The kind of faith that pleases God is brave, but never arrogant. It is characterised by obedience and humbleness. Abraham was an example of faith, and his faith justified him because of his obedience to God’s Word. Only those who are obedient are humble, and only those who are humble are obedient. And so a faith that is supernatural, intelligent, and practical and produces blessings that are accompanied with humility.

That was the enormous difference between Kings Saul and David. Saul was not humble to obey God, and his disobedience cost him his life. The moment he saw that he was stuck in a life or death situation, he preferred to fall on his sword instead of seeking God’s compassion. The same thing happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A man was going through financial difficulties and unable to cope with the humiliation and shame, killed his wife, his two teenage daughters, and then committed suicide.

David was absolutely sure that however dirty and miserable he was, he could always count on God’s compassion. His brave, yet humble faith saved him.

True humbleness, the humbleness of spirit, keeps the doors open for us to reach the throne of the Most High.

He promised, “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isaiah 57:15).

The following testimony has led to the conversion and salvation of many souls:

Born in the city of Minas Gerais, Brazil on February 10th 1941, Roseli Silva had a life filled with struggles. Despite having been rejected while still in the womb and handed off to her paternal grandmother at birth, Roseli was a healthy child, always ready to work hard.

She got married at 18 and had 3 children. After some time, Roseli opened her own witchcraft centre and her dedication to evil spirits, whose names are not worth mentioning, increased every day. In addition to witchcraft, she saw, heard and spoke face to face with the self-proclaimed chief of hell.

Although she never charged for her consultations, she continued doing witchcraft for those who sought her help.

Until one day, while watching the news on TV, she saw a story about Bishop Edir Macedo’s arrest. Up in arms, thinking that the bishop was guilty of all charges and acting in bad faith, she decided to conjure a curse to kill the bishop, right there while still in prison. First, she wanted to be certain of what the bishop’s true intentions were, his actions in the past and present and whether or not he was guilty.

If he was guilty, she determined according to her powers of witchcraft, that his death would be ordered to happen within the next 3 hours; if he was innocent, he would be released within the same 3 hours. Her orders were always strictly followed to the T by the devil.

However, something new and very curious happened. The candle she lit would not stay lit. She lit it 3 times and although there was no breeze, it kept blowing out. That’s when the devil appeared and she began demanding answers: “Why doesn’t the candle remain lit and why is the bishop still alive? The demon, known as Lucifer, quickly answered: “I’m not allowed to touch him.”

“What?” she asked. “I can’t touch him,” he repeated. “And why not?” she asked. “He’s a just man. He isn’t at fault,” he answered.

Realizing that there was Someone greater than the one she worked for, Roseli became enraged, but the devil kept talking: “And more, I am here for the last time to give you a message. From now on, I won’t have anything to do with you and when you go to that Church, which I hate, and put on that uniform, I’ll be watching you. But the moment that you slip up, I’ll get you because the thing I hate the most is losing a soul to the Great One.” She replied: “So from now on we are enemies.”

Meanwhile, her assistant called to inform her that the man she placed a death curse on had been released. This is what convinced her of Bishop Macedo’s innocence.

She then asked that justice be done to those who plotted against him.

Wasting no time at all, Roseli got rid of all her witchcraft supplies and utensils and before she knew it, she was in a Universal Church in the city of Goiania. Still not quite understanding what was happening, she says that there were many evil spirits inside the Church, but they weren’t intrepid, giving orders or screaming. She observed that many of them were bound and on their knees, obeying what Pastor Israel commanded.

She noticed one of the head demons flying over the altar around the pastor. She, in her simplicity, began talking to that demon and asked,
“Why don’t you kick him in the mouth for saying these things and getting me tremendously upset.”
He replied: “I can’t.”
“Why?” she wondered.
“He has an empty stomach. He hasn’t eaten or drank anything,” said the demon.
“Even I can knock him down with a simple punch,” she said.
“I can’t touch him because he’s done no wrong. But I know everything he likes and I’m going to put it just outside the church door,” replied the demon, surrounding the pastor in great anger.

