Jonathan Brenneman's Blog, page 5

Supernatural Power In The Gospel!

It’s About Jesus And The Gospel, Not Your Spiritual Gift!

Recently, I’ve been working to teach other Christians in Brazil to minister in God’s power. God spoke to me in 2021 and said “I have a new normal for the church-that should have been normal all along. It’s a ‘normal’ in which regular Christians do the works of Jesus.”

Several people around me have now seen miracles through their own hands for the first time. However, one of the obstacles that need to be removed is the big misconception of “spiritual gifts.” Many Christians have basically been taught that God distributes different superpowers to different people, and you just don’t know what superpower you might get. Maybe you get the superpower of healing but not of prophecy.

What happens because of this is first that people make a disconnect between the so-called “gift” and Jesus. I want people to see Jesus, but they get distracted thinking it’s about a spiritual gift and they miss the revelation of Jesus. In fact, directing attention to a “gift” is one of the tactics of an antichrist spirit to blind people from seeing Jesus.

The other thing that happens is that people disqualify themselves from dozens of scriptural promises based on a poor understanding of scripture because they think they might not have that gift. Those who think this way say to themselves “Jonathan has the superpower of healing, but I didn’t get that one, so I can’t do what he does.” But if it’s really about Jesus manifesting Himself, then everyone who is in Christ has the Spirit of Christ and can do the works of Christ.

A few years ago, we made the case that the “Spiritual Gifts” are for all Christians and we explained how badly this topic is misunderstood in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of “The Misconception of Spiritual Gifts.” Today, I’d like to share several scriptural promises that are true for all Christians and are the basis for works of power in my life. When I minister to people, it has nothing to do with a special superpower I’ve received that makes me different than any other Christian! It’s all about Jesus and the gospel!

We Become Participants In God’s Nature Through His Promises!

2 Peter 1:3-4 (RSV) His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.

Even before I understood these ideas better, I quickly became frustrated always looking and hoping for more impartation, a special anointing, or a spiritual gift. I wanted solid promises I could grab onto now, and I found them in scripture!

Promises For A Walk Of Power!

Many times as I was praying and thinking about these promises of scripture, I began to feel God’s word physically manifest as power on my face and hands. There were a few times that I screamed or fell backward. What I’m about to share is the way I think that is behind so many miracles in my life. What I experience is different because I think and believe differently. That’s why it feels a bit frustrating when local Christians say “Jonathan has a spiritual gift.” They don’t get it! I see the glorious message of the gospel with its great and precious promises, and I want to help other Christians to understand it. But many don’t have eyes to see or ears to hear, and they miss the point by thinking as if the person living a life of miracles has some spiritual gift that they don’t!

All the following statements are right out of scripture. I’m not going to quote them, but I’ll link to many of them so you can click and find a relevant verse if you’d like.

I am spiritually rich. Everything I need for life and godliness is available to me in the knowledge of Jesus. I have an abundance of grace and peace in Christ, more than enough to meet my needs and whatever need is before me. If God didn’t withhold his own Son, but gave Him up for me, how much more will He not also give me all things? God loves me with the same love He has for Jesus and has given me the same glory that He gave to Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells bodily. It’s that glory that drives out demons, heals the sick, and manifests heaven’s reality on earth. I am complete in Christ, lacking nothing. Nothing will be impossible for me if I believe, and God can do immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine according to His power at work in me. Since I died with Christ and by His resurrection was seated with Him in heavenly places, I am in a position of authority over every power, authority to tread on snakes, scorpions, and all the power of the enemy. I have authority over demons and diseases because I’ve been raised with Christ. I have full access to the Father’s presence. The torn body of Jesus is my open heaven, and I have been given every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Every so-called “spiritual gift” is a spiritual blessing touching and changing the natural world, and there is no spiritual blessing that I don’t have access to in Christ.

In Jesus are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and He is my wisdom, so I can expect wisdom and knowledge from heaven in abundance as I walk in communion with Him. I am His sheep, and I hear His voice! The gospel is the power (Greek “dunamis”) of God for salvation, and I have the gospel! It is the same “dunamis” that flowed from Jesus and all who touched Him were healed! The nature of the God I’m in communion with is to heal, and I’m a member of the body of Christ so His nature is revealed through me! It doesn’t matter if you’re a finger, a toe, or an arm, the whole body of Jesus, even His cloak, is loaded with healing virtue! Jesus lives in me, and I am in Him! If Jesus sends me and I go to a house, Jesus Christ is visiting that house. If they receive me, they receive Him! When I stretch out my hand in obedience to Christ and touch a sick person, Jesus is touching that person!

These beliefs based on the promises of scripture produce the manifestation of heaven. When I went to a neighborhood called “Anhanguera 2” in an Uber, I believed “Jesus is going to visit the houses in Anhanguera 2 tonight.” When I encounter any kind of sickness, injury, or oppression, I tell myself “You are rich, so give away the riches of heaven. You have what this person needs and so much more. If you believe what the Bible says you have in Christ, act like it’s true!”

Do You Believe The Full Gospel?

A lot of Christians will agree doctrinally with the statements above, but not many really believe them! Most act like they aren’t true.

When you really believe something, you act accordingly! Grab onto the incredible promises of scripture and act like they are true. I ask myself if I am acting like the promises of scripture are true, and when I see that I’m not, I’m happy because unbelief has been brought out into the light and I can challenge it. One way to do that is to act according to the truth even if you don’t feel like it’s true. Choose to act like someone who is spiritually rich, who is immeasurably rich, and give away God’s riches to the world.

If you really understand how rich you are in Christ, it will manifest in a lot more joy and excitement than a worldly person would feel if they just found out that they won the lottery!

In the next post, we’ll talk about impartation and how it works within the understanding that we have received fullness in Christ. This is something I’ve been waiting to write about for a long time, and I think I’m ready now!

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You Can’t Give Your All For Jesus And Submit To Human Religious Demands

Jesus Calls You To Give Your All, And It’s Worth It!

Matthew 16:24-25 (NKJV) Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Mark 10:28-31 (NKJV) Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Romans 8:17 (NKJV) and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Jesus calls us to give everything, but there is a great reward. We really find our life when we give it for Him. We find unspeakable, heavenly treasure, the joy and glory of heaven. What is it like? It is having God’s love fill you and flow through you like a river. Rivers of love and joy. Sometimes you can feel it physically, because it’s not just theory, it’s actually real, tangible power.

Eternal life is knowing God. His nature, the reality of heaven, fills your heart. If you have experienced that and know the riches of Christ, you will never envy anybody, because you know you are so rich that you have what everybody needs. All the billionaires in the world are paupers compared to you!

2 Corinthians 4:17 (NKJV) For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

Jesus calls you to give everything, but your reward is His glory! Do you know God’s glory? Do you know His love filling your life and possessing your heart? Paul was whipped, beaten, pursued, went hungry and thirsty, and had sleepless nights, but when He saw God’s glory he called it all light and momentary affliction! The glory gives you the strength to keep going!

And Jesus promised that those who gave their all for Him would receive a hundredfold more, not only in eternity but in this age. You may leave house, brothers, and sisters for Christ; you may be an outcast, but God will set you in family, restore and strengthen you, and provide for you to carry out His will on this earth.

Are You Carrying The Burden Jesus Gave You, Or Have You Added Other Things To It?

Human religion is a heavy package, but Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. Religion that is pure and undefiled is to care for orphans and widows and keep yourself undefiled by the world. Mere human religion lays heavy burdens on men’s backs and doesn’t lift a finger to help them, and does its works to be seen by men.

Culture has added on a lot of things to what we think of as “church” which are not really scriptural essentials of what church is. They aren’t necessarily wrong, but they are not essential and can be a hindrance. It’s not wrong to have a church building and a budget, for example, but are the building, budget, and overhead serving the people, or are the people serving them?

Many frontline church planters (people planting churches among the unreached where there was no church before) will say that those “extras” can be some of the greatest hindrances to church multiplication. Consider this fun skit from YWAM church planting coach Brian Hogan, who was one of the leaders of a church-planting movement that started in Mongolia and multiplied into hundreds of churches in various nations. It highlights some of the things that may become part of a heavy package of religious add-ons to the gospel.

Many of the things mentioned in the skit are not only a heavy burden to people we reach with the gospel on the mission field, but they have become a heavy burden for us and for people in our own countries.

If you want all those high-overhead add-ons, yes, you have to pay for them. And I’m not saying it’s wrong if you have some of those things and it is edifying you. But more and more people are realizing that being a Sunday morning spectator isn’t really edifying them. They go wanting to connect with other Christians and instead they sit through the service and then everyone goes home. Few people even stay around to talk a little. Today many of us already listen to great sermons and worship music on Youtube and what we want is fellowship and participation, not a show. But religion has told us that the high overhead, the building, the ministerial salaries, the buildings, and the big budgets are essential. It has told us that they are “church.” They are not.

What has happened recently is that a lot of “ministry” organizations have become a very heavy burden. Because the leaders took out mortgages, got in debt, and got into all kinds of financial obligations, they are putting heavy pressure on the people. They are calling members to dig deep, to sacrifice, to give their all. In many cases, they compromise the gospel in the process of trying to get people to give more, entering the realm of manipulation/witchcraft, and teaching people to relate to God by their offerings instead of through Jesus Christ. Then they lose the pure gospel message and then people REALLY aren’t edified or helped in Christ in their meetings! What was supposed to edify them has now become something that just sucks the energy and life out of them!

The last time I went to the recovery house, someone on our team said “I really feel good here. Even if I stop going to church, I’ll keep going to the recovery houses.” Why did she feel that way? I think she didn’t realize that she doesn’t feel good at church like she does when we have a meeting at the recovery house, because the church has lost a pure gospel message. And if we don’t have a pure gospel, what good is all the religion and structure and overhead anyways?

Manmade Religion Also Asks You To Give Your All, But It Doesn’t Come With The Reward And It Wears You Out!

About a month ago the Lord spoke to me and said “The church (institution) has been telling people to give their all and to sacrifice for so long, and now people are really tired. They were told to give their all, but giving all to the institution is not giving all to Jesus. And actually, giving all to the institution has hindered them from giving their all to Jesus because it came without the reward. They were told they were giving to Jesus but it was not actually what Jesus called them to do, so it came without a reward and now they are exhausted.”

I saw very clearly that this was right for the local church here. They had done construction and pushed people to give sacrificially just a few years before, but then there was the covid situation and they moved to another place and had to build another building, and they have now gone to pressing people every week to give more, promising financial miracles, making up prophecies to get people to give when God didn’t speak, and spending a large chunk of the time preaching about offerings. But it’s the voice of their need to keep their way of doing things going, not the voice of the Spirit.

In the weeks after the Lord spoke to me about what was happening in many Christian’s hearts, I’ve heard several people from the local church make comments showing that they were exhausted and suggesting they didn’t even know if they were going to keep going to church. They were people who I didn’t expect to make comments like that, and it strongly confirmed the word I received about what was happening in many Christian’s lives.

