David Hughes - Por qué no funciona para tí.

Good morning, how are you? It's very good to see you. If you are a visitor, my name is Pastor David. I am one of the pastors and I am using my students, the leaders, my friends. People are going to be training in this university, our praisers, our producers, our video equipment, and what better place to learn those things than in our church. Don't miss a single week. Take your vacation and then return to these classes of God. So, I created a service around John chapter number 10. I love this verse. If you have a copy, look for John chapter number 10. Say it. If you have this Bible, I'm going to put it on the screen anyway. Take notes if you write, and if not, on your smart phone. This is going to be very helpful. I pray that everyone who is online or here present, when I did this message, God put in my heart a very special person. If you are here right now, you are a saved but frustrated person. You are a Christian. You were saved. You believe in Jesus. You were baptized. But you are frustrated. And your reason is that you read all these things in the Bible, and it is preached that God wants to bless you. That he is a good God, your God. He would love to get up in your heart and bless you in a practical and precious way. In a very tangible way. But it never seems that you experience that blessing. Other Christians talk about that. They share their testimonies. I have been blessed. And some in a supernatural way. But you never seem to have experienced that blessing. You have had small trials, but you have never been able to devour that complete dish of God's blessing. Why? Why isn't it working for you? Because many places in the Bible, God says that he is there to bless us. That he wants to bless us. That he wants to favor your life. That he wants to be involved in your life from Monday. So if you don't know that, how do you know? Because personally and powerfully, God's blessing in your life. What do you do if it is not working for you? There are two things. Based on John 10. I missed a weekend. It's my first weekend in 2026. But my mom, who I love very much, got sick a couple of weeks ago in Indiana. And she died. We had to let her go. Thank you, thank you for that. We were very close. We were very close. But she died peacefully in a hospice hospital. And I had to go. And Charlie as well. But we didn't go. And Pastor Nick took our place and did a great job. And in our First Baptist Church, Pastor Lucas, the leader of the Alabanza, preached for the first time. So please, let's give a big round of applause to this great team. And we, the whole family, went to Indiana. My daughter from Nashville went. And we had a great and incredible last visit with my mother. It was a special goodbye. But now that my mother, she came to this church many years ago. And with my father, she sat there in that section. And while I'm talking about my mother, please, it's not going to be sad. I want to talk about her. But my mother would have hated that. So it's not going to be sad. It's not going to be an eulogy or a funeral. I want to talk. And I want to talk about my mom in this way. My mom loved her family. She loved my father, his children, and his grandchildren, his Bible. She loved the church. She loved God. And she loved Dateline. She loved Dateline. Who are Dateline fans? I've thought about it. The women in my family, they all love Dateline. My mom loved Dateline. My wife loves Dateline. My sister-in-law loves Dateline. I hope they're doing that for entertainment and not for research. So I want to talk about my mom. I want to teach you the Dateline verse in the Bible which is John 10. Now, to dissect this, I'm going to go to the second part, part B on the screen. And Jesus does this amazing promise. So I'm going to go to the second part, part B on the screen. And Jesus does this amazing promise.

I want you to have life, my purpose for you is to infuse in your existence a supernatural existence to the maximum, abundant, powerful and personal life. I want you to have the blessings of God in your life, so Jesus makes that beautiful promise, but that is not the part of the Dayline, this is the Dayline, let's say the thief, the thief, who is that? The devil. Jesus is talking about the devil. Oh, but did Jesus believe in the devil? Of course, absolutely, for him it was not a myth, it was a spiritual being, and he describes it as the thief, and what does the thief do? The thief steals, kills and destroys. The thief did it, the devil did it. I see Dayline with my wife, sometimes it lasts an hour, and it's fine, I enjoy it, but when they don't catch the bad guy, sometimes they do it, sometimes they go to trial, the person is not found guilty, they have a suspect, but they don't catch him, it drives me crazy. We know who is to blame in John 10.10. As it says, anything that is good in your life is destroyed, it is the thief. Anything beautiful in your life is taken from your life, it is the thief. The devil did it. The devil is there to look for you, to find you, to throw you to lose your life, and that is all his strategy and all his purpose. Anything good in your life comes out of your life, it is the thief, it is the culprit, and sometimes he has an accomplice, and it is you. Because the enemy tempts me, I say, and I give in, I do something stupid, sinful, selfish. I am also guilty. The enemy is always looking for opportunities, looking for weaknesses to exploit, to make incredible ways to achieve it. The devil never tries to do you a favor, never, not even once. His agenda is always to steal, kill and destroy, that is his motivation. And you say, oh, look at Bob, for example, in the office, he works so hard and the boss never promotes him. The wife never treats him well or appreciates him. The colleagues ignore him, and he is so good, he is so loyal as a husband, so hardworking as an employee. And look at Susan, Susan is alone, she was fired, she is beautiful and vulnerable. Does Bob deserve a little bit of pleasure? And Susan? Ah, and no one is going to know. No! He is out there to destroy you over and over again.

