One of the most puzzling questions many Christians face is “why some people don’t get healed when they pray to God?” This is a difficult question to answer, and for many it is a sensitive topic. Maybe someone is struggling with their own sickness or with the sickness of a loved one. They wonder, why is God not healing?
To answer this question, it is first necessary to note that Jesus is still the same as he was in the first century. His will is the same, his power is the same, and his character is the same. God is good, and he loves people. In addition, it’s important to recognize that the Book of Acts describes normal Christianity, and it is the standard for the church today. God healed people throughout the New Testament, and he is still healing people today.
Causes of Sickness
To understand why some Christians don’t get healed, we need to first understand why Christians get sick. Sickness is caused by several different things.
1. General Brokenness in the World Due to Sin
Due to sin, the world is subject to decay and deterioration. Disease and trouble have spread all over the world because of sin, affecting everyone. One might catch a cold from a person next to him. He might get sick by eating bad food. Jesus told of a tower that fell and killed 18 people (Luke 13:4). Why did the tower fall? Was it weak construction, an earthquake, or even sabotage? The falling tower of Siloam, like every other disaster and problem, can ultimately be traced back to the general root of sin which is the ultimate cause of all sickness.
2. Mistakes
People often make mistakes, and our own errors can cause us to get sick. A person may be careless when climbing a ladder and fall and break his leg. A worker may fall off a roof and get paralyzed because he wasn’t wearing an appropriate harness. A person may drive rashly and get into an accident and injure himself. Someone may stay out too long in the cold weather without a jacket and get sick. Many sicknesses are simply the result of making mistakes.
3. Sinned Against by Others
Sometimes people get sick or injured because they are directly sinned against by others. Someone might choose to physically harm someone, and that can cause sickness. Pontius Pilate sinned by killing some people who were offering sacrifices (Luke 13:1-3). Bioweapons are sins against humanity, and they can cause sickness. People can get sick because they are directly sinned against by others.
4. Your Own Sin
Our own sins can directly cause us to get sick. A drunkard may get cirrhosis of the liver. A fornicator may get an STD. A drug user may damage his body. Sin has a general corrupting influence in our lives, and our own sins can badly affect our bodies. Jesus once told a person to stop sinning, lest he get sick again (John 5:14).
5. Demons
Demons can cause sickness, as we see throughout the New Testament.
Is It God’s Will to Heal People?
While Jesus was on the earth, the Bible says he healed every sick person who came to him asking for healing. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He doesn’t change. Jesus is our savior and our healer. Jesus’ healing power fulfills the word of God, which says that he bore our sicknesses and took our infirmities (Matthew 8:17).
God’s will is to heal. Jesus told us to pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the fullness of the kingdom of God, there is no sickness. We are to pray for this reality to be manifested. In heaven, there is no sickness; we are to pray for the reality of heaven to come into the earth. Are these things possible? Yes, otherwise Jesus would not have told us to pray for these things. If we pray these grand prayers, we should do so in faith, believing that these things are not only possible, but that THEY WILL HAPPEN. There is no point in praying these prayers without faith.
It is God’s will to heal people, and Jesus came to heal us, but sometimes people are not healed. Why?
Think about it this way. It is God’s will for us to stop sinning, and Jesus came to take away our sins, but sometimes we still sin. Why?
God wants us to stop sinning, but we don’t.
God wants everyone to be healed, but they aren’t.
God wants everyone to be saved, but everyone is not saved.
Jesus died for all of these things, but this reality is not manifested upon the earth.
Just because something is not happening does not prove that it is not God’s will for it to happen. In fact, the fact that these things are not happening is the very reason Jesus told us to pray for these things to happen.
The kingdom of God is not yet here in fullness. We need to pray for the kingdom of God to come so that God’s will is increasingly done and the works of darkness, including sin and sickness, are increasingly destroyed.
Examples in the New Testament of Sick Christians
Throughout the New Testament, there are many miracles of healing. Some of these miracles are amazing, like cloths healing people, and people being healed by the apostles’ shadows.
However, there are also a few examples of sick Christians.
Timothy had stomach problems, and rather than getting miraculously healed, he was told to drink grape juice (1 Timothy 5:23).
Trophimus was sick and Paul had to leave him somewhere because he was too sick to travel (2 Timothy 4:20).
Epaphroditus, an apostle, was sick for a while and almost died. But eventually, he was supernaturally healed (Philippians 2:26-27).
These New Testament examples of sickness reveal that the kingdom of God is not here in fullness. If it were, no one would be sick.
To the extent that the church submits to Christ, to that extent the church will reveal the kingdom of God. Jesus was completely faithful to God; therefore, he revealed the kingdom of God with perfect power, and every single person who came to him was healed. The early church was very faithful to God, and they exhibited the kingdom of God with great power. But they weren’t on the level of Jesus, and therefore their manifestation of the kingdom through them was less perfect than it was through Christ. The church today is not at the level of the early church, and therefore the kingdom of God is not as clearly manifested today as it was through the church in the first century.
However, at the end of the age, the bride of Christ will be prepared for the wedding supper, and then the glory of God will radiate through the church in an even greater measure than it did in the first century (Haggai 2:9).
Pray for Healing
If a Christian is sick, he should pray and ask God to heal him. “You don’t have because you don’t ask” (James 4:2). Sometimes we are sick because we haven’t prayed to be healed. A sick person may need to ask for the laying on of hands. Sick Christians are commanded to call for the elders of the church to anoint him with oil (James 5:14). If someone doesn’t do these things, he may not be healed.
