Talents Versus Spiritual Gifts

By: Gladys Raquel Hernández



Talents are all those qualities or attributes granted to a person and may be either physical, manual or verbal skills. Talents are all those abilities, capabilities, cleverness and creativeness a person has in order to carry out a specific task. Talents are generally found in sportsmen/women, singers, musicians, dancers, scientists, investigators, researchers, etc. However, talents are not limited to our favorite characters, but all human beings have been given different talents, which we cannot always discover inside of us because we have been imposed ways of life that have limited us in our human and professional development many times, what has caused frustration and bitterness to us throughout our lives.

On the other hand, the spiritual gifts are divine attributes, that is, they come directly from our Creator towards our lives due to God´s grace, which is a present we are not worthy of at all. When we open our sincere hearts to God, He distributes different spiritual gifts to all of us according to His will.

The following biblical verses state these concepts:

“The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others. Some of us can speak with wisdom, while others can speak with knowledge, but these gifts come from the same Spirit. To others the Spirit has given great faith or the power to heal the sick or the power to work mighty miracles. Some of us are prophets, and some of us recognize when God´s Spirit is present. Others can speak different kinds of languages, and still others can tell what these languages mean. But it is the Spirit who does all this and decides which gifts to give to each of us”. (1º Corinthians 12:7-11)

Talents as well as spiritual gifts are granted by God because all what we are and have, has been given by God. He has created us to be like Him (Genesis 1:26). He has deposited a soul into each body created (which comprises our minds, thoughts, intellect and emotions), so that our souls are developed, they may encounter our Creator and get redemption (to be born again upon accepting Jesus Christ as savior) in order to get the subsequent eternal life and our incorruptible, glorious and powerful bodies such as the one our Lord Jesus lives in.

We can appreciate the following biblical verse:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ has power over everything and he will make these poor bodies of ours like his own glorious body”. (Philippians 3:21)

The spiritual gifts are: leadership, teaching, knowledge, wisdom, prophecy, science, discernment, exhortation, healthiness, pastorate, faith, evangelism, apostolate, service, mercy and generosity.

God yearns that we open our sincere hearts to Him so that He may not only enter and live into us forever, but He also wishes to distribute spiritual gifts and to spill His infinite Grace over us, due to His tender and good heart. We can grow, mature and develop well as efficient Christ´s soldiers through God´s Grace and the spiritual gifts we receive from Him, in order to carry out our ministries and service to God successfully.

We can view how good God is through this biblical verse:

“If any of you need wisdom, you should ask God and it will be given to you. God is generous and won´t correct you for asking”. (James 1:5)

AMEN!!!

Conversion Versus Religion

By: Gladys Raquel Hernández



The genuine conversion to christianity is the result of the full conviction about the existence of the Unique Living God carried out by the power of the Holy Spirit through His Divine touch called “anointing” and who reveals Jesus Christ, the Savior, to our hearts. The word “anointing” comes from the greek word “Chrisma” = Charisma, which means to rub, to cover with oil. This word gives the idea of a shadow which covers us. The idea of this word is that the Holy Spirit covers us with His traits, qualities and virtues. When the anointing comes to us is when God rubs us and anoints us with the Holy Spirit´s personality. In other words, it is His personality that covers us with His virtues, character and power.

We can view what Jesus tells His disciples as regards the Holy Spirit´s Work, through the following biblical verses:

“But I tell you that I am going to do what is best for you. That is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you. The Spirit will come and show the people of this world the truth about sin and God´s justice and the judgment. The Spirit will show them that they are wrong about sin, because they didn´t have faith in me. They are wrong about God´s justice, because I am going to the Father, and you won´t see me again. And they are wrong about the judgment, because God has already judged the ruler of this world”. (John 16:7-11)

“The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn´t speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen. The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine. That is why I have said that the Spirit takes my message and tells it to you”. (John 16:13-15)

Pursuant to these biblical verses, we can be completely sure and self-confident that the Holy Spirit is among us here on earth and lives into those people who look for Him with all their hearts.

The Holy Spirit reveals Himself to our lives and invites us to open our sincere hearts to Him so that He can enter and live into us forever. The one who accepts Him, will start feeling inside the marvelous flow of His Spirit, who will manifest Himself in any special way that each human being will identify as such. Thus, the individual will become a supernatural being through the marvelous anointing spilt over him, as his Creator will make him perceive this and therefore, He will convince the individual about this. That is, it is a strictly personal relationship with each individual wherein other people do not take part.

