Bethlehem), Matthew 2:23, therefore He could never be the Messiah (Anointed One) because the Messiah had to come from Bethlehem of Judea, Micah 5:2. When Jesus read Isaiah 61:1-2, and told them that this passage was fulfilled before their eyes, meaning that He was the Messiah Isaiah spoke about, they refused to believe Him. Then Jesus talks about Elijah and Elisha, that those prophets being rejected by their own people, were used by God to minister to foreigners. With this Jesus was telling them that even if He did miracles and wonders among them, they would not believe that He was the Messiah. Right after, they try to kill Him. The wonderful thing about Jesus is that He was never impressed by the amount of people following Him, He never allowed the crowd to dictate what He had to say and do, He only did what His Father told Him to do. Today, if we turn on our tv, we'll see preachers trying to convince the people by displaying the "power of god" through persuasive words and pseudo-miracles that attract multitudes of people. Unfortunately, if you just pay attention, they are preaching everything but "Jesus Christ Crucified". Paul rebuked the Galatians for turning away from the Truth, Galatians 3:1. Jesus is been preached in our churches today, no doubt about it, the question is: What Jesus? (Read the post: What Jesus: The Narrow Way or the Broadway?) If the multitudes, even after seeing miracles and wonders still rejected Jesus Christ because He preached "unconditional obedience to God", it wouldn't be different today, in fact, the multitudes, just like in Jesus' time, are only running after signs and wonders, they want to see miracles and wonders but they don't want to follow Jesus, they don't want to lose their lives to become His disciples. I'm not saying that signs, wonders, miracles, healings and all the gifts we see in the Bible are not for today, absolutely, they are as real today as they were in Jesus’ time, i'm saying that if they are done in the absence of Truth, they are meaningless. I have experienced rejection after speaking the Truth, even after people seeing how God used me with diferent gifts. Unfortunately it hurts, but God is faithful and none of the words that came from Him will fall to the ground, they can kill the messenger but will never destroy the Message: Isaiah 55:11.

What is SIN?

Sin is failing to do God's will, is disobedience towards God, is missing the mark which is holiness, is to break God's laws. 1 John 3:4. In the Bible we can find different kinds of sins, like the ones mentioned in Exodus 20, called the Ten Commandments: You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal, etc. There are others mentioned in the New Testament, what the Apostle Paul called "works of the flesh": Fornication, hatred, envy, jealousies, etc. Unfortunately, the culture inside the Christian church tends to classify sin, so it's bad "to kill" but it's not too bad "to lie", it's bad "to idolize" but it's not too bad "to envy", etc. There's this concept of "white lie" that has permeated Christianity and brought with it other "acceptable" sins, making the very "purpose" or "target" called holiness to be almost "extinct" in our modern Christianity, in other words, we lack the power and glory of God in our lives and our churches because we failed to be holy: Leviticus 19:2; 1 Peter 1:15-16. As you can see, the God in the Old Testament is the same God in the New Testament, He does not change: Malachi 3:6. There's no "acceptable" sin, every sin is detestable and hateful before the Lord. We must learn to hate sin and to love holiness. If we say we love the Lord and don't love holiness we are deceiving ourselves. How can we love the Holy One (the Lord God) and don't love holiness? Isaiah 59:2. Unfortunately, along the years many false doctrines appeared in the church and harmed many people, like this one: "A Christian person does not sin". I heard this teaching over 20 years ago and i refuted such heresy when the pastor spoke it, but what broke my heart was not seeing any of the leaders (3 different churches in a youth retreat) standing against it. They did it later, but the damage was already done. We must hate sin, but at the same time acknowledge that we are sinners and sooner or latter we will sin, and when (not if) we sin we must repent and confess our sins to be forgiven. 1 John 1:8-10.

Seven Years of Plenty Preceding the Great Tribulation.

As they say: "History repeats itself". Or as Salomon the King wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9. Couple days ago i was reading the story of Joseph (i read many times before) and the Holy Spirit spoke to me about the seven years. For many years i kept saying that there is a "GREAT HARVEST OF SOULS" coming soon but i couldn't fully understand it until now. This is what the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "Before the SEVEN YEARS OF SPIRITUAL FAMINE (great tribulation), there will be SEVEN YEARS OF A GREAT HARVEST OF SOULS", that's when the parable in Matthew 22:1-14 will be fully revealed, when those who have been invited to the wedding and are not willing to enter will be replaced by the ones who were not invited before. We can see already signs of it, just pay attention to what is going on around the world: Jesus Christ is revealing Himself to muslims and hindus, appearing to them in dreams and visions, being preached in places where they never heard about Him before. They are coming to the wedding because, as Jesus says in the parable, the ones who were invited were not willing to come. If we translate this parable to our context, the ones who were invited and were not willing to come to the wedding are the religious people who call themselves christians but are not willing to lose their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ. What Pharaoh dreamed and came to pass in the "physical realm" (the abundance and famine), will come to pass in the "spiritual realm" also. Before the anti-Christ starts ruling the world, we will see an outpouring of tremendous power and authority coming from God, the Holy Spirit will perform great signs and wonders and many will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the unbelieving religious people will not take part of this, in fact, they will persecute the ones who God chose to display His Glory through their lives, just as it has been from the beginning and it was with Jesus Christ. The "spirit of anti-Christ" acts powerfully IN the churches through religiosity, "blindfolding" those who think that by works they can enter into the Kingdom of God, those who "transform" themselves into godly people (as satan transforms himself into and angel of light), but deny the power of godliness (no fruit), as Paul the Apostle said: 2 Timothy 3:1-5. My advice to you is that you prepare yourself to what's coming, satan will be thrown to earth and he is coming with great wrath (Revelation 12:12), but at the same time, God's "warriors" will stand up and fight against the enemy. This is not a time for complacency, this is a time to FORSAKE EVERYTHING TO FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST, to PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD and FIGHT AGAINST THE DEVIL: Ephesians 6:11. Even if you think that this sounds crazy, soon you will realize that Jesus Christ is returning because the world will be a chaos, and if you are not prepared for the wedding, you will be "left behind with the left behind". Matthew 22:1-14. Are you prepared for the wedding? Are you wearing the wedding garment (holiness)?

