Salvation - a Complete Plan

Let's read the Word of God in Romans chapter 8, a well-known verse, but I would like to shed new light on this treatise. Romans 8 verse 28 to 30 says: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. This is to those who are called according to His purpose, because those He foreknew" says the Word, " He also predestined them" or fixed a suitable destination for them "to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers, and whom He predestined these He also called, and whom He called these He also justified , and those he justified, these he also glorified."

In the mind of God we are already packed. We are already fulfilled, updated, glorified. But in our experience we have to go through all these incidents of life, including exercising our will, self-control, choice, and obedience to our heavenly Father.

Father: bless this Word, make it beneficial for our bodies and souls, and spirits so that we can leave this place renewed in the name of Jesus, amen.

I don't know how many of you have put puzzles together, that you have to put them piece by piece so that the whole emerges as a whole picture. For many years, when our children were growing up, we had a puzzle with a thousand or fifteen hundred pieces on a little table and each one added to it. It was a family thing and we wanted to combine everything that this puzzle wanted to say.

Logically, the boys always hid a piece because each one wanted to be the last to put the last little piece. But it was nice to see how the image arises and appears when we put the pieces in place. Sometimes people who are going through some of these things, Paul says all the things that help for good, when we are going through those things it seems that the puzzle does not make sense and we begin to wonder: why did God put this piece, why Why did God forget the other piece and where is the missing piece?

And if God is good and almighty, how is it that this happens? It does not fit in the mind, it does not fit in reason, it does not fit in logic, why does God allow suffering among human beings, why does He have so many things that doing with us chooses that we go through disastrous, critical, regretful, traumatic experiences. Where was God when this happened to me, where was God when this other thing happened to me? Sometimes it doesn't make sense because we don't see all the pieces as a whole. We don't put or reconcile them in a way that leaves us framed in a theological puzzle that God delights to put into perspective with us.

And really God put his perspective but sometimes God's perspective really escapes us because we interpret His perspective from our perspective and it is not right for us. It doesn't hit the key, it doesn't sound good. Because the truth is that evangelicals especially underline all the verses of the Bible that suit them and forget those that do not suit them. An example: we sharpen the little red pencil and read around it "Jehovah is my shepherd, I shall not want." I do underline that.

"None of these plagues will come to you because I am Jehovah your healer." We do underline that one. Why don't we stress from now on “from now on drink some wine because your sickness does that to you”, Paul wrote that to Timothy. Pablo's handkerchiefs healed people and he sends a bottle of wine to his best disciple to heal. Has no sense!.

Peter's shadow healed people and he died crucified upside down, he could not be saved from Caesar. And by the way, none of the apostles died surrounded by people singing cumbayá. Juan, the only one who died at an advanced age, was banished to the island of Patmos. All the rest were sawed, killed with knives, beheaded. Many saints burned at the stake and one asks, is this how God treats his workers? Doesn't the pensioner give them, doesn't the social security give them?

No. A theological puzzle. Brother is going to preach a theological sermon; and why not?. Theology does not have to be harsh, arid, insipid, colorless, tasteless. Theology can have a spark, yes or no? Yes. This is a theological sermon. I mean, don't be scared. Hold on to the saddle we're going to ride by Scripture.

In Ephesians 1 we have before the puzzle arises, God had already put us in mind. In Genesis 2:7 "he formed us out of the ground." In Genesis 3 and Romans 1:24 onwards we see that our being was deformed by sin. In Romans 3 we see that God reformed us through his salvation. In Romans 12 we see that God transforms us by his Spirit. In Romans 8 as we have read it conforms us to Christ. And finally glorifies us.

Being preformed and glorified escapes our chronological time. Within the time that formed us until we are conformed to Christ we see this saga, this story, this narrative of our existential life under the sun where many times it does not make sense, unless we bring a transcendental point of reference that can give meaning to the trivial life under the sun. All that is under the sun is vanity unless we bring it a point of reference that radiates, that illuminates, that provides meaning to life under the sun.

