Now the Best God Has for You Begins

Psalm number 1 is the first psalm in a book that has dozens and dozens of chapters and psalms, so perhaps what God has to say in this psalm in an exceptional way should be interesting. So let us read it together. It says:

“...Blessed is the man, blessed is the woman, who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law meditates day and night. That person will be like a tree planted beside streams of water, which bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and everything that person does will prosper. Not so the wicked, who are like the chaff that the wind drives away; therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish...”

Amen, amen. Yes, the Lord placed this psalm on my heart this morning, and that is why I want to share it with you. I was just saying that it is the first psalm in a book that has so many other psalms. And I believe that one of the reasons why its theme is so appropriate for the first psalm is that it is like the foundation of life: everything contained in the Word, with all its complexities, ultimately comes down to the relationship we maintain with God and with his Word.

Because everything else, the rest of the Word of God, develops that central idea of having a personal relationship with God and with Jesus Christ, of living grounded in his Word, and of obeying it in everything we do. And then, from that point onward, as I was saying, everything else, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches us how to develop, how to unpack, as Gregory translated it, that basic relationship with God and with his Word.

The other day I was preaching and began speaking in English and Spanish, and Gregory followed along—a new little trick for our translation repertoire. And part of the point is to be able to address the English speakers on an equal footing, so that they too may hear from his own voice, from his own mouth, the message being given.

The first thing that catches my attention there is that phrase, “Blessed is the man who did not walk.” And that word in Hebrew, sher, means happy, fortunate. It reminds me of another word we use often when we speak, a Hebrew word that we use: the word shalom, which also carries a deep meaning of well-being, peace, and being blessed in God.

To this day, Jewish people greet one another with that word, shalom, which means: may the peace of God be with you, may all the blessings of God be upon you, may you be happy and content in him in every area of life. May you have health, may you prosper, may you enjoy well-being, may you be in a good financial situation, may your marriage go well, may your work prosper—all these things are included in that concept of well-being, of wholeness in God, of peace.

Yes, brothers and sisters, it is important for us to understand this: when God calls us to his ways, when we come under the citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have the right to expect blessing and blessedness in our lives.

There is a branch of Christian spirituality that celebrates, in a way that we believe is—I do not know—incorrect, poverty and a kind of resignation that says, “Well, whatever God says,” a fatalism. Do not misunderstand me. I believe that we Christians must be willing to submit to the will of God and accept what he sends us; but on the other hand, we are not called to walk in passivity, accepting a miserable state of life and merely surviving until we get to heaven.

The Lord Jesus Christ says, “I have come that they may have life, and life abundantly.” In other words, that they may be blessed. The Lord Jesus Christ also says that whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within him. And what is that image of rivers of living water, if not that within you there will be an inexhaustible fountain of... When I think of rivers of living water, I think of joy, I think of exuberance, I think of dynamism, I think of hope. Those are the words that this image of rivers of living water evokes in my feelings.

So, many times, it will be done to you according to your expectations of what your life in the Lord will be like. Your expectations are like magnets that attract things into your life, for better or for worse.

So if you live expecting blessing, if you live with an expectation that says, “This is normal; I am a child of God. It is my normal and legitimate right to live under God’s blessing,” this positive attitude of faith and expectation attracts blessing into your life as something natural.

Now let me tell you something important: that does not mean that problems, difficulties, illnesses, and storms will not come into your life; that a tree will not fall on the roof of your house, perhaps by the time you return—God forbid—and that you will not have a hole in the roof. I am not saying that there will be absolutely no suffering in your life.

Yes, I believe the problem with much of the preaching about prosperity in our time and about the Christian’s blessing is that it paints with too broad a brush and does not include the necessary nuances.

What the Word of God says is that the Christian’s ongoing balance, so to speak—when you add up the losses and the gains—the account balance will always be fat, very healthy, very plump, in the black rather than in the red. Do you understand? That is the difference.

Warren Buffit is one of the richest men in the world and one of the most skillful investors in the history of humanity. His personal wealth is worth billions of dollars right now. Yet if you look at Warren Buffit’s career, you will see that many times he has lost tens of millions of dollars, and that there have been situations in his life, when the stock market has fallen and when other things have happened, in which he has lost money. But if you always look at his balance, because he is a very skillful man, his account is always very healthy and very plump.

