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We saw in the last lesson that if we are Jesus' disciple, He has already given us authority to heal the sick. Does that mean that we should go to the hospitals to pray for the sick, with the exception that everyone we pray for will be instantly healed?
If you have been given the gift of faith and working of miracles, you might be able to do that on occasion, as the Lord leads you. But the vast majority of us will not have this type of experience most of the time that we pray. Even those with the gift of healing and the gift of miracles don't see 100% of the people they pray for healed. (I did some volunteer work at some Benny Hinn meetings. Benny Hinn is an individual who is "known" for having the "gift of healing." God showed up with incredible power at his meetings and many were healed. But there were still many people at each meeting that were not healed.)
Did you know that even Jesus experienced this. He usually healed many sick people and did many signs and wonders. Mark 6:5-6 records one time when Jesus' hands were tied by people's lack of faith. It says, "Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6And He marveled because of their unbelief." We know that Jesus had the faith to heal people, but the people He went to minister to were so unreceptive that He could not do His usual miracles and healing of many people. Jesus moved powerfully in the gift of healing, probably more so than any other person who has ever lived. And yet Jesus could not heal everyone... Mark 6:5-6 says so. We see a similar account in Matthew 13:58.
So we should not expect that God will heal every single person we pray for. But we should expect God to heal people because He can and does.
There are times when God's presence and anointing to heal are so strong that it seems like everyone at a given meeting is healed. I experienced this once in India, in December of 2000. A coworker and I ended a four day crusade in this one region with a healing meeting. And God came in great power. Just about everyone that either of us prayed for was healed. It was an incredible experience. But I have also been in meetings where only one or two that I prayed for were healed.
You see, our job is to pray for the sick, and God's job is to heal them. We should be sensitive to the spirit and listen to His direction, praying the way He shows us to pray. (You will see that there are many different styles of praying for the sick.. we will study them in subsequent lessons.) But in all cases, the key is to be in tune with God and to do what He tells you to do. Your part is to pray when God tells you to or when the opportunity arises. You are to pray whether or not the person is healed.. it is up to God to heal. The good news is that God's character is one of compassion and He loves to heal the sick. So it is usually His will to heal people. But we still have to leave the choice to God. We pray and He heals.
I "cut my teeth" in healing in Vineyard Christian Fellowship circles, back when John Wimber was still alive. I sat under John's teaching on multiple occasions, learning how to pray for the sick. There was one thing about John that I really remember. He said, "You must not say that you cannot heal the sick until you have prayed for 100 people in a row who have not been healed." You know what, in all the years I "hung out" in vineyard circles, I never once met a single person who had prayed for more than 20 or so people without seeing God answer that prayer and heal someone they prayed for. It just does not seem to be possible for a disciple of Jesus to pray for 100 people and never see a healing take place. (If you don't believe me, try it!)
I remember some of my early attempts at healing. I took the "famous" class at Fuller Seminary on Healing.. the one that Peter Wagner and John Wimber taught. Each student in that class had an assignment .. they had to pray for five people for physical healing over the course of the class. There was not a single person in the class who did not see God heal at least one of those five. In many cases, God healed all five people. Now, we mostly prayed for small things, like flues and arthritis and back problems and such. There seems to be a principle here.
We need to "start small" and grow into the "bigger stuff". There will always be exceptions to the principle.. there will be people who's first healing miracle is seeing God open blind eyes open seeing someone get out of a wheelchair or seeing cancer fall of of someone. But most of us start by seeing God heal headaches, flus, back problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc. I call this the mustard seed principle. Jesus used this principle in a lot of His teachings. Look at Mark 4:31-32. Jesus said, "It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade." Loosely paraphrased, He said, "It starts small and grows big!"
The disciples were, under Jesus' authority, healing the sick and casting out demons. However this one may brought his son to the disciples and they could not cast it out. So Jesus had to take care of it. Afterwards, the disciples came to Him and asked him why they could not cast this demon out and heal this boy. Jesus replied, in Matt 17:20, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.'" In other words, faith is to be like a mustard seed, it is to start out small but grow. In this case, the disciple's faith had not yet grown big enough to handle this particular demon and the sickness that it caused. However, we know that their faith continued to grow and the book of Acts gives account of the disciples doing many miraculous healings and deliverances (such as Acts 2:43).
