Another Night of Fire in Florida
It didn’t seem possible, but the second night in Ocala was even more powerful than the first night! Lance greeted the people and then turned it over to Catherine Mullins who with her band led us in another incredible time of worship.
What I appreciate about Catherine is she doesn’t put on a concert. She worships God with her whole heart and leads all of us into His presence with her. She allows the Holy Spirit to flow through her to minister and prepare the hearts of the people for what God wants to do.
At the appropriate time, Mario took the stage and began to preach to the people. He shared how he once thought noise would make the non-Christian not want to be in a meeting like this, and not want to get saved. But he found out it was the opposite, because when you shout, not out of emotion, but out of sincerity unto the Lord, you break the power of the demons that are in the room.
Mario said that this night would be a witness to all of America that God has rolled up His sleeves to save a generation, restore a nation, and bring back righteousness to America.
He shared how one night the Holy Spirit had told him to study American youth culture, in order to prepare Mario for impacting this current generation of young people. One of the most important things he learned in that study was the power of God to turn the hearts of a godless generation back to Him.
“Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again” (1 Kings 18: 37).
He said, the devil does not want the young people to know the miracle that America is, or to appreciate the miracle of our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, or the separation of powers, adding that this night is not just about our form of government, but about the God behind the miracle.
At the time Mario began to study the modern youth culture, he believed that the youth of his own culture had it more difficult than previous generations. Things like the Vietnam War, the assassination of President Kennedy, a disrupted culture—even on the cover of magazines it said, “God is Dead.”
While studying the modern youth culture he learned that years previously, drugs had come from drug dealers, but now it came from their own doctors. This generation faces perversion, gender bending, depression, and anxiety.
While studying all this Mario felt Satan say, “I will grind them up and disgrace them. I will disfigure them, wipe out their peace and hope and make them want to die.” But then Mario heard God say, ‘But I will pour out My Spirit!”
There’s no evil, or perversion, no drug, and no lust that can stop God from pouring out His Spirit!
Mario shared the story again about when a student on the Berkeley campus nearly choked him to death, but God’s anointing came on Mario to break free and rebuke the man. No learning or human education could save him in that moment, only the power of God. In order for our youth to be set free, they need to see the power of God. They need to experience it!
He talked about how he’s seen the billionaire and the homeless man come under the same curse. He has learned many of the ways the devil destroys people such as drugs, illicit affairs, and greed. But the most dangerous disease, the number one thing that keeps people from serving God, is a disfigured Gospel.
It is revealed on the day Jesus was hung on a cross. And hanging on two crosses on either side of him were criminals: one railing at Jesus to save them and the other saying, “Don’t you know we are getting what we deserved, but this Man has done nothing.”
This criminal heard of the works of Christ, but he never saw them. He only saw Jesus beaten and hung on a cruel cross. Some of the most ridiculous wounds that humanity has experienced have happened in a church. This is important because of how many people are not serving God, having witnessed hypocrisy. Or they have heard a weak, powerless misrepresented Gospel from the pulpit. Or have seen a perverse, materialistic image of the Gospel. Who have heard a weak, powerless, misrepresented Gospel from the pulpit.
Church people can be mean, they can lie, they can treat people worse than people in the world. The thief saw a disfigured Christ on the cross, many people have seen a disfigured Gospel in the church.
But it’s not the truth of the Gospel that has failed, it is the mishandling of, or misuse of the Gospel that has failed. It is how we use the Gospel for our own purposes, rather than allowing the Love of Christ to touch the hearts of His people.
He said, even when the Gospel message is diluted or poorly preached, even when the teaching on the blood of Christ is either left out, not what it should be, or the power is denied. Even in all that, the Gospel can clean up a person completely.
It wasn’t the appearance of Jesus that convinced the thief He was the King of Kings, but there IS something he saw in Jesus! When the thief asked Jesus to remember Him, Jesus responded that they would be together in Paradise. Even to his dying breath, Jesus was saving souls.
Mario then called for those who wanted to be saved, to surrender their lives to Christ, to raise their hands and then stand and come forward. And once again hundreds came forward. And once again, such a happy, beautiful sight. All glory and praise to God!
After Mario prayed with them, he sent them to be ministered to, and then began to teach about healing. He told about another day on the Berkeley campus when he had started a meeting and God told him to distribute a flyer that said, “Night of Miracles”. And it said that healings would occur.
When the night of the meeting came, they were a small group and the handful of people they had managed to convince to come, that included a man with no shirt and a tambourine he wore around his neck like a collar. If Mario said something good, he would begin to shake so the tambourine would rattle.
In this strange gathering of people, Mario was preaching to the group. Then a group of students carried an unconscious man and dropped him into the meeting. It turned out he had taken a mixture of LSD and heroine and had lost consciousness. His friends hadn’t wanted to get into trouble so they had brought him to the meeting that promised miracles.
The meeting was not going particularly well, it was a hard time of preaching. Then suddenly someone began to scream. It turned out to be the young man who had awakened and came stumbling down to the front. He was sobbing and wanted to know why God would have healed him? He said he hated God, so he did not understand why God would heal him. This man became the first convert in Berkeley.
Mario then quoted from Romans:
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32).
Mario asked, “How shall He not?” He said God wants to heal, why would He bankrupt Heaven and give His Son, and then withhold healing?
He said if the miracles we wish to happen, don’t happen, it cannot be God’s problem. Because the Bible says, “He who spared not His own Son…how shall He not freely give us all things?”
He said Jesus wants to manifest the power of God, the only thing He asks is to give Him all the glory and credit. Don’t take any of it for yourself. You aren’t holy enough, pure enough, or smart enough. It can only be from God.
Next he shared how during one meeting there had been two or three remarkable healings. Then at lunch after the meeting, the staff were sharing how amazing the healings had been. But Mario was heartbroken because as he left the arena, he had seen people leaving in their same wheelchairs they came in, having not been healed.
He talked about spending hours at night, down on all fours, sobbing and feeling guilty because he had not seen the power of God flow. His desire was to help people, not to see a trickling of healings here and there, but the opening of the floodgates of Heaven.
God reminded Mario of the verse where the man said to Jesus, “If you want to, you can heal me.” And Jesus responded, “I want to.” Then, Mario said, the mystery was solved.
He said he used to feel so guilty in meetings, but God began to teach him how to help people to be ready to be healed. He talked about going to the doctor and how after they examine you, they give you medication, but when you read the side-effects, you realize they are worse than what’s wrong with you.
Compare that experience to right now. Jesus is not making you wait. The atmosphere is faith, and it is important to be ready.
In Acts 3, when they asked Peter how the quadriplegic was healed, Peter told them something that will help everyone seeking a miracle.
“And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all” (Acts 3:16).
Mario said, miracle faith is imparted by Christ. He doesn’t rely on your power to believe. He relies on His power through His Spirit to give you miracle faith. He said that he finally understood—it was not Mario’s ability to give them faith to be healed, he simply needed to wait, to be still and know that He is God, then God will reveal to Him who is receiving faith.
In order to have a genuine move of God it is going to take time, because it has been neglected. We need to get back to what’s real and to what God says. What we need to do is not try to work up people’s faith, but to surrender to the Holy Spirit and let the faith of Christ get in us to be healed in Jesus Name.
He then said that you may say you want to be healed, but you may not be healed because of a number of reasons. You may be using your infirmity in order to guilt others, or you may have a fear of being well because of how it might change your life. But when you are sick of being sick you are ready to be used of God, you will begin to get ready, to prepare, to receive from the power of God.
Mario finished by sharing how when God is revealing words of knowledge, how often God begins by revealing the person who has received faith. He will say to him, look at the faith that’s over here or over there. Then when he is obedient and calls the person out, then God reveals to Mario the details of their infirmity.
Mario then had the people put their hands in the air and then explained the gentleness of the moment is not an indication of the lowness of God’s power. On the contrary, it was very powerful, and indeed it was. He had the people begin to pray.
Then in a move he doesn’t often do, Mario came down off the platform and began to move through the crowd.
A couple was asked to stand. The woman was being healed in her spine and her breathing. And Mario told her that their own healing ministry was beginning.
Then a woman behind them, was healed of arthritis. As they prayed, she began to move her fingers, to open and close her hands with no pain.
A woman, was healed in her ear, her heart, and her legs.
A man was healed whose sleeplessness and stomach pain was rooted in discouragement, and Mario told the man that the enemy had robbed him in multiple ways, through family, money, and in other ways. Then the man’s wife was brought out to the aisle. Mario called out her spine, hips, feet, eyes and lungs, and then mentioned there was an abscess which had left her body. At that she fell to the ground under the power of God.
Then Mario said at least ten people around her were healed as she fell under God’s power.
Next a woman was told to raise her right hand and place it on the shoulder of the woman next to her. And together the two of them were healed in both head and abdomen. Walking, breathing, everything was restored.
Another woman was told to put her hand over her heart. Mario said that in the last 48 hours she had made a commitment to God for greater service, though she was unable to perform it without this healing. She made it clear what God revealed to Mario was true. She was healed of blood allergies and weakness in the lungs, thus allowing her to travel.
Mario then took the hand of a woman who was nearby. He revealed she was the one God had initially directed him toward. The doctor’s report was bad, they had done all they could and there was nothing left to do for her. Mario had her stand and revealed her nerves, muscles, brain, legs, and stomach were all being healed. Balance and strength were returning. Walking was a difficulty for her, but then Mario had her come out and begin to walk the aisle. Together they walked to the front and then she rapidly walked and jogged around the section of chairs with no difficulty.
As more and more people were being healed, I began to notice the crowd wasn’t just watching via the large screens. Instead, they were on their feet turning toward where the healings were happening, and even pressing toward them where possible. You could feel not only the power of God increase in that room, but also the level of people’s faith.
A section had ten people where diabetes, migraines, joint disease, a genetic disorder, throat, liver, kidney, and heart were identified and healed.
Mario called out a woman who had thought she was getting better, but it would always come back. He had her stand. He said the fire of God went into her lungs and heart. At that she fell to the ground under the power of God. He revealed her blood, pancreas, heart, and feet were all healed.
Mario next had two women stand. The one was being healed in her head and her lungs. He then turned to the other woman and as he began to reveal her condition, she cried out. He identified it was cancer, that the doctor’s had said was inoperable, but that God was removing it.
The worship team began to sing, “I Speak Jesus” as people continued to pray for each other throughout the arena.
Mario and Lance then closed out the service for the evening. But it was clear that the power of God was still flowing through that building. It will be exciting to hear in the coming days and weeks about all that God has done.
I don’t know how God will top tonight, but I thought the same thing last night. It was a powerful night in the presence of God.
If you can be here in person, you need to be in the room. If you can’t be physically here, you need to watch both tomorrow morning and evening, and see what God does!
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