Invest in your marriage

What do you want to improve in your life? Invest in it. To what you give to, it increases. To what you don't give to, it decreases. Normally we just give to the professional area: school, college, and other studies that usually aim to improve our professional capacity so we can make a good living. That's a necessary thing to do, but most people fail in improving another area that's even more important: marriage.

Many of the problems a family faces, and normally the ones that hurt the most, are in this area; and also it is one that most of us invest in the least, if there is any investment at all. This is one of the main reasons of the failure in marriage nowadays, because to what you don't give to, it decreases.

What's the solution? Invest in your marriage! Because to what you give to, it increases!

Those that enjoy a great marriage, it's not because they were lucky, but because they knew how to invest in it.

How do we invest in our marriage? Reading books, going to seminars, getting a mentor, listening to teachings. Doing all of these is TO GIVE to your marriage, therefore, your marriage will improve, you'll become a better husband/wife. Your spouse and children will thank you!

Do this continually. For example, if you finished a book on how to be a better husband, don't wait a year to start another one! The investment in your marriage has to be constant. Consistency is the key!

Being a better husband/wife is one of the things that's going to give you more fulfillment than any other thing. It's much more rewarding than being successful in your finances. So, in a weekly basis, sacrifice two or three our hours of something, like social media, TV or any other leisure. No having time its a just lame excuse. You do have time! It just matter of wanting it enough.

If you are a husband/wife, or if you are in a relantioship with somebody, or even if you are single dating no one, prepare yourself to be a better husband/wife starting now. Invest yourself in that area. Don't let yourself to be taught by movies, or by friends and family that, even though they want the best for you, they are just going to be telling you things out of their experience, which, in many cases, are not necessarily right. Follow the example and teaching of those that you admire in that area, of those of which you want to be like. Remember this: fill yourself of what you want to come out of you. That knowledge won't come to you by chance, it has to be sought.

Hope it helps!!

How to Juice

When you juice, you can combine cucumber, carrot and spinach. It not only has a good flavor, but also it's a good combination of vitamins. If you want, you can add to it celery, ginger and/or beetroot. In fact, you can add whatever you want. I recommend you to not combine veggies with fruit, because I heard that's not good for you. But above all, do it with much love, specially if it is for your wife!

I DON'T LIKE JUICING, but I felt that my heavenly Father was telling me that doing so is my ministry. And not any ministry, but your main ministry. I felt that He was telling me that I have to learn to do it with the same willingness, joy, excellence and anointing as when I taught behind a pulpit, because she, my amorcito, my Ceci, is my main ministry.

I understood that it'd be useless for me that I can give good teachings to many if I don't know how to serve her. I understood that when serving, it doesn't mean that you're gonna do ALWAYS what you like, and this doesn't mean that it doesn't have to be done with all willingness and excellence, always improving in what's being done.

Maybe the most important thing that my dear Father revealed me is that my marriage is not the preparation for my real ministry, but it is my real ministry! Whatever comes next will rest and develop on the foundation of our marriage. In the same way that the tree branches are sustained and nourished by the trunk, all the public ministry areas that my heavenly Father will add to us will be sustained and nourished by my marriage with my beauty (that's how me and my boys refer to her at home).

This changed everything in me. And it still does.

This revelation is the main anchor to which I constantly hold on, it's the main energy source when I have to do something for her that I don't want and it is my main "north", my compass that helps me to find the way and guides me everyday in my marriage.

When I received this, I remember that I felt the same presence of my loving Father that I felt teaching behind a pulpit, but this time it was making a papaya juice. While tears were coming down, I took it like a confirmation of the real, powerful and fundamental that this would be to me.

I hope this testimony may have helped you.

May our Father keep blessing you!

A TOP Marriage

Is your marriage to the fullest? Do you enjoy it? I want to share with you three ingredients to enjoy a TOP Marriage.

