Practicing Self-Control

We are talking in a series of meditations about how to live a successful life, how to live a full life, a life that reflects the beauty of the Kingdom of God, and how we can benefit from all the resources heaven offers us when we enter into spiritual citizenship, so that we may become everything God wants us to be.

God has called us to a life of power, a life of self-control. As I say that, a word comes to mind that I have not used in this context, but it is very wonderful. Paul says to Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love, and self-control.” And the word translated as cowardice actually means timidity, a conservative character, living hand to mouth, a scarcity mindset with small and minuscule ambitions. But God has called us to a spirit of power, of victory, of might; that is why it says of love and self-control.

And, incidentally, the word translated as self-control in Spanish is a word that in the original Greek actually means a sound mind, a lucid mind, a mind that sees reality correctly, as it ought to be seen. That is what that word means, which I believe we inadequately translate as self-control, although there is a reason why it is placed there, because a mind that has the Power of God is a mind that has self-control, that is in control of itself.

So I have been speaking in many different ways, like a cameraman filming the same scene from different perspectives, and I hope that, with the Lord’s help, when we finish this journey through what constitutes a life of power and a transformed life, we will have a thorough understanding of that territory stretching out before us, which is a territory of fullness.

You know what? God has called us to continual and constant victory, to a perpetual ascent to different heights. I would like every son of God, every daughter of God, to become saturated with that image of power and authority to which God calls us when we enter the ways of the Lord.

In many churches there are many very good things; many good things are preached: justice, love, many wholesome things, holiness, and other things. But sometimes people are not taught that, when we enter the ways of the Lord, we have been called to overcome everything that opposes God’s good purposes in our lives. Amen?

The apostle Paul says: “Taking every thought captive to the Lord, and every lofty thing, everything that rises up against the lordship of Christ, we must bring into captivity to the values of the Kingdom of God.” And I believe that much of what you acquire and accomplish in your Christian life will depend on what you believe it is possible to attain.

If you believe God simply called you to grit your teeth until the Lord delivers you from this cruel world and you die and then go to the Heavenly Homeland, that is all you are going to receive. But if you believe that God has called you to live a life filled with joy, with victory in your struggles, with perpetual growth, blessing, and provision for every need, then what you accomplish in your life will correspond to the greatness of your vision.

And that is why we have to fill people with this idea that the Christian life is a life called to fullness. A passage comes to mind that at some point I will focus on very deliberately, because it is also one of my favorite passages in Scripture. But I am going to get a little ahead of myself now to give you an idea that the Bible is always calling us to that life of fullness and of vast scope in what lies ahead of us when we enter the ways of the Lord, and that if we do not arm ourselves with that great expectation and that healthy ambition, we will lose and waste a great resource that has been placed in our path, and we will be like princes who have inherited a Kingdom but nevertheless live like beggars because we have not awakened to the level of our inheritance.

So Isaiah chapter 54 is a beautiful image, which, again, I will unpack later, but notice what Isaiah 54, verse 1, says: “Rejoice, O barren woman, you who did not give birth.” And I am going to resist beginning to expound that passage because I do not want to lose myself in it right now, but look at the image of barrenness: the person who is in the world is barren like that, but when that person enters the ways of the Lord, it is different. “Rejoice, O barren woman, you who did not give birth; break into song and shout for joy, you who were never in labor, for more are the children of the forsaken woman than those of the married woman, says Jehovah.”

Notice the certainty with which the Lord speaks. He is not saying, “Possibly,” or, “They will be.” No, He says: “For more are the children of the forsaken woman.” The Bible says that in God everything is yes and amen; everything depends on our believing what God has declared over our lives. You know, a great part of the battle for fullness of life and prosperity, joy, and power in the Christian life depends on how expansive your mind is in believing the Lord and how great your faith is in aspiring to and visualizing the powerful and beautiful things God has placed in your hand.

If you spend your life rehearsing scenarios of horror, defeat, deprivation, lack, sickness, negativity, pessimism—a fine drizzle falling over your life all day long—that is what you are going to receive. But if, in the Lord and in the Power of the Holy Spirit and His Word, you visualize blessing and joy; if you continually flood your mind with expectations of good things coming your way, of victory that you are going to attain, of valleys that will be raised up and mountains that will be brought low, and stones that will be removed from the path by the Power of the Holy Spirit within you, that is what you are going to receive.

Which of the two do you want to saturate your mind with? Change the old program. Remove the old recording the devil set playing and install a new program on your computer, a program of expectation for great things. That is why the Word is always calling us: break into song, rejoice, because I have said that the children of the barren woman will be more numerous than the children of the fertile woman, says the Lord. And look at that beautiful call: “Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwellings be stretched out; do not be sparing”—in other words, do not be conservative.

