Ministry Team Training

There are many different ways to pray for physical healing. So when we pray for a sick person, the first thing we have to do is to decide which type of healing prayer we are going to use -- or at least what type we are going to start with. (In some cases we start with one type of healing prayer and if it doesn't seem to be working, then we switch to another.)

I am going to talk about some really good ways to pray for healing in the following lessons. But before I cover them, I want to look at the most popular style of praying for the sick. I don't think it is a very effective way to pray, but it is the style that seems to be used the most in the United States, Canada and Europe. That style is what I call "petition prayer."

Petition Prayer

Petition prayer is simply asking (or inviting) God to come and heal the sick person. It has a few different forms -- at times we ask the Holy Spirit to come with His healing anointing and to continue to touch the person until they are fully recovered. Other times we might ask God the Father to shower His love on the person and also to demonstrate His love for the person by healing them. Or you may remind Jesus that He healed many people when He walked the earth, and then ask Him to come and heal now. Or it may be very simple and straightforward petitions, such as, "Lord, please come heal this person."

If you use petition prayer to minister to a sick person, do not use the phrase "If it is your will" in the prayer. That sounds like you are saying, "God, I don't really expect you to heal them, but I am going to go ahead and pray anyhow." That tends to evoke doubt, not faith, in the heart of the one you pray for. When we pray for the sick as a member of a ministry team, we must believe that God is both willing and able to heal the sick. We should not be praying if we don't believe that. We must also assume that God will bring people to you for prayer who He wants to heal, e.g., God wants to heal the person you are praying for unless He explicitly shows you otherwise.

Petition prayer is a passive prayer (instead of a powerful one). The person praying takes a very passive role the process. They do not exercise the authority that Jesus has given them, they simply ask God to come and heal. A lot of the time, this prayer style is not very effective. Let me explain why. Jesus has given us His authority to heal the sick and He expects us to use it. The great commission does not tell us to go into all the world and pray for those who are sick -- it tells us to go heal them. Jesus has already given us the wherewithal to perform healing. He won that authority to heal on Calvary and in His resurrection. He passed it on to us when He sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us to empower us to be His witnesses. And since He has given it to us, we need to use it in a manner that pleases and honors Him.

It is similar to when God led the children of Israel out of Egypt to the border of the promised land. He had given them the land, but it was filled with "giants." And God expected them to go fight for the land to possess it. They would not go in to fight, so they did not get to possess the land. Instead they wandered in the desert for 40 years and eventually died there. Likewise, our promised land of "healing the sick" is filled with giants of infirmity and sickness and pain and suffering. And God expects us to take our promised land by marching in and chasing out those giants -- by exercising the authority that He has already given us. When we resort to petition prayer for healing, we are choosing not to exercise that authority. Then we are sort of like the Children of Israel who would not go into the promised land to fight the giants. And as a result, we don't see a lot of physical healings.

In fact, there is not much scriptural basis to use petition prayer to heal the sick. The Bible records a lot of the physical healings that Jesus did. But it never once records a case where Jesus healed someone by inviting God the Father to come and heal. Jesus did not pray for God to heal sick people, instead He simply healed the person. Likewise, the Book of Acts also records a lot of healings, but it doesn't record the disciples using petition prayer to heal the sick. Instead, it records that they healed by using the authority that Jesus gave them.

We do have a few Scripture examples where petition prayer was used to heal a sick person. But if you look closely at them, you will see that these were cases where the sick person had fallen under God's judgment. The petition prayer was basically asking God to please forgive them and to lift the judgment of sickness He had placed on them.

One example is when Abraham prayed for King Abimelech in Gen 20:14-17. Abraham asked God to heal the king, and God did so. But the only reason that Abimelech and his household were sick was because Abimelech had wronged Abraham by taking his wife away. So God smote the king on Abraham's behalf; his sickness was a judgment from God, not a natural illness. Abraham's petition prayer was an expression of forgiveness for being wronged. Since he was the one who had been mistreated, he was the one with authority to ask God to lift the judgment and release healing.