T - Time Together
Nowadays it's so easy to keep oneself busy. It's weird to have a free morning. Even vacations are busy, that's why we come back from them tired! We take, without realizing, this lifestyle to our marriage with grave consequences.
Remember that, after God's, your time with your spouse is the most important thing. You have to understand (because we haven't been taught so) to set time apart to spend it with him/her. THAT'S PRIORITY. THAT'S URGENT. Everything else, including your children, job and the rest of your family, cannot occupy the time that's meant ONLY for your spouse.
Get a time aside weekly: a Monday night, a Sunday morning, a Friday afternoon, etc., in which he/she will know that you both will be together. That not only will strengthen the communication between you and your spouse, but also it'll make him/her feel more important.
There will be moments where there may be exception to the rule for something that comes up, but if those exceptions become often, do not deceive yourself, and recognize that you're not giving him/her the time he/she deserves. Who decides if the exception already became often? Your spouse!

O - On Prayer
A while ago I heard a statistic of divorce in the United States that said: 3 out of 5 marriages end up divorcing, but if the couple starts to attend a church, the divorce probability goes down to 2 out of 5. But if the couple not only attend the church, but it gets involved, and also take courses for marriages and seek some counsel, the divorce rate reduces to 1 out of 5. BUT if the husband and the wife pray together regularly, 1 out of 1250 couples get divorce!
And not only praying together will keep you from divorce, but also, among its many blessings, it is the key to a much deeper intimacy with your spouse and the place where our loving heavenly Father pour out of His wisdom and direction for the problems you may face, and vision for you two, as a couple, may take what He has for you.

P - Purpose to Forgive
If you want to enjoy your marriage to the fullest, you won't be able to do it if you don't learn to use the weapon of forgiveness. And I told you that you won't be able, not because I'm pessimist, but because there is a reality: as much you as your spouse are imperfect; therefore, sooner or later, and more often than you think, you two will be offending each other. That's why you have to purpose to forgive.
Forgiveness is a weapon of personal defense. It's for you. It'll take care of your heart. It'll protect it. Purpose to forgive constantly! The more you forgive, more protected you will be. If you only forgive when a big offense comes up, it'll be difficult for you to do it, you'll make excuses, you won't know to forgive. That's why you have to forgive even the small and everyday offenses.
A successful marriage is not composed of people that never hurt each other, but of two persons that learnt to forgive each other.

If you practice these three ingredients and make them yours to get a TOP Marriage, people will say eventually about your marriage: "How lucky they were to have a marriage like this!", and then you will be able to answer: "It wasn't luck, it cost me a lot of work, but my Jesus never left me."

Hope this helped you! 😉

Choosing the Right Girl

One of the women's main complaints is men's indecision. There are those that are waiting for a sign from heaven to finally choose a girl, those that are dating somebody only to see if she is the right one and those with years being a couple, but still don't decide to get married.

Dr Edwin Loius Cole used to teach: "Decision is the mark of a man."

I think that the problem resides on man's insecurity to make a wrong decision. "But, what if I choose wrong, if she isn't the right one?", they say. I think that that insecurity is based on the error of thinking that the whole relationship will be "a bed of roses", and that's why married men assume that the reason of their marital problems that they'll go through is because they chose wrong, which takes them to the logical solution of getting separated, instead of to solve the problems together.

Remember that a great marriage is not found, but built.

Principles
God doesn't have to choose for your. You have to do it, and He'll bless your decision. Obviously, there are principles in His Word by which you have to make a decision, but the decision will always be yours.

The principle that I like the most is: do not be unequally yoked together (2 Corinthias 6:14), because it doesn't refer only to not yoke together with somebody that doesn't believe in God (because of the conflicts that'll come for it), but not to yoke together neither with somebody that doesn't share the same vision and call, because you'll get frustrated for not getting the support you'll need.

Other principles are: Learn to work first (Genesis 1:18-22, before God brought Eve to Adam, He first made him work), seek for your leaders consent (Hebrews 13:17).

When you make a decision according to the principles that our Heavenly Father gives, that decision is already according to His will. You don't need to ask Him if He agrees or not because you're already doing it according to His will.

