Tag: prayer ministry

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.

Washing Feet – Revisited

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 

John 13:6-15

I love when the Lord shows me something new in a passage of scripture I’ve read a hundred times. I read the above passage the other day and felt like the Lord showed me something new. We tend to think of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet as an act of humble service whereby He then instructs His disciple to do the same for each other (that is, serve each other). But consider that there’s more that Jesus is addressing here. 

We know that Jesus isn’t just talking about personal hygiene. And I believe He’s talking about more than just service. When He’s talking about taking a bath, He’s really talking about baptism/salvation. He’s talking about the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. This is why Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

And when Jesus is talking about washing feet, He’s talking about the regular cleansing that we need even after we are saved. Jesus said, “Those who have had a bath (been saved) need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.” Meaning, we who are followers of Jesus have already been forgiven of all of our sin, and yet we still need a regular kind of cleansing because of our regular contact with sin and the contaminants of the world. We’ve been cleansed by the Holy Spirit from the inside out (our spiritual bath), yet we still get the muck and grime of the world on us simply by walking daily in the world. After we have had a “bath” we don’t need to get saved over and over again, but we do need a different kind of cleansing. We do need a foot washing.

We see this same kind of “dual cleansing” demonstrated by the priests at the Temple. First, they offered the sacrifices of animals to account for their sin. The spilling of blood addressed their guilt from sin. Yet, the priests also had to wash in the wash basin before entering the Holy Place. The washing with water addressed anything they may have had contact with that made them “unclean.” And these wash basins were made from bronze mirrors. They would have literally seen a reflection of themselves as they washed away the contaminants of the world with water. I don’t think it was an accident that a time of reflection accompanied this time of cleansing.

Jesus introduces a new kind of “dual cleansing” for the new priesthood of believers. First, baptism represents the full and total cleansing of our life from sin. Jesus’s blood is what would enable the Holy Spirit to come and bathe us in righteousness from the inside out. Then, a foot washing, which represents the ongoing need for forgiveness, repentance, and cleansing from the muck of the world.

Not only do we need a spiritual “foot washing,” a regular kind of repentance and cleansing, but this cleansing is something we believers can offer to each other. Jesus commands, “…you also should wash one another’s feet.” We not only are called to serve each other humbly, but we are called to participate in helping each other stay clean. The cleansing water is the Holy Spirit, and He does what only the Spirit can do. Yet, we can participate in this by metaphorically washing each other’s feet.

I have seen the reality of this kind of cleansing happen over and over in the prayer ministry we have at our church. People come in for prayer with the muck of sin and the muck of the world caked on them. They feel ashamed and defeated. They feel oppressed and depressed. They know there is more to this Christian life than what they are experiencing but they just can’t seem to tap into it. They are followers of Jesus who have been bathed in the waters of baptism, but they still need a foot washing for their soul.

Then we start praying, and the increased Presence of the Holy Spirit begins to be poured out. We as prayer ministers bend low to wash feet and the cleansing power of the Spirit does His work. I watch as time and again people get set free from sin, free from shame, free from unforgiveness and hurt, free from the heavy weight pressing down on their shoulders, free from the heaviness on their chest that keeps them from taking a full breath. As the cleansing water of the Spirit is poured out, the Light comes, lightness is felt, freedom is experienced, hope returns, and a cleansing takes place right in front of us.

When Jesus taught us to wash each other’s feet, I do think he had in mind humble service. But I also think He had in mind ministry that brings freedom and cleansing, ministry that one believer can offer to another. We have the honor of ushering in the cleansing power of the Spirit for each other if we are willing to bend low. This ministry of cleansing is the ministry of washing feet and inviting the Holy Spirit to come and wash souls.