Genesis 22 (part 1)

Let's go to the Book of Genesis quickly and there you're going to find Chapter 22, and let me read some verses here, starting with verse 1, Genesis 22: “...it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and told him : “Abraham”, and he answered: “here I am”, and said: “now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a holocaust on one of the mountains that I I'll tell you." And Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and Isaac his son, and he cut wood for the burnt offering and got up and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place in the distance, then Abraham said to his servants: "Wait here with the donkey and I and the boy will go there and worship and return to you." And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on Isaac his son, and he took the fire and the knife in his hand and they both went together. Then Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said: "My father", and he answered: "Here is my son", and he said: "Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the holocaust? ?” (one of the most innocent questions that have been asked in the entire history of humanity, that) and Abraham answered: "God will provide Himself a lamb for the holocaust, my son", and they went together. And when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood, and bound Isaac his son, and put him on the altar on the wood, and Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay the man's throat. your son. Then the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am,” and said, “Don't stretch out your hand on the boy or do anything to him because I already know that you fear God. because you did not deny me your son, your only son”, then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and here behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Will Provide. (All say: Jehovah will provide. Amen.) Therefore it is said today on the mount of Jehovah it will be provided. Amen”

We are going to leave it there, then I can perhaps elaborate a little more on what continues but in the spirit of moving forward... As you know, brothers, we are using these Sundays to meditate on the theme of stewardship, of our life of dedication to the Lord, of giving generously to the Lord. We are meditating on possessions, on money, on talents, on time, on those things that we consider ours, our family, our bodies, our lives as a whole, and how God expects us to relate to those things when we we in turn relate to Him and what He expects of us.

And the idea is to encourage everything. First of all, to make these universal principles that are in the word of God, principles that govern in all aspects of our lives, but also specifically to encourage you to be ready, to be ready to give to the Lord in a generous way in these next few weeks when Let's make the call now to offer our promise, to raise our beautiful temple and for our church to make an appearance.

I spent three hours yesterday talking with our architect and talking about the next stages of our design process and work on the temple. Last Sunday I introduced two sisters, in the service of the 12 who were here, who came from California. I didn't say who they were, but they were the vice president of the Christian Community Credit Union of California and one of the employees of that institution, and she came to see the church. We then had the opportunity to have lunch with her and our treasurer, Alejandro Calderón, and she was tremendously grateful to have been here, impressed with the encouragement and spirit of the congregation and with the things that God is doing through this church that are you and I. She was extremely impressed and committed to helping us finance our temple.

And there is a very important piece that is what we are going to give and I have sent a challenge to the congregation, to this church and it is that..... there is a group of 200 people that we are calling to commit to give in a period of 24 months, two years, 5,000 dollars and also that others give, those who cannot enter that group, because we are making a call according to faith, and that we stretch our faith a little too. Some won't be able to, or feel like they can go to that level, and that's okay, brethren, because we don't want anyone to feel pressured in an inappropriate way. So whoever can give a thousand, whoever can give 2,000, whoever can give 500 dollars, whatever, we want a hundred percent of the congregation to have something, brothers. How many say amen, that they can give something, uh, even if it's something, you can give? And don't feel in any way impoverished by that if you can't give everything we're asking for, but may we all give something to move this temple to its conclusion. I promise you in the name of the Lord that God will bless us.

As our brother Yoalmo told us this morning, he has been able to see that blessing. We have followed the trajectory of this family and many of you, how God has blessed you through the years because you have given generously to the Lord. And God loves that. God loves a cheerful giver. So first we want that $5,000 from 200 people and also finally that idea, whoever can't give that, can give whatever.

And third, perhaps there are some brothers, some families that God has blessed in an extraordinary way, for one reason or another, or who feel that giving the Lord something even greater than that, we don't want to limit them. We also want some pledges and some offerings that are greater than $5,000, if God moves you that way. We do not want to place a limitation either on one extreme or on the other. But I think my goal is for all of us to give, all of us who identify with this church, brothers, give something, so remember this too. And thank God people like Yoalmo have already felt even before we even made an official call, they have said: Pastor, I want to take that step of faith and glory to God for that. Now, towards the end of March we are going to be making a congregational call so that we launch ourselves into this great undertaking. I know that God is going to give us victory in the name of Jesus. Amen.

So on these Sundays I am raising that faith in us, and I am with the help of the Lord providing a biblical platform for what we are doing. I am trying to provide principles of life because we also want to enrich you, not only to get money from you, but also leave you blessed with these principles that allow us to receive God's blessings, because they are principles extracted from Scripture.

