Yes, Amen and Faith.

2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. To corroborate this assurance, we can add other verses, like: Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Nowadays, we can hear many people, leaders or "commoners", saying words like this: "God is telling you this or that", "God sent me to tell you this or that", "God will do this or that", etc. I remember someone told me this story (I think it was my brother-in-law): "I was in a meeting, the pastor was very excited, preaching and calling people to be healed. I (the person) had a strong toothache at that moment, so I went to receive prayer and be healed. The pastor prayed, but at the end I was still feeling the pain, nothing changed. Than the pastor said that I wasn't healed because I didn't have faith. So I answered him: 'If I had faith why would I come to receive prayer? I would have prayed and be healed!'". I know that you might be thinking about what the Bible says about faith and remembering passages that talk about people being healed by their faith, like the woman who bled for 12 years and was healed after touching Jesus' garment, Jesus said to her: "Your faith has made you well". Also when Jesus didn't perform many signs and didn't heal many people because they didn't believe Him (lack of faith). What I'm trying to say is this: "One should never say that God will heal someone else and if the person is not healed, blame this person for not having enough faith". When God says He will do something, He will do that! The assurance is not in the person's faith, but in God Himself who promised! I have already written about God's promises for me that already happened (my son, for example), but now I want to tell you about something else God promised me. When I came from Illinois (I live in the USA), my brother (Pastor) had just started a Hispanic service in our church (Georgia), he found a hispanic pastor to lead the church and asked me to help him with the worship. So we started a worship group. After a while, one Sunday the pastor invited a friend of his, a singer, to preach and sing, she is from Cuba. She was preaching and singing, at one point she stopped speaking, looked at me and told me: "God is saying that He will give you the gift of writing songs, you must believe it". That's was not unusual for me, it happened other times, people looked at me and prophesied saying that "God was telling me...". I kept that in my heart. I tried writing songs before, wrote two songs, but was sure that I didn't have that gift. Well, again, the pastor invited another musician, he played harp and guitar. He introduced himself (that was weird) by saying that he had no clue what he was doing there, since he was an "acclaimed musician" and only played for "princes, kings, presidents and high authorities". He was doing his thing, when suddenly he stopped, looked at me, point to me and said: "God is telling you that He will give you the gift of writing songs, you will compose beautiful melodies. You must believe this because God will do it". I believed it because I heard the same thing before. Well, time passed, nothing happened, until I got injured in my job. Long story short, I hurt my knee (meniscus) and was out of work, from my couch to my bed for 3 months. This was the hardest time in my life. I Cried my heart out. No money for the surgery, sometimes just enough money for the basic things, just a hard time. But God told me He was going to reveal Himself as my Provider. God is good and faithful. We didn't lack anything during this time. God provided for the surgery, medication and all our needs. One day I was crying before God and heard clearly the Holy Spirit saying to me: "Get your Bible and your guitar". I barely did, I became an "one legged person"! So I opened my Bible, got the guitar and wrote a song. Next day these same happened. For a few days it happened just like that. Up to this day, I wrote about 30 songs in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Well, for a few years I tried to release those songs. Showed to different people, tried well-known artist, but without any success. Even already written a post called The Purpose, the Time and the Way", I still didn't fully realized what it says in Ecclesiastes 8:6 For there is a right time and way for every purpose. God already had prepared a time and way to release those songs. Few years ago I met a guy, Junior Amaral, here in Georgia, a friend introduced him and told me he was a song producer. I saw Junior once and never saw him again. I contacted him October 2019 but I didn't follow through. Then, in April 2020, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said that it was time to start releasing the songs and He was going to provide the means to do it, that I had to call Junior. So I did, I called him and he said things were very difficult in Portugal (where he lives), because the pandemic, the country was in a lock-down, that he and his wife were praying that God would send some help and I was an answer for their prayers. What can I tell you more than "God is amazing", "God is the provider"... So Junior started producing, arranging, playing and his wife Daniela sings some songs. Also, there's another friend , Viviane Wiederstein and her daughter, Isabela Zoe who sing some songs. God's been providing all we need to release our songs. So far, we have 10 songs released. Also, God told me very clear the day I wrote the first song, that I had to give those songs for free, He spoke very clear to me and reminded me that Bible verse, what Jesus said to His disciples: Matthew 10:8 ... Freely you have received; freely give. I know, nowadays, it's not popular to do it (it's countercultural), most things in Christianity are for sale (books, music, sermons, concerts, etc.) and you don't have to tell me about the cost to produce/release a song, book, sermon, etc., I know how hard and costly it is to do those things and I'm not judging or condemning anybody for doing it, but at the same time, I (that's personal) don't believe we, Jesus' disciples (those who are) should sell anything related to the Kingdom of God, because if you pay attention to the verse I quoted, that's a commandment! Jesus is not "suggesting" that His disciples would give it for free, He is commanding them! The same commandment applies to us, Jesus' disciples today. I grew up in the catholic church (until I was 8 or 9 years old) then my parents became evangelicals. At that time in the evangelical church, they used to say that the catholics even sold Jesus' mother. Today, the unfortunate truth, is that the evangelicals are trying to sell Jesus' father! I'm not being a fundamentalist, I'm just clarifying that God's Kingdom is not for sale! If you think that Jesus expelled the sellers, buyers and "merchandise" from the temple for no reason, you're mistaking. If you don't realize that YOU ARE THE HOUSE OF GOD and your heart is not a MARKETPLACE, you'll be in trouble when you meet Jesus! The reason there's so much buying and selling in christiany today, is because this COMMANDMENT is not taken seriously and also because most leaders don't see it as a commandment. If you disagree with me, answer this question: "How much did you pay God for the gift He gave you (whatever it is)?" If the answer is "Nothing" than this COMMANDMENT IS FOR YOU. If you paid Him anything, then this COMMANDMENT IS NOT FOR YOU. Please, pray about this. Our songs are available in all the major online stores for download and streaming. If you think that I'll profit from it, you're wrong! Our Ministry/Group is called "Boundless Love" and these are the songs released:

