It's a new day

New every morning
Lamentations 3: 23. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness.
Ps 100: 5. The LORD is good and his mercies are everlasting

If you are not a morning person and you are just like me, this piece of blog will be great for you. I have always been a night person. God has always given me great messages to preach while I was showering or going to bed, then I had to stop and write everything down before I would forget. Well, On a Sunday, 24th of January 2010 God gave me a breeze of thought that changed my mind. On this day my wife would go to work at 7am and I was to take her to work and later on (8:45am) I would go to church. The night before we had prepared almost everything as always, and everything was going on as planned. He would get up at 6:30am, shameful enough, we wouldn’t have time to anything but to dress up and get in the car. No breakfast, no prayer, nothing. We just got used to this lifestyle. For years I would stop and pray and do my readings about 9am when I was already working (what a bad example and model I’m being now, but remember, that’s past now).
Well, it was supposed to be normal day, but not that one. God had decided to change something as usually He does, out of the blue, no warnings, nothing. To start with, I didn’t get to sleep much. Although I don’t sleep more than 6 hours per day, that night was a bit too much, because I went to bed at almost 2:30am. Why? Because I was writing a series God had given to me while showering the night before, doing the draft. Just for the records, my plans were to finish showering and go to bed and watch either “the king of the queens’ or “LOST” but I was interrupted by God (which I love when He does) and the plans didn’t quite work out the way I wanted. Wasn’t it what Jesus said? “ Thy will be done ”Mt 26:42 and Lk 11:2. So let’s live what we preach.
Enough for the introduction let me tell you what happened that morning. My wife’s phone went off about 6:15am and as I heard it I lost any drop of sleep I would still have, but as you know me, it takes some attempts for me to listen the voice of God so I forced myself to a 10min nap, but then when the phone went off again that was it. I was awake for sure and I felt God trying to tell me: Behold and think about the morning, what happens when you wake up, what happens with the day, delight yourself in the beauty of a new day and then you write what comes to your mind so I will inspire you. Well, here is what I came with:
Isn’t it great the feeling of having another day? Think about how many people didn’t make it! The ones who didn’t make it but went to be with the LORD that day are certainly better than us, however, there were probably thousands if not millions of people who didn’t make it to that day, didn’t make it to today and went to eternal life without God, which is terrible. And those are the ones we should be worried about. When we wake up, we are given a currency and believe it or not, we are all given the same amount of this currency called time. That is the most precious gift you could ever receive, and you receive it every single day (when you make it to the day at least). We may not deserve it, but as we read in the first passage of Lamentations 3:23 His mercies renew every morning and that’s why He gives it to you. The question is not whether you get it or not, but what are you doing with this currency? See, in this matter, God work as a investor and in this parable where He is the investor you are the bank/funds/hedges/savings account/shares take it as you wish. The point I’m trying to make is: God is a extremely radical investor, He requires daily returns over His investments because He is the one taking the risk. You do nothing apart from receiving the investment (time) and He takes all the risk. He is so radical that He said: “Ok, in order to make this work I’ll put some investment upfront, even before you could ever think about the investment He was going to make in you” And that investment was Jesus. He offered to you and me, FREE, the benefit of having our salvation. And what does He want back? YOU. Simple as that, once you have matched that investment He made upfront (Jesus) He starts another process. He separates you from the ones who are not trained in the market. Yeah, do you get this analogy? Time (the currency) is given to everyone, regardless his or her creed, beliefs, race, origin. It doesn’t matter, God invests in everyone and surely requires the return, sooner or latter, from everyone, that’s why the bible says we all will settle accounts with Him individually. Well, continuing, He separates you form those who are not trained in the market, meaning, those who do not know how to invest the currency (time). They spend their time doing meaningless things, things maybe for their own benefit, but to us, He has given instructions and has instructed us how to invest the currency. There is a great instruction guide called bible, you can try to make it on your own or you can read the book, learn the instructions, remember you will always fall short even knowing the whole bible, but by GRACE, He will keep giving you insights and instructions. So I want bring this first point to and end with this question: If the investor comes to settle accounts with you now, He is making any progress or wasting his investment? If He is wasting His investment, be sure He has all the rights to change banks so He can take away what He has given you besides the time, maybe your talents, influence, fame, money or whatever it is that you have and transfer to someone else (another bank/funds/hedges more profitable) Read Mt 25:15 onwards and you will understand this perfectly if you look from this perspective. Or, for worst, He may decide to cease the operations from your bank because He just got “tired”(just a way of speaking because God never gets tired) of wasting His investments and doesn’t want to invest anymore, which means that tomorrow, if you are not making any good with the currency He has given you, you may not make it to the next day. Think about it.
