Testimonies – Healing the Broken Hearted. Church, Rise Up.
I am in Riverside, California today for a conference hosted by Dr. Dennis Sempebwa’s ministry “Eagles Wings International”: the 300 – A Global Gathering of Missionaries. Believers from local churches, churches in the greater Los Angeles area, Great Britain, Kenya, Uganda, Switzerland, and the Philippines are all present. It has been a Spirit-led and Spirit-filled time of worship, teaching, prayer, healing prayer, repentance, and fellowship.
Over the last two days we have heard about 14 personal testimonies from believers. 6 of the testimonies were taped for later broadcast on an international TV network (I believe the show can be seen on Direct TV, but I need to check that). I was one of those interviewed for TV. Today we heard another 8 or so testimonies from women and one man who are attending the conference. I was struck by the common themes that ran through almost all of these testimonies.
I think (as far as I can remember) every testimony began with an honest and vulnerable description of some type of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. I was stunned to hear how many women were sexually abused and raped when they were young. One (American) woman was raped when she was 7! And these women were not chosen to give their testimonies because of abuse in their backgrounds. Most of us knew them well and were surprised, even shocked, by their stories.
Everyone who spoke described feelings of rejection, inadequacy, unworthiness, and other ways of saying the same thing – “you are not good enough” traced back to their youth, either because of the abuse, divorce, death of a beloved parent, difficulty fitting in, or other less obvious reasons.
14 or so testimonies are not a significant statistical sample, but it does point to an obvious conclusion – there is a lot of broken-heartedness related to abuse including sexual abuse in the Body of Christ in America today. The level of abuse might be even higher in other countries. I am guessing that the broken-heartedness in the congregations in America is nearly 100%, although only around 25% are related to sexual abuse (that number might be higher or lower, but more than a few %).
The testimonies all shared another common element. And this is not something that ‘proper’ churches discuss, but it is critical. The wounding opened doors in these children’s hearts for Satan and his demons to come in. Even though they were and are Christians, they were demonically oppressed,. This is scary stuff to most Christians. In America many Christians have been taught that demons don’t exist or they are not discussed at all, leading many to believe they don’t exits. But they are real. Jesus dealt with them. In fact, His first ‘miracle’ in the Luke (Luke 4: 33-35 ) was casting out a demon in a man in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Spirits of infirmity, rejection, unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, anger, critical spirits, and even spirits of death were present in every person giving a testimony. A significant number of those giving testimonies either thought about or attempted suicide in their teens. The good news is that ‘in Christ’, that is, in the Kingdom of God, Christ has given us power and authority over the enemy and all of his demons. Kingdom men and women have dominion over the darkness. We just need to exercise this dominion. At the very least we can do what Jesus did — “Be quiet! Jesus said sternly. Come out of him”. Hallelujah!
In every case they reached a tipping point – they could not go on with life as it was. Something had to change; they had reached the end of their rope (so to speak) and for some it was the end of the road. The demons had so twisted their identity, stole it really, that they saw themselves as worthless, devalued, and invisible. Life was intolerable for them. At some point in their lives they were exposed to Jesus, either through attendance at a church when they were young, the influence of believing parents, or the gospel shared by a friend.
Not surprising (this is a Christian conference), but still powerful, were their stories of redemption and restoration. For many reasons they each cried out to God. A common cry was “God if you are real, you need to show up now in a very tangible way”. One man cried out to God in his bedroom and felt the love of God flow through the entire room. Another man sat in a parking lot under a clear blue sky, cried out to God with his eyes closed, and heard ‘plop’ ‘plop’ in front of him. When he opened his eyes he saw two big rain drop imprints. He called them God’s Tears. A woman who had lost everything described how God showed her His presence and power when He commanded her to pray over a dead bird! How strange is that! But when she did the very obviously dead bird rose up and flew away. Hallelujah!! God told her “If I can bring this bird back to life, I am big enough to get you through your difficulties”.
Every person had some amazing, miraculous story of how God reached into their hearts, healed them emotionally and sometimes physically, and opened a door for them to enter into His Kingdom. Not all entered immediately and none were healed completely. The healing goes on today. But all met Jesus, all were rescued by Jesus, and all had their identity restored – beloved children of God sharing an inheritance with Jesus, seated in the heavenlies at the right hand of Christ.
Jesus opened the door for them to enter the Kingdom of God by His blood on the cross. When they had reached a place of desperation, in response to their cry, He rescued them. At some point each of them had to choose the Kingdom; they could have returned to their old life and some did briefly. But the healing and deliverance miracles that Jesus performed in their lives were so powerful that all became Kingdom children and have never turned back. In fact, some of them could not enter the Kingdom of God until they had experienced some degree of inner healing.