I was telling you last Sunday, we talked about Elijah and the widow, remember? The widow of Sarepta, we saw how the Lord provided for Elijah, because God is a provider God. And when we give to God we have to give from that perspective, that God is going to provide. When Elijah asks the widow to give him that cake cooked with a little water, he tells her: "do not worry", as the Lord says in Luke later, where we read, "do not fear, little flock, because your Father it has pleased him to give you the kingdom."

Every time God asks us to give him something, He is telling us: “don't worry”. Give me my first because there's more where that came from, there's so much more. And God calls us to give to Him. Elijah asked the widow, we were saying, to give him in the zone of discomfort, remember that? The widow was willing to give Elías some water, there was no problem because she had a lot of water, but when Elías asked her for the little she had, which was flour and oil, then she said: I can't. And that's where God wanted this widow to be tested, her faith to be stretched.

Look how interesting that God asked this widow to be Elijah's provider, to sacrifice, but not only did God want something from her, but God wanted to bless her, he wanted to bless her by showing her the true God through her prophet, he wanted to bless her by showing her a principle so that she could live a blessed and prosperous life, and he wanted to bless her also by providing food in the midst of a great national famine for as long as that drought lasted. That is to say that when God asks us to give him something, He always has a greater plan, it is an exercise. I believe that when we give to God it is more of a symbolic exercise, that God allows us to participate in it to bless us and teach us certain things and stretch our faith, and take us to another level of spiritual maturity. But God wants us to always hit him in the uncomfortable area, where it costs us, where we stretch. I believe that when we give to God, brothers, there must always be that sense of sacrifice because if we simply give to God what does not cost us, what does not threaten us, what does not bother us, then it does not have the same value.

I remember the passage of ..... how many have read the story of Ornan the Jebusite? You will say, what do you eat that with? Nobody, it seems. Ornan, the Jebusite, this is in the Bible in First Chronicles, God told David to offer him sacrifice on a piece of land owned by a man named Ornan, and to buy that piece of land and reserve it for God and for their sacrifices and David approached Ornan, there it is in First Chronicles 21, from 22 to 25, David approached Ornan and said: "Oman, I want to buy this land from you to offer sacrifice to the Lord." Ornan, who was a very wise man, very knowledgeable, told David – look at 22 – “then David said to Ornan: “give me this place of the threshing floor so that I can build an altar to Jehovah, give it to me for its full price so that cease the mortality in the town”, and Ornan answered David (look what it is to have a giving heart towards the Lord, and generous). The king comes to you and tells you: “I want to buy you that land”, and you tell him: “this man has a lot of money so I am going to sell it to him for the most expensive thing, to get the most out of it. TRUE?. Look what was the reaction of this generous man). Ornan tells David: “Take it for yourself and my Lord the king will do what seems good to him, what is more, he says, I will give even the oxen for the holocaust and the threshing floor for firewood, and wheat for the offering. I give it all."

Look at the generosity of this man towards God. He knew that this was for God and said: no, I am not going to sell it to you, king. I'm going to give it to you, what's more, I'm not only going to give you the land, but I'm going to give you the firewood for the holocaust, I'm going to give you the metal that you need, everything so that you can make that offering. I give it my all.

Say, brothers, I give it my all. We don't know what we're saying sometimes, do we? But look not only that. There was a competition between these two men. How good it is when we compete for who gives more to the Lord. Those competitions God likes. In verse 24, look at David's response, it says: "...then King David said to Ornan: No, but I will indeed buy it for its fair price." And here these words are famous in the Scriptures. These words have always persecuted me throughout my life, ".... because I will not take for Jehovah what is yours, nor will I sacrifice a holocaust that costs me nothing."

Brothers, we do not want to sacrifice to the Lord a holocaust that does not cost us. You see that this universal principle, whenever we give to God we must give in a way that costs us. If you are giving to God and it doesn't hurt, if you're not stretching yourself in faith, if it's not bothering you, if you don't have to scratch your head and say: I dare that, you know what? Possibly you are not giving to God in the zone that He likes to be given: the zone of discomfort, the zone where it costs us.

