Why doesn’t everyone who asks receive healing?

May 10, 2009 • 2 Comments

From Alan Smith’s Blog

Have you ever wondered why many who ask for healing don’t receive it? This is a common question and I’ve heard it voiced in a variety of ways. Very often this question is more than simply theological or conceptual. Many times a great deal of disappointment and hurt lies underneath.

We often don’t have answers to the “why?” question. Even when we do, while faced with particular and personal instances of suffering and disappointment, those answers are sometimes unhelpful. Answers to why questions are generally informational. God’s answer to human need and suffering is rarely informational, but rather incarnational. God enters into our suffering. He is with us in it. He carries it. This reality and experience is what is needed when faced with particular and personal loss or grief.
As I have personally wrestled with this issue, there are a few theological realities which I have found to be helpful. I share these today hoping they might also be helpful to others.

1) There is a difference between my position and my condition. What Christ has provided (my position) must be appropriated by faith in order to impact my experience (my condition). For example: The land of Israel was theirs positionally long before it was theirs conditionally. It was their inheritance long before it was their possession. To lay hold of their possession, they had to enter in and possess it by faith. An entire generation failed to do so, according to Hebrews 4, because of disobedience and unbelief. I believe Jesus has fully provided for all healing through his atoning work. The healing of sickness is part of our Kingdom inheritance inaugurated in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Many of us believe this, acknowledge this, affirm this, but few have learned to enter in and possess it. It belongs to us positionally, but we have yet to appropriate it experientially in a manner that affects our condition. I believe God is today stirring up his people to contend for and lay hold of more of the inheritance that is ours in Christ. My hope and expectation is that as we learn to contend for this we will begin to experience increasing victory in this area.

2) Faith and Unbelief operate both corporately and individually. Jesus himself was limited in what he could do in Nazareth (Matt 13:57-58). This limitation wasn’t due to the unbelief of one individual. There was, in that community, an atmosphere of unbelief which limited his ability to meet the needs of individuals. I believe the secularism and materialism of our culture, combined with the widespread unbelief of the church in our culture concerning the miraculous, has served to create an atmosphere of unbelief which stands as an obstacle. In the West, when we hear about something supernatural, our gut instinct is often that there must be a natural explanation. In other parts of the world, when they witness something natural, their first instinct is that there must be a supernatural explanation. Is it any wonder that it is easier to expereience that which truly is supernatural in those cultures?

3) Sickness is often only a symptom of a deeper root problem. Contemporary medical wisdom tells us that 80% or more of illness is psychosomatic. This means that a great deal of sickness has its root in problems of the soul. It is possible in some cases that we experience limited success in ministering physical healing because we have yet to deal with the underlying, fears, un-forgiveness, bitterness, stress, etc. that lie at the root of the illnesses we face.

4) We have not because we ask not. Very simply, it appears that healing is something we receive by asking. I know when John Wimber (founder of the Vineyard) began to contend for God’s healing power, he prayed for more than 250 people before he saw his first miracle. He prayed for 200+ more before he saw his second. As he began to contend, to ask – consistently, proactively, and faithfully – he began to see more and more people healed. I think sometimes we fail to see breakthrough because particular disappointments and losses discourage us and we simply back away from the issue. The giants are just too big. As Bill Johnson teaches, we easily get our focus on what hasn’t happened and enter into discouragement and unbelief instead of focusing on what God has done and is doing with thankfulness and moving forward in obedience and faith.

5) We are in a war. Satan is actively engaged in warfare against God’s purposes in our lives. He opposes and hinders at every turn. In Daniel 10 we see a specific example of how an unseen spiritual battle delayed Daniel’s answer to prayer.

I’m sure much more could and should be said. This isn’t at all intended to be an exhaustive answer to a complex dilemma. I do not know which of the above factors (if any) have specific relevance to your situation. I’m simply sharing some of the thoughts that have been personally challenging to me as I’ve wrestled through this same issue. I hope these ideas might serve simply as a starting place for you to pursue all the inheritance that God has provided you in Christ.