For example, when God told Joshua to take the promised land, He gave him limits in which Joshua had to conquer (Joshua 1:4). Joshua didn't have to be asking God if it was His will or not to attack any city, because His will was already given.

The same happened to Paul. He knew that God called him to preach to the non-Jewish people, so that's why we don't find record of Paul praying to know if it was God's will to preach in Corinths, Ephesus or Thessaloniki, because he knew he was doing His will.

Recommendation
We recommend in church to have long friendship time, a short period of engagement and marriage for all your life. When we say long friendship time, we mean that the guy has to choose a girl among his friends, where they both had already the chance to know each other and to be authentic. The problem is that many guys think that long friendship time means to wait for a new girl sent by God and first to seek intentionally to be her friend in order to get to know each other. That's when he starts dating someone he didn't even know. If you do that, it's almost for sure that you won't be authentic in that process of being friends, but you'll feigning to impress and, sooner or later, the mask will fall.

If you are single, choose somebody among your friends, that loves God like you, that is serving like you, that wants the same as you. Go and ask your leaders or pastors what they think, and then, go ahead and win her heart, and decide to love that woman. Start that relationship with confidence and boldness knowing that your heavenly Father is blessing that relationship because you are doing it according to His principles.

Hope it helps!

The blind leading the blind

Many make this mistake: They confuse love with wisdom. How's it? When they have a problem, they look for advice from the people they love instead of from the people that know what to do about it. Of course, if the people they love are the ones that know what to do, that'd be perfect.

It's usual to see people seeking for advice concerning a marriage problem from people that are in a worse situation, or seeking for a financial advice from the ones that are constantly in debt, or advice concerning of how to be free from an addiction from the ones that are in the same way for years. The blind leading the blind, lost people guiding lost people. If you've been doing that, surely you've realized why you're not prospering in that area.

When you seek for help, seek for help from someone that, at least in that area, have gone further than you. It's not necessary that that person has succeeded in all the areas of life so just then to ask for advice. Besides, if you're going to wait to find someone perfect so just then to ask for advice, I think you'll wait for a looong time.

When you seek for help, seek for help from someone that, at least in that area, have gone further than you.

That's why it's recommendable to have several mentors or counselors for different key areas of your life. The Bible says that there is wisdom in the multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14). For example, you can have someone to help you with your physical condition, someone else (or a couple) to help you with your marriage, another one with your finances, etc. Maybe more than one for each area.

One danger of looking for help for a specific area from people that haven't succeeded in that area is that, most likely, they have justified their failure; so, what you're going to receive is a justification of why they are like they are, dooming yourself to follow the same way. So, don't look for an advice from those that justify their divorce, that justify their bad physical condition, that justify their poverty, etc.

If you want to share your problem to your friends so that you may receive emotional support, go ahead and do it (always with wisdom), but please discern the advices you're going to receive from the ones that you're not. They might be telling you many things out of love, but they're not necessarily the right things.

I hope this may bless you a lot! =)

An Advice that will help you to get your goals this 2018

If you divide what you want to achieve in 365 parts, I assure you that it'll get much easier. The problem that many people face when they resolve to achieve something is that they see what they want as a whole, and obviously what they see is an impossible-to-achieve goal.

What do you want for this 2018? To loose weight, a better relationship with your kids, with you wife, to be free from an adiction? Whatever it may be, you'll get discourage if you think that achieve your goal consists of just one step. Remember this: NO ACHIEVEMENT IS GOTTEN WITH JUST ONE STEP.

Any feat you want to achieve (or that has been achieved) will require time, sacrifice, care, discipline, perseverance, planing, etc., and obviously you can't apply these on just one day, unless, of course, that you know a person that in one day has lost weigh, gotten a dream marriage, restored his/her children relationship, been free from an addiction, etc.

Just in case, there is no magic pill that will make you to loose weigh without exercising and eating healthy food, and those persons that say to the ones with a great marriage, "how lucky you were to get such a beautiful marriage!", don't know what they're saying, they're wrong, because it cost them YEARS of learning to give in, to forgive, to understand and to sacrifice.