Whether we run after pleasure, or work, or wisdom, everything ends in vanity, but when we bring the transcendental to the trivial, we work for the Lord. We accumulate and give it to the Lord. Do we have wisdom? we use it for the Lord and we owe the pleasant life and we dedicate it to the Lord. Everything gains meaning because we bring the transcendental to the trivial.

And then the transcendental of time before the foundation of time and before the world ends belongs to God as author, creator, sustainer of the universe, as the great architect. The architect differs from the mason. I worked with my father as a bricklayer and I know how to lay bricks, I know how to lay tiles and mosaics and all that. And a mason lays the bricks straight and with plumb lines but he doesn't have all the configuration, he doesn't have the whole sketch, he doesn't have the whole panorama of the building. He has in mind brick by brick that he is going to put them very well.

Now, the apostle Paul, did he think he was a bricklayer, a mason or an architect expert? He tells the Corinthians in chapter 3: "I, as an expert architect, laid the foundation and others built" that is, he had the whole building in mind before laying the first brick. And so God, before putting a screw in this world, already had it arranged in his mind and guess what: he had you in mind before the foundation of the world.

And that is what we have to say: we are not the product of chance. We have to have a scriptural worldview, a greater divine blueprint because God has us in His mind and in His hand from beginning to end. And today we live a parenthesis of an existential life under the sun but embraced by God who is who he was, who will be and who is here right now. For God there is no past or future, he is an eternal present, that is why I am who I am. I was what I was, I will be what I will be, but I am what I am.

That is why what happens to us here, hopefully this afternoon we can have a vision that God is with us despite the circumstances, the incidents, the contingencies, despite the tests, the struggles, the difficulties God is present in our life. Why don't we wait with faith and joy to see God's design? Once again: what is God's design? Preformed in the mind of God, formed from the dust of the Earth by God to become deformed by sin and then informed that we are sinful and informed of our possible salvation, and then reformed or reborn, justified, accepted, regenerated adopted by God. And the story does not end there. God wants us to be transformed by the renewal of our understanding.

And the story does not end there. Because He is conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ through all the things that happen to us. That is why everything works together for good, because God, the great Architect, the great Artificer, the great Composer, He knows where the pieces go together and He keeps combining us and taking us out here and putting us here so that we resemble Christ Jesus in the end.

How many are already like Jesus from dandruff to calluses? How many are they? We lack a little, that's why God is treating us day by day until Christ comes in a process that we call sanctification, transformation, conformation. And by looking at Him we are transformed from glory to glory into His likeness by the Holy Spirit of the Lord says Paul in Second Corinthians 3.

But let's start where we have to start, where? Where God started. He has preformed us and in the mind of God according to Ephesians 1: "We were already according to the good pleasure of His Will, designed for His glory. And He made us according to His design to live with Him."

So God already had in mind everything that would be: molecular biology, what DNA would be, what our physiology would be, our way of being. How was he going to combine it from the subatomic, the particles, the electromagnetic fields. God knows physics, yes or no? God knows biology too, God knows biochemistry too, God knows. We are learning.

When Moses writes the Old Testament, he does not write it as a treatise on science, he writes it as a treatise on redemption. Because Moses would not have understood it if God had told him: Moses, do you know what the square root of -1 is? What did Moses know about calculus? That is why God reveals to him in his style, in his way, in his time what is necessary for our salvation.

How did God make the world? Beats me, but did. He commanded and existed, to transform His energy into matter in reverse of Einstein in his famous formula. God is the one who arranged us and knows. That's why when I pray to God He understands me, at any level of analysis. If I am depressed I can tell him: Lord I feel blue. I feel, in Spanish it does not sound blue, I feel bulging, I feel crushed, a steamroller ran over me Father, help me because I am flatter than a worm that crawls on the ground.

