If you are at a healing service, do not be taken aback if you see some people healed in unusual ways. You may even be called upon to do something unusual to get your healing. You may not even have hands laid on you. Look at some of these strange ways of getting healed in Scripture:

2 Kings 5:1-14: Naaman the Syrian had leprosy. He got mad when Elisha told him to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. He expected that Elisha would come out and lay hands on him in the name of God. But Naaman would not have been healed if he had waited for that to happen. He had to do what the prophet of God said.

2 Kings 20:1-7: Isaiah told Hezekiah to put a lump of figs on his boil, and he was healed. Since Hezekiah's disease was incurable (he would have died), this was not medicine in practice, but an act of obedience to God. (If figs really had that kind of curative power, all hospitals would be laying figs on people's sores today.)


Mark 7:32-37: Jesus put his fingers in a deaf man's ears. Then he spat and touched his tongue. The man got healed, and the Board of Health didn't even close down the meeting.

Mark 8:22-25: Jesus spit on a blind man's eyes and then laid hands on him. The man received his sight. No one arrested Jesus for this seemingly rude action, either. (My guess is that if you spit on a blind person and he gets healed, most people will not be too upset with you.)

Mark 10:46-52: Blind Bartimaeus received his sight even though Jesus did not lay hands on him. Jesus simply spoke, Bartimaeus believed, and instantly Blind Bartimaeus became The Person Formerly Known as Blind Bartimaeus.


Luke 5:17-26: A paralyzed man was let down through the ceiling by his friends. (This is the only case where it is good to have friends who let you down.) Jesus simply told the man that he was forgiven and then told him to get up, which he did. There is no record that the man ever touched Jesus or vice versa. (There are other accounts of this story in other passages.)

Luke 17:12-19: Ten lepers came to be healed. Jesus simply said to go and show themselves to the priests. They were not healed instantly when he said this, but they were healed as they obeyed Jesus and went.

John 5:2-19: Again, we have a case where Jesus simply spoke to someone instead of laying hands on him. He told the man to get up. The man obeyed him, and as he did, he was healed. If he had stayed there and kept protesting that he couldn't, he probably would have stayed sick.


John 9:1-7: Jesus spat on the ground, made clay from it and anointed the eyes of a man born blind with the clay. If that weren't enough, he then sent the man to wash in the pool of Sent. The man received his sight after obeying Jesus. There is no record that anyone witnessing this miracle complained about the method that the Holy Spirit used. Would you?

Acts 5:12-16: People were placed where Peter's shadow would pass over them, and they got healed!

Acts 9:32-35: Peter spoke to a crippled man. The man got up and walked. There is no indication that Peter laid hands on him.

Acts 19:11-12: Handkerchiefs and aprons were taken from Paul's body, and the anointing was transferred through them to sick and demonized people, who were healed and delivered.


Note that these cases involve healing by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. You don't have to do anything unusual to accept your healing by faith. But if you're in a "Holy Ghost service," you may be ministered to in an unusual way. Don't lose out on your healing because something is a little different.

Many healing services involve ministry by the "word of knowledge." The minister calls out certain conditions. In some cases, these people are asked to come forward for prayer. (Better go if that's you!) In others, the minister simply announces that God is healing someone of a certain illness, and it just happens without the laying on of hands.

I've seen people healed when the minister just pointed at them. I saw a minister go up to a man in terrible back pain and hit him hard in the back! The man was instantly healed, much to the relief of all of us who saw this. I saw a man healed of chest pains while flopping on the floor completely "drunk" in the Holy Spirit, laughing and laughing. (Ordinarily you would not want to laugh like that if you were having chest pains.) I've seen the Holy Spirit move on a minister to hit someone in the belly, tackle a person, blow on a person, and just stand and laugh at a person -- and this was all done under the anointing! Now please don't try these things just because you heard about them. You could get in real trouble if you do things like these and you're not following the anointing! But unusual manifestations do happen in services sometimes. If it's God, people will be blessed. The funny thing is, if you're ministering and there is an anointing to do something like that, it seems very natural at the time. It's only later that you start thinking, "What did I just do?"


At other times, the minister may ask someone to do something that he can't do, such as run around the room. As the person obeys, he gets healed and is able to do it.

I have seen spontaneous healings when the people were just worshipping God. No one announced the healings; they just happened and people testified. I have seen people healed while being ministered to in music. Thank God for the anointing and the different ways he uses people.

The norm is still laying hands on the sick in the name of Jesus. But don't let exceptions to the rule bewilder you. If these kinds of exceptions happened when the Holy Spirit ministered through Jesus, we can expect them to happen when the Holy Spirit ministers through others.