The Emmanuel TV Choir started the Sunday Live Broadcast on yet another note of submission to God Almighty. With the song “Not Mine The Choice,” composed by T.B. Joshua, they announced the need for Christians to let God have His way in all matters. “In things both great and small,” they sang, “be Thou my Guide, my Strength, my Wisdom, My All.” Other faith-lifting renditions were “My Helper”, “Holy Spirit Breathe In Me” and “Life Is Uncertain.” A moving moment came with a stirring rendition of Spanish worship song, ‘Digno’ reminding us that only Jesus is worthy of our praise.
Prophetess Yinka gave a short sermon on the need to worship God in spirit and in truth, taking her proof text from John 4:24, the Scripture that calls attention to God’s Spirit essence. Yinka described God as “infinite, incorporeal, invisible and incorruptible,” for which reason He is perfect and therefore worthy of total human dependence. Yinka added: “God’s power is so real, forceful and authentic that it cannot be limited by space, time or circumstance.” And with that, she set the tone for another series of the Distance Is Not A Barrier Interactive Prayer Sessions under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Addressing viewers, she noted: “As Jesus Christ will be releasing these people from the prison of sickness, bondage and disease, you will be released, in Jesus’ name!”
First to receive prayers was Ivan, a Mexican. With his supportive mother Juana perched on an armless chair beside him, Ivan propped up his back with two pillows, a crutch on the outer flank of each outstretched leg as he sprawled out on his bed. Owing to problems with his hips, knees and ankles, Ivan could not walk even with the help of his crutches. Without his mother and wife, there was little or nothing he could do for himself, having been bedridden for the last four years. Although he was managing to work from home, he was beginning to get depressed, fearing that he might end up not being able to cater for his family. Prophetess Yinka urged Ivan to open up his heart to God so that he would receive his healing right there in his bedroom. As the prayers went on, Ivan’s legs began to vibrate. After commanding life to every dead organ in Ivan’s body, Yinka asked him to stand up and use his legs again. “You are free, in Jesus’ name!” she declared. To God’s glory, Ivan got up and began to walk unaided!
Addicted to eating frost and ice for two years, Ghanaian Mercy presented herself for prayers in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. She told Prophetess Angela that she had been unable to control her cravings and had developed abdominal fibroids and severe pain in the right arm. Angela assured her that she had a part to play in receiving her deliverance and healing. “Be released from that addiction,” Angela prayed and Mercy dropped to her knees, retching and vomiting the poisonous substances in her system. Mercy said she had felt a sharp pain in her chest and stomach during the prayers. “You have been delivered to follow Jesus,” Angela reminded Mercy. “Thank You, Jesus,” Mercy said. She instantly confirmed her deliverance by going to the fridge and tasting the ice and frost that she previously could not resist but this time, she spat it out!
Prophet Racine prayed for Raul, who had called in from Mexico. Largely immobilised by lumbar spondylosis and nerve compression, Raul could only gain some relief by using a lumbar corset and walking aid. “My problem cannot be solved medically,” he confessed, as he took his case before God, having declined a dicey surgery. “Distance is not a barrier for God,” Racine assured Raul and asked him to exercise faith. “Son of David, have mercy on me,” Raul besought Jesus Christ. Racine then prayed: “In the name of Jesus, be released from this affliction!” As God’s power surged through Raul, his arms began to shake. Afterwards, he took off his lumbar corset and dropped his walking aid as he exercised all parts of his body. “Thank You, Jesus! I don’t feel pain anymore” he testified. Racine then urged Raul to make God’s Word the standard for his life.
Raul also informed Racine about his wife’s breathing problems. He said that she had been using an oxygen tank for the past two years and a CPAP machine in the past one year because her breath could cease up to 27 times in one night. Explaining the situation herself, Maria said that she ran the risk of suffering heart and brain damage. As Racine launched into the prayer session, he declared: “Every damaged organ – begin to function! Be released, in the name of Jesus Christ! Receive your healing. Receive your freedom, in Jesus Christ’s name!” To demonstrate her healing, Maria inhaled and exhaled deeply, even as she recalled how God’s power had caused her body to heat up during the prayers. “Now my breathing is normal,” she testified. Raul and Maria advised people to believe in Jesus Christ.
Incredulity. Astonishment. Befuddled excitement. Those were some of the many emotions that could be read on Antoine’s face after Holy Ghost-charged prayers freed him from ten years of arthritis and disc herniation that had caused him severe back pain. A Togolese living in Belgium, Antoine had been forced to give up his dream of a career in football. His back muscles often became paralysed and he would not be able to move. Doctors told him there was nothing else they could do beyond giving him medications as well as a lumbar corset and back patches. Before praying for Antoine, Prophet Chris urged him to commit to God’s Word, which brings deliverance, healing and salvation. “Be released from sickness, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ!” Chris prayed for the seated Antoine, after which he asked him to remove his lumbar corset and back the camera for more prayers. Moments later, Antoine was exercising his body like a professional footballer getting ready for the match of his life. As he grappled with what had just happened to him, Antoine kept addressing his sister, who was out of the camera range, daring her to deny that he had just been complaining about the pain in his back. Antoine flung his lumbar corset and back patches away, saying he felt as if a burden had been lifted off his body. To prove his healing beyond doubt, Antoine fetched a hand weight and did a few squats with it – something he could never have dared just a few minutes earlier!