Does God understand when I say that yes or no? Yes, he understands and helps me. If I am a little more sophisticated and I read some things maybe then: Sir, I have certain cognitive symptoms (laughs), thinking, reasoning, perceptions, attributions, meaning of reality that do not fit with reality because I distort them enough. I have negative thoughts about myself, the future, the people around me, I have self-confirmation about my own complaints and I have those ruminations, that way of re-chewing things and since I have read some little things out there I have realized that if that I couple it to my sense of guilt, baseness and denigration and apart from that I have physiological symptoms of reluctance, and I don't really want to, I have insomnia, Lord according to what I think I am depressed, can you help me? (laughs).

And God who read the diagnosis of all psychiatric illnesses before psychiatrists, He knows what depression is. When I was going through symptom number three, He: ah ok, Pablo is depressed, let's see help him. And what if I grow a little more in sophistication? I say: Sir, at the top of the synaptics of the nerves that conduct the electromagnetic impulses of the brain and that are transmitted through the biochemical substance called the neurotransmitter, it seems to me that the dopamine and the serotonin are not in tune there, they are unbalanced ( laughs). No.

Does God know biochemistry yes or no?. And if I don't go to molecular biology and I go to atoms and particles: Sir, this electron is not dancing properly in front of the neutron and the electromagnetic field is not working well, God knows. Do you know yes or no?

And God knew from the outset before founding the world how the world would be constituted in its essential elements from the first to the last atom that will exist and from there he said "Let there be light" and there was light. And God created the heavens and the earth and in the end created man in His image and likeness. That is where we start, a God who knows, who is a Creator, who is an Architect, who is more scientific than anyone. A God who preformed us in His mind before putting a brick on Earth.

And then? he formed us, he formed us in the image of God. In Hebrew Shalem Elohim, or the Imago Dei in Latin or the image of God in Spanish. What are we?. We are from the Earth, from the elements of this cosmos, created on the sixth day and we participate a lot with the creation of the sixth day. Even the mammals, maybe God had a model that he was making for him, he was finally perfecting the thing and here were the man and the woman as the epitome of His original Creation. But he made us from dust and to dust we will return.

He made us stewards of his world. Not owners, stewards of His domain. Created by God in His image and likeness. And speaking of resemblance, notice this: one is Darwin and the other is Reverend Coppen Matter, a preacher from the New England colony preaching before the emancipation of this England. Who do we look like?

The preacher who talked so much about angels even combed his hair like the wings of one of them. And Darwin, who spent his life studying monkeys, even looks like one of them. Tell me who you're with and I'll tell you (laughs).

But the Bible says that we resemble the object of our worship. Whom we adore we become more and more like them. Those who worship non-speaking idols also become dumb and deaf and are useless as Christians. Those who worship the living God by saying the Holy Spirit are famous Pentecostals.

Because we are a little smaller than angels according to Psalm 8 or a little bigger than monkeys according to other people. What is man that you remember him and the son of man that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory, you placed him above all the glories of Your hands says Psalm 8. How glorious it is to be created in the image and likeness of God!

And today it is biblical anthropology: preformed, we put the first of the components of our puzzle, of our puzzle. Formed according to the image and likeness of God. But do you know what happened? Satan comes and says to the woman: with what God said that they will not touch, they will not eat of it?. He knows that the day they touch and eat it they will open their eyes and they will be like Him. And look at that fruit, isn't it beautiful? She is pretty. Do you know how that tastes? No, but God said I better not touch it. No no, but if you try it, you've never tried that.

Forget legalizing marijuana and all that, this is much more, it will give you a much more kick if you eat it. And aside from the fact that they are going to know good and evil, they are going to be like God. Take, eat; and he reaches out his hand and screwed up. Do you know how much it cost another person to say in a redemptive way: take and eat? The second time that a person says: take and eat is another offer to the human being, but for that He paid with His life and with His blood. That's what Jesus came for.