Do you remember what I told you last Sunday? I believe it was about the fact that energy is often required, that we must sow to seven, even to eight, distribute, cast our bread upon the waters, and invest continually. The person with little energy and limited vision does not attain the blessings God has for us. Do not be sparing.

Again, I know I run the risk of repeating myself, but I believe that you should always be looking for the next avenue of blessing God wants to open for your life, and you have to see everything that happens in your life as an opportunity for the Lord to open a channel of glory and blessing for you.

So, for example, let us say an event is announced, there is an opportunity to come to Church and worship the Lord, there is a training retreat, there is a new course on something, or a women’s retreat opens up, and you say: Look, who knows whether the blessing might come through that? In other words, you must always be sowing. Do not be sparing, do not hold back, do not be conservative with your energy.

You know that sometimes you get more tired by staying at home than by leaving the house? Many people let themselves be led by what they are feeling at that moment, and that is what determines what they do. So if they get home tired, distressed, burdened, depressed, and suicidal, what they do is throw themselves onto the bed, grab the thickest blanket, cover their heads, and simmer there in their depression.

Do you know what you have to do? What you have to do is the complete opposite of how you feel. If you feel bad, get dressed, make yourself up, put on the prettiest earrings you can find, put on your loveliest dress, and celebrate and sing a song; play some pleasant music in your home. If there is an opportunity to go to Church and worship the Lord, tell the devil: I am not going to let you rule over me; I am not going to let my flesh control me.

Many times we have to do the opposite of what our flesh is asking of us at that moment. Do you know why many people never emerge from depression or anxiety? Because they let anxiety determine what they do and how they react, instead of saying: No, anxiety and depression and sadness and pain are telling me, “Lie down and sleep, take some pills, and just end it all,” but I say: No, in Christ I am more than powerful; I rise, I dress by faith, I declare victory, and I begin to walk.

And you know what? In the process of walking, those scales of death miraculously begin to fall away from you, and you discover that, after all, it was a fiction; it was a cold, damp cloak that the devil threw over your head. But if you leave it there, it becomes your skin. That is why many people sometimes experience a moment of sadness or a tragedy in their lives, and what was a moment becomes a destiny because it becomes an identity. Then they remain imprisoned within that instant, and that instant becomes a shell that covers them and hardens around them, and they never manage to escape from it.

But when you come to the feet of Christ, the Lord breaks that spell; the Lord breaks the crust. But you have to believe that and move as though it were already a reality in your life. That is the key. Do not operate according to what you feel at the moment; operate according to what God has declared over your life. And as you begin to walk by faith in what God has declared—not by feeling, but by faith—what God has declared begins to become a present reality in your emotions, in your mind, in your feelings, in your actual experience.

I have experienced that many times. I have been in the car weighed down by burdens and so many things, and what I want to look for is the most tragic music you can find—Johann Sebastian Bach, the solemn Mass in B Minor there, or whatever, one of those things—because what one wants is to stew in one’s own juices there, right? To keep going; you do not want to break that moment of sadness. Do you know what I do? I find the most boisterous music I can and play it as an antidote, even if I do not like it. But I put it on to make the demons flee, simply by declaring the opposite.

And I have learned that when I move, not according to what life declares to me or what my nervous system declares to me, but according to what God has declared—and if my feelings do not want to fall into line, that is their problem.

Do you know what happens? The more you practice that truth in your life, the easier it becomes for you to emerge from those emotional moments. Yes or no, María? Am I telling the truth or not? Amen, amen. I have learned that—how many of us?—there was a stage in our lives when depression and sadness and the things of life would somehow draw us into a hypnosis, a spell lasting hours and days. How difficult it was to break that! Until a day comes when you say: “No more.” And then you begin to praise the Lord simply with your mouth. Do not worry about whether your feelings are comfortable with it or not; simply declare the Truth of God.

And if your spiritual reason tells you: There is a service at Church; I am going to go and worship with my brothers and sisters, I am going to praise the Lord, I am going to contradict through my actions what my feelings are telling me and what the devil is trying to cast over my life—then what you are doing is prophesying against your affliction through your actions.

Have you heard the expression “a prophetic act”? Many times we have to perform prophetic acts in our lives; that is, do the opposite of what our flesh dictates at a given moment and, with our bodies, carry out actions that we believe are like keys that operate in the spiritual world and then open a new dimension in reality.

If, for example, there is pride in you and you know that pride is killing you, do you know what you have to do then? Continually practice acts of humility. Humble yourself before your brothers and sisters; confess that you are simply one more person among those who are struggling along the ways of the Lord.