Roseli’s deliverance began that day. Through her obedience to the Word of God and the pastor’s counselling, she persevered in getting to know the same God that protected the bishop from her curse. Her deliverance didn’t take long. In a short amount of time Mrs. Roseli was baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit.

Even though she knew that God had forgiven her past mistakes, Mrs. Roseli carried with her the dream of apologizing to Bishop Macedo. God fulfilled her dream and as shown in the pictures. She had the opportunity to personally apologize to Bishop Macedo, whose messages she constantly listens to, and always prays for him and his family.

Today, she is more than happy to use her testimony to win souls for the Kingdom of God. “My life is an example. I came to church sick, addicted to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, a follower of many cults, addicted to Tarot cards, broke, jobless and homeless.

Today I am delivered, healthy, happily married, full of joy and prosperous; Praise God!

Like Mrs. Roseli’s says: “I will never leave The Universal Church. Even if Bishop Macedo decided to leave, which is impossible, I won’t move from here because I know the truth. I know I’m alive because of his and the pastors’ efforts, dedication and obedience to the Word of God.

There was a blind girl who hated the fact that she had been born blind. She also hated everyone, except her boyfriend.

One day, she said that if she could see the world, she would marry him. One lucky day, someone donated a pair of corneas to her, then her boyfriend asked, “Now that you can see me, will you marry me?”

The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind. She said, “I’m terribly sorry, but I cannot marry you because you’re… blind.”

Her boyfriend, stepped back and, with tears in his eyes, said, “Please, just take good care of my eyes. They were the best that I had.”

Never reject those who love you. Sometimes, people sacrifice for us and we don’t even show consideration for them. Jesus gave His whole life for us, yet most people in this world reject Him.

In one of the medical classes, teacher turns to one of the students and asks, “How many kidneys do we have?”

“Four,” the student said.

“Four?” asked the teacher with the arrogance of people who take pleasure in pointing out other people’s mistakes, “Bring in some grass, we have a donkey in the classroom,” says the teacher to his assistant.

“I’ll take coffee!” joked the student to the teacher’s assistant.

The teacher became angry and ordered the student out of the classroom. The student was the humorist Aparício Torelly Aporelly (1895-1971), aka Itararé Baron.

As he was leaving the classroom, the student still had the nerve to correct the angry teacher, saying, “Sir, you asked me how many kidneys ‘we have’. ‘We’ have four: you have two and I have two. ‘We’ is plural. Bon appetite, and enjoy your grass.”

Life demands more understanding than knowledge. Sometimes, people think they have the right to underestimate others just because they have (or “believe” they have) a bit more knowledge.

Bring on the grass!!!

The world judges people by what they have: money, political power, beauty, strength, courage, knowledge, intelligence, etc. In short, their outward appearance.

But when God looks at someone, He sees who he is, because He looks at the heart.

It’s a big mistake to think that sins can impede the Spirit of God to work. If that were true, Jesus would not have performed so many miracles. To be honest, the real villain that blocks God from working is hypocrisy. A hypocrite is not humble to recognise his mistakes. He keeps himself far from God, and yet he demands from other people something that he himself does not have—purity.

On the other hand, the Bible tells wonderful stories of people who had committed terrible sins, yet God had compassion on them simply because of an act of sincere humbleness.

Ahab was one of the worst kings of Israel. Stirred up by Jezebel, his wife, he did terrible things against the Lord, worshipping idols. But when Elijah prophesied about the calamity the Lord was going to bring on his house, he immediately humbled himself before the Lord. He tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body, and fasted. And as if that were not enough, he slept on sackcloth and hung his head low.

His attitude of faith in practice touched God’s heart. And the answer was quick. The Lord said to Elijah:

“See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days…” (1 Kings 21:17-29)

Without a word, this young artist expresses, with her hands, the pain of the Ukrainian people when their country was invaded by the sanguinary Hitler, who was an instrument of the Roman Church.

Idolatry takes on a multitude of shapes, but they always go against God. Idolatry does not exist only in the form of worshipping images of paper, clay, wood, metal or material object, as is the practice of a number of religions.