A lot of those people are really finding life in our mission groups, in weekly discipleship meetings, at a prayer meeting on the mountain, or going to a recovery house to minister. They don’t even feel good in the big meetings anymore and they don’t realize it’s because the message has become so compromised. They aren’t being edified in the big meetings anymore, but religious tradition has told them that’s what church is, and they feel like giving to it is “giving to God.” However, it is sucking their strength and energy and keeping them from really giving their all to Jesus.

And sadly, all too many people either keep pressing on in that system, putting everything into it with no reward and no joy, or they fall out of Christian fellowship and give up on church.

Many people have been giving into that system for years, they are worn out, and it’s never enough. They would love to give to frontline missions, to care for orphans, to help the elderly, or to help their neighbor. They would actually have so much joy giving to those causes. They would have a great reward of joy and partaking in God’s glory by doing so; joy to sustain and refresh them. But giving their all for religion with no reward ended up getting in the way of giving their all for Jesus and receiving His reward! It has exhausted them and many are just getting burnt out.

Don’t Let Manmade Religion Hinder You From Giving Your All For Jesus!

Don’t get me wrong. If you attend a church that has a dedicated building with regular expenses and overhead, and it is serving the people, with no need to manipulate people or to constantly pressure everyone in order to keep the whole thing going, I’m not saying to stop. I’m not saying that’s bad. Maybe your group is able to do things that way without it becoming burdensome. We honor the Holy Spirit and He works in many different contexts. That may be the place where you are finding life and being edified in Christ. And if you’re a part of that and feel that it is serving and blessing people, contribute to it!

But if you are worn out, maybe the burden you’re carrying isn’t the one that Christ has given you! Let me ask you: Are you really giving your time, effort, and money as you desire and purpose to give in your heart? Or are you not really giving where you want to give because you are giving to the demands of human religion and carrying a heavy package? Is mere human religion with its heavy package of add-ons to the gospel hindering you from walking in the pure and spotless religion of caring for the orphan and widow?

There are many people whose hearts have burned to give to missions; to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow; and more, but giving constantly to the heavy burden of religion with all its add-ons is hindering them from giving their all for Jesus and giving as they desire to in their hearts.

2 Corinthians 9:6-12 (NKJV) But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written:

“He has dispersed abroad,
He has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever.”

Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God…

You can’t serve God and money. You can’t serve two masters. You can’t give your all for Jesus and give your all for religion. When people make religious demands of you that are not what Christ is asking you to do, don’t submit to them for a moment.

I was going to a weekly meeting in a big church building. I love the people there and the Holy Spirit has been working in their lives. But the Holy Spirit spoke to me about refusing to participate in other people’s sin by giving in manipulative offerings, and it got to the point where every week the offering was manipulative and I could no longer give. I wasn’t being edified at all in those meetings. Many times I left disturbed. I was really only going to connect with people because I have seen many people there blessed, physically healed, and encouraged. I need to be around people because God’s power flows through me through my love for people. But even having much meaningful connection with people after the service ended was becoming difficult.

So I finally just stopped! But I didn’t “leave the church.” I’m not telling people I stopped going to the big meetings, and the place is so big most people probably won’t even notice very quickly. The relationships with people are still there, I’m still furthering them, and the big meeting didn’t really do anything to further them anyways! I’m staying involved in two mission groups, going to recovery houses, and I’m still in a cell group of Christian friends that is unrelated to that church. I’m not disconnected! I love the body of Christ and I love encouraging each other and worshipping the Lord together! I love being able to build other people up!

I give as I purpose in my heart, and I have so much joy in doing so! I really give because I want to! The vast majority goes towards caring for the elderly, orphans, and other people in need. I talked to my friend Pastor Moises of the recovery house and asked about what local churches are doing to support them. Only one local church was giving any regular support to their crucial ministry, about $40 a month. So many Christians would have much more joy giving to that work, but they feel like they can’t because of the demands of human religion, high overhead and constant “needs” that are sapping their strength. One of the largest churches in our city just spent millions on an addition that they didn’t even need, and it seems the main reason was so they could boast that they had the biggest “temple” in the city. Thousands of Christians who go there are being called once again to “give sacrificially” and pressed as they have been for years, and they are tired, but they have been told it’s “giving to God.” Thousands of children in Brazil have one meal a day or prostitute themselves to eat, and these Christians would love to give more to do something for the orphans, but they’ve been told “The tithe comes first, and the tithe goes to your local church.” Giving their all for religion has robbed them of their reward and kept them from giving their all for Jesus.

Give As You Purpose In Your Heart, And Let Go Of The Heavy Package!

If you are finding life and communion with other Christians without the things in the “heavy package” Brian’s skit mentioned, then let go of the heavy package! If you have been giving to add-ons that are not edifying you, then stop! Stop tithing so you can dive into the joy of Spirit-led giving! Give where your born-again heart in communion with the Holy Spirit has always desired to give!

I want to encourage people to let go of the heavy package, but I also want to encourage you to stay in Christian fellowship. Sadly, in the past, a lot of people who got tired of the heavy package of religion have become exhausted and withdrawn from Christian fellowship. Let’s pray that those who are tired of the heavy package of religion would find something healthier rather than becoming isolated. Let’s also offer them our hospitality and fellowship without all the add-ons of religion!

This is not just about money, or even primarily about money. For many people, commitment to religious programs and church activities can consume so much time that it’s possible for it to hinder them from giving their all for Jesus! It can hinder you from reaching the kind of people that Jesus spent time with! I have seen so many miracles visiting people’s houses, including the houses of those who are not following Jesus or even of a different religion, that I take every opportunity I can to visit families. Don’t get me wrong: Regular, participatory Christian fellowship is essential. But if I have the choice between visiting someone’s house or sitting in a church service as a spectator, I will almost always choose visiting the household and I will often see more of the supernatural move of God during that household visit than I have seen in many church services! Where is Jesus going? I can’t let the demands of human religion hinder me from obeying and following Jesus!

Unlike the burdens of manmade religion, the pure and undefiled religion of caring for the orphan and widow comes with a reward! You can give mostly in secret, as you desire in your heart, without anybody spying on your freedom in Christ to see where or how much you give. But you know that God sees and you have the joy of participating in His nature! Here are some examples of the kinds of things I WANT to give to, which are great works of caring for people and/or bringing the gospel to the unreached:

House of Mercy in Armavir, Russia: These friends rescue and care for homeless people, many of them elderly and with nobody to help them. You can see pictures and stories of people they are rescuing on their Facebook page or on Telegram.

Because of the international situation with Russia, the only way I know to send support to them right now is by signing up with this Telegram bot and then going to their Telegram page to donate.

Brazilian Kids Kare: We mentioned how many children in poor regions of Brazil eat one meal a day, are beaten and sexually abused, and even have to prostitute themselves to eat. Our friend Reinhard decided to do something about it. He has opened six childrens’ homes in Brazil and wants to open 100. https://braziliankidskare.org/

Joshua House Life Centers: I spent time with these friends personally in L’viv Ukraine sometime around 2010. For many years, they have been rescuing and adopting children from horrible situations of neglect and abuse, and also doing evangelistic work and outreaches to the poor and elderly. They are planting other homes that do the same. Not orphanages, but families! In the current situation, they are also working very hard to care for refugees fleeing the war. They are willing to risk dying in Ukraine because God’s love compels them! https://joshuahousecares.org/ and https://joshuahouselifecenters.org/

Harvest Now: Our friend Stephen Hill and his organization partner with servants of Christ in various parts of the world, many of them in frontline areas where most people have never heard the gospel and the church faces persecution. They are involved in evangelistic training, multiplying house churches, distributing Bibles and Luke 10 Manuels, rescuing the oppressed, and empowering the poor. They have amazing projects that give a lot of bang for your buck! And if you have some time, take a look at some of the articles on their website too! https://www.harvest-now.org/

Casa de Paz (House of Peace): This is the drug/alcohol abuse recovery house that we are most involved with. I’ve mentioned it a lot in recent posts and we’ve seen many miracles and healings there. We appreciate pastor Moises and feel he is truly serving people and motivated by God’s love –which is why some people have commented that they feel better when they visit there than they go to church! They are also caring for elderly people who have nowhere to go. Only one church is giving them a little monthly support, so we try to do as much as we can to help them. We are also in the process of helping them build a hydroponic system with fish and vegetables! Many of you guys have contributed to that project with Paypal donations, and we appreciate it!

The post You Can’t Give Your All For Jesus And Submit To Human Religious Demands appeared first on Go to Heaven Now!.

Don’t Limit God!

Let the Holy Spirit reveal to your heart the infinite riches you have in Christ. John 16:14-15 NKJV He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.What Limits God?

Psalm 78:41 (YLT) Yea, they turn back, and try God, And the Holy One of Israel have limited.

How can a person limit God? Psalm 78 is all about the miracles that God did for Israel. I encourage you to read the whole chapter. Psalm 78 exhorts us to talk about the testimonies and works of the Lord so we don’t fall into unbelief like Israel did. Even though God worked wonders and delivered Israel again and again, they quickly fell into unbelief and complaining. They forgot so quickly what God had done for them.

Complaining limits God.

Unbelief limits God.

Scripture reveals that God is extremely generous. It says if the Father gave us Jesus, He will also with him give us all things. Jesus, the image of the invisible God, revealed God’s generosity and healed every person who came to him and every person that touched him.

Ephesians 1:18-19 (NIV) I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. 

Do you know that what you have in Christ is riches? There is no limit to God’s great power for us who believe. At least the limit isn’t on God’s end. The only limit is our belief.

Until I was about 20 years old, I only had very few experiences with God that were definitely supernatural. That changed at a conference where I realized how my lack of understanding had been hindering me from really seeing God’s nature and being assured of His will. Since then, I have sometimes seen more people healed in one day than I had previously in years of church. It’s like a whole new world has opened up to me, a reality I had hardly imagined!

About six months ago, someone sent some pictures through WhatsApp of a little boy, about two years old, covered with raw red patches all over his skin. She said she knew the family and their little boy had a severe allergic reaction and was screaming in pain all the time. It was very difficult for the family.

I sent a WhatsApp message. “In Jesus’ name, inflammation go! God thank you for your glory filling this little boy’s body, driving out affliction, putting everything in order!” She forwarded it to the family.

The lady who sent the message visited us on Sunday. She said that she talked to them and after receiving the WhatsApp message, the painful red patches covering his body just went away. I said something like “That’s wonderful. Thank you Jesus!” And she realized that I’m used to hearing reports like that. I was happy, but not so surprised as she thought I might be. I used to only dream of seeing God do things like that. I heard stories from far away, in other times and other places. Now I don’t even remember all the testimonies from the last week. Yet I feel that I’ve only touched the surface of all that God has for me. There is so much more! I have so much to grow, and I’ve only begun to touch the heavenly realities that have been opened up to me Christ!