Today their lives are blessed. Not perfect, but they are living abundant lives – almost all have been given adequate, even abundant provision in health, wealth, and in relationships. Hearts and bodies are healed, marriages are restored, and children are saved. They have been given power and authority to take back the territory that Satan stole from them years ago and continues to try to appropriate even today. Peace and joy, even in the difficult times which still come, define their lives. They are not free of trials, temptations, difficulties. The enemy still shoots fiery arrows at them. But now they stand, they are a new creation — the old has gone and the new, the beautiful, the strong has come.
They have been given their rightful place as children of God and the gifts that accrue to them in that place: dominion over the darkness, their true identity which will never be called into question, the right to call God Abba or Father; the resources, including love and acceptance, found in the Body of Christ: and Spiritual gifts unlocked through prayer, obedience, and repentance. And, of course, salvation for today and eternity, which has at its core their healing and wholeness.
All of those who testified claimed healing of their broken hearts, restoration of their self-images, hope for the future, and a deep and abiding love for Jesus – their savior and Lord. Hallelujah. They were given life, real life, an abundant and sustaining life beyond their own power.
Their healing was not just for themselves, it was for the world. Because through these healed, beloved Children of God, God is pouring out His love into the lives of many other broken-hearted people around them — using them to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world one person at a time. Just their testimonies were healing for others. This is the purpose of the Body of Christ, the Church. To the extent the Church makes the healing of broken-hearted people its prime mission both within its body and the world, it aligns itself with Christ and His Gospel. But too often the Church ignores the pain, usually hidden, of its people and preaches, teaches, offers communion, and community projects to little effect. Few are healed, demons are not cast out, and the darkness continues to spread.
Does the Church want the Kingdom of God to be released into the kingdom of the world? That is a good question. In general, I say no, it does not. It wants to either play it safe (don’t want to disturb the people in the pews) or it doesn’t realize anymore that this is its mission. That is why for so many churches in the world (but not the whole world) healing is not remotely on their radar. Cast out demons? They either don’t believe in demons, have no idea about how to heal the broken-hearted and deliver them from demons, or are afraid if they head in that direction their congregation will rebel and leave. These positions are all rooted in a lack of knowledge and unbelief. Jesus calls us to heal. Healing often requires deliverance. And of course, the enemy does not want us to go to war against him, because he knows that if we do, in the name of Jesus, he will be defeated. His schemes are to get us to believe he does not exist, or to instill fear of healing and deliverance into our hearts so that he cannot be challenged.
I learned from these testimonies that lives are at stake. Many diseases, emotional maladies, relationship problems, and other forms of darkness are caused by Satan. In many cases medicine and therapy cannot heal these issues because they are spiritual, not medical (I personally have a great doctor in whom I have confidence. I have also had ‘illnesses’ that he could not diagnose, that were dealt with through prayer. But I believe that medicine is a gift from God and should always be in the healing mix). In most cases, the only Healer is Jesus and in all cases the best healer is Jesus. Jesus usually heals us spiritually and emotionally if we invite Him into our hearts. Less often He heals us physically, although physical healing was common enough in these testimonies. I saw that the Church needs to rise up and do what only the Church can do. In the Power of God, release the Holy Spirit into the lives of His children, all of His Children, to take back the territory in their hearts, push back the darkness, and defeat the power of Satan; to set the prisoners free and release the captives from darkness. Be the Church.
Church – stand up. You have access to the Power of God, you (and only you) have the authority to claim dominion over the enemies’ territory. Use power as God intended it to be used – to go to war. The enemy instills in us and uses a spirit of fear. Rise up, the world is watching, even groaning under the weight of its chains.
PS — the day after I wrote this post I heard another testimony at the 300 Conference that demonstrates the power and goodness of God. Here it is in a very abridged form. The woman who testified told us of growing up in a loving home. At the age of 15 she was dragged into a van and gang raped. After about 12 hours she was dumped into a field like a peace of garbage (her words). She woke up in the hospital and stayed there for 4 days. Her parents were in denial about this horrific abuse and life went on ‘like normal’. Except it wasn’t even close to normal for this woman. A year or so she left home and descended into a life of drugs and promiscuity looking to medicate her pain and to silence the voices that shouted “you are not good enough”, to put it mildly. After several years of this abuse, becoming a heavy-duty drug user, Jesus came into her life (I am really shortening the testimony) and asked her to choose. She choose Him, but not before telling Him that if He was real He needed to show up “right now” in a powerful way, otherwise she was ‘done’.
Almost immediately, she was healed. Without any withdrawal effects she was free of addictions. God brought a great man into her life who later became her husband. She was able to forgiven her assailants, and God healed the pain and brokenness in her heart. Today she is a powerful minister of the Gospel using her testimony to point to the power of Jesus to heal for the Glory of God. Not that the pain is completely gone, the enemy still attacks her, but she is living a life of joy and service that you would have said was totally impossible if you knew her in the midst of her drug-using days. What looks totally impossible to man is easy for God.
This type of healing is real as we enter into a live in the Kingdom of God. There is power ‘in the name of Jesus’.
Hallelujah!