Another example of petition prayer healing people is found in 2 Chron 30:17-20. This is where Israel broke the Passover and God apparently struck them with some type of sickness because of that. King Hezekiah prayed for them and asked God to pardon them for this offense. Verse 20 says, "And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people." People were healed when someone petitioned God on their behalf. But the reason the people were sick was because they sinned by breaking the Passover, and God judged them for that. Hezekiah's petition asked God to forgive them and to lift the judgment that made the people sick.

We have a New Testament doctrine where the elders of the church are told to pray for a sick person and anoint them with oil. That comes from James 5:14-16, which says, "14Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed."

When I first read that, I thought it was telling us to use petition prayer to heal the sick. But on closer examination, I noticed that it talked a lot about being forgiven in conjunction with being healed. It seems that this is another case of petition prayer being used to ask God to lift a judgment in order to heal a sick person. The passage seems to talk about people who are sick because of a judgment of God or because of a consequence of a specific sin. And their healing is tied to God forgiving them (e.g., lifting the judgment or breaking the power of the consequences of the sin).

Yes, the Bible has examples of petition prayer healing the sick. But they are all cases where the reason the person is sick is because they are under the judgment of God. So if you do encounter a case where the person is sick because of their sin, petition prayer might be a good approach to use -- step into your role as a "priest" before God and ask God to forgive the person's sin. (Of course, it is also important to have the person you are praying for sincerely repent of their sin. If they don't repent, God probably won't heal them.)

However, most of the sickness that we encounter today is not caused because the person has fallen under God's judgment.

There is another time where petition prayer for healing seems to be very effective. That is the case where God sets up a "power encounter" situation -- where He desires to prove He really is God by healing a sick person. It is similar to how He thrust Elijah into a showdown with the prophets of Baal. God was tired of the children of Israel giving their worship to this idol, so God orchestrated a situation to show them that He was the real true living God, not Baal. Elijah asked the prophets of Baal to prepare an offering and then to call out to their god to send fire to consume the sacrifice. And nothing happened.

Then Elijah set up his sacrifice and prayed a simple prayer that went something like this: "Lord, please show these people that You really are God -- demonstrate Your power by sending fire to consume this sacrifice." Elijah prayed that prayer publicly in front of all the people. He put himself on the line, because if God did not answer, both Elijah and God would look really bad. Then God answered the prayer by sending fire to prove He really was God and that the people needed to worship and obey Him.

Sometimes God does similar things today. Sometimes He puts us in a situation were the doctors can't heal the person. Then He commands us to pray in front of unbelievers that God will prove that He is real by healing this person. When God heals them it a powerful demonstration of His love and proves that He really is God. And unsaved people usually get converted.

But God has to be the One to decide whether or not He wants to set up a power encounter like that -- we don't pray that way unless God directs us to do so. If we pray that way when God has not told us to, He may not come through with the healing. Then both you and God will look really bad. So it is important to only do power encounter type prayers when God directs you to.

You probably won't be in this type of situation while you are ministering on a prayer team in your church. However, these power encounter situations sometimes come up in evangelistic settings, where God wants to prove Himself to a group of nonbelievers so they can get saved. Sometimes it happens in crusade meetings where God tells the evangelist to issue a challenge for God to prove Himself by healing the sick, and then inviting the sick to come forward for prayer. If you are on a ministry team in that type of setting, God will probably heal some of the people you pray for no matter what prayer style you use.

Also, there are times when God sends missionaries to an unsaved village where someone important in the village is deathly ill. And the missionary is led to pray a prayer along the lines of, "Lord please heal this person to prove that You are real and that You are the God that these people should worship." Then the person is healed and most of the village is converted. This type of power encounter evangelism is happening a lot in Muslim nations, especially in Africa -- God does healings to prove He is the real God and to convert the Muslims. In fact, most Muslims won't be converted if they don't see a demonstration of God's power.