Some of us get so used to expecting someone with the gift of healing to pray for the sick that we forget God heals in other ways. When a friend or relative gets sick, we look for a healing meeting in our area to bring the person to. We expect the healing minister to pray and lay hands on them, and then God will heal them. It is true that God heals that way--sometimes. But it is not the only way God heals.

We must not discount the role of prayer and intercession in physical healing.

I remember back about 15 years ago, when a popular foursquare minister in my area was diagnosed with cancer. His church scheduled an intercession meeting for their pastor. They invited pastors and leaders from many different churches in the city to participate, and pastors from about a dozen different churches came to the prayer meeting, as did most of the people form the sick pastor's congregation. The prayer meeting lasted about two hours, as pastors from many different denominations prayed together with his congregation. Someone read James 5:14, which said, "14 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." Then they had the elders from his church come up and anoint the pastor with oil, while everyone at the meeting prayed in agreement for his healing.

No one at that meeting was known to have the "gift of healing." No one laid hands on him (except the one person who touched him lightly on the forehead to anoint him with oil). It was basically your good old-fashioned prayer meeting, where people interceded for this sick foursquare pastor.

At the end of the meeting, the pastor reported that he felt strength "pour into" him as people prayed and interceded. He saw his doctor a few days later and was almost completely symptom free. That prompted his doctor to run a batch of tests, and they only found small traces of the cancer. Excited with the positive feedback, the people continued to pray and intercede for this pastor in their prayer closets over the next month. Then the doctor ran more tests, and they could not detect any trace of cancer! God healed this man through prayer and intercession.

That concept is actually quite biblical. We have a lot of examples of this in God's word. Let's look at a few of them.

Genesis 20:17 tells the story of Abraham interceding for Abimelech. I am sure you already know the story, but you may not have paid much attention to the intercession part of it. Abraham was in Gerar and he was afraid they'd kill him so the king could take Sarah for his wife. So he told them Sarah was his sister, and the king took her into his harem. But before he could have physical relationship with him, God struck him and his household with genital disease and barrenness. Then God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and told him all about Sarah being Abraham's wife. In verse 7, God said, "Now therefore, restore the man's wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours."

Abimelech did what God commanded, then he asked Abraham to intercede for him. Look at verses 17 and 18: "17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; 18 for the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife." This is a case where physical healing came through prayer and intercession.

Let's look at another example, from Numbers 12. This is where Aaron and Marian challenged Moses' leadership authority. God choose to back up Moses, and He struck Marian with leprosy. Aaron repented and went to Moses to ask Moses to pray and ask God to heal his sister. Look at verses 13-14: "So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, 'Please heal her, O God, I pray!' 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, 'If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.'" In other words, God answered Moses' prayer, but not instantly. Marian had to live as a leper and outcast for a week before God healed her. But the fact remains, Moses prayed and in response, God healed her.

Another example comes from the life of Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 30:13-20. Hezekiah was king in Judah. The people had fallen into idolatry and sin for generations, and most of Hezekiah's reign was about turning them back to their God and teaching them how to worship Him. One of his first acts as king was to repair the temple and reinstate worship in it. Among other things, he got the people to start observing the Passover again--something they hadn't done for years. The first Passover observation went pretty roughly...they did it the wrong time of year because they had to delay it long enough for the priests to consecrate themselves. A lot of the people were unclean when they ate it, and many of them did not follow the prescribed way that God laid down in His law. But their hearts were after God and they were trying turn to Him again after many years of not honoring Him.

Hezekiah prayed this prayer in 2 Chronicles 30:18b-20, "But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, 'May the good Lord provide atonement for everyone 19 who prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.' 20 And the Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people."

Did you see that? Hezekiah prayed for forgiveness and sanctification for the backsliders who were returning to God. God responded by healing their physical sicknesses.

You might have noticed that in many of these examples, sin (or rebellion against God) seemed to be what opened the door for the sickness to come in. A godly person interceded, then God responded by forgiving and healing the sick. That part about sin really jumped out at me as I was writing this lesson. There is a verse in James that is along these same lines, James 5:14-15:

14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord 15and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

That drives home the fact that one of the side effects of sin is the curse of the law, physical sickness. When we rebel against God, that opens the door for the curse to operate in our lives. One of the things we do in intercession is to step into the "priestly role" and petition God to forgive people's sins. Apparently that plays an important role in healing.

However, not all sickness is caused by sin. Remember the bind man in John 1:1-3. The disciples wanted to know who's sin caused his blindness and Jesus replied that his blindness was not caused by any sin at all.

