I am a Spirit…

Be sure to read my other “Journey” articles.
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I want to start with this:

All this about healing the sick and casting out demons, they have NOTHING to do with “gifts of healing” or any other gift of the Spirit. It is solely operating out of the authority through the name of Jesus.

If this was truly “gifts of healing” then it would make sense for there to be a “gift of casting out demons,” and there isn’t.

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After going to Jesus Culture with Todd Bentley (2007), I struggled for 3 years trying to figure out how to walk this healing thing out.

Immediately after the conference, the lens I saw life through were completely changed. Whenever I saw someone on a crutch, or a cast, or overhearing someone say they were in pain, I could not help but think, “they could be healed!”

The biggest struggle during that time was “what if they don’t get healed?” Pretty much every single time I encountered a need for physical healing, I would let that question get the best of me.

I knew God’s willingness to heal; I found it logically absurd that God wouldn’t want someone well. Heck, he created our natural bodies to heal, why wouldn’t He want to speed it up?

Some of the other reasons as to why I never really stepped out was because of fear of man (people are going to think I’m weird, and if they don’t get healed, I’m going to look like an idiot) and the fact that I had no idea how to approach people who needed healing.

Every now and then I would hear a testimony from a friend about someone getting healed in a store, or some other random place, and it would make me jealous (in a good way). I desperately wanted to know HOW they did it. HOW did they pray?

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About a year into this journey,  I started listening to some messages by Jaeson Ma. He had testimonies of awesome healings in the middle of UCLA campus and various other encounters he’s had with the demonic/deliverance. From what I remember, he never really taught how exactly to do it — it wasn’t very practical —  so I found it difficult to follow in his footsteps.

Jaeson spoke at my youth group’s Winter retreat that year (2007), and he ended up doing some deliverance on my friend Tim. Long story short, I got to know Tim very well, and during that summer, we woke up early in the morning (5-6am) and prayed/worshiped at a park by his house for hours every week.

It was around that time we started reading about Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Kathryn Kuhlman, other God’s Generals and also listening to Bethel Church‘s podcast. Often, Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton would precede the message with awesome testimonies from the past week, and it would always provoke us to pursue what Jesus died for.

Unfortunately, they never taught [practically] on healing the sick, though they had many testimonies of people getting healed.

For the next two years, it was even more ingrained in me to heal the sick, I knew it was THE key for the revival that everyone was talking about.

I still didn’t feel equipped to actual step out and do it, so I remained stagnant, waiting for something to dramatically shift.

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It wasn’t until September 2009 that I went to Simpson University in Redding to attend school. The school campus was less than 2 miles away from Bethel Church, so I ended up spending more time there than I did going to class.

Within the first few months, I was able to attend the FireStarter’s class with Kevin Dedmon (and his team) and Bethel’s Healing Room training with Joaquin Evans and Chris Gore. It was very helpful and there were a few core values that I took from them:

1.) It’s impossible for you to pray and nothing happen

2.) When I pray, God comes; and when God comes, He does good things, because He’s a good God and He’s in a good mood.

Those core values help me solidify my faith in His word and His faithfulness (though I don’t really agree 100% with those statements where I am now).

It was after this point I could say with confidence that “God will heal you right now,” because I knew that God would show up if I prayed.

Around this time, I was finally able to minister to a woman over skype whose left eardrum wasn’t functioning.  After praying about 10 minutes, her hearing was 50% restored, and after 50 minutes, her hearing was completely restored with the exception of a faint ringing in the ear.

That was THE first time I knew, was confident, and expected a miracle to happen, and it did.

The first time you witness the power of God you lose the right to question His willingness, His ability, and His ability to use you.

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Soon after this, I started listening to Curry Blake’s DHT series, and read a copy of the DHT manual. Those 2 materials were what helped me the most in terms of understanding authority and the dominion that has been given to man.

A few other things that Curry did was smash bad theology, gave me a renewed zeal to get into the word, and made everything A LOT simpler. This will shoot some bad theology and set you free:

Every Saturday for 3 months, starting in January, I became a part of Bethel’s Healing room team alongside Ryan (and sometimes his wife).

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Bethel’s healing room is comprised of 2 separate rooms. The actual “healing room” is where the prayer team of 30-70 people minister to the sick.

The first room where people enter, called the Encounter room, provides a place for people who need healing to pray/worship/soak while a worship team plays worship songs.

People are then called in by groups (A, B, C, D, E…) that are given to them on a form they fill out earlier before they come in (basic contact information).

This was the room Ryan/Laura and I would typically stay in.

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Every Saturday from 9am – 1pm, there would be anywhere between 150-500 people that would show up to receive healing depending on the week (more people during conferences), and we would see 20-50 people healed , and grow out almost everybody’s legs every week.

We ministered to all kinds of people with all kinds of sickness in the span of 3 months.

Some of you may think that I had it great (in terms of training) but I am here to tell you that MOST of the things I learned while ministering to people in the healing rooms, I had to ditch when I came home to San Jose and started doing ministry on the streets. (I expressed some of my frustration on an older post)

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During most of this past April and May, I have learned the most (concerning setting people free) from Todd White/Dan Mohler and reading the Elijah Challenge Manual.

Since then, healing has been a normal part of the day. We do it anywhere, everywhere, at the grocery store, at the bank, at the gas station…

This is meant to be a lifestyle, not in the confines of a building or event.

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Up to this point, we have seen ~90% of the people we’ve ministered to, healed…

Of the ~10% of people who don’t get healed, or see very little progress with, about 90% of them are “bigger” stuff like amputees, cerebral palsy, MS, lupus, paraplegics … (I don’t know why, but I don’t like it, and it’s not o-k)

• I no longer struggle with “what if they don’t get healed,” because that’s not what the Word says. I don’t have time, nor do I have a need to entertain thoughts that don’t line up with the Word

Even though not everyone has been healed, I don’t allow the past to dictate my future. But I allow it to push me further to set more people free.

• I no longer have an issue with fear of man (in this context) because I don’t expect people to not get healed

Even if people don’t get healed it doesn’t matter, because usually they’re not expecting much anyway; many are just expecting a sympathetic token prayer.

• I don’t struggle as much with approaching people

Todd White and Dan Mohler helped the most with that. It all really just comes down to being yourself, be genuine, operate out of compassion, and YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE.

Some other times, I’ve been at a complete loss for words and have no idea how to approach someone. Thankfully, I have people around me that are sometimes crazier than me.

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In my opinion, getting to “advanced” levels of setting people free is really being a master of the basics. Understand your authority, “do unto others” (Matthew 7:12), and be moved by compassion (agape love in action).

Some extra pointers:

• Healing the sick/casting out demons is NOT about what you say, it is about who says it
• There are no “magic words,” it is about understanding who you are and understanding the nature of authority
• Keep things simple, how did Jesus do it?
• Learn the art of MEDITATING. The only biblical way to “renew your mind” is through the Word, so just try to spend 5-10 minutes FILLING your mind with the Word. Try Matthew 10:1, Luke 9:1, Luke 10:19. I really really really really really really mean this one.

Hope this helps… again, let me know if you have questions, or if you want me to add something, I’m here to help you out.

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Be sure to read my other “Journey” articles.
1 |  2 |  3 |  4

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