Category Archives: Blog

 I have heard some ministers talk about miraculous physical healing as something that occurs when you repeat your prayer over and over again. I once heard of a woman who prayed for herself to be healed of cancer by repeating to herself all day every day, “God is healing me.”  She claimed that her cancer went into remission that way without any treatment.

Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus or anyone else tell a sick person to pray all day and every day for healing, but I do believe that this woman was telling the truth about the power of the mind to heal the body. God gave us these minds and so in a sense he is healing us through this sort of exercise.  There was a famous study done where patients in hospital were told to say to themselves as much as possible, “every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”  You can look this up in any search engine for the details, but the results compared to those with negative self-talk, or no conscious self-talk were remarkable.  The fact is that a positive mental attitude can have wonderful results on the body, and “praying” this affirmation is one scientific way to achieve this mental attitude.

My opinion is that this should go into the same category as medical science.  It is not the same as the miraculous healing performed by Christ and his followers, but still is of God and should be considered helpful.

You can pray for yourself the very same way you would pray for another.  You can even lay hands on yourself.  Just rebuke the sickness and ask God to send his Holy Spirit to come and heal you.  James 5:14-15 says,

Is 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. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

It seems from this verse that the best way is to solicit prayers from others, especially those who are mature, when you are sick.  But there is absolutely no reason why you should not pray for God to heal you when you are sick.

In the same way that you would want to pray with faith, in Jesus’ name, according to God’s will when you pray for someone else, you will want to pray that way for yourself.  Remember that sickness and disease is not a part of the perfection of creation, but rather a product of the fallenness of the world in sin.  When the Kingdom of God fully comes, you will never be sick. Pray for yourself that in your own body, his Kingdom would come, his will would be done, on earth as in heaven.

A: God’s desire for the Christian is ultimate healing.  Revelation 22:2 says, “Through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”  This is one of the last activities we see of God in Scripture, and it refers to the reality of the New Heavens and the New Earth that will come down after the Last Judgment at the return of Christ. God will usually heal a sickness on the earth in the fallen world one way or another, but not always. Everyone gets sick sometimes.  Almost everyone recovers.

Three disabled people looking at the sunset. Idea of healing and hope.

God has given the body ways to heal itself, he has given us doctors and medicine, and he has given us the Holy Spirit and people of faith to pray for healing.  In this world where the Kingdom of God has not fully come, sometimes healing is delayed.  But because of Christ, everyone on the New Earth will be healed. Don’t stop praying for healing in this life, but know with certainty that the next life will bring perfection and healing.

God’s plan for the Christian is that one day there will be no pain, no weeping, only health and joy. If he makes you wait for that great day, then he has a purpose in it. It doesn’t change the fact that sickness and disease is demonic, but God will do away with satan and demons in that great day.  It is his promise (Rev 20:10). And he will do away with their evil works on the same day.

A: Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Make no mistake, you have sinned, and that sin deserves death.  Romans 3:9-12 says,

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:  “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.

There is no one who has not sinned. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves.” The punishment for our sin is death.  But…

Jesus Christ paid that penalty for us, so, while we do deserve punishment for our sin, we do not pay the price, because Jesus did.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed (Isa 53:5).

With his wounds we are healed. Our sickness and disease is demonic and it is because of sin in the world, but it is not usually directly related to our sin. Jesus’ disciples asked him about a man born blind.

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (Jn 9:1-3).

In this case, the only reason this man was sick was so that God would be glorified in his healing. God is not punishing you. If you are sick because of your sinful lifestyle that has taken a toll on the body, you will know that.  But Christ has paid the penalty and taken your punishment for your sin.