We know from Scripture that intercession brings both forgiveness and healing. I personally believe that intercession is just as effective for problems that are not sin related as it is for the sin-caused sicknesses. Remember the Foursquare pastor who was healed of cancer? As far as I know, there were not any sin issues that caused his cancer. Intercession still worked in his case--people prayed for him and God healed him.

There are many awesome testimonies of God healing the sick through prayer and intercession. Some of those healings come quickly, within a few days of the prayer. Others required sustained prayer and intercession for long periods of time (months). I can't possibly share all of these great testimonies in this teaching, but I'd like to include a few from the life of Rees Howells. The testimonies I am about to share come from the book "Rees Howells Intercessor." It was written by Norman Grubb and published by Christian Literature Crusade in 1983. If you haven't already read this book, I recommend that you do so.

The Lord began to impress Rees to pray for the sick. The first person he prayed for was a woman with consumption. He prayed and contended for her healing fervently for months. Here was more than one time when he stayed up all night praying for her and then missed work the next day so he could continue praying. In the end, the woman died. But Rees somehow gained an authority to pray for the sick through that experience.

Shortly afterwards, the Lord sent him to pray for this man in the village who was on his deathbed. "His wife was sobbing her heart out, for there were ten children, and he was the only bread winner" (P. 92). Rees was moved with compassion for the entire family. "He know the only way to help her was to bring her husband back to her, but the man was beyond human aid" (P. 91). Rees prayed for the man for hours, then God told him that the man would live and not die. He went back and told the wife, who wasn't convinced. After all, the last person Rees had said would be healed recently died.

He went home and went to bed. The Lord began to convict him that he had not been convincing enough when he told the woman that her husband would not die. So God sent him back the next morning to try it again. "I don't blame you for not taking what I told you yesterday. I didn't say it to you with the certainty with which I tell things I know, but I have come over this morning to tell you now that your husband will not die; and as proof of what I say, if he should die, I will support you and your children" (Pp. 93-94). The woman "brightened visibly" and began to believe what Rees said to her. Two days later, her husband's fever broke and the doctor pronounced him out of danger.

Straight old-fashioned prayer and intercession is highly effective in obtaining physical healing. That is why the Bible says, "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16b).

More On Prayer And Petition

(Or Praying For Our Own Healing)

Our last lesson looked at interceding for people who are sick. We saw that prayer is powerful, that God responds to our intercession and heals the sick person. That is good news for those of us who have a sick friend or relative. We can pray in confidence that God hears our prayers. We can pray with the expectation that He will answer and heal the person that we are praying for.

But what happens when the "shoe is on the other foot" so to speak? What if you are the sick person, and you don't have someone who will step up to pray for you? Are you in trouble because you don't have an intercessor? Do you have to stay sick because there is no one to pray for you?

I have good news for you. God doesn't just answer prayers prayed on the behalf of other people. He also hears and answers prayers that go like this: "Lord, I am sick, please heal me!" In fact, we have many examples in the Bible of God healing a sick person when they for them self.

My favorite example comes from the life of Hezekiah. You might remember him from our last lesson. He was the young king who interceded for the backslidden people of Judah, and God healed their sick. His destiny was to turn a very backslidden Judah back to the Lord. He taught the people to trust God for their deliverance, and how to worship Him. He restored the broken-down temple and he reinstituted the Passover.

Hezekiah did such a good job at fulfilling his destiny that he finished his God-appointed tasks relatively early in his life. God was ready to take him home and he became "sick and near to death" (2 Kings 20:1a). So God sent the prophet Isaiah to tell him, "Thus says the Lord: 'Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live'" (2 Kings 20:1b).

It is not unusual for God to take someone home after they complete the tasks that He gave them to do. For instance, Jesus did not stay on earth very long after He fulfilled His destiny of dieing for our sins and raising from the dead. He spent about 40 days to equip the disciples, then He ascended to Heaven, going back to His Father.

God told Hezekiah to prepare to die. God did a similar thing with Moses after Moses had served God well for many years and completed his job. Look at Deuteronomy 32:48-50: " 48 Then the Lord spoke to Moses that very same day, saying: 49 'Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; 50 and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people."

Moses' reaction was different than Hezekiah's. Moses obeyed God and set his affairs in order. He appointed his successor (Joshua) and spoke one final blessing on the people of Israel (recorded in Deuteronomy 33). "Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land" that He was about to give to Israel (Deuteronomy 34:1). "5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. 6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day" (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). Moses knew that he would go to be with God when he died, and he was ready to do that.