If resentment is something that controls you, perform acts of forgiveness and mercy. Forgive with your mouth. Bless that person who offended you and toward whom you do not want to utter a single word of blessing, even if doing so tastes like lukewarm water to you.

If your problem is the love of money and stinginess, let go, bless others, be generous, and share with seven, even with eight. Do it as an act of faith, as a prophetic act, like a stone that you hurl at the giant’s forehead.

If your problem is depression, look, laugh out loud. Listen to good comedy programs and wholesome jokes—wholesome ones (laughter)—on the radio, on the internet, wherever.

If your problem is mental impurity and obsessive thoughts of impurity, then look: read things that lead you toward holiness and self-control, and talk to someone. Take your problem out of the secrecy of your own mind and talk to someone you trust. Bring that cockroach out and shine the fluorescent light of God’s Truth on it by sharing it with someone worthy of hearing it, someone who will not despise you. And then begin to confess: I am free in the Name of the Lord; I will not allow myself to be ruled by anything.

And I have learned that there are so many other things in life like that: when you want to break those bonds in your life, you have to do the opposite of what your flesh tells you to do at that particular moment, because what God is waiting for is a small sign from you, a small sign of initiative, which is all He needs in order to say: okay, they have opened up some ground for Me here in the world of time and space, and through that ground I am going to come in and do what I know how to do. Sometimes what God needs is a small gesture of humility and obedience to His Word so that the blessing may then come into your life.

The illustration of Corrie ten Boom comes to mind, a woman whom God used beautifully. She and her sister in Holland were captured by the Nazi army and put into a Nazi concentration camp, and there they suffered unspeakable things. Corrie’s sister, a woman of God—they were two unmarried sisters who loved each other dearly—perished there; her beloved sister perished in the concentration camp. They were abused and witnessed the unspeakable abuses, tortures, and terrible murders of one of Germany’s worst concentration camps.

Corrie ten Boom was set free; ultimately, she survived the concentration camp. She says that months later, when the Germans had been terribly humiliated and there was a terrible depression in Germany because they realized what they had done, and Germany had been bombed by the Allies and most of its cities almost destroyed, and they had suffered terrible humiliation, one day she was in a church testifying about the love of God and other things, and about how God had delivered them and had shown His love on their behalf by performing a miracle inside the concentration camp.

She says that at the end of her talk, a man approached her whom she immediately recognized as one of the German SS guards who had been among the cruelest in the prison and had committed the most abuses, one of the monsters who had most terribly abused the prisoners in the camp. That man approached her to ask her forgiveness and to humble himself before her, and he held out his hand to receive her forgiveness.

She says that when that man held out his hand to her, her entire being fiercely rejected him. There was so much suffering and so much resentment within her; she remembered so many abuses that this man had perpetrated against defenseless people that she did not have the strength to forgive him, even though she had been speaking about the love of God and so many other things. Yet she says, “In an instant, out of obedience, I simply began to do everything possible to extend my hand toward him, even though my entire being rejected that gesture.”

She says that the moment she took action to extend her hand toward him, it was as though a current of God’s love entered her and invigorated her, and then her hand reached out with complete freedom, and she was able to extend love and forgiveness to this man who needed the Lord’s grace to cover him. For her, it was a very, very transformative moment in her life.

Because many times our flesh—our flesh, brother—is going to betray us. That flesh, which is you, your nervous system, will only be changed when you die and enter the Kingdom of God and the Lord transforms you. In the meantime, you will have to struggle with impulses, improper attitudes, and all kinds of things. And if you allow yourself to be ruled, this is the order of the world: allowing yourself to be ruled by appetites, by the flesh, by the nervous system, by biology, by circumstances, by the manipulation of the world, by the indoctrination of the society and culture in which you live. That is the order of the world; it is slavery to the world and to culture.

But the child of God declares his emancipation, declares his inherent freedom from all those things, and no longer allows himself to be ruled by any of them. Instead, his life now becomes a perpetual struggle against those base impulses, subjecting them one by one to the Truth of God and the values of the Kingdom of God.

Then one learns: I will no longer allow myself to be ruled by anything in this world—not by my biology, nor by my feelings, nor by what my reason tells me. I am going to live, it says, “By every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” That is what the Lord Jesus Christ says: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Every day you have to tell your flesh, your mind, your body, your nervous system, and your reason: I am not going to live by what this fallen nature tells me; I am going to live by what the manual of the Word of God tells me, and anything that does not submit to that Word of God will have to fall flat on its face, as Goliath fell before David’s stones. And our life is a life of perpetual emancipation, growth, and development in the Power of God.

And then, once again, here is that word, right? “Enlarge the site of your tent; let the curtains of your dwellings be stretched out; do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right hand and to the left, and your descendants will inherit nations and inhabit the desolate cities, says the Lord.”