Investors know that it is not so much the day-to-day change that matters, but the long-term balance, the curve of your finances. That is what matters. Many times they do not allow themselves to be frightened or distressed by a few small situations; they are looking at the overall course of the economy.

And that is how it is in the believer’s life. We know that times of affliction will come; in our lives there will be times of struggle and testing in our marriages and in our health. But as Paul says in chapter 8 of Romans, who will separate us from the love of Christ?

In Romans 8:35, he asks, almost as if boasting a little: “...Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword...” In other words, no matter what the devil and life may want to throw at me, no matter what it may be—rhetorically he is saying that none of it, none of it, will be able to separate me from the love of Christ Jesus.

And he is also admitting that these things can indeed come into our lives; they can come. He says, “Can those things separate us from the love of Christ?” Look at what verse 37 says:

“...Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us...”

When I look at you—and in some cases I know something, just a tiny bit, about your lives and the journey most of you have traveled—I know that there have been times of tribulation, distress, difficulty, and testing in your lives. Who here can raise a hand and tell me that there has never been a moment in your life when the water was rising to your neck and you felt, “Lord, why are you allowing this to come into my life?” Of course there has.

Yes, but I believe the difference is that, although the son of God or the daughter of God goes through all those things, you can still see that spiritual health in their lives. You know that sooner or later they will emerge from that storm and reach a safe harbor. And as in Job’s case, just as God sent the storm, he will also send times of refreshing, peace, rest, and recovery from their losses. Because that is the destiny of God’s children. I believe that the man or woman of God must expect life to go well for them. That is what the Word says: it will go well with you.

The balance of my life will always be positive, even though a few moments of loss may also come here and there. That is why it says, “Blessed is the person who is in that relationship with God.”

I was afraid that I would not have enough material to preach, but it seems there is plenty, because that word alone is pregnant with teaching. The psalmist begins in a negative way, teaching what the person who receives these blessings does not do, what that person does not become involved in.

I believe he does this so that, when he reaches the point of explaining what the person who has these blessings does and why that person receives these blessings, the difference will stand out and be seen more clearly.

There is a progression, if you look at it. It says, “Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked”—there is movement—“nor stand in the way of sinners,” which is a state of being in a certain environment, and finally, “nor sit in the seat of scoffers.” In the end he settles in, so there is a progression from moving, to remaining, and then to settling into evil.

There is a progression in a person’s decline. It begins with associations. It says, “I walked in the counsel of the wicked.” What kind of people are they spending time with and living among? Certain associations begin a progression, but a downward one.

You understand, right? [Inaudible] I am having a good time, perhaps because I am preaching. Let us go forward together; God wants to speak to us.

The word counsel means a great deal. It speaks of where our meditation is focused, what we are thinking about, and what is occupying our minds and hearts inwardly. We must ask ourselves what we are thinking about, what we are reading, what we are watching on television and in movies, and what is filling our counsel, our minds and hearts.

Because perhaps many times you get up in the morning and feel like, “Ah, this life is worthless, and I want to shoot myself and slit my wrists. Why do I feel this way?” Well, perhaps you should think about that monster-and-vampire movie you watched an hour before going to bed. Perhaps that will give you an idea of why you feel that way.

Have you ever had the experience of losing your taste for reading the Word of God, losing the desire to do it? You do not want to come to church, you do not want to pray, you do not want to sing? Sometimes it is because we have fed our minds and hearts on influences that dull and deaden our spiritual desires. We no longer have a taste for the things of God because we are feeding our minds and hearts poorly. We must watch this influence.

We are called, as children of God, to redeem the time and make good use of it by watching what we listen to, what we see, the conversations we have, and the friends we keep. It is not a matter of saying, “Oh, no, you are not from León de Judá Church; I want nothing to do with you,” and walking around with our noses in the air all the time. No, the idea is that we are people who spend most of our time and affection consuming things that strengthen us for the Kingdom of God and for the task to which we have been called.

Many people who walk in evil began that way, with bad company. As the saying goes, “Tell me whom you walk with, and I will tell you who you are.”

