In the last post, we shared part 1 about the trip to the Ribeirinhos on the Island of Marajó in northern Brazil. I’m planning to continue with some posts highlighting how much of what is often considered “Christianity” is really religiosity. However, it’s so important to do this in the right spirit.

Galatians 6:1 (NKJV) Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

Rather than dealing with just one person who is overtaken in a trespass, we are dealing with broader issues in the church that can’t go unaddressed. We want the church to be restored to God’s purposes. We must stay in a spirit of humility, knowing that we ourselves are only saved by God’s grace, we have nothing to boast of before God, and we have nothing but God’s grace to boast of before those we seek to restore.

My posts may sound harsh against today’s religious institutions, so I want to preface them by saying I need God’s grace every day to keep me in line just as much as anybody else and I have often gone astray. I’m just a broken person who encountered Jesus and is hungry for a greater manifestation of God’s glory. I’ve had many frustrations with the institutional church, and they are issues that need to be addressed, but in the right spirit. Despite all those frustrations, I’m still very much in active fellowship and loving and serving God’s people….but not in the institutional way!

The Back Story

I joined a cell group of the largest church in Goiânia after moving here, and loved it. After over a year, I found that the church was showing strong marks of becoming a cult and the pastor was teaching blatant heresy. Sadly, I could no longer stay in fellowship with that group with our foundation on Jesus and the teachings of the Bible, and had to leave. I still love every one of them and consider them family in Christ, but they went astray by continuing to follow that pastor.

I just wanted to have fellowship, pray for people, and take food baskets to those in need. The church my wife was attending had a missions group. I knew the church was a mess, but I found it less controlling and manipulative than many other churches. The pastor had a sex scandal soon after, around 2021. I wasn’t surprised, but I was there for the people and the missions and ignored the leaders’ mess. I became much more involved, but mostly in missions, BBQs, the men’s group, and other events.

I saw many miracles as I prayed for people there. God began to give me visions, teachings, and words of rebuke concerning greed and pastors using God’s flock instead of serving them. At the men’s group, I preached that those who use false prophecy to bring in the money have eyes full of adultery, and I told my wife the pastor was in rebellion against Jesus. Then late last year, an even bigger scandal broke, worse than the first, and we read that about 20 women had already brought allegations of sexual misconduct. This time the church kicked out their founder instead of attempting to “restore” him again.

I recorded a video rebuking the church. I said I’d warned of this before and they didn’t listen. People knew what was happening and kept quiet, so others became victims. They couldn’t pretend it was just one man’s sin. The whole church needed to repent. They had kept idolizing him and kept him in ministry the first time, and continued to receive many other preachers who were greedy and had eyes full of adultery. They honored people who dishonored Jesus but failed to receive those Jesus sent. Their values were twisted.

I sent that rebuke to everybody I could, including each person in the mission groups. Some weeks later, more scandals among the other pastors came out one after another. It is hard to tell if some were slander or not, but there was significant evidence involved and it seemed that most were probably true. This included allegations about several other sex scandals and thefts of church funds, video of the current-pastor using profane language and speaking in a way that suggested the church was their family business for their benefit, allegations about her smoking marijuana, and significant evidence that she had stolen half a million reais in public funds in partnership with her son-in-law, who is the youth pastor.

Our Mission To Jandai Recovery House

Soon after I’d sent the rebuke to each person in the mission group, the pastor who leads the missions group posted in the WhatsApp group about continuing to agree with the mission of the church and not saying negative things about the church. I sent a private message, asking her how they could keep tolerating certain things, asking her to answer directly “Is this right?” about specific situations, and saying I’d like to talk with her and her husband about these issues. She never responded, but I stayed in the group. It is the first mission group in this city that I was involved in, and is less active than the others. However, there was such a great move of the Holy Spirit at the recovery houses I visited with them, that I wanted to keep the connection. So I didn’t leave the group.

