The Fig Tree Did Not Wither in an Instant—living in the In-Between Time of Faith

Luke chapter 24, the resurrection, and I am only going to read a couple of verses. Imagine these two women, at dawn, on Sunday; they are going there depressed and sad because the Lord has been crucified, He has died

; they are not thinking about His resurrection or anything of the sort. For these women, Jesus’ death is something absolute, irrevocable, definitive, and they are simply going to honor the Lord’s body with some aromatic spices, wrap it in the appropriate linens according to the custom of the time, and fully prepare His body for its permanent stay in a dark cave, where He now lies after having been placed there hastily following His crucifixion. These women have no hope whatsoever, not even the slightest suspicion that something momentous has happened.

And then we see these women in verse 2 of Luke 24. It says that when they arrived at the tomb, they found something extraordinary: they found the stone rolled away from the tomb; it had been removed—a tremendously heavy stone that rolled along a track and sealed the entrance to the tomb. That was the way people of a certain importance were buried at that time. Remember that it was not because Jesus was so important socially—because He was obviously important on a cosmic level—but because someone lent Him a tomb, and that had already been prophetically foretold; it was a tomb that had never been used. Joseph of Arimathea, a very wealthy man, lent that tomb so that the Lord could be buried there.

And then it says that they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Why? Because the Lord was no longer there; He had risen. It says that while they stood there perplexed—hey, I would have a heart attack, I would say—“while they were perplexed, behold, two men in shining garments stood beside them,” special effects from heaven. They were two angels who approached them, and the women understood that these were supernatural beings. It says that, because they were afraid, they bowed their faces to the ground in reverence and fear. These two angelic beings said to them—and this is where I want you to meditate; this is the central part of my sermon—these two beings asked them: “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

But the question for you to ask yourself this morning—and we are going to see how this applies to our lives—is: Why do you seek the living One among the dead? This passage introduces us to what I call the intermediate moment of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection was already a fact, but it had not yet made itself felt in all its public manifestations. Something had happened that would change history forever, but no one had yet learned of it. It was simply an ontological reality, but there was no observer to verify it.

And that is precisely what I want to talk about: when God does things and we still have not realized that He has done them, so we continue living as though He had not done them. When God does transforming things—sometimes in our lives, sometimes in history—and He does them sovereignly, and in the spiritual world that is already an undeniable reality, part of the very structure of the universe, but in the world of time, space, and circumstances it has not yet become evident, fully observable, and real—what happens during that intermediate time, during the time between God giving His word and its being transmitted into our world so that we become aware of it? What happens during that time? That desert time, that time of definition, that time of limbo, in a sense—that is the time I want to talk about. That is what I call the time of faith.

Sometimes God does momentous things in the realm of His Spirit, His Kingdom, eternity, and heaven. Sometimes He does transforming things in the world; He acts upon reality, but it takes some time for that act of God to be transmitted into the realm in which we live, the realm of time and space. For example, when Christ rose, the Bible says that there on the cross He defeated principalities and powers and stripped the devil of his dominion over the universe. The yoke of slavery under which humanity lived had already been removed, and the freedom of human beings, of mankind, was made possible by the resurrection. The Kingdom of God came and dwelt among us. In fact, when Christ came to Earth, the world had already changed radically; there was hope for humanity, and things could happen that could not have happened otherwise.

It says that the Kingdom of God is already within us and among us. Nevertheless, we know that history still continues in its madness. Children still die prematurely; there are still wars; a gallon of gasoline still costs three eighty-nine, and they say it will reach four dollars; there are still traffic jams on Route 93; there is still exploitation in the world; there is disease. The Bible says that, mysteriously, the devil still has control of this world, but it also says that God has already declared His Kingdom over the world; it says that the Kingdom of heaven advances. Why? Precisely because of that: there is a time of disconnection and misalignment between God’s act in the spiritual realm and the full manifestation of the consequences of that gesture of God, that action of God, in the realm of time and space.

Let me also give you an illustration of that. For example, when these very broadcasts are sent out here by video, the camera is capturing that image right now as I speak, but there are a few fractions of a second between the moment that camera captures my image—even though it happens tremendously fast—transmits it through the cables or through Wi-Fi waves, the internet, or whatever it may be, and it reaches another place that takes that image and transmits it through the air once again, and a brother or sister in Mexico, Austria, Oman, or wherever receives that image. There has been an interval, hasn’t there? The image was already produced here, but it takes more time, and sometimes it takes longer depending on the capabilities of the mechanism used to deliver it to the place where someone will perceive it and experience its impact.