“He stood in the way of sinners.” The person who thinks evil often ends up doing evil. The person who spent a Saturday night watching pornography, entertaining improper thoughts, or taking part in certain conversations may, before he knows it, one day end up wearing a black cape and a very large hat and entering an XXX store right in front of him, doing something he never thought he would do. Why? Because it began in his mind and ended up becoming an action.

And what we will observe is that if we begin by thinking about evil and doing evil, we begin to harden; the heart becomes hard, and we ultimately even begin to mock. Our spirit rejects and makes fun of certain things that are of God. There is a progression toward evil.

And you know what? This is interesting, brothers and sisters. I believe this even happens among Christians when you consume a secular, excessively intellectual and humanistic diet because you like it and because perhaps you are a highly educated person. Little by little, there are things in the Word of God that are simple and innocent, and something within you—even though you proclaim Christ as your Lord and Savior—will begin to reject those simple things of the children of God, which often lend themselves to mockery.

And people may even mock some brothers and sisters in the faith because what they do seems a little foolish, because it offends the intellectual side of our spirituality. For example, we might watch a video of people in a move of the Spirit, speaking in tongues and perhaps behaving strangely in the video, and think, “Oh, how strange. I would never do that.” And we feel superior. Although perhaps that is not your style of doing things, we should regard any worship of Christ with reverence. Perhaps even amid the commotion we are observing, they are worshiping Christ and honoring him more than in a completely elegant service where there may be no simple heart, no childlike heart before God.

And how many times have some of our brothers and sisters here—college students or graduate students, very intellectual people—said during one of those unusual services at León de Judá, “Wow, I’m glad my university professor isn’t here today.” And how many have perhaps had some college students come to the lively commotion we experience here at León de Judá, sometimes with people falling down, and thought, “Wow, it’s a good thing my professors don’t see me here in this place.”

It’s a good thing my seminary theology professor doesn’t see me here. That is why we want to cultivate an innocence, a simplicity before the Word of God, and to receive from people who understand the mysteries of the Word of God, even if it does not come wrapped in a thoroughly sophisticated package.

Am I making myself clear, or am I getting in too deep? Do you understand what I mean? That is important. The idea is, blessed—although here it refers above all to the person who does not love God, the person who is not involved in the things of God, who ends up mocking everything that has to do with God because his heart has already become hardened and he even hates the things of God.

There are such people, by the way, let me tell you. Just yesterday I was looking at the Weather Channel on the computer, and there was a blog where a poor evangelical, who should not have done it, made the mistake of saying that this storm was a sign of God’s wrath and that we have to be careful because many things are happening in the world—Katrina and all that—and the amount of mockery and insults that followed that comment was truly incredible. I was fascinated. I read about 50 different posts because I was fascinated to see the curses, the mockery, the active and intense hostility against this poor man, who, I believe, was misguidedly trying to tell people, “Look, something is happening in the world; there are many strange manifestations.”

And that mockery is present in our culture. If we mention certain truths from the Word, such as the spirit of the Second Coming, angels, demons, or hell, people label us crazy and fanatical, and they mock us because that mockery is embedded in the culture.

Now look at the contrast. It is like a glass of cold water after three or four hours of thirst. It says, “…but his delight is in the law of the Lord….” Glory to God.

But—there is that “but.” Everyone say, “But…his delight is in the law of the Lord.” Now, “the law of the Lord” clearly refers… The psalmist is writing at a time when the only Scriptures available, centuries and centuries before the New Testament or other prophetic passages came, were those first books that are now in the Pentateuch, the first books of the Old Testament. So that law of the Lord—Deuteronomy, Leviticus—set forth the conduct that a person who feared the Lord was to follow.

Now we can say, “But his delight is in the Word of God, in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.” And that is what I always tell my brothers and sisters: we have an incredible treasure in this Word. Let us take advantage of it, read it, and know it, because God has placed it there for our instruction and our defense.

And I like the word “law,” the law of the Lord, because it points to the fact that, ultimately, brothers and sisters, the Christian life is obedience to commandments, principles, and precepts that God has established for men and women to walk in.

The law was not created to spoil people’s fun or make life more difficult. Quite the contrary: the law is a protective element that allows life to function as it was designed to function.

The Lord’s commandments were established so that we might live by them and be prosperous and blessed. It is like a guardrail beside a precipice to keep us from falling into it.