But we have been deformed by sin. Deformed like disobedient people with masks everywhere. Deformed because we are diverted from God's mission, distorted from God's Will, destitute of God's Glory, degraded from the given position and depraved in character, conduct and interpersonal influence. Sin has ruined us, deformed us so much that for God we are His image but it is a kind of caricature of the original and Satan delights in ruining the human being to denigrate God's creation, while God sends Christ Jesus so that He is the Savior.

And you know what happens? When we see man formed and the second piece of the puzzle is that he is deformed, then the third or fourth piece comes the notion of being informed people. What is God telling us? Even in Genesis 3 after the sin God tells the man and the woman: the seed of the woman will step on the head of the seed of the serpent one day. The first prophecy about Christ Jesus who was to come: seed of the woman, of the Virgin Mary to be the redeemer and step on Satan's head on the cross of Calvary.

Jesus is the redeemer of the human race. And we are informed not only of our sin but of our possible salvation by faith and grace by obeying God's command. And when God informs us, the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts so that we accept Jesus as Savior and Lord, and we then enter a new stage. We enter the way of being not only deformed and informed but also reformed before God.

God shapes us again. God takes us in his hands as the potter takes the clay and makes back the vessel that He had in mind. God by grace regenerates us. To be reformed means to be reshaped by the same creator. It makes us reborn from the Spirit, it makes us regenerate from the Spirit and makes us walk in its ways, in some way it resocializes us.

What is it to be reformed by God? It is to be given a new birth. It is about having a new generation of God in us, a new beginning, a new life. And how?. Because He provided a substitute who identified with us and we identify with Him, and He has propitiated us; propitiate means to cover our sins with His blood. He has expiated our sins, what does expiated mean? He has paid our debt to God to the last penny and set us free for redemption. What does redemption mean? Buying back for a price something that was lost and returning it to the original owner.

God has provided Christ as substitution, propitiation, redemption for justification. And what is justification? It declares us free from penalty and charge as we never sin because there is someone who paid for us and has set us free. That is why, justified by faith, we have peace with God. All these words are in Romans, all these words. The great words of the Gospel. Reconciled and at peace with God, that is why we now have a new life in Christ.

Second Corinthians says: "Everything has passed away. Behold, everything is made new." How many were born again here? I tell you a little secret: now they have to grow again. You have to grow again, yes my brother you have to grow again. What is the novelty? A new creation, a new life, a new being, a new heart, love of God, love of neighbor, a new essence, participants in His divine nature here and now, a new pact with a new mediator, with better offerings, better promises, better premises, better results. A new path of access to God free to enter His most holy place and a new life, a style, a new way of living with a new song of freedom, joy, peace and a new family. Here is a new family to which we relate in love and give our lives for each other.

Did you know that in the Old Testament fifty-two times the words one another appear? Love one another, serve one another, forgive one another as Christ forgave you. Bear one another's burdens, intercede for one another, etc. We are a community, the family of God. So we learn until now that we have a new creation, a new heart, a new essence, a new pact, a new path, a newness of life, a new song, a new family, and all because He has reformed us and introduced us to your spiritual home. So we have another piece of the puzzle.

Now preformed, formed, deformed, informed and reformed. Are they capturing so far? Go ahead guys, go ahead. Now we are being transformed. In Romans 12 Paul says: "Do not be conformed to this century but be transformed through the renewal of your understanding to know what is the good, pleasing and holy Will of God for your lives."

It is not necessary to conform to this century if not to be transformed. This century exerts pressure. Existentialism, socialism, spiritualism, the New Age, communism, scientism. How many things militate against faith that try to trap the mind so that we deviate from God and trap us again in our deformed condition? That is why God says do not let yourselves be molded to the currents of this century, if not transform yourselves.