So, more than a goal, see what you want to achieve as a direction for YOUR DAILY STEPS to aim, and these DAILY STEPS, these do have to be your goals! EACH DAY AN INDIVIDUAL GOAL, which altogether will take you to where you want to get.

Learn to find satisfaction in achieving these daily goals, in the little ones, each and every day. Learn to be happy:
- Not only when you got your ideal weigh, but you finished a day of eating healthy and exercising.
- Not only when somebody tells you "how great marriage you have!", but when finished a prayer for your spouse (which is one of the many little steps to get to marriage restoration).
- Not only when you "feel free" from your addiction, but when your day is up and you didn't fall.

Doing this you not only will enjoy the process until you get where you want to go, but also you'll realize that doing exploits isn't something for a few people, but YOU also will feel that can do your own exploit, and you'll know there's nothing you cannot achieve.

Christmas: The answer in form of a seed

What would you like to receive as an answer of your prayer if you're going through a serious illness? Well, I want a miracle!, that in a blink of an eye I may be healed! I think that's what you'd like to receive if you're as the rest of us, isn't it? But, what is what we normally receive? A process, a seed that we have to cultivate, something little that we have to take care of little by little.

The same happen if, for instance, you're going through a crisis in your marriage. All would want that, all of a sudden, everything may be solved, and already a the dream marriage. But, what is what we normally receive as an answer of our prayer? A process, a seed that has to be cultivated, something little that has to be taken care so it may grow little by little.

Being free from an addiction, from debts, having your family problems solve, etc., are normally prayers that our Heavenly Father answers but little by little, using the little we have in our hands, taking us through a process holding our hands, being faithful in little and receiving more every time, from glory to glory and from victory to victory.

What did our Father to save all humanity? Did He send Superman, Goku, Iroman, or an angel? No, He didn't. Our Father sent a baby. He was the Savior of the world but in form of a child. He was a seed that had to grow and go through a process. Our Savior was faithful in little and received more, and then He kept being faithful even to death and inherited eternal glory.

Maybe you are going through a difficult time in some area of your life and are praying for an answer. You know something, it's for sure that your Heavenly Father has already started to answer you, but because of that answer has "form of a baby", probably you didn't realize it, and maybe you're getting despaired and thinking that He hasn't heard you, but it wasn't so.

Open your eyes and see! Surely your answer is already around you! Quit waiting for that "miracle" and, rather, look for the seed of that miracle. Learn to find the extraordinary among the ordinary.

Do you believe that our Heavenly Father JUST STARTS doing something about your problem in the moment when you asks Him for help? In other words, if you don't ask for help, He didn't start doing something about it. Well, if you believed so, you are wrong! He already did something even since before the foundation of the earth, the way is already paved, NOTHING surprised Him! So, ask Him for help so you can see what He is doing, and wisdom and strength so you can go through this process toward your victory.

I hope this helped you =)

If you love your spouse, do not demand

If we read: "Love doesn't demand. Love gives. If someone demands you to prove your love, that person doesn't love you", immediately we think of that guy that manipulates his girlfriend to have sex if she really loves him. (Mental note: shame to him!)

Here I give you some other ways to manipulate which go unnoticed because they're not the most common case, but they are also ways to manipulate your spouse:
- If you love me, have dinner ready for me when I get home.
- If you love me, keep the house clean.
- If you love me, let's go out together at least once a week.
- If you love me, buy me what I want.
- If you love me, be more romantic.
- If you love me, dress as I want.
- If you love me, let's go to church.
- If you love me, read more your Bible.
- If you love me, etc.
Why don't you share other way to demand love that you've seen!

SOMETIMES WE UNCONSCIOUSLY DEMAND TO PROVE THEIR LOVE, and we do that not with our words but with our attitudes: we get moody, offended, we practice the ice law, we become rough, rude, etc. All of this happen if they fail to prove their love we expect.