It says, blessed is the person who delights in the law of the Lord; in it lies his…how beautifully the psalmist puts it…in that law, in those commandments, in those principles lies his delight.

Of course, Spanish is always better than English. What it is saying here is very powerful: when all is said and done, when seeking refuge, when seeking pleasure and rest, the psalmist says, “Oh, I want to meditate on the law of the Lord. That is where my joy lies; I feel renewed.” It is like a delight, a taste for the Word of God.

Every intellectual study of the Word of God must be grounded in an emotional relish: you long for the Word of God, you want to savor the Word of God, you hunger for it, and you recognize that there is something special and living there that can bless you; and this motivates the study we undertake.

Read Psalm 119 and you will see that the psalmist has an attitude there that glorifies the Word, enjoys the Word, and understands that there is nothing like the Word; and that causes the Word to open up to him and speak to him in an exceptional way.

I remember hearing this a long time ago, when I was a child, I believe. I think it was my sister Mercedes Antonia who was eating something with such relish, and someone said, “This girl enjoys food so much that everything she eats does her good and makes her gain weight, because she likes it so much; she enjoys it so much.” I believe that should be the attitude of the children of God toward the Word of the Lord. That is what enables us to take advantage of, delight in, and enjoy the benefits of that Word.

What we are saying is that God is calling us to have this relish for the Word of God, a reverence that recognizes that the Word of God is living and powerful, that it is not a dead thing but a living thing that can transform us. And with this relish, this taste, this desire for the Word, we are then motivated to study it, to search it, and to come to understand its meaning because of the relish that motivates us; and thus the Lord delights in opening up the meaning of the Word through this desire and hunger that we have.

I believe there is no excuse—and with this I will finish that point—there is no excuse for a longtime Christian not to know from beginning to end the themes, the characters, the divisions, and the flow of the Word of the Lord. I believe that is absolutely essential; it is important.

The other night, Tuesday or Thursday night, I was at a meeting of men’s leaders in my office, and I made a comment about an obscure text in the Bible. I asked them—I did not say the exact word, but left the sentence unfinished—and it gave me great joy that everyone there, practically everyone, knew the answer. I said, “Wow, I am among people who know the Bible,” and that gave me great pleasure; it gave me joy.

I want León de Judá to be a church characterized by people who study, know, and delight in the Word. The Word of God is like that: the Word of God has so much meat, so much in it, that we can spend an entire day meditating on it.

It says here that he meditates on His law day and night. You are not in the Word only when it is lying open before you. The Word of God, and the principles of the Word and of the Kingdom of God, should be the object of your meditation and reflection at practically every moment of your life.

I believe that a sound, healthy, overflowing Christian spirituality is one in which people are continually immersed in reflection on the principles of morality, the spirit, the eternal, and the ethical. Those thoughts should always, always abound within us as we meditate in different ways.

And even at night, at three or four in the morning, sometimes you lose a little sleep; you wake up because you heard a noise, perhaps subconsciously, in the street or something like that. And in those moments between sleep, falling asleep again, and being awake, I delight, brothers and sisters—I rejoice in that time spent thinking about the Word of the Lord, some principle of the Christian life, my ministry, the church. And I find that this makes me drowsy, calms me, and gives me peace: I am thinking about the things of God. That is beautiful.

Instead of dwelling in the counsel of the wicked, why not dwell in the counsel of the Word of God? In verse 8 of Philippians, chapter 4, the Apostle Paul says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things…” In other words, meditate on these things.

That, by the way, is the root of a healthy emotional life. When the Word of God is your meditation, that Word is flowing within you, blessing you, strengthening you, nourishing you, shaping you, and reinforcing the steel rods of your psyche. That is…the steel rods of your psyche. That came out beautifully.

That final image he added is like this: the Word of God, meditation, is like an underground river that is always there behind our soul, nourishing us emotionally.

Now, what happens to the person who delights in the Word and meditates on it day and night? We have already seen that he is blessed. Now, what does that mean in the psalmist’s terms? How does the psalmist illustrate the blessedness of that person? Don’t worry; I’ll finish in 50 minutes. No one is waiting for us, brothers and sisters. If you have to leave, you are blessed.