But this blog was about the new mornings, and that’s why I love to write my sermons, this way, I can always increment and you and I only benefit from it.
Continuing: the second thing it came to my mind about the mornings and process of waking up was the wonderful feeling of breaking into darkness in bringing life to what was dead. Making something from things that were not. Let’s put it this way for the purpose of illustration: When you go to sleep, you get into a stand by mode, where some of the features of the body are decreased to a certain level, some people may say that you are temporarily off until the next morning. Based on this: What is it that makes your body realize you have slept enough and now it is time to wake up? What is it that makes the day irresistibly comfortable to wake up to? Well, some people may change the day for the night because of their jobs, but they are the only ones who can tell you that it is definitely not the same. We were made to live in the light (day) and avoid the darkness (night). That’s why God separated day and night. And for this He designed a whole system with the sun and the moon and He made our planet rotate around itself and around the sun, so during a period of the day it would be clear, light, warm, comfortable and during the other it would be night. And the reason why He did it this way is because He knew we would have to rest. Now just want to make a point on the sovereignty of God. He created day and night before He created man and woman (Adam and eve). When He created Adam and eve, He wanted them to be eternal, immortal, like we are going to be in heaven. If they were to be eternal, they wouldn’t need any night, why? Because at least as far as I concern, the new Jerusalem will not rotate around any star like the sun. Well, I didn’t have any vision as John had in the book of revelation, but I assume John was so in awe with the moment that He wouldn’t notice if the new Jerusalem was rotating around anything, however He says there was no need of sun because the glory of God was the light of that place. But that is not the point, the reality is, even thou God didn’t want Adam and Eve to sin, He already knew that was going to happen, so He designed day and light for the generations to come. The sovereignty of God is present since the creation of the world, and based on this I can be sure He already had planned my path since before the creation of the universe. That’s interesting isn’t it?
Now, back to the point of breaking into the new. I find it amazing when I wake up now and the feeling of starting a new day flourish inside of me. And now for some reason I feel bad for those people who are always trying to escape for a little nap during the day. I know it is a awesome feeling to have a little nap after lunch, but come one, God already designed a time for us to rest, don’t waste more of your precious time sleeping. Make the math: If you take a nap of 1 hour per day during 60 years of your life it means that you slept 21900 hours which equals about 912 days or 2.5 years. Now could you enjoy in 2.5 years of your life that you would be missing? Maybe a university degree, maybe travelling around the world… And how many people take a nap longer than 1 hour? You do the math yourself. Time is an expensive currency. We all are given the same amount. You have to use it. If you don’t use it you can’t save, you can’t get it back. You can’t save any for the future. You have got to use it now. Now is the time to do whatever you think you should, because tomorrow may not be, and yesterday is gone, you can’t turn back the hands of time. Curious thing for you, reverse the word NOW and you do you get? You get the word WON the past tense for the verb “to win”. That’s what it means, when you act now, you win.
I actually had lots of more things to write about this, however, I know it’s pretty hard to read more than 1 page already, specially on the internet, and if I keep writing things here, you will spend to much time in front of your computer and I would be shooting my own here, going against my beliefs. So, Get out of there and go do something productive with your time.
I’ll see you next time! God bless you and give you wisdom to work with the investment He has made on you! Have a great week!
Pedro

The dream of new creation

The dream of new creation

Hi to all and may the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

This very last night I had a dream that got me thinking and I thought I could share this, but before I start, let me say this: I am not saying this is a prophetic dream; this is not a prophecy or a vision of the heavens or what is still to come. Please, this is just I dream which I thought it was interesting and decided to meditate on it and I CAME up with some reasonable human interpretations which I think it will be edifying and useful to our lives.