Why should we raise a song when we are still barren? Because when we raise a song, the barrenness will go away, and because God has called me to a life of success, power, and victory, and the situation I am experiencing at this moment is simply a starting point toward the glory God has destined for me. This is simply the ground from which I take off on that upward journey toward the fullness of everything God has for my life.

Remember that image: “For the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the day is perfect.” Fill yourself with that image for your life. Young person who is just beginning to walk the paths of life: do not settle for being just one more of those kids out there doing foolish things, with their heads full of cockroach wings, doing all the foolish things young people do, wasting your time constantly with those thumbs that are going to develop. I think that in two generations children will be born with thumbs about a foot in diameter.

Hey, make good use of your time; invest it. If you are going to use the internet, use it for the many incredible things it offers: to learn more, to read the news, to listen to history, to listen to good music. If you come from a family that has not been educated, look, do not say to yourself: “You know what? I am simply going to be a continuation of those ignorant people.” No. Say: I am Joshua; I am the first of a new generation. God has given me the land, and that land flows with milk and honey and has giant clusters of grapes that I am going to enjoy and delight in. I am going to live my life like a king, like a princess, like a person who has inherited a great fortune. And to the extent that I invest my time in positive things, God will use that as firewood for a powerful and wonderful fire that He will use to illuminate the dark world in which I live.

Fill yourself with great expectation; raise a song. It is interesting that in this text the woman who has to raise a song is a woman who is still barren. She has not yet been filled with children, but God tells her: in anticipation of the children you are going to have, rejoice and raise a song. Do you see? Do not wait until you have children to praise the Lord; praise Him in the midst of your barrenness, and that praise will then bring your abundance and fertility.

And that is one of the keys. There you have a secret to the abundant life: believing that this is what God has called you to. God has called you to freedom, not slavery; God has called you to prosperity, not failure; God has called you to fullness, not scarcity. And you have to live like someone who already has it. And then, as someone who has it, with all that this implies, you will see that you will have it.

Many people tell me: “Pastor, I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” And I was talking with a sister—I do not want her to think that I am dropping hints; this is something that came to mind a while ago here, right? We say: “I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; I want to speak in tongues, and I want to experience miracles in my life.”

Well, I think that many times people have a mistaken idea of how God works in bringing gifts to fruition in our lives and of what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is.

Yes, there are moments when the baptism of the Holy Spirit will come upon you like a thundering rain, and it will overtake you and overwhelm you and plunge you into His glory and His blessing. But many times one sees that the filling of the Holy Spirit can come as a Word that God declares over your life, or a gift can come into your life like a seed that God places upon you and that then develops little by little through use and through practice in faith.

Why do you think Paul tells Timothy: “I advise you to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands”? Look at what Paul says. The trouble is that many times we Pentecostals are not good students of the Bible; that is the way it is. There is an inverse relationship between anointing and knowledge of the Word. That is terrible, but it is a reality.

So Paul tells Timothy: “I advise you to fan into flame the gift of God in you.” It is already in you. Now, what does “fan into flame” mean? If you go to the Greek word that is translated into Spanish as avivar, it means that you should fan it, as when a woman—I know that many of the sisters here never stood in front of a cooking fire with a piece of cardboard, fanning air onto the charcoal so it would ignite. Look, some of them are laughing, but uncomfortably, kind of nervously, so that no one will notice them (laughter). If you lived through that, give glory to God, because it is an immense privilege. How wonderful.

And it is like a fire: when you take the embers lying there as if asleep and blow on them so that the oxygen carried by that breeze onto the flame may revive them, and then they catch fire. So notice, it says: “I advise you to fan into flame.” There is a part that we have to do in our lives, and that is to fan into flame. God’s part is to put God in you, and your part is to fan the gift, to fan it until it becomes a flame.

“Fan into flame the gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands.” There are many people whom I believe have already received the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but they do not know they have it because they have been given the idea that they had to fall on the floor and roll around for half an hour, then come out with all their eye shadow running down their faces, looking like a raccoon (laughter). No—and if they do not have those marks, no, we have to do it again; let’s dunk her again, right?

Some people believe that, yes, you have to speak in tongues immediately, and if you do not speak in tongues, we are going to slap you four times so that you will speak somehow, or we are going to give you a recording so that you can listen to it and begin: “ablbdablbaadbl,” speaking nonsense so that you can say you are speaking in tongues. And then people allow themselves to be influenced by all this bad teaching, and expectations are created within them.

I have always believed that what we have to do to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is believe that if we ask Him for bread, He will not give us a stone. And we have to believe: I have it; I have received it; I have asked the Lord for it; I believe. There is no objection, nothing standing in the way; therefore, I have received it. And then you begin to live by faith as though you have it.

