Face to Face with Jesus in Campinas, Brazil
In my last post I highlighted some of the events at our ‘Releasing and Advancing the Kingdom’ training in São Paulo, Brazil. That training ended on Monday, November 5. The following day Seumean and I said goodbye to our hosts, Pastor Chang and his wife Nakuan, and boarded a bus for a 2-hour trip to Campinas, Brazil where we were going to spend the next 5 days teaching about spiritual, emotional, and physical healing and praying for individuals. We were joined the next day by another member of our team, Pastor David Tripp, who flew in from Houston the evening before.
Before I left for Brazil friends asked me, “where are you going in Brazil?” I told them, “I don’t know”. I only knew that I was flying into São Paulo and then going to another church in another city when our time in São Paulo was up. As it turned out, that other church was Igreja Missionáries Unida and it was in Campinas. I knew nothing about Campinas. All I knew was that we would be met and hosted by a person named Clori Mariano, who I assumed was a woman. It turned out that Clori was a 6’4’’ tall man with a huge pastor’s heart. As soon as I saw him waiting for us, leaning over the railing at the bus station as we ascended on the escalator, I knew our trip to Campinas was going to be a huge blessing. And it was!
As in São Paulo, we taught on emotional healing, spiritual deliverance, and physical healing. And as in São Paulo, I prayed for anyone who wanted prayer after the training at the end of each day. Only this time, David was with us. Between the 2 of us we prayed for about 15 to 20 people to receive emotional healing and spiritual deliverance (the two are combined into one prayer session that usually lasts between 1 and 2 hours). We taught on how to pray for physical healing Saturday evening. About 20 people received prayer for healing and for the release of pain that night. I prayed for an elderly woman who was going blind. The next day she told me that during worship she could clearly see faces and read the words to the songs on the screen at the front of the church. She had not been able to do either before I prayed for her eyes to be healed. But most of our teaching and praying focused on emotional healing and spiritual deliverance.
In China, Taiwan, Japan, the US and now Brazil, I have repeatedly witnessed that if a person is willing to acknowledge their negative emotions (anger, disappointment, frustration, and hatred), fear, sin, and occultic activities (which are significant in Brazil), renounce them, forgive and bless, and release them to Jesus, 100% of the time they got some to almost total freedom. It was really incredible watching their faces change over the hour or so we ministered to them – change from drawn and downcast to joyful and filled with light. I know – it sounds too good to be true. But I watched, for example, women releasing to Jesus anger, even hatred, that they had carried in their hearts for over 40 years – and heard them tell me about how Jesus showed up and took all of it away. He literally set them free. And the great thing was they really were free – all of it gone. They couldn’t believe it, but the relief, joy, and peace they felt was real!
What a blessing to be able to watch Jesus do that work in their lives. All of the people I prayed for were long-time Christians, some of them were pastors. These were well dressed and articulate, cheerful, active, Jesus-loving leaders in the church. But they all carried so much hurt and pain. And the saddest part of it was that the hurt and pain, the anger, resentment, bitterness, disappointment, sin, and even hatred that they had carried almost all of their lives had slowly been woven into a spiritual veil that surrounded their hearts. This veil prevented them from having an intimate, face-to-face, personal, and powerful relationship with Jesus.
For the most part, the veil was not their fault. They had been abused, devalued, and hurt by the trauma of living in a fallen world. All of us have. Who hasn’t been insulted, abused, angered, frustrated, or disappointed by someone we love; sinned, fearful, or experienced loss? Jesus doesn’t tell us that our lives will be free from all of this pain. In fact, He tells us that in this life we will suffer. But what I have learned is that when Scripture tells us to get rid of anger (for example) it is for a very good reason. Anger, resentment and all the associated negative emotions as well as sin, over time gets woven into this veil. And that veil keeps us from entering into the deepest relationship with Jesus; a relationship He died to allow us to have with Him.
Of course, they had experienced Jesus in worship and in times of prayer. But the veil kept them from knowing Jesus in the most intimate way possible. When they had released their negative emotions to Jesus, He removed the veil! They were face-to-face with Him! Now they could hear Him clearly, they could receive His power, His faith, and His peace, hope, and joy; and they experienced His love for them in a deep way. Some of them even saw Jesus in their mind – although not visible to anyone else, real to them. Once God removed the veil, their joy was almost uncontainable. They laughed, wept, and broke out into tongues. If I hadn’t gently stopped some of them, they might have praised and worshiped for an hour. The most common response to the question, “how do you feel?” was “paz” – “peace”, followed by “free”.
Some, however, were not able to connect with their negative emotions. When I asked them, “have you ever been angry or disappointed with anyone in your life”, several answered, “no”. In the end they got some freedom, but not very much.
It was such an amazing 2 weeks: the first one is São Paulo and then Campinas. When we began the teaching I could tell many were skeptical – “another healing seminar” most thought. By the end of each week all were excited about the move of God among them. What they experienced transcended religion and doctrine – they were brought into the presence and power of God. They had passed through the Holy Place, where they had lived most of their life, into the Holy of Holies where God was “a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone” (2 Corinthians 3: 17 MSG).
They would never be the same.
The other reason our week in Campinas was so awesome was Pastor Clori and his wife Cida. Clori took us to lunch and dinner each day. And we ate well, especially at the Brazilian bar-b-que places called Churrascarias. I ate more meat in one week that I had in all of 2018 up till then. Clori also translated for all of our teaching. But Clori was much more than our host and translator. He was a friend and a fellow brother in Christ. He is kind, warm-hearted, cheerful and joyful, and filled with love for every person he meets. I was blessed by him in many ways.
I am grateful for my time in Brazil, especially for the warm friendships I developed in Sao Paulo and Campinas. I am grateful for the leadership of Seumean and the fellowship I shared with him and David. But most of all I am grateful for the chance to see a loving God remove the veil from the hearts of His people. I literally stood on Holy Ground with them and because I had the privilege of escorting them into that place, I was also transfigured.
On November 12 Clori and Cida put me on a bus back to São Paulo. At 10:55 pm I boarded the flight to Atlanta. I landed in my home airport at 9:30 am on November 13, my birthday. I was happy to be home, but my experiences in Brazil will be with me for the rest of my life. I hope to return.
The spiritual veil made up of interwoven strands of anger, disappointment, frustration, hatred, fear, sin, and (for many) occultic practices surrounds the hearts of most Christians. When Jesus died, the veil to the Holy of Holies was torn, making it possible for all of us to enter that place where we can stand face-to-face with God. It is this other veil around our own hearts that keeps us out of that place. This veil, how it is woven, its impact on our lives, and how we can renounce and give it to God for Him to remove is the topic of my next post titled, “Removing the Veil: Seeing Jesus Face-to-Face”.
Paz,
John