This group was going to the Jandai, a ladies’ substance abuse recovery house, in late April. I’d already been there a few times before and the Holy Spirit’s move left me in a pool of tears each time, with many healings and miracles. I didn’t want to miss going again. But I was feeling some bitterness and pain creep in. When I’d shared those rebukes, it wasn’t out of bitterness. It was the word of the Lord shared in love. Much I’d said had been prophetic, spoken before the scandals became public. But after also seeing one scandal after another not only in Brazil, but also in the United States for several months, I began to feel angry and hurt, jaded towards the church and towards anybody new I met who was called a “pastor.” So I prayed “God, help me to keep loving. Help me to stay in the Holy Spirit.”

Now I was with the couple going to Jandai, both pastors in the church, and I felt distrust. “Are they sincere? How can they keep calling this person who is so carnal, who’s on video speaking like that, who stole half a million of public funds, their pastor?” But the Holy Spirit told me. “Build up the body of Christ.” I don’t understand, but God knows what he’s talking about! And he poured out a supernatural love for that pastor couple as we went to Jandai. It’s not the first time this has happened with pastors. I feel so frustrated with the religiosity and sometimes God says “Just love them. Encourage them.”

During our time of worship, I started sobbing because of God’s love. I remembered when I was 12 years old and felt like I’d committed the unforgivable sin. God’s love had come over me physically and tangibly and the Holy Spirit said “I not only forgive you, but I will do miracles through you.” God brought my heart back to that place when I had been desperate and encountered his amazing grace. I knew I deserved nothing but Jesus gave me everything. God reminded me of my own sin and his grace towards me, and I knew I could only extend the same grace to others.

The pastor couple showed greater honor and recognition of God’s grace in my life than I’d experienced on any previous trip. They wanted me to pray for the people. I stood up and got carried away by God’s river. First I thanked God and shared my expectations, telling of the miracles that happened the previous times I was there when other ladies were in the program. Then I asked for someone with strong pain. A lady came up, I asked someone to pray, both felt God’s power tangibly, and the pain left. I had a word of knowledge about pain on one side of the upper back, near the neck, and about 6 women responded. I invited other missionaries to hold their hands, one person holding each person’s hand, and we prayed together. Then they moved their bodies, and each person’s pain was gone. Others requested prayer and it was one miracle after another.

I felt that a certain lady in the back was tormented with anxiety, so I called her up to pray for another lady who needed physical healing. When she was done praying and the lady was healed, I asked about the anxiety and she confirmed it. Six or eight other women jumped up and said “I have the same problem.” I responded, “Why don’t you all come up and we’ll pray together.” They held hands and I invited some of the missionary girls to help me pray. Then we asked each person what they felt. They were saying “I felt a shiver go through my whole body. I felt so relieved. I felt a weight lift off of me. I feel light.”

We prayed for others who had pain, and each one was soon pain-free. Then I asked if there was anybody else, and a lady stood up and said “I need to be healed of depression.” She came up and a spirit began manifesting. I yelled “Thank you, Jesus! Do it all, Jesus!” She fell backward, the spirit left with a loud cry, and all the ladies stood up and applauded! She said she felt something leave her.

Not a single person who had pain in their body received prayer and left with pain. One lady had a painful nodule in her breast and pain in another area. Not all the pain left immediately. We prayed again several times and all the pain was gone, but she was still feeling the nodule. We encouraged her and left her in faith. Sometimes the tumor or cyst is gone soon after, and sometimes we may pray for a person and the pain leaves, and we pray again a few weeks later and the nodule disappears.

That whole time at Jandai was God’s river flowing from heaven, and it was pure grace. I just jumped in God’s river, and it swept away everything in its path. It was high-level. And the highest level comes from being in the lowest place.

Man, You’re on Another Level!

Bruno is the leader of our Mova-Se mission group. He’s a medical doctor, and also a friend. Our group started to have in-person discipleship meetings in apartments. I was happy about that because I get tired of too many online meetings!

Bruno noticed how I would run after anybody I saw limping to pray for them and that I was always praying in tongues when I wasn’t talking to people. He said, “Man, Jon is on another level!” I heard the Holy Spirit say “The highest level is the lowest level.”

