Two Ladies from the Favela, and Jesus Come in the Flesh
Healing Ladies From The Favela
On Sunday night I went to the Baptist church. They were giving food and supplies to guests from the nearby favela. (A favela is a Brazilian slum, usually controlled by criminals) Many of these people are very poor. When I saw them, I almost cried. I felt a powerful and overwhelming love fill me. It was such a love that I knew it was Jesus—it was beyond myself. I knew that I was there to serve them. God wanted to make me a servant of all. I saw that a lady had a problem with her knee, and it was a cyst. I told her how God healed my back when I was a kid, and I asked if she wanted the pain to be gone.
God took her pain when I prayed. But even though it was hurting constantly before, it didn’t sink in right away that God had healed her. She thought it was just temporarily not hurting. So I asked her to stand, to walk and to move. It didn’t hurt, but the fact that God just healed her still didn’t sink in. So I said “You told me that it was hurting constantly. What happened now?” Then she started to realize that something had happened. I told her that Jesus carried her sin and sickness on the cross. And I asked her if she knew anyone else there who had pain. Her friend had back pain, which was also constant.
Her friend had a hardened face like a prostitute and it looked like she possibly was in bondage to a spirit of violence. I don’t know if she was a prostitute, but I know that look. I remember once when a prostitute came up to my car, mistakenly thinking I was looking to pick someone up. Her face was filled with rage when she found I wasn’t looking for girls. The hardness on that lady’s face reminded me of her.
She looked like she wouldn’t have admitted she needed to be healed if her friend had not told me. But she let me touch her shoulder and command the pain to go. In the same way as her friend, she thought she was just temporarily not feeling pain. I also asked her to walk, but she didn’t realize what had happened yet. I told her “Look, what happened? God healed you. Thank him for it.” It was about ten minutes later that I saw her moving her back and talking with her friends, starting to smile. She was starting to realize that God had healed her.
In the same way, when I was a kid and God healed my back, it didn’t sink in right away. Even though I felt a ball of energy rolling up and down my spine and the pain melted away, my first reaction was “Mom, what are you doing?” It took a few minutes for it to sink in that God was real, and he had touched me.
The Incarnation And The Sanctity Of The Body
One of the important implications of Jesus coming in the flesh is that the body is holy and sacred to God. God’s salvation touches the whole person. Salvation in scripture is for the spirit, soul, and body. The fact that Jesus came in the flesh also means that God is accessible and tangible. We can touch him. God and his word are not just a theory. Jesus is the word of God made flesh. “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” (1 John 1:1 NRSV)
The spirit of antichrist denies that Jesus has come in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3), and denies the sanctity of the body. The fact that Jesus came in the flesh shows us that the body is holy. The Gnostics denied that Jesus had come in the flesh because they believed the spirit was holy, but the body was corrupt and evil. If that was true, a holy God could not have truly come in human flesh. A denial of the sanctity of the body goes hand in hand with denying that Jesus came in the flesh. It is also an antichrist teaching that makes salvation out to be only for the spirit, and not the body.
Since an antichrist spirit denies the sanctity of the human body, it often manifests in violence and sexual immorality. When you heal the sick, you are confronting an antichrist spirit and working against the root of violence and sexual immorality. The devil, who denies that the body is holy, always works to desensitize and harden people. The Holy Spirit works to soften and re-sensitize people. In the same way as viewing violence and immorality de-sensitizes people, the healing ministry re-sensitizes them, thus undoing the works of the devil. This is what I saw taking place last night. I don’t know these ladies or exactly what they were involved in, but I know that there was a certain hardness and desensitization there, and the Holy Spirit was working to re-sensitize them.
Demonstrating That Jesus Has Come In The Flesh
God and his word were just a theory to these ladies. Now they have found out that we can touch God—because Jesus came in the flesh. Not only did Jesus come in the flesh 2000 years ago—but Jesus has come in my flesh. My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Our hope of glory isn’t a God who is up there in heaven somewhere who we can’t know or understand, and who might decide to do something if he feels like it. It is the spirit of Christ living in me (and in all who are born again), that is the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27) Thus, God should become tangible to people through our lives. When we heal the sick we demonstrate that Jesus has come in the flesh. The incarnation itself is the basis of one of our 13 scriptural proofs of God’s will to heal. We show that we have already overcome all antichrists, for the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)
God, thank you for what you have done in these ladies’ lives and thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit continuing to re-sensitize them and to soften their hearts, bringing them to repentance and bringing salvation to them and to their families and neighborhoods. May nothing steal or choke out the word of God that has been planted in their hearts, but may it bear much fruit. In Jesus’ name, amen.
The lies of an antichrist spirit are at the root of every major problem in our societies. Understanding the incarnation (the fact that Jesus came in a human body) is foundational to undoing the works of the devil and demonstrating God’s power. Check out my book Jesus Has Come In The Flesh for more.
Here are some more posts about anti-Christ spirits:
3 Ways An Anti-Christ Spirit Tries To Get The Focus Off Of Jesus
I Know God’s Will Because Jesus Came In The Flesh
An Anti-Christ Spirit Says That God Doesn’t Need You