Several people have questioned my stance on faith/belief and healing, and so before I go out today I wanted to briefly address some primary reasons people are not healed.

#1 is lack of faith.

Somebody’s going to come along and say, “Yeah, well what about praying for unsaved loved ones?” It’s true that God sometimes does miracles, even healings, in the lives of unsaved people. Someone else will say, “What about the folks in the Bible who didn’t have faith to be healed?”

I think that God holds people responsible for the measure of faith they SHOULD have – for someone who’s known Him a long time, that will be much greater than someone who has no idea who Jesus is. I don’t think the man in Acts 4 who was healed outside the temple had one iota of faith – he wanted money. His mind wasn’t on healing. But the Bible also says that in one town, Jesus couldn’t do many healings because the people lacked faith. Since they’d seen His ministry before, I’m guessing that they should have had it.

#2 is lack of belief.

I maintain there’s a difference between faith and belief, and our lack of belief that God WILL do something greatly hampers us. You can read more about it in this recent post.

That said… faith/belief are not the ONLY reasons why a person is not healed.

#3 is that healing is not what is needed.

Before I was saved, I went quite nearly deaf. It started in my teens and was a very very slow process up until the year before I came to Christ, during which time I went from fully-functioning, occasionally annoyed to “gosh! I really can’t hear a thing!” The doctor actually advised me to learn sign language in case I went completely deaf. Their theory is that I had an autoimmune disorder.

Shortly after I was saved, the Lord led me through deliverance – I quite literally cast out the demons that I’d asked to live inside me as a pagan. (Here’s a testimony-related post, and my testimony itself). When I was done telling the demons to go in Jesus’ name – I could hear again, instantly. Not only that, but my restored hearing tests out better than most people’s.

What had manifested as a medical problem was really a spiritual problem.

I’ve heard others with similar testimonies – that they had anything from high blood pressure to blindness to cancer – and when the demons were cast out, the disease instantly went too – often without being prayed for or mentioned by name.

#4 is that healing is not the FIRST thing that is needed.

I also know of testimonies (including some first-hand experience in praying for others) of people who’d prayed and prayed for years for healing. Nothing happened.

Someone prayed for either a generational curse to be broken, or for “inner” healing (emotional baggage), or even for a curse or spell to be broken.

I used to not believe much in that stuff, but quite honestly I’ve seen enough that I’ve gone from total unbelief to wondering to believing that, at least sometimes, this stuff needs to be broken off before we can receive healing. Why? I don’t know exactly – I just know that I’ve talked face to face with people and seen for myself that years of devastating illness only came to an end after this sort of prayer.

#5 is closely related to #4 – there is a barrier to healing: sin.

Sin – especially the sin of unforgiveness – seems to be a barrier to receiving healing from God. I’m not implying that a Christian is capable of living a perfect, sinless life… I am however saying that if we’ve got ongoing sin issues that we’re unwilling to put under the Blood, then we’ve got no business expecting God to take care of us. Sometimes He might (He knows best) – but to trample grace yet expect it is the height of arrogance.

Likewise, unforgiveness of others keeps us from enjoying relationship with the One who forgives us.

#6 is that we really aren’t willing to accept the changes that healing will bring.

Get this – if you’re sick, you’ve got rest, sympathy, less responsibility… if you’re well, you’ve got work, expectations to fulfill, and more responsibility.

If you’re sick with a cold, you might not REALLY want instantaneous healing because you surely could use a day off to sit and watch soap operas and pamper yourself.

If you’ve been sick for a very long time, as I was, you might not REALLY want instantaneous healing because you’d very suddenly be ushered back into the “real” world where people have the right to expect things of you because you’re suddenly capable of doing those things.

Don’t believe it’s a big adjustment? I’ll talk about that sometime. It was HUGE. And I think that those factors may keep people from being healed. They’ve grown comfortable, in a way (sort of like an abused spouse?) with the status quo and are afraid of changing it.

That’s NOT to say they’re lazy and want to stay sick so they can stay lazy. I’ve yet to meet a person like that. But I’ve also yet to meet someone who doesn’t need to make themselves ready in their hearts for these changes. I’ve definitely met a few who weren’t willing to accept them, and thus have not been healed.

I also know some non-Christians who I think were not healed because they acknowledged before prayer that they were not ready to accept Jesus, and if He healed them they’d HAVE to accept He’s real, and they did not want to face that possibility.

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I’m sure that this isn’t every reason why a person is not healed – but it does offer some answers that aren’t immediately connected to “faith”.

Sorry this is “short” – I may come back, flesh it out, add Scripture when I’ve got time to look it up. Right now I need to finish laundry, take out the trash and the dog, and shower and dress as we’ve got a church member in hospital and I need to go up there this morning.