Declare things in the Name of the Lord. Begin to pray: if the cat has a cold, begin to pray for it to be healed; exercise the gift of healing. Begin to declare blessing left and right, right? If the patient died, pray for another one; perhaps it will go better for you the second time. Whatever happens, just keep declaring anointing. Believe that tonight the Lord is going to give you a revelatory dream and that you are going to receive something powerful.

And begin by faith to speak in a new tongue. When you are in a moment of free worship like this, do not look at your wife if she and the kids are watching you. Put your hand like this if you want, and begin to speak; say something. Open your mouth in faith and believe that the Lord is in you, and then begin to declare by faith whatever comes to mind. Perhaps you will make a fool of yourself, but you know what? Many times the ego has to be broken so that God may manifest Himself in us.

There are many people to whom God is already saying: “Look, open your mouth already, dummy, and get this over with once and for all. Open it, because I have already given it to you.” “Oh Lord, give me the gift, give me the gift!” You already have it; simply open your mouth and speak in faith.

How do children learn to speak? They learn by saying, “goo-goo, dada,” and then they begin to speak, and afterward they say, “mama”—and they do not even say “mama”; they say “ma”—and little by little they begin to say complete sentences, and a grammar emerges, and all of that takes years. That is how it is with gifts: they must be exercised by faith. You have to believe by faith: I already have it. God wants to bless me with His Spirit. I have confessed, I have declared, I have believed, I have opened my life and my mind to the Lord; therefore, I already have it, I believe it, and now I am going to conduct myself like a man, like a woman filled with the Spirit. And that Spirit will become a reality as I walk through daily life; as I live like a woman, like a man filled with the Holy Spirit, I will become a man, a woman filled with the Holy Spirit. For me, that is the ethic that I believe the Word of the Lord teaches us.

And at that moment you are going to speak in tongues, you are going to pray for the sick, you are going to rebuke demons, you are going to do any number of things. When I look at how our church began twenty-some years ago, when we first began to walk on the path of the infilling of the Spirit, this church was a traditional Baptist church. And when the Lord touched my life twenty-some years ago—I do not remember exactly when it was that we began—I began in faith. I had no model because, frankly, the Pentecostal model I had seen had never impressed me all that much; I respect it, but I did not feel that this was what God truly had for my life, nor was it what I saw portrayed in the Word, although I respect it and know that there are so many good things in the traditional Pentecostal model.

These people upstairs are learning how to be Pentecostals, by the way (laughter). But we began by faith; I did not know the first thing about it. I was like a person who has been told, “You are a mechanic, and from this day forward you are going to learn how to repair cars,” when I did not even know how to put the key into a car door. I had no way of doing it; I did not know the techniques or the technology of the Holy Spirit.

Our church had been a relatively traditional church, although I must say that it was never a dead church, but we had no experience rebuking demons. When I began practicing the pastoral ministry like this, I had never seen someone rebuking a demon; I had never seen anyone actually laying hands on people like that to impart the gift of the Holy Spirit. We did not worship the Lord with many instruments or many such things; our service was a very beautiful and greatly blessed service, but it did not have that fire and that identity of the Pentecostal world.

So I had to begin inventing the world in the Name of the Lord. I only knew that God had touched me and that our church, as a congregation, had to embark on a journey of learning how to handle the technology of the Holy Spirit.

So we launched out in faith, and the Lord began to speak into my life, and one of the things I had to do was precisely that: declare by faith that we were going to be a church filled with the Spirit. Some who have been here throughout that journey in Cambridge know what I am referring to, and they smile because they know I am telling the truth. I have witnesses here who can say whether I am telling the truth or not.

We began that way, from nothing, but I believed that if the Lord had touched my life, He was going to do things, right? The road at first was a little rocky, I tell you, and stormy, but the fact is that one of the things that happened was that God began bringing people to the church out of nowhere who moved in the gifts of the Spirit. They were imperfect people, I tell you—people with imperfections like anyone else. They were not better spiritually, in one sense, than others who did not have those gifts, but they were soldiers who had learned how to handle Pentecostal weapons, and they began arriving at the church and began helping me.

It was like Apollos being instructed—who were they? Aquila and Priscilla—and they would say to me, “Pastor...” Sometimes they frankly bothered me because they said things I did not like, all right, but one has to be humble, and I thought, “God is bringing these people so that they can help me and teach me.”

Musicians who could play different instruments began to come as well. With fear and trembling, I began to pray for the sick and to speak the Pentecostal language, and at times I even felt ridiculous, and people began falling down without my even laying hands on them in the midst of a time of intercession. And I remember the first time a demon manifested during the service; I believe it was on a Wednesday night, and I had no idea how to rebuke a demon, although I did know a few things.