Ephesians 3:16-20 (NIV) I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…

How would you like to be filled with all the fullness of God? He is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to His power at work within us. Why don’t we at least start to ask, and start to imagine? What is the limit? It’s what we see. God sees so much more than we see, and we need to start seeing what God sees. That’s why Paul prayed for the church that the eyes of their hearts be opened.

How Can A Person Limit God?

The very idea of a person limiting God is offensive to religion. However, we don’t imply that God is anything less than all-powerful and all-knowing. He just is not all-controlling. God has a purpose and a way in which he works, and it is through humans. In a way, He has limited himself. He is an invisible Spirit manifested through bodies on earth. Jesus came in a human body,

If I were to name any one belief that works against the manifestation of God’s glory more than any other, I would say it is the belief that God controls everything. In fact, people close to me have started manifesting a demon and been delivered when I explained that God does not control everything but has given authority to mankind. Evil manifesting on earth is due to man abusing his God-given authority and entering in partnership with evil. Not due to God’s will or permission. God’s kingdom manifests on earth when human beings enter communion and partnership with God’s purposes.

For one person, the spirit just left with deep belches as I spoke. Just hearing and understanding the truth drove it out. But on another occasion, the person’s body went limp, fell down, eyes rolled back in the head, and it left when I commanded it to get out. But why would this idea that God controls everything be so dangerous?

If we think God is controlling everything, we look at him through life, through disappointments, through everything but Jesus. To do so is to see a perverted image of God by attempting to look at Him through sinful man who has fallen short of His glory, rather than looking at the perfect image of God through the sinless man and Author of creation, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the image of the invisible God! People who look at God in that way can’t even tell the difference between what is from God and what is from the devil. They can’t even tell the difference between the Holy Spirit and an evil spirit, and they think the work of the devil is actually from God.

God can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine according to what? According to His power in heaven? No, according to His power at work within us. If we can’t see who God is or what His will is, we limit His power at work within us. This only limit is our view of Him. It is what we believe. To believe is to see God as He is.

Mark 9:22-23 (NIV) “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Don’t Rob God Of The Glory Due To His Name Through Your Unbelief!

Ephesians 3:21 (NIV) to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Why is the God glorified in the church and in Christ. Because in the church and in Christ, God takes on flesh. In the church and in Christ, the invisible nature of God is manifest. Through the church and through Christ, God accomplishes his will.

The church is the body of Christ, and if you by faith have clothed yourself with Christ, your members are the members of Christ. Stretch out your hand and touch someone, and it is Jesus touching them. When your feet carry you somewhere to share the gospel, Jesus Christ is coming to that house or city. And when you see God and obey His Word, his glory manifests in power and God is glorified through the church.

In my experience, most Christians by far don’t know this and don’t act according to it. They limit God. I have been teaching other people to minister healing according to Jesus’ commission. I say “You lay your hands on this person and minister healing!” Most people say “Me??”

The other Saturday night I was with a missions group. My friend’s girlfriend had slipped and hurt her back that day. I could pray for her but I told him “Come over here and lay your hands on her back.” He is learning and commanded the pain to leave and the back to be healed. The pain reduced.

Then I saw a young lady nearby. I had never really talked to her before, but I’d seen her at church events and noticed she cried a lot and seemed really broken. I said, “Now you, come over here and pray for her.”

She said “Me??” And I responded, “Yeah, it’s easy. Just come over here, put your hands on her back, and say ‘In Jesus’ name, be healed.'”

I could tell that she felt like she was nothing to pray for somebody. But with our encouragement, she obeyed the command of Jesus and laid her hands on the lady’s back. She prayed. She prayed quite a lot longer than she needed to, but we were patient. It was her first time. She didn’t really command the back to be healed or speak with authority, which is usually much more effective, but it was her first time. I admit I was a little impatient for her to finish so we could ask the lady to test her back again. But it was her first time!

When she finished, I asked the lady “How is it now? Move your back. Is there any more pain?” She moved it and said “It’s completely gone! Actually, the moment she touched my back, my whole back got very hot and all the pain left!”

The girl who prayed for her started weeping. She was more touched than the woman who was healed! While she was praying a somewhat long prayer, God’s glory had already come on the woman’s back the moment she touched her! The girl praying didn’t feel any great faith or expectation. But she obeyed, even though somewhat reluctantly, and laid her hands on the woman’s back.

John 15:8 (NIV) This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

God is glorified through us. His power, love, and goodness is manifest on earth through his body the church, and this brings glory to His Name! Don’t rob God of the glory due to him! The body obeys the head, Christ is the head, and He taught his disciples to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. We limit God when we disobey these commands. When we obey Christ’s commands, we bear much fruit and show that we are his disciples. That is, we have learned from Christ and do the works of Christ.

Right now, I don’t know anybody else in my city who sees miracles regularly. I live in a city of 1.1 million people, with lots of churches. Yet I know all Christians can see miracles regularly. Many of the youth in our Youth group in the US saw miracles happen through them when they prayed or gave words of knowledge. Kids who didn’t limit God. I have taught in churches, everyone prayed for each other, and many miracles happened. It’s not that hard. Just obey Jesus and lay your hands on the sick.

So why don’t I know a single other person in my city, with all these churches, that I see regularly walking in God’s power? Because I don’t know a single other person in my city who will pray for a stranger they meet on the street who has a cast on their arm. Rarely, if ever, will a Christian person say “Let’s do something about that” if another person they know, even in a church context, says “My back hurts” or “I have a headache.”

That’s how people limit God. Many Christians have no idea of the riches they have in Christ or of what could happen if they would just step out and obey God rather than being imprisoned in the past, what they have or haven’t experienced before. But God has a new normal for the church. And we are working to present everyone complete in Christ.

Remove All Limits!

Even if seeing healing and miracles has now become normal for you, you can still have many areas in which you limit God. It’s not about just what you give mental assent to, but it’s about what you see with the eyes of your heart. Are you more impressed with Jesus than with anything else? What you see with the eyes of your heart is what forms your reactions and responses to situations. Do you respond with fear or faith?

How can you remove the limits? Praise and thanksgiving are like spiritual eyes with which you see Jesus. Feed yourself with God’s promises from scripture and with testimonies. I spend a few hours every week watching testimonies on Youtube. I really appreciate John Mellor and Mark Heman’s testimony videos, for example. Talk constantly about the Lord and His goodness. Recount what God has done for you. Read testimony-filled books like the story of YWAM, “Is That Really You, God?” Talk about Jesus and about God’s mighty works until a cloud of God’s glory starts to form over your head. Praise and thanksgiving does that. People can feel it. Just like people can feel it just by being around a person when that person is depressed and constantly griping and complaining, they can feel it when your heart is filled with thanksgiving and praise.

Challenge every limit by your words and your actions, with praise and with declaration. Maybe you have started praying for people and seeing them healed. But you haven’t seen family members healed. Keep laying hands on your spouse and kids if they get a cold or headache. Don’t limit God. Maybe last time you prayed for someone and didn’t see any change. Pray for the next person. Lay hands on that person in a wheelchair in the supermarket and command that their body be restored. Don’t say “I’m not going to pray for that guy, because he only has one leg.” Challenge your unbelief constantly. Challenge every limit. Pray big prayers that go way beyond yourself, and remember, effective prayer is not begging God to do something but it is joining your agreement to what you know He wants to do. Because you know HIm. You know His character. Pray for Russia and Ukraine. Pray big prayers, reminding yourself of what God has done in the past. Pray that kinds of prayers that you can see the answer to in the newspaper. Pray for nations and people groups. Elijah was a man just like us and he changed the course of history.

I’ve heard that a baby elephant is domesticated by chaining it to a post. The baby struggles at first but realizes it can’t go beyond the chain. And the baby grows to become a big elephant that could easily pull up that post, but doesn’t know it. Once the elephant believes he can’t go past that limit, all that is needed is to tie a string to the elephant and the elephant won’t attempt to go past the limit of that string, which is not really strong enough to impose any limitation on the elephant at all. The only limitation is in its mind.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, a heavenly person. The Holy Spirit empowers you. You have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of light!

Colossians 2:20 (NIV) Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules

Colossians 2:20 (AMPC) If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world?

The limits we once lived under have been removed in Christ. Yet most Christians continue to act as if they are still under them, still subject to the kingdom they once lived in. Nothing more than a thread holds them back, but they act as if they are still chained to that post.

Samson was bound with new ropes, but when the Spirit of the Lord was upon him he snapped those ropes off as if they were threads. (Judges 16:12) Be filled with the Holy Spirit. How?

Ephesians 5:18b-20 … be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s another confirmation! Praise and thanksgiving remove the limitations in your heart and mind. What now seems to be impossible and extraordinary to you can become your new normal in Christ! You can grow in the knowledge of the Lord. You can grow in faith. But you will only grow to the extent that you challenge every limit, step out, take risks, and challenge the unbelief in your own heart so that you bear much fruit and God is glorified through you. Don’t be bound by threads! Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you what you have in Christ, and learn to live in it!

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A Key to Miracles: Jesus Deserves What He Paid For!

Jesus Deserves Your Life

I was recently at Casa da Paz again, the Christian substance abuse recovery house that I’ve become involved in. Sometimes I come back and just cry because of God’s love for the guys there. That night, a friend of mine had a battle going on in his mind and ended up taking a bunch of pills that he found. Then he felt sick and told us what was going on.

We prayed and the dizziness left, but he was crying and repeating all the lies that had been tormenting him. He talked about all he had lost, his family that finally left, and all his failures. Many of the guys at the recovery house have lost their families and struggle so much with regret, guilt, and feelings of hopelessness. They need encouragement. They need to hear and see testimonies of other people who have come out of addiction. They need people who will get around them and aggressively speak God’s word and God’s promises into them.

As I was listening to him say “I always fail. I don’t deserve for God to do anything in my life, ” a thought came to me right from heaven and I felt God’s glory on it. I said, “But Jesus paid the highest price for your life, and he deserves what he paid for. It’s not about what you deserve. It’s about what Jesus deserves, and the Holy Spirit isn’t about to give up on bringing to Jesus what he paid for!”

As I spoke, I realized that God’s word like a sword was going right to the heart issue that needed to be dealt with. It was a specific call to repentance for my friend. I realized that the heart issue behind “I deserve for God to do something in my life” or “I don’t deserve for God to do anything for me” is pride. Both sayings are opposite sides of the same coin, coming from a self-centered perspective. And God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6) It’s not about what you deserve or don’t deserve. It’s not about your merits or your repeated failures. It’s about what Jesus deserves. Isn’t God’s correction wonderful? If we receive his word it comes with the grace to change our lives. God’s correction for my friend gave him the opportunity to humble himself and receive God’s grace by turning from the self-centered perspective and understanding that “No matter how many times I have failed, Jesus still paid the price for my life and he deserves what he paid for.”