As you may realized, the things that are demanded aren't bad, but this very fact is what make us think that we're right on demanding them. But this is a mistake. The fact that those things are right, don't make that demanding them to be right.

You can demand obedience to your children up to certain age. But once they grow and want to know the reason before to obey, you'd better know that reason!

Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 in all the versions you want, and I promise that you won't find this: "Love demands". On the contrary, verse 5 says: "Love doesn't seek its own".

So, what can we do to make them change? Well, what would you say to that guy that demands his girlfriend to have sex to prove her love? (Besides that to stay away from her!) "If you really love that woman, learn to wait". In other words, deny yourself for other person.

Renouncing to that desire for love for your spouse giving it to your Heavenly Father is the best way for you to get free of that constant inner dissatisfaction in which you live for not seeing your desire coming true. When you understand that your happiness has to be based on the fact that God is with you and not on that your desires come true, you'll start living in freedom

That desire of demanding your spouse, if you give it to your Heavenly Father, He can calm it down, appease it, and even take it away from you. And not only that, but He can help you to really love because He is love!

Of course that you can apply this principle with your friends, relatives, etc.

Why don't you share this to someone, but not so that that person may change, but to tell him/her: "Look, this made me reflect. I will ask for help to my Heavenly Father so that I may change" 😉

I hope this helped you! =)

Don't criticize your spouse. Highlighting the good things is better!

Point out the good things to others as you want others to point out your good things." That would be the Golden Rule paraphrased.

Who doesn't like others to point out one's good things? I think that everybody likes it! The problem is that we normally criticize more than to point the good things out.

Most people focus on effectiveness, and they think that by criticizing, telling somebody off and just pointing out the problem, they make that the problem to be corrected. Big mistake!

The husband focuses on the problem when he says to his wife: "Why are you late all the time! I'm sick and tired that the house is a mess! You just demand things from me all the time!", etc. And the wife focuses on the problem when she says to her husband: "You never pay attention to me! You are good for nothing! You're not romantic at all!", etc.

Are those problems for real? Yes, they are. Do they have to be solved? Yer, they do. But that's not the way.

Maybe your spouse isn't good doing that because that's not his/her natural ability, maybe nobody taught him/her or maybe she/he lacks motivation. Regardless the cause, pointing out the bad things won't help him/her to change.

When you highlight a text in a book, what is the first thing you see next time you open that book in that page? The first thing you see is what you highlighted! It happen the same with your spouse. If you just highlight his/her bad things, the first thing you'll see in him/her will be the bad things! But, if you highlight her/his good things, the first things you'll see in him/her will be the good things!

So then, if you learn to focus on your spouse's good things rather than the bad things, and then you highlight those good things rather than the bad things, soon you will be enjoying a very much better marriage!

Constantly tell your spouse the good things he/she does! Don't wait for him/her to do a big feat for doing it! HIGHLIGHT TO HIM/HER THE LITTLE THINGS THAT HE/SHE DOES WELL ON A DAYLI BASIS! That's the best way to help him/her to change!

"Your food is so delicious! You're so neat! You clean so good! I'm so glad you've got home! You're so beautiful! I just love watching you playing with the kids! Thank you for being with me! You're a great man! You're a great woman! Thanks for exerting yourself for us!", etc. And if you say these things publicly, oh yeah!, get ready for a good reward!

Of course that you can apply this principle with your friends, employees, coworkers, etc. Get the habit of adding with your words value and life to the people around you. Make them feel good around you.

Hope this helped you!

The best moment to destroy your enemy

We all have fought (or we're currently fighting) against a worst enemy: an addiction, sicknesses caused by wrong-feedind habits, marriage problems, financial problems, etc. For many of us, it was very difficult to overcome it; others, sadly they're still fighting. But all of us have committed this mistake: we've let our enemy to grow.

