Equipping the Saints to Minister Healing

I felt like the Lord said, “Let my presence in your heart challenge the unbelief in your mind!”

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Two weeks ago, I took off work to preach in several churches in Sao Paulo. Then this week, I taught a “Heaven on Earth” Seminar in Brasilia. Last year, the Lord told me, “I have a new normal for the church-which should have been normal all along! It’s a ‘new normal’ in which the church does the works of Jesus!”

I am quite happy going to a poor neighborhood or to homeless people on the street, ministering healing, and talking about Jesus there. However, there is so much work to do that the need is overwhelming. After I see a person delivered or a miracle like a brain tumor disappearing, I sometimes start crying and thinking of all the other people in my city that have similar conditions because I know Jesus is the answer, but I can’t get to everyone, and I need help! It’s time for the church, the body of Christ, to rise up and do the works of Jesus!

So even though I often prefer going to a place with dirt roads and board shacks in the middle of nowhere, there is a need to recruit laborers for the harvest! Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. My goal is not just to have a healing service but to teach and encourage other Christians to start walking in God’s power.

 

The Holy Spirit’s Move In Campinas, São Paulo

The time in Campinas was very busy. I preached seven times in two days and ran around praying for people during much of the time before, after, and in between those meetings! There were so many miracles happening so quickly that it was too much to keep track of. But here are some highlights:

  • A lady had a steel plate and two pins in her knee, and also pain from thrombosis in her leg. I had said that someone’s stomach was being healed, but I think all she heard was that someone was being healed, and she said, “that’s me!” She grabbed onto the word, a wind blew over her, and the pain left. She was bending her knee normally, which had been impossible with the plate. The pain was also gone from her back. I’ve seen this happen several times. A person didn’t even hear what the word of knowledge was for but got excited and was healed anyways, even though it was a different condition than the one described.
  • A woman had cataract surgery which went bad and blurred her vision. A great heat came around her head, and everybody near her could feel it when they got close. She began to read, which she was previously unable to do.
  • A woman sitting beside me at the bus station had broken her arm 15 days earlier and had lots of pain. I held her hand and prayed for 15 seconds, commanding the bone to be restored. She both raise her arm and moved her hand with no pain.
  • I felt God directing me to pray for a certain woman when I had everyone minister to each other. She said she just wanted prayer for her son, but I said, “God is generous. It’s not a matter of just you or your son. He has plenty for you too. What do you want for yourself?” She told me she had diabetes. Later she testified that she was healed of diabetes. Of course, we didn’t have the medical confirmation at that time, but she said this because she felt a tremendous heat on the area of her pancreas and was convinced that she was healed.
  • In one church with 60-80 people, we couldn’t find a single person who left with pain in their body. I asked three times for anybody who still had pain to raise their hand and to check and make sure by moving their body and pressing where it previously hurt.
  • Various people healed in the shopping center and a pharmacy-a few of them weeping. A lady healed of sciatica pain in the shopping center came to me later and asked me to pray over a photo of her son. The owner of a pharmacy invited me to pray for employees, and they were healed. One had pain in her uterus. Her body got hot, and the pain left, and I said, “God was healing more than the uterus; He was also healing your blood.” And she pulled up her sleeve and showed me the band-aid where she had just had blood taken for a blood test because she was having problems in her blood.

 

Let The Presence of God In Your Heart Challenge The Unbelief In Your Mind!

On Monday morning, I saw this guy passing on the other side of the street. I ran across the street to pray for him.

His leg was rotting, and had a large open wound at and above the ankle. He said the only reason he didn’t die from a snakebite was that he didn’t have circulation in his leg. He smelled like he was homeless, and I could see that he had abused alcohol before, although he didn’t smell like it at the moment. There was a lot of pain in his leg and back.

The condition looked really bad! But I make a habit of challenging my own unbelief, telling those thoughts to shut up, and acting. So I started praying for him. The compassion and presence of God in my heart took over. Soon all the pain was gone. Then he crossed the street to have coffee and breakfast with us.

He kept talking for a long time, telling his story, and I kept praying for him several more times. He also had a condition in his eyes, and God’s power came like fire on his eyes.

As we were going to the car about an hour after we first met him, we saw him leaving. He was swinging his crutch and holding it off the ground instead of leaning on it.

I felt like the Lord said, “Let my presence in your heart challenge the unbelief in your mind!”

Healing Of A Brain Tumor!

In May, a friend in the UK had asked me if I’d be willing to pray for a lady in Malawi who had a tumor in her brain. He gave me her number, and I sent a message through WhatsApp saying, “My friend told me that you would like Jesus to heal you.” We set up a time to call, and I prayed for her over the phone. I didn’t hear anything for six months after that.