Jesus Deserves Your Healing

I was really thinking about this for some time, and I felt like the Holy Spirit was teaching me. I thought of how my perspective and motivation have changed over time as I pray. I have sometimes offered to minister healing to Christian people and they say something like “Oh, I’m all right.” It’s sad how much unbelief compromised, powerless religion breeds. But in that situation, I think “You don’t get it! It’s not all about you! It’s about Jesus being glorified.” Jesus healed the sick because he was moved with compassion. I feel compassion for people too. But there is something bigger than even that which burns in my heart now. I say “Sickness and pain leave this body now so that Jesus is glorified.” Testimonies bring glory to God, and people need to see who he is! We see God’s nature, love, and goodness (glory) manifest through his mighty works!

Isaiah 53:4-5 (Young’s Literal) Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains — he hath carried them, And we — we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted. And he is pierced for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquities, The chastisement of our peace [is] on him, And by his bruise, there is healing to us.

Jesus deserves what He paid for!

“That the Name of Jesus Be Glorified!”

When I join my will to God’s will to see heaven’s intervention in the nations, I pray, “Thank you God for this happening in such a way that your name is glorified.” God has always intervened in spectacular ways in history, and my expectation is that again, we will see such a move of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of men that people will be in awe and say “That could only be God!” In World War Two the world saw such miraculous inventions in response to the prayer of faith in the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, North Africa, and Salerno, Italy. Right when they were at the point of victory, Nazi forces unexplainably withdrew.

When I thank God for provision, the first thing in my mind isn’t “…because we have a need.” The first thing “Thank you God for your wonderful works in our life that will glorify the name of Jesus and leave people in awe of your goodness!

Hosea 3:5 (NIV) Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

Jesus deserves the honor, the glory, and the praise!

Why is This a Key to the Miraculous?

The nature of God’s invisible Spirit is never self-centered. His nature is love. To connect in communion with the Holy Spirit, to connect with heaven, we leave behind a self-centered perspective. Self-centeredness is a form of pride, but God gives grace to the humble.

It’s not that you don’t want to see financial miracles, to be healed, or experience God’s move in your life for yourself. But that’s no longer the number one motivation. The first motivation is “Jesus deserves what he paid for.” The first motivation is “May Jesus be glorified! May His name be honored! May people see God’s goodness and stand in awe of the Lord!”

When you have this attitude, it gets your eyes off of yourself so you can look to Jesus! This produces incredible joy and perseverance and leaves no room for self-pity. This is what faith looks like. Faith will continue ministering to others even if you yourself are dealing with a health issue. Faith isn’t disappointed and doesn’t back down. It perseveres.

When I lay hands on a person who needs to be healed, it’s no longer about them either. They could be unbelievers. They could have done nasty things to other people. There could be a thousand reasons why other people might say that they don’t deserve to receive from God. It’s about Jesus being glorified. It’s about who Jesus is and his love for people. That is the basis for my faith! And this is one of the attitudes that I’ve seen, again and again, bring the manifestation of God’s invisible nature in our earthly realm in miracles and answered prayer.

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Don’t Participate In The Sin Of Others By Giving In Manipulative Offerings!

Don’t participate in a puppet show that dishonors the Lord!The Sin of Striking the Rock

I was recently in a church service, and a guy who was called a prophet had been invited to speak. He began to call up a certain number of people who could give a certain amount, and make all kinds of promises saying “Surely, if I am truly a prophet and you give this amount in this offering, you will be blessed and prospered as never before and you’ll see it by such-and-such a time…” Sometimes we’ve seen that kind of behavior and we know it’s wrong, but we think “Well, lots of people do that in churches. We live with it. It’s not as bad as ____. It’s better not to focus on that.” For me personally, I would often think “At least he’s not calling down curses on people who don’t give!”

But I the Lord spoke to my heart and said “What he is doing is just as grievous as the sin of adultery. It is not any less harmful.” An adulterous affair can put a real stain on a pastor’s reputation. However, many Christians who would be repulsed by that regularly tolerate manipulation in taking the offering.

“I Know That Was Wrong, But Was It Really So Serious?”

When the Lord said that, I immediately realized that what was happening was the same as two other stories in scripture-the story of Moses striking the rock and the story of Saul offering the sacrifice before the prophet came. Later, my mom mentioned the story of Uzzah touching the Ark of the Covenant and I realize how relevant it was as well.

As I’ve read all three of these scriptural stories, I’ve often felt like “OK, I know they were wrong, but why was it really that serious? It seems like God really overreacted in this case. Moses couldn’t enter the promised land? Saul was removed from being king? Uzzah was struck dead? Just for a mistake?”

The Lord was showing me that manipulating people in order to “support the ministry” is the same sin as in these three stories. It is also much more serious from God’s perspective than from a mere human perspective. God wants the church to understand his perspective on this.

Acting in Human Strength Rather Than Trusting The Provision in God’s Voice

Numbers 20:6-12 (NIV) Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

So Moses took the staff from the  Lord ’s presence, just as he commanded him.  He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

But the  Lord  said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

OK, Moses, messed up. But why was it so serious? Moses acted in human strength instead of trusting God to accomplish what he had accomplished by his word. Doing this dishonored the Lord.

The Lord has taught me a lot about provision in the last two years. He has spoken a lot to me through the teaching of  Reinhard Hirtler, Bertie Brits, and Michael Van Vlymen on the subject. The common factor that I see again and again in the scriptural stories of God’s provision, is that provision is in God’s voice.

Matthew 4:1-4 (NIV) Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Jesus was quoting the Old Testament when he resisted Satan’s temptation to turn the stones into bread. It is significant that of all the things Satan could tempt Jesus with, one of the temptations was to turn rocks into bread instead of relying on the Father’s voice for his provision, just as Moses struck a rock to get water instead of relying on the provision in God’s voice.

If we try to gain the resources for the ministry by striking the rock, we are dishonoring the Lord just as Moses did. Unbelievers blaspheme the name of Christ because of it. When we trust in the Lord’s voice for provision, we honor him as holy.

If the provision in God’s voice isn’t sufficient for what you are doing, then you are doing something God has not called you to do. If God calls you to do something, the provision for it is in his voice.

1 Samuel 13:7-14 (NIV) Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.“What have you done?” asked Samuel.

Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash,  I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the  Lord  your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.  But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

The same thing happened here. Not waiting for the prophet symbolizes not waiting for the voice of the Lord. God has promised provision in his word. There is provision in God’s voice for everything he calls us to. He commands us to wait on him and trust in him. Trying to make that provision happen by manipulating people because we are under pressure is no different than what Saul did when he was under pressure. God treated this very seriously.

2 Samuel 6:1-7 (NIV) David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. He and all his men went to Baalah in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.

Uzzah tried to “steady” the move of God’s glory, to make it work by human effort. He thought it was about to fall apart if he didn’t do something. We could compare this to a situation in which the church is growing. “We need money! The church was growing, we got into this building project and now we are in debt! Let’s get a prophet to come and call 20 people who can give $1000 each and promise them that all heaven will be unleashed on their lives if they do. We can’t let this move of God fall apart.”

They Will All Know Me, From The Least To the Greatest

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NIV) “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ”declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

I see two legitimate ways to give in the New Covenant. One is giving as the Holy Spirit speaks to you directly. No intermediary. You don’t need an intermediary to tell you what you should give. The other way is to give as you desire to give in your heart, which is in communion with the Father through Christ. Giving under compulsion is illegitimate and is disobedience to God’s command in 2 Corinthians 9:7.

2nd Corinthians 9:7 (NIV) Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:14) Giving as lead by the Spirit of God is giving as you have decided in the secret place of your heart, to be seen by God and not by men. (Matthew 6:3) But if you are giving under compulsion, you are not giving as lead by the Spirit. I have resolved to obey the command of God in 2nd Corinthians 9:7 and never give if it is under compulsion or manipulation, which is the sin of witchcraft. Refuse to participate in that which dishonors the Lord.

If you are using compulsion to get people to give, you are teaching them NOT to be lead by the Spirit, you are hindering them from walking in communion with God, you are violating the Bride of Christ by usurping the role of God in His people’s lives, and you are opposing the work of the Holy Spirit.

Our friend Brian Hogan and his wife went to Mongolia with another couple when there were only a few Christians in the whole country. Within a few years, they had started a church-planting movement with hundreds of churches, sending more missionaries for every Christian than any other movement in the world. Brian is a church-planting coach training hundreds of church-planters all over the world. God showed him two things that hindered churches from multiplying. The first was that they were making things way too complicated. The second was that they were trying to do things that were the Holy Spirit’s job.

Speaking to Christians about what and how to give is the Holy Spirit’s job. If we try to do the Holy Spirit’s job in human strength because we do not trust and honor Him, we oppose the Holy Spirit’s work. Don’t interfere! What God calls us to is only possible by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. It is not possible by merely human effort and devices. We can, and should, encourage and exhort people to give and be generous. Scripture does! We can share opportunities to give. But we must leave the response up to the Holy Spirit.

Many people compromise in this area because they feel the ministry needs money. But what good does it do to have a big ministry and a big church if you no longer have a pure gospel message that teaches people to relate to God through Christ? The leaven works through the whole batch, and then the weakened, polluted form of the gospel that we are left with ends up creating resistance to Christianity and to the true gospel message that comes in power and not in word only.

2nd Peter 2

Some days after writing the first part of this, I had a little time to read the Bible and I asked the Lord if he’d like to speak to me through a specific passage today. I saw written in a vision “2 Peter 2.”

I went and read 2nd Peter two. Here are some parts that stood out to me:

2nd Peter 2:1-3, 13-14, 17,20-21 (NKJV) But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.  And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber…They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children…   These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness…For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

These people exploit you by covetousness. They “secretly” bring in destructive heresies. These are teachings that sound good. They sound right. They sound like a way to get your blessing, to get a breakthrough, even to be a good Christian. But these teachings are destructive because they lead Christians away from relating to God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. And they even believe their own deceptions. Their words are deceptive and are motivated by covetousness, which is wanting what you have. Many ministers who fall to covetousness believe they have good intentions. They believe they need to stabilize the Ark of the Lord’s presence like Uzzah did. But the end is destruction.

Their hearts are trained in covetous practices. This describes many of the manipulative practices commonly used and accepted in order to get people to give more money. These people are wells without water and clouds without rain. They make lots of promises and “prophesies” that aren’t fulfilled, but they have no gospel power.

Don’t Participate In These People’s Sins By Giving In Their Offerings!

Ephesians 5:5-7 (NKJV) For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.

1 Timothy 5:22 (NKJV)  Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.

If you let a covetous man (a person motivated by wanting what other people have) deceive you with empty words, you are participating in his sin. According to scripture, he is bringing the way of truth into disrepute, guilty of idolatry, engaging in manipulation which is the sin of witchcraft, and opposing God’s purposes by interfering with the direct relationship between God’s children and the Holy Spirit. Refuse to participate in these sins by refusing to give in response to manipulation or compulsion.

