In July 2016 The Elijah Challenge Training was hosted at Agape Evangelical Church in Osasco, Sao Paulo. Hundreds of leaders and committed disciples showed up to be trained how to preach the gospel as the early disciples did in Acts—accompanied by powerful miraculous healings as evidence that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the only way to the Father.
During the morning and afternoon training sessions on Saturday attended by hundreds of cell group leaders and other disciples, the Lord performed many miraculous healings as they laid hands on the sick according to the pattern Jesus laid down in the gospels. One was particularly spectacular. One of the leaders had lost all sense of smell for thirty-four years. But after other disciples ministered to him persistently with power and authority (cf. Luke 9:1) at one of the sessions, he was able to smell the fragrant aroma emanating from a bottle of anointing oil.
Earlier at the first session in the morning, a man in his forties with arrhythmia causing pain in his heart came up to the stage to be prayed over. His wife had convinced him to come to the meeting. After we laid hands on him in Jesus’ name, the pain in his heart disappeared. He left the stage and twice ran to the back of the hall returning to the front. His doctor had forbidden him from such activity, but he felt fine after running. Then we asked his wife sitting in the audience to come up to the stage. She weighed approximately 145 pounds. He clasped his arms around her waist and lifted her up from the floor, holding her up for ten seconds. After he set her back down we asked how he felt. He said that he felt fine.
One half of the crowd at one of four Sunday services
Applying the Lord’s power and authority in a public service
At the second service the following day on Sunday, we introduced The Elijah Challenge to the congregation. Then we had the believers minister to the sick with the Lord’s power and authority. At the front were seated two deaf people—a woman and a man—with a signer standing in front of them interpreting the preaching for them into sign language. As trained believers ministered to them, the Lord began to restore their hearing. In particular, the one who ministered to the deaf woman was none other than the interpreter herself. She wept when the deaf woman’s hearing was miraculously restored before her own eyes and then spoke, uttering the word “hallelujah” to her.
At the fourth Sunday service that evening, we preached on James’ instruction on praying over sick believers in James 5. Following the teaching we ministered to the sick as James taught. Several people were healed and testified from the stage. In particular, a young child present had been born with a deformed body, and from birth was unable to lift one of her arms. Her father carried her up to the stage where he testified that the Lord had touched her. He then asked his little girl to raise her formerly crippled arm. Before the stunned congregation the little girl immediately raised her arm with no effort.
Afterwards people accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior
The instructions in James 5:14-18, correctly interpreted, not surprisingly result in miraculous healings just as he taught it would.
James 5:15b And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.
Pastors Julio and Cristiane of Igreja do Evangelho Agape are making ministry to the sick a vital part of evangelism in their hundreds of cell groups.
Luke 10:9 Heal the sick and tell them, “the kingdom of God has come near to you.”
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