by Tim Temple

Here's how prayer does work:
http://orderofsaintpatrick.org/teachings/faith-healing.htm

I have prayed in hope of an answered prayer and seen significantly higher instances of improvement and healing in people I prayed for.  But what about the placebo effect?  Could it be just the power of suggestion?   Aware of this, I have also prayed for people who didn't have a suspicion I was praying for them and seen a significantly higher instance of improvement and healing in them, too.  I have been somewhat rigorous about this because I was once a sneering skeptic myself.

Based upon my own observations, about 80% of those who I pray for with arthritis are pain-free and have full flexibility in an average of 4 minutes of prayer. The swelling at the joints takes much longer. This statistic is the same whether they believe in it or not, whether they have prayed before or not, whether the doctors have given up on a healing or not.

But why isn't everyone healed immediately?

1. God deals with us as individuals, as families, as societies, as cities, as businesses, etc. Prayer & deliverance must be for all levels. Salvation and repentance must be on all levels. I've got numerous examples of bringing healing to an individual by dealing with the upper levels.

2. God doesn't grade on the curve for us to be righteous. He gave negative promises to disobedience. As we show sincere intentions of repentance, He will cut us slack and declare us righteous enough to honor our prayers.

3. We may be praying in the wrong direction.  If someone came for prayer with a knife in their chest, you wouldn't just sit down with them and pray for healing; you would address the knife, first.  So it is with someone who has carcinogens (cancer-causing poisons) or radioisotopes (radioactive elements) in their bodies.  Or they may be wearing a charmed object of some kind.  Or they may have neurotoxins like mercury or aluminum in their nerves and brain cells.  Or they have excess antibodies from too many vaccinations that are attacking their organs.  Jesus rebuked a fever (Luke 4:39) one time.  So likewise, we can rebuke these things before we start praying for healing.

4. God didn't give any single individual all the Gifts of Healings — the church body has all of them.  1 Corinthians 12 talks about that. I can pray for flus and colds with the same statistical results as random chance. I have varying degrees of success in praying for other things. But I know two Christians who definitely do have the gift of healing colds and flus — they get 100% results in hours, as I have seen so far. We don’t see a lot of healings because a lot of Christians don’t pray for others. What gifts they have aren’t put to use for the church. They don’t know what gifts they have because they haven’t tried. We have been taught how to hold to the form of religion while denying the power thereof.

5. Sometimes people don't want to live. God is a gentleman; He honors the free will He gave each of us. I find out about this by asking them to repeat after me: "I renounce death; I chose life." If they can say that, healing comes rapidly.  If a person wants to go, just bless them on their way.

6. God is a jealous god. If you are following Jesus but supplementing Him with Reiki or a Ouija board, He won't be available. There are negative curses for idolatry, occult power and occult advice upon individuals, family lines and communities.  If you own idols or charms or tattoos, wittingly or unwittingly, the curse is there.

7. If a witch, shaman or Satanist use fasting prayers against you, it has to be broken with fasting and Christian prayers.

8. If a Buddhist, shaman or witch bless the ground or water, the demons they put there remain and affect people until they are told to get out by a Christian. Those demonic blessings can make you sick and keep you sick.

9. If a person doesn't want to get well, they won't. That can happen where a child wasn't given any love & attention unless they were sick. Naturally, they want to be sick, even as adults!

10. Will it get in the way of something else God is doing?  Is the prayer misdirected?  This is where divine guidance is valuable.  Jesus hardly ever used the same means twice, so people wouldn't get stuck on a single method.  I know of a woman who brought sight to her husband's eyes by making saliva/mud and putting on his eyes.  She did it because she was told to by the Holy Spirit.