On the other hand, I encourage you to give generously towards good works and participate in the ministry when the minister allows the Holy Spirit to speak to people’s hearts. Encouraging God’s people to give is not compulsion. Sharing opportunities to give is not compulsion. But trying to manipulate the results rather than trusting the Holy Spirit to speak to people is sin.

This article will upset some people. Refusing to give anything in response to manipulation may be one of the fastest ways to receive persecution from the religious. Many Christians will find that where their giving is going will change completely if they do this. However, there is precious fellowship with the Spirit of Christ when you have to suffer outside the camp for conscience’s sake. There is something very special about bearing reproach because of our communion with Jesus Christ. It’s worship…I belong completely to Jesus and if my life is pleasing to Him, it’s all right if other people hate me for it!

2 Timothy 3:12 (NKJV) Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Hebrews 13:11-14 (NKJV) For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.

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Have Faith In God’s Generosity Towards You!

The Heaven Now Seminar

I recently got back from teaching a “Heaven Now” conference in Sao Paulo state, a ten-hour bus ride from where I live. I taught four sessions over the weekend based on my Heaven Now Trilogy. The conference was based on the truth that a pure gospel message produces extreme joy and power, and if what we believe isn’t producing that kind of joy and power, we should examine how we’ve become double-minded concerning Jesus’s death, resurrection, and incarnation. We can mentally acknowledge these truths but act as if they aren’t true! Major themes were approaching God the Father through Christ, continually praising the Lord and sharing testimonies, and looking at God and His will only through Jesus regardless of our experiences.

During the second session, five or six people were healed during the message about praise and proclamation, without even receiving prayer. Several others were healed as they prayed for each other. At the end of the conference, I asked for anybody who still had pain in their body to stand up. They received more prayer until there was only one attendee left with any pain…and it was at least 80% gone!

Behold God’s Invisible Nature Through Christ and it Manifests in the Natural!

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Scripture teaches that God’s nature is invisible, but we can see him through faith in Christ. Scripture testifies of who Christ is, and testimonies of his work also reveal his nature. When we look at Christ and the promises of God’s word, the invisible reality we see manifests in the natural realm. By faith, we see God and the invisible reality of who he is becomes visible! If you are trying to see the invisible God through your experience, you might feel like He is stingy. But as you look at the invisible reality found in God’s word and revealed in Jesus Christ, your experience can change! There is a whole new world in God that goes beyond what you could ask or imagine!

Romans 8:31-32 (NIV) What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Psalm 31:19 (NRSV) O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone!

Psalm 36:7-9 (NRSV) How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Psalm 23: 5-6 (NRSV) You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Do you know what it’s like to be constantly on the brink of tears because God’s goodness is pursuing you? Miracles happen all around. I remember a metro coin falling from thin air so we wouldn’t be late. My friend waking up in my house to the unexplainable smell of roses. One healing after another. And many other abundant manifestations of God’s goodness.

I was recently listening to a preacher and he offered milk and cookies to everybody at the beginning of his message. I felt like God spoke to my heart and said “Eat the milk and cookies. They represent my goodness.” God brought the Israelites into a land flowing with milk and wild honey!

Psalm 34:8-10 (NRSV) O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Psalm 84:11 (NRSV) For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

God Has Prepared a Feast for You!

If God gave us his Son, he will give us all things! He lays up his abundant goodness for those who fear him and has a river of delights for his people!

To repent is to change how you think. Scripture reveals God’s extreme generosity. Respond to God’s word with repentance and contemplate his goodness. Resolve that “I’m a target for God’s goodness.” God is a rich Father and is extremely generous! Jesus Christ is the word of God made flesh! Let’s God’s word be made flesh in you so that God’s invisible nature is made visible! Take the scripture and believe it, and Jesus Christ will be manifest to you through the Word of God. The Word makes the invisible nature of God visible.

Hosea 3:5 (NRSV) Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.

When God’s goodness becomes your heart-reality, it will result in an abundance of miracles. Fill your heart with God’s promises and get radical about praise and thanksgiving. When you choose praise and thanksgiving at all times, you use your mouth as a rudder to direct your heart. God’s glory manifests as a cloud of his goodness around you.

Give God’s Riches To The World!

Knowing God’s extreme generosity is not about some self-centered religion that only asks what God can do for us. Far from it! It’s knowing the generosity of our Heavenly Father that empowers us to be generous. I’m not just talking about money either! Although financial giving is a part of it, money isn’t even “true riches” according to Jesus!

We experience God’s generosity in both giving and receiving. It’s such a blessing when the Lord leads you to give to someone, or speaks to someone about giving to you. And the real treasure, much more than the money itself, is God’s nature, care, provision, love, and generosity that is manifest in the act. Giving away God’s riches includes giving the gospel message, healing, prophecies, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, miracles, and all kinds of angelic manifestations.

When your heart knows God’s generosity towards you, you will have the attitude “I’m rich! I’m rich! I’m so rich!” When you know that you are spiritually rich, you can give God’s riches to the world. What if you know that you have healing for that person with MS because you are spiritually rich? How will you act? What will you do? How will knowing God’s generosity change the way you respond to situations? When you know God’s generosity, you will know you are rich regardless of your financial situation. Learn to act and think according to the facts of who God is to you, of what his attitude is towards you, and of what you have because the Spirit of Christ lives in you and the nature of God dwells in you.

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God’s Love Is Pursuing You!

Do You Have To Have Faith To Be Healed?

Today I’d like to share some recent testimonies about God’s love pursuing people. I’ve written quite a bit in past articles about how I stopped putting the emphasis on the faith of the person receiving ministry for them to be healed. Although of course, it’s great to encourage people to put their faith in Jesus as their Healer, what I call the “New Faith Movement” emphasizes the faith of the person ministering, not of the person who is receiving. Many people are skeptical or their hearts have become hardened with unbelief, yet God’s love is still pursuing them. In fact, I feel a special delight in seeing God touch people who just didn’t believe.

The Old Lady On The Prayer Mountain

There’s a place about a 20-minute walk from my house called “prayer mountain.” It’s really more of a hill in the middle of the city. You can go there and there will be people praying at almost any time of the day or night.

One night I went there and joined up with a group of people. They were prophesying that an old lady would be healed. However, it saddens me when I see this kind of thing because it’s just religious and it creates the worst kind of unbelief. Instead of using the authority that Christ has given us to release God’s power and then asking the person to test the condition, it puts God’s promise off to some indefinite time in the future.

After they finished, I saw that the old lady was limping badly Her son was helping her walk. I asked if I could pray for her. She said I could, but almost as if she didn’t expect me to pray right then and there.

I stretched my hand towards her knee and commanded “In Jesus’s name, pain go now! Thank you Holy Spirit for glorying Jesus by touching her.” I asked her how it felt now and she immediately responded “Oh, I’m sure it will get better. Thank you.” A typical religious response from a person who has been so disappointed by powerless religion that even though we talk about healing, we really don’t expect anything to happen! (It reminds me of a Pentecostal woman in Rio de Janeiro who covered her mouth in shock when she bent down and touched her toes with no pain in her back. In spite of all the jumping and shouting and yelling in tongues, she did not expect to actually be healed by Jesus that night! You know, praying for the sick was just some religious thing and everyone always said “It will get better” or “I am healed by Jesus’s stripes” without actually daring to test it!)

I said “But how does it feel? Can you move it? Can you test it?” I convinced her to test it and she said “It still hurts. But thank you. I’m sure it will get better” as if she was in a hurry to get the whole thing over with. And I asked, “But how is the level of pain? Is it less?” She responded, “Yes, it is less.”

And I said, “OK, let’s pray again.” I prayed again and the pain was even less. But she said “Oh, I’ve had this for so many years. I’m sure it will get better sometime.” Total religious unbelief. And I responded “Listen, forget about that! It’s very normal for me to pray several times and the pain gets less until it’s gone. This happens all the time, and I want you to leave here completely pain-free tonight. Just let me pray again.”

I prayed two more times and she was completely pain-free. Then because it was very dark and there was a part of the trail where she could get hurt or fall down the hill if she stepped wrong, I walked behind the lady and her son with my phone’s flashlight so she could see.

Even though she was pain-free after I prayed the fourth time, I don’t think that what happened really sunk in until a few minutes later when we were near the end of the trail. Her knee wasn’t hurting! The old lady started to realize that Jesus had healed her and she became very happy and started chattering joyfully. She said it was like God sent an angel to her that night. Her son was also grateful and they gave me a ride home. It was truly touching to see the happiness of the old lady!

The First Recovery House

We went to two different recovery houses the last two Saturdays, which are ministries that help people to leave drug and alcohol addictions. Two days before we went to the first one, they asked if I could share the message. I began praying for the time and I had a vision in my mind of pain in the whole neck and a triangle of pain from the neck to the middle of the back.

Before we went, I also had a few other impressions about physical issues I would encounter at the recovery house. One was deafness in one ear. I didn’t know if it was partial or complete. I shared the words of knowledge in the front. However, I forgot about the deafness at the time. As the time of praise and worship was going on, some of the men in the recovery home were clapping and moving quite a big, and I felt like that was releasing angelic activity.

I prayed for several people and they were healed. And a guy told me he had the neck and back pain that I had described. When I looked at him, his ear stood out to me and I felt that he was the person who had the hearing loss issue I had forgotten to mention. I asked, and he was! I commanded the ear to open in Jesus’s name, and it quickly opened to hear just as well as the other one. Jesus also healed his back.

He was one of the guys who had been moving a lot in the front during the praise time. I encouraged him to continue because it was releasing angels when he moved and clapped in praise to God. He told me some sometimes felt inexplicable “winds.”

This guy had been at the recovery house and off of crack for three months. It was really amazing to see how God seemed to target him that night. Two of the major words of knowledge that I had before we even went to the place were for him.

The Second Recovery House

The following week we went to another recovery house. It had fewer people, about 30, and we made hot dogs for everyone before the meeting.

I had received a few words of knowledge before we visited that place too. One of them challenged me. I felt something almost like a pressure over my eyes and it was heavier over the right eye. Only I don’t know how to explain it because it wasn’t a physical pressure but it was like something spiritual. And I felt that someone at the recovery house had an eye problem that was in both eyes but was worse in the right eye.

Even though I have seen Jesus heal people thousands of times and sometimes I’m really confident, even to the point of telling people with certainty “Jesus is healing you right now,” I still often have to confront my own unbelief. And to be honest, I sometimes have felt a little discouraged in the area of seeing eyes healed. I myself wear contact lenses or glasses and I’ve seen a few people healed of eye issues, but not nearly as many as of some other issues like just plain pain. I’ve seen a few people’s hearing restored and I was crazy about finding more opportunities to pray for deaf people after the day before.