Jesus called him a murderer and a thief. He is trying to destroy Bob, doing that, his reputation, his marriage, his family, his job. He never wants to do you a favor if he tempts you. He is a murderer. Don't listen to him. That is the version of Deadline. Okay? Now let's see what Jesus wants to do. I don't want to kill or destroy anything. Jesus says, I have come to give you life. Life, but not only existence. The Greek word for life is bio, that's where biology comes from. It is a life centered in God, abundant, full of blessings, with peace, with power. That is what God wants for you. But you are frustrated because you have barely tasted that. So what I'm going to do today, verses like this are in the Bible all the time. I like it. I really like Ephesians 3.20, where it says, And that Jesus, who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. Wow! Jesus says, you dream your greatest dream, and I will win you. You go to the place where your imagination can go in excess. And you are looking at the ocean as the sun rises. You dream your best dream, and I will improve it for you. Are you experiencing this or are you frustrated? God wants you to experience it. I want you to understand what your Christian life can and should be. If you've gone through it, I want to talk to you about something my mother did very well. She was a woman of God. She loved her family.

She gave courage to her children, to her grandchildren. Since we were little, we've been going to church. Even though we didn't want to, we went to church. But my mother did the best of all of us. Pies de pecan, sus tartaletas de pecan eran las mejores, ese es el Efesio 320 de los postres. No te lo estoy diciendo, yo no soy un gran comedor de postres, a mi me gusta una buena hamburguesa de queso, pero a quienes le gustan los postres son un buen postre, yo solo te estoy diciendo, esta tartaleta es como crack cocaine, te hace adicto, y yo no soy un comedor de postres, hay sitios como la torta de lava chocolate que venden aquí en Broward, pero el pan de mi mamá, la tartaleta de mi mamá, yo no como postres, pero esto era tan increíblemente bueno, cuando mi mamá estaba en hospicio, Charlie, mi hijo, dijo, ¿será que mi abuela se pone lo suficientemente bien para hacernos una última tartaleta? No es apropiado, pero mi cuñado me dijo, wow, voy a extrañar a tu madre, pero qué cosa, sus tartaletas, espero que pase esa receta a alguien en la familia, es tanto que cuando quedaba una última pedazo, yo me escondía, lo agarraba y lo escondía detrás en algún parte de la nevera para comérmelo yo, así es de bueno, esta es la idea, mi madre amaba hacer esta tartaleta, mi abuela era una gran cocinera country, y aquí hay gente que le encanta hacer postres y tartaletas, que le encanta hornear, y un poquito de esto, mamá nunca me día nada, un poquito de esto, una pizca de aquello, una mano de esto, pero mi mamá miraba a su mamá hacerlo, todo se hacía de esa manera, bizcochos, gravy, y mi mamá veía a su mamá hacer, no sé, mi mamá tenía un ejemplo, pero como no anotaba nada, simplemente veía, entonces mi mamá comenzó a hacer las tartaletas de su madre, y trataba, y fallaba, y aprendía, y así seguía, hasta que ella llegó a su propio recipe, y entonces lo escribió, y se lo dio a Lisa, entonces mi mamá le pasó a Lisa el recipe, y Lisa pudiese hacer ese pie, esa tartaleta, está bien, que tenemos un ejemplo y un recipe, o receta, pero como anterior, como Abraham y esta gente, es algo parecido, no tenían una receta, no había Biblia, ok, era pasado, por ejemplo, de generación en generación, entonces su hijo Isaac tenía que ver a Abraham, y Jacob veía a Isaac, y Jacob veía a Isaac, y así seguían de generación en generación, pero no llegamos hasta Moses cuando había una Biblia, pero anteriormente, teníamos el ejemplo, ¿cuál