So when we start out praying for the sick, many of us will begin with the small stuff. We will see God come and heal the headaches, the slipped disks and pinched nerves and that will help our faith in God's ability to heal through us begin to grow. As it grows, we will begin to see God do some bigger and bigger stuff. I call this the "mustard seed" principle of praying for the sick.
That is not to say that God won't throw in some big things for us early on. He likes to do that, to cause our confidence to grow. There was a guy at church who had a bout with skin cancer. It went into recession for a few years. Meanwhile another lady in our congregation caught skin cancer and died from it. This was very difficult for many of us who had been praying and believing for her healing. A few monthes after her death, Bob came to church alarmed. He had a test and the skin cancer had come back. There were about 12 of us who laid hands on him and prayed for him over the next 3 days. We would feel the lumps shrink under out touch as we prayed. That man was soaked in prayer and God healed him. He went back for more tests and they could not find any trace of the cancer. This was a big miracle to us, especially as we had recently lost a very beloved sister to the same cancer. We rejoiced in the power of God. God had done this in a neat way. There were so many of us praying for Bob.. about 12 of us over a three day period ... so that we could not say which person had healed Bob. Instead God got all the credit for healing Him. That experience gave me a big boost in my faith to pray for healings.
It was not long after that experience when a deaf lady came to me for renewal prayer. I could not understand why she kept staring at me while I prayed for her, as most people close their eyes when receiving prayer. So I asked her about it. She explained that she was deaf and was reading my lips to understand what I was praying. So I moved her to where the light was better so she could understand my prayers. Then I continued to pray for God to meet her, fill her, bless her and give her more of Him. Then I threw in a quick one sentence prayer asking God to open her ears while He was at it. Then I continued to pray for blessings. Suddenly her eyes got really big and she said, "I can hear you! I can hear what you are praying!" I wanted to finish my prayer, but she got so excited that she ran off to tell her friends. God had opened her deaf ears! It was my first "major miracle" and I was not even expecting Him to do it, I had just thrown in the request as an aside. That miracle was a big booster for my faith. It was early in my experience of praying for the sick. I continued to see God heal the "small stuff" afterwards, but I did not see another really big healing for months afterwards, when a lady with an advanced case of MS got out of her wheelchair!
God frequently starts us out on small stuff and as we are faithful in then, then He gives us more, as per Luke 9:11-26. In verse 17 of that passage, the says to the servant, "because you have been faithful in little, you will be given more."
So how can we be faithful in the small stuff in healing? We can be faithful to pray for the sick when God leads us and when the opportunity arises. We can continue persisting and continue praying for the sick even when someone we pray for is not healed. We can ask God to teach us how to move more effectively with Him in healing the sick. We can ask God to increase our faith. We can hang around those who are fairly successful in praying for the sick. We can attend healing meetings when those with a special anointing come to our area.. even if we don't particularly agree with all the finer points of their theology. We can volunteer as ushers or helpers at these meetings. When people like Benny Hinn or Charles N'Diffon or Randy Clark come to town, we can go to their meetings. (The three I just mentioned have drasticly different theologies and methodologies, but God uses all of them.)
As we continue to persist in all of this, we learn to walk in and become more effective in the authority that Jesus has already given us, His disciples, to pray for the sick.
I would like to give you an outline of where we will be going in future lessons. First, we will start by looking at some of the many ways that God heals. Then we will examine many of the healing prayers modeled in the bible. Then we will look at some other very practical methods of praying for the sick that are used today. After that, we will look at some other principles that are helpful to know when praying for the sick.
I am going to give you a lot of material to help you in getting started. But you don't need to "know it all" to begin praying for sick friends and relatives and acquaintances. I would like to encourage you to begin trying it now... and don't say that God won't heal the sick through you until you have tried it and failed at least 100 times in a row. (And I don't believe that it is possible for a disciple of Jesus to have 100 failures in a row. It just doesn't happen that way because when we pray for the sick, God heals them!) My guess is that you won't get to more than 10 or 12 tries before you have some excellent praise report and testimony on how God healed someone when you prayed for them. Don't wait for this series to end.. get started praying for the sick right away.