Well, here we go: I dreamed that Jesus was coming back in that very moment, and like the bible say, EVERYONE could see him in the sky, and I went out on the streets and every single person was desperate because they knew that was the end of the life as we know and the new Jerusalem was just about to be introduced to us. Jesus was in the act of the rapture of His church. Maybe you have dreamed about this as well in the past therefore this is not news to you or anyone. What called my attention was how I was so hooked into the details. Let me run through the dream then I will try t explain some of the details and what I though of them once I woke up.

Everyone was sort of running in a desperate way because they could see Jesus in the sky but they could not reach him. The fastest you run, the more distant you would be, and the frustration of those running would increase more and more when they would see people running right beside them been magically transformed into a small shinning deity/star/dot call it whatever you want, but it was something incredibly difficult to understand specially for those left behind. (Ok, let’s stop here. You may be thinking: Shinning dots? Yeah, right, maybe it was some inputs from TV I have had over my whole life, but again, this dream is not the bible, it’s not a prophecy, it was something I thought it was interesting and I wanted to share. I connected the dots and I thought it would be edifying for all of us, so just keep reading and stop judging!)

And there would be millions of these shinning dots going up to meet Jesus in the air ( I Ts 4:17) (just like the bible say about the meeting, not about the shinning dots, remember it is just a dream of mine). Even more interesting is that even at this point, when people realized their sins and that the judgment was close, they totally forgot about their loved ones. Fathers were completely ignorant about their children, all they wanted was to grant their salvation, and the same with husbands and wives, friends, whole families fighting for their own salvation but careless about their neighbour or loved ones. Well, Jesus did say, at some point, that He came to bring the sword (division) didn’t He? (Mt 10:34) Anyway, continuing…

After the whole confusion, we found ourselves (the shinning dots) in a place of peace, but nothing was defined yet, you would know you were saved, but wouldn’t know where you were yet. I was still a shinning dot. Then I realize that was a place of creation again. Remember the Chaos that God organized, when he started the whole creation, He separated Darkness from light, created heaven and earth, and at some point He created us? I felt that the same process was about to begin but the funny thing is I that felt like I hadn’t been created yet, it’s like I was about to be conceived in the womb of my mom, but differently from the human life, I knew I was there. I couldn’t pronounce anything, but could hear what was going on. I could feel God but didn’t know how, or where. It was a moment of Awe and at the same time a SELAH moment, resting in the LORD because I know He was taking care of everything. Suddenly I begun to understand the scenario where we where, and I found my self sort of flying over a huge sea and far away in the horizon I could see sand, and we (the million of dots) were been pushed by some natural strength (The wind was blowing us there) and when we got there, although there were uncountable, millions of dots, the place was so hugely immense that I though I was alone and that was my moment with God. Suddenly I felt the shinning light around me going away, but not away from me, but just making room for something else, and that something else was sand. I was gently dropped in the sand close to the shore.

I looked up and I could see Jesus sitting and watching over me. He was sitting on the right side of another throne, which was God the father’s throne. The presence of the Father was there in that throne but He him self was not. I could see nothing but a blinding light but I could see Jesus, and He was stretching out His hand to me (and to all of the other dots that now were sort of sand balls on the shore). He was trying to say: “Don’t worry, I’ll be there in a short moment, that’s just something you need to go through with Him, but I’ll be right here watching and I’ll be back with you shortly”. (when Jesus said “go through with Him, he was trying to say, the Father. Yeah, the Father was not in the throne at this moment, He was right here with me and with all of us starting the creation process out of the sand like He did with Adam. Jesus was there in the throne and then I realized that the presence in the throne was the 3rd person of the trinity, the Holy spirit, not in the throne because that throne belonged to the Father, but the blinding light was the Holy spirit).