And that is how it is with spiritual realities. God does things; God declares things in the realm of the Spirit. God declared the Kingdom of heaven, but that Kingdom of heaven is gradually developing and unfolding in the human realm. And one day, the Bible says, God will say, “Enough waiting,” and He will transform everything: new heavens, a new earth, a new and different creation. Christ will put an end to the madness of history, and He will come and establish Himself, and all of history will be transformed instantaneously. Meanwhile, we live in that time of waiting, and we are part of a conquering force that is redeeming the world. We are preaching the gospel, healing the sick, declaring the glory of God, and living as redeemed and transformed people. Say, “Glory to God,” even if it is just to humor me a little. The glory of God is being manifested among us, and we are part of a phenomenon, a historical process that God is making real. We are helping bring about what He said and fulfilling Scripture.

So we see this, don’t we? Many times God does momentous things, but it takes time for us to become aware of them. We see, for example, what happened when Jesus cursed the barren fig tree. You remember that passage: the fig tree had no fruit. The Lord reached in—lots of leaves, but no fruit—and the Lord said, “May fruit never grow on you again.” He commanded it to wither. The disciples continued on their way. In fact, that act took place during Holy Week, as the Lord was entering Jerusalem. So He entered Jerusalem. This happened in the morning, when He was coming from Bethany to enter Jerusalem; there was some distance between them. And so the fig tree apparently remained perfectly calm. The disciples said, “It seems the Lord woke up in a bad mood today and did not like the fact that the fig tree had no fruit.” The fig tree remained just as leafy and green as when the Lord left it. But what happened hours later, when they returned from Jerusalem in the late afternoon? They passed that way again, and the disciples were dumbfounded because this fig tree, which the Lord had cursed, was now dry and withered. Why? Because when the Lord gave the word, a process of death was set in motion. It took time, just as when you pull off a branch or a flower: it takes time, but eventually it dries up because it no longer has life in it.

So many times God gives a word, but it takes time for that word to be fulfilled in the realm of reality. That is what I call the territory of faith, and throughout our lives we are always living in that territory in one way or another, and we need to understand this. The Lord had done something exceedingly powerful: He had raised His Son. That tomb was illuminated by a light more powerful than the light that illuminated the desert at the Alamo sixty-some or seventy years ago with the first atomic-bomb explosion known in history. That unleashed—one of the scientists who had something of a poet in him said that he recalled an image from one of Hinduism’s sacred texts, where there is an explosion; it says it was like the radiance of a thousand bursting suns. That was what the first explosion was like. I would say that when it happened, a light illuminated that cave, Christ’s dead body trembled, and a power greater than that of an atomic bomb defeated the most powerful enemy humanity has ever known, which is death. It raised Jesus’ body, that stone slid away, and the risen Son of God came back to life.

But there was no one there to see it. The miracle took place, but some time passed before people became aware of it. Meanwhile, they lived through a time of sadness, mourning, disappointment, and feeling that God had not done everything He had promised them. So we see that sometimes God does momentous things in the spiritual realm, and it takes time for us to perceive them in time and space. Another example of this is that sometimes we pray and ask for something, and we ask for it in faith, and God hears the prayer. From His throne comes the word granting and affirming what we are saying, and the Lord says, “Let it be done according to your faith.” But sometimes it takes time for what God has declared to be fulfilled in our lives, and so during that time of waiting, we have to believe that we have received God’s answer.

It will take some time. For example, when you pray for a rebellious child and say, “Father, change him for me, transform him, change his heart,” God hears your prayer and says, “My child, let it be done according to your faith.” And then I believe that, at that moment, a series of circumstances will be set in motion in that child’s life. God will take him through a process, because he is not a puppet; he is a being who has a consciousness of his own and free will. But God will begin a process that will take that child through different situations and circumstances, like the prodigal son, who went far away. How much time might have passed? Who knows? But God was working in his life, and God leads him. Sometimes God has already given the word concerning that child, and the world says, “Yes, Lord,” and circumstances begin to adjust. People come into your child’s life without knowing why, to make possible what God has given. Years may pass. You prayed; receive that word, believe it. Until the moment of resurrection comes, believe it, live it, confess it, continue presenting it before God, and believe that one day the Lord will give you the fruit of your prayer.

