It amazes me that the primary way we think we should minister to the sick is to pray for their healing in their absence, whether they know anything about it or not. There is no reason that healing, the physical side of salvation, should be ministered in any different way than the spiritual side of salvation.

If we ministered the new birth the way we typically "minister" healing, we would gather people around in a service to pray that the new birth would fall on Mr. X. We would pray that God would make Mr. X a new creation in Christ right there where he is (probably at the girlie bar; that is how he got the name Mr. X). We would "claim" his salvation "by faith" for him. Would this work? NO!!!

What would you pray for Mr. X? Scripturally, you would pray that he would see the light of the glorious gospel, and you would demand the Satan stop blinding him. You would pray for laborers to go into the harvest and tell Mr. X how to be saved. Someone would share the gospel with Mr. X, faith would arise in his heart, and he would receive something that already belonged to him through his own faith.


It makes sense that if you want someone to be healed, you would pray that laborers would go into the harvest to share the good news of healing with him. You would consider going yourself. If the gospel is not preached, there will be no basis for faith, and even if the healing anointing "falls" on the person, he won't know what it was or how to cooperate with it. He will probably lose whatever he gets in short order. The sick person needs to hear the good news about healing before he can have a basis for faith. If he has no basis for faith, he cannot pray in agreement with you for his healing. God may show him mercy, but to stay healed, the man needs to be able to stand on the Bible on his own.

Probably the #1 difficult type of prayer request I have received in my limited experience has been people wanting prayer for Uncle Charlie in the West Indies who is sick and has never heard the gospel. The requester wants healing to fall out of the sky so that Uncle Charlie will be instantly healed. That isn't usually how it works! If I could make that work, I would. Usually, I ask if anyone is going to share the gospel with Uncle Charlie, and in almost every case, no one is going to even attempt to tell him about Jesus, and no one has. Then I encourage the person to do so or find someone else who can do so. Many times, when people find out that boldness and some time commitment may be involved, they back off, because they wanted a quick fix with no effort on their part. Ministry involves sacrifice and love, not just faith and power!


Since we're on that subject, there is a saying that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Ministering to a seriously ill person may involve some serious time commitment and no small amount of patience, since people usually don't "get it" the first time around. If you simply come in and blast away with your Scripture shotgun, the person may reject your message because he feels that you are just there to preach Bible verses at him. Jesus was moved with compassion, and unless you demonstrate the compassion of God as well as his power, the person may not want to hear from you at all.

You may not be there to discuss the weather or what sports teams are winning, but you may have to engage in some small talk before the person is comfortable with you. You need to prove that you care, and that you are not just looking for a great look-how-God-used-me-glory-to-me testimony on Sunday morning. You will turn people off if you get preachy. It will not help to simply tell the person how sorry you feel for him, but it is not wrong to show sympathy for his condition. You don't have to encourage self-pity, but you can let the person know that you understand that his situation is difficult for him. Of course, you don't have to listen to senseless rambling all night, either.


Beware of anything smacking of a critical attitude. No one will want to listen to you if you come across as saying, "Healing is yours in Christ -- why can't you get that through your head, stupid?" You probably didn't get it the first time, either. Also remember that drugs can mess up people's minds and make it harder for them to understand what you are saying, although the Holy Spirit can and does break through that at times. The Word will minister to the person's spirit, and the drugs have no effect on the person's spirit.

Don't give up. The person may suddenly get a revelation of what you're talking about just as you're ready to give up in exasperation. If the person is open to listen to you, keep planting the Word in him. If he doesn't want to hear any more, you are out of line trying to force anything on him. As discussed in one of questions in the Questions section, some people just decide to die and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it once they make up their minds.


I think the biggest thing people need to know is that it is definitely God's will for them to be well. So many people think that God is punishing them or teaching them something, and people have to have their minds renewed to the truth before they will be able to receive anything. It doesn't take much to prove this point. You can point to the miracles in Jesus' ministry and then show that Jesus is the same today. You can show that Jesus healed those who were oppressed of the devil. As long as the person thinks that sickness might be a good thing after all, he is in no condition to receive healing. There is no basis for faith until you know what God wants to do. Otherwise, your prayer is mere wishful thinking and hoping, not faith.

You can point out that Jesus took our sicknesses and pains on the cross. It is probably better to just say that than to open to Isaiah and whip out your laptop computer, run this program, and prove that the Hebrew word used for griefs in Isaiah 53:4 means sickness everywhere else in the Old Testament.


You can point out that sicknesses were part of the curse of the Law, and Jesus has redeemed us from them. You can show that disease is a penalty for sin, and we are redeemed from sin by the blood of Jesus. Stress that Jesus bore our punishment, including sickness, in our place.

If you can, give the sick person some good literature about healing. The person isn't going to get well watching people run a ball up and down a field between beer commercials. He needs the seed of the Word to be planted in his heart to produce a harvest of healing.

You can turn to Mark 16 and tell how Jesus' followers can lay hands on the sick for their recovery, and offer to do so. I would suggest that you wait until after you have shared the Word before doing this. This gives the person an opportunity to hook up with you in faith. If you will have multiple opportunities to see the person, you might not want to pray at all the first few times unless he says that he is ready. The best way to minister healing is to minister the Word so that faith can arise in the sick person's heart. As much as you might want to, you cannot permanently receive a healing for someone else. They may get supernatural relief as a result of your prayers, but unless the person is able to stand in faith on his own, the devil will be right there to swipe his healing from him.


I'm not saying not to pray; the person may be very encouraged by how God answers your prayer. However, you must be prepared to help the person stand on his own two feet, spiritually speaking. What good will you do if you get a hundred people healed when you pray, and they all get sick again? If anything, they can be very hard to reach next time. Ministering to the sick is not a hit-and-run affair. It will require time and patience on your part. Are you willing to spend the time to help the other person understand what you understand?

A really good way to hook up with someone who does not like Bible verses is to share your own testimony of healing. The best kind of testimony is how you believed you received when you prayed and got healed, because the other person is able to do the same thing. If you just share about being healed through the gifts of the Spirit in a church service, a person who is not in good shape to go to a church service may not be able to see himself in your shoes, receiving healing.


Faith comes from hearing the Word, not from testimonies, but I have found that I can mix the Word with my testimony. I explain that I believed what Mark 11:24 says. (I don't usually cite the reference; I just say that Jesus said that.) I have been amazed at how quickly some people have latched on to this and "gotten it" themselves after I shared how I got healed.

Finally, ministering healing is a great way to find out how much you really believe in your heart, and how much is just head knowledge to you. When the sick person starts asking you questions about healing, you'll find out what you really believe!