Minister Wilma M. Liriano

An anchor holds a ship steady no matter what the water does around it. Minister Wilma M. Liriano says GOD’s WORD is meant to hold you the same way.

Minister Wilma M. Liriano opened by pointing back to the worship that had just filled the room — every song sung that morning, she said, was sung for a purpose, and the same passion the church brings to praise is the same passion GOD is asking for every day of the week, not just on Sunday. “The WORD comes in you, living in you,” she said, “and you just praise it. Anywhere, anytime.”

From there she went to the image that gave the message its name: an anchor. On a ship, she explained, the anchor holds the vessel still once it’s thrown down — it doesn’t do more or less than what it’s made to do. CHRIST is that anchor for HIS people. When believers let HIM hold them steady instead of rushing, panicking, or trying to handle everything themselves, HE keeps them exactly where they need to be — even when they’ve drifted left and HE has to bring them back to the right.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the LORD, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the LORD.”

1 Corinthians 15:58

Minister Liriano was honest that the enemy had already been busy that very week — small frustrations, missed calls, a car that wouldn’t cooperate on the way to church. “That’s humanity trying to play with me,” she said. “I ain’t got time for you today. GOD has a plan.” Being anchored, she said, doesn’t mean the storms stop coming. It means you stop trying to outrun them yourself.

She shared a season from years earlier, during COVID, when she was working at a facility that suddenly told her they no longer needed her position. Within months she had a letter to appear in court over her housing. She had no idea how it would resolve — only a WORD GOD had already given her that year to hold onto: walk by faith, not by sight. She kept working, kept praying, and kept living without panic while she waited. When she finally stood in that courtroom, the attorney asked what she needed. She asked for two more weeks. It was granted — and in those two weeks, her next place was ready and waiting. “That’s what I’m saying when you walk by faith,” she said. “You don’t look for what’s coming, how it’s coming. But you trust HIS WORD, and you stand firmly on HIS WORD.”

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

2 Corinthians 5:7

“You don’t look for what’s coming, how it’s coming. But you trust HIS WORD, and you stand firmly on HIS WORD.”

— Minister Wilma M. Liriano

Minister Liriano turned the message from what GOD does for believers to what HE asks of them. Just as a hungry body has to be fed to be satisfied, the spiritual body has to be fed too — a real, urgent hunger and thirst for the WORD, not a quick prayer squeezed in between errands.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Matthew 5:6

She warned against showing up to church out of habit rather than out of the heart — serving on a board, singing on a praise team, even leading, without any of it actually coming from the SPIRIT. “We could do these things out of habit and have no meaning to it,” she said. “If you’re not doing it for the will of GOD, then you’re falling short of HIS glory.” Pointing to Romans 8, she described a mind controlled by the sinful nature versus one controlled by the SPIRIT — one leads to death, the other to life and peace. Believers who belong to CHRIST have HIS SPIRIT living in them, the same SPIRIT that raised JESUS from the dead.

She tied that directly to belief and eternal life in John 6:47 — “truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life” — and reminded the church that HIS WORD has to be lived daily, not just believed once. Not everyone who serves in the house of the LORD will hear the same words on the other side, she said. Some will hear “I never knew you.” Others will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Minister Liriano called Proverbs 3:5-6 one of her favorite scriptures for the order it puts things in: trust the LORD first, before you even understand. Submit to HIM second, surrendering the things that don’t make sense. Then — only then — HE makes your path straight.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to HIM, and HE will make your paths straight.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

She traced that same surrender back to her own life 34 years earlier, coming to CHRIST as a single mother raising five sons. Romans 12:2 — do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind — became the scripture that started her walk. “Be transformed,” she said, “that means a whole makeover.” She didn’t know then how drastically her life would change, only that GOD was asking her to come out of her old self and trust HIM with what came next.

She closed by turning that surrender outward. The unconditional, agape love the FATHER gives freely isn’t meant to stop with the person who receives it, she said — it’s meant to be given back: to strangers, to the family member you can’t stand, to the brother or sister you don’t speak to. Being the Living WORD means more than knowing scripture. It means letting it be seen.

“Is your soul anchored in the LORD? Are you the Living WORD?”

Minister Wilma M. Liriano, in challenge

Two questions, one message: is your soul anchored in the LORD, and does your life actually show it? Minister Wilma M. Liriano’s charge to The Gathering Church was to stop asking those questions once a week and start living the answer every day — anchored, steady, and unafraid to let others see the WORD at work.

Watch the Full Sermon

Hear Minister Wilma M. Liriano preach Is Your Soul Anchored in the LORD? live at The Gathering Church — September 27, 2026.

Reflect & Respond

Is your soul truly anchored in the LORD, or are you just going through the motions? Where is HE asking you to become HIS Living WORD this week?