For a lot of us, healing has always felt random. Some days it seems like God says yes. Some days it seems like He says no, and nobody really knows why. So we pray carefully and say things that sound humble, because we don’t want to presume on God. I get it. I prayed that way for years.
Maybe you were taught that healing ended with the apostles. Or maybe you prayed for someone you love, nothing happened, and you quietly decided God doesn’t do that anymore. If that’s you, you’re not broken. You were just never shown the full picture. So let’s start with Scripture.
Look at Jesus
If you want to know the Father’s heart toward sickness, look at Jesus. He perfectly reveals the Father.
Across His ministry the pattern is overwhelming. He touched lepers everyone else avoided. He stopped for paralytics religion had written off. He healed a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, with nothing left after the doctors failed her. Find me one place in the Gospels where Jesus said, “No, I’m not going to heal you.” You won’t find it.
Jesus wasn’t annoyed by sick people. He was moved toward them. When a woman came asking Him to heal her daughter, He called healing the children’s bread (Matthew 15:26). Bread is daily provision. It belongs at the table. And Jesus healed her daughter.
What Jesus carried to the cross
Seven hundred years before the cross, Isaiah named what the Messiah would carry.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Some say that’s only spiritual healing, but the Hebrew won’t let us reduce it that way. In verse 4, the word for what He took up is choli. It means sickness, disease, bodily illness. The word for what He carried is mak’ob, which means pain and bodily suffering. And “healed” is rapha, the standard word in Scripture for physical healing. If God only meant emotions, He had words for that. He chose words that name bodies.
God revealed Himself as the Lord who heals in Exodus 15:26. He attached His name to healing, and He doesn’t rename Himself when we doubt.
Then Matthew shows us how to read Isaiah. When evening came, they brought the sick to Jesus and He healed all of them. Matthew says this fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Matthew 8:17).
Isaiah looks forward. Peter looks back at the cross and writes, “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Past tense. Already done. Sin and sickness were placed on Jesus side by side, and He paid for both in full. The cross isn’t a question mark. It’s a declaration.
Why so many believe it ended
Some of us were taught that healing ended with the apostles, or that God picks and chooses. I understand that. If you’ve prayed and seen nothing, disappointment can start masquerading as doctrine. We start reading God’s will through our unanswered prayers instead of through the life of Jesus.
But we don’t rewrite theology to match disappointment. We lift expectation to match Scripture. Isaiah 53 stands. Matthew 8 stands. The cross stands.
That doesn’t mean every prayer brings an instant result. I’ve seen eyes open in seconds and backs heal in minutes. I’ve also prayed for people who needed me to come back again. I don’t have a perfect answer for why the timeline is different from person to person. But even in the ministry of Jesus, one healing came in stages. After the first touch, a blind man saw people who looked like trees walking around.
“Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:25).
If Jesus wasn’t ashamed to minister again, you don’t need to be ashamed to pray again. This isn’t about blaming anyone who is still sick. If you’re still waiting on your healing, don’t read delay as defeat. Persistence isn’t proof that you lack faith. Often it’s proof that you believe God’s Word more than what your eyes can see.
What changed for me
I remember sitting in my dad’s house late one night, wrestling with one question. Why doesn’t everyone get healed? I had already seen over a thousand people healed. But at that point only about half the people I prayed for were seeing healing, and the weight of the ones who weren’t crushed me.
That week I was preparing to speak at a Baptist prayer meeting in Georgia. The question sent me back to Scripture, and God started wrecking my heart with what I’ve shared with you here. I taught them what I was learning about the atonement work of Jesus. We took communion, and then I prayed for them. Out of 21 people, only one wasn’t instantly healed. It was the first time I saw nearly everyone healed.
The Scriptures didn’t change. My heart and faith shifted to line up with His Word. I stopped standing as a mediator, asking God to heal. I started acting as an ambassador of heaven, commanding the sickness to leave. We don’t command God. We command sickness in Jesus’ name. The authority is borrowed. It’s His. And healing flows from His finished work, not my perfection. My job is obedience; the outcome is His. What Jesus paid for hasn’t changed, and healing is still for today.
Your next step
The only people who see the sick healed are those who pray for the sick. This week, pray for one person: ask where they feel pain, pray simply, then have them check. If you want help, start with the free 5-day course on praying for the sick.