If 100 people pray for healing, only one or two may be healed. I’m not being pessimistic in any way. This is the reality we often encounter.
In fact, it is not surprising for 100 people to pray for healing, yet none of them gets healed. Many servants of God will have no problem praying for 100 people, yet none of them gets healed.
Flip that scenario to ancient biblical times when Jesus lived on earth, and the reality would be completely different. If 100 people went to Jesus for healing, you can be sure all 100 of them would be healed instantly.
I’m not exaggerating. Scriptures like Matthew 4:24 confirm this truth.
‘News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases…’
This reality left me questioning what existed in the times of Jesus that made healing almost guaranteed, but isn’t present today. In my mind, I knew that if I could figure out that thing, at least I could embark on restoring it so that healing could become a guarantee once more.
Thankfully, I had the Holy Spirit to guide me in this journey of discovery. I studied many scriptures to understand how healing works and also received revelations from the Holy Spirit as I prayed in tongues.
Here is what I discovered.
Revelation on healing
First, many people receive healing today. In my personal life, I know people who got healed purely by the power of God. I have experienced God’s healing myself and even prayed for a few people who got healed. This was proof to me that healing still happens today.
But there was one lingering question: why do some people who are faithful to God, who pray in tongues and diligently seek Him, fail to receive healing?
I had this question because, in my mind, I knew people who “deserved” healing, yet somehow God was not healing them. I even prayed for them and begged God to heal them, but nothing happened.
Because I don’t like being defeated, I stopped focusing on praying for healing and instead asked God what was going on.
Thankfully, God did not shy away from explaining many things to me, as you will see.
The second thing I discovered was that healing in the Bible wasn’t always as perfect as we tend to assume. I was surprised when the Holy Spirit led me to scriptures that confirmed this truth.
For example, in the Book of Luke 4:27, Jesus confirms that there were many lepers in Israel who were never healed, despite Elisha being present with the power to heal leprosy, as demonstrated when he healed Naaman.
In the Book of 2 Chronicles 16:12, we see King Asa, who refused to seek healing from God.
Complete trust in God
These cases highlight an important point that still applies today. Many people struggle to fully trust God for healing and instead rely primarily on physicians. As human beings, this is understandable.
Let me give you my own example.
I once had a bad tooth. At the time, I was born again and speaking in tongues. I chose to trust God to heal me. I went to church, and servants of God laid hands on me and prayed. I also prayed personally for healing.
As the weeks passed, the condition of the tooth got worse. As a precaution, I got some medicine to treat it while continuing to pray. The tooth didn’t respond to the medicine, and neither did it respond to the prayers. In the end, I had the tooth extracted, leaving behind a gap, open like the tomb of Jesus.
When I asked God why He didn’t heal me despite all the prayers, He gave me a simple answer: I didn’t have faith.
I struggled with that. How could I not have faith when I had prayed for weeks and even sought prayer from others? I felt furious. But when the anger subsided, I realized that I had underestimated the amount of faith required to receive healing. I also realized that many believers underestimate this.
To understand the level of faith required, consider the woman with the issue of blood. We often overlook her background story. In the Book of Mark 5:26, the Bible explains that she had suffered greatly under many doctors and had spent all she had.
While the Bible doesn’t go into full detail, common sense tells us that suffering from a chronic condition for 12 years would leave someone in a desperate state. That desperation pushed her faith to the limit, and she received her healing.
In John 5:5, we see a man who had been sick for 38 years. To still have hope after such a long time is sheer resilience.
Perseverance
I also want you to see that it is not uncommon for God to wait until someone reaches an extreme point before bringing healing. This may portray God as a difficult master, but I will explain why God is still very loving despite His unusual ways of doing things.
First, God made everything perfect, but humanity disrupted that perfection. In the Book of Revelation 22:2, we are told that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. This same tree existed in the Garden of Eden, which humanity forfeited through disobedience.
This means that every time you pray for healing, you’re basically asking God to take a leaf from the tree of life and give it to you.
This doesn’t sound like a difficult task until you remember that in Genesis 3:22, God drove man out of the garden so that he would not eat from the tree of life and live forever in a fallen state.
The wages of sin…
Sickness is a reflection of the fallen state of the human body. As Romans 6:23 tells us, the wages of sin is death. Because our physical bodies are slaves to sin, they are subject to sickness and eventually death.
But our souls are renewed and purified in Christ, and they live forever.
This means that when we ask for healing, we are asking God to remove death from our physical bodies, something that our physical bodies deserve according to God’s law.
Yet, out of His mercy, God still heals even though he knows eventually, the physical body must die.
This is why Jesus told the man He healed in John 5:14 to stop sinning, or something worse might happen to him. He was pointing to a deeper reality: the suffering his soul would undergo if he died in sin. To Jesus, the purity of his soul was paramount to physical healing.
Therefore, when you pray for healing, there are two important things to acknowledge.
First, whether God heals you or not, as long as your soul is free from sin, He is pleased. This is crucial because if you don’t accept it, unmet expectations can lead to anger toward God or even losing your salvation.
I experienced this myself when my tooth was not healed. But I realized that losing a tooth is nothing compared to losing my soul.
Focus redirection
I also learned that sometimes God redirects your focus.
When He sees that you are becoming overly consumed with seeking healing, He may prompt you to focus on other things, such as worship, evangelism, or studying His Word. Resisting that redirection could indicate a lack of trust in God’s ability to heal you.
A good example is Moses in Exodus 4:11, when he focused on his inability to speak. God responded firmly, showing that He already understood Moses’ limitations.
God is God
Second, the dire your situation becomes, the closer you get towards your healing or going to be with the Lord. Ultimately, every situation comes down to this: either healing will come, or you will go to be with the Lord.
We cannot always know which outcome will happen. But we can trust that God’s decision is right.
Accepting these truths demonstrates humility and, ironically, makes God more willing to heal you.
God bless you.