There are those who idolise their children, loved ones, people in general or even themselves. Others may idolise their profession, social position and leisure pastimes, putting these things above God in their lives.

Whatever form idolatry takes substitutes the Creator for the creature. Yet when an idol becomes material wealth or money, it is the most hostile form of idolatry against God. In this case, the Eternal is substituted by the perishable.

In an objective and quite simple way, the Lord teaches: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

Mammon is the god of the material riches.

Abundant life is a right of all those who follow the Son of God. Nevertheless, this abundance should never rule over God’s servants. Money is a good servant, but a cruel master.

Money must be seen as manure. Its sole purpose is to be spread around for the common good.

The spirit of Mammon imposes greediness on his servants. That causes spiritual blindness, which neutralises the understanding of faith, making it impossible for those attached to material goods to gain access to spiritual wealth, i.e. eternal salvation.

In order to be in total communion with God, on the way to eternal salvation, it is necessary to give up servitude to Mammon.

The devil uses three weapons to destroy men and women of God who serve or have the desire to serve Him on the altar. But there’s one weapon that is the most dangerous, and if men and women of God are not alert, it will knock them down.

1. The devil’s first weapon is to put the temptation of women in the path of a man of God, and men in the path of a woman of God. The devil does this to weaken them.

2. The second weapon the devil uses can even look like a blessing from God, which is prosperity. The devil does this so that the person prospers and loses his fire for the work of God on the altar. He knows that if that person begins to serve God, he or she will set the world on fire. Note: sure, we need to have blessed financial lives before serving on the altar; but we must never lose focus of what we really want, which is to save souls.

3. The third weapon is pride. The devil finds a way to blind the person, making him oblivious to the fact that he is proud. And the proud, for the most part, don’t even know that they’re proud.

Let’s move on to our story and you will learn the fourth weapon that the devil uses to destroy those who do the Work of God.

There was a pastor in a church who succeeded in everything he did. He had communion with God and lived in holiness, praying, fasting and reading the Bible. Wherever he went, the work developed and many people converted, for there were healings and miracles.

Seeing this, the devil held a meeting in hell and sent the first demon, the Sexpot. And she said to the pastor, “I’m gonna take you down!”

The pastor immediately rebuked that demon, prayed, fasted, read the Bible, strengthened his marriage, and the demon went away.

Then, the devil held another meeting and decided to send Greed in order to fill the pastor’s eyes with material ambition. Once again, the pastor prayed, fasted, read the Bible, sacrificed all he had, and the devil was defeated.

The devil was furious, and so he sent Pride to fill the pastor’s heart with a self-centred ego. But the pastor prayed, fasted, read the Bible, and humbled himself before God. And once again, the devil was defeated

The devil saw that all his attempts had failed. Angrily he sent the three demons to the church where that pastor was in order to find whatever flaw they could. The demons went to the church and began watching him closely.

One day, the three demons, still searching for a mistake that could be used against the pastor, saw another demon passing by the church. He was walking with a stick and looked tired. And the three demons began mocking him, “You tired old devil! What are doing here?” And they asked him his name.

Out of the corner of his eye he looked at them and with a sarcastic smile on his face said, “My name? I am TIME. And you, what are you doing here?”

The other demons told him about their mission and how they had failed so far. He said to them, “Just wait and I’ll tell you what to do. Don’t hurry,” he added, “because I know how to work.” And he began his subtle moves.

First, he worked on the pastor’s time, making him busy with many things to do. It wasn’t long until he had no more time to fast, and he became weak. Then he no longer had time to read the Bible, and so he no longer heard the voice of God. Without hearing the voice of God, he lost communion with Him. That was when that demon commanded the others to swing into action. And that was how the pastor who set the world on fire fell.

Time is the fourth weapon of the devil to neutralise the faith of those who do not persevere. Sometimes he makes us busy with many things. Other times, he gives us a false sense of well-being, making things easier for us so that we relax in our faith. And that’s how he strikes us down.

Always remember where you came from and what God has done in your life in order to remain firm in the faith. The overcomer is not the one who starts the race, but the one who finishes it.

Bishop Renato Cardoso