I feel comfortable here. How many of you feel comfortable? Verse 3 says, “He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water.” What a beautiful image. Think of a strong, healthy tree. What a beautiful image of a strong tree beside streams of crystal-clear water, sending its roots down into that water, drinking it, taking in all that water, and growing stronger in this fertile, healthy soil. How beautiful.

That tree does not need a truck to come with a hose and spray it every morning and evening, because it says, “No, don’t worry, man. I have water right here that gives me something to drink all the time, so forget about it.”

That is the idea, and so many images come to mind. Christ says, again, “He who believes in Me, rivers of living water will flow from within him,” from his innermost being. He will have it inside; he does not have to go to a river to bathe or drink water. No, he or she will have it within. He does not have to go to the beach on Saturday; the beach is inside him, my brothers and sisters.

It is that idea that the life of God, what you need for your well-being, is already within you. You do not have to go somewhere for someone to give it to you. You do not have to get drunk on a bottle of rum or go to a nightclub and artificially take a drug or have someone stimulate you, or whatever, in order to feel like, “Okay, the world is all right. Great, I feel good; I feel that I have worth.” No, all of that—the sense of worth, of belonging, of knowing where you are going and where you came from, of being accepted by God, of knowing that whether you die or live, you belong to God—all of that is within you. You do not need anything artificial to make you feel all right, because you are all right. That is the difference.

You have the nightclub inside you, like a fanny pack holding 100,000 records. He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water.

Years ago I saw an image that stayed in my mind as an illustration of this. It showed a person cutting a concrete sidewalk with a metal saw, and the temperature was hot. As the saw went into the concrete to cut it, someone was spraying water on it so that the saw would not overheat and damage the motor or jam. And that is the idea: when you are in Christ Jesus, you always have water refreshing you, because life tires you out and burns you, you know? But when you have refreshing water within you, it keeps your blade from ever burning up.

I understand this, brothers and sisters, as the years go by—not that I know anything about that, but so I am told—as life keeps hitting you and you experience disappointments and difficulties, and have gone through a number of traumas and scares in your life, what happens to most people? They gradually lose their vigor; they gradually lose that youthful confidence you had when you were 20 years old, when you thought you could take the world by the hair, that everything would go well for you, and that all that awaited you was a rainbow at the end of the road. When life deals you a few blows, as it does to all of us, people gradually lose that exuberance as the years pass, and that causes their chemical and hormonal systems to begin producing less adrenaline and fewer other things.

My theory is that part of the reason people lose that vitality and strength as we grow older is not necessarily biological decrepitude; rather, the mind begins to lose its vigor. There are many things you used to do that you are now afraid to do, and things you used to undertake but now you say, “We have to be careful; what if this happens, or that?” And so you keep sending subconscious messages to your systems, and when your systems see that you are not doing as much, they do not send out or produce as many reserves. So you grow weaker and weaker because the problem lies in your attitude, because life keeps draining your energy and you have no water to refresh you, strengthen you, bless you, and renew your strength.

It is a psychosomatic process; there is a psychological component to that change. Nevertheless, I believe that for the person who has the Word of God as his power, his source of power, and his nourishment, much of that impoverishing impact of life is cushioned by his relationship with God and with the Word, and by his vigor—knowing that the future is all right because one is in the hands of God, that my eternity is secure because I have Christ as my Lord and Savior, and that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because Jehovah is with me. All of that should be a source of renewal, strength, and vigor in us every day.

And much of that has to do with an attitude that you have to cultivate. Every day you have to tell yourself, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Take a Philippians 4:13 pill every morning. Moreover, in all these things I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus [inaudible], and at night. You have to confess the Word and the promises of God; you have to actively cultivate that positive attitude in your life. You have to meditate on those meaty verses in the Word of God that instill in you a positive, confident, secure attitude. Eat that good diet of the promises of the Word of God, and your mind and your spirit will be renewed, and you will have new strength, as the Word of the Lord says.

That is why this morning one reads the newspapers and reads about the disasters, and if you go out into the street, a tree is going to fall on top of your car and land right on your head [inaudible]—don’t go out. I understand; you have to be careful, but in life you also have to be a little more aggressive; you have to believe. As for me, until I can’t anymore, I am going to keep believing that God is more powerful within me. I want to live from a posture of aggressive confidence and expectation of God’s blessing, because I know that therein lie my strength, my vigor, and my hope. I want to cultivate those promises and see them as that energy which enters my life, renews me, and gives me more strength. The older I get, the more dangerous I become, because the power of God is with me. Amen.

