How To Pray For Someone With Cancer
(27 October 2005>

Here are some elements to include when you pray for someone with cancer:

• Command the cancer to leave.
• Command the obvious symptoms to leave as well (command pain to leave, if there is congestion in the lungs then command it to clear up, if the person is too nauseous to eat then command nausea to go, etc)
• Command proper functionality to return to the effected body part.
• Bless the effected body part to function the way God created it to.
• Forbid cancer cells to multiply.
• Forbid cancer cells to use the sugar in the blood that the healthy cells need. (Cancer cells use all the sugar in the blood stream and starves the healthy cells so they die, and the person becomes very weak).
• Curse the cancer cells and command them to die and pass outside of the body without hurting any healthy cells.
• Bless healthy cells to live.
• Break any curse of death over the person and speak life to them.
• Break any general access that either cancer or a spirit of death may have over the person.
• Command any spirits of cancer or any spirits of death to leave, and be sure to cancel their assignments. Sometimes when I do this a powerful demon manifests and I find myself in a full out deliverance ministry. If that happens, it is a good sign, because once that demon is gone, a lot of the cancer symptoms leave with it. Do don't be afraid if a demon manifests when you pray this... just use the authority Jesus gave you to command it to leave.
• Command any spirit of fear to leave -- often when a person gets a traditionally "fatal" sickness, a spirit of fear tries to come in and set up residence.
• Ask the Lord to come with His wonderful healing presence and complete the healing and work His glory in the sick person's body.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to come fill and encourage the person and to minister to them.

Of course, we do all of this in Jesus' name. The Holy Spirit may bring up other things as you pray these. If He does, then just follow His leading. Remember that Jesus has given us His authority to heal, so it is not about you or the sick person's faith or your ability to pray well -- it is about what He has already accomplished on Calvary.

I don't fully understand all aspects of praying for someone with cancer yet, but I am getting the impression that most of the time this is a stubborn thing that requires multiple prayer sessions. So assume you are in for a battle and that you will have to contend (persistently stand in faith) for the healing. Be prepared to pray for the person multiple times instead of just once. Don't pray once and if they are not healed then assume that it was not God's will to heal the person. The gospels record a time when Jesus prayed for a blind man. He finished praying and the man was only partially healed, so Jesus had to pray a second time. Since the Lord God Almighty had to pray twice, we have a precedent for "repeated" or "soaking" prayer.

Be sure to encourage the sick person, especially if you see a definite improvement in their condition. Most of the time, they will have some type of relief right during/after the prayer, and we can latch on to that and take it as an indication of the Lord's willingness to heal them. But be aware that this is usually a process and that there will be both ups and downs in it. So person may get noticeably better for a short while and then have a negative relapse. That frequently happens in the healing process when praying for cancer. It is not an indication that the healing did not take. Don't be shocked and don't give up hope or let go of faith. Keep praying for the person and keep asking God to come and abide on the person with His healing anointing.

I don't believe it is a lack of faith to cooperate with doctors, do their procedures, etc. I believe the doctors, radiation and chemotherapy are tools that God has made available to us, sort of like the tree in Revelation who's leaves were healing for the nations. Those leaves don't do any good unless you use them. Likewise the doctors and medical science are tools God has provided for us to use. In fact, most doctors who treat cancer welcome what they consider any type of "positive psychological support" (e.g. prayer of faith) because it is a medically documented phenomenon that patients with a positive mental attitude do much better than those who don't have it. Often they don't get as sick from the treatments, they deteriorate more slowly, etc. So even an unsaved or atheist doctor will want the patient to have experiences that help them have a positive attitude so they can do better under the doctor's care. Most unsaved doctors have no faith and don't believe in the power of prayer, but they still want their patient to have as good of an attitude as possible, and they see prayer ministry as a nice tool to boost the patient's positive attitude.

I have seen some people who had cancer healed of it. I am still learning to pray more effectively. I may revise or update this write-up at some future time as I learn more, but for now this is what I know to do when praying for someone with cancer.

If you have a friend or family member with cancer, remember that Jesus has given you the same authority over cancer that the "big name healing people" have. You don't need a big name or an incredible anointing to pray effectively. The thing is, someone needs to pray for else the person definitely won't be healed by prayer. So rather than looking for the "perfect" person to come and pray, get those believers in the geographic area of where the sick person is to be the ones go to pray.

Wayne Gretzky (a famous hockey player) has a saying that really fits. He says "100% of the shots not taken will not go into the net." Paraphrasing into Christian terms, "100% of those who are not prayed for will not be healed." You may be the only person available to go pray for your sick loved one. Don't worry if you are not qualified -- it is better to go pray for the sick person as best you can than not to have anyone go lay hands on them and pray.