Jesus Himself was anointed, chosen and sent to tell the oppressed the good news, to heal the brokenhearted and to announce freedom for prisoners and captives, to show kindness to us and punish our enemies, to comfort those who mourn, to give them flowers in place of their sorrow, olive oil in place of tears and joyous praise in place of broken hearts (Isaiah 61:1-3). That is, Jesus was anointed and trained in order to supply all our needs.

The Word “Christian” means “anointed person” and all the christians have the same anointing as Jesus in different measures. The preaching of God´s Word without anointing, hardens, dries, irritates, kills everything, is boring, makes us sleep and look for another thing to do. This is the result that causes the pursuit and following of a religion, that is, the repetition of words and concepts as a routine, in a mechanized way and done by heart. The individual has neither discernment nor revelation of God´s Word. Thus, he can neither encounter his Creator nor have intimate communion with Him effectively.

God´s Word´s tradition steals effect to the real value of the Word. Therefore, sometimes the christian is lost and diverts himself from Jesus´s doctrine (His correct teaching) (1º Timothy 4:6). It is necessary to be acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures deeply in order to understand how God is and what He demands from us, His children, if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior.

Despite this, God´s power is present everywhere but it is not always activated. That is to say, we cannot always view results with our eyes. Likewise, it is proper to stand out that incredulity and disbelief do not allow God´s power to flow through people. The anointing is like electricity which flows through wire and the anointing´s purpose is to heal, to restore, to train, to sanctify and to take honor and glory to our Lord, Jesus.

“The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you”. (John 16:14)

Furthermore, every single believer should receive a fresh anointing frequently so as to become an efficient Christ´s soldier and to be able to fight well.

We should consider the following biblical verses wherein the apostle Paul refers to his labor within his evangelization ministry to the gentiles (non-Jewish people) and the way all of us can work in different ministries, by also fighting well and being faithful until Jesus´s return:

“I have fought well. I have finished the race, and I have been faithful. So, a crown will be given to me for pleasing the Lord. He judges fairly, and on the day of judgment he will give a crown to me and to everyone else who wants him to appear with power”. (2º Timothy 4:7-8)

AMEN!!!

The Lord Is About To Return

WHY HASN´T JESUS RETURNED TO FETCH HIS CHURCH YET?













By: Gladys Raquel Hernández



“I am coming soon! And when I come, I will reward everyone for what they have done”. (Revelation 22:12)

What does it mean that the Lord is about to return or that Jesus is coming back soon?. Will the Lord be referring to a chronological period of time, which sounds reasonable for our quite limited human understanding?

It is important to analyze the following concepts:

The last order Jesus gave to His disciples before He were raised to the sky in His glorified body, was that they should be spread throughout the countries bearing the Good News about the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world”. (Mark 16:15)

Furthermore, the Great Commission states:

“Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world”. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Jesus also promises the following:

“I will send you the one my Father has promised, but you must stay in the city until you are given power from heaven”. (Luke 24:49)

Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit, who would remain definitively on earth until Jesus´s second return, in order to fetch His church: the Lamb´s bride. (Revelation 19:7)

We should consider the following biblical verses when Jesus appears in front of His disciples after having been raised from the dead:

“After Jesus had greeted them again, he said: I am sending you, just as the Father has sent me. Then He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit”. (John 20:21-22)

Likewise, Jesus promises:

“Then I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you. The Spirit will show you what is true. The people of this world cannot accept the Spirit, because they don´t see or know him. But you know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep on living in you. I won´t leave you like orphans. I will come back to you”. (John 14:16-18)

After Jesus were raised from the dead and taken up to heaven where His Father is, the Apostle Paul also refers to His second return to the earth, which is very important for the church.

“With a loud command and with the shout of the chief angel and a blast of God´s trumpet, the Lord will return from heaven. Then those who had faith in Christ before they died will be raised to life. Next, all of us who are still alive will be taken up into the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the sky. From that time on we will all be with the Lord forever”. (1º Thessalonians 4:16-17)

These events have been foretold two thousand years ago. Therefore, What do we understand when it is said that the Lord is about to return?

