Reflection by Pastor Julio Roman
Iglesia Fuente de Salvación, Paterson, NJ
22nd Student Call
THE GREAT COMMISSION THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Saturday 15 June 2024, 8:30AM at The Great Commission Church
53-57 Marshall Street, Paterson, NJ 07501
Blessings
Here we share the reflection that Pastor Julio Ramos made at the 22nd Student Convocation of The Great Commission Institute on Saturday, June 15, 2024 at The Great Commission Church in Paterson, NJ.
The reflection lasts about twenty minutes. We recommend you listen carefully because it has a message about being meek and humble based on Matthew 5:5 which says: “Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth.”
Have you ever wondered if you are meek, truly humble?
In his reflection, Pastor Ramos asked the students and those present, “Are you humble?” Are you really humble? Personally, those two questions made me react and answer them. I suggest that you consider answering them as well.
Pastor Ramos explains what it is to be meek and humble and stressed that one does not serve the Lord if one is not meek. Said, “You can’t minister if you’re not meek.”
With every reflection and every course we offer, we are impacting the spiritual world.
All we do at the Institute is teach God’s Word. Our effort is to develop the potential of each student so that God’s purpose in his or her life is fulfilled.
If you want to gain a solid foundation in God’s Word to activate your ministry, you can do so at the Institute that offers in-person classes every other Saturday and online at your convenience. God’s Word has power.
The next reflection will be this Saturday, June 22 at 8:15 am during the 23rd Student Call of the Institute. Pastor Paula Nieves will reflect on Tithing is a Blessing from God. She will explain what tithing is, origin and what it means based on Malachi 3:10, Numbers 18:28, Deuteronomy 26:12, Leviticus 27:30 and Luke 11:42.
Encourage yourself and accompany our students this Saturday in their 23rd Call.
May God bless you all.
Love.
Nestor Montilla, Ph.D., Dean
Transcript by the Great Commission Theological Institute
Reflection by Pastor Julio Roman, Iglesia Fuente de Salvación, Paterson, NJ
In Jesus’ Name we thank you for this morning. We ask You to bless us, Lord, with Your Word; that You prepare our hearts; that You prepare our spiritual understanding to receive Your Word; to receive this seed, those seeds, Lord, that transform; they become mine, Lord, that penetrate to the depths of our being, to produce, Lord, their fruit. In Jesus’ Name, I thank You, Lord, for this privilege that You’ve given us today to bring Your Word, Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can sit down, my beloveds.
Amen. My thanks for the invitation. For me it is a privilege, it is a pleasant honor to really be able to share The Word of God with you and especially this topic that is called “Meekness”. Amen.
You know what most people do… You should know what most people think about what a meek person is. Perhaps many people think that a meek person is a docile person who is easy to convince; a person that others can impose their will on them. But that’s a misconception of what meekness really is. Amen.
And meekness was really modeled by our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word says in Matthew 5:5, it says, “Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”
That word “humble” is the same word “meek” and that’s what people don’t understand. And that’s what the people in Jesus’ time didn’t understand either, because at that time, they were waiting for a leader. They were waiting for someone who would come to conquer, to defeat the Roman Empire. They did not expect a humble person. They did not expect someone like that with the characteristics of the Lord Jesus.
When the Lord says, “Blessed are the meek,” that is one of the characteristics we must have. It is one of the characteristics that the Lord Jesus had, because He does not command us to do anything that He Himself does not do, that He Himself does not model. He is our model. He is the Lord, and despite being the Lord, He is the owner of the entire universe, the creator of all things. He came and humbled himself. He humbled himself for us. He put us above Him. And I know that for us it is a little difficult… It’s a little difficult sometimes to humble yourself. Amen. But Jesus was meek.
Matthew 11:29 says, and it is what the Lord says to us. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.”
