The Attitude of Triumph – Defining Your Dreams (Part 3)

James, chapter 1—and I am going to use that text because we could use several others, but I believe this one in particular lends itself to the spirit of what we want to present this afternoon—verse 5, James 1:5, says: “And if any of you.....” What James is talking about here could be any request; in this case he speaks of wisdom, but it could be anything else, any other request.

It says, “If any of you lacks wisdom—what does it say?—let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

And here we get more deeply into the subject. In the next verse it says, “But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed from one side to another. Let not the person who does such a thing suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” That is a very serious warning, isn’t it? When we are wavering like that, in that state of indecision, right? “Let him not suppose, then, that the person who does such a thing will receive anything from the Lord,” it says. “The double-minded man—or, in this case, woman as well—is unstable in all his ways.”

Another warning: not to be unstable, not to be double-minded, but to have a determined spirit, to be clear in life, to be specific in life. And that is precisely what I want to talk about this morning as part of our sermon series on the successful life, the attitude of success, and the elements that constitute success. In biblical terms, we could call it the abundant life, the successful life.

And here we have a third point that I want to discuss with you this afternoon. We have already had two sermons on this subject, and in the first one we spoke about—in fact, we know—something that becomes clearer and clearer in my mind every day: success is an attitude, a posture toward life, a mindset, a way of relating to life. It is not so much the specific actions we take, although that is important; rather, there is an attitude that must serve as a platform from which to launch the actions that lead to success. If the platform is not ready, everything else will not happen.

So there is a necessary attitude, and that is why I am taking the time to define the attitudes that are part of success. And in the first presentation we said that we must expand and enlarge our capacity to believe God. We must throw away the small vessels that limit God’s grace and look for larger vessels. We must get rid of the four-by-eight screen and get ourselves a jumbotron, like the ones placed in stadiums, on which to project our dreams—big dreams, daring dreams, dreams that challenge God, dreams about which the Lord can say, “Look, that is a dream on My scale. That is a dream I will delight to bless and prosper.”

We must enlarge the site of the tent. We have said that before putting up one of those camping tents, you must first make a larger space so the larger structure will fit. And in the same way, in our minds, for God’s blessings to enter on a greater scale, we must first create, dream, desire, and visualize great things that God can do in our lives. Do not remain only with small things; dream on a grand scale, and then launch out in the name of the Lord to make those dreams a reality. Enlarge your capacity to believe.

Second, we spoke about the importance of believing that God is with me and that He is—what?—on my side. How many remember that I said that? Were all of you asleep? You had already worshiped too much, you were tired, and you had tuned out. We must believe that God is with us and that He is on our side. Amen.

And when you believe that God is with you, that the Lord supports what you undertake, that God goes with you wherever you go, that will give you the courage to dare to take on great things.

Last week I was talking about David with the nine o’clock group, I think it was. I do not know whether I already said something about this to the twelve o’clock group or the nine o’clock group. Well, if you heard it before, listen to it again; it will be reinforced even more. David was a man possessed by the idea that God is with me, and that is why Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my shepherd; though I walk through a land of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” And David’s confidence that his God was with him and had delivered him from so many tight spots was what enabled him, when the giant Goliath stood at Israel’s border insulting God’s people every day and none of Israel’s warriors dared to take that giant on, to say, “The Lord is with me; I am going to do it in the name of the Lord.”

And we see that clearly in the story. As David approaches the giant, the giant says to him, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with a stone and a stick?” He was expecting a battle-hardened man, full of strength, with his armor and all his weapons of war, and here comes this scrawny little boy, but full of faith, who knows that God is with him.

And David tells him, “You come against me, against me with a sword, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, because God is with me, and I am going to take you down and cut off your head, and today your head will be displayed as a trophy so that you will not do it again”—as a Dominican merengue says, “so you won’t do it again.” Why? Because David knew that God was with him, and that is what enables us to undertake great things.

We saw the case of Joshua and Caleb, who did not allow themselves to be intimidated by the great size and height of those enemy tribes and those giants who were in the Promised Land, waiting to destroy them when they arrived, because they said, “No, God is with us, and we are going to eat them up like bread.” In fact, we are going to put a little butter on top so they will taste better. And there were those other ten spies who looked only at the great size, height, strength, and ferocity of those enemy tribes and did not look at the God who had told them, “That land is yours. I am going to give it to you, and I am going to honor My word.”

You must be aware that God is with me. Do not focus so much on the limitations, brothers and sisters, okay? Last night at the English service we were talking about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, where, when the Lord told the disciples, “Hey, you give that crowd something to eat,” they said, “You want us to feed them? But where is the money to feed all those people? And even if we had the money, where is the place to give them food?” The Lord had the answer. He blessed those five loaves and two little fish, which would not have been enough to satisfy even one of the appetites we have among us here—there are some titans here who can really eat—and the Lord said, “Bring that to Me.” He lifted it up toward heaven, blessed it, and there was food for everyone.

Because the Lord takes our limitations together with our efforts and turns them into food for life—abundant food, with some left over, enough for the entire journey—if you believe that God is with you and is on your side. That is important so that we can undertake great and daring things in the world.