But Hezekiah's reaction was different than Moses'. Hezekiah did not want to give up and obey. He began to earnestly plead with God to change His mind. In short, He prayed and asked God to heal him. This is recorded in 2 Kings 20:2-3, "Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, 3 'Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.' And Hezekiah wept bitterly."

Do you know what God's response was? God heard Hezekiah's prayer and changed His mind. "4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 5 'Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, "Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. 6 And I will add to your days fifteen years."'" (2 Kings 20:4-6). Verse 7 tells us that Isaiah treated Hezekiah with medicine and Hezekiah recovered. His recovery was not instant, it was a process. That is why Hezekiah asked Isaiah for a miraculous sign that he would in fact get well (verses 8-11). But God healed him in response to his prayer.

God listens to our prayers when we ask Him to heal us. In fact, David prayed this way many times. I can imagine that as a soldier, he got his occasional battle wounds, plus he probably got sick form time to time while he was hiding in exile. When he did get sick, he looked to God to heal him. The Psalms are full of prayers for God to heal and praises that He answered those prayers:

• Psalm 6:2 "Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony."

• Psalm 30:2 "O Lord my God, I called to You for help and You healed me."

• Psalm 38:3,7 and Psalm 41:4 "3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin." "7 My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body." Psalm 41:4 "I said, 'O Lord, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.'"

• Psalm 107:20 "He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave."

• Psalm 147:3 - "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

We see a similar prayer in Jeremiah 17:14, "Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for You are the one I praise."

I had a similar experience recently, where I asked God to heal me and He did. My elbow gives me problems from time to time. I usually endure it for a couple of weeks and if it doesn't get better, then I have to go get a cortisone shot. It has been bothering me a couple of weeks and it was getting progressively worse. I knew I would need a shot. But those cortisone shots are so painful that I decided to go get prayer for healing on Sunday at church, just in case God might heal me so I wouldn't need the shot. As it turned out, the pastor did a special altar call for physical healing and asked the healing team at church to come up and pray for the sick. I wanted to go up to receive prayer, but God told me to go pray for others instead. Of course, I obeyed Him and I saw Him heal some of those who I prayed for. But it took so long to pray for everyone that when I finally finished, everyone else on the healing team had left and there was no one for me to ask for prayer.

I almost felt like God had set me up. It did not seem fair to minister to other people's healing needs and not have anyone to minister to my own need. So I mentioned it to God. He replied, "Teresa, why don't you just ask Me to heal you?" I said, "Ok, God. Would you please heal my elbow? It hurts." God said, "Ok, I will heal you." I had basically just prayed for my own healing.

The next morning, my elbow as noticeably better. I decided not to make the doctor appointment for the cortisone shot. My elbow did not get all the way better. It still acted up from time to time, but it was noticeably improved. That went on for a couple of weeks. I asked God about it again. "Hey, God, what gives? I thought You told me that you would heal my elbow, but it is still not all the way better."

"That's right," God replied. "I said I'd heal you, but I did not say I would do so instantly. Your elbow is continuing to improve and in a while you won't have any symptoms at all." That was about a month ago (as I type this lesson). In the past this problem has never gotten well on it's own, it has always required a cortisone shot. But now the symptoms are almost completely gone. It doesn't bother me at all in normal day to day use--I lift things without any pain. However, if I test it, it still hurts a little. I am probably about 95% healed at this point. I am positive the other 5% will come shortly. This is a case where I asked God to heal me and no one prayed for me about this condition. Guess what--God answered my prayer!

If you have a physical condition that needs healing, why don't you stop right now and ask God to heal you? I would not be at all surprised if He answers your prayer.

The New Testament is full of people who came to Jesus and asked Him to heal them. That is basically the same thing as praying and asking God to heal you. In each case, Jesus healed the person who asked. Let's look at a few examples from the gospels:

• Matthew 9:27 "As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, 'Have mercy on us, Son of David!'"
• Matthew 12:15 "Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed Him, and he healed all their sick."
• Matthew 19:2 "Large crowds followed him, and He healed them there."
• Matthew 21:14 "The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them."
• Luke 9:10-11 "Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, 11but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing."

Jesus shows Himself to be a healing God over and over again. If you have a need for physical healing, don't be shy. Go to Him and ask Him to heal you.

[Previous Article] [Next Article]

Support Gateways of His Light by sharing this page on social media