The word transform is also derived from a word metamorphosis which means a radical change of structures and functions in an organism. The example is in a worm that is crawling on the ground; it finds a plant, climbs it up, hangs from a small gajito and makes a kind of cone, embeds itself and stays still there and biology begins to work. An epigenetic principle of metamorphosis transformation that makes this worm now change its structures and grow wings, antennae, colors and comes out of its shell flying like a monarch butterfly, like a butterfly.

Brother: transform your being. Stop crawling like a worm and start flying a little higher. That is the Will of God. What is it that we renew, what is it that we transform, how do we achieve that? What is it that has to be transformed? The character, the structure of our being. Not only do good things but feel them, think them and also in the essential substructural ontological way, change mind and heart to later change processes and events.

Some people focus on events just like Peter. How many times will I forgive my brother, how many times, do I have to count? Well the Jews forgave three times a day, if you crossed the fourth they would give it to you with everything. Then Peter says, up to seven? Well, this disciple went too far because twice three is six. Good but the six is a half fallen number, the seven?. Oh perfect. So up to seven times? And Jesus answers him: No Peter seventy times seven. Pedro says: with this I don't hit a single one, there is no shoe that fits Jesus, what's wrong with him? He always raises the stick, I have to jump higher.

Then he says: No, because Pedro, forgiveness is not an act, it is an attitude of the heart. You have to think, reason, debate, put all things together, know that you forgive as a process, but even more, I want you to be a forgiving person at an essential, structural, characterological, temperamental ontological level, when nobody is looking at you, let you know: I am forgiving, that's why I think, feel, calculate, reason in forgiving ways, that's why I dispense forgiveness but it's not an act, it's basic to my being.

As a being, you are the salt of the Earth. It is not that God says you have a salt shaker, for the left, for the right, no. Whoever bites it may find it salty. No, that's it. You are the salt of the earth.

Also the light; It's not that one has a little torch and it lights up, no no no. One is light, his life speaks, his character full of joy, peace, love, goodness, dignity, patience, faith, meekness, temperance. That is the character that sheds light, that gives salt to this world. That it is a city sitting on a hill that cannot be hidden, do you realize? What has to change? My character.

Ah, but I'm Hispanic, what can you do (laughs). And what with that? And that I grab my wife and pull my wife by the rope and tell her: old lady, cook for me! Shine my shoes! No, no, brother, this hasn't dawned on you yet. You have to behave better, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.

In my culture we do like Koreans too, because the Hispanic woman is like the dry fish that is there and softens with blows (laughs). No my brother, that's your culture, do you know what the Bible says? Imitators of God, walk in love as beloved children, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her; husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. And who wrote it? A Jewish rabbi who prayed three times before his conversion: Lord, I thank you that you did not make me a dog, a rabbi, or a Gentile. That is the rabbinic prayer of Paul the apostle before he was converted. And now this Jewish rabbi, what is he? A Roman citizen. And the Romans treated women as almost human. And he wrote in Greek, and the Greeks treated the woman as almost human.

So this Hebrew boy, a Roman citizen writes in Greek to whom?, to the Ephesians who is now Turkey, to the Turks of before. A Roman Jew writing in Greek to the Turks tells them: boys, love your lady and do everything like Christ who gave himself up for his Church. Can Christ transform your culture yes or no? Can Christ teach you a better life as a married couple, yes or no?

That is what we are going to do, that we learn from the Word of God being transformed in our holiness. It is not a question of jumping, shouting and hallelujahs and so many other things. Don't spend all the Holy Spirit just to speak in tongues, spend a little bit on loving your wife, on doing things for your husband too, for that God gives you energy too. process.

Roberto, I don't know what's going on, people applaud for some reason. Well Roberto told me not to restrict myself so much in the hour because in the morning, then I'm going to preach like Pablo, if someone falls out of the window we resuscitate him and continue preaching (laughs).