But it may take time, because even resurrections can take time to manifest themselves in reality. Someone may be praying for a spouse; someone is praying about an immigration situation; someone may be praying about a bitter marriage or a chronic illness. But in all those things, believe that God is working in your life; confess it, believe it, celebrate it, live, and cooperate with the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life, because God has promised it and God will fulfill it. We must take steps of faith in light of what God has affirmed in our lives, and we must cooperate with the works of the Holy Spirit.

So sometimes God does momentous things, but they take time within the realm of time and space. Sometimes we pray for something and God says yes, but it takes time for that miracle to occur, because God works supernaturally through the natural. We see it repeatedly; it is a secret that this passage teaches us. And there is a third way in which I believe these things, these tensions, occur: God clearly says that something is going to happen, and God reinforces it with repeated promises, and God places it in your heart. And so, when God says something, you also have to believe that it will happen.

I also think of Abraham, to whom God said at the age of 75, you are going to be the father of multitudes, your wife is going to conceive, and at 75 Sarah had never even given birth; her womb was barren. And several times throughout the book of Genesis we see God telling him, you are going to have a son, and Abraham sort of gets annoyed with God and says, Lord, I am not seeing it, and all I have is this servant who will probably inherit everything I have because I have no one else to inherit it. We know the story: Sarah grew impatient and told him, look, Abraham, here is this maidservant; go in to her to produce a son, because I am not going to produce one at this age. And Abraham, without a moment’s hesitation, obeyed Sarah and went in to her maidservant Hagar, and Ishmael was born—and we are still paying $3.89 a gallon because of that mistake by blessed Abraham there, who did not believe God.

Because when God says something, you have to believe it. If God says, I am going to do something, you have to believe, wait, and live within God’s promise. If God has said, I am going to make your life flourish, I have made you pregnant with a promise, believe it, and take it to the bank and wait for it, because it will surely come; though the vision tarries, wait for it, because it will be fulfilled, says Habakkuk chapter 2. We have to believe the Lord; we have to believe that He is faithful. And while we await the moment of resurrection and the Sunday when we see the open tomb, we must ask and confess: God said it; He will fulfill it. God has told me that the path of the righteous is like the dawn until the day is perfect. I am going to believe that my life is getting better and better. I am not going to lose. I am not going to end in darkness and death and decrepitude. I am going to flourish. The Bible says that the righteous will grow like the cedar in Lebanon; it says that even in old age they will bear fruit, they will be vigorous and green, to proclaim that Jehovah, my strength, is upright and full of justice.

You have to believe that. You have to say, no, I am better every day, I am stronger every day, I am more beautiful every day, I am more appetizing every day, amen? (laughter). We have to believe God’s promises; we have to live. And you know what? When you believe God, and when you live confessing what God has promised in your life, that is a regenerative force; it even regenerates the tissues of your body. I believe that many people do not experience the full vitality of God’s promises because they have not cultivated that ability to empathize with it, to simmer in the juices of God’s blessing. Listen to how well that came out—somebody write it down for me before I forget it.

We have to simmer slowly every day in God’s blessings. That is why we have to read the Word, meditate on it, and confess it. You have to visualize yourself becoming stronger, more intelligent, wiser, more powerful, and having more authority every day, because the Lord has promised it within you. You have to confess it, believe it, celebrate it, and visualize it. That is the secret of the life of faith. Many people do not receive everything God has promised them because they do not know how to move through that time of waiting for the full resurrection, and God has spoken to us and given us so many promises that we cannot be slow. There are many people who live—now I am already ruining my perfect sermon; I am making a stew out of it here, mixing the rice, the beans, and the meat all together—but many times people take the gospel, which is life and power and experience and relationship, and turn it into dead religion, ritual, and formalism. And then, like the women who go to the tomb on the day of the resurrection, they are looking among the dead for the One who lives, for what is alive. And then, unfortunately, we live in this death of formalism: a religion that has no power, a religion that does not change or transform, a religion that does not give power, a religion that has no answers for daily life. And we move among the dead when Christ has said, I want you to live among the living, because I have come so that you may have life, and life in abundance.