Along Came the devil...

I'm living the best time since God freed and anointed me. This week i came to understand things that for 10 years i prayed about and never understood: The work of the devil inside the church! Years ago, i was in a church were we started to pray and worship God, there was prayer everyday in the church, after a while we saw God's Glory being revealed among us, unfortunately, we were all "babies", including the pastor (leader), because we failed to identify satan there, he managed to break the "spiritual unity" we had, at that time i identified other demons but never got to identify the devil himself. One morning (i used to deliver newspapers early morning), God told me that i was the "watchman" in that church, i had no clue what God was talking about. When i got home and opened my Bible (i used to do that almost every day), the text was this one: Ezekiel 33:1-7. To be honest with you, after reading this passage i was scared to death, i was 100% sure that God was talking to me, but at the same time it was "crazy", too hard to believe! Well, after that, God gave me a gift called "discerning of spirits". Discerning a spirit means that you know what type of spirit is at work: The Holy Spirit, the spirit of men or demons. Unfortunately, as it is a spiritual gift, you don't see the spirit (obviously), but the Holy Spirit reveals to your spirit what's the source. Sometimes it's extremely hard to discern what spirit is it. E.g.: 2 Corinthians 11:14. Paul is saying here that satan will "disguise" himself as an angel of light, he used to be lucifer (angel of light), now he is an angel of darkness, he is the prince of darkness, he is saying that if we don't discern correctly, we will think that is an angel of God and not satan. This week i had an encounter with satan himself, first God told me that in the church there was a spirit opposing worship, meaning, he was trying to "divert" the worship that was going to God to himself. At first, i thought that was just another demon messing around like i "saw" many times, but when he was being expelled from the person (man), he said he was the "spirit of antichrist". Well, this is what John the apostle wrote about antichrists: 1 John 2:18-22. It's a long story, but satan was only expelled by the pastor (leader of the church), after the third time. Why it took so long? Well, i was there the second time, during that time, i talked to my brother in Georgia (i live in Illinois), and he said that we would be wasting our time if we didn't deal with the demon that was in control (the authority), so when the pastor dealt with satan the third time, he had to go. Now this man, a close friend and brother in Christ, is completely free, God has something big for him and his family. The reason i'm writing this, is to tell you that when we have TRUE WORSHIP in our church no demon can resist it, when the Light of Jesus Christ, the Glory of God shines in our midst, satan has to "show himself", he no longer can be hiding in the "closet"! The problem today in our churches is that we have EVERYTHING but TRUE WORSHIP! It's like this: We have to rebuild the ALTAR OF THE LORD, which is the place where the GLORY OF GOD WILL BE REVEALED. Its like the ALTAR ELIJAH REBUILT (repaired): 1 Kings 18:30. Only after REPAIRING THE ALTAR OF THE LORD, was that Elijah was able to OFFER SACRIFICE TO THE LORD. The sacrifice today is WORSHIP! If we want to see the Glory of God in our midst, WE MUST RESTORE THE ALTAR OF THE LORD TO BE ABLE TO OFFER HIM A SACRIFICE OF WORSHIP! John 4:23. Unfortunately our "churches" became EVERYTHING BUT a place of TRUE WORSHIP TO THE LORD, even when the Altar started to be restored in some places, after a while, people started worshiping the Altar instead of worshiping the LORD. This is a prophecy: There is a TRUE REVIVAL coming to LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, but will only happened where there is TRUE WORSHIP. We started seeing it in our church, that's why satan was there working so hard to destroy our SPIRITUAL UNITY, before as a "watchman", i failed to identify him, THANKS TO THE LORD now i could identify him and i know if we REPAIR THE ALTAR OF WORSHIP TO THE LORD we will see THE GLORY OF THE LORD IN OUR MIDST and MANY PEOPLE WILL COME TO BE SET FREE, TO BE HEALED, TO BE SAVED. THERE WILL BE A "GREAT HARVEST" VERY SOON, MANY SOULS WILL BE SAVED, BUT AT THE SAME TIME THE WORLD WILL BE A CHAOS! JESUS CHRIST IS RETURNING SOON, ARE YOU PREPARED?