The Sacred Scriptures state that neither Jesus nor the angels know the day or hour of Jesus´s return, as only the Father knows. (Matthew 24:36 – Mark 13:32)

One of the signals registered in the Bible about the Lord´s return is:

“When the good news about the kingdom has been preached all over the world and told to all nations, the end will come”. (Matthew 24:14)

At present, God´s people are working all round the world in order to spread the good news to the people who have never had an encounter with Jesus, specially in those countries wherein the Sacred Scriptures´diffusion is forbidden. Likewise, God warns us to continue evangelizing people these days as Jesus Christ´s disciples did two thousand years ago, by making us feel interest in His kingdom of love, peace and joy.

Why hasn´t Jesus returned to fetch His church as He promised, in spite of the great effort in evangelization carried out up to now?

The answer to this question is that we are more than six thousand million people living in the planet and everybody should have at least one encounter with Jesus Christ, the Savior, during his life, and most people haven´t had any opportunity yet due to different reasons. In general, God´s Work is developed slowly, due to the negligence, carelessness, laziness, disobedience, incredulity, disbelief and even lack of organization on our part to spread the good news effectively. The Lord yearns to reach a great number of people worldwide who have accepted Jesus as their savior and have repented of their sins, in order to get the eternal salvation of their souls.

Pursuant to God´s criteria, He still feels mercy for us and wants to go on giving us redemption opportunities in order to reach a greater number of people He will consider suitable to constitute His great chosen people, before His coming anger is manifested against the wicked people and the rebels who will not be raised to heaven in order to encounter the Lord and who will suffer the Great Tribulation.

We can appreciate the following biblical verses that express the concepts hereinabove mentioned:

“From heaven God shows how angry he is with the wicked and evil things that sinful people do to crush the truth”. (Romans 1:18)
“But you are stubborn and refuse to turn to God. So you are making things even worse for yourselves on that day when he will show how angry he is and will judge the world with fairness”. (Romans 2:5)
“They also tell how you are waiting for his Son Jesus to come from heaven. God raised him from death, and on the day of judgment Jesus will save us from God´s anger”. (1º Thessalonians 1:10)
“This will be the worst time of suffering since the beginning of the world, and nothing this terrible will ever happen again”. (Matthew 24:21)

Other biblical verses that mention God´s anger are in Revelation 16:1 – Romans 5:9 - Luke 3:7 and Matthew 3:7

God is good and merciful, but according to the biblical prophecies, He will spread His anger over the wicked people and the rebels who have not accepted Jesus, during the time of the Great Tribulation and He will save His church from His anger (dead in Christ raised to life and alive people transformed who have accepted Jesus), who will live with Him forever.

According to God´s time, the period is already fulfilled to send Jesus to fetch His redeemed church. It was fulfilled on June 7th, 1967 when Jerusalem, which had been in possession of the Hachemite Kingdom of Jordan, was recovered by Israel. (Luke 21:24)

We can appreciate the following biblical verses:

“So be on your guard! You don´t know when your Lord will come. (Matthew 24:42)
“Always be ready! You don´t know when the Son of Man will come”. (Matthew 24:44)

Despite the fact that God has drawn our attention and has warned us about all these events to happen, His Word has been distorted throughout the centuries with the introduction of the many diverse religions and sects which have confused the human race and have diverted people from Jesus Christ´s doctrine (His correct teaching). We can only understand the spiritual world and Jesus´s wise doctrine, when the Holy Spirit is revealed to our lives, because God gives us understanding and wisdom to that effect.

We should consider these biblical verses:

“Don´t keep changing what you were taught about Christ, or else God will no longer be with you. But if you hold firmly to what you were taught, both the Father and the Son will be with you”. (2º John 1:9)
“If you teach these things to other followers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. You will show that you have grown up on the teachings about our faith and on the good instructions you have obeyed”. (1º Timothy 4:6)
“Titus, you must teach only what is correct”. (Titus 2:1)

At present, God is looking for servants (men and women) engaged in their responsibilities, in order to spread the good news all round the world effectively because His purpose is to fulfill His Work in our lives and He will do so as it is already foretold in the Bible. God yearns to touch you with His Holy Spirit and that you allow Him to mould you so that He can guide you and direct your life according to His purposes.

