Venezuelan brothers, first of all receive a warm greeting,
The present letter has as its object a call to love and conscience, which can only be felt, perceived and discerned in moments of real need and affliction.
Nowadays, Venezuela is going through a moment of extreme affliction and millions of natives of this homeland have been forced to leave it, to find out of their lands an opportunity to live, others to survive.
This is because, many of us of a certain age remember a childhood that promised a bright future, some golden times that we lived, and in our ignorance we dreamed of having, but what actually happens has a reason, which few are interested in demonstrate or it does not suit them.
Idolatry, not only involves the worship of other gods outside of the true one, men do not care to seek the true because it involves a sacrifice that they are not willing to perform. The pride of man is his greatest idolatry, ego, laziness, love of material goods, and above all the so distorted idea of freedom, as if man had been made without guides, without orders, without guidelines to fulfill.
Genesis 1
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 2
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
We were born to rule in the earth according to Genesis, but we are not free to do what we want, man was born being a servant of the one who did him, but they were given the conception of making decisions and facing their consequences.
The essential thesis for all my brothers in exile is to learn from the mistakes we made. Our desire to find the life we deserve, to have the so-called "quality of life", led us to sin, to leave it in the hands of man what we always had to leave in the hands of God, and in all our bonanza we never turned our faces to him; before we thought about increasing assets and eradicating all traces of material poverty, (while each day we were poorer in spirit).
Deuteronomy 9
3 But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.
4 After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you.
5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
6 Understand then that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, because you are a stiff-necked people.
Any Venezuelan in exile, would say that it is the fault of the government, but they all argue about the lack of values in society and in the Venezuelan family, and at this point I call them to reflection. What are Values? Who taught them? Where are the fruits that show that they are positive for a society? Under who’s perspective?
Deuteronomy 10
12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fearthe LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
14 To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens,the earth and everything in it.
15 Yet the LORD set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.
16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.
18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
20 Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.
21 He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
Many of us talk about love, loyalty, partnership, sharing. Or is that there are no people who kill For Love! Or is not loyalty what is in the criminal gangs? Or is there no partnership between the bribe and who receives it? Or do not they share the one who steals and the one who discovers it?
Deuteronomy 8
11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.
12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,
13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,
14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.
16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you.
17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”
18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.
Then please, brothers understand that the God you have so much in your mouth, is the Father of All, is called Jehovah of Hosts, not like the Greeks who erected a statue "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD"; and the commandment is that if God is not in the values of your children’s, if the guidance of God does not go hand in hand with your instructions, the values that you will have inculcated into your children’s will be for evil, and one day they will return to their land, (because this has happened before in Israel, which is the people from we have to take an example to imitate the good and discard the bad), and your children’s without God, but hopeful in the "Quality of Life" would cause a worse evil.
Know that God is a God of opportunities, and will reunite us.
Jeremiah 30
15 Why do you cry out over your wound,
your pain that has no cure?
Because of your great guilt and many sins
I have done these things to you.
But, independently, this evil that has fallen on us has its cause in the previous verse.
Jeremiah 30
16 “‘But all who devour you will be devoured;
all your enemies will go into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered;
all who make spoil of you I will despoil.
17 But I will restore you to health
and heal your wounds,’
declares the LORD,
‘because you are called an outcast,
Zion for whom no one cares.
18 “This is what the LORD says:
“‘I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and have compassion on his dwellings;
the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,
and the palace will stand in its proper place.
19 From them will come songs of thanksgiving
and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers,
and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor,
and they will not be disdained.
20 Their children will be as in days of old,
and their community will be established before me;
I will punish all who oppress them.
Please i invite you to read Jeremiah from chapter 29 to 33 so that you know the hope to which you are called. Know also that this hope that the CELESTIAL FATHER offers you is only possible to reach through his Son who died for us.
John 14
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Matthew 22
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’
45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?
46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Today you are in distant lands, many of you missing for your homeland, others perhaps no longer, but God shows his love for us in teachings, in mercies and in hope, and we need his conscience to rebuild the new Venezuela to the order and complacency of our God, to whom all Venezuelans both pray but do not know well.
May God bless you until he brings you to your homeland with good or until he comes back!