It was the process of creation in a sort of second version if we may use this expression, When God first created the man he said: Let us create… He was doing it with someone else; we believe that someone else was Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but anyway, going forward. I felt like something was starting to grow from inside on my newly formatted body. I felt something solid, with no possible explanation, taking place with the shinning light around me. The more solid it would get, less light I would have, but there was still light. When that process was finished, suddenly I found my self as a sand model, ffor me it looked like a doll but I could not say a word of complaint because I felt it was the perfect body, don’t ask me why. There was a body but I could not understand the form, something was missing, and when I looked around, RIGHT THERE BESIDE ME, there was Jesus again, and the Father had gone back to the throne in the highest place. It was like Jesus was trying to say: “I told you I would be back…” But he didn’t need to say anything; I knew what He wanted to say just by looking at Him. We were connected. And we were now with water above our waste as if we were enjoying the weather and the water. I had been kind of transported to the water or somehow I was in the water now (the wind, may God himself just gave me a hand here).

So Jesus looked at me (At this point I told myself in the dream: If this is real thank you LORD but if it is a dream PLEASE do not let me wake up. I WANT to stay HERE! RIGHT HERE!!!) And He said: Why don’t we finish your creation and then we can hang out more. Can you understand how great that place and moments were? I wanted to stay there forever, I didn’t want to wake up and I wasn’t even done!!! Imagine how it will be in reality! So He poured on me some water from the sea and it was like if the sand would start to come off and the body under the sand would be revealed, YES, my body of glory, incorruptible, it was amazing. At the moment I remember the passage in Ezekiel 47 where God takes him to the river, and there water by the heels, and by the knees and the by the waste, but I went even deeper. I dived in the sea once Jesus started to pour the water on my head, then He grabbed me as if I was being baptized and pushed me backwards into the water and when I came back to the surface I knew it was finished. I could feel it. There was no mirror, but I didn’t need it. I was ready to go, my body was finished. And I heard a mixture of songs I really liked and voices shouting as if I had scored the goal in a world cup final match and brought the victory to my team. Heaven was cheering because of my soul, because I was back home now. It was the greatest victory of all (I couldn’t hold my tears while I was writing this). Then as some of you may know my personality I said to Jesus, Well LORD if we are done, can I go and explore more of this? But He looked at me and said, just one more thing:

He would explain to me that at that point I was in awe and I was seeing everything as I wanted to see, which was already awesome. I had a sort of holy discernment that I thought it was wonderful and I was perfect already. But He asked me some trick questions. Here are the questions: “Why do you want to see me with green eyes?” And He would pause for a moment waiting on my reflection. Then another question: “Why do you want to see me the way you see now?” I had no answer, I was lost, and that was the beauty of the moment. I have always been a man who thought had all the answers all the time, but now I had no answer. I try to feel bad, but I couldn’t, there was no guilt, no shame, only a joy entering my soul but I still had no answer. Untill this time He hadn’t used 1 single word. It was just expressions and mutual understanding. It was like He was inside my very mind guiding our conversation. It was like He was Jesus asking but at the same time He was me answering. It was something very difficult to explain.

Then He said with words this time, for the first time. I don’t remember the language, but I understood and saw and heard. There were words coming out of his mouth. Here is what He said: Why don’t we give you the Father’s eyes? And then He touched my eyes. Everything changed. What I thought it was perfect became even more perfect (I don’t know if there is anything more than perfect but if there is that’s GOD). What I thought it was the paradise became home. When I thought I was swimming I realized I could walk on that water. When I thought I could walk I realized I could fly. WOW, that was incredibly awesome. I could see what I didn’t see or haven’t seen for ever. I could see with His eyes, through His eyes, the way He sees.