Not only that, but I still am not always so sure if a word of knowledge was just my imagination or a word from God…I usually find it is a word from God but sometimes my mind is just going crazy with scenes of what God can go running through my imagination. But the thing is I have seen God’s glory and I really want to see Jesus glorified again as I have before, so I step out in spite of uncertainty and I confront my unbelief and act regardless of what I feel.

At the recovery house, I preached that there is a way that seems right unto a man, but it leads to death. On the contrary, the path of righteousness leads to fullness of joy in God’s presence and pleasures at his right hand. Jesus forgave sins and then healed the person to demonstrate that forgiveness and call the person to repentance. Forgiveness is not the same as salvation, but it makes salvation possible. Healing demonstrates God’s forgiveness and gives the opportunity to repent and choose the path of righteousness.

I also shared the testimonies of the lady on the mountain who was in total belief and of another lady who was about to cuss me out when I told her that Jesus was healing her…until she was healed. I told the people “God’s love is pursuing you even if your heart is hardened and you don’t believe.” And then I shared words of knowledge.

The first was for pain under the shoulder blades. It was a guy there and he felt partial relief upon hearing the word. I prayed for him twice in front of everyone and he said the pain was much less but not totally gone. I said “We’ll come back and pray for you again later.” Then I begged the other people to come and receive prayer, but only two more came.

One of them had the eye issues, which were worse on the right eye. When we have a specific word of knowledge like that and it hits the target, our faith skyrockets! So I knew he was being healed and prayed for him. In about a minute he was seeing 100% clearly. I went back to the guy with pain under the shoulder blades and prayed for him again, and the pain went to 0.

So I stood up again and said “Look, the pain is gone from under his shoulder blades and this man is seeing clearly now.” I felt there was a guy with chronic stomach pain and I’d shared that earlier but nobody responded. I pleaded with the people, “Who is the guy with stomach pain? Please come receive prayer! Please, everyone who had a need, whether for physical healing or something else, please receive prayer!” One of the leaders of the recovery house also encouraged the guys not to hold back from receiving prayer out of fear of not being healed.

A guy who had stomach pain for the last three days came and was healed in a few minutes. Then slowly, more people began coming to receive prayer. Maybe about half of everyone who was there came for prayer. And as far as I could tell at the moment, every single one of them received healing. Everyone who had pain testified that they were 100% pain-free after receiving prayer a few times. Of course, there were a few issues like insomnia that could not be tested at the moment.

My heart was on fire. I’ve seen God’s glory manifest before, sometimes at events like Voice of the Apostles where other people were ministering. I’d be happy to see other people giving words of knowledge and watch what God is doing. But I don’t know any of those other people near me. I’m the only one, and I don’t want to live without seeing heaven touch earth. So I found myself praying repeatedly, “Holy Spirit, thank you for glorifying Jesus now!” and saying “Jesus’ be glorified now and everything that would stand in the way, get out!” I want people to be impressed and in awe of Jesus when they see what he does. I care about so much more than just physical healing, but I like seeing people physically healed because it shows God’s love to people, demonstrates Christ’s forgiveness, and invites people to repent. It’s tangible. It shocks people and shows them that God is real and is with us.

Many people had already been healed but I felt a heat touch my shin. And I went upfront and said “I feel like someone here has pain in your shin. You still haven’t come and received prayer but God’s love is pursuing you! Please come and receive prayer!” And I saw a guy to the side leaning forward against a pole with his head down facing away from everyone like he was crying. He was the guy whose shin was hurting. He didn’t respond to the invitation for prayer, but I went to him and after I prayed a few times, he said the pain was completely gone.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. His love is pursuing people, and the Spirit of Christ pleads with men through us, often in spite of their hard hearts and unbelief, “Come, be healed! Come, let Jesus touch you! Come, repent, be reconciled to God, and receive the life that he has for you!”

2 Corinthians 5:13-21 (NIV) If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Don’t Muddy The Waters!

Will The Church Receive Jesus When He Comes To Us?

Recently I went to a weekend retreat with a local church. There is a lot of good going on and there are signs of revival beginning, but there are also so many areas in which the people need understanding and need help. I often find myself weeping and praying for the church to come to maturity and to a greater knowledge of Jesus. I became involved with this church after having to, very sadly, leave a group I was involved with because they were becoming a cult. There had been a great move of the Holy Spirit but religion was leading the people into deception to the point where they were putting their pastor in the place of Christ as the mediator between God and man, and honoring the pastor’s word above scripture. The pastor, deluded by pride, had said “If you want to receive my anointing and be a part of this ministry, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood.” But we only eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus!

So I became involved in this other church because, in spite of many problems, I didn’t see the level of control I saw in other places. I saw signs of the beginning of revival, and I believed they might receive Jesus when he came to them.

Revelation 3:20 NRSV Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.

This verse is often used to speak of receiving Christ as our savior. I have no problem with applying it to salvation. However, it is written to the church. Jesus still comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit manifesting the nature and works of Jesus, and through people who come to us with a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ. Jesus still comes to us humble and riding on a donkey. And sadly, many Christians, many leaders, many churches do no receive Christ when he comes to them. Our friend J.D. King experienced revival in the Smithton outpouring. There were more people at the church meeting than the population of the town! In an interview, J.D. explains that of course many churches say they want revival, but most don’t. This assessment is quite consistent with my experience! Revival comes with lots of problems and loss of human control. It requires us to humble ourselves, get over our carnal offenses, and yield to the Holy Spirit.

I’m not looking for a place that is relatively organized or has things all together. Everything can be a mess, but I’m looking for people who will receive Jesus when he comes to them. And in this church, I saw that there were at least many individuals who were willing to receive Jesus. I’m not speaking of being born-again, but of receiving the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ. And because they didn’t have the policy of control that other churches have, I believe they may receive Jesus corporately. They already are, to a certain extent, but there is a much greater manifestation of the Spirit of Christ coming to them and it will be a challenge for some to accept. It takes humility and letting go of control to receive the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ.

A Very Disturbing Message

One of the things I liked about this church was that the pastor had said they don’t keep track of how much you give or if you tithe or not. He also said that some of the people up on the worship team do not tithe. My free book The Trojan Horse of Tithing details how tithing doctrines are leading to a large-scale departure from orthodox Christianity, including documentation of the fact that millions of Christians now believe that they approach the Father through their tithe and their eternal destiny, heaven or hell, hinges on their tithes. Although tithing is deeply rooted in the religious traditions of all the churches I am familiar with here in Goiania, I at least saw less control in this one. I wasn’t hearing the message come across that “You can’t come to God unless you bring a tithe.”

Well, during this retreat there was an “apostle” who spoke, a guest who the pastor considered his “spiritual father.” This man spoke on tithing. He taught that people who don’t tithe are robbing God. He threatened people harshly to make them give tithes and “first-fruits.”It was so bad that he even told the people that God hates them if they aren’t tithing!

As you can imagine, I was deeply disturbed. I was angry. I wanted to get up and rebuke him. This kind of teaching is evil, demonic, abusive, and completely in opposition to the gospel of Christ. I was just going to talk to the pastor on the break about having a healing school and teaching people to minister in their daily lives. But now I was thinking “How can I tell a person about Christ and send them to a place where they tolerate someone teaching that God hates them if they don’t bring a tithe. (But might love them if they do.) How can I share the gospel with an idolater who makes sacrifices to demons to avoid the wrath of their god or to obtain its blessing, and then bring them to a church where they tolerate someone teaching that people must bring their tithes to avoid God’s wrath or obtain his blessing, thus doing away with the gospel message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ?” I felt anguish in my soul. When I hear this kind of teaching, it isn’t just a doctrine I disagree on. To me, it’s another religion. I thought “If I can’t avoid this kind of abuse here, where can I go? The other places I know are worse! I want to be involved in the body of Christ. I want to help these people. But how can I hear this kind of abuse and not speak out about it? And thus be expelled from the group?”

But anyway, in the middle of the preaching, before it actually got really, really bad, people started to cry aloud to weep, to speak frantically in tongues. The “apostle” prayed for some people and they fell on the floor. In fact, I prayed for some people and saw the Holy Spirit move. There was an intensity in the atmosphere. But I wasn’t sure what was going on in the spiritual realm. Was this the Holy Spirit, or were Brazilians confusing emotionalism with the anointing as they sometimes do? There was something demonic in the message. I can sometimes physically feel the demonic oppression when someone gives a message like that. It doesn’t take over me, but I feel what the words are releasing on people. And I get angry. This is a good reason to get angry because it is anger springing from God’s love for people!

I was very disturbed and later I just left. We weren’t supposed to leave but my wife said “It’s better for you not to be here.” Then the pastor was unhappy that I wasn’t sitting there for the whole message.

Must You Muddy the Water For the Other Sheep?

I woke up at about three o’clock in the morning, still feeling disturbed in my spirit, and went outside to pray and sing to the Lord. I was still wondering about what was happening in the spiritual realm. And suddenly I had a very clear vision of a river. The water was being stirred at the edge of the river, it was lifting up the mud, muddying the water, and releasing the mud into the current.

I immediately understood that the Lord was showing me what had happened in the spiritual realm. What I saw wasn’t just emotionalism. The Holy Spirit really was moving. Jesus Christ is the Living Water!

John 7:37-39 (NRSV) On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The water is the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit was moving, but there was mud being mixed in to the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ. And then what I sensed the Lord was speaking to me next broke my heart! I felt that the Lord was saying “People are searching for water, but some have a hard time finding streams with pure water. They are so thirsty that some end up drinking muddy water and then getting sick. There is a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ, but mud is mixed in with it. Many vomit, meaning they reject Christ and Christianity, not because of who Jesus is, but because of the mud mixed in to the water. Others keep drinking because it is the only water they know.”

Then I remembered. I hadn’t thought of this at first when I had the vision. There is a passage in the book of Ezekiel about muddy water. I looked it up and read it again. The whole chapter is about self-serving shepherds.

Ezekiel 34 (NIV) The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

 “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:  As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.

“‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

“‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

“‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says to them: See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.

“‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

Notice that this passage is a prophecy of Christ. The shepherds (pastors) of Isreal abused the sheep, so Jesus came as our good shepherd. As I noted in the book I Am Persuaded, the Greek New Testament uses the word “pastor” at least 11 times referring directly to Jesus Christ, and only one time, and in the plural, referring to the limited role of human leader’s as pastors. I recognize that some people take a limited role as “pastors” in the body of Christ, but that role in the New Covenant is limited and is secondary to the role of Jesus Christ himself as our pastor. Therefore, I never use the singular term “my pastor” in reference to anybody but Jesus Christ.

In the prophecy of Ezekiel, that part about God himself pastoring his sheep has been fulfilled with the New Covenant. Yet many people are still looking to other people to fill the primary role of being their pastor instead of understanding that role is secondary to the role of Jesus Christ himself in our lives. In Ezekiel, it is not the pastors but is other sheep who God rebukes for muddying the water. These people today think they are pastors but God just sees them as fat sheep who are spoiling the pastors and the water for the other sheep.