No, but seriously speaking: mental, emotional, volitional processes, motivation, behavior, everything must be renewed. So how is it that we are transformed? Through the renewal of our understanding. The word metanoia, change of mind, transformation, redirection, walking in the Spirit transforms us. And how are we doing?

The Word of God in Galatians 5: walk in the Spirit and the Greek word means: acquire a sense of direction, of direction. And then Paul repeats at the end of the chapter: walk in the Spirit, but this word is different, it means to go after, in cadence, to have rhythm, to be in step with the Holy Spirit, to be in step with the Holy Spirit. So, to renew your mind and reconsider, to be a transformed person, you need to have both: direction and cadence.

Many people have a good sense of direction, they aim well but they don't have rhythm, they don't move, you know? I preach in so many churches that are not so filled with the Spirit, charismatic, and I tell them: look, brothers, when Christ comes you go first, and then I stay waiting and when all of you pass in single file, then he will resurrect me. and it will transform me, oh what a humble brother, and why do you say that? Because the Bible says that the dead in Christ will rise first (laughter).

Those of us who live will be transformed. But they still invite me so I continue. No, but seriously the point is that we have not only direction but also rhythm. But on the other hand there are many brothers, especially the Hispanics who have a lot of rhythm but have no direction, they don't know where they are going. Both things are essential: knowing where we are going and at the rate we are going to go, and that demands a clean, healthy mind, pleasing to God. Let's call it a repristinization of the mind, that is pristine, that is clear, meridian, translucent so that the Lord can cross it with his Spirit, a new mind, a realignment of thought, putting it in tune with the Word, a reasoning based on His premises true and clearly biblical. A reattribution of meaning to reality.

When one renews his mind, sees the things that happen to him and does not yell so much, does not grumble so much to the Lord, one accepts the Will. Not because he is a masochist or a push over, or codependent, but because he knows who he is in the Lord that everything helps for good for Him to do. Look, an example. Pablo is preaching and founding churches and that's where Caesar grabs him and says: Paul, why don't you spend a little time there in jail in Rome? And he puts the shackles on him and ties him up and puts him there. And Pablo is now there in prison and says: Lord, how? Who is going to save the world, and preach, and play the guitar?

And God says: I know what I do. And Pablo writes letters from prison because he never had time, he was such a go getter that he never had time to sit down and write letters, so he puts him in jail, he was totally thinking, he's not going to tell me that for the good pleasure, ah! I should write a letter to these Turks out there. And write the Letter to the Ephesians. And he writes: heavy duty theology.

The first three chapters are very, very heavy on such deep theology. But then chapter 4 begins, and do you know what it says? I, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, write to you that you walk worthy of the vocation with which you were called. Why doesn't he say: I, Paul, a prisoner of Caesar, a prisoner of Rome, a martyr for the cause of the Lord, writing a best seller now so that the whole world knows my martyrdoms and my hardships?

No!. He says: God put me here to write this letter, read. He gives meaning to reality, he changes the meaning of what happens, and instead of seeing himself in a chain, masochistically, poorly trapped and complaining: Lord, I am your apostle, what happened, what happened here?, do my will , he writes and writes letters that until now we read and that bless us from a prison to the Philippians.

They put him in, they put him in dry. Do you remember what happened to him in Philippi? Then he writes to them from another prison and says: brothers, rejoice in the Lord. Once again, rejoice, rejoice! How many times does he say rejoice in that letter? That is why Paul reattributes meaning to reality. That's why when the roof rains on you, you say: oh, this Satan ruined my day. No, maybe it's an angel that made a hole for you to look up from time to time. Or if you lose twenty pesos from your wallet: oh, Satan took 20 pesos out of my wallet! No, maybe a poor man was praying that the Lord provide him with bread and he was praising the Lord.

Never judge your circumstances myopically if you don't see God's plan a little bigger. Reattribute meaning, have a good judgement, a reorientation of values, of attitudes, a new feeling. He takes everything from Job, and even the woman says: why don't you curse God and die once and for all? And Job says: God gave, God took away, glory to the name of the Lord. Because we brought nothing into this world and we are not going to take anything with us.