Our enemy hasn't always been so strong. For most of us, there was a time when this enemy was weak, and because of we thought that is was harmless, we let it live with us and we let it grow. It was then that:
- "It was just a try, everything will be fine!", turned into stealing your own family to by drugs.
- "I don't have to tell my wife everyday that I love her, we are very happy this way!", became into an unbearable marriage situation caused by indifference.
- "We're just taking, besides she needs my help, my wife will understand", turned into adultery.
There are many example of this.

Psalms 137:9 says: "Happy is the one that seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks". It is for sure that the psalmist claimed this hard-to-hear words at seeing the atrocities that Babylon did to his people when they captured them and took them into captivity, but the Holy Spirit let them recorded in order to take advice from it. What is the advice? The best moment to get rid of your enemy is when he is small, that's to say, when you are still stronger.

Now, in this moment of your life, maybe you are living with your worst enemy, but he is still "a child", he's small, you are still stronger. Maybe you've already recognize him, but you're underestimating him, or maybe other people close to you recognized him, but you're not listen to them, you think that they're exaggerating. Do yourself a favor and get rid of your enemy now that you can! Do not let him become stronger! Attack him and destroy him completely once and for all! Because if you don't do it, your enemy will grow stronger, and he will destroy you.

Hope it helped you =)

The Power that Jesus gave to my Son

When Juan Esteban was two years old often suffered from nightmares. My wife and I were so worried because we saw his little face full of fear when he cried and called us at nights.

One night, I run to his room because he was crying once again, and when he saw me, he hugged me, and then he was frightened as he pointed to one corner of the room. When my wife and I looked at that direction, we saw nothing, but it was obvious that he could see something.

We prayed for many weeks until one day we talked to him about the authority that Jesus has given to him. We could feel that Jesus was talking to him in that moment. We said to him: "Son, Jesus has defeated the devil, he has no power and no authority over you. You can kick him OUT of that place because you have the power of Jesus!"

To be honest, we didn't know how much he understood us until that night, because we didn't wake up anymore because was crying or because he called us, but because we heard him yelling: "Out! Out!" Our son, being only two years old, was kicking the devil out of that place.

(this picture is when he was two)

I am absolutely sure that the answer of our prayers for him was that we felt to talk to him about the authority and power that Jesus gave him. I would never thought to do that because by natural instinct I myself was to defend him, specially at that age, but I can see that my Heavenly Father, who loves him and takes care of him more than me, wanted to defend him Himself. Instead of Juan Esteban depends on me, my Heavenly Father wanted him to depend on Him.

Moral: Better than worrying to take care of your kids all the time, let's teach them that the Almighty One, the Creator of everything, is their Father and that He Himself defends them.

I really hope this may bless you!

I'm a rich man

My friends threw me a surprise party for my 40th birthday. They really surprised me! But in the middle of the celebration, I realized something: I am a rich man!

Seeing so many shows of affections of people that means so much to me, as many in the party yesterday as by phone or texts, it was just great. When I got home, my eyes were opened again to something very simple: I have a house! And then, I started to thank in my heart for everything I have: a place to sleep, food in my fridge, a fridge!, furniture, a car, a job, etc., and these are only the material stuff.

What really fills my life is the privilege of sharing my life with such good heart people, which I have as companions, friends and family, as many near to me as in other countries, from which I constantly learn and I'm able to see God's love in each of them.

I could tell how blessed I was by each of them and there are some tales to tell, but if I did, it'll be so long that you won't read this post! hahaha. Leaving jokes aside, I just want to acknowledge one person: my Ceci, my amorcito.

Amorcito, thank you for loving me and being by my side! You give so many reasons to be thankful for having you that I just don't know how to start. Your heart doesn't just make me to fall in love with you, but also it challenges me to be like you. Everyday you inspire me and challenge me to be better. With your example, you bring out the best of me. You believe in me even when I gave you reasons for not doing it. You are beautiful my love!

Romans 5:8 says that our heavenly Father loved us even when we were sinners. My amorcito, you are the person that daily shows me that love of my Father, because, after Him, nobody knows me better than you, and in spite of that, you still love me.

I am the richest man of the world for having you, the most precious possession of my heavenly Father.