Then I also better understood Psalm 23.

Psalm 23:1-3 (NIV) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

I had never thought of this before, but I realized that “quiet waters” is referring to water that isn’t muddied so that it’s clean for the sheep to drink.

Learn How To Drink Directly From The Rock!

The next night, I was continuing to think about the vision and I saw another vision. It was a pure waterfall of clean water pouring down. And I thought of “water from the rock” as a reference to Christ in scripture.

1 Corinthians 10:4 (NIV) They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

We can all drink clean, pure water directly from the Rock! But many people don’t know how to drink directly from the Rock yet! If they are babes in Christ and are not yet holding firmly to a pure gospel message, they only know how to drink from the river. And some can’t find a clean river. I found a small Baptist church in Rio de Janeiro that was a clean river, full of sincere love, pointing people to Jesus Christ and to their own relationship with Him. I’m not talking about a perfect church, but about a church that truly loves and serves people rather than using them. And sometimes such places are hard to find.

I hope this post helps you to understand God’s perspective and heart of love for the church. Sometimes Jesus weeps through us in prayer. Maybe the Holy Spirit will move you to weep as I do for the church and to pray for the body of Christ and for those who have become sick from drinking muddy water. And I want to ask you to pray for me and for the church here to bring clean, pure water to the people who are thirsty. I really need to walk in God’s wisdom and grace in this time. The day after the “apostle” muddying the water, the pastor did reiterate that they don’t look at how much people give and they don’t want to know. That is a healthy attitude and he also has much more healthy attitudes in some other areas than many other churches do. I just want to have the wisdom and vision to see what God is doing and partner with Him in the midst of everything going on!

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Pray to Keep Your Emotions In Check!

Persevere and Keep Loving People when They Don’t Understand!

I remember when I first started seeing people healed how I had to persevere. People didn’t understand! Many thought I was proud, a show-off! They didn’t know I was just talking about miracles constantly because I had seen Jesus through them and because the more I talked, the more happened. As I continued talking, bragging about God, I began to tangibly feel a cloud of God’s goodness around me. There was a joy springing up, an expectation, and it began to create expectancy in others. Over time the culture around me began to change, people began to understand, and some who were offended at first had a change of heart and were healed. I especially remember a particular couple that was resistant at first. In the end, their hearts opened up and I asked the wife to pray for her husband with me. He didn’t feel any change when we prayed….but God’s power went into her knee and her knee was healed as we were praying for her husband

I’ve been in a similar situation lately. I’m in new territory and getting involved in the body of Christ here. Lately I’ve seen quite a few people in this new group healed by Jesus. In fact, the very night when I got the news that my mother in law passed away and I was waiting for my wife to pick me up so we could recognize the body, I was laying hands on people and Jesus was healing them.

In spite of being charismatics, so many people are surprised. They say “Wow, you have a great spiritual gift!” The other day someone introduced me as a “prophet of healing.” I’ve never heard that one before! But I know this should be normal for every Christian, and I keep telling people “This isn’t a spiritual gift. This is Jesus. It can be normal for every Christian. Jesus said that those who believe in him would do the same works.” People are getting curious and asking questions. As more miracles have been happening, I keep sharing the testimonies. And as I keep sharing, I start to feel more frequently God’s glory like a weight of his goodness around me. There’s an excitement that is starting to touch others. It’s reminding me of periods in my life like my time in Russia or my first trip to Brazil where the air was thick with God’s presence.

An Emotional Roller Coaster!

In times with so much power and glory, I have always had to pray to keep my emotions in check. You sometimes feel elated in one moment and crushed in the next. Sometimes the down feeling is just the natural emotion after the high when you just saw God heal every person in a group who had a need and asked for prayer! I think of how often Jesus, after a wild time of ministry and everyone touching him being healed, would go away to a deserted place and spend the time in communion with the Father.

There is also a lot of emotion if you don’t immediately see what you want. There was a lady having issues with pain and bleeding. The first time we prayed for her, I felt God’s presence manifest powerfully but she wasn’t having the pain at the moment and there was no way to test it. Then we heard she was still having some issues. After a few weeks, they got worse. Then got to see her pray again and this time there was a manifestation of heat and electricity and all the pain left. I also felt heat touch my body a little bit under my arm, which would have been on her breast. I asked if there was an issue in that part of her body. She wasn’t aware of anything and I thought maybe I missed it with the word of knowledge. I was still happy that she was now pain-free. But the next day, she was having issues again.

Then she was hospitalized. When she got out of the hospital I prayed again and the pain left. When we got home we continued praying and there was a lot of heat and manifestation of God’s power. She could no longer feel the hard place or any pain if she pressed on her body. She physically felt God’s power moving in her body, along with heat. But the next day we heard she was in pain and bleeding again, although not as badly.

I felt discouraged. If you get discouraged sometimes you speak and instead of the excitement you felt the first time you prayed, it feels like empty words. And I pray “God, help me!”

Then I saw another lady who had been in the group and shared a prayer request the second time we prayed for this lady. Her 92-year old grandmother had been hospitalized after a stroke and was partially paralyzed. She said it would take a miracle for the old lady to come out of this. The grandmother was not present but I said, “OK, let’s hold hands and pray.” We had held hands and I said “In Jesus’s name, for the glory of God, we command the grandmother’s body to be restored as if she never had a stroke.”

I hadn’t felt as much expectancy at the moment for the grandmother who was absent as I had for the people who were present and I was laying hands on. But a few weeks later, I saw the granddaughter again and she told me “My grandmother that we prayed for was released out of the hospital after that and she has full movement as if she never had a stroke!”

That encouraged me. Continually throughout this weekend I kept talking to people and sharing testimonies, and I was tangible feeling something like a force feel of God’s goodness around me. I was walking increasingly in the manifestation of God’s glory. Then we were in a meeting. The sermon had a strong demonic influence. The preacher scolded the people, called them robbers for not tithing, and saying “God hates robbers!” In the middle of the meeting, people started crying out, yelling in tongues, and falling to the ground. I didn’t know if so much of what was happening was the Holy Spirit, emotionalism, or demonic. (Later God gave me an understanding of what was happening. I wrote about it in the last blog post.) But I prayed for the lady with the bleeding and pain issues yet again, and also prayed for my father-in-law.

My father-in-law felt God touch him tangibly, but in a way he couldn’t explain. (The next day he got baptized for the second time as he has recently re-dedicated his life to Christ.) And the lady told us that when we were praying for her the second time, we were praying for her belly but God was doing something else and she felt his power pulling on her where she had two tumors/cysts (I forget which) that had shown up in the ultrasound. And then I remembered. I had given a word of knowledge the second time praying for her about something on her breast under her arm, and she didn’t seem to know what it was at the time!

More Demonic Resistance!

Several people had told the pastor about the healings happening, and one told him that he needed to meet me to talk about a healing school. I don’t like praying for everybody. I want to see the whole church doing the works of Jesus, and so I do my best to teach everybody that this is about Jesus and the power of the gospel message, not about a “spiritual gift.”

So I had talked to the pastor and we agreed to meet and talk on the break after that night meeting. But I felt uneasy for some reason.

As the meeting continued, the guest preacher continued his witchcraft of threatening and cursing people if they didn’t pay tithes and “firstfruits.” I was stirred up and angered in my spirit and my wife said “You don’t have to be here.” So I walked out and went to the cabins. The pastor saw that I wasn’t there and was upset.

Then as the next session started, the pastor said publically (paraphrasing) “People often come to me wanting to talk about a ministry, wanting to have the microphone and be seen. But if you can’t sit down and listen, how can I let you stand up and have other people listen to you? Lot’s of people are just chasing miracles, but we are about so much more than that. It’s really about knowing Jesus.”

Those of you who know me well know how completely wrong he was! Like I’ve said, I’ve been around the block before! When I started ministering healing and talking about the testimonies constantly, some people thought I was just arrogant, a show-off! If only he knew! If only he knew that I was once so shy someone thought I was mute! If only he knew that I to become possessed with God’s love and stop caring about what people thought of me, and be willing to look like a complete fool, in order to to go up to strangers and tell them “Jesus wants to heal you” or risk missing a word of knowledge for a person I saw as I was crossing the street! If only he knew how the miracles revealed Jesus to me and changed the very structure of my brain so that pornography would have no appeal to me because I couldn’t see people through that selfish lens as objects anymore! If only he knew how many times I had harsh and angry feelings to someone but I could no longer hold onto unforgiveness because I was too used to God completely gripping my heart and soul with his love!

If only he knew how I started weeping as I walked down the street at night because I have so many memories and I knew God wanted to touch someone, and I saw the guy who was threatening to kidnap my daughter and ended up praying for him! If only he knew that I cry all the time, but I almost never cry anymore because someone hurt me or because I’m having a hard time. I cry because of God’s love for people. I cry because I want people to know Jesus. If only he knew how I don’t want people to look to me or think I have a spiritual gift, but I want them to see Jesus, and I much prefer for other Christians to receive the message, find out Jesus lives in them, and minister healing, then for me to lay hands on everybody.

If only he knew that even though it was quite judgemental and just wrong for him to so quickly assume my intentions, to assume I was a show-off without knowing me, and make a statement like that publicly instead of talking to me privately, I wasn’t in the least hurt by what he said. (Although many people would be.) And the very reason I wasn’t hurt by it was that I don’t care what people think of me. I’m happy to look like a fool and be misunderstood for the sake of my friend Jesus. I’m privileged if I suffer outside the city with Him! (Hebrews 13:12) I’m in heaven, beholding the glory of God, and if nothing can change my perspective or stop me from loving, nothing can take me out of heaven! But I weep for this man and for others who don’t understand, who are hurting and broken, who still barely understand the gospel and are double-minded about it!

In spite of all that happened, I felt great peace and glory in my soul, and I still do. In fact, I don’t think this story is over yet!

It Doesn’t Matter What I Feel. What Matters Is God’s Perspective!

When we are walking in God’s glory and making progress, all kinds of things come to try to toss us to and fro. Our emotions go up and down. One moment we might feel elated and the next we feel crushed. But it is so important to keep cultivating communion with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes you just need to get alone and sing to the Lord. And we keep proclaiming God’s word and staying anchored in it regardless of our emotions. We keep laying hands on the sick regardless of what we saw or didn’t see the last time we did. I often tell myself “It doesn’t matter what I’m feeling. What matters is God’s perspective!”