Ray Stateman was a very famous preacher from Palo Alto, and one day he was preaching on the east coast and he came but his suitcase didn't come, he came but his suitcase didn't come. So I didn't have anything to preach with because I only had a t-shirt and jeans. If he had come here, that's fine, but in another Church that needs them to come in a tie and jacket, he couldn't preach.

So he calls the Pastor and tells him: look, my suit didn't come, I have a problem. I can help you?. Does anyone have a suit here that I can wear? Yes, yes, what size do you have? Forty. Long, yes. Thirty-two, thirty? Yes. And after a while a lady comes, knocks on the door, a well-painted black suit, he puts it on, it looks like a tailor's, he seems to have been painted on his body, very happy, he puts on the suit. So he takes the sermon notes and he's going to put them on and he has no pockets. There are no pockets here, neither here, nor here, what a strange suit! But it's because of his wallet, he goes and preaches and after preaching, curious what he is, he says to the Pastor: what did you bring me, where did you get that strange outfit from? No, I don't want to tell you, yes tell me. Well that's a suit I have, a friend has a mortuary (laughs). That is the suit we give to the dead when they go to the drawer because in the drawer we don't need pockets. We brought nothing into this world, we are not going to take anything from this world.

So having content and food, and coat glory to God, amen?. All things help for good even when we don't have it, I know of need, I know of it, I am taught in everything and by everything, I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me. Amen.

So we already have preformed, formed, deformed, informed, reformed, transformed. But the story does not end there because God is conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ.

One more thing: the reformed being is always in conflict between going back and being deformed, or moving forward and being transformed. Being deformed on the one hand and being transformed on the other is the daily struggle of every Christian who knows he is redeemed but still sins. He knows he is redeemed but still misbehaves. He knows that he is redeemed but from there he is guilty for having screwed up again. Yes or no?.

Like Paul who says: I know how to do good but I can't do it. I try to avoid evil but I fall again and I see that in me there is an entrenched sin that does not give up and every day I have to die, every day I have to surrender as a living sacrifice, every day I have to fight with myself because the reformed being is like an executive, who has to make the decision whether to sow for the flesh or sow for the spirit, whether to give in to temptation or let himself be carried away. I had a friend who had a book: I can resist everything except temptation. And that's how we are. We are that way.

God help us to sow for the spirit, to always listen to the inner voice that says: don't go, don't get involved in that, surrender to the spirit, be strong, flee from temptation, do good, follow peace. So being conformed is the stage that God through all things is polishing us towards the image of Jesus Christ, God is the one who frees us from all evil and also makes us partakers of the divine nature. On the one hand it is like a chisel and a hammer that removes everything that gets in the way so that we are a perfect statue.

What is a statue? A statue is what remains after we remove everything that is useless on the side. What remains is the statue. And God looks at you, he looks at me and says: how much lower, let's see the little hammer again. God hasn't finished with me, he hasn't finished with you either, so he's going to continue removing things that hinder the conformation of the image of Jesus Christ in your essence.

That is why all things help those who love God for good, and for that God will do His Will. Apart from the fact that He also adds things, God through good, bad, regular and terrible things, everything helps those who love God for good, pain, suffering, crises, hardships, struggles, nothing will separate us from the love of Christ and that it is that God is polishing us, conforming us, aligning us to the image of Jesus Christ, and finally after being conformed we are glorified, because our bodies will rise up clothed in a heavenly room and there we will understand everything that God wanted to do.

There is the puzzle my brothers. Eternity is coming and from eternity past God has preformed, repeat after me: preformed, formed, deformed, reformed, transformed, conformed and glorified. Did you understand God's plan? We lack time but we are finished, and I hope that God prints this message in our hearts, especially as we approach His table, God blesses you richly and that you may be in His Will.