In other words, being meek, being humble has its pay. In other words, it says that we will find rest for our soul. And that, my brothers, only with that, only you live with a free soul; just that, we don’t need any more. In other words, the Lord Himself gives us, only He can give us that peace. Only what the Lord can give we do not find in money; you don’t find it in anything in this world, if those well-wealthy Hollywood people weren’t the happiest on earth. But many of them even lose everything they have. Many lose even their lives trying to find relief, trying to find rest for their soul. In other words, and that is for everyone; That’s for the rich. God’s blessing is for everyone. It is for the poor. It’s for everyone. Amen.
So now when the Lord says, “Be meek and humble” and make it happen that Jesus didn’t say a word; He didn’t curse anyone. Amen. He didn’t answer as many of us would.
Let’s be honest. Are you humble? Are you really humble? Can we humiliate ourselves when someone stands on their callus? And I have to admit it, my brothers. The Lord said that it was not an eye for an eye. He says, whoever asks you for the tunic, he says, give it to him. If he asks you to go with him a mile, go the extra mile. Love.
Now, to be humble, it’s not that we’re weak. Being humble is a controlled force. It’s just that we have control. You are in mastery, in mastery of your body, in mastery of your emotions. You act when you have to act. You abstain when you have to abstain. In other words, God gives you that grace. God gives you that power to be able to manage your body. Love. And I know that sometimes it is difficult for us.
For example, the other day… the church is here on Broadway, and sometimes it’s hard to get parking there. And there was a parking lot there in front of the church and I said, “There’s my parking lot. Thank you Lord.” And while I do like this and I come to park, another one got into me and got in there… Like this. And I got out of the car. I don’t know what I was saying to him, but he barely opened the window, because he thought I was going to get him out of the car. I don’t know if that has happened to anyone. Hallelujah! Or am I just me?
And then from there he said, “You’re the pastor over there, right?” Oh Lord. Yes, you can imagine. And I told him; “Don’t worry, park brother, that parking lot is yours… I look forward to seeing you on Sunday in church.” Let us give the Lord a round of applause.
The Lord is still working with me. Well, say with me, “The Lord is not done with me yet.” And God understands and God understands us.
But that word of what is tame describes a horse with all its strength. But with all that force, without being tamed, it does not serve its owner. It could not be useful to its owner. The lord wants to take all the dominion. The Lord wants to take all control of each of his children, of each one of us.
We say, “You’re the master. You are the Lord.” And that word “Lord,” is the word, “KURIA,” is the word that means “master,” “total authority,” “ultimate authority.”
Now, do we really live like this? To live like this is to walk in the spirit. To live in this way is to let the Lord take his place; take your place in your life, take your place in your heart, and let everything we do be under this feeling, under that presence, under the direction of the Spirit of God.
“It’s not me anymore,” Paul said, but it’s you who lives in me. And the life that I live now, is no longer lived by me, but by the Spirit of Christ who lives in me. Love. And that is a fruit. It is a fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22 and 23 says, says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, is joy, is peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness. Meekness is a fruit and of the Spirit. God wants us to be like this; that we be meek, that we have self-control. Against such things there is no law.
In other words, you are preparing and I congratulate you for that. It doesn’t get any better than that. Know the Lord better. Know more about God. Know who He is. And to know who you are. That is, when you know who you are; when you know that you are a child of God; When you know that God loves you, then you can submit to Him, because He loves you. Because he wants the best for you. Amen. And that’s why we respond to him. It is something that comes from within as a Fruit of the Spirit of God. Amen. It’s nature, my brothers. Amen.
And we made the decision. He doesn’t take it for us. We made the decision to be meek. You don’t serve the Lord if you’re not meek.
You can’t minister if you’re not meek.
One day you are going to go ministering; Or not a day because we minister every day, brethren. You are an open letter to the world. The world sees you. As soon as you said that you are a believer, all eyes are on you to see if you really are what you say. And if in this matter of meekness, it is better not to say that you are a believer. Better not say that you follow Christ.