David might as well have said: well, okay, thanks. How generous this man. David said: no, I don't want to give the Lord a holocaust, but I want it to cost me. God likes it when we give to him. And that is what I want to encourage you, brothers, that in this campaign we give the Lord a holocaust that costs us, that bothers us. Ask the Lord to enlighten you, to stretch and increase your faith so that you can give to the Lord beyond what is comfortable. God likes that. And this is a biblical principle that is repeated over and over again.

The widow, let's remember this principle, the rich gave to the Lord from their excess, from what was left over. And the Lord said, well, that's good. But that widow, who gave the only white money she had, the peseta she had left, gave more than those who gave $25,000, because she gave everything she had. He gave all his livelihood. He put his whole life, all his security on the table. He loved the Lord so much and hit the hard zone.

One last passage, although I didn't finish this study and I continued it on Sunday, but if you go to Second Corinthians, because sometimes people think, well yes, that's fine but the pastor is doing something there to make a game of hands, to confuse me and I want you to see that this principle is repeated several times in Scripture.

Second Corinthians, Chapter 8, verses 1 to 3. Paul praises the Macedonians, -one day we will surely return to this passage-, the Macedonians for their offering. Second Corinthians, Chapter 8:1: “.... likewise, brothers, we let you know the grace of God that has been given to the churches of Macedonia that in great trial of tribulation the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in riches of his generosity. Look here what verse 3 says: "...for I testify that they have given according to their strength and even beyond their strength." These people were poor, they were in tribulation, they were under persecution and yet they gave to the Lord, not only according to their strength but beyond their strength, and Paul praised them. Paul singled them out in a special way for the generosity with which they gave.

Many times we give to the Lord our wealth, our abundance, our sufficiency, our comfort, and God says: No, no, don't give me your comfort, don't give me your security. Give me your insecurity. Give me from the area where you do not feel that there is reason to think that you will do well. Enter the zone of faith, the zone of faith is always the zone of deficit. That also sounds like I would like to write it down so I don't forget it. The zone of faith is the zone of deficit, it is the zone where you feel that you are not sure that you will come out unscathed. And that is where our life has to always be like this, brothers. One day with the help of the Lord, we will build our temple, we will have received the necessary offering, but there will be other moments in your life when God will ask you: are you willing to believe in me, like Abraham?

Let's go in for a moment now, directly. Abraham illustrates this principle and I'm going to point you through Scripture, I hope in the next few minutes, like a lawyer trying to build a case, I'm going to show you that this principle is seen over and over and over again, through Scripture. These principles that I am elaborating here. Abraham was a man who loved God. God, at 75 years old, his wife barren, promises him a son, at 100 years old he fulfills the promise and gives him a son, and at 130 years old he says: give me that son that you love so much and sacrifice it to me. kill me Offer it to me as a holocaust. Cut it into pieces as it is cut and ox and offer it to me. There begins a drama that is very instructive for us. There is a beginning that I see in the life of Abraham in this passage. That passage from Chapter 22 has always moved me. I think it was the greatest moment in Abraham's entire life. It was the moment that defined this man. That moment showed us the heart of this man and why God had chosen Abraham and why Abraham could be the spiritual father of the Hebrew people and of the church of Jesus Christ by extension.

Here we see many spiritual principles that can help us in our life of stewardship and in all aspects of our relationship with God. I see something here, brothers, and it is this principle that when God asks us to give him something, God always involves a process of crucifixion. Always in giving, in that way, every time I tithe, God crucifies me a little. Every time I give the Lord an offering beyond what is comfortable or normal, I die a little, because I have to die to myself, I have to die to my desire for security, I have to die to my reason that says “don't give because if you give you'll miss it”, I have to die to the human survival instinct, to always want to ensure their comfort and security, I have to die to those things. I have to die to my love of money, I have to die to my attachment to the things I like and put them at risk and at that moment there is a drop of invisible blood that comes from our hearts because we have to die to the human, to the normal, to the biological, and God is asking us to move to the area of spirituality, of faith. That is why if you are not willing to die, you cannot please the Lord because there is always this idea that we have to live giving things to the Lord. And that is why the Lord tells us in another passage that if we are not willing to give him everything, to give him everything, father, mother, son, whatever, we do not deserve to be his disciples, because we have to die, we have to be willing to live like a pilgrim. And Abraham was a man who understood this, because God gives him his son and then in the end, the only son that he had with aspiration of descent... he had an illegitimate son but that was not the son of the inheritance, God had Said that it was through Sara and the son that he had had through Sara, God now asks him to sacrifice it. And Abraham could have said: no. Because God was asking him for something unreasonable, because God was asking him for something that was not legitimate in a sense, but we see here that Abraham did not say “No” to the Lord, but he said: well, although I don't understand.

