Healing ministry began after an Immersion in Love for Jesus: An Interview with Jack Sheffield
PneumaReview.com: When were you baptized in the Holy Spirit what differences did this experience bring to your ministry?
Jack Sheffield: In 1973, I was converted to Christianity out from a pagan background, and I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in the same moment I was saved. I spoke in a heavenly language not even knowing what was happening to me. It was quite overwhelming! My rage, fear, trauma and rebellion was turned to radiant joy and peaceful love with an extreme desire to please my Jesus in every way. One night, not too long after my conversion, I broke past remnants of fear into a powerful anointing to preach and minister to people in a Methodist Church. It’s like I became “another man.” My fiancé asked a friend, “Who is that guy?” Shortly thereafter, because of this baptism in the Spirit, I had an encounter where Jesus drove me from a nap into a cotton field behind my house. I tried to hide away because I was weeping profusely with groaning and travailing! After a while, I crawled out into the grass, and I heard these words out loud, “You are going to carry my gospel to the nations.” My baptism in the Holy Spirit was a complete immersion in love for Jesus, and eventually led my wife and I to many nations on six continents.
PneumaReview.com: Did you receive a specific call to the healing ministry?
Jack Sheffield: Healing was a very real experience for me from the beginning of my walk with Jesus. It began with me. I was healed in spirit, soul, and physically on numerous occasions. Fear, guilt, shame and anger were washed away in wave after wave of His mercy. My spirit soared in ecstatic encounters of weeping only to be followed by bouts of laughing in glorious joy! My scared little spirit was married to the Holy Spirit and was learning all about freedom in Christ. Heart disease ran rampant in my family, and through a very stressful business attempt, I developed a bad heart. God used this to bring me to utter surrender to that cotton patch call. Jesus completely baffled my doctor when she examined me for my physical and discovered my heart was totally normal. I still have the two disparate EKG readouts.
It was then I realized I had a very distinct call to the healing ministry in the United Methodist Church.
This happened in the Summer of 1978. Healing began to manifest immediately in my ministry.
PneumaReview.com: In your book, God’s Healing River, you mention that “presence” is very important in healing. Please tell our readers what you are referring to.
Jack Sheffield: In the Fall of Adam and Eve, what was lost to humanity was the “presence” of the Lord. Adam hid from His presence in fear and, I believe shame. Jesus could not wait to get it back for us. Moses basically told God he was not going anywhere unless God’s presence went with Him. He said it was the only thing that distinguished his people from all the other peoples of the world. Presence is everything when it comes to healing. Without it, very little happens. My criteria for discerning the true presence of God is this when He “shows up”: 1) There is clarity in the atmosphere – Words preached or taught become very clear. People perk up attentively. 2) Brightness irradiates everyone present. There is a glow in the room and on people’s faces 3) There is a cleanness that is felt and experienced as real and tangible, and 4) Great joy breaks out which is “unspeakable and full of glory.” How do we get into that atmosphere? Ruth Ward Heflin used to say in the 1990’s, “You praise your way into worship, and you worship your way into the glory.” When the glory shows up in worship, healing and miracles can abound. We have seen it over and over again. Therefore, we worship Jesus all the time, even in our cars. The greater the worship, the greater the operations of healing gifts.
PneumaReview.com: You write about the importance, on some occasions, of obeying before believing. What does this look like?
Jack Sheffield: I can best explain this concept by an illustration. A young child of six months was having between twenty-five and sixty seizures a day. He was heavily medicated, and when he and his parents came into our church meeting, he looked like a sack of potatoes. His eyes were glazed over and his body was limp. Our hearts were broken. You could feel a tangible anointing for compassion. After the service, I asked the parents to bring the child to my office. In a short distance of 100 feet, all of that anointing dissipated.
We sat in my office feeling nothing but overwhelmed at the drastic nature of Sante’s condition (his name means health). We were acutely aware of our helplessness. So I read James 5:14-18, “If anyone is sick, let him call for the elders of the church. They will anoint him with oil, and the prayer of faith will heal the sick man (child), and the Lord will raise him up.” I asked the dad, “May I obey the Bible?” He said, “If it is in the Bible, I want you to do it.” When I anointed Sante all of the weight of heaven’s glory fell on each one of us! All we could do was weep and laugh at the same time. We knew the child was healed! Faith came! Our helplessness was swallowed up in the power of pure unadulterated belief. After two days with a minor seizure, he has never had another seizure since.
In essence, when we doubted and feared that nothing would work in our prayers, we obeyed the Bible, and that preceded the faith we needed to move that mountain. His doctor, upon examining him, greatly rejoiced in the Lord’s goodness. The entire family was brought together under Jesus’ banner.
PneumaReview.com: What physical conditions have you seen healed through your ministry?
Jack Sheffield: We have seen every kind of malady and sickness healed by Jesus. Cancers have disappeared after bitterness and forgiveness was released in the patient. We’ve seen dementia “burned up” with holy fire where the man said, “The fog is gone.” His wife wept and thanked Jesus for giving her husband back to her. Recently, we saw sickle-cell anaemia burned up the same way. After worshiping for two hours, we prayed for her and fire coursed through her blood (her words). We have seen paranoid schizophrenia healed after nine months of inner healing prayer. This man’s psychiatrist marveled as he was able to take him off of five medications including the very strong Haldol. Severe food allergies have disappeared. Kidney stones have disappeared. A stroke victims’ face normalized right in front of our eyes. Power coursed down the left side of his body for several hours. He went home completely normal that same night. Over and over again we see depression healed and lightness and radiance fill the prayer recipient. Chronic pulmonary obstruction, celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and so many others have been healed. I could go on and on about the multiple healings and miracles we have seen for over thirty years.
PneumaReview.com: What is the greatest miracle that you have ever seen?
Jack Sheffield: The greatest miracle I have seen was with a little boy who died of sudden infant death syndrome where his dad came home and found the baby-sitter asleep, and his boy in the bedroom completely blue and unresponsive. He rushed him to the hospital where the doctors examined him. One doc said he thought the child had been dead for 40 minutes at the least. They got him back physically, but he was totally unresponsive, staring blankly into space. Nobody was home. Scans were conclusive, he was in a vegetative state. I was called in as a priest to pray for the family. But when I walked in the hospital room I found the parents and both sets of grandparents had been praying all night long. I greeted them and walked up to the child. At the bedside, I suddenly began to weep uncontrollably! I just sobbed and sobbed over him. Finally, one of the grandparents tapped me on the shoulder and asked if she could speak to me outside. We walked hand in hand into the hall with her patting my hand. She said, “I just want to thank you so much for coming to see us,” and then it happened: he started crying loudly! He wanted his mom and he wanted her now! We start dancing and shouting! The nurses came and called the doctor. Tests were run all afternoon, and by nightfall, they came in announcing that all brain scans and blood work were normal. They sent them all home. As a result, this whole family came to Christ.
Later in church, at the altar rail, this little one would look up, giggle, and point at what only he could see. We just knew they were angels who were with him in his brief stay in heaven before Jesus sent him back. I would call this a Resurrection Miracle by Jesus, and by far, it tops all we have ever seen.
PneumaReview.com: Where can people learn more about your ministry?
Jack Sheffield: People can learn more about our ministry at www.deepriverministries.org.
Or they can write us at Deep River Ministries PO Box 12615 San Antonio, TX 78212
People can also call us at 210 320-5855 in San Antonio.
Thanks so much for letting me share with you.
God bless richly, Jack