Once my Awe was gone (it seemed like forever to me while I was admiring everything around but for Him was like a blink of an eye) He made the same with my heart. He asked: Why don’t we give you the father’s heart? Then He touched my heart (By the way I don’t really know if there was a heart, but he touched me from inside and everything changed again. It was like I was seeing everything perfect before, but when He gave me the Father’s eyes, I could see everything Godly. That was more than more than perfect. And I could feel everything perfect before, the wind, the sun (which was not the sun, but the Glory of God) the water, the happiness, but once He touched my heart I could feel everything Godly. Right there I understood what was really communion. I was selfless now. I started instantly to care about the others, and when I looked around, millions of dots were still being created again like I was being before. Some of them were still just shinning light dots, some were already sand balls, and some were getting into the water and I saw God, or at least a Godly being from behind just sort of waving the sand balls in the direction of the water and then going back to the throne., and I wanted to help, but who am I to help (I thought)? Then I joint the multitude that was cheering and shouting when I was created and now I was part of the supporting team composed by some people from the past, some angels (thousands of them) and some people from my generation, I don’t know how I could know the difference between the people from the past and the ones from my generation, I just knew.. And every time we would see someone coming out of the water, we would shout with all our strength glorifying God. It was amazing. It was an endless moment. I only need to remember how it was in the dream and I can feel it, UI can feel the joy, I can feel the emotion, I can feel the gratitude in my heart... When the process of creation finished to all of the other millions of shinning dots/ sand ball/ new beings, I found myself in a wonderful place, sort of a beach, sort of mountain, I didn’t really know, and I didn’t care, but the peace was so great that it was unexplainable. I missed nothing and no one. I don’t know how it’s going to be in details, but I’m pretty sure it will be great. I don’t know if we are going to remember each other, but if you had felt what I felt, you would know that communion is much much much more than missing someone or something.

It was one of the greatest dreams I have ever had and I sure want to repeat that if He allows me to.

Now, think about it. Throughout this dream, what did you see that you could relate to the bible and glorify God?

Well, let me tell you what I saw:

1) I saw desperate people at the beginning running for their salvation. We don’t value the freedom we have to worship God now. We don’t read the bible daily, we don’t take time with God, we don’t serve, and we don’t love. But at the judgment day, every knee shall bawl down and every tongue shall confess that He is LORD. Well, I sure want to be one of the first shinning dots, I don’t want to stay behind, I don’t want to be left behind. I don’t want to have the feeling of being abandoned and I sure don’t want to be one of the selfish people who disregarded their own family and friends worried about reaching out to Jesus in the sky and getting even more distant from him. Think about it and PLEASE take time to do what was supposed to be priority in your life since from the beginning: To praise God all the time with all your heart and soul.

2) I saw how miserable and small we are compared to the greatness of God. In the dream (again, that’s not a prophecy, it’s just MY OWN interpretation) we were just small shinning dots. We were nothing. And we all ended up in the palm of His hand when we got to heaven. Sometimes we think we achieved something by our own strength. How stupid can we be? God needs only to think about you for you to pass away. He created everything. He is the beginning and the end at the same time. How can that be? And still, there are some people who think there is no God. Such ignorance!!! How sorry I am for those who base their lives in nothing. But now, I’m not just sorry but I am afraid for them and I want to convince them of their sins, but unfortunately, it is the Spirit who convinces the men of their sin. All we can do is to warn them, that’s what you and I should be doing right now. How many people you start a conversation daily and do not talk about God. You don’t need to preach to them, you don’t need to be a pastor, you don’t need to be in full time ministry, but you do need to tell them God loves them. Remember the people who were running in the dream right beside me when I became the shinning dot some of them were left behind and then I did not see them anymore? Well, I understood that some of those people were people who I came across at some point of my life and I did not tell them about the love of God, about Jesus, therefore they could not come to a decision. It was my fault. I could feel it while I was running, although I forgot about it once I was in heaven, but wouldn’t it be good to run the running without any weight to carry? Wouldn’t it be better if when the time comes you go straight up and everyone who came across your path or you came across their path were going up at the same time? Think about it. We were still in the streets reaching out and trying to get hold of Jesus in the sky. Why would the people be there with me and not somewhere else? Logically it is because they were around me in my life, they were friends, family, neighbours, work mates and all these people I would have spoke to at least once. DO NOT MISS the opportunity to run the running weightless and go straight up to heaven! Talk to EVERYONE.