Has God asked you something in your life, has God done something in your life that you don't understand why? Has God put you in a situation that you question even the goodness and consistency and justice of God? You say: Lord, but if I have served you. I have done this, I have done that, and you are taking this away from me. And one gets angry and upset with God many times. But God is sovereign and God sometimes crucifies us and puts us.... I would title this sermon Death on the Mountains of Moría, because that was where... it was called the mountain of Moría, where God asked him to sacrifice your son. The death was not the death of Isaac, the death was the death of Abraham. When Abraham came down from that mountain, Abraham was another man, Abraham had died, Abraham had left his life there, because he was already willing to stab his son and kill him and with that destroy his whole life, his happiness, his aspirations. of spiritual and biological descent. Everything, an old man of 130 years, God is asking him to kill his only son. He is saying: kill yourself. And Abraham was willing to do it, so there Abraham stayed. Brothers and that is why Abraham is an example for us. And look, when God asks us for something, he asks us: give me this, give me that, and we grumble and complain and rebel and criticize the Lord. Listen to me, God asked this man for his entire life, and in that process that he explores here in Genesis 22, there is a series of very important principles that I want to leave with you.

First of all, look at verse 1, it says: "...it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham." He tested, "God tested Abraham." How many knows that God tests? Brothers, God is always testing us. Sometimes in the simplest things that you don't think about, God is testing you to see how you will react. And sometimes we don't even know that God is involved in a situation but it is He who is saying: well, what are you going to do in this case? If you are going to honor me, if you believe my principles or if you really are just paying lip service, as we say. There are situations in which God... I believe, for example, that for many of us what we are experiencing, this drama of building our temple is a test. If you are going to ignore it and you are going to consider yourself not mentioned,... well, that is for others, but I can't right now, I don't have time, whatever. Or you are going to say: no, I am part of this process and I am going to give it to the Lord, and I am going to believe that God is going to bless me.

God is always testing us. The Bible says in a very wonderful passage that always impacts me too, it says that "the eyes of the Lord run through the whole earth to find those who have a perfect heart towards Him to bless them." And then God sometimes tests, as he tested Israel in the desert, he says: "to find out what was hidden inside of you," he says, to test you, to humble you, to break you, to bring to light. Trials bring to light what is within us. If a man only has comfort and rhetoric and a mouth only towards the Lord, the test will bring that to light, because gold is tested by fire, it says that God tests us like gold by fire to take out, to separate the impurity and leave only the pure gold. That is why gold is melted and melted so that the dross is removed and only the purified metal remains and that is how God tests us. And he tells us: are you willing to sacrifice what you love so much for me? God tested Abraham. Always remember that, God tests us.

I can tell you personally and as many of you can testify, God has continually tested me throughout my life. He tested me 21 years ago when he called me to pastor this church, when Reverend Juan Vergara returned to Puerto Rico. I was a college graduate student, I had no desire....I knew that God had called me to the general ministry but I had thought that God had called me to work in academia, at the university, teaching this and the other, writing books and that was my desire, and for that I had lived all my life since I was a child, educating myself, wanting to have an academic life. That was my great plan, that was my great purpose and I lived with that dream, I saw myself in a university office seeing students and giving lectures and writing books and traveling very elegantly around the world. So anyone serves the Lord, right? And then, God called me and in my heart he said: Roberto, I don't want this church to disappear. I'm going to put it that way. I want this church to remain. I have called you to shepherd this church, this community that is being born, that has started out so beautiful, don't let it die. shepherd her to me.

And I began to reason with the Lord, I told him: but Lord, if in my family there have never been people like that with university students and now I have the opportunity to make up for all those years of poverty and live the life that I have wanted live. And besides, this is too small a church, they can't pay me my salary and also I don't want to depend on a group of people for my life. I just got married. I want to have my family, I want to have my house and I, the pastors that I have always seen in my Dominican past or in Brooklyn, NY are all starving, they don't earn money, they have work, they treat them badly. I don't want that kind of life. The Lord told me: well, that is what I am asking you, do you want to pastor this church for me, do you want to serve me? I'm thinking... it's my second year at Harvard University, I want to go ahead, I want to get my doctorate, Sir. He told me: don't worry, I'm going to take care of your doctorate. You are not going to lose it. It took 5 years after that until I was able to graduate with my PhD, and I almost lost it. But I could tell you how the Lord moved so wonderfully so that I could finish my doctorate. One of the greatest miracles I have experienced in my life. But I decided to give my life to the Lord, and excuse me for bringing my personal testimony but sometimes what else can we do than share what God has done in our life. I told him: it's okay, sir. I'm going to do it. Here I am 21 years later shepherding and serving the Lord because He asked me to.

