Asian Pentecost: The Wind of War
‘I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.’ (Acts 20:27) ‘Sexual orientation is immutable to change.’ Taiwanese constitutional court on why this island nation became the first in Asia to initiate ‘gay’ marriage.
Our American team gathered with thirty wounded healer/leaders from around Asia on Pentecost Eve in Manila. These men and women from The Philippines, Thailand, China, and India had been battered by enslaving forces in their cultures: families fractured by poverty which rendered their young lives vulnerable to abuse, porn addiction, gender disorientation, and occultism. Their internal chaos is sweetly covered over by the ‘saving face’ culture of Asia where the most shameful thing is to admit one’s brokenness, especially as it relates to sexual dishonor. One learns to laugh instead of cry, to cover wounds rather than expose them. Many on our team had staggered into adulthood and into the loving arms of Jesus through brave churches, which provided for them Living Waters.
Our dear friends Benjie and Hazel Cruz initiated Living Waters in The Philippines (I first met Benjie in Bangkok Thailand in 2001 where he sought healing for his SSA and received a vision for healing his nation); little did he know that he and team would become the center for reaching a continent! We gathered together as a Gideon’s army and offered God our weakness, our weariness, and our inability to meet the needs of 70 Catholic and evangelical participants to come who would need deep healing and training to heal others. As Taiwan had just days before become the first Asian nation to initiate ‘gay marriage’, we realized that we faced another enslaving force—the western apostasy that ‘gay selves’ are genetic and unchangeable, the only solution for vulnerable persons.
Those broken before the God of Mercy know better. Fractured lives need transformation, not further deformation through conformity to fruitless individual rights. Jesus sets people free from the wounding at the core of disordered identities. We prayed that a new wind of Pentecost would empower us to wage war on deception by holding out the whole truth of the Gospel. As we received His love afresh, we renewed our pledge to be faithful to Jesus and to Asia.
God reminded us of Ezekiel 37 as we submitted our ‘dry bones’ to Him, that He might unite us to Himself in intimate love and teach us to submit to each other as to manifest all the spiritual gifts needed to bring healing to the land. And God said: ‘I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life…’ I prophesied as He commanded me, and the Spirit of Pentecost fell on us that Sunday as we worshipped and laid hands on one another.
By the time everyone arrived, the team was on fire to declare how the glory of God had surpassed the dishonor and disorientation of our lives; over half came out of homosexual backgrounds, and we could honestly testify (as each team member did) that mercy and order and honor, not shame, has become our ground and crown. Obviously, the Taiwanese government knows not what Jesus and His Church can accomplish in the saints.
After the team shared, we invited all to gather around the Cross, and Almighty mercy fell like fire on the shame-bound. Chains broke and eyes saw Jesus afresh. Those who look to the Lord are radiant; their faces never covered with shame’ (PS 34:5). Our glorious God is assembling a glorious, humble army in Asia; there, the wind of Pentecost empowers a people to declare war on human enslavement.
‘The breath of God entered them; they came to life, and stood up on their feet—a vast army.’ (EZ. 37: 9, 10)
Please join us in San Diego on June 16th and 17th for the sixth annual RHN Hope 2017 Conference as hundreds gather to celebrate how Jesus has set them free from gender identity distortions. Preview with us the first full-length documentary film ever made–Tranzfomed–on how Jesus restores the transgendered. Register here today!
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