Tag: healing prayer

Why We Ask For Healing

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31

It’s been about nine years since I started really praying for physical healing for people. By this I don’t mean the kind of cursory prayer that just assumes God is going to do what God is going to do, basically nullifying the necessity of prayer. No, I mean it’s been nine years since I started stepping into the delegated authority of Christ and praying for healing in a way that expects God to heal the person right then and right there as we pray. 

This is the kind of praying that believes in the gifts of healing listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and believes that God wants to use His people as conduits of His power bringing about His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

In those nine plus years, I have seen a number of reactions to praying for physical healing. Some people are hesitant to receive healing prayer because of bad previous experiences. They are concerned that if they are not healed, they will get blamed for not having enough faith. Or, they are concerned that they’ll somehow disappoint the person praying for them if they aren’t healed. Or, they’d rather not get their hopes up one more time if they are just going to be let down again. All of these reasons for being hesitant about healing prayer are understandable. 

One of the most common unhealthy reactions to receiving healing prayer that I’ve encountered is to downplay the importance of receiving prayer for physical healing. There’s a kind of Platonic dualism that still exists in western Christianity that exalts things labeled “spiritual,” like the soul, and reduces things labeled “material,” like the body. 

This most often shows up in the evangelical world when people exalt “winning souls” and downplay care for the poor. But the other place this dualism shows up is when people believe the God cares deeply about their emotional and spiritual health but that their physical health is not that important to God. 

The fruit of this dualism is that people believe God will heal their heart but likely not their body. This belief leads people to come forward easily for prayer when it involves their emotional or spiritual health. Yet, it is more difficult for people to come forward for prayer for their bodies. They wonder if their physical ailment is even worth praying for. After all, our bodies are destined for death anyway. Why pursue or persist in healing prayer? 

But the same could be said for feeding the poor. Why care? Why do it at all if we’re all just going to die anyway? (You can see how unhealthy this dualism can get.)

Orthodox Christian theology rejected this kind of dualism centuries ago, but it still lingers on in the hearts and minds of many modern Christians. The incarnation of Jesus forever put to rest whether God cares about the body. He didn’t show up as a spirit. Jesus came in a body. This same body was crucified and buried. Then in His resurrection, again He was not resurrected as just a spirit. No, He came to life again in a resurrected body, as will all those who believe in Him. In other words, bodies matter to God. We are a whole person – spirit, soul, and body – and God doesn’t appreciate it when we diminish one aspect of ourselves that He created.  

This unhealthy dualism which diminishes the importance of the body often leads whole denominations not to prioritize praying for the sick in a way that truly believes God will heal today. It not only reduces the faith and prayer life of the church, but it also leads people to say something like this, “Oh, I don’t want to receive prayer for this sickness. God can heal me if He wants, but there are bigger, more important things to pray about.” This way of thinking reflects a kind of Christian fatalism. 

This “God will do what God will do” kind of thinking is deterministic and assumes we have no part to play in God’s Kingdom coming to earth. But this isn’t how God designed things to work. Our cooperation and obedience matter. God chose to use us as vessels to bring about His Kingdom on earth. It matters if we pray. It matters if we act. It matters if we cooperate with Him in obedience. 

Another misconception of healing prayer is that it is all about the person and their ailment. People sometimes have a weird feeling like it is somehow selfish to receive healing prayer. But praying for someone’s healing isn’t primarily about them or their sickness. We pray for healing for a number of reasons and only one of those reasons is to see them get well. 

Let me give you three reasons we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing that all come before the motivation to see someone get well. 

  1. We pray for healing for God’s glory. As shocking as this may sound, praying for healing is not primarily about the sick person getting well. It is primarily about the glory of God (Ephesians 6:7; 1 Cor 10:31). Jesus paid a high price on the cross for our healing. And if anyone ever gets healed, it is because of that price that He paid. By His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). So whether we pray for someone’s healing or we receive prayer for healing, in both cases we are primarily doing it for God’s glory. In both cases, it is so Jesus can receive His reward for the great price that He paid. The act of faith of both praying and receiving prayer, regardless of the outcome, brings glory to God. 
  2. We pray for healing out of obedience. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing are both things we are commanded to do in the New Testament. Jesus told His disciples to “heal the sick” on multiple occasions (Matthew 10:8; Luke 10:9) and then told His disciples to teach the next generation of disciples to do the same (Matthew 28:20). Receiving prayer for healing was something that was expected in the early church (James 5:14-15). 
  3. We pray for healing to see God’s Kingdom come to earth. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing become evidence (a sign) that God’s Kingdom is breaking into our world right now. We’re not waiting for the Kingdom to start invading this world; it’s already happening. That was Jesus’s message. The Kingdom has come. When we pray for the sick and when we receive prayer for healing, we are declaring that we believe God’s Kingdom has already started to invade this broken world. 