Now, let me tell you something, that doesn't make me a hero or anything, I dared to say yes to the Lord. With that small community of people that started there in that place. But in 21 years, brothers, I can tell you that God has blessed me a thousand times more than what I have given to Him. Today people see a congregation of a certain size and they see a certain type of ministry in the city and this , and they say: oh, how good, how lucky Pastor Miranda has been! Brothers, one has to sacrifice himself on Mount Moría. You have to die. You have to die to what you love, you have to die to your dreams, you have to die to your personal preferences. You have to bother. You have to sacrifice yourself. You have to bleed before God. You have to pay the Lord in advance so that the Lord will bless you later. That is the law. We must give to the Lord first so that the Lord can bless us. And then God, as in the case of Abraham, has to bless you and give abundantly and more. "If the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it bears fruit, but if it does not die, it remains alone", says the word of the Lord. If you keep your life only comfortable, safe, you will not die. But if you die and you die to your dreams of security, of greatness, of personal aspirations, God tells you: I am going to give you life as you know it.

That is the rule of the word of the Lord. And God tests us.

I could have said to the Lord: Lord, I'm so sorry. Can't. That is too big for me, what you are asking of me. And you know what? God would have said: Roberto, I understand. Don't worry because that's the way the Lord is. But I would have missed a tremendous blessing. Perhaps I would have been writing a book over there collecting dust on a shelf in a library that no one even reads. I tell people, my books are my people, the people I minister to, and what God is blessing through this ministry. They are, as Pablo said, they are open letters. They are living books, books that are being preached in people's lives, and for me that is priceless, there is no glory like that. But God is going to test you. Listen to me, many times we, God tells us: are you willing to serve an apprenticeship of a few years? I have been learning for 21 years, like Jacob with Laban, and they still haven't given me what they promised. If they never give it to me, Glory to God, I'll die peacefully. But I am learning until God decides, because sometimes God's tests are very long. There are ways that God is working that we don't even realize. Ask God to open your eyes to see the trials that God brings into your life, to bring out something that is hidden in you and to take you to another level of life and ask the Lord if this is not a time in which God is with you testing.

Now, the second thing, I've already stated more or less what I'm going to say, is that God tests us. God tests our hearts through our possessions. listen to that. God tests our hearts through our possessions. God tests the spiritual by means of the material. God tested Abraham by asking for his son, his most cherished possession. “Now take your son, look how he underlined it, your only one, Isaac”, just in case he didn't know who he was referring to yet, and he also said “whom you love”. Was God a sadist who was there reveling, your son, your only one, Isaac whom you love? Listen to me, I was squeezing it in his face. That being that is so valuable, so precious, so unique to you, give it to me. Take it, sacrifice it to me, end of story, as it is said in English. He did not apologize, he did not tell him that he was going to bless him, he did not explain anything to him, because God, brothers, God is the owner of everything and God does what he wants. We cannot ultimately complain about God. God is sovereign. God could ask Abraham for his son because God owned Isaac. God had created it. God gave Isaac from a barren and old woman like Sarah, so that son was from God.

Sometimes, brothers, God's requests come in a very unpleasant package because God wants to know if we are willing to honor him even in what is scandalous and insulting. If we are willing to stand firm there, and he said: give me that son and goodbye, you already know what the order is. God sometimes tests us in our hearts through those things. The Lord says that where our treasure is, there is our heart, and God wanted to know where Abraham's treasure was. Was God his treasure or was Isaac his treasure? Until you have solved that problem, until you have decided, who is the one who has priority in your life, who is the one who is sitting on the throne of your life. It is your money, it is your time, it is your comfort, it is your privacy, it is your house, it is your wife or your husband, it is your children, it is your reputation. Where is your treasure? And where your treasure is, that is the one that will dominate your life. God says: look, I do not share my prominence with anyone. I do not share my throne with anyone. You have to decide first. And I am going to put you in a situation where you have to determine what you love the most: if you love my kingdom or love the things of the world, including money, time and everything else. I am going to put you in situations that are going to make you decide, in crisis situations where you are going to be confronted with one option or the other. Decide and determine what has priority in your life. The word of the Lord says that "no one can serve two masters" and the first commandment of Scripture is "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength." There is no second place to the Lord. It's one thing or another,. And God wanted to make that clear in Abraham's life before he could bless him.

