As I stated in my post on Saturday titled, The Lost Relics of the Simple Gospel and Our Testimony, I will be sharing more today more about my recent trip to Spain. I have been sharing amazing testimonies of what God did while we were there as well as lessons along the way that apply to our everyday life and walk with the Lord.

Our last Friday there, my partner, John and I were scheduled to do something we had not originally planned nor expected to do on the trip; aiding to the major summation of the entire trip…expect the unexpected! We had been told from Pastor Pablo and Elsa, the pastors we paired off with for the two weeks, that there was a couple in the church who were going through marital issues and the husband wanted a divorce. When informing us of this as we headed to another visit earlier in the week, they had asked us if we would meet with them and minister to them to try and bring some kind of reconciliation and restoration. We agreed and prayed for the Lord to do the work and that we would simply be vessels for His power and truth to flow through.

The night prior was when we had ministered and shared the Gospel at a home meeting and three people gave their hearts and lives to Jesus, as shared in the post linked above. Afterward, we went out to a late dinner at the mall nearby and our pastors informed us that the following evening would be when we would meet with the couple. Using Google Translate, they began to fill us in on the issues that had taken place in the marriage and it left us shocked and praying for divine wisdom in how to proceed. There were supposed deep strongholds and strong demonic influence and accusations, with a lot of blanks to fill in.

As Friday ensued, we anticipated that great deliverance and inner healing would need to take place; and in prayer and discussion, we both felt led to call upon our team member, Kirk, to join us as he is well trained in sozo ministry. We had the prayers of our entire team with us. Our friend, Israel, picked us up and would be our translator for the meeting. In sharing, he revealed what he had been told in preparation for the meeting; and our shock grew greater, as did our prayers for direction. We also discovered the discrepancies through translations were not entirely lining up; therefore, we were a bit unsure of what we were walking into.

We met with the couple at the church and then separated them to talk to the husband in private; with the intention of getting to the heart of the matter where he was concerned. He was open and as far as we were concerned, he did not hide any details. In fact, Pastor told us that when he heard that our team was coming to Spain, he began to feel a lack of peace and eventually asked to have a meeting with us saying he was overcome with anxiety and loss of sleep. When Jesus comes to town, all of hell shutters and knows of its impending doom! Things simply cannot remain as they were!

We began to learn in taking him through a process of his connection with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that a great many deep wounds and hurts burdened this man as well as a horrific history of abuse from the most trusted members of his family; and he bore the scars to prove it. It was evident that sitting before us was a broken man with a broken past; in deep need of a Savior to completely heal him, deliver him, set him free, and restore him. In the process, I believe that shock of all this man endured as a young child left us reeling and praying for a blanket of peace to continue in ministering to him and drawing him into the heart of the Father, the arms of Jesus, and the comfort of Holy Spirit.

As my tear-filled eyes met Israel’s astonished, tear-stained gaze as he translated, I found myself overcome and overwhelmed with the compassion of Jesus. This man struggled to see the face of the Father, as he drowned in darkness. Filled with hatred and anger at all he had endured, he was unable to allow Holy Spirit into the room. Eventually as we guided him through a series of confessions and forgiveness, he began to feel Holy Spirit with us. He began to hear truth from Heaven about who God made him to be and a breaking off of lies occurred.

We then came to Jesus. He could not see Jesus and felt abandoned by Him in his times of greatest need through years of horror. It was then that Jesus gave me a vision of a specific time when he had endured deep abuse as a very young child and He revealed every detail of the scene before my eyes. It was in that very moment that I saw Jesus come in the room, sit down beside him, and take hold of him, enveloping him in His arms, comforting him. As I shared this through tears, the man broke down weeping and spoke of this very moment in time, of what he had endured and what he was thinking. His eyes were opened to the reality that Jesus had in fact been there the whole time and had never abandoned him or forsaken him, even in his darkest of days. Jesus used this to break off deception and to usher in His truth and reality as our Faithful Friend to the very end. Such is true for each one of us.

He shared how this history paved the way to a life of crime and how he had taken dozens of lives as a hitman for a gang he was a part of. Then Jesus entered the scene in his adult years and he had his first encounter with the power of God at a church gathering. The pastor called him forward out of the crowd and as he reluctantly came up on stage, the pastor prophesied his salvation that would come forth. He drew his gun on the pastor intending to kill him; and the pastor’s response should be that of every Follower of The Way, a martyr’s cry: With hands raised, “Go ahead and kill me! If I die, I am going to die worshipping my Savior!”

With that, he shot the pastor…but no bullet came forth from his gun, the pastor was unharmed! He fired multiple rounds in the air, all successful. Then he fired at the pastor again, with the same failed response! He hit his knees, and surrendered his life to Christ! It took some years and Jesus helped set him free from the gang bent on taking his life and that of his family.

There was always this reality to go back to, a memorial erected in his memory. He lost his way along the path, but sitting with us during this time Jesus confronted the demons of his past, cast them out, broke off the chains, and unlocked the prison doors. In the end, he could see Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, and found a place in Heaven with all three that he never wanted to depart from. We then led him in a prayer of salvation and rededication to the Lord!

Sitting before us was a completely different man than we had met a few hours prior. So much so, that we believe a restorative power was released that night that will ultimately lead to the restoration of his marriage! He also became our driver for Sunday ministry travels!

Who would’ve thought that this man we ministered to would have such an encounter that he, an ex-assassin, would usher us around in ministry?! Now, THAT is what I call adventuring with Jesus!!!

I have a purpose in sharing this testimony. The main point being, it does not matter what our past looks like…Jesus was in it, is all over it, and working through it all to create in us an eternal weight of glory. Everyone has a Saul to Paul conversion in store where no matter how dark and ugly our past is, He will always bring us into a beautiful bliss of abundant life that compels us to go and do the unthinkable to make the name of Jesus famous in the earth and to do as He did.

We are never alone in this journey; never once before we knew Him, nor for a single moment after. It is time to step into His timeline, not the timeline of the past, and to advance; to storm the gates of hell and set free all who are bound as captives in darkness! No matter what appearances say, do it anyway!!! You have the dunamis (dynamite) power of Heaven backing you and going before you…you cannot lose unless you quit!

DO NOT QUIT! DO NOT RELENT IN THE ASCENT!

2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (TPT)
“We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary overflow of power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out. We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you. We have the same Spirit of faith that is described in the Scriptures when it says,
‘First I believed, then I spoke in faith.’ So we also first believe then speak in faith. We do this because we are convinced that He who raised Jesus will raise us up with Him, and together we will all be brought into His Presence. Yes, all things work for your enrichment so that more of God’s marvelous grace will spread to more and more people, resulting in an even greater increase of praise to God, bringing Him even more glory!
So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day. We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.”

For His Glory,

Katie, Pure Fire of Yahweh