Then after my trip to Campinas, I sent the testimony and picture you see above of the guy who left swinging his crutch to a bunch of my WhatsApp contacts. My friend in the UK and the lady in Malawi both responded and told me what had happened after we prayed. Here are the screenshots:

 

She had a 4-centimeter brain tumor which was causing convulsions, and went from South Africa to Malawi in a wheelchair for surgery. After we prayed over WhatsApp, they did a brain scan and were shocked to find no tumor. The convulsions stopped, they canceled the surgery, and she returned to Malawi walking!

 

Jesus’s Mighty Works In Brasilia!

Last weekend I taught a three-day seminar in the capital of the country, Brasilia. Again, there were many healings as the people ministered to each other and as we prayed. The pastor has a great heart and a desire for the whole church to walk in God’s power. He would like me to come back and go to drug and alcohol recovery homes with them as I have in Goiania. He’d also like to have a healing and evangelism crusade in a very poor region of the northeast of Brazil. I was somewhere in that area before, and when we stopped at a house, they didn’t even have a toilet but instead had a bucket behind their house.

On Saturday before the service, the pastor took me to pray for an 80-year-old man on a nearby farm. His leg had already been healed after the pastor prayed for him, but he still had some issues, including partial deafness in one ear. I whispered in his ear, and he didn’t even perceive that I was saying something. I prayed and did the same several times. After a few minutes, he realized I was whispering something but didn’t understand. I prayed a little more and whispered again, “What is your name?” This time he not only heard that I was whispering, but he understood and responded!

Jesus did much more during those days. At the end, many people were bringing pictures of family members on cell phones to receive prayer or even calling family members. I had them hold their hands over the phones, and they felt power flowing through the phone with the picture of the family member!

 

Will You Consider Partnering With Our Missions In Brazil?

There are many opportunities opening up to minister at churches, and I feel like the Lord is leading me to do so. In some ways, the religious environment can be difficult for me. In fact, I refused the offering at one church because of the way they used guilt and compulsion to get the people to give grieved me. I am happy to receive free-will offerings as long as they are from the heart, motivated by love, and not of compulsion or “give to get.” We pray for people the same way whether or not they give anything and Jesus touches them! Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:14 “What we want isn’t what is yours, but you.” I feel that it’s so important to look at people to see how we can bless them rather than through the filter of seeing what they might be able to do for us! However, for those who want to contribute and are able, it is a tremendous help and blessing to enable us to reach people few others are going to!

I’ve been working six, and sometimes seven days a week, teaching English. I often do local missions on Saturday nights and take vacation days to preach. My contact in São Paulo would like to have me go every two or three months to do a healing school and share at local churches. He also said he can send me to Congo, Africa, and to Belem in the North of Brazil. Other opportunities are also opening up.

I feel the need to speak at churches and teach other Christians to walk in God’s power because the harvest is white but the workers are few! The need is tremendous. The churches do give offerings and pay for travel, but just those trips take all my vacation days and can be exhausting. My passion is going to poor places and recovery houses and I don’t want to be unable to do that anymore because of preaching in churches. Those trips cost me! I pay for my transportation, and I often pay for outreach expenses and bring basic foodstuff donations. I go because God’s love compels me, but I also need to take care of my family.

I’ve been so busy preaching in churches that I haven’t been to the House of Peace recovery house for about two months. The pastor there is planting a church and would like our help with evangelism. I and a friend in Brasilia want to do an outreach ministering healing and bringing food and clothes to people making their living by scavenging in the garbage dump. There are opportunities to minister in poor neighborhoods in São Paulo and Brasilia, bringing and training groups, as well as to go to drug and alcohol recovery houses in Brasilia. We have seen so many miracles and great moves of God in such places! There is a mission to the poor region in the Northeast and opportunities in other areas where children sometimes only have one meal a day and prostitute themselves to eat. There are other opportunities I expect to arise among indigenous people due to prophecies I’ve received.

There is so much work to do, equipping the saints and taking the gospel to those in need, that I could very easily be busy with it all the time. The fruit has been tremendous. I’m happy and content with my work teaching English. Yet as God provides and as I’m able, I will reduce my English-teaching days to be able to more fully dedicate myself to the work God has sent me to do in Brazil.

If you’re able, will you consider contributing any amount monthly to enable us to continue and expand these missions? For no reason but love and the desire to participate in the gospel!

You can set up a recurring donation to Jonathan Brenneman with Zelle or Paypal using the email [email protected]. (Zelle is better if it’s available through your bank, as there are no fees) We also hope to be able to accept donations through a nonprofit organization soon.

 

This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Go to Heaven Now

Featured Image by Fabricio Macedo FGMsp from Pixabay 

The views and opinions expressed by Kingdom Winds Collective Members, authors, and contributors are their own and do not represent the views of Kingdom Winds LLC.

About the Author

Jonathan Brenneman didn't know if God existed when he was a child. Then one day his mom prayed for his hurting back and he felt something like a ball of energy rolling up and down his spine. The pain was gone! Jonathan is now a missionary living in Brazil. He loves to see God touch people tangibly and heal others, just like he was healed.

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