es el ejemplo? Jesús, nosotros tenemos que, a Jesús, que es el ejemplo, y la receta, que es su palabra, que somos una generación bendecida, tenemos una copia de las Escrituras Sagradas, tenemos la Biblia en papel y en sus teléfonos inteligentes, tenemos la palabra de Dios, tenemos la receta, si quieres la vida abundante, esta es la receta aquí, así que quiero compartir algunas cosas que aprendí de mi madre, si tomas notas, sería bueno, mi madre tomaba muchas notas, me dio su última Biblia, y tiene muchas notas por todos lados, diferentes servicios, tomaba, y en Juan 10.10 escribiría el verso y escribiría la fecha en que algo aprendió, si ustedes me permiten, hablábamos todos los días, mi madre y yo hablamos todos los días, muy pocas veces fallábamos algún día, cuando yo estaba en la escuela, en la universidad, mi mejor amigo, mi compañero de cuarto, estaba tan cerca de su padre, y apenas nos graduamos, su padre falleció, y me decía, padre, me decía, David, extraño tanto hablar con mi padre, y me da un consejo, y me dijo, habla con tus padres todos los días, y yo llamé a mi madre, toda la vida, todos los días, hasta hace 10 días, llamen a sus padres, llamen a sus abuelos, aunque sea una vez a la semana, sus abuelos, hay una mamá o una abuela que dice, wow, increíble, que bueno, para todos, mi madre siempre lo mantuvo corto, era una llamada cerca, mi mamá era la que la frenaba, algunos de ustedes pueden mantener a su hijo en el teléfono 30 minutos, dándole tantos detalles, no, no, no, mi madre agarraba la llamada, y era small variations of the same 90 seconds, I love you, I love you, I love you too, how are the boys? And she cut me off at the end, after 90 seconds, my mother, people laughed at how my mother cut me off the call. But it was every day and it was an incredible tradition. And you know what? That is one of the things that I miss the most. Ten days later, I get up and I'm going to pick up the phone to call my mother. I talk to God more throughout my life. Since my mother passed away, I've been talking more to God. Like 1 Thessalonians 5, where it says, pray without ceasing. Because throughout your day, you practice the presence of God. Just as I had short conversations with my mother, I also have them with God now. Throughout the day, keeping God involved in my day-to-day, I'm trying to practice the presence of God. About 15 years ago, I had the chance to sit down with one of the most iconic pastors, Pastor Rogers, from Memphis, Tennessee. And I remember that towards the end of his life, he sat down with us young pastors, like 20 of us. And one of us asked him, Dr. Rogers, you've come so far. How long do you pray daily?

And we thought he was going to say something like, oh, I pray at five in the morning and I pray for three hours. I read the Bible and I pray two more hours. No. He told us, I don't often pray for a long time, but I pray a little bit all the time. My mom kept an attitude of faith and gratitude. That phone call took 90 seconds. And you know what? God has been so real and incredible with our family. As my mom advanced in age, the most powerful, and it wasn't that weird or crazy, but I noticed that as her life grew, her attitude of satisfaction and gratitude grew. My father and my mother were blue-collar workers. My brother and I shared a room. We all shared a room. My mom sold that house when we left there and went to a smaller house, then to a townhouse. Then my dad passed away, and my mom went to a small townhouse in a big city, and finally to a small townhouse in a small town. So about a year ago, when she was sitting down in the room, she was driving until a month. She was a little bit frightened, but her life was getting smaller. Her gratitude was growing. We have to talk about the fact, how good God was in her life, not her pain and her discomfort. There was a prolonged Harvard study of a thousand women in this study. And they found that the most optimistic women lived up to five years longer. Optimism made her better. My mom was so optimistic. I think that's why she lived so long. Number three, just keep walking. My mom kept moving. Some exercise in her own room, even if it was 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon. She had arthritis, but somehow or another she did it, and she always kept walking. And faith can be confusing. Because it's an emotion, and you're waiting for that emotion to hit you. No, no. Faith is movement.

