Tuesday 6 November 2012

Prayer for healing...

How then should we pray regarding physical illness? Certainly it is right to ask God for healing, for Jesus tells us to pray. "Deliver us from evil" (Matt 6:13), and the apostle John writes to Gaius, "I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in health:" (3 John 2).  Moreover, Jesus frequently healed all who were brought to him, and he never sent people away, telling them it would be good for them to remain ill for a longer time!  In addition to this, whenever we take any kind of medicine or seek medical help for an illness, by those actions we admit that we think it to be God's will that we seek to be well. If we thought that God wanted us to continue in our illness, we would never seek medical means for healing! So when we pray it seems right that our first assumption, unless we have specific reason to think otherwise, should be that God would be pleased to heal the person we are praying for - as far as we can tell from Scripture, this is God's revealed will...
How then should we pray Certainly it is right to ask God for healing, and we should go to him with the simple request that he give physical healing in time of need.  James warns us that simple unbelief can lead to prayerlessness and failure to receive answers from God: "You do not have, because you do not ask" (James 4:2).  But when we pray for healing we should remember that we must pray for God to be glorified in the situation, whether he chooses to heal or not.  And we also ought to pray out of the same compassion of heart that Jesus felt for those whom he healed.  When we pray this way, God will sometimes - and perhaps often - gran answers to our prayers.
Wayne Grudem "Systematic Theology" p 10066-1067
The thing I like about this quote is that when we are praying that God be glorified we are acknowledging that even if someone's physical body fails God's glory is much greater... his gift of forgiveness is enough, and our physical well being is an added blessing.

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