3) I could feel in the dream maybe what was the feeling those dried bones felt when Ezekiel had the vision in the valley (Ez 37) when the bones were gathering by themselves and nerves were growing out of nothing around them. There was a creation process in that moment. I could feel something like that when the shinning dot was transformed into a sand ball. It was weird, but it was interesting. And at the same time, I could relate to our lives here. When the bible says that God knew us before we were born, I think that’s what the bible tries to describe. The difference is that in the dream, I was conscious; do you want to know why I was conscious? I think that it was because in the dream, I would never die again, I was being created to be eternal, my body was being renewed, and it was important that I knew the process to understand how I could last for all eternity. When I received the Father’s heart (remember that in the dream I didn’t really know if it was a heart, but it was something). That was it, I came to realize I didn’t need a human machine like a normal body, because our body dies one day, but that was a holy machine that didn’t need repairs, didn’t need maintenance. It was perfect. I believe we all go through the same process when God creates us here on earth. In the beginning of everything, He thought of you, He designed you, He gave you your body. But because we are not perfect yet, because you are going to die on your physical body one day, you have a memory which is given by God, and that memory is not perfect yet, and you can prove that by noticing that sometimes, even being an adult, you forget about many things. When you get old, you lose part of your memory. You may want to ask yourself or God or to me, why do we have an imperfect memory? Well, out of my interpretation I would say that God only wanted you to have a temporary memory for your life here, so you could remember some good and bad things while you are here and these good and bad things you remember would compose your life story, but that memory could not be everlasting, because at the very moment of your second creation, in the moment when your body is being reconstructed and recreated from the scratch, God will need to replace the old memory and throw it away, so He can give you a new memory which is perfect. That’s why all things are gone, everything is made new (that’s what the bible says isn’t it?). You are a new creature. Got it? That is on propose, so God would be able to show you and explain to you in your new creation process what He wanted for us initially, in the beginning, what He wanted when he created Adam and that somehow, men screwed up in the first generation, but through Jesus we are given the right to request our salvation back and consequently to be in heaven with the father and in communion, the way he designed us to be forever.

4) I understood that heaven is perfect. No sorrow, no tears, nothing. I even tried to feel bad when I didn’t know the answer for Jesus’ questions but I could not. Some sort of joy took over me and I could be nothing but in peace and happiness. That’s heaven and if it is anything different from this, PLEASE let me know and point it out in the bible.

5) Now the most important thing of this dream is this: I think I felt what it is to be with GOD really. To be in communion, because I was given the Father’s heart, the Father’s eye, and I could see what He sees, I could feel what He feels. When the bible says that GOD IS love, now I can understand. It’s because GOD can not feel love, He is way more than that. He IS love. I felt it, I knew it. I could feel safe; I could feel His presence in a way I think no one will ever feel in this life. I can try to preach, and I can try to demonstrate that feeling, but it is impossible. I loved it, and I want it.

The conclusion is: I definitely want to be there, and by faith I believe I was called to be there even before I was born, but now in this short life of mine I want to please Him. Not to make up for what He has stored for me, because I would never be able to make up for that, but because I feel like a son who has the best father of all and just want to make Daddy proud. I want to dye with the certain that not only I’ll be one of the shinning dots, but with the certain that When Jesus looks at me when we are in the sea (if that will really happens, remember, it was a dream of MINE with MY OWN interpretation) and I want to hear Him saying: “I told you I would be back”. I want to relax in my life here on earth now and put EVERYTHING of my own in His hands. I want to have the same peace I had when I was there. I want to have the same security, I want to know that He will take care. He will build me up, He will develop me, and still in this life I would love to increase my capability of receiving the father’s eyes and the father’s heart. To love people in the fullness of love. To see people’s needs with no greed. To help without expecting anything in return. To be blessed and feel blessed even before He pours out the blessings. To be a good and faithful servant. To be a son in whom He is pleased like He was in Jesus. To be a son.

I hope this reading has blessed you and inspired you.

God bless you.

The peace of Christ be with you.