And, of course, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing in order to see the sick get well. There is so much suffering that comes with sickness. Part of our job as followers of Jesus is to push back against the brokenness of this world. We’re also called to join Jesus’s mission to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). For both of these reasons, we want to see the sick recover. To not care about seeing the sick get well would show an egregious lack of compassion and love for people. 

Yet, we also must keep in mind that there are other important reasons that we pray for the sick and receive prayer for healing. If we are the one who needs prayer, we need to cast off that feeling that receiving prayer is somehow selfish. It’s not. Receiving prayer (and praying for the sick) is primarily about Jesus and His Kingdom. Receiving prayer and praying for the sick are acts of worship; they are acts of obedience. In doing so we bring glory to God and to His Kingdom. 

The western church needs to shake free from the shackles of a gnostic dualism that keeps us from prioritizing healing prayer. Whether a person gets healed or not, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing for God’s glory. And when someone gets miraculously healed, we exalt the name of Jesus for the high price He paid, and we share the testimony of healing as a sign of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom on earth. 

If you need physical healing (or any other kind of healing) go get prayer. Join a church that believes in healing and prioritizes healing prayer. More of God’s Kingdom is waiting to break in to our world. We just need to be bold enough to ask for it.

Proximity Healing

As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Mark 6:54-56

A guy in my church came down for prayer after our service was over on Sunday. He wanted prayer for his foot that had been bothering him for some time. When we prayed, he immediately started to feel heat all over his body to the point where he started sweating. The Presence of God was on him in an intensified way. As I continued to pray for his foot, the pain left. The prayer time took no more than 5 minutes. Jesus healed his foot right there.

But why ask someone else for prayer? Why go to someone who has seen people physically healed before and ask them to pray for your physical ailment? Can’t we just pray on our own? Doesn’t God just heal whomever He wants whenever He wants? Why would the book of James recommend that we go to particular people for prayer?

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. 

James 5:14-15

In the time of Jesus, people traveled long distances carrying their loved one on a mat just to get them near Jesus. Proximity mattered. They wanted Jesus to touch them or for them to touch the edge of Jesus’s cloak. Either way, power seemed to be coming from Jesus that was bringing physical healing to people. Jesus was a touchpoint, a conduit, of God’s power. So they traveled to get near Jesus wherever He was. The Gospel of Luke says it this way:

…a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

Luke 6:17-19

But couldn’t God just heal all those people in their own homes? Couldn’t God just heal them in their own synagogues? If God really wanted them to be healed, couldn’t God just answer their prayers for healing right where they were? Why would God have them travel to Jesus to get healed?

The answer is, “Yes.” God could have healed each of these people right in their own homes and in their own synagogues. He could have sovereignly healed them right where they were. But He didn’t. Just like He could have healed my friend in my church who came forward for prayer. God could have answered His prayer for healing right in his own bedroom. But God didn’t. God chose, instead, to use me as a touchpoint of His grace, a conduit of His power, in order to heal. This is something that is a regular pattern for God.

When God flows through us, through the Holy Spirit, to bring healing to someone else, we are functioning like a spring of water. Sovereign healings are like rain. Someone in ancient times could wait and say, “If God really wanted me to have water, He would send rain.” And there is some truth in that. But understanding the ways of God is really important. Another way God provides water is having people travel to a spring, or to a well, to collect water. People shouldn’t just wait on rain; they must travel to that spring if they want water.

Waiting on rain isn’t always always an act of faith. Often it is an act of misunderstanding the different ways that God provides water for us. The same is true of healing. Waiting for a sovereign healing is sometimes an act of faith. But often, it is simply a misunderstanding of the different ways that God provides healing for us. Sometimes we must travel to a source of healing, a place or person where God is regularly pouring out His healing through the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9-10, 28).

So we should always pray for our own healing and ask God to bring healing. But sometimes we must go to the wellsprings of healing. This means seeking prayer from those within our church who operate in gifts of healing. It also might mean traveling to people and ministries who specialize in gifts of healing and miracles.

In Jesus’s day, people could have stubbornly stayed home and reasoned with themselves, “If God wanted to heal me, He would do it wherever He wanted and whenever He wanted.” But this is a misapplication of the truth of God’s sovereignty. Those who traveled to Jesus got healed. Those who saw the power of God pouring out of Jesus, and understood that proximity mattered, picked up their friend on a mat and did whatever they could to get them in front of Jesus. They understood that sometimes God sends rain to us and other times we must go to the wellspring for water.

We need to be ready in faith to travel, to go to where God is pouring out His healing power. We need to be able to identify healthy springs and go to them. We need to have enough wisdom to discern the difference between the charlatans and the real servants of God. Going to someone who has gifts of healing still does not guarantee our healing, but it acknowledges one of the primary ways God brings His healing into this world.