Sometimes Christians turn to God with this prayer: “I know that You can heal me, but You have not yet done so.
So I want to know how to make You heal me. This is the height of unbelief! They don’t believe that He has already done it for them, and they think they can force or compel Him to do it. Wrong! Because of this unbelief, more people in this day and age cannot accept healing.
In our Bible school classes and seminars, we confidently teach how to heal the sick, not “pray” for them. In Matthew 10:8 Jesus gave us the command to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out demons.” Healing the sick and just praying for them are two very different things!
John Lake understood the difference between the two. The world-renowned missionary preacher founded a powerful healing ministry in Spokane, Washington. He didn’t try to do everything himself, but trained his assistants, whom he called “practicing healers.” When prayers were needed for someone, Lake would send his healing practitioners to these people with small bottles of oil, telling them, “Don’t come back until the healing has taken place.” These believers didn’t go just to pray for the sick; they healed them!
The helper would return in three and a half weeks at most. Sometimes it took longer than in others, but in the end, the sick accepted the healing! Lake claimed that no helper ever returned without a cure. The helpers stayed with the sick person and worked hard until the healing manifested itself.
It may surprise you, but such results are common to people who understand and believe that God has already done everything in His power. Jesus, on His part, has done everything necessary for the salvation and healing of every person. Once you have believed and accepted salvation. Healing comes the same way! It can’t be more difficult to accept healing because He purchased healing at the same time that He purchased forgiveness of sins. Both the resurrection from the dead and the rebirth require the same amount of faith. It doesn’t take more faith to see a person resurrected!
Andrew Wommack