Does God Still Heal? Prayers for Healing

Before we look into prayers for healing, I think the first question we should ask is: “Does God still heal?”

Here’s the short, truthful answer.

Yes. God still heals. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” He doesn’t change, His nature doesn’t change, and He was known, has been known, and still is known as Healer, and the Great Physician.

So, yes, God is still in the healing business.

How do we approach prayers for healing?

Now that we’ve settled the question on God’s end, let’s look at ourselves. What’s next?

I need a prayer of healing but I don’t know how to pray. Greater, still, I’m afraid that if I pray for healing, God won’t answer my prayer.

It always seems like when we are in pain, have sickness or disease or any kind of health difficulty, the first thing that comes with our problem is doubt.

“This health problem is a tough one. Healing is medically impossible. I don’t feel well, so praying doesn’t even feel like an option.”

Ever been there? I know I have. That’s called doubt. It’s important to identify doubt, because doubt is the direct opposite of faith, and your faith is the first key element in your prayers for healing.

Examples of healing in the Bible

Now that you’ve identified doubt, it’s time to get rid of it. You defeat doubt through the Word of God. There are many, many examples of healing in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New.

Naamen in the Old Testament was plagued with leprosy, which was as good as a death sentence to a normal life. It was highly contagious and progressive, and would have eventually cost him everything.

Hannah couldn’t have a baby. Rachel couldn’t have a baby. In the New Testament, Bartimaeus was blind, a woman was inflicted with “an issue of blood,” referring to menstrual disease, and Jairus’ daughter was ill to the point of death.

Every single one of these people received supernatural healing. The Bible is filled with many examples of God acting as the Great Physician and turning medically impossible situations around.

If He did it for them, He can certainly do it for you.

How to pray prayers for healing

So you’ve crushed doubt by using the Word of God as a reminder. Now it’s time to pray for healing.

What’s next? Where to start?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re trying to pray for healing, especially when you’re in physical, emotional or mental pain. It’s easy to wonder “Does God still heal?” Giving up can sometimes seem easier. Doubt can try to creep back in, and the battle continues.

But you don’t have to have it all together. If you can’t even get to the place where you feel confident and full of faith to pray for healing, you can ask God to help you get there. He loves you, and He’ll walk with you from the dark place of doubt and discouragement to a place of faith and belief in His Word and His Power.

In Mark, a man pleaded with Jesus for healing and deliverance on behalf of his afflicted son. He was desperate and yet he still struggled with doubt. He was honest about it, and in Mark 9:24 he cries out, “…Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Guess what? His son was delivered and healed that day.

So the prayer for your healing begins. It’s time to pray. Have you ever wondered what to pray? What exactly makes a prayer for healing?

We’ve talked about the elements of faith and destroying doubt. Now let’s talk about prayers for healing.

First, we need to understand why we even have the option to be healed through prayer.

Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

He’s talking about the blood of Jesus as He was crucified for our sins, and not just our sins, but our infirmities also. It was by His stripes, or the beatings he took upon His back, we are healed.

The power in your healing is in applying the blood of Jesus to the situation. It’s by His blood he conquered it all and gave us direct access to Him in prayer.

Healing is not relegated to a particular type of sickness or disease. You can pray for healing of anything, great or small, whether it be a virus, a cold, a difficult diagnosis, depression, infertility, etc. There is not hierarchy of illness. His stripes covered it all.

Does God always answer prayers for healing?

The simple, truthful answer is: Yes, God always answers prayers.

It may not be the answer you want, or perhaps not in the timing or the way you expect, but God does hear and He answers.

Once you’ve prayed for healing, whether it be for you or someone else, you’ve placed the situation in God’s hands. The rest is up to God. That means His timing, His method, and His way.

Our responsibility from that point on is to trust God that He knows best.

Sometimes, healing, though the obvious choice on our part, is not for our greater good. Perhaps it’s that very sickness or pain that has drawn you closer to God, giving you a deeper hunger and relationship with Him than you would have had if you’d simply been healed.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s God’s way of teaching you the power of the struggle, and how to become truly strong.