The Apostle Paul says that although the outer man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day. Why? Because he is plugged into the power of God, into the water of God that continually renews and strengthens him.

You young people who are there—I see a group of young adults there—listen: if you want to reach old age strong, joyful, vigorous, and full of courage and gladness, connect yourselves to the energy of the Kingdom of God, positively confess the Word of God, and do not believe that because you grow old you have to be decrepit, limping and dragging yourselves along. No, in Christ Jesus we have power to enjoy an old age that is vigorous, clear-minded, and strong in the Lord.

I nourish myself with and make passages like this the object of my meditation, for example, which says, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of Jehovah, they shall grow strong; even in old age they shall bear fruit. They shall be vigorous and strong, to declare that in Jehovah there is no justice, but there is faithfulness.” Why? Because when a man or a woman reaches a healthy, clear-minded old age, that declares the faithfulness of God’s promises.

I believe that we have the right to expect that from our lives, brothers and sisters; those are promises found there in the Word of God. It says that boys become weary and tired, and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait upon Jehovah will receive new strength. Their roots are planted beside streams of water. And their vitality is not diminishing; on the contrary, their roots are absorbing a source of life for them, which renews them despite the difficulties and sufferings of life; they are new every day.

It is like a tree; do not forget that image. Your life is like a tree; you are a tree, and you are planted beside streams of water. God took you out of the desert, took hold of your tree, put His hand into the ground and opened up all the soil, cleaning it away root by root until the tree was freed, and then He sent a mighty angel who took that tree out of the desert, carried it to a place, and planted it beside streams of fresh, blessed water. Amen. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, if you have to leave, then go; I will keep preaching by myself. I want to honor the Word of God; I am declaring something here in the name of Jesus for this church and for the Kingdom of God. I want to prophesy the Word of God this morning. I am declaring this Word to heaven and hell, and to the angels too, in the name of Jesus. This Word must be proclaimed because that is the foundation of the life of a child of God.

The Word says that the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the day is perfect—not until it fades, but until it is perfect. That is the expectation, that is your inheritance, that is your promise, and that is what you have the right to experience. If you are living in something else, you are not enjoying what God has promised for your life.

If you are not enjoying it, fight until you have it, move in it, and say, “It is a reality in my life.” Do not settle for mediocrity. Do not settle for a life lived from plate to mouth, with one tiny little spoon; eat of the good of the land and enjoy it. And if you are not enjoying it, rebel and throw a tantrum and say, “Why not? That is what God tells me I have a right to, so [inaudible] the devil [inaudible] the right to steal the blessing God has promised for my life.”

You have to wage war for your blessing, because the enemy will come and will try to plant himself in front of you so that you do not enter into that image God has given. Life will strive in many ways to take away the joy of the Lord, which is your strength. The devil will try to steal your health, he will try to steal your sufficiency, and he will try to make you feel that you are worthless and that God does not love you; and you have to tell the devil, “Get away in the name of Jesus, because that is my right, that is my inheritance, that is my promise.”

You must fight for the blessing. Life has inertia; it resists goodness. The devil will try to steal this blessing; we have to wrestle with him, we have to mine the blessing, and we have to fight and struggle for it.

Every day I understand more and more: there is an enemy who does not want you to receive those blessings, and every day he stands in front of you, and you either go around him or take another route. But no—what God wants is for you to step on him and walk over him until you reach the blessing God has given you.

We have a little vacation home in Maine, and there is a road where I like to run. There are some houses around there, and since it is out in the country, people sometimes let their dogs roam free. On several occasions those dogs came and barked at me. And you know what? I even began to be afraid of walking down that blessed road, even though I liked it so much. They come to threaten you, bark at you, and all of that, and I found myself avoiding that road. I said, “No, man, what is this?” The Dominican in me came out—well then. And I found myself a stick about three and a half feet long, one that was not too heavy so it would not weigh too much while I was running, and one that was flexible and would hurt. When I go running, I take that stick, or I leave it in a certain place, and when I get close to where the dogs are, I pick up the stick; it is waiting for me there.