At our event in Marajó, Bruno was attending dozens of people who had never been to a doctor in their lives. But he was feeling really sick in the stomach and asked me to pray for him twice. At one point he prayed “God, I don’t know how I can go on.”

Later he told me what happened. He felt God’s glory come physically, tangibly on his body. He saw a vision of Jesus’ face, covered in blood, and heard “I did this for you.” And God spoke to him “I’ve called you to be like the apostle Paul, who gave his body for my service.”

I listened to Bruno and then responded earnestly “Yeah man, that’s it. I’ve been praying for this to happen more. People need to see Jesus. People need to have visions of Jesus, not just religion.” And I told him about the impact it had when my grandmother had a vision of Jesus, and that I never had a vision like that but I saw Jesus with the eyes of my heart through the healing and deliverance, and God’s power came on me. I said “That happened to me dozens of times, probably more than 100. The eyes of my heart would be opened and felt God’s power physically on my body and I could only scream and cry. That’s what we need. Nothing else will meet the needs we face. We need to see Jesus. We can’t do anything without him.”

Later I heard Bruno telling other people about his experience, and he said, jokingly, “I told Jon I had a vision of Jesus and he said ‘Oh yeah, that happened to me more than 100 times and my grandmother went to heaven twice.’ That guy’s on another level!”

I’ve been getting messages from various people asking “How do you experience so many miracles?” I’ve often shared about the theological foundations for walking in God’s glory, such as understanding Jesus’ incarnation, God’s will to heal, and that we have a permanent open heaven because of what Jesus has done. But it seems that many of these people have a good theological background about God’s goodness and his will to heal. But they feel they aren’t seeing the demonstration of God’s power in their lives that they should. So I also encourage people to receive impartation and to fill their hearts with testimonies.

I hope this will also help. The highest level is the lowest place. It’s all grace. It’s all God’s power. It’s the deep, raging river of heaven becoming so deep that nobody can swim in it anymore. You are at the highest level when your heart is in the same position of humility as when you first got saved, knowing you deserved hell and Jesus rescued you. I knew I needed Jesus just as much as every person in that recovery house. I was just as desperate as any of them, and had no more merit than any of them, but God poured out his grace abundantly on me in Jesus.

You’re at the highest level when you know that you deserve nothing but Jesus gave you everything. You’re at the highest level when you understand that Jesus took everything you had; your sin, brokenness, and poverty, and gave you everything he has; righteousness, the Father’s glory, and heaven’s riches. And all you can do is weep, worship, and thank him. You cry out “Jesus, you’ve helped me before. Help me again!”

There is a weighty glory when your heart is in that place. People feel it when you speak or when you pray for them. Some just start crying and can’t explain what’s happening to them. They become mute in God’s glory because there are no words when you see the Lord!

When you’ve walked in God’s glory like that, you want to keep your heart in the position. If people put the focus on you, you need to get their attention off of you and onto Jesus. I heard Mark Hemans recount how someone said “Congratulations on your ministry.” He said “Don’t say that to me. It’s God who saved me. It’s God who healed me of cancer. It’s God who sent me. He gave me everything. I have nothing to do with it.”

People say “Thank you.” I say, “Don’t thank me. Thank Jesus. I was desperate and oppressed by Satan, and Jesus rescued me. I’m just privileged to serve him and see the wonderful things he does.” If you want to walk in the glory, keep the focus on Jesus.

Romans 3:27 (NKJV) Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

The glory is in the gospel, and the gospel humbles you. If you want to live in the cloud of God’s glory, bow down, see all that Jesus has done, and thank him! It’s very simple. God’s glory manifests when we honor Jesus. When the manifestation of God’s glory is lacking in the church, it shows a lack of honor for Jesus.

In future articles, I pray that the Lord will help me to stay high-level, speaking from a position of humility, as I highlight systemic issues many struggle with in churches today. Walking in God’s glory enables us to avoid falling into pride or becoming bitter and jaded as we confront such problems. We’ll continue by talking about the harm religious institutionalism has caused in Marajó, a deeply oppressed and impoverished region in which many people still have never heard the gospel, and some of the churches that have come have done more harm than good!