Before God can bless us He has to determine what we love most and tests us through possessions because that is what we generally love most. And he then tested Abraham, just as Jesus tested the rich young man and when the rich young man came and said to him: Lord, what must I do to be saved, to gain eternal life? The Lord told him: well, the only thing at the end of the conversation told him, “take everything you have, sell it, give it to the poor and follow me”. The Lord was testing that young man. I maintain, I have no reason to prove it, but I believe, brothers, that if that rich young man says to the Lord Jesus Christ: it's okay Lord, here's all my goods, I'm going to do it as you say. you know what? When that young man went to the ATM to get all the money, the Lord would have told him: get up, come back here. did you know? Keep your money, I was only doing it to test you, to see if you were willing to pay the price for that peace of mind that you are looking for, which has not been given to you by wealth, or the religious reputation you have, or your position. in the Sanhedrin, nor your social prestige, which worries you to come running to me as desperate as you came. And if you want to win that peace that you are looking for, I just wanted to know: the price is that you give me everything you love. And the Bible says that this young man left sad because he had many possessions. What happened? His treasure, his heart was in his money, in his position, and the Lord tested him by means of his possessions. And this young man left sad as he arrived because if we do not first seek the Kingdom of God and his justice, other things do not come in addition. They stay there.

Now if we give to the Lord first and seek first the Kingdom of God, all other things are provided by God at the right time, including money, comfort, privacy, peace of soul, all these things come because God wants He likes to bless his children, brothers. But He wants to settle the matter of the heart. God wants to bless people who have died and don't need the money or the comforts so that he can give them the comforts and the money. That is the irony of God. That is why many times he presents us with the dilemma: are you willing to sacrifice it to me? And it doesn't tell you anything else sometimes but just puts you there. So that is a very important principle. God tests our hearts through our possessions.

Another principle: God does not guarantee sometimes that we will win the test. God did not guarantee Abraham that nothing would happen to his son. He simply told him: hand him over and kill me. However, God had something tremendously powerful. Brothers, I cannot guarantee you, let's say that you decide, well I want to be one of those 200 that earns 5,000 dollars, I don't dare nor am I going to tell you: don't worry brothers, God is going to give you 10,000 or 20,000. I would be a charlatan if I said that. I cannot prove you, and that is precisely why it is a movement of faith, because there is no guarantee of return. And you have to gamble and you have to decide, or you have to wait to see how God is going to bless you, if he is going to bless you through money, if he is going to bless you through health, if he is going to bless you through that prince charming that you have been waiting for 10 years, if it is going to bless you through that house that you are longing for, if it is going to bless you through inner, emotional, spiritual healing. There are many ways that God can bless you, the way God will know if you are going to experience spiritual growth and your faith is going to be increased and then you are going to have access to other divine riches. I don't know, I can't guarantee that. It is a risk that we take, but I can assure you that what I see over and over again in the pages of the Bible is that if you dare, God will not remain in debt. God will not fail you, you will not lack, you should not fear because the principle of God is to provide those who honor and bless him. Abraham wasn't sure about that.