And you know what? Once one or two dogs tried to come at me, and as soon as they saw the stick, [inaudible]. The devil needs to see a stick, because otherwise he will always be barking at you, biting at your heels, bothering you, following you, and throwing little stones at you to take away your joy. You have to show him the stick of the Word of God. You have to learn authority, so that when the devil comes with bad breath to speak to you and tell you that you are worthless, that you are going to be sick all your life, and that you were born among poor people and will remain poor, you have to tell him what the Word says, as Jesus Christ said: “Get behind me, Satan.” Use the Word of God; fight with the Word of God; grab hold of the words [inaudible], remind him of them, rub them into the snout of Satan and the demons, and you will see that they leave you alone and your life begins to flow.

The Bible says that no one can plunder the strong man’s house until he first binds him, and then he can plunder his house. And many times he is very comfortable in our house and does not want to leave; he must first be bound so that the blessing can then come into your life. Use the Word of God to maintain your blessing, so that what God has promised you becomes a reality in your life. Confess the Word, believe it, and expect it, and you will see that it will come into your life.

The Bible says that this person bears his fruit in his season. Oh, my brother, you have been called to bear fruit in your life. You have been called to counsel the weak and the depressed. You have been called to have children who love God and who grow up to be honest, hardworking, successful men and women. You have been called to bring others to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and to teach others in the way of the Lord.

You have been called to bear fruit of righteousness and blessing for humanity. You have been called to be a doer of good works in your life, not simply a consumer or an anonymous person. You have been called to bear fruit, to succeed in life, and to have an impact on others.

Christ says, “I have appointed you to bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” You have not been called merely to consume and receive; rather, you have been called to give, serve, bless, lead, and teach. Prosperity and blessing also mean blessing others, giving, and sharing with others. So expect that you will bear fruit in your life, and you have to work and live your life believing and hoping, not being content with anything less than a life that bears fruit to bless the world in which you live.

Now, it says here that he bears his fruit in his season. We believe that God has His moments and His times, and we live according to God’s rhythms and purposes, and God determines when it will happen; His timing is perfect.

How beautiful it is to learn to trust God’s moment and timing. If I am not enjoying certain blessings right now, I can trust that in His time God will take care of certain things, and there are certain currents in which I can rest.

One key to psychological and mental health is also learning to trust God’s processes, because God does not do things overnight. Sometimes there are long processes, and we can be at peace and rest. For example, the single young woman who is waiting for her mate, a couple waiting for their baby, or people waiting for a job or for a blessing they have sought. Instead of living anxiously, we can know, “My God will take care of it.” It is not that we are passive, but neither are we anxious; we can rest in God and know that He will take care of it, that my life is in His hands, and that I do not have to take matters into my own hands. What rest, what peace, what emotional health there is in this.

How wonderful it is to live life in that healthy balance between doing your part and allowing God to do His part in His time, under His lordship. The person who is at the center of God’s will is someone whose life, as one can see, unfolds according to God’s timing. That person is healthy because he does not become anxious or burn himself out, and one sees that he prospers and is blessed, but things come in their moment, in their time, and in God’s way, and no one can take that away from you.

There is a place of blessing in understanding that we are in the balance between my effort and what falls to me, and God’s effort on my behalf. I have learned to fight, but also to rest and remain there trusting God, faithful to God, yet without anxiety, and the blessings come. We become like a magnet for God’s blessing because we have found that place of trust in Him.

That concept, “in his season”—that is a subject for ten books [inaudible]. It says—I am going to finish with verse 3 because everything else is purely secondary elaboration—it says, “And his leaf shall not fall.” Scientific laws of decay, entropy, and chaos prevail in the universe: things move toward becoming more chaotic, not more orderly, and things decay. But in Christ, who makes all things new, we can trust that the process changes; it is transformed into a process of life, and even in old age the leaf does not fall.

My brothers and sisters, I beg you: take this message and listen to it ten times, not because I am the one preaching it, but because this is the inheritance of the children of God that has been declared this morning for the people of God.

It is a message from God to us about our inheritance; listen to this message, live this message. And fight for that message [inaudible].

It says that his leaf does not fall. In other words, brothers and sisters, there are blessings God has given you that you must not think have to die with old age. Your joy does not have to die with old age, your vitality does not have to die with old age, and your ability to bear fruit does not have to die with old age.