The fact is that we fought with that demon until about four in the morning, and I think it left more because it was tired than because I did anything to cast it out (laughter), honestly. I think the demon said, “Look, this fellow does not seem to give up, so I am going to leave and let him be now, so that he will stop bothering me.” And later I learned that you do not have to fight with demons so much; you have to declare the Word of the Lord. I say this with supreme humility, but often, when there is already a situation like that, I sit down and simply do not move much or shout much, as though conducting a demonic interview, and I declare to the demon what it has to do and what the Word of the Lord says about its condition in Christ Jesus, who has defeated it. Sooner or later, those demons have to flee and leave, provided that the person also does his or her part, because this is not witchcraft either, right? The person also has to cooperate.

But we learned little by little. The Lord led us through practice and through submitting ourselves to the process, because if I had waited to attend a Pentecostal school so that they could teach me all this technology, I would never have done anything. The Lord gave me that revelation which changed the destiny of our church, when I saw the Lion of Judah as the face of a lion over the city of Boston, and beneath that lion’s face, a swarm of poisonous spiders covering the entire city. I declared the lordship of the Lion of the tribe of Judah over Boston, and that changed the destiny of our church. It was what led us to come to this city from Cambridge, where we had been before, to change the name of the church and what the destiny of this congregation was going to be.

Revelations came into my life; the Word came. Now, in that revelation, it was not as though two cherubim with immense wings also came to tell me, “My son, behold, the Lord says to you: The word of Jehovah over your life; God tells you, ‘Move from Cambridge to Boston.’” No. I received that image; I received that dream. I received it because it was the Word of God and not simply because I had eaten too many pastries that night, and I said, “No, this is from God. It is so clear, so coherent; the revelation is so beautiful. This does not come from man.” Then I asked the Lord to give me wisdom: What did that mean for the life of our church?

And one of the things I felt was: “God is telling you that you have to move from Cambridge to Boston and leave the comfort of a church building that we did not even have to buy—it was given to us—a beautiful church building.” It was in one of the loveliest, most respectable areas of the city, a middle- to upper-middle-class area, and we were to come and deal with all these Dominicans and all these terrible people over here; I am Dominican, just in case you did not know, you know? Yes, Sister María left me some mangú, in fact—sorry, right?

But we came to this city, full of crime and the malice of the enemy, devastated, to deal with a dilapidated building into which we had to begin investing money we did not have, and to begin that journey. Throughout that entire process, God developed the gift He had declared over this church and over my life.

But if I had remained over there waiting for a delegation from heaven to come and invite us to Boston, to a ready-made church building, we would still be over there, two hundred souls praising there in the middle of Cambridgeport. But when God speaks over your life, when God declares something over your life, you have to receive it, process it, internalize it, sanctify it, claim it, place the seal of divine approval upon it, and then launch out. Then God begins to develop the gift, because God declared a gift.

Through that vision of the Lion of Judah, I felt as though God encoded a series of elements into the internal constitution of this church and placed them there within us. And so the last seventeen to twenty years, since I had that dream, that revelation, have been a process of unraveling and unpacking the fire of the gift of God that was implanted in us.

And this morning, when the second candidate for mayor came here in Boston, and there were two Boston city councilors and other people here who are influential in the city, and they come to our congregation to present themselves before our congregation, greet it, and seek this church’s blessing, I say, “Wow, what a journey.” We could still be over there in the comfort of Cambridgeport, but God wanted this church—because one of the things I clearly felt in the vision God gave me was something like urban genes and a calling to be a church for the city.

And also, in the image of the Lion of Judah, to be a militant church like a lion and to be a church of authority—and we have not yet fully arrived there—and to be a church of warfare and spiritual conflict; not a church that allowed itself to be tamed by the world, but one that waged war against the world. That is why we have to remain a church of holiness that does not retreat.

The Bible says that the lion does not retreat. Even when many hunters come, the lion holds its ground, and we have to be a church that never lowers itself before the devil’s seductions and traps so that we become a church like a trained kitten, telling people what they want to hear. God has not placed that code within us. God has placed a code of warfare within us.

We have to be a sophisticated church, yes, but ultimately a rugged one—rugged in the manner of the Kingdom of God, like Elijah. It is a church that has the lion’s ruggedness and also the lion’s royalty, right? And it is a church of worship, because Judah is the tribe of worship. And it is also a church that, like Judah, is the head and not the tail—a church that leads, heads the way, sets an example, and directs, solely for the glory of the Lord, right?