And here I have a third lesson that I want to share with you. It is specificity. I practiced it a lot this morning before coming here. Everybody say with me, “Specificity,” quickly. Now say it ten times really fast. Specificity is very important in the journey toward success in life. If you cannot be specific, you will remain with nothing but empty dreams, dreaming of fantasies and castles in the air, but you will never reach the point where you can give substance to your dream. Defining your dreams is so important: you must name the things you need in life, the things you want to accomplish. You must write down your dreams; you must set them down specifically. If you do not define what you want, you will never be able to present your need clearly to the Lord.

The Lord likes it, brothers and sisters, when we present Him with clear needs and clear projects, when we give them a first name, a last name, and even the mother’s last name alongside it, so that He knows exactly what you need. The Lord likes us to.... That is why the apostle Paul says that we should approach the throne of grace with confidence. And the idea is that...... more than confidently, the idea in the original Greek is boldly before the throne of God.

There are passages in Scripture that show us that when people dared to make specific and clear requests of the Lord, God blessed them. And that is why, in this passage from James that we are exploring, James says something very important: it is a principle of faith. When you are going to ask the Lord for something, you must be clear and certain about what you are asking Him for, and then you must believe that the Lord will bless you.

The Lord does not like us to come with empty dreams and half-formed requests. It says here that the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the person who comes to the Lord with a request that is, rather, something he is making generically because he has seen other people make it not suppose he will receive anything. Others go to college, and I would like to go to college, but you have not even thought about which college you want to attend, what subject you want to study, or what profession you want to pursue. You have not spent time discerning what your talents are and what your limitations are. Do you like working with people, or do you like working with machines? Do you like working alone, or with people around you as part of a team? What are your limitations? What are your virtues? Many of us do not take an inventory of our gifts and our limitations. We do not know what we want to do in five or ten years; we are not clear about it. We have only a vague stretch of land ahead of us, undefined and covered in thick fog, and then we come before the Lord. And you know what? God will not be able to bless your dreams unless you define them clearly.

In life, I like—and every day I learn more and more—the importance of writing down what you want to accomplish and presenting your carefully developed dreams to the Lord. This is like a project. And this actually works in the academic world, for example. When you are going to write a ten-page paper, a doctoral dissertation, or a senior thesis, the first thing your academic adviser will tell you is, “Let us sit down and define specifically the subject you want to address.” Yes or no? Those of you who have gone to college and done graduate studies as well, or whatever it may be. The first thing on which time will be spent is clearly defining which subject you want to address, rather than treating it in general terms. For example, not even “The History of the United States from 1700 to 1900” is good enough. No: something happened there in May 1814; what happened there? And perhaps others have already written about that subject, and you must find something that has not been addressed before. You must be very specific.

And it has been discovered—and experience proves it—that the more specific you are in your subject, the better your chances of producing a well-executed, successful paper. And the same thing happens in life. Much of life’s struggle must be fought on the field of reflection, planning, and definition. When you are already well defined and very clear about what you want to do, you have already won half the battle, my brother.

When there is a dream that you have cultivated within yourself and it has grown like a nine-month-old baby, and you can already see that huge belly that can no longer be contained within you, you must bring that dream forth; you are now ready to receive God’s blessing. But first you must take the time to define your dreams and present the Lord with something carefully developed, because that is a major part of success.

Why is this, brothers and sisters? Do you know why? Because God is a specific being. The Bible says that everything in God is yes and amen, and the Lord likes people who are like Him—very clear, very well defined. I see many passages in Scripture where God honors people who had clarity concerning their dreams. And this morning I used Jacob as one of the most eminent examples. He was a person who had a vision, a dream, something he wanted to accomplish, and this began in his mother’s womb—a very great mystery for those who say that babies in the womb are still merely a fetus, or who call them that and depersonalize them, as though they were simply flesh with a little movement. No, there is life in the womb; there is spirit there as well.

And the Bible says that Jacob, who was Esau’s twin, struggled in his mother’s womb to come out first. Now, do not ask me to explain it; this boy was quite a phenomenon, evidently. But the fact is that in his spirit he knew there was something called the birthright, which meant that the firstborn, the firstborn son of the family, was the one who received the greatest honor and became, as it were, the spiritual patriarch of the entire family. And God’s blessing flowed primarily through him. So Jacob instinctively, intuitively understood that even in his mother’s womb. And it says that he struggled with his brother to come out of the womb first. And on a technicality, Esau came out first. And you know what? Jacob was still holding on to his dream right there. He wanted—he wanted to have the birthright, and he resorted to a trick to steal the birthright. That is a mystery too. He stole Esau’s birthright. But you know what? Esau deserved it for being such a big oaf, because he did not value the birthright. Esau was a man of the field; he was an athlete, a rough man, and he had no time for that refined business of the birthright, and.... “All I want is some stew; where is the food?”

He did not think about those subtle things of the spirit. But it says that Jacob was a refined, artistic, spiritual man, and he knew there was a blessing in that. If we look at who should have had it—because of his physical constitution and his stature and everything else—the one who should have had the birthright was Esau. In fact, he already had it, but Jacob had a dream, he had a vision, he had an appetite for greatness. And he was refined, but God does not mind weakness; on the contrary, the weaker a person is, the more God is glorified in raising him up and blessing him.

Never allow your limitations to hinder you from defining a dream and pursuing it. Jacob knew how to appreciate the dream, and he set a trap for his brother. And listen, what a thing it is that God honors even such things. Why? Because God is a legal being, and God operates through definition and clarity. And since He saw that this man did not appreciate it, while the other was desperate to receive it, had defined it, had cultivated it, needed it, and would die if he did not have it, God told him, “All right, you are going to receive it,” and Jacob was blessed.

And then Esau—because what he did was sell his birthright to his brother for a plate of food. Look how terrible that is. How many of us so often sacrifice the anointing of God by sleeping too much, or eating too much, or watching too much television, or having too much fun! Personal, carnal appetites often cause us to stumble, and we sacrifice the blessing of God because we seek comfort, because we simply want to be comfortable and at ease; but God wants a person who will die if he does not receive the blessing.

You have to reach that point of desiring something in your life—whether it is going to college, learning English, developing a talent, serving the Lord somewhere in the world, being an exemplary mother, being a model husband, whatever it may be—but you have to desire it and reach the point where you say to that thing, “I’m going to grab hold of you.” That is what you tell it, and you go after it; whether it rains, thunders, or the wind blows, even if a thousand demons stand in your way, you keep moving forward until you receive the blessing you desire in your life. We have to be bold, or we will never accomplish anything, brothers and sisters.

How many sisters do I hear out there saying, “Oh, I would like to learn to drive. Ah, but I’m afraid to get out on the highway.” You have to do as Brother Ernesto did. Do not worry; the Lord will see you through. You will go around seven times, you will get lost, but you will arrive, even if your tongue is hanging out, because the Lord will bless you. And He will be glorified even in the detours and wrong turns; the Lord will delight in that, because He says, “My child wants the blessing and is willing to risk it.”

Dare to do it; launch out in the name of the Lord. Be specific, define your dreams, and then dare to go after them. And the Lord says, “I will not leave you or forsake you. I am going to give it to you because you fought for that blessing.”

And even after receiving the blessing of the birthright, Jacob had to flee, because once Esau had eaten his fill and realized what he had lost, he went after his brother and wanted to cut off his head for having set that trap for him. And Jacob had to flee, and one night, while he was fleeing from him and sleeping in a field, he saw a ladder stretching from heaven to earth, with angels ascending and descending. An angel came down from heaven, and Jacob said, “I’m going to grab this one too and get some blessing out of him as well.” And he latched on to him, put him in a wrench hold and bit him, and said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And the angel wanted to return to heaven, and it says that Jacob wrestled with the angel all night long until the angel finally blessed him. It is true that the angel put his hip out of joint and he limped for the rest of his life, but brothers and sisters, sometimes you have to pay a price even for blessings. Do you know that?

The Word says that the kingdom of heaven is forcefully advancing, and the courageous—the violent—take it by force. Perhaps there will be a scar from some battle in your life, but listen to me: that scar is like a warrior’s scar. It is an ornament, not a blemish; on the contrary, it is a trophy of war. You wrested the blessing from God, and God says, “Aha, you got your way. Amen. I am delighted that it is so.”

The Lord likes a few warriors in His kingdom. The Lord wants to develop warriors. The Lord certainly does not like parasites. He only deals with daring people. The Word says that “the kingdom of heaven advances”—that is what it says in the original Greek—“it advances forcefully, and forceful people take hold of it.” The natural temperament of the Kingdom of God is an aggressive temperament. God is the supreme conqueror. And He likes men and women who emulate Him, who imitate Him, who project His energy.

That is why God wants a resolute church. He wants resolute people. He does not want lukewarm people. The Word says that God abhors lukewarmness. In Revelation we see that it says, “I wish you were cold or hot, but because you are neither cold nor hot, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth.”

How many of you have ever tried to drink lukewarm water? Raise your hand—you have, haven’t you? One day when you had nothing better to do, you went ahead and tried it, and you know the results. The body rejects lukewarm water. God likes well-defined people, and He likes to deal with well-defined people—with people who take the time to define their dreams, to refine them, to filter and purify them until what remains is a dense, weighty essence. And that is what you come and present to the Lord after spending time defining your dreams in prayer.

Often, the dream you have for your life, what you want to accomplish, will not begin to be fulfilled until you have built up a great accumulation of prayer, adding to it and depositing your prayers each day into a precious cup. And every time you pray for that dream of something you desire in your life—perhaps it is a character trait you want to improve in your life, perhaps it is a mental or emotional bondage you have, perhaps a wound from the past, a flaw in the way you treat others—and you say, “Lord, I have come to abhor this, and I want to abandon it and leave it behind, and I want to be the man You want me to be, or the woman You want me to be,” then every time you pray and phrase that dream in different words, you keep depositing that accumulation of prayers there. And the Lord keeps watching it, and a day comes when your cup overflows and He says, “Today I bless your petition and your need,” and the season of restoration begins in your life.

And circumstances begin to change and align themselves with your needs, and opportunities begin to arise, resources appear, people draw near to your life, and energies emerge from within you. Circumstances align themselves with your dreams. Those prayers you began to offer started defining your need, your dream, to the point where it becomes like an immensely dense little stone that you can then hurl against your need and receive God’s blessing in your life.