We can have good expectations for life: joy, vitality, laughter, and our influence with others do not have to decline. On the contrary, these things can grow in us. Jesus has given us life, and life abundantly; the leaf does not fall, and everything we do will prosper.

You and I want to be like those sweet old folks whom people want to come to the party and sit there, because they like having them there, because they laugh with them, and they are pleasant and inspire confidence, and people want to be with them because those people are battle-tested warriors. They have fought many battles, and look how good they look and what joy they bring to a gathering. You want to be like that. You know what? You can be like that. That is My promise to you; that is what I want for you. That is why I sent My Son to die on the cross, so that this victory, this blessing, this blessedness might be yours. That is your inheritance; that is your promise.

What a beautiful ending: it says, “And everything he does will prosper.” Hallelujah! That is a very outrageous promise. Everything you do will prosper. I do not believe there is anyone who can say that everything they have done in life has prospered… but look, brothers and sisters, I can say that I am almost at the point where whatever I undertake in the name of the Lord, God blesses it and causes it to prosper, and it does not end in failure. That is why I so often get myself into the predicaments I get into.

I can almost say that everything I have undertaken in my life, God has blessed and caused to prosper. God has given me the desires of my heart; the things I have desired and set my affection upon have, incredibly, one day come into my hands, and I have said, like David, “Lord, is this how Your works are with human beings?”

Again and again, I have proven the truth of these promises—things I have longed for and fought for, for years and years: specific blessings, ministry projects, owning a building where our people can gather, a graduation, so many things. I have fought and waited for years, and I can say that God is faithful. He answers; He blesses. We are not always perfect, but we love the Lord desperately, and the Lord is faithful; He causes everything we praise to prosper.

God has told you, son or daughter of God, “Everything you do, I will bless; I will cause it to prosper; I will stand behind you. When your enemies come against you, I will be like a strong wall of protection around you. When the devil tries to cast a cold fog over you to extinguish your heart and your feelings, I will be that sun that dries up the dampness and makes you feel safe and secure in Me. The enemy has no power over you.”

When life tries to extinguish your hope and make you say, “I have reached the end,” perhaps that is when God will give you the desires of your heart and what you have always hoped for, and He will say to you, “You know what? It is not all over. Now the best that I have for you begins.”

God always saves the best wine for the end of the celebration. Let us stand, brothers and sisters. God, receive this word, because I have cast it like a seed into your heart and your spirit, and I also cast it in this way to those who have heard this sermon this morning, and I declare that word of God over your life. Receive it this morning.

Enjoy your life. Rejoice. Declare the blessings of the Lord; enjoy this world, because it was made for you. Everything in this world is for you. Enjoy it within the framework of God’s will.

That is the blessing. That is why God sent His Son: so that you may have happiness, fullness of joy, triumph, growth, development, and victory in all your trials. God gives you trials because He wants a mighty soldier—a man, a woman with medals—who walks proudly because their God has been strong and has won, has battled and fought, but has emerged victorious; someone who walks and speaks with authority because they know what it is to fight for the [inaudible] and defeat it again and again. [Inaudible] through the world with the royalty and military bearing earned in twenty thousand battles, in every one of which God has always given him victory. That is why your trial comes; that is why difficulties come: because God is shaping you. God is shaping a warrior. God is shaping a woman of honor. God is shaping a teacher, an elderly woman who blesses the world by the way she lives. And that is why trials come: because God wants a giant; He does not want a little boy who breaks over just anything. God is with you. Leave here tonight—even if the storm roars, even if the tree falls on your house, blessed are you [inaudible] your meditation and your foundation. The Lord bless you.

Oh, Father, thank You. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word. Thank You because You have spoken to us this morning. Instead of a stone, You have given us bread; instead of a crumb, You have given us good food upon our tables, Lord. You have provided everything necessary for this gathering. Your presence has not been lacking in our lives, Lord, and we thank You and bless You, Lord; we glorify You. Lord, may this word not fall to the ground, but become a reality in my life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters in this church, Lord, and of Your people throughout the earth who love Your Word. We love You. Be blessed this day, Father. We move in Your shalom, Your blessedness, and Your blessing. And we give You all the glory and all the honor. Hallelujah!