  • Mike Oakland

    I agree with your overall premise about healing and spiritual inheritance have both “positional” and “conditional” elements. However, I think we over complicate this doctrine with one of two errors. Some completely disregard the fact that one of the benefits of the cross includes physical healing. Others teach that healing is a “right” given to us by the cross that we must enforce by faith. If this were the case, then the faith healers of yesteryear would be correct in saying that if a person is prayed for and not healed, then the reason can ONLY be a lack of faith rather than it not being God’s will. This makes us assume that healing is “always” God’s will. We must remember that the New Testament – especially the Pauline epistles, carries an “already but not yet” tension. We are seated wtih Christ in heavenly places positionally, but not yet experiencially. We are the bride of Christ, but the marriage supper of the Lamb hasn’t happened yet. We have received the seal of adoption, but we’re not “home” yet as full sons and daughters. We all have eternal life in us, but we will all die (unless Christ returns). Remeber, the cross not only dealt with our sin (yet we still sin), it also dealth with the power of death (yet we all die). The cross brings us healing, yet we still get sick, diseases, injurred, etc. The full measure of our inheritance given to us at the cross will not be realized until the eternal state has arrived. Until then, we receive the benefits of the cross by faith – but still in measure subject to God’s sovereign will. If God always heals those of faith by default, then Paul’s thorn in the flesh would be a product of unbelief, but we know that to not be true. We see Paul refer to his trials and suffers as a “light affliction.” This life is brief, a passing shadow. God seems to be more concerned with our character than with our comfort, yet he is still moved with compassion to heal the sick, raise the dead, and set free those who are oppressed of the devil. My concern is that believers would get disheartened and assume their faith is at fault – or worse – that God was somehow not honoring His promises and become offended at God for indifference or downright cruelty. The bottom line ought to be this: “Thou He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

  • Mike Oakland

    I forgot to mention a key point in my last post about healing. The Matt 13:58 verse does NOT say that he “couldn’t” do many miracles… just that he didn’t. The parallel passage in Mark 6 uses the word “couldn’t” but doesn’t necessarily mean “wasn’t able” (although that it could mean that), but could also me “wasn’t willing.” The phrase “could not” could mean that He was unwilling, not unable in a limited sense…. as if mere man could restrain an infinitely powerful God. God may choose to limit Himself within the bounds of His moral nature, but doesn’t mean He lacks the power to do something. An omnipotent God by definition cannotbe limited by anything outside of Himself. A moral God may choose to limit Himself by his moral nature. For example, a moral person might be forced to hold a loaded gun to a child’s head and be told to pull the trigger or be killed. The person may say “I can’t do it” even at the cost of their own life. Couldn’t in this case clearly means not willing as opposed to not able. I suspect this to be the case with Jesus in his home town. He was able in a literal sense, but morally, how could he reward such open disrepect and dishonour? He couldn’t – with a few exceptions. Only God would know those individuals who were sick and infirmed who had respectful attitudes and had not taken offense of Him along with their friends and neighbors. God’s compassion would surely touch some though the town as a whole had been shunned. This seems far more likely in light of the hometown rejection events as shown in Luke’s telling of this story, that the offense toward Jesus was not a passive indiffernce or intellectual skepticism but an openly disrespectful, nearly violent encounter. Jesus’ own explanation in Luke seems to support my theory (yet, it’s just my opinion). He drew a connection between their attitudes and ancient Israel having “the heavens shut” suffering drought and famine with only a few foreigners being healed. The heavens being shut was God’s judgement on His children for their sin – a sin issue – not a faith issue. In fact, the lack of rain was the result of a prayer of faith, and the return of the rain likewise. We may be wrong to believe and teach that our lack of faith can tie God’s hands so simplistically. It’s true that sin and unbelief are related, but should we teach God-fearing Christians that unbelief can restrain God’s hands? Is God sovereign or not? Perhaps our emphasis should be on removing sin barriers between us and God rather than building up our faith until it impresses God enough and “releases” Him to act. Jesus said small, mustard seed size faith was enough. Jesus demonstrated a willingness to help people with weak faith, little faith, and even unbelief (“I believe, but help my unbelief.” Let’s ask in faith and keep asking. If we don’t receive what we’ve asked, let’s not fall into the trap of looking for somebody to blame. That will inevitably lead to blaming ourselves or God. We live in a fallen world. The benefits of the cross are ours positionally, but not experiencially. Those who taste of the powers of the age to come and receive supernatural healing here and now should be thankful but should restrain themselves from assuming that it’s everybody’s “right.” Those who are made to wait to taste of the powers of the age to come until then should still be thankful.