Many times, the Lord will wait a long time; He will even take you through a process until you are able to state your dream to the Lord in the specific words in which you need to state it.

Now, I am going to speak a little more about that, but why is this so? Why? Why does God not simply listen to just anything, or simply open the human being’s chest, read what is there, and give it to him, since He can do that too? Because God takes us seriously, brothers and sisters—so seriously that He will not do the part of the work that only we can do, because if God did everything for us, He would strip us of our dignity.

God created man and woman with immense dignity, and when God placed the man in the garden—Adam and Eve—He told them, “I delegate to you dominion over the earth.” God, over this earth, over this reality of time and space, gave man His authority and told them, “Now you have authority over this earth. Rule over it. Be fruitful. Multiply. Create cities; build vessels that sail through the skies and the seas. Explore the depths of the sea and of space. That creation is for you to rule over.”

And the Lord, like an executive, gave authority to man, gave dignity to man, and gave man free will and volition. He gave him the capacity for reasoning, reflection, and decision-making, and He gave him artistic gifts of creation and visualization. And then the Lord says, “Now, in whatever you do on this earth, there is a part that you must do; and if you want Me to do a part, you must work in partnership with Me. I am not going to do your work for you, because I esteem you too highly, I respect you too much, and I have delegated too much authority to you to do the part that belongs to you.” Do you understand?

Man has great power in his mouth; the child of God has great power in his mouth. What he speaks, what he asks for, what he formulates in his mind, what he visualizes, what he desires—we have been made with authority. We are birds of prey, brothers and sisters. We are eagles with great dignity. Many of us squander that beauty, but God does not want to rob us of the opportunity to hear ourselves say what we need.

And that is why He wants to bring us to the point of definition. There are things, brothers and sisters, that God wants to do on this earth but will not do until He finds someone who will be a channel through whom that blessing can reach the earth. That is how highly the Lord regards us. And there are passages in Scripture that I can give you about that.

What is more, I believe that if Christ has not yet come, it is not because God does not want Him to come, but because the church still needs to reach a point of maturity and definition at which Christ can then say, “Now I can come for My church.” Because God is not coming for a church of tadpoles; God is coming for a church of eagles, of birds of prey, of hunting animals—people of power, people of clarity. He is coming for a church without spot or wrinkle, well defined, very resolute, very clear.

So you always see this interaction between God and man. I always see God saying to the people He wants to bless, “What do you have that you can give Me as a deposit toward the blessing I am going to give you?” How interesting! There is something within you that, if you want the blessing, you must bring to God as the raw material so that God can work upon it.

Listen to me. I am giving you that for free. I am not even going to charge you for that word. God always wants you to bring Him some raw material so that He can then come upon it and bless it. It is like the wood Elijah placed on the altar. There was a part Elijah had to do. God did not simply send fire to fall just like that, no. Elijah built an altar, placed wood on the altar, did a whole series of things around the altar, and then said to Him, “Father, now send Your fire and let it fall,” and the altar burst into flames.

And that is how our life is as well. There is wood that you have to bring to the Lord; that wood is definition. That wood is knowing exactly what you want to receive from God. That wood is time spent reflecting, planning, carefully considering what you want, defining your personality, taking steps of faith, and exercising the necessary diligence in your life. Then, when you have done your part, God meets you halfway and says, “Okay, child, My requirement has now been met. Now I am going to bless you.”

And that is precisely where the great struggle lies for many of us. When we have a dream, a project in our mind, a desire, something we want, we are often unwilling to contribute that part, because that part is inherently threatening, since it means that you are going to launch out into something and you do not know whether or not you will succeed.

Even though you hear me speak, I myself, the one preaching these things, sometimes do not even believe them myself, brothers and sisters. I have to do things out of obedience. Half the time I am doubting and afraid, wondering whether I am going to make a fool of myself or whether God will honor what I am doing. And along the way there are obstacles, struggles, mistakes that are made, seasons of waiting, and dead ends; and there you are, floundering through this material, striving, and erecting altars that collapse, and then you come back and set them up again, trusting that one day the Lord will bless you and send His fire upon the offering you present to Him, and that He will bless your life and give you what you need.

But you have to dare. You have to offer the Lord a part first. That is why, when the Lord wanted to bless the multitude and the disciples said, “We have nothing to feed them,” He said, “Go out among the crowd and see what they have.” And He sent them around to investigate and make inquiries, because that is part of the process. And in that process of exploration they learned certain things: what was not there, what was there, what could be useful—all these things. And in this process, they themselves were learning, because sometimes God sends you through life by way of processes of trial and exploration so that you can define yourself more clearly.

Many of us spend time wandering in the wilderness like Israel until the moment comes when all the negative, unnecessary energies have been purged, as with the Hebrew people, who all had to die. Only the new generation entered, with the heart of Joshua and Caleb.

And in the same way, God sometimes sends you to explore things, to spend time waiting, conducting experiments, trying things that do not work; but throughout that entire process you are learning things and forming your character.

So God sent the disciples, “Go and see what there is,” and they came back with five loaves and two scrawny little fish that probably even smelled bad because they had been there all day—in the Middle Eastern heat, imagine that, at six in the evening, at seven in the evening, those fish sitting there. What must they have looked like? And they said to Him, “Lord, look, this is the only thing we found.” And He said, “That is enough; give it to Me, and you are going to see what will happen here.” He made a stew that fed 5,000 men and all the women and children who were there as well, brothers and sisters, because when the Lord touches the initial deposit that we bring Him, there is food for everyone, with some left over.

But we have to contribute a part. That is the human part that God will not do without your participation. You have to sweat a little first so that God can then bless your dreams. We have to invest, brothers and sisters. We have to work in order to reap, says the word of the Lord. We often have to sow first with tears, and we have to spend time defining what we want to receive in our lives. And do not worry if you do not get it the first, second, third, or fourth time; if you stay on the horse, even if you fall off, get back on, and one day the Lord will give you what you need.

And that is what happened to them. The disciples brought that. God blessed it, and there are so many passages throughout Scripture in which God asks Moses—when God said to Moses, “Look, I want you to go and tell Pharaoh to let My people go, and I want you to go and identify yourself as the prophet I am going to use before the Jews.” And Moses said, “Well, Lord... what?” Always obstacles. “I stutter; I have never taken a public-speaking course; I do not have the necessary education.” And God said to him, “Do not worry. Am I not the One sending you?” And he said to Him, “Well, and what credentials am I going to show the people so that they will believe You have sent me?” What was the Lord’s question? He said to him, “What do you have at hand?” Remember? Look it up; it is right there. I am not making it up. “What do you have at hand?”

Because, brothers and sisters, the beginning, the deposit for the miracle, is close to you; you have it. There is something you can do, ask for, conceive in your mind, and define as what God needs in order to perform the miracle. It is the raw material.

Moses showed Him his hand, and He said, “Take your hand and put it against your side,” and when he put it in and drew it out, his hand was completely leprous. “Put it back in”; when he drew it out, it was completely healed. And He said to him... he also had a spear, a staff, in his hand: “Throw the staff on the ground.” He threw it down, and the staff became a serpent. “Now pick it up again,” and the staff became a normal staff once more. “With those two signs that you have right there at hand, go; I am sending you, and begin your ministry.”

And even there Moses had failures and had to learn other things in the process. You know the story. It was a long, dynamic story, because success does not happen overnight. Even at the beginning, you are only going to start learning, and throughout the process God will keep defining things more and more. And that is what we are going to talk about: the importance of experimentation and failure in the process of success as well. All of that is very important.

But there is something God wants you to do, and only you.... If you do not do it, God is not going to do it. Stop dreaming empty dreams and get to work on your vision, so that when the time comes you can present God with a clearly defined dream. Okay, I want to lose weight. Well, how many pounds do you want to lose? And how do you want to do it? Do you want to do it through diet, through exercise, by wrestling on television—how are you going to do it, in what way? In how much time? Have you gotten a book to learn how to do it? There are many ways; that is to say, the important thing is to have a clear, measurable definition that can be named.

Habakkuk says, “Write the vision on tablets, so that the one who reads it may run with it.” In our lives, we need to define the things we want to do, the achievements we want to attain, the areas we want to conquer, the giants we have to behead. And then we have to present the Lord with exactly what we need, and through that clearly defined word we present to the Lord, God will do the work.

One of my great heroes in all of Scripture is Nehemiah, the great builder. And I have preached about Nehemiah in the past, and one of these days I am going to preach about him again, because he is an exemplary man.

Turn to Nehemiah, chapter 2. And you know what? Perhaps, for example, you did not bring your Bible today. I encourage you to get your Bible and bring it to church, in that spirit of being specific, and to bring a pencil and paper and take notes, because that way we can—something specific is simply getting a Bible.

Nehemiah, chapter 2. That is how your spiritual growth begins: simple things, clear things, taking a discipleship class that is being offered. Do not say, “Lord, just bless me; make me an enlightened, educated, wise man or woman.” No. You have to study until your eyelashes fall out; you have to take classes. And do not tell me, “Oh, I do not read well; I do not know how to speak.” Do not worry; go and take the class. Let the Lord enlighten you. God will give you what you need along the way.

Nehemiah—and with this I will finish—is an illustration we have here. Nehemiah was a man of vision, and Nehemiah learned that the walls, the walls of Jerusalem, his native city, had been destroyed. Nehemiah was a Jew who had been deported and had spent many years in the court of the king of Susa, and Nehemiah had not even been in Jerusalem during his childhood, but he knew that the destruction of the walls had wreaked havoc in Jerusalem and that his city was disgraced; the whole city looked destroyed. There was no protection for the exiles who were returning to Israel. And Nehemiah conceived a dream in his heart: he wanted to restore those walls. And that is why I see that Nehemiah was a very clear man, very specific about things.

One of my favorite passages is about when he arrives—before we get into this for a moment. When Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem, it says that he spent a night there; he took his horse, he says, and did not tell anyone what he was going to do. That was just after he arrived in Jerusalem, following a long journey. He arrived in Jerusalem, took his horse out at night, and I have always pictured Nehemiah mounted on his horse as the animal made its way over those fallen walls and those immense stones, surveying the area while the moon over Jerusalem shone upon his horse and illuminated him. Nehemiah went around surveying the entire city, looking at the fallen walls, thinking: How much wood do we need? How many masons to do the work? How much cement mixture? How many bricks and large rocks will we need? How will we bring them? Where will we bring them from? He was looking, observing, cultivating the vision, defining what was needed. Planning, absorbing that entire scene into his spirit, and determining the magnitude of the task, because that is what we have to do in our lives, brothers and sisters. You have to take your horse and venture inside yourself, into that vast territory that is your mind, your spirit, your emotions, your past.

You have a universe in there. In fact, you need a spaceship to travel inside yourself. Go in and survey your life, your dreams, your potential. Consider the things you want to achieve, the obstacles and flaws in your life, and set out on a journey for the entire rest of your life, cultivating and conquering every area of your land and planting the flag of God’s Kingdom in every dark and needy area of your life. Establish God’s order, God’s excellence, God’s self-control, God’s love, God’s hope, God’s joy, God’s anointing, God’s order in all those areas that the enemy, the flesh, or the world are controlling.

Say, “I am going to rebuild these walls, and they will shine with excellence and beauty in the name of the Lord.” And then launch yourself into battle to do it. But first you need to define what you want to do with your life. I want to spend the rest of my life conquering different areas of my life so that each day I can be just a little better than I was the day or the year before. And that becomes an appetite.

That is why I say that triumph, success, is a posture toward life; it is a lifelong program in which you tell yourself, “I am going to be a person of excellence, a powerful man, an accomplished woman. When I become an old woman, even if I am dragging myself along, my spirit will still be shining for the Lord, and people will want to come near me, to draw just a little closer so they can receive God’s blessing in my life.”

Then you throw yourself into that and set a lifelong agenda for yourself: a little better each day, conquering one more inch of land every day. That is how you attain your victory and become a powerful man or woman of excellence. Do not worry about the magnitude of the work; simply make sure that you present the Lord with what you need. And be honest with yourself; acknowledge the areas of need in your life. Do not hide; do not give the devil another title, another label. Call it by its name: “You are my enemy.” Resentment, criticism, obscene words, a dirty mind, dependence on drugs or alcohol, a bad temper, wounds from the past, depression, low self-esteem, whatever it may be, mistreatment by people—name it. Make a list and go on beheading those giants one by one as you present them to the Lord.

And set a lifelong agenda for yourself, and live like a person on a mission. Align everything you do with your dream. Whatever does not contribute to your dream, move it aside. Stay away from people who are dead weight in your life; flee from them. Surround yourself with people who encourage you in your dream and who, like you, are pilgrims seeking the blessing in their lives. We have to define ourselves clearly. We have to define what we want and live for that alone. We have to align our lives with our dreams. We have to live with an appetite, with a ravenous gaze fixed on the blessing over there. Like a pilgrim, like a foreigner, on the way to the blessing, to that city from the word of the Lord that was not built by human hands.

And we have to be that way. Nehemiah surveyed the land, visited the places, saw the rubble, and said, “I am going to overcome you; do not worry.” He did not go with anyone; he went alone, because, brothers and sisters, one of the most important things for success is the ability to be alone, to dwell in silence. A person who is always surrounded by people, with the radio on and noise all around, is not going to get anywhere good, brothers and sisters. Many people get up in the morning and turn on the radio; they go down to the kitchen and turn on the other radio; if possible, they carry a transistor radio on their way to the car; they turn on the car radio; they are at the factory listening to the radio; they come home and turn on the television. Always noise, noise, noise. Where is the time to think, to reflect, to make time for God, to make time to cultivate the dream, to define the vision, to present the Lord with the request for what you need? First you need to build enough tension to shoot the bow so that the arrow reaches its target, and that can only be cultivated in solitude and silence, in prayer and reflection.

The men and women of God have to set aside time alone, where there is no voice other than the voice of God within you, in order to reach the goal. The vision must be cultivated; it must be defined like a laser beam.

Look at what it says here in Nehemiah, chapter 2—I have not forgotten. Nehemiah conceived a dream, and the first thing he did—we do not have time—in chapter 1, was pray, weep, cry out, and agonize over the rubble of his people. He confessed the sins of his people and then appeared before the king, waiting for his opportunity. He spent time doing what he had to do. Then, in verse 4 of chapter 2, the moment comes when he appears before the king, because he worked at the royal court. He held a very important position before the king: he was the king’s cupbearer and was always in contact with him. He used the resources he had—very important: What do you have at hand? At hand, he had access to the king. He knew nothing about construction; he knew nothing about engineering; he knew nothing about architecture. But he had something at hand: he had connections. Build connections in your life; that is very important for success. Meet people. Get in there and risk embarrassment; go into places where there are people, get to know them, introduce yourself, give them your card, talk to people, make contact, because someday the person you least expect will become a resource in your life.

I have discovered that continually. Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days it will return to you. We have to build relationships; we have to make contacts. We have to go to meetings. We have to be where the people are. We have to read the newspapers. We have to read the Internet. We have to watch the news. We have to receive four or five magazines at home, because all of that creates information that you can use one day, and that will be the raw material you will use to move forward in your dreams.

He had something, which was contact with the king, and he used it. Then it says there in verse 4, “The king said to me, ‘What is it you are asking for?’” Why? Because the king realized that Nehemiah looked haggard; he was sad, because you have to really want something in order to receive it, and Nehemiah had reached the point where he could no longer go on living like that, so the king became aware of his anguish. He saw that this was a desperate man, and so the king said to him, “Look, you are sad,” and Nehemiah says to him in verse 3, “Why should my face not look sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?”

We need people like that, people who so intensely desire what they need that they cannot go on living without it. Then it says, “...the king said to me, ‘What is it you are asking for?’” That is what God is always asking us: “What are you asking Me for?” And you had better be prepared to tell the Lord exactly what you need, because if you have not taken the time to define it for yourself, you will not be able to tell the Lord what you need. Do you see?

The Lord is always asking people, “What do you need?” Bartimaeus, the blind man, approaches Him, reaching out toward Him there in the darkness, and He asks him, “What do you need?” The Lord likes to hear from your own mouth what you need. You see, that is how God works: “What is it you are asking for?” Then I prayed to the God of heaven. Inwardly, at that moment, Nehemiah commended himself to all the saints and said, “Father, this is my opportunity; do not let me waste it.” And he prayed silently. Then he said to Him, in verse 5, “...and I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, and I will rebuild it.’”

Brothers and sisters, do you notice any indecision there in the way Nehemiah expresses himself? Nehemiah knew what he had to do. I have to make a trip, take a leave, take some paid time off, and I am going to Jerusalem and I am going to build the city. He knew; his dream was already very clear. He had cultivated it in prayer and had agonized over it. He knew what was needed.

Now look at what follows. Look at how this statesman, the king, who is accustomed to making decisions involving large amounts of money and major construction, military, or political projects, does not simply say to him, “Okay, Nehemiah, all right then, I am going to authorize a six-month leave for you.” Look at what the king says to him: “Then the king said to me, with the queen sitting beside him”—that little detail is very revealing about Nehemiah’s mind. Nehemiah is a specific man. He wrote that book... and it is an extraordinarily detailed, thorough book, filled with visual images, because that is how this man’s mind works; his is a visual mind. He saw things concretely. “Then the king said to me, with the queen sitting beside him, ‘How long will your journey take, and when will you return?’”

You see, this man, this executive, is looking for greater definition. How long is it going to take you, and give me a date when you will return to your position, so I can send it to the bureaucrats in Susa and have them enter it into the computer, so they will know that you are going to arrive on that day and can plan around your return. Specific—that is how people are in this world, brothers and sisters. Corporations, senior executives, and universities operate according to specifics.

Do you know what the problem is with the developing world—with us Latin Americans, African Americans, and Africans? Throughout this developing world, the problem is that people do not know how to think specifically, with that kind of sound judgment. And the church is even worse. You see Pentecostals and charismatics talking about anointing, and this and that. Look, those cold evangelicals are taking over the world, while we, supposedly devouring children raw with our gifts, remain in our dilapidated churches, our homes and our lives in disorder. That is because those people think specifically, while we simply go on about anointing, anointing, anointing, without giving our dreams a name. We do not take the anointing and apply it to specific things. That is what happens in our nations, throughout the Latin American continent. Everything is merely talk and words. We choose our leaders because they talk a lot and deliver fine speeches, but we do not choose them because they execute, make decisions, and are effective administrators. That is why they always leave us like a land stripped by locusts, a completely devastated world that another administration must rebuild.

This king asked him, “What do you need? How long are you going to be there? When will you return?” And look at how Nehemiah answers him: “Moreover, I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king: 1) let letters be given to me for the governors beyond the River, so that they may grant me safe passage until I arrive in Judah; 2) and a letter for Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace belonging to the house, for the wall of the city, and for the house in which I will stay.’”

Nehemiah already had a plan. He needed letters of authority; he needed letters of credit. Today that would be: give me a letter of credit, give all my people tickets, give me a visa so I can pass through the territory, send me some people to help me with this, I need wood, I need bricks, I need this and that. He had made a plan. He had formed a clear idea.

And what happened? The king said to him, “Your day pleases me; carry it out.” He delegated authority to him, and the rest is history. Read the book to see what happened there, how God blessed this man’s life so that those walls could be rebuilt, because he was specific.

Lion of Judah Church, God wants to bless you. God wants you to have a successful life. God wants you to achieve great things, to conquer the heights, to defeat the giants in your life, to become a man or woman filled with the Holy Spirit and powerfully used by God; He wants the problems in your family to be set in order, your children to come into God’s order, and your talents to be used for the glory of the Lord. But He needs you to define what you want, present Him with concrete requests, and make specific efforts in faith that He will send His blessing upon your life; then you will see what you long for become a reality. But you have to be a clear-minded, determined, specific, hardworking, thoughtful person. You must meditate carefully on what you need and what you are going to ask of the Lord.

Write that letter to the Lord in abundant detail. Present it to Him again and again, clearly defined. Have the patience to let God take you through a process of definition until you can present Him with a very clear assignment. Then He will say, “Okay, and I will land on that platform and send My blessing.”

I see many young people here, and I say to those young people: learn to be specific. Set yourselves a goal for twenty years, thirty years. Do not be afraid to set clear, specific dreams, and then launch out to conquer your land. Live a life of excellence. Do not stop believing that God can do great things in your life, but also start studying and planning. Give your dreams a name; live toward success. Promise yourselves that you will be people of excellence; pay the price. Read everything you need to read. Apply yourselves in every area in which you need to make an effort. Keep your word. When you commit yourselves to something, make yourselves do it. Be specific about things. Determine where you need to be and at what time, and be there in the name of the Lord. Bring your life into unity to achieve your dreams, and I promise you in the name of the Lord that failure is never a possibility for a child of God—but you have to dare to pay the price.

What do you desire? What do you dream about? Stand up. What do you want to ask the Lord for right now? Cast a dream before the Lord, and if it is not clear to you, tell Him, “Father, I am going to go home and spend a couple of days working on that dream, on that need, and I am going to do everything possible, everything within my power, to achieve it.” And get to work in the name of the Lord. Build a space for the Lord, a space for your dreams.

If we had time, brothers and sisters, there are so many beautiful passages in Scripture. The Shunammite woman saw Elisha passing by and built a room for him, the Bible says—a room—and in that room she specifically placed a bed, a desk, a lamp, and a few other pieces of furniture. She did not know whether Elisha would ever stay in that room, because he would pass by her house but never stay. And in her heart, she conceived a dream that one day that prophet might have a place to sleep during his prophetic journeys. And she said to her husband, “Let us build a room,” and they began, worked, and invested money. She built it; I imagine she painted it and worked carefully on it so that it would be nicely finished, and she put in the furniture that prophet needed. She was specific.

And I wonder how many weeks, perhaps how many months, that room stood empty without the prophet staying in it. But one day, the Word says, Elisha was passing by, arrived, and stayed in that place which the woman had built for him to rest. And Elisha, grateful for that woman’s vision, had her called and said to her, “What do you need?” This woman had a great need: she was barren, because when you have dreams, when you are excellent toward God and are specific, God gives you the desires of your heart. And Elisha told her... she could not have children, and Elisha said to her, “Do you know what? Before this year is over, you will have a son in your arms,” and that is exactly what happened. The woman gave birth to a son. It is a beautiful story about a person who was excellent and clearly defined.

But what I want to tell you through this, brothers and sisters, is that this room is like the spaces we have been talking about. We first have to build God a clearly defined space. We have to dream specific dreams and place a bed, a desk, and a lamp there, so that the Spirit of God will have something upon which to dwell and in which to take form.

Elisha exemplified the Spirit of God, the prophetic option of God. And years may pass before, one day, the Spirit of the Lord visits the dream that you have presented to Him day after day and says, “Today is the day I am going to dwell in that dream.” And the Spirit of God enters, and what comes? Life—like that baby who was born. Your barrenness is turned into fruit in the womb. Life, product, excellence, result. But first you have to build the Lord a clearly defined space, with a bed, a desk, and a lamp. You have to put specific things in it. Then the Lord is drawn to that, and brothers and sisters, this is the Word of the Lord: God wants to bless you. God wants to make your lives fruitful. God wants to bring beautiful things into your life, but you have to be specific and present them to the Lord; you have to work on the dream. You have to take steps of faith. You have to dare in the name of the Lord.

What do you say we join together on this journey? Amen. I want to surround myself with people of excellence and people who want to reach old age or death, whenever it comes, with a sword in their hands, striking down giants left and right and conquering their land. Life is worth living that way. Then one never dies prematurely, because we will always leave powerful things upon the earth. We will leave a mark; that is all we need—to leave a mark on this world. That is enough. So surrender your dreams to the Lord now, and commit yourself to living a life of definition, specificity, excellence, and concrete efforts.

Father, we embrace the posture of what is specific and concrete. You are far too great and far too powerful for us to present You with empty dreams, Lord. I ask that our people be equipped to conceive specific dreams, to dare to launch out on the road to success, taking steps that are sometimes timid and trembling; but You establish our steps along the way, Lord.

This life is a path that You have entrusted to us, and we want to make good use of it. We want to learn along the way, Father. Raise up this people, Father. May Your Word not be wasted, Lord; may the bread and wine that You have caused to fall upon this people fall upon people who can make good use of them. Open our understanding, Lord.

Make us a community that pleases You, Father, through its excellence and its effort. We worship You. We bless You. Receive the Lord’s sign within you. Receive the permeating grace of the Lord within you. Launch out to conquer your land. Launch out to conquer great dreams. Do not grow weary of thrusting your sword into the darkness. Do not grow weary of wearing the armor over your head, over your chest, on your feet, and in your hands—the weapon of God.

Use what God has given you, people; be strong and courageous, says the Lord. Be strong and courageous. See, I command you to be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be discouraged, because I will be with you wherever you go, says the Lord. But I tell you only one thing: be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous, and present the Lord with defined and clear dreams, and He will delight in entering into partnership with you. May the Lord bless you. Amen. Amen.