Faith without movement is dead. No, you have to move. Whether you want to or not. Whether you feel like it or not. She kept walking. And she didn't walk as well as she did before. Sometimes she needed someone to help her. When it got cold in Indiana, my brother-in-law took good care of her. And thank you, I give you my brother-in-law for that. She would take her to Publix. And she would take a cart of Publix and walk around Publix. She didn't buy anything. She just walked around Publix without buying anything. And I thought, what was the main thing that the disciples did with Jesus? Walking. I know that one time she got on a donkey, but the rest of them walked. They listened. They listened. And they were witnesses of 37 miracles. They ate together for a long time, and did a lot of research. And in Israel, in the first century, they didn't eat three times, they ate two times. I had a late breakfast and a late dinner, and on Saturdays I did eat three times, and I did some math on that, and I thought it was like 2,456 meals, so a lot of meals together. But in the studies that they did, how much did Jesus walk during his ministry of three years? And wow, I asked people to guess. Do you know how much? 3,000 and something miles. We are called to walk with Jesus. I love Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, where it says, I found this early in my faith, therefore, in the way that you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and overbuilt in him, and confirmed in the faith as they have been taught, abounding in it with action of graces. Gratitude, thanksgiving. That's why Jesus is so daily. His disciples walked daily with him. Not always pretty. They fell every time. They made mistakes, but as long as they walked with Jesus, everything was fine. She would tell you to follow the recipe. Follow the recipe. This is my mom's recipe card for the pecan pie, for the pecan tartlet. Charlize has told you about her dyslexia. She is hereditary. There have been other predecessors in my family who have also maintained it. You can make my mom's pie with this recipe, but I'm going to walk you through it because this pecan tartlet was so good. So I'm going to close by showing you how to make my mom's pecan tartlet. So, let's see here. The crunchy part. Here are two and a half cups of flour. And then it was two bars of butter. And making the crust is the most difficult. So she realized that in Publix there was a very good one and she used that one. You can use that one.

Now, let's see what the recipe says. One cup of brown sugar. Three quarters of a teaspoon of cornstarch. And half a teaspoon of salt. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Pray for me now. Now three giant eggs. Wow, help me. Now I'm going to shine with one hand. Boom. Let's see, what's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? White corn syrup. My mother, I'm going to do like her. Guess here. And what is the most necessary in a pecan tartlet? Pecans. It says it's two cups. Two and a half. Okay. And a little more. Here we go. And then you have to beat it all up. I won't do it all, but you have the idea. It's amazing. It's the best pecan tartlet in the world. Some of you, you try to cook, you can't cook. No one in my family is a cook. Lisa, no. Me neither. We order a lot outside. So, if you have a hard time making this bread and you ignore the recipe, I'm not really talking about pie. I'm not talking about the recipe. Okay. I'm not talking about pies. It's a parable of pecan tartlets. If you're a newbie, every time we come together, I'm teaching you. We're teaching you the word of God. It's the most powerful thing there is. And His promises are amazing. When you plug them into your life. You hear it so well here in the church.

Wow. Some of you forget. Some of you forget for lunch. And you don't come back until the next week. Talk to your family, to your children in the church. How are they doing? How did it go? in the Ministry of Children today. What are they going to do differently during the week? Read the Bible. No, ignore the recipe. God is not giving his word. Abraham and Joseph did not have this. You have the word of God. Take advantage of the recipe. Then I thought, you know, there are some people who add ingredients that are not part of the recipe. This is what I'm saying. There is a crazy human tendency that after we discover the beauty of the relationship with God through Jesus, we start adding legalisms. Why did religious people start adding legalisms? There are some rules in the Bible. The Bible is about relationships, and all relationships have rules. Everyone who has a close relationship with you has rules. You have rules with your friends. You have to be legal, protective. You believe in your friends. You have parents.