And when so many people go to church, all they do is swim in their depression, swim in their fallen reality. What they want is music that decorates their depression, and they are bothered by cheerful, pleasant music where the body moves, hands are raised, and legs jump. What they want is something more in keeping with their negative perception of the world. I love classical music, and I love sublime things, and I love the liturgy too, but at times I also like what those children who came up here did. What glory, what a blessing! Those tambourines, those garments, remind us that God is doing something in our children, that the Christian life is a life of celebration, power, and action, and God has called us to a life of vitality. God has called us to a dead religion. God has not called us to the formality of death. And He says, why are you looking for My life, My power, in formalism, in what is stiff, fragile, and brittle, when I am a God of power and transformation? Why are you living in your fallen reality when I have called you to a reality of blessing and hope, right?

So when God says something in your life, you have to learn to live in the Lord’s promises. And even though you do not see them fully realized, you have to say, no, God told me, and I believe it. If God said it, I will take that word to the bank. I know that I can. Then God told the disciples, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be humiliated, to suffer, to be crucified, and to rise again on the third day. They heard that, but, ah, those are pretty promises; they did not know that God was being perfectly serious when He said it. That is why these women go to the tomb believing that what is there is a dead body, and the angels say to them: but you foolish women, don’t you remember that the Lord said He would rise again on the third day? Count it now: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Get it into your heads: Sunday. The Lord is not here. Do not look among the dead for the One who lives.

Many times the Lord asks that very same thing: why are you looking among the dead for your reality? Why are you there crying as though Christ had not risen? Why are you weeping over your reality as though the devil were the one with power and not God? So we have to remember these things. That time of disjunction is the territory of faith, while we wait for everything God has said and while, through time and space, human relationships, and the structures of the world, God’s radioactive word courses along, disfiguring and reconfiguring everything according to the Word He has given. When God says something, the universe salutes and launches into carrying out the Word. When God says, let there be light, the darkness flees and there is light. When God says, let there be lights, the lights are formed. It was not an explosion, the Big Bang—as the myths that are so complex and require as much faith as the Genesis account say—that gave birth to the universe. When God says something, I imagine it must have taken time; it happened over centuries, millennia, or an instant. When I get up there, I will watch the video, and then I will tell you with complete certainty how it happened. Amen, amen, we will watch it together. We are going to make an auditorium with a giant screen and we will all watch it, better than the physicists and cosmologists and the philosophers of the universe. We are going to see it live and in full color, high definition, ultra-high definition, amen?

So we have to learn to live in the disjunction. We have to learn to live in the time of waiting. We have to learn to live in that time when God gives the Word and the Word enters the world, like the light of the stars. There are stars so distant that we now see them through telescopes, but that light was emitted millennia ago. The distance it has to travel is so great that we are only now perceiving it, although that even ceased happening thousands of years ago. And that is how it happens: God gives words, and they have to reach reality. We have to learn to live with that. We have to believe that God is working, that what He promised will be fulfilled.

The Bible is full of great declarations that God has made. For example, God has promised that new heavens and a new earth are coming. He has even already given us a little glimpse of that reality in Revelation. He says it: I am going to create a new world. The world is going to burn; all the skyscrapers, Michelangelo’s paintings, all of that is going to melt, and I am going to undo it because the very atoms of that creation are going to be made new. And He says there will be new heavens and a new earth. We have to believe that. While that becomes a reality, we have to be waiting for it, celebrating it, and rejoicing in it, amen?

God has declared that we are new creations in Christ Jesus. We have to believe that and celebrate it. The Word says in Second Corinthians 5:17, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new.” Hallelujah! It is a declaration from God. Now, do you know what happens? Many times you look at yourself and you are the same being who was born from your mother’s womb. You look at yourself in the mirror and do not seem like such a new creation after all. You get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and rebuke the image that appears there. You lower the lights as much as possible so that you do not see yourself completely. You have to wait a while for the creams and toothpaste and the different perfumes and oils to have their effect on us, and we do not look so much like new creations. There are times when we do things in our lives, make mistakes and blunders, say things, and think things that remind us that God’s declaration that we are new creations has not yet become a full and total reality in us. We are progressing toward that new creation, but in God’s mind it is a fact. God already sees you as brand-new, fresh out of the package, a new baby in Christ Jesus, a renewed mind, a heart; and you have to believe that, and you have to tell yourself every day, I am that new creation in Christ Jesus.

The Word also says that we are seated together with Christ Jesus in the heavenly places. Yet you see yourself here at 68 North Hampton Street. You look good, but not quite good enough to be seated at the right hand of God the Father. You have to believe that there is a reality in your life such that, if you were seated on a great height and saw the world down below, you would have control, like an airplane traveling above the storm. You are safe. Here you are struggling, but God has said, you are also seated with Me; you have power, you have authority, you can fight against the darkness, you can speak the word of authority, you can wage war against Satan and his darkness. You do not have to live subjected to the devil’s yoke, because God has given you the Word that can rebel against that authority, and you can counteract it with your faith. Until the full manifestation of that reality comes, then, in the meantime, while we await the fullness of that realization, we have to live as though these things were a reality. We have to live in struggle, in conflict: God has said it, I believe it. I do not see it completely, but I keep wrestling with the devil, with the inertia of the universe, so that it may become a reality in my life. And every day I am going to make it a little more real, and I keep fighting, and I want to cooperate with God. I join Him so that this promise, this declaration of God, may become a reality in my life.

And every day you submit a little of yourself to God’s work. Every day you bathe anew in God’s Word. Every day you allow the Holy Spirit to cut away one little thing from you so that you may be more like Christ. Every day you surrender something to the Lord. Every day you die a little more so that the life of Jesus may be manifested within you. Every day you believe, as the apostle Paul says, that the image of Jesus is being formed within you; you are becoming a little more like Jesus.

Again, when God says, oh yes, you are a new creation, then the question is, well, what should I do with what God has said? How should I live with what God has said? In light of that declaration, what changes should take place in my way of living, in my behavior? What things can I adjust? There are things you can do. God does not touch you with a magic wand and suddenly all the wrinkles, all the problems, and all the contradictions are gone. He says, no, I want you to fight too. See, I command you to be strong and courageous. One of the things that complicates life for me when I read Scripture and does not allow me to be simplistic is precisely this: I often see God saying something as though it were already a reality, and then calling us to cooperate with Him in the execution and full realization of that reality. God told Joshua, I have given you every place on which the sole of your foot treads. He told the Hebrews, that land is yours, before they entered the Promised Land of Canaan. But there were tribes there made up of men as tall as six-, seven-, or eight-football players, waiting for them to cross the Jordan River so they could beat them up.

This land is ours; we have worked it, and you are not going to drive us out of here. But God said, “No, that land is yours.” Yet notice that at the very same time He also tells them, “See, I command you to be strong and courageous. Do not fear or become discouraged, because I will be with you wherever you go.” And He told them, “Never let this word depart from your mouth; live according to My commandments,” right? So you see that tense cooperation between what God says—God is the great lawgiver, the great declarer of powerful realities, which He gives and sends out through the universe like an astral light crossing through space—and then He says, “Now take it. Take that electricity of My Word and get to work making it a reality in your life, day after day. With My light you will accomplish it. Be strong and courageous.” God has declared great things over your life. He has told you, “You are going to succeed in your business. You are going to be a man of God. Your children are going to prosper. You are going to be a great preacher of My Word. You are going to be a hymn writer. You are going to play that piano better than Mozart.” But then you have to get yourself a book and a teacher to teach you; you have to go to discipleship classes; you have to read the Word every day; you have to pray and fast, because God has said something, you have grabbed hold of God’s electrical cable, and now you are going to transmit it into the world of time and space.

God does not do everything. There is a part that you have to do between what God has declared and the full realization of that reality in your life. You have to remain in that struggle, in that tension, in that nebulous interim. Instead of losing heart, becoming discouraged, and repudiating what God had told them, the disciples should have remembered the Word. The Lord said that He was going to suffer, that He was going to be handed over, that He was going to be humiliated, that He was going to be crucified; but He also said that He was going to rise again on the third day. And while the crucifixion took place on Friday and Resurrection Sunday was approaching, they should instead have remained in that tension, confessing and declaring, rather than doing what they did: throwing down their weapons, admitting defeat, lowering their arms, going back to their stinking fish, returning to their daily work, and saying, “Ah, we thought He was the One sent by God.” They were like those two men on the road to Emmaus, who were saying, “Oh, goodness.” They were returning to Jerusalem as a picture of defeat; they were leaving Jerusalem after the events of Good Friday, after the crucifixion, believing they were going back in defeat. Their presidential candidate had lost the election.

And now they were going back home as if to say, “Well, the party is over; we are turning back into pumpkins, like Cinderella.” The clock had already struck twelve, and we return to our sad Cinderella reality. What a beautiful dream it was, but it was only a dream. And the risen Christ comes near them and joins them on the road, and then He asks them, “What are you talking about?” And they tell Him, “We were following someone who said He was the Son of God, but it turned out He wasn’t. Ah, oh yes, very well, very well. Oh, look, there’s a little restaurant here. Shall we get something to eat?” “Of course. Are you paying?” “Yes, don’t worry; I’ll pay.”

And they sit down at the table, stewing in their own juices of disappointment, discouragement, sadness, and defeat, while the risen Christ is right beside them. They cannot see Him because He is playing a joke. He is there, mischievously looking at them, and He has placed a veil over their eyes. They do not remember, and their worldview of defeat is so powerful that their minds cannot even entertain the idea that this is Jesus. They look at Him, but they do not see Him; their brains do not process what they are seeing. Unbelief is often like that. Sometimes God is doing great things in your life, but you do not see them because you are wearing lenses of depression, negativity, and sadness. You have been told that you are worthless, that life is a problem, that people are evil, that they want to destroy you, that God is not as faithful as they say He is, that all those pastors are a bunch of hypocrites and all they want is your money. And you go to church, and God speaks to you, but you do not receive it because your mind has to change; your mentality has to change. One of the things God wants to do is remove the veil from our eyes, so that we do not live so much in this religious reality but enter into a life of power and believe what God has said.

And at a certain point the Lord takes the bread in His hands there in the little restaurant and breaks it. Then He looks at them, and when He breaks that bread—in that gesture so familiar to them, which He had shared with them on the night of the Last Supper—their eyes are opened, and they see Jesus, the risen Jesus, and their present reality aligns with God’s reality. Then they can see His resurrection. I believe that is what God wants in our lives: that we learn to live every day in the Word God has declared. Do not look at your reality, because if you look at your reality, the world will run right over you.

Peter received a word. When the Lord was in the boat, He said to him, “Well, do you have faith? Then step out and walk on the water.” And as long as Peter was able to keep his faith upright, the storm roared around him, yet he could walk as though the water were this very solid floor on which I am walking. But what does it say? It says that suddenly, when he saw the storm—the waves may have splashed his face, he heard the roar of the sea, and he saw the lightning and heard the thunder—he said in his mind, “Wait a minute, this is impossible. No man has ever done this. Perhaps God can do it, but I cannot. I am a sinful man.” And when he entertained doubt and looked at the circumstances, the Bible says that he began to sink. Because when you look at reality in relation to the Word of God, sometimes the Word of God is going to be battling against reality, and it will depend on you, because you are going to be the referee who decides which one will win: either your fallen reality or the Word of God. And your faith is what will make the difference. You have to believe what God has said.

The Word says that man must not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God’s people are a people of faith. We have to learn to believe that while the resurrection is becoming a manifest reality in our lives, we must inhabit the territory of faith, believe God, and live as though what God has promised is going to become a reality in us. That is the great struggle and also, I would say, the great dignity and beauty of the Christian life. We are heroes; we are warriors. But how should I live in light of what God has said while it is becoming a reality in my life? If Christ has said, for example, “You are a new creation,” what habits and practices should I cast out of my life? Should I resign myself to my depression and say, “Those are my hormones, the chemicals inside me. There is nothing more I can do, so I am condemned to be a depressed person for the rest of my life”? Or are you going to say, “No, I rebel against that,” and fast and pray? And as long as you have to struggle, look, struggle. If in the meantime you have to take a pill, do it, but do not become complacent. Keep fighting until it becomes a reality in your life. Keep believing that tomorrow will be better. Keep visualizing God normalizing your body. Do not become complacent; do not stop fighting.

That is what I tell people: as long as you battle against the negativity of the world, God will be with you; God will help you. Do not lie down and go to sleep; do not leave this world simply saying, “Well, that is my reality. I am depressed, I am anxious, I am loudmouthed, I am stubborn, I am vindictive, I am violent, I am a womanizer, I am whatever I am. This is how God made me, this is who I am,” and then grow accustomed to it. No. God has said, “You are a new creation.” Live in light of what Christ has said, and keep fighting until it becomes a complete reality in your life. Believe the Lord.

Some people live as though they were victims, and God says, “You are not a victim; you are victorious. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In all these things you are more than a conqueror”—whether you are a woman or a man. Live according to that victory. Do not live saying, “No, my mother said this, my father said that, he criticized me, people do not love me, men are a bunch of cynics and liars.” No. Live your life in the positivity of the resurrection, believe what God has said, and keep fighting between the moment of the crucifixion and the moment of the resurrection. That is what God wants you to do in your life. Because remember where all this began: it has not yet dawned on these women or on the disciples that Christ has already risen, and so they are still living in their depression, their defeat, and their helplessness, and they are asking themselves, “Oh goodness, who will roll the stone away for us?” And they do not know that an angel has already rolled the stone away and sat on top of it as a sign of resounding victory. Amen?

Many times we ask ourselves questions like that: “Well, how am I going to go to college if I do not even have the words to fill out the application? I do not even know how to drive; I get nervous when I take the wheel.” Sister, God tells you, “Take that wheel and get onto Route 93 when the traffic is heavy. You can do it. You can learn English. You can go to college. You can earn your PhD. Why not? You can speak several languages. You can learn to play an instrument. You can be a man or a woman filled with the Holy Spirit. You can have a good marriage. You can prosper financially.” Who has said that you cannot do it? There is still time. The righteous will flourish like the light of dawn; even in old age they will bear fruit. There are no times that are past for God. For God, everything is yes and amen. You have to say, “I can do all things through Christ Jesus.” No matter where you are or what stage you are in, the resurrection is your inheritance. Christ has risen. The Bible says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells within you through the Holy Spirit. You have to celebrate it every day; you have to live as though the resurrection were a reality.

I have learned one thing: human beings have been endowed with utterly incomprehensible abilities. We can wrest victory from any tragedy, any limitation, any problem. Indeed, in His absolute knowledge, God may not want to remove the thorn from you, so that in the thorn itself you may find something more beautiful than deliverance from the thorn, and so that He may glorify Himself. I have seen people who, amid their difficulties, were born with physical conditions that limited their movement; yet even within that, even within those limitations, they have found the power of God and transformed their reality. They have become exemplary. Even in the midst of the trial, a man or a woman can find a foundation for greatness. Nothing should limit you, brother. Even in the things that limit you in your physical life, God can find a crack through which to break open a path and bring you into the promised land of your greatness and fulfillment.

But you have to believe the Lord. You have to tell Him, “You have promised me this or that, and I do not see it yet, but I am going to keep confessing it and believing it, and I am going to prepare the house.” I will end with this idea. Many times we do not have time because there are many things, but the Bible says in Hebrews that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That means that many times you will have to believe in and be certain of something you are still waiting for, and you will have to be convinced of something you still cannot see with your eyes. That is faith, my brothers and sisters. It is not when everything is going well for you and the world applauds your belief and backs it up with the circumstances. It is when you believe beyond what you are seeing; that is when you are in the territory of faith.

And the Bible gives us Noah as an example of this. It says that it had never rained, and God said, “Prepare an ark.” And only God knows how many years Noah had to spend making an ark with the technology available to him at that time, building an ark while people laughed at him every day. “Why are you building a boat if it has never rained? If you are here, how are you going to transport it over dry land to the sea?” But the Bible says that Noah believed God and built it, working every day, hoping against hope, constructing a boat for a phenomenon he had never seen. But he did it in obedience to the Lord. And I drew a parallel between that and the fact that God has told me that a great revival is coming, not only for this church but for the whole earth. I do not see it, and neither do you. On the contrary, the world gets worse every day and deteriorates more and more: more famines, more depression, more injustice. But I believe something is coming. I bet on it with everything in my gut, and I say it because I also believe that this revival is going to touch us. God has said it: “As with Noah, build Me an ark, build Me a temple, build Me a sanctuary.” And the Lord says that a day will come when that sanctuary will be too small for what I am going to bring about—but build it in faith.

And we are now laboring every day. Tomorrow the work begins again; tomorrow the men will arrive to lay bricks, the electrician to install all the wiring, the plumbers to put in their pipes. They are already designing the glass to put all around it, the final staircase in front—all these things. We are working. On Tuesday I will meet with the architect, the construction company working with us, and other people, to plan, to see where we stand. Just as I said last Tuesday and as I will do next Tuesday, we will keep working. God has said something: “I want that temple to be built. I have given the word. I have decreed all the resources.” I believe it, but until Resurrection Sunday comes, you and I will keep working quietly, obediently, in faith. We will keep giving, and sometimes we wonder, “Is the pastor crazy or what?” But I keep at it: “I am going to give my tithe; I am going to give my offering.” You do it in faith; you live within that reality, and God will make it real in cooperation with you. Amen? That is living a life of faith.

Do not let the daily struggles and the inertia of the fallen world hold you back from the dreams of greatness that God has placed within you. Keep working every day; keep striving in faith; keep believing what God has said: “I have not called you to dwell among the dead. I have called you to dwell among the living. I have called you to life, and life in abundance. I have not called you to dwell in an impoverished, sorrowful reality.” You say, “Yes, Lord, thank You. I had forgotten, but today I will once again live in the power of the resurrection.” Keep believing, waiting, celebrating, declaring. Stand up now and say to Him, “Thank You, Lord. Thank You because I am a resurrected creature. I have been renewed like Christ Jesus. I too have my own resurrection that I am waiting for, and although I do not see the full reality to which You have called me, I will keep battling every day.”

And when those little devils are waiting for me out there tomorrow morning, I will be ready with my bat in my hand to knock the head off everything that opposes what Christ has declared. Every thought that rises up against Jesus, I will cast down and subject to the kingship, power, and authority of Jesus Christ. Believe it, believe it. Every day you have to put the armor on again; every day you have to live once again in the reality God has declared; every day you have to say again, “The resurrection is coming; the resurrection is already real, but until I see it, I will dwell within it by faith.” Thank You, Lord. Declare with me that you believe what I am saying. Ask the Lord to forgive you for your doubts; ask the Lord to forgive you for your defeatism; ask the Lord to forgive you for questioning His reality. Embrace the reality God has caused to dwell within you, and by faith say, “Lord, thank You. I am a warrior woman, a mighty man. I am a hero, a knight-errant. I have my lance in my hand. I have the power and the authority. I have the credentials You have given me to open doors wherever I go. I believe that although I have to fight every day, through those struggles You are making me stronger, more powerful, bolder, wiser, humbler, and more capable of channeling Your power that flows through me. You are hollowing me out so that more of Your anointing may fit inside me.” God will use everything that happens in your life. Everything that happens in your life—listen to me—God will use it for a sublime purpose. Nothing will happen to destroy you, defeat you, or shame you. Every material God puts into your hands, even if it is base, even if it is negative, even if it seems to have nothing of value, even if it is a piece of coal, God will turn it into a precious diamond if your faith endures until you see it accomplished. Believe it in the name of the Lord.

God wants to raise up a people of faith, my brothers and sisters. God wants to make the city of Boston explode. God wants to raise the dead. God wants the whole world to become aware of what is happening here, but it requires a people of faith. It requires a people who believe God and are willing to pay the price. God tells you, “Pay the price. Live in My promise. Live in the reality I have declared over your life. Be consistent. Act with integrity. Believe Me, and I will do things no eye has seen and no ear has heard, because those are the things I have prepared for you.” That is what I believe, and I ask the Lord, “Give me strength not to doubt or remove the hand that has been placed on the plow until I see fully accomplished the promise You have declared over my life.”

Lord, activate Your Word among Your people. Let it rain, Lord; let it rain; let Your reality rain down. Send down Your rain, Lord; send down Your rain, Lord. Listen, forgive me, but I am a little Pentecostal. That chorus, “Let It Rain”—why don’t we ask the Lord to let it rain a little? Humor me a little, because God wants to bring a resurrection to this city. Do you know that there was a time when New England was a region where the name of the Lord was spoken with respect everywhere? There are still signs of this in New England’s monuments and buildings. In the universities that today do not accept the Word of God, remnants still remain of a time when this city and this region loved the name of the Lord. And now the devil has turned it into a desert. The world has become a desert; wherever you look, it is like the Negev Desert. Once these were lush places; they were gardens. Today, you go there and find shrubs and dry, arid, barren land—vast expanses without a single plant on them. But God says that one day He will cause the desert to bloom, and I believe it. I long for the day when this city erupts in revival. I long for the day when a group of Latinos like us, whom people sometimes view with a little suspicion, will become the garden of Boston and New England, and people will come here to light their lamps and carry them away to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Hampton State, and every part of the world, because the Lord has caused rain to fall here among us.

I want to ask the Lord: “Father, Your resurrection is like a rebirth of life. Christ’s Resurrection is as though the world awakens from a trance and comes back to life. Your promise becomes real in the spring; it is born again, the ice recedes, and the warmth of life comes into the world once more.” For some time now, I have believed that the Lord wants to do something wonderful. God wants to bring about a great harvest of souls—multitudes, nations, and governments at the feet of Christ. I believe it. I do not see it, but I believe it, and I will keep sowing and declaring until it becomes a reality. Glory to the name of the Lord. Let us declare it. Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord; we believe it. May the Lord cause His Resurrection to rain down.