Because this is a fruit, it’s an identity that people realize and say, “This is a child of God,” because they look at it in you, in your actions, in what you say. That is why it is a decision. Every day we have to decide. Be meek, be humble, just as every day we have to decide to love, to love your wife, to love your neighbor. It’s a decision, not because they’re good, not because they deserve it. God loves you, not because we deserve it. God loves us because he is love and his essence is in you, his essence is in us, and that makes us love, even those who persecute us.
Matthew 10:16 and ended with this verse, it says, “Behold,” he says, “I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be wise, therefore, as serpents and simple as doves.”
The Lord sends us out like sheep. The sheep, my brothers, is harmless. But it also says to be cunning. Love. That is, having that wisdom of God and the wisdom of God is obtained by knowing God, by experiencing the Word of God, by living according to Him, in any situation. Every day you have to make a decision. And when you have the Word of God not planted in you, all your decisions, everything that you do, that’s filtered out, it’s seasoned with presence, with what you know about God, with what you have about God, and that’s what makes you react. Act according to the spirit. That’s walking according to the spirit, walking according to the Lord.
“I send you in the midst of wolves”, that means that you are going to find people who are going to want to devour you, who are going to want to bite you. In the midst of that, how are you going to respond?
There is another separate class that is about giving up rights. It’s not winning, it’s not imposing your will. Many times we are going to have to give up the right. Amen. And in order to manifest this gift, this gift of the spirit, it requires knowing who I am.
1 John 5:1 says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Love.
It is true that here we are all born of God. If there is anyone… amen.
And that is my brothers, it is to have a humble confidence in knowing who I am. The important thing is, what does He think of us?
He says that you are his son. He says he loves you. You are a prince of his kingdom. Now, we accept that from God. We accept God’s feeling toward us. We received it. We accept it. If I’m your son. I accept your love. I accept the blessing that is coming. All the benefits I have with Him. Amen. And that requires commitment. How many are engaged?
In other words, it is not only about being religious. It is not religion that changes. It’s living according to God’s Word. It’s not how I dress. This is something internal. It’s a powerful thing. It’s letting him change us. Let Him transform us.
I don’t know where you come from. I don’t know how things went at his house. Sometimes we can grow up thinking that things are one way. How I grew up, thinking that things were the way the world does. The advice we received before, was like that advice from the world.
When I got married, it was like… they told me: “You are going to have your enemy in your bed”. And he came with these things. We were never going to last, brother. The world is leading us towards perdition. We had to come to the Lord, and know the Lord; to get into the Lord so that our house would have a change because neither of us wanted to submit. Neither of them wanted to humiliate themselves. And you can imagine the war that was going on in the house, to the extent that we could no longer stand each other, after loving each other so much in courtship. Love.
How many want to be happy, want to be happy?
“Blessed are the meek.” “Blessed are the meek.”
Stand up. Hallelujah. We thank You, Lord. Lord, we bless you. Look, Lord, sometimes we’ve been stuck, O God, thinking about the hurts of the past, getting into bad habits, complexes, because You weren’t everything in us.
And now, Lord, in you, in the Lord; Now in the church, help us to change, help us to make legitimate, help us to be humble. We don’t want a mask, Lord. We don’t want to be hypocrites. We want to live as you lived. We want to live your way.
I allow you to change me. Say to the Lord, “I allow you to change me. I commit to you to be a meek person, to be a humble person. To act according to your will, Lord.”
It doesn’t mean I’ll be a rug that everyone can trample on. It means, Lord, that I will seek your righteousness; the righteousness of heaven here on earth, Lord. God’s government here on earth. In Jesus’ name I thank you Dad and I bless you in your name, Lord. I bless every man, every woman. I declare your blessing upon their lives. I declare the fruit of your Spirit, Lord. May it be manifested in their lives for the glory of your name. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. How many say Amen?
Amen. God bless you. Amen. Thank you again for the invitation. Thank you Nestor.
