Counseling Those Who Respond For Healing

INTRODUCTION

In an altar call for healing, a minister usually requests those in need of physical, mental, or emotional healing to respond in some manner. The Bible promises physical healing, but we should never focus on physical healing apart from the more important matter of spiritual healing. The Bible does teach divine healing is available through the atonement and that God heals physically, mentally, and emotionally as well as spiritually.

MINISTERING TO THOSE IN NEED OF HEALING

Here are guidelines for ministering to those in need of healing:

LISTEN FOR INSTRUCTIONS:

Calls for divine healing take various forms:

• The minister may ask people to lift their hands if they need healing and ask workers to go to them where they are and pray.

• He may ask those needing healing to step into the aisles and ask you to minister to them there.

• The minister may ask those in need of healing to come forward and line up or kneel at the altar and then ask you to come and pray for them.

• The minister may ask people to come to the altar have you just stand with them as he prays individually for them.

Listen carefully to the instructions so you will be able to flow with the Holy Spirit.

BRING THE COUNSELEE TO A POINT OF DECISION:

Sometimes you will only be asked to pray or join the minister in a prayer for healing. Other times you will have opportunity to counsel the counselee.

If you counsel, bring the counselee to a point of decision regarding their healing, just as you do regarding salvation. Remember how Jesus asked the lame man, “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6).

BE SURE THE PERSON IS BORN AGAIN:

Make sure the person is born-again. This is “spiritual healing” and is the most important type of healing.

DETERMINE THE SPECIFIC CONDITION:

Jesus asked people what they wanted, inquired concerning their faith, and dealt with negative forces of unbelief before ministering to them. Ask the person, “What is the problem?” Jesus asked a similar question to many who came to him for healing.
Verbalizing the request for prayer is important for the sick.

Ask for a specific statement. If a request is too general, you will not know what to pray for and the affected person may not recognize healing when it comes. You need only brief facts: “I have cancer of the stomach.” You do not need a complete medical history.

Do not try to analyze the information you are given. Your function is to pray, not provide advice. Some unique cases may require privacy and more time for counseling. Refer these individuals to the pastoral staff.

Ask the person who is to be prayed for, “Do you believe Jesus can heal?” If they answer positively, then ask, “Do you believe Jesus will do it now?” If the answer is “no” to either of these questions, further instruction from God’s Word is needed.

PRAY THE HEALING PRAYER:

When you pray the healing prayer, pray specifically for the condition. Remember that you do not have to persuade God to heal by the length or loudness of your prayer. Just as salvation is already available, the same is true of healing. Just as salvation is based on the condition of faith, so is healing. God wants to heal, just as He wants to save.

Although the power of God is sometimes present in a special way for healing (Luke 5:17), you can still pray for healing without a special anointing because Jesus commanded you to do it just as He told you to spread the Gospel.

PRAISE GOD FOR THE ANSWER:

Follow prayer with praise to God for healing. Remember that in the case of the ten lepers all were healed but only the one who returned to praise was made whole. Praise God by

faith and not by sight. You have done what God’s Word said to do. Believe He has done what He said He would do. Thank Him for it. Jesus thanked God for hearing His prayer before Lazarus ever came out from the tomb.

PROVIDE FOLLOW-UP INSTRUCTIONS:

It is important that those who have been healed receive follow-up ministry. Follow-up instructions should deal with:

What To Do To Remain Healed:

Teach those who have been healed to…

-Recognize The Attacks Of Satan: Just as Satan tempts every convert who has been saved, He will tempt every person who has been healed. Just as you can lose spiritual victory, you can lose physical victory. Whatever you trust God for in your spiritual walk, you will be tested in that area.

-Resist The Attacks Of Satan: Encourage the counselee to keep in an atmosphere of faith by continuing to study God’s Word on healing and testify about their healing to others.
One way to overcome Satan is by the Word of your testimony. Tell the person who has been healed to resist the attacks of Satan with the “Rhema” Word of God by quoting specific verses about healing. The counselee should surround himself with a positive environment of faith, those who will continue to praise God with him for healing and help him resist the attacks of the enemy.

-Change Their Lifestyle: A return to sinful practices can mean a return of the sickness (John 8:11). Encourage the counselee to walk in obedience to God and His Word.
Willful sin can result in losing healing (John 5:14). A return to unhealthy practices can also make sickness return. Unhealthy practices are actually sin, for they defile God’s temple. The counselee should be encouraged to follow Biblical guidelines for health and healing.