I believe what is happening here, right now, is the beginning of revival. I feel like I’m on the edge of the seat, day after day feeling God’s glory around me, feeling my soul gripped by God’s love, currents of love flowing through me, touching my body. Sometimes I just cry aloud to Jesus. I start talking about him and I start vibrating. And I want to ask you to join with me in fervent prayer for the church in Goiania and in Brazil and that this move of the Holy Spirit would not be diverted in any way but would be cultivated and multiply and increase until Brazil sees such a manifestation of the Spirit of Jesus Christ as it has never known before, that millions of hearts would be gripped and transformed by the glory of God. I ask you to pray for me that I would continue to walk in in truth and wisdom and see with God’s perspective. And I pray that God would grip your hearts with love for the church, compassion for the hurting, and expectation for what he wants to do around you!

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The Fear Of The Lord Makes You Immune To Witchcraft!

[image error] Can People Attack Christians Through Witchcraft?

Guys, I’ve been thinking of writing more on the topic of facing witchcraft attacks. I find a lot of poor understanding in this area. On the one side are Christians who are terrified of witchcraft. We’ve talked to a few Christians in Brazil who had this attitude. It’s really sad to see Christians who have so little idea of what the gospel implies for them. Many Christians really need to hear the gospel again, and understand it!

1 John 4:4 (NRSV) Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Luke 10:19 (NRSV) See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.

On the other hand are Christians who would think it is absolutely impossible for witchcraft to harm a Christian; that such stories are just myths. I think that is just naive! Many Christians have been hurt, made sick, or come under oppression through witchcraft attacks. We examined this subject in relation to principalities in the book “What Really Causes Needless Casualties of War?” However, our conclusions apply to any form of spiritual attack, not just from principalities.

Immunity from spiritual attacks comes from what I call “standing in a gospel position” of identification with Jesus, his death, and his resurrection. We don’t fear witchcraft. In fact, fearing witchcraft is giving the attention (worship) that Jesus deserves to something inferior, and that is one of the very things that causes a vulnerability. Rather, we walk in communion with God and stand on gospel truth. That is the position in which we have immunity from witchcraft.

You Don’t Have to Live in Africa and Have a Shaman Attacking You for this to Apply!

When I lived in Rio de Janeiro, we often saw sacrifices to demons on the street corners near our house. There are some places in which that kind of overt witchcraft is common. Many people have seen things that the average American would hardly believe possible. However, the heaviness or oppression you feel when people are slandering you or judging you works exactly the same way as witchcraft does. And we overcome it exactly the same way.

I have often faced this. When I started ministering healing, many people misjudged me as being spiritually proud and puffed up because I was always sharing testimonies. People thought I was arrogant as I boldly spoke God’s truth. Sometimes I still feel that. I can feel the resistance to what I am saying, sometimes even rage. Jesus felt that too. We see in scripture that Jesus knew when people were murmuring to each other about him, and he knew what they were feeling.

Mark 2:5-8 (NRSV) When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?

When I first faced this, I felt a great heaviness. I just wanted to cry for some reason, but not in a good way. (I cry all the time because of who Jesus is, and my soul is filled with heaven’s glory. But I wanted to cry because of the pain or oppression I felt trying to press down on me.) And I wondered “Have I become proud? Am I arrogant?” The Lord taught me that I was just feeling people’s judgments, and I needed to regard those judgments and the cloud of heaviness that came with them as a lie and stand on truth. (I share these initial struggles in “The Power and Love Sandwich.”) I have often felt this and pressed through it before or after a time when God’s glory was manifested greatly in power and miracles. I even felt it recently and went to the Lord to see if He wanted to correct me on something. He gave me this:

2 Corinthians 5:9-10 (NRSV) So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

What happened? Some people were furious about what I said. They were murmuring about how I was a rude, difficult person. I felt it. But what I said was true. There’s nothing wrong with asking the Lord if he’d like to correct you in some area, but he may show you that what you are feeling is actually just the accusations coming against you. Jesus said:

Luke 6:22-23, 26 (NRSV) Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets…Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

The fact is that if you are going to speak God’s word and walk in communion with Christ, you will face witchcraft attacks. Even if it is not in the form of a shaman sacrificing a goat to try to bring a curse on you, it will come in the form of judgments, slander, mockery, and accusation. We often feel those accusations in the spiritual realm. (You will probably feel these things coming against you even if you aren’t walking with God. Father forgive them for they don’t know what they do!)

Maybe you’re wondering why I would say that the spiritual dynamics of this work the same was as overt witchcraft, say for example, when someone makes an animal sacrifice. And standing against it is the same. The spiritual realm works through proclamation, either of God’s truth or of lies and proclamation. And proclamation that comes against you in the spirit realm, if you agree with it, can make you physically sick, cause demonic manifestations, and much more! This is true whether it is overt witchcraft of it is a blind person who is not walking in communion with God and knows not what they do!

Fortunately, I’ve been around the block a few times! Just recognizing what’s happening is a big step towards being immune to it. But here’s the really big key! And I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard anybody talk about it:

I Love You. I’m Not Afraid Of You.

Probably the biggest key to being immune to witchcraft is the fear of the Lord. While it’s too much to share in this blog article, I did a study on the fear of the Lord with all the scripture references in the book “I Am Persuaded.” Essentially, fearing the Lord is this: Being absolutely impressed with God so that he captures your attention more than anything else, and so that what he thinks of you matters more than anything else. It is seeking to please him and not men, as in the verse we quoted above from 2 Corinthians 5. Rather than being rooted in a terrifying expectation of judgment, the fear of the Lord as scripture speaks of it is rooted in seeing his goodness. And the fear of the Lord sets us free from all other fears. When I fear the Lord, it matters very little what people think of me as long as the Lord is pleased with me. I’m not afraid of what people think of me or what they can do to me.

When I walk in the fear of the Lord and communion with God, my conscience cleansed by the blood of Jesus and God’s love flooding my heart, accusations, slander, and mockery don’t move me. Recently, a kid said something mean to my little girl and she started verbally attacking him in response. I said “Rebekah, don’t do that because when you do, you give importance to him.” Now it’s not that he’s not important to God, as all people are precious to Jesus. But we must not “give importance to” people when they are attacking us. It would be more accurate to say we must not “give importance to” their words or the spirit speaking through them. And when we fear God, we won’t, because we aren’t afraid of them. We aren’t impressed with anything else when we behold God’s glory.

When you don’t care about what people think of you, but you love them, and you weep and pray for them when you see how they are blind and know not what they do, you are in a good place. That’s what it’s like to live in the fear of the Lord.

I work a lot on Sundays, and I’m also more interested anyways in real fellowship with participation than sitting in a pew and watching a show. I listen to plenty great preaching and worship music on Youtube. When I get together with the church, I go to pray together, share testimonies, interact, not to hear music and a sermon and go home. And sometimes those things are a bit hard to find much of in a Sunday program. So having nothing against people who like to go every Sunday and whose work schedule permits them to, the real essential thing I’m looking for is fellowship. And I meet a few times a week with other believers. But one pastor, a guy I really like and care about, recently was really concerned that I wasn’t showing up on Sundays. I told him about the nature of my work. But he said “God is going to take your job from you because you are putting your job before him!”

That is witchcraft and he doesn’t even know it! But I’m immune to it! Why? Because I love this guy, I care about him, but I’m not afraid of him. He doesn’t have the power to hurt me. I’m in Christ. What really matters to me is what God is doing and what God is saying. However, if I would “give importance to” his words, even by getting all offended, I would open myself spiritually for his words to have an effect on me. Even like losing my job due to a curse! The spiritual world is real and I’ve seen it work many times! But my reality is that I weep with love for people even if they don’t like me, and I want them to know Jesus and be built up in the knowledge of him! That is what gives me immunity to witchcraft. When people are spiritually blind, I pray for their eyes to be opened. (By the way, scripture says in 1 Timothy 5:8 that those who don’t care for their family have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever! So I don’t see working on Sunday in a job I thank God for as being at conflict with my love for Christ! Even there, I am working for the Lord and expressing his love by caring for my family)

A Witchcraft Attack On The Kidneys And How To Protect Yourself Spiritually

So, another example to illustrate how I’ve experienced what I’m explaining to you guys. There was a woman at my wife’s job, above her in the work hierarchy, who is very spiritually oppressed. We have good reason to suspect she is involved in the kind of “explicit witchcraft” which involves making sacrifices to demons and all that stuff. It’s common in Brazil and we’ve run into it a lot. But I’m not sure.

Anyways, my wife was having a really difficult time with this lady. One day, in particular, was really bad, and my wife came home with pain in her kidneys. She told me she thought she had kidney stones. I put my hand on her side and started saying “Everything that’s not from God, get out! All the pain, get out now! Every afflicting spirit, you get out!” And she started deep belching. I continued “All of it, out now, in Jesus name! Peace and power of God, fill her body! Nothing that doesn’t belong!” These enormous deep belches kept coming for about 10 minutes, and then all the pain was gone. The spiritual attack had entered through my wife getting really upset and angry at the lady.

The lady (and the spirit deceiving her) continued to cause trouble. One day I said to my wife “Honey, you need to protect yourself spiritually. You can’t let this lady or what she does define you or determine who you are and how you’re doing.” She realized that if she would come home angry because of how her co-worker was behaving, ready to explode at anybody or anything, she would be spiritually vulnerable. She began to fast and pray to keep her focus on communion with God.

A few weeks later, my wife came up very upset after a hard day with this coworker again, and she had pain in her kidneys. She said, “Jonathan, I think I need to see a doctor.” Now I’m not against seeing a doctor if you need to, but I told her “Honey, can’t you see that this attack is spiritual! Why are you talking about going to the doctor?” She kept complaining of the pain and I suddenly put my hand on her side and said “All of it, get out in Jesus’s name!” Guess what? Deep belching!

If she had still felt pain, I wouldn’t have discouraged her from going to the doctor. But I knew what the real issue was. Just recognizing what’s going on is big. The demonic hates being exposed! Many people have all kinds of problems that they think are purely natural and they have no idea of what is happening spiritually. I don’t know if the lady at her work did an overt witchcraft attack against her (like sacrificing a chicken to a demon) or simply expressed the spirit that was controlling her in anger and strife. But either way, the spiritual dynamic was the same, and the way we overcome it is the same.

I think what I’m sharing here has the potential to really help a lot of people. In fact, maybe as you read this, you recognized how and when you began to have a certain pain or problem. Maybe you thought it was purely natural and now you recognize a spiritual aspect to it. Now that thing is exposed! It wanted to stay hidden so that you would try to deal with it only naturally instead of getting at the root of the problem. You can rebuke that thing in Jesus’s name and command it to get out of your body! It’s simple. Turn your heart towards Jesus, open up everything in your heart and life to Jesus Christ, and tell that thing to get out now! I hope this post helps you to become more aware of what’s happening in the spiritual world and of how to protect yourself spiritually by walking in the fear of the Lord, or in other words, keeping your heart in the state of worshipping Jesus, and if your heart ever leaves that place, getting back to it quickly! And for those who are afraid of witchcraft (and no Christian should be,) knowing how we overcome witchcraft can help you to stop being afraid of it.

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