“They replied, Have faith in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved! This is also true for everyone who lives in your home”. (Acts 16:31)

I would like to finish this article with a biblical verse that is a noble and marvelous God´s promise that springs from His tender heart. It is the promise that encloses all the promises. It is the plan that God Father, God Son and God Holy Spirit sealed at any time of the eternity, when you and I did not even exist, when the world did not even exist. The Three of Them in One (the Holy Trinity) thought about you and me and loved us so much that they decided to create us to be like Them (Genesis 1:26). Furthermore, they wanted us to rule all over the world!!! (Genesis 1:28). How much love to us! But all of us disobeyed. In spite of it, our heavenly Father amazed us with the good news of getting the redemption of our souls through the sacrifice of our faithful savior: Jesus.

“You died, which means that your life is hidden with Christ, who sits beside God. Christ gives meaning to your life, and when he appears, you will also appear with him in glory”. (Colossians 3:3-4)

We should receive this marvelous promise on the part of our Creator and good God who will always love us !!! (Jeremiah 31:3)

AMEN!!!

Jesus: My Owner, My Lord, My Boss

By: Gladys Raquel Hernández




How many people would like to have a boss like the multimillionaire businessman, mister Bill Gates?

It is such an impossible dream, isn´t it? It is true that this important international businessman has got a quite great number of people employed at his company, but it is a minimum number of people compared to the many million inhabitants who live in the planet, isn´t it?

Many people would like to be related to very important people, to well-off people, in order to have access to higher incomes and to live a good life quality, wouldn´t they?

All of us like to be well: to have a good standard of living, to enjoy good health, to give and receive love in the family. But, many times, in spite of all this, which is good and healthy for our lives, we feel an emptiness inside our souls and generally we cannot explain the reason of it. What is happening to us?

When we encounter Jesus, we start feeling and experiencing that He is who starts filling that great emptiness inside our souls with His love, peace and joy. The Lord is who fills the hollow of the soul. The hollow of the soul takes the shape of God, considering that He is the only One who can fill that place, through His Holy Spirit. Our souls are our true “me” (including our mind, thoughts, intellect, emotions and feelings), and our souls have been created and deposited into our bodies by God. Therefore, they belong to Him exclusively.

As God is the owner of our souls, we start feeling, at any time during our lives, that we need Him badly, that we are hungry for Him. Therefore, we start depending on our good God, by surrendering to Him completely, because the souls act as a magnet and they always try to encounter their Creator and Heavenly Father.

Thus, we start discovering that Jesus is our owner and our Lord. If we let ourselves be guided by His Holy Spirit, if we surrender completely to Him and if we start following and serving Him, we will discover with love that He is the best boss we can have: The Almighty and eternal King who lives in a glorified body, who has promised to us an eternal body such as the one He lives in (1º Corinthians 15:52-53). Jesus will always train us in order to work for Him and He will highly reward us.

We can appreciate the following biblical verse:

“We will be rewarded if our building is left standing”. (1º Corinthians 3:14)

Furthermore, God has promised to us that He will always love us and will give us eternal life!!! (Jeremiah 31:3 – John 12:49-50)

AMEN!!!

Who Are God´s People?

By: Gladys Raquel Hernández



“But you are God´s chosen and special people. You are a group of royal priests and a holy nation. God has brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now you must tell all the wonderful things that he has done. The Scriptures say, “Once you were nobody. Now you are God´s people. At one time no one had pity on you. Now God has treated you with kindness”. (1º Peter 2:9-10)

God´s people comprise all human beings who, after having had any personal encounter with Jesus Christ, have been taken aside from the world´s system, have accepted Jesus as their personal savior, have regarded themselves as sinners, have humbled themselves and surrendered completely to the Lord.

God´s people include all the people who have decided on their own to go out of the darkness where they were confined to: some of them were oppressed, others were captive (tied to alcohol, to drugs and to all kind of dependencies), others were imprisoned (blind: out of panic, obsessions, anxieties, conceit, pride, arrogance, etc.), others were broken (damaged and hurt in their heart, shattered and broken down), others were sick, and God took them to His admirable light.

God´s people include all the people who, even though they are living on earth, they are governed by spiritual laws and are included into the greatest group of people (all the inhabitants of the world) who are governed by the world´s system.

It is important to consider the following biblical verses where God calls Abraham, who is considered the faith´s father:

“Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. I will bless anyone who blesses you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you”. (Genesis 12:1-3)

We can appreciate through these biblical verses that God´s chosen people arise as from Abraham´s call, as God promises that all the families on earth will be blessed through him. Abraham believes and obeys God, his Creator. Therefore, he is our faith´s father.