-Return For Medical Verification: If the counselee has been under medical care, encourage them to return to their doctor for verification of healing. Under Old Testament law, priests were like physicians. They diagnosed illnesses and pronounced healings.
Jesus told the leper who He healed to return for verification of his healing.

What To Do If They Were Not Healed:

Do not let people leave discouraged or guilty because they did not get healed. Explain that just because they do not see visible results does not mean they are not healed.
Healing begins in the spirit. There are also delayed healings, i.e., that of the barrenness of

Abraham and Sara, even though the Word was given years before.

There is also timing involved. Consider the lame man at the temple gate in Acts 5. Jesus walked through the temple gates everyday, yet we are told that the crippled man had been there for years. He was later healed by Peter and John (Acts 5:15-16). There was also a set timing in the cases of Job and Lazarus.

Encourage them to:

-Continue to persevere in prayer for healing: Jesus taught persevering prayer. He did not discourage it.

-Continue to build their faith: This can be done by studying the “Rhema” Word of God on healing.

-Continue to confess their sins: Confession on a daily basis assures that they will not aggravate a physical condition.

-Use their own spiritual power: All believers possess the basics for healing and deliverance. Begin to use them. They are:

• The Word of God.
• The blood of Jesus.
• The word of your own testimony.
• Authority to bind and loose.
• Prayer and praise.
• Weapons of warfare listed in Ephesians 6:10-18.
• The authority and power of the Holy Spirit.

-Where applicable, change their lifestyle: Eliminate sinful and unhealthy practices.
Healing often comes when you bring your lifestyle in harmony and obedience with God’s Word.

-Create an atmosphere of faith: The counselee should surround himself with an atmosphere of faith by becoming part of a fellowship of believers.

-Commit to total trust in God: Total trust means that in living or dying, sickness or health, we are in His hands: John 10:29; Job 13:15; 19:26

-React positively to suffering: While waiting for total healing, tell the counselee to react to their suffering in such a way that others will be affected in a positive way. This can be done by:

• Giving thanks: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

• Letting God perfect His strength in weakness: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

• Demonstrating patience while waiting. People wait in doctors offices for the results of medical tests. We wait on medicine to work. Why can’t we wait on God? Those with patience inherit the promises: Hebrews 6:12; 12:2-3; James 1:2-4; 5:10-11; Psalms 27:14; 37:34; Isaiah 40:31; Romans
5:3-5

• Recognizing that no suffering is without purpose. Study the Biblical record of those who suffered which documents this.

QUESTIONS ABOUT HEALING WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SICKNESS IN THE WORLD?
God never intended for man to be sick or to die, but He gave man a will of his own to choose evil or good. When Adam exercised that will in the Garden of Eden and chose to be disobedient to God, sin entered the world and as a result, sickness and death.

WHAT IS DIVINE HEALING?

God’s direct intervention to heal sick and afflicted bodies without the necessity of physicians or medical remedies.

ISN’T ALL HEALING FROM GOD?

Healing through prayer to the one true God and/or legitimate medical practice is from God. God aids in medical healing because every good gift (including legitimate medicine) is from God. Healing by Satanic, New Age, or other unscriptural means is not from God.

IS IT WRONG TO GO TO DOCTORS OR TAKE MEDICINE?

No. There are many fine medical doctors whose talent and ability aid the healing process. Many medicines come from natural, healthful, God-created elements.

IS HEALING FOR TODAY?

Yes. God does not change. Jesus healed people while on earth and He is still alive today. His commission to His followers was not only to preach the Gospel, but also to heal the sick.

IS MY SICKNESS PUNISHMENT FOR MY SINS?

Not necessarily. Some people are afflicted as a result of sin (Deuteronomy 28:22,27,28,35). But in John 9:2-3, Jesus healed a blind man about whom His disciples asked, “Who did sin…this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus aid, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in Him.”

DO SOME PEOPLE HAVE SPECIAL GIFTS OF HEALING? SHOULDN’T I GO TO ONE OF THEM FOR PRAYER?

The Bible does speak of the special gifts of healing. But we must be careful to look to God for healing and not to man. All believers have the authority to pray and believe for healing.

KEY VERSES ABOUT HEALING

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases. (Psalms 103:3)

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. (3 John 2)

I am the Lord that healeth thee. (Exodus 15:26)

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

And these signs shall follow them that believe. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18)

…by whose stripes we are healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

…with His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17)

To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit. (1

Corinthians 12:9)

And as ye go, preach, saying The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers; raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8)