Parents have rules for their children. Married people have rules with their husbands and wives. Like, oh, two of us. I do. Lisa and I have rules. Rule number one, we don't go out romantically with other people. But sometimes human beings start adding rules and legalisms to the Torah. The Torah has the commands of God. But then they added thousands and thousands of rules made by man. Some of you got to church early in your life. You went to a Christian school. But there were so many rules. And they weren't God's rules. They were man's rules. And sometimes it seems like if a little bit is good, a lot is good. And then a lot more is better. So you're like, oh, you love salt. So in this recipe, instead of a little bit of salt, how about, oh, a little bit is good. Oh, a lot is good. Oh, a lot is much, much better. No. No. Ever wonder why there's so many salty people out there? Because there are so many salty people out there. So we really work hard at CDG.

So we really work hard at CDG in this way to take out the legalisms made by man and teach you a natural relationship with God based on the biblical rules. We're not legalists. We're saints, but we're not legalists. And sometimes, you know what? We omit a necessary ingredient. There are biblical things that maybe in our life we push back on. God, God, wow. It's okay if you ask me for 7%, but not 10%. Or God, do you want me to give up my sexual life for you? Or do you want me to forgive people who have hurt me so much? God, I don't want you to hang out with toxic people and teach you their dangers, but not that you don't forgive them. Some of these ingredients, by themselves, are not so bad for some people. You know, flour, by itself, is horrible. Or a tablet of butter in your mouth like an ice cream scoop, no. Now, when everything is perfectly mixed, what comes out? Oh, something beautiful. And you beat them, and you give them, and you mix them, and the tartlet goes in the oven, and what comes out is incredible. There's someone here who wants abundance. You want blessing.

You want results, but you don't want to follow the recipe. You want Jesus as your Savior, but not your Lord. Oh God, fix my life, but don't ask me to change anything I don't want to change. Hey, you can't take out that ingredient because you think it's acid, or too expensive. Well, you can't take out that ingredient because you think it's acid, or too expensive. Well, the piquan was donated, because they're very expensive. We have a family here in the church that grows piquan if you don't donate it. Oh, I hate giving the 10%, this 10%, please. That's a lot. All the ingredients, all the ingredients. Don't add something that's not part of the recipe. Why are you going to put raisins in your potato salad? Why are you going to put raisins in your potato salad? Or there are people who put raisins in everything, in cookies. Why are you putting raisins in your carrot cake? Please. A raisin, perfectly alone. Why are you going to put chocolate as a topping? But don't leave anything out. I know you're going to do everything. When you leave something that God has called you to have, you lose your abundance, and God wants your life to be full, full, powerful, when all this comes together well. Lisa is not a cook, and you know what? She has beautiful cookbooks in the kitchen shelves. And I said, mom, why? When do you use that? And she said, no, no, no, those are just for decoration. But she took my mom's recipe, and my mom, who doesn't know how to cook, made this beautiful pecan tartlet. Maybe I'm selfish in that, but I'm going to eat this tartlet myself.

I want your life to look like this, full, filled, incredible, powerful. He came to give you life, life in abundance, and I'm going to tell you that the best part is not life in abundance. I lost my mother, but I had her for 94 years. I'm super grateful, but I can't call her anymore. So we got around her. It was incredible. My children asked her the most beautiful questions. Grandma, how did you save yourself? And she told us a story about a 11-year-old girl in a countryside church. She came and told her, and she took her, and my mom said, I want to give my life to Christ after that service. And it was changing the direction of the whole family. My father and my mother didn't go to the ministry. We've had, after them, some pastors. I have a friend whose family has had a thousand preachers. But in my family, now I'm in the ministry. My sister is there. Three of the four grandchildren are in the ministry. And that's a great blessing in our life. On Sunday, two weeks ago, I said goodbye to the first person I met, but I didn't say goodbye. I said, Mom, I'll see you again. And she smiled and said, I'll see you again, too. And my mom is more alive now than she's ever been. Because she's with the Lord. She's with my father in heaven. And she'll be making pecan tarts for all those people, if you don't know enough. As John 3 says, God gave the world to his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. And some friends told me, I'm so sad that you lost your mother. And I didn't correct them, but inside I said, I didn't lose my mother. I know exactly where my mother is. She's with my king, with his king, in heaven for eternity. And he has given us that promise of eternal life and abundance. That's all you can have in the name of Jesus.