But God encoded all these elements within us, and we had to launch out on the path of finding the fulfillment of that gift. We are still on that path, and we have not yet arrived, but the Lord says to Lion of Judah, “See, I command you to be strong and courageous. Fan into flame the gift that is within you; it is within you. Now simply bring it out, put it into manifestation, launch out to conquer it and make it real day by day, every Sunday when we come to the House of the Lord.” That is why, when we come here to worship the Lord, do not come in all sluggish and sit there expecting the person up here to make all the effort. You are called to be part of that worship team.

And every one of us has to come here ready and prepared to stand up, raise our hands, worship the Lord, and establish the atmosphere required for the anointing and the Grace of God to descend upon this place. You have to do that too. Every one of us has a calling from the Lord.

So if we understand, “Wow, God has called us to be a worshiping church,” then when you come here, you have to feel a great sense of responsibility and commitment: you are not going to be a force that detracts and holds things back, but a force that propels forward the atmosphere of praise required in this place. Do you understand?

And when someone is praying for a sick person, you cannot simply stand there saying, “Oh, listen to how good the Pastor sounds as he prays. How lovely! Oh yes, how beautiful.” You also have to be there praying, saying, “Amen, glory to God, I believe. Support that prayer, Father; we send blessing and healing.” Every one of us has to say that; every one of us has to be there.

When your church has missions to fulfill and commitments to attend to, you have to be the first one there because you are a warrior. You are a little piece of that sword the Lord is using. You are one particle of that arrow God is going to direct against the enemy. You have to do your part; you cannot simply be a spectator. You have to be an element that fans into flame the fire of God that is within us, the collective body that is Lion of Judah.

That nine o’clock service and the twelve o’clock service have to be united in the Spirit as though they were one flesh, as though they were one congregation with one mind. And we have to move toward what the Lord has declared over our lives, and you have to do that in your own personal life. God has called you to be a gentle, loving, considerate husband, a source of support for your wife. Just as Christ loves the Church, you have to love her, support her, care for her, and protect her.

And you, woman of God, have to be a support for your husband; you have to be like a source of power, because a woman either impoverishes a man or gives him strength—one or the other. A woman has the capacity to destroy a man, including his ego, in many ways, and God has called the woman to be like a reservoir of strength. I do not believe that business about women being the weaker sex. May the Lord rebuke that lie of the devil. Women are stronger than we are; I say that sincerely.

I know that Meche is going to say at the end of the service, “Ah, do you remember what you said?” But you, woman of God, have to see yourself as a warrior princess. I was saying that to two young ladies who could be my daughters—they could be Sonia or Abigail there—“You are warrior princesses.” When I pray for my daughters, I do not simply ask for them to be princesses, because to me princesses are those little princesses, right, with very pretty tulle dresses and dainty little high heels. No. A warrior princess with a sword in her hand and a spear of power.

I have always said: no one, no man, can abuse a woman of God who is filled with the Holy Spirit. That is how I feel; I believe that. If you have the Holy Spirit and the power of God is within you, they cannot lay a hand on you, because the power of God will leap out of you and that man will have to respect you, if he does not respect you already. But, woman, you can be a blessing. You have to ask Him, “Lord, help me to be a woman who exemplifies the glory of Your Kingdom—not a doormat for people to step on, but a pillar upon which they can lean.”

And I tell our young people: believe that God has called you as a new generation; this is the Joshua generation, the Samuel generation. You now have the privilege of entering a stage in human history, I tell the young people, when humanity desperately needs the things of the Kingdom of God: wise and understanding men and women, cultured yet filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and possessed by a supernatural mindset, well versed in the knowledge of the Word of God and in the use of the weapons of spiritual warfare, and also highly educated and cultured.

And in your hands you have the power to decide the destiny of nations and of this nation, and therefore, young people, you must live like people who have been called to a pivotal moment in history, not like beggars wasting their lives out there; you are heirs of the Kingdom of God, and you must live like people who will one day inherit the Kingdom, and so you must educate yourselves like princes who will one day inherit and become kings and priests. You must make the most of every minute; you must redeem the time.

And that is how we must be in every area of our lives: we must bring everything into alignment with what God has declared, with the freedom to which God has called us; we must live at that level every day. The devil is going to tell you: no, you are a beggar; you are a poor wretch. You are simply the continuation of the generations that have died in this world and left no mark. And you are going to call the devil a liar to his face, and you are going to say: I know who I am in Christ Jesus; I know whom I have believed; I know what God has truly made me.

I am going to live up to what God has declared over my life, and even if I do not feel it, I am going to put it into effect, I am going to do it; I am going to live as though it were already true so that it may become a reality. So, in every area of our lives: how do you want to live financially? Do you want to live wasting money on foolish things and buying all kinds of trinkets that you later throw away and do not know what to do with, or do you want to exercise self-control and use your money for the good and lasting things God wants for your life?