And the last thing and I'm going to leave it here, and I think I'm going to continue next Sunday then, is that God has given everything. God has given everything. And that's why He can ask you for everything. Where do I see that here in this Scripture? Look, there is an invisible drama that is drawn in this drama and it is the drama of God and Jesus Christ. Since God said to Abraham: give me your son, your only one, there already the spiritually intelligent reader at once, what does he do? Remember, because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes will not perish but have eternal life. God knew that one day he had to give his only son too. What's more, I don't know how many have a Bible that has the words in red, which refer to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ. My Bible in verse 8 of Chapter 22 has that verse in red because it refers, according to the interpretation of the critics, they put it that way because they believe it refers to Jesus Christ. It says: "... and Abraham answered: God will provide himself a lamb for the holocaust, my son." That lamb is the paschal lamb called Jesus Christ that God was meditating on his own sacrifice like Abraham in those three days on the way to Moría. God was meditating since Eden and you know and before the foundation of the world I believe. But God was brooding over the day that he was going to have to deliver his son too, his lamb, on the cross. And throughout Scripture we see God's obsessive thought on many occasions about his lamb, which he had to offer, his only son, such as the Passover that the Hebrews celebrated before leaving Egypt, and other passages. God was ruminating there, one day I'm going to have to give up my only son too. And here, when he asks Abraham to give up his son, his only son God knows. He is testing the one who is going to be the spiritual father of all Israel and of the whole church, that spiritual father has to know what the Universal Father feels in his heart to sacrifice his only son. I believe that there was an almost judicial principle established here that the spiritual father that was Abraham had to come out of the same strain as his spiritual father there in heaven, and experience the pain of a father who sacrifices what he loves most for a universal principle of love for humanity. And that is why God told Abraham: I want to include you in my drama and I want to make you participate, as Paul said: I want to know Christ in his resurrection, he says, and in his sufferings as well. That many times we want to know Christ in power and in his power to heal, and to perform miracles and all that, but when they tell us: look, why don't you also know Jesus in his suffering? There we backed down and began to slide.

But you know that you cannot fully know Christ until you meet Him in the mountains of Moriah when He tells you: give me what you love most. Give me what you like the most. Give me what you like the most. Give me what you value most, because I did that. Until you find yourself in those points of crucifixion, you are not worthy to bear the name of Christian, let me tell you. If you have not given something that has hurt your soul, you do not know what the cross is. And that is why I was saying that in every event of giving to the Lord as God wants, there is a beginning of crucifixion. Well, Abraham was being crucified. And God tells him: look, Abraham, I can ask you for that only son because I am going to give him. For you I am simply asking for a spiritual exercise, but for me, I am going to give my only son.

And brothers, sometimes we deny God so many things and we are scandalized when God asks us for something, and we never think that God gave everything. And that when we give to the Lord we are giving to a being that did not spare. The Apostle Paul says: "he who did not spare even his own son", he says and also adds "as he will not also give us all things together with him". What a bless! That's the wonderful thing, is that God not only God everything that He had, in terms of what he loved the most, but also says: look, as I gave it to Him, I'm going to give you all the other things. That's what's beautiful. That is why I say again, going back to another principle that I stated before, that we always have to give to God from that position that God is generous with us. God gives us abundantly and then He says: give me, because I am a generous father. And if I gave you my son, how can I not also give you, along with my son, the car, the house, the food, survival, health, the peace of your heart, the salvation of your soul. I gave the most precious.

Brothers, we cannot be stingy with a God who has given everything. That is my final principle. We have to be generous. He who has given everything deserves that we give him the best of ourselves.

Let's put our heads down. Glory to the Lord. If God asked you what you love the most, if God asked you for your dreams, your comfort, your money, could you do what Abraham did? Could you say to the Lord without scolding, arguing or resisting: It's okay, Lord and humbly launch yourself on the road to crucifixion like Abraham did? Three days on the road thinking, the most bitter pill of all awaits me and here I never see Abraham complaining, I never see Abraham swearing at God or saying anything rebellious, except: Lord, you asked me. You know, love. I don't understand, but if that's what you want from me, I'll give it to you. What an example for us, brothers! I want to be like Abraham. I have not given the Lord even the blood. I have not given the Lord even the blood. And there is still a lot that I know that the Lord wants that I have to give him, and so do you.

We have a lot of things that God is expecting of us and we haven't given it all, I assure you. As a matter of fact, I think constitutionally we are not able to give it all, because our brain, our humanity will not let us. We will never give God our all, I think, by definition because we're not able to do that. We can only give God partially. But to what degree are we willing to give to the Lord. That's the question. Abraham, really, I mean, he was crucified, he gave it all in his spirit. That's all that God wants. For us to relinquish inside of us the sense of belonging to this mind. He wants to, that membrane, He wants to just yank it away from us so that we can be free from attachments.

The Lord wants us to detach ourselves from things, to let go. That's all he wants, for you to let go. Release from within. Die from the inside so you don't have to die from the outside. That is the key.

Lord help us, help us to die.

Lord help us to die, help us to die to self.

Help us to die to what we love the most and to comfort and the other things.

Help us to lose our attachment to comfort, security, privacy, rest, dreams, money, time, all those things that are so precious to our carnal nature. Free us from that Lord.

Free us Lord from everything we love and let us transfer all our treasure, that pearl of great price, let us sell it all to buy her this morning Lord. We need your ministry, father. Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus.