Freedom and Joy in the Holy Spirit

After 4 flights, I finally reached Jakarta, Indonesia, a city of 10+ million and a much different place in so many ways than India. For one thing, Indonesia is home to the world’s largest population of Muslims, those who follow Islam.

In the evening I visited a fellowship that we had visited several times before on other trips to the city. Mira and Benny have had many miracles to establish a beautiful worship room above their living quarters and a dentist office where Benny treats the patients in his dental practice. The room is decorated in a few large paintings created during worship and banners of some of powerful names of God ringing the room. It makes for a inviting atmosphere in which to minister.

After some energetic and heart-felt worship was offered to the Lord by a woman leading worship for us all, I began to talk about the unseen Kingdom and the fuel of joy to empower that Kingdom in our lives. I had planned to talk extensively about the unseen Kingdom exclusively, but Holy Spirit seemed to impress on me as I spoke that the need of the people gathered this night was a release of joy sprinkled with teaching and testimonies, not the other way around. The translator and I, at times, just expressed joy, rather than a complete translation, and the group seemed to catch so much of what was offered “by the Spirit.” I can sincerely say that Holy Spirit was truly active in releasing joy to His sons and daughters, while working deep to heal some of the fear of mistakes and self-condemnation. At the end, there seemed to be the upgrade in freedom in many of the participants and it was expressed in the joy exuding easily from their beaming countenances.

Several drifted naturally to the front after the close of the meeting since there was no call for extra ministry after the session this time. I prayed for a recently converted drug addict who I had spoken with before the meeting. She had prophesied beforehand what I would touch on in the meeting that night without even knowing it. She was just talking to me about the desires of her heart in her walk in Jesus – God honored the vulnerable expression of her heart! In addition, I prayed for a woman that had fully stepped into joy that evening to battle several diseases in her body rather than the fear and begging she had apparently been using before. We prayed fervently together that the diseases would not have the empowering names, but that the 700 names and titles of Jesus would be what she stood in as she faced some difficult decisions at the hospital the following day, unless Jesus released healing in that moment of intimacy with Him and throughout her sleep that night.