A personal example of healing

My husband and I were married for two years when we decided we wanted to start a family. I was devastated, after a visit to my doctor, to receive a diagnosis that meant I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant without the help of some pretty serious medications that would yield other, potentially harmful side effects. These medications could also harm the baby after it helped me conceive. What a conundrum!

I asked the specialist if I could pursue a more natural method of healing first and was met with, “Go for it, but give me a call in 6 months when you haven’t conceived and I’ll refer you to a fertility specialist.”

Wow. That was rather positive. Not.

A few months later, our church was hosting an evangelist. This man was a prayer warrior and was used mightily of God. One service, he called my husband and I forward and quietly said that the Lord had shown him that we had a need. We confirmed with him that we were trying to have a baby and had been given some bad news.

Before he prayed for us, he told us that God had spoken this to him and that God was going to heal us. The evangelist said that it wasn’t because of our own works, but simply because God is faithful, and that we should go home and prepare.

6 weeks later, I was looking at a positive home pregnancy test, and our little miracle is now 2-years-old and has a 5-month-old baby brother.

I never took a single fertility medication and was able to call my oh-so-positive specialist to let her know they could cancel my appointment because I was pregnant. The hardest part of that phone call was keeping a good attitude when I wanted to be smug and shout, “I told you so! Ha ha!”

On The Other Hand…

I was diagnosed with Rosacea at the age of 22. Rosacea is a skin disease that basically causes a wide range of symptoms, from an adorable blush all the way up to facial disfigurement.

My case, unfortunately, is more severe. During flare-ups, my cheeks swell, my eyelids swell, and I have severe breakouts to accompany the severe and painful redness.

There is no cure for Rosacea. There are only treatments, the most effective of which I cannot take because I am still nursing our 5-month-old.

Notice that I’m talking about this in the present tense? It’s because I still have Rosacea.

Have I prayed for healing? Oh, you’d better believe it! None of my prayers were so full of fervor as when I’d discovered I was pregnant. With soaring faith I’d declared, “If you can do that, then I know you can do this!”

None were so full of sincerity and desperation as when I’d gone out for errands and been approached by strangers with suggestions for my face (almost all of which I’d already tried), or had people quickly back up from me and ask if I was contagious.

I do my best to manage it to keep it at the, “Oh, she has skin problems,” level instead of the, “Oh my goodness, are you okay?” level. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose.

So, if God healed me of infertility, why hasn’t he healed my skin disease? My honest answer? I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you why God hasn’t yet healed me of a confidence-destroying, emotionally tumultuous skin disease.

What I can tell you is that through this journey with Rosacea, I’ve learned to have confidence in Jesus, not in my looks. I’ve learned that my value isn’t determined by what others think of me or if I meet with their outward approval. My value is precious, because I am the daughter of a precious God who loves me, regardless of what I look like.

I’ve learned to have compassion on others with medical issues, how to handle others with obvious low self-esteem, and the uselessness of vanity. I used to struggle with all of these things, even unknowingly.

So, while God hasn’t healed me of Rosacea, He healed  me of some rather serious diseases of the heart.

It wasn’t my way, but it’s the best way. I’m still believing for complete healing of Rosacea, but ultimately, I trust God to do what’s best.

God is still a healer!

No matter what your circumstance might be, whether or not your prayers for healing have been answered, the most important thing is to never lose sight of God’s identity. Great Physician is part of that.

He heals, He mends, and most importantly, He loves.

Remember that always, and never wonder if your prayers for healing are being answered. 

Don’t forget thankfulness. That’s just as much a part of your prayer for healing as making your request.

He deserves thanks because He is worthy, because He loves you and wants what’s best for you more than keeping you happy and pain-free. He desires to heal, and He desires you to just know Him and love Him.

You are in the hands of a healing, loving God.

Does God Still Heal? Let Us Know Your Thoughts Below!