 

 

  

 

 
 

 

Here are some playlists:

Spotify,  Deezer, 

I hope you'll be blessed by our songs and take it to heart that when you're committed to do God's will, He will provide for your needs.

Expecting the unexpected

"Expectation is the root of all heartache". William Shakespeare. I happened to disagree with this statement. If i may, let me correct it (i'm not trying to discredit or compare myself with Shakespeare): "Wrong expectation is the root of all heartache"! Of course i'm saying it in a Christian perspective. If you don't "expect" to receive something (faith), you'll receive nothing! James explained this when talking about wisdom, in James 1:7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. When he talks about wisdom, he says that the will of God is to give wisdom to everyone who asks for, but on the other hand, he says that if you don't have faith (assurance, certainty), you'll never receive it! James 1:5-6 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James goes further and says that this "double-minded" person won't receive anything from the Lord. Let's bring this to our daily lives: Let's say that we have a bank account (checking), in that account we have $1000. Let's say we need $100 cash to buy food (forget about the card). What do we do? We go to the bank and get the money, right? Why? Because we know we have $1000 in our account. This may sound silly but it is a reality. Let's say we don't have any money in the bank, but we are so confident that we will get the $100 we need to buy food that, even conscious that we have no money in the bank, we go to the bank to get the money. I'm speaking to reasonable people, will we ever go to the bank if we don't expect to get the money? If we're not crazy, we won't go because we already know we don't have any money in our account! But, let's say that i have a "phenomenal" expectation and, because i am a devoted christian dude, i "believe" (even if God didn't say or promised anything to me) i'll get the money and go to the bank anyways. Let's imagine this dialog between i and the cashier (teller): I: "I want $100". Cashier: "No can do it, Sir!" I: "Why not?" Cashier: "You don't have any money in your account! Nothing, nada, nein, 没有" I: "I expect to get $100 from you" Cashier: "You're crazy, get out before i call the cops". End of dialogue... Can you say i didn't have any expectation? No, it was a "phenomenal" expectation, but, i it was a wrong expectation! In that case, Shakespeare was right, it would have caused me a huge heartache and lots of aches if i argued with the cops. So, why our expectations, most of the time, are not met? Because they have no "foundation", no "grounds", they are just "wrong". So, why James says that "God gives generously to all without finding fault"? Because God's will is to give us wisdom, we just need to believe that. Once, in a prophecy, a prophet said i was "fluctuating like a yo-yo", or as James said, i was "like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind". That was I. Thank God the prophet also said: "because i decided to concentrate on God, God was blessing me and was going to use me". Check this post: Personal Testimony: Fasting. Why did I have so many "heartaches" before? Because of my wrong expectations! I've been learning with Jesus Christ to "expect what God is expecting", to "dream what God is dreaming", "to do what God is doing". This is the reason why Jesus Christ was 100% successful in His ministry. He said this: John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; He can do only what He sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does". That was Jesus Christ's "secret"! If i could tell you the many, many, many, many... times i had wrong expectations you would call me a fool, and you you'd be just right, because i was a fool! By the grace of God, i'm not that fool anymore, in fact, God has given me wisdom. My "take" is this: "Human wisdom is the capacity of managing one's own intelligence. God's wisdom is the capacity, given by God, of managing God's will for one's life". We are ALL intelligent human beings, but, we're not all wise human beings. So, going back to the title "expecting the unexpected", i believe God will not always reveal things beforehand, that's where faith kicks in, as it happened many times with me, God will tell us "Do this", "Say this", "Go there" but many times He will not tell us why. We must know "who" is speaking to us, "ourselves", "God", "devil", "people", as the Bible says: 1 Corinthians 14:10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. When we discern where the voice is coming from, undoubtedly, we won't have a "heartache". To expect the unexpected is to rely on God and sometimes, be surprised by what He will do, which is way more or different than we expected. Aren't you tired of been disappointed by people you trusted? Aren't you tired of heartaches caused by people who said they loved you? There's no friend like Jesus Christ, He will always be reliable, trustworthy, kind, generous, truthful, He will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. He will heal your wounds and give you new life, an abundant life. If you don't believe me, test it! I think the worst thing for us is to hear our own voice and think that is God's voice. That causes many heartaches and disappointments. So, "expectations based on God's will" are the key to never be disappointed and to receive what we ask for.