What if someone prays and still doesn’t get healed?
There are many factors involved in healing, and someone may not be healed for a number of reasons.
1. Faith
To receive healing, we need faith. Once Jesus’ disciples couldn’t heal someone because they lacked faith. Jesus said we need to have faith when we pray, and if we have faith, whatever we say will come to pass (Mark 11:22-24). Even Jesus was not able to heal some people in his hometown because they lacked faith. Jesus healed some blind men after asking first if they had faith, and then he told them they would be healed according to their faith (Matthew 9:28-29). Faith is an essential ingredient in receiving answers to prayer. When we pray, we are to ask without doubts, because if we doubt we will not receive an answer (James 1:6). Without faith, we cannot please God, for we must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6).
2. Persistence
Sometimes we need to pray for a sick person more than once. We may need to lay hands on a person more than once. Jesus once prayed for a blind man, and his sight was partially restored. Then Jesus prayed for him a second time, and the man was completely healed (Mark 8:23-25). This shows us that we may need to pray repeatedly for something. If we stop praying after the first time, there may be a slight improvement, but there may not be full healing. God might want us to pray again.
Jesus told us we must persevere in prayer and not give up. Jesus told a parable about a widow who kept asking for help from a judge, and kept bothering him day after day. Finally, the judge helped the woman. Jesus told this parable so that people would keep praying and not give up (Luke 18:1). Prayer is not necessarily a once-and-done thing (although it certainly can be), but it may take time.
3. Fasting
Sometimes we need to fast in order to see healing happen (Matthew 17:21).
4. Forsake Sin
Sometimes a person needs to repent and turn from his sin in order to be healed. If he doesn’t repent, then he won’t be healed (Luke 5:14). There are times when a sick person needs to confess his sins to other members of the body of Christ in order to be healed (James 5:15-16).
5. Eat the Lord’s Supper Properly
The Lord’s Supper is a powerful spiritual tool that is vitally important for our general health and well-being. One of the most grave punishments in the early church was to not be allowed to eat the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 5:11). Partaking of the Lord’s Supper has powerful spiritual and physical benefits, and it’s possible that a Christian may be sick because they are not partaking of the Lord’s Supper.
In addition, eating the Lord’s Supper in a wrong way, by not discerning the body of Christ and not valuing the other members appropriately, can cause sickness or even death (1 Corinthians 11:30).
6. God’s Glory
Sometimes a person may be sick so that God can glorify himself by doing a miracle. For example, when Lazarus was sick, Jesus was asked to come and heal him, but Jesus didn’t do so. Instead, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that he could raise him from the dead. Resurrection would glorify God more than just healing.
In another instance, Jesus said that someone was sick so that God could be glorified by healing him from his sickness (John 9:3). It’s important to note that God is glorified by healing people, not by leaving them sick and miserable.
7. God’s Word
The word of God is a healing medicine (Proverbs 4:20-22). When we are sick, we should read God’s word, and that may cause us to be healed.
8. Be humble, fear God, and depart from evil.
Humility and the fear of God will bring healing (Proverbs 3:7-8).
As can be seen, there are many variables involved in why someone may not be healed. Maybe it’s a lack of faith or a lack of persistence. Maybe there is sin involved, and a person needs to repent or confess their sin to church leaders. Maybe they need to ask for the laying on of hands or for the anointing with oil. Maybe they need to read the Bible. They might need to humble themselves and fear God. Maybe they need to eat the Lord’s Supper in a more godly way, or they might need to fast.
Which is it? It’s different in each person’s situation. To sort all of this out, we need to be guided by the Holy Spirit. In challenging circumstances, we need a revelation from God to know the key to unlock divine healing for a specific person. There are many times when we need to address the root problem so the person can be healed.
Personal Testimonies
I once knew a woman who was so sick she could not eat any food. She was losing weight rapidly. One day, God spoke to her and told her to drink some grape juice. She drank it, and suddenly she was healed and could eat normally.
I knew a young man who was healed from chronic stomach pain when a person randomly poked his stomach in a church meeting.
Paul was healed of blindness when Ananias laid hands on him. He had been praying before this, but he was not healed. It took the laying on of Ananias’ hands to heal him.
These examples show that God works in different ways for different people.
Jesus Healed in Many Different Ways
Jesus healed people in different ways while he walked the earth. Sometimes he spat on people to heal them (Mark 8:23). Sometimes he poked his fingers in their ears to heal them (Mark 7:33). Sometimes he rubbed dirt mixed with saliva on them to heal them (John 9:6). Many times he laid hands on them to heal them. Sometimes he spoke to them or asked them a question to heal them. Other times he cast out a demon to bring healing. Sometimes he healed someone in front of a crowd, other times he got rid of the crowd before healing them. Sometimes he went near the person to heal him, and other times he made sure that person was far away.
Jesus healed in all these different ways because he was following the leading of his Father. In a similar way, we need to follow the specific leading of the Holy Spirit in order to see consistent healings happen.
There are probably an infinite number of ways that God can bring healing. The key is recognizing how God wants to heal in each situation. For that, we need to be led by the Holy Spirit.
God has given us many general principles in his word about healing. Let us implement these principles when we or our loved ones are sick. Let us seek God for specific revelations that will bring healing. And may God increase our understanding about this by his Holy Spirit, as we always remember that, no matter what is our situation or circumstance, God is good and that he loves us deeply.
Lincoln House Churches 