We should consider the following biblical verses:

“The Scriptures say, “God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in Him”. (Romans 4:3)
“God promised Abraham a lot of descendants. And when it all seemed hopeless, Abraham still had faith in God and became the ancestor of many nations”. (Romans 4:18)

Likewise, God´s people have received revelation on the part of God in order to start viewing the spiritual world, to know their Creator and to have an encounter with Him, to have intimate communion with Him, to be despoiled of themselves, to follow and serve their God with all their hearts, as their father Abraham did, just by being faithful right to the end of their lives, in order to get eternal salvation. (Matthew 24:13).

God´s people have decided on their own to follow their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, considering they have free will to do so, and no one compels them to follow Jesus.

God´s people have decided to pay the obedience´s price, to make a great effort and to be brave in their ministerial works, which have been granted by their Creator and they are not ashamed of the good news.

We should consider these biblical verses:

“I´ve commanded you to be strong and brave. Don´t ever be afraid or discouraged! I am the Lord your God, and I will be there to help you wherever you go”. (Joshua 1:9)

“I am proud of the good news! It is God´s powerful way of saving all people who have faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. The good news tells how God accepts everyone who has faith, but only those who have faith. It is just as the Scriptures say, “The people God accepts because of their faith will live”. (Romans 1:16-17)

God´s people are God´s chosen and special people. They are a holy nation, that is, the faithful are called God´s children upon having accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, and who have been washed and hallowed by Jesus´s blood. This makes them different from the rest of the world´s human beings.

We can appreciate these biblical verses where God regards us as His children:

“Think how much the Father loves you. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are. But since the people of this world did not know who Christ is, they don´t know who we are. My dear friends, we are already God´s children, though what we will be hasn´t yet been seen. But we do know that when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is”. (1º John 3:1-2)

“Before the world was created, God had Christ choose us to live with him and to be his holy and innocent and loving people. God was kind and decided that Christ would choose us to be God´s own adopted children”. (Ephesians 1:4-5)

“But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away”. (1º John 1:7)

God´s people constitute a “group of people acquired by God”, who have been taken aside from the ordinary world in order to enter a spiritual world on their own, having got mercy on the part of God. Even though they can view the spiritual world with their spiritual eyes, they can also view the world´s system perfectly well (the one we all know) around them. But, those people who belong to the world´s system can neither view nor understand the spiritual world and God´s people, because there are things which are discerned spiritually when the individual makes up his mind to open his heart to God.

We should consider the following biblical verse:

“That´s why only someone who has God´s Spirit can understand spiritual blessings. Anyone who doesn´t have God´s Spirit thinks these blessings are foolish”. (1º Corinthians 2:14)

God´s people comprise different human beings who are part of Jesus Christ´s Body: The Church, the Lamb´s bride (Jesus Christ: the bridegroom)

We can appreciate these biblical verses:

“But God has put all parts of our body together in the way that he decided is best”. “It takes many parts to make a single body”. “Together you are the body of Christ. Each one of you is part of his body”. “First, God chose some people to be apostles and prophets and teachers for the church. But he also chose some to work miracles or heal the sick or help others or be leaders or speak different kinds of languages”. (1º Corinthians 12:18-20-27-28).

Every human being who wishes to get out of darkness (the world´s system), may do so, and he may enter the spiritual world on his own and be part of God´s people, because God does not make any difference among people and He yearns that all of us repent for our sins.

We can consider the following biblical verse:

“And God created us all; he has no favorites, whether rich or poor”. (Job 34:19)

You must decide where to live all your eternity, as you are a soul created by God and the same will never die. Even though the church of the Lord will be taken to His presence, according to the biblical prophecies (1º Thessalonians 4:16-17), all the inhabitants on earth who have rebelled against God, or have not encountered Jesus during their lives for different reasons whatsoever and, therefore, have not been taken to heaven, will be raised to life after Jesus Christ´s Millenium´s Kingdom on earth (Revelation 20:4) and they will undergo the Judgment at the Great White Throne. Those people whose names are not written in the book of life, according to God´s will, will be thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulfur. (Revelation 20:11-15 and 21:8)

If you have not encountered Jesus yet, you are still in time to be part of God´s chosen people!

AMEN!!!