The internet is a very good resource that is available, a dangerous weapon, but the internet also has good things. How are you going to use it? Are you going to use it to watch pornography and foolish shows, keeping yourself informed about the latest shoes Madonna or whoever is wearing, or are you going to use it to read the news, learn about history and culture, listen to a good piece of music, and educate yourself? Because you are a king, and soon you will inherit the Kingdom; soon you will be placed in a position to do things.

When you are called upon to disciple someone, will you be ready? When the devil tries to steal your son or your daughter from you, or destroy your marriage, will you know what to do because you have been preparing yourself for war? When sickness comes into your life, will you collapse because you never prepared yourself, or will you be ready to wage spiritual warfare, seek healing, seek health, and seek wisdom and peace in the Lord, no matter what is happening in your life?

The point is that you must live every minute in light of who you are and what God has called you to do, not in light of what you think you have at this moment. I will conclude. God has completely changed my sermon, because each time I see that God is speaking prophetically at every moment.

What God is telling us is: do not live as you are, but live as you have been called to be, okay? That is the Word of God for your life. Live according to what God has placed within you, and make sure that every action, every move you make in your life, fans the fire already within you. The ember is already within you; now simply fan it until it becomes a blazing fire that adds value to everything around you and to your own life as well.

Rise up, you who were barren; burst into song, because more are the children of the forsaken woman than those of the married woman, says the Lord. You will spread out to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south, because God has called you to be a conqueror of nations, a restorer of fallen walls, a repairer of cities. That is the inheritance of the children of God; that is the inheritance you possess, and that is what the Lord has called you to. Do not allow anything to rob you of it by living like a beggar when God has called you to all the riches He has in glory.

Let us stand, and receive that Word of God into your life now. I pronounce this Word over this congregation: “For this reason I also, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, enlightening the eyes of your understanding, so that you may know”—listen, people of God—“so that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, and how great are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His Power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His Right Hand in the heavenly places, above every principality and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”

“And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” I declare that Word over us: may God give us discernment. May God remove the conservative and small-minded mentality from our understanding; may God remove the devil’s cobwebs that say we must live a poor, sad, failed, anonymous, defeated life, that the devil has power over us, and that people control us and move us like puppets. May the Lord remove all of that and give us a spirit of revelation and wisdom to understand how great the inheritance is that we have received through Christ Jesus, and how great the power and authority we possess to prevail in every struggle that comes into our lives and to emerge from every trial, every difficulty, every suffering, and every failure shining like gold, turning it all into gold.

Glory to His Name, growth for our lives, blessing for our community. The devil is not going to get his way in your life, or in the life of this Church, or in this city. We are not going to yield a single inch of ground to him, because God has given us the land, and no one is going to drive us out of this land, in the Name of the Lord.

“So that you may know what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Take that promise with you into your life. That is in Ephesians chapter 1; look it up, mark it there in your Bible, and read it several times a day. Take a pill of that Word every day when the devil tries to whisper defeat and depression to you, and say it until you believe it. Declare it until it becomes part of your blood, your veins, and your very marrow.

Father, I declare this Word. Lord, because of its greatness and sublimity, we believe that You have purposes in it, and we ask You to help us be that spearhead, Lord, in this place where You have put us; take us to new heights, Father. We believe that You have called us to be a prophetic voice. You have not called us merely to hold a religious meeting every Sunday and have people go back out just as they came in, Father; we do not believe that is the purpose for which You have called us, but quite the contrary.

We embrace Your calling. We embrace the fire of the gift of God that is within us, and Father, with Your help, we are going to fan that gift into flame every day through everything we do. Every time we educate a little child, every time we put money into the offering and tithe basket, every time we serve someone anonymously somewhere, every time we put on our coats to go out into the cold and snow on a Wednesday night to come to Church.

Every time we kneel to pray when we do not feel like praying, every time praise comes out of our mouths when what wants to come out is curses and complaints, every time we have to do something we do not want to do, we will remember the fire of the gift of God that is within us, and we are going to live like excellent people, Kingdom people, powerful people, people who have been called to possess cities and lands for the glory of the Name of Jesus. Help us live at that level, Father, and be a window into the Kingdom of Heaven so that others may see it, enter it, and be blessed.

We now declare a mantle of blessing over this people, a mantle of provision and victory. Do not allow the devil to go out now and shout lies about us, Lord. We reject them in the Name of Jesus, and we will dwell within this curtain of blessing that You have placed around us. Thank You, Lord; I receive it, I live it, I carry it out, I practice it, and I receive it completely into my being. Thank You, Father. In the mighty Name of Jesus, we say: amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the Grace of the Lord be with you. Amen and amen. Thank You, Lord Jesus.