By Peter Amsterdam
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While those involved in healing ministries tend to agree on many fundamental points, one point on which there is some divergence is their interpretation of why God does or doesn’t heal each person who is prayed for. The healing evangelists and theologians whose material my wife and I studied on the topic of healing—with the exception of Curry Blake—all believe that while God does heal, one should not expect that every time you pray for people they will be healed, whether instantly or in this life.
Various theologians and healing evangelists whose work I studied believe that God miraculously heals, but that He doesn’t heal every time or in every case. There are times when He chooses not to heal for reasons that are His. In this view, God is sovereign, and He has His reasons for what He does and what He allows, and those reasons are often beyond our comprehension.
In the Bible, we read of cases where disciples with the gift of healing were empowered by the Holy Spirit to heal a specific illness or disease. However, the Bible doesn’t state that everyone they prayed for was healed. For example, we read in the book of Acts that “God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them” (Acts 19:11–12). However, we also read of cases where he apparently wasn’t able to heal, such as Timothy’s “stomach