Next to receive God’s unfailing touch was Nasrin, an Iranian living in Australia. Flattened on her bed and decked in a neck collar and lumbar corset, Nasrin cut the picture of an invalid. She said she had neck, back and shoulder problems, in addition to suffering from “too much anxiety and stress.” Left at the mercy of her caregiver and daughter, Nasrin managed to display her medical documents and medications. Before praying for Nasrin, Prophetess Anne urged her to release her heart from every offence and grudge. Anne pronounced with the authority in God’s Word: “Whatever satan might have used to connect you to himself – be released, in the name of Jesus Christ!” She then added, “Now, get up from this bed!” Next, she asked Nasrin to remove her lumbar corset and neck collar and claim her healing by walking around the room. “Thank You, Jesus! I can walk!” Nasrin exclaimed.
Prophetess Yinka also prayed for Tezena, a Haitian woman living in France. For 31 years, Tezena had had the problem of disc herniation. “The problem is affecting my life; I can’t work anymore,” said the educational and social caregiver who works with special-needs people. Despite her lumbar corset and medications, Tezena remained in distress. She said, “I have things moving in my back and head.” The situation was so bad that she could not sit or bend down, not to talk of bathing herself or doing home chores. “It is not all up to God and certainly it is not all up to us,” said Yinka, as she explained the need for Tezena to open up her heart to God, if she must receive her healing. As the prayers intensified, Tezena’s legs and arms began to shake and she fell to her knees, eventually plunking to the base of the sofa from which she had stood up moments earlier. Now parted from her lumbar corset, Tezena exercised her body excitedly and glorified God for freeing her from pain. “Hallelujah!” she kept screaming, even as she jumped and stretched her body.
All the way from Mexico, Laura also linked up for prayers over her problems of insomnia, nagging headaches, nose allergies and noise in the head and ears. “At night, this noise in my head and ears is so loud that my body shakes and I wake up,” Laura told Prophetess Angela. Despite numerous visits to medical and alternative doctors, she got no relief. With brain and other scans having shown Laura to be normal, doctors advised her to learn to live with her problems. And so, for the last five years, Laura had been swallowing a cocktail of drugs without any improvement. “In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, be released from captivity! Be released from that spirit of depression!” Angela prayed, even as she commanded Laura to vomit the poisonous substances in her system. Having vomited them, Laura said that during the prayers she had felt a strong pain in her stomach that caused her to vomit. “I don’t feel pain in my nose anymore and can breathe well,” she testified, even as she added that her ears are no longer blocked. “I’m healed, in Jesus’ name! Thank You, Jesus of Nazareth!” she screamed.
Another recipient of God’s touch was Willy, a mine director based in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Because of a fracture in his right toe, Willy had to use a walking stick while wearing a moonboot, which made it virtually impossible for him to function. He also reported stagnation in his career. Despite having had six months of therapy in South Africa, Willy’s condition did not improve and his work continued to suffer. After urging Willy to play his own part before God, Prophet Racine prayed for him in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Immediately, Willy put away his walking stick and took off his moonboot – and he began to pace about his expansive sitting room, feeling no more pain. “I felt a vibration on my right hand and something was shaking my right arm as you were praying,” he told Racine as he demonstrated his healing to the glory of God. “Thank You, Jesus!” he beamed.
Zoraida, a Venezuelan living in the USA, had been dogged by abuse and deprivation in childhood. Having lost her father at age five, she had had to face the brutality of lovelessness, as the people in her life always took advantage of her. At age 15, Zoraida ran away from the house and went into prostitution in the hope that she would find a man to show her true love and marry her. However, what she got in the end was more abuse and violence. “I would meet four to five men every day and after that I would feel very frustrated and dirty,” Zoraida confessed. And as she tried harder to find love, she drifted further down the abyss, after a fellow woman introduced her to alcohol and marijuana and then had an affair with her. Having lived such a life of unbroken abuse, Zoraida began to have dreams in which she would have sex using a male organ as well as dreams in which a woman would make love to her. In the end, she would wake up and watch even as she went deeper into sleeping with both sexes. Once Zoraida accepted to do her part by committing to God, Prophet Chris ministered prayers of deliverance and salvation for her and she fell under the anointing. “Be released, in the name of Jesus Christ!” Chris thundered. After the demons in Zoraida confessed their atrocities and thrashed her body on the floor, they fled from her forever! “I have peace and I am calm now. When I lay on the floor, I felt the demons coming out of me and angels of God were surrounding me to protect me,” Zoraida recounted. “Congratulations! Do the will of God,” Chris counselled her.
Prophetess Anne also prayed for US based Albert and his wife Anne who had been confirmed positive for COVID-19, as well as their four children who had coronavirus symptoms such as loss of the senses of taste and smell, sore throat, flu, headaches, joint and stomach pain and weakness of the body. “Be released from every deadly virus,” Prophetess Anne prayed as she commanded out every poisonous substance in the family’s system. As the prayers went on, Albert’s wife, Anne vomited the root cause of her problem. To confirm their healing, Albert and Anne sprayed perfume, which they could now smell; they also ate bananas, which taste they could now savour. Prophetess Anne then prayed for the children: “Be released from every deadly affliction!” even as she urged the family to maintain their healing by remaining faithful to God.
Prophet Racine’s partnership message began with the observation that nobody loses anything by doing what pleases God. “Only faith pleases God,” he said, “and it takes faith to give what your life depends on.” He reminded viewers about the irony of the situation in which a poor widow found herself, having been singled out for honour by Jesus for her voluntary act of sacrificial giving (Mark 12:38-44). He therefore discouraged engaging only in convenient charity, explaining that hard times are in fact the best opportunity to prove our faith in God. In Racine’s words, “Weeping must not hinder sowing and worshipping,” for “no matter the trouble or hard times, a partner in Christ must have room in his heart to bless God and must be ready to help those in need due to the economic effects of the pandemic.” After pleading the cause of orphans, widows and the homeless as well as other groups of people in need, Racine ended with a spiritual nugget from God’s servant T.B. Joshua: “We begin to succeed in our lives when other people’s problems begin to matter to us.”