The Elijah Challenge Basic Training
Grace Point Community Church, Houston, Texas | February 2009
Host Senior Pastor Don Keathley
Jesus Christ uses disciples to do the works that He did 2,000 years ago: healing the sickAfter the completion of the Basic Training over a period of two weekends at the Elijah Challenge Training Center in Houston, an evangelistic healing service was held where the trained disciples could apply what they had learned. The gospel was preached according to Isaiah 53:4-5. Jesus Christ had authority to take up infirmities because he would be pierced for our transgressions on the cross. Ultimately, disease and infirmity are the consequences of the cause known as sin. Jesus had authority to take up infirmities because by suffering to death on the cross he would remove their ultimate cause, that is, sin. When the cause is removed, the consequences can be taken away.
To demonstrate that Jesus had authority to forgive our sins and save us from eternal punishment in hell, we asked Him to heal the infirm people present. We asked Him to use the disciples trained in the Basic Training to lay hands on the infirm and to heal them using the authority He has given them. After the prayer to the Lord, several infirm people came forward and the disciples ministered to them with authority. All except one of the infirm people came up to share that the Lord had touched them supernaturally, most of them testifying that they were completely healed.
Through the healings and testimonies, the Lord had demonstrated that Jesus Christ has authority to forgive sin and grant eternal life. He also encouraged His people to take this very same power of the gospel to the lost in the community---in the streets, in the marketplace, in the homes of the lost. I shared with them how 400 trained disciples in a Brazilian town had gone door-to-door praying with people in their homes and healing their sick. In the Visitation of God in that town, hundreds upon hundreds of people were healed and the kingdom of God was near (Luke 10:9). I also testified about what God was doing in Seattle through the street preachers of Open Air Seattle, and challenged them to do something similar in the city of Houston. Some of the disciples hearing these reports were stirred in their spirits.
Below are some of the people testifying about the healing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Above: this woman was set free from excruciating pain in her knee
Above: at an earlier Elijah Challenge meeting in June 2005, this woman was completely healed from painful and debilitating rheumatoid arthritis which limited her to a hobbling around with the help of a walker
Above: this young woman, whom doctors say was suffering from a terminal condition, came to the meeting with so little breath that she could barely talk. She is shown testifying in a normal voice.
Above: Sister Dee was suffering from hearing loss which would have required her to spend $4,300 on hearing aids. During the Basic Training her ears were dramatically opened up as disciples ministered healing-at-a-distance.
Luke 10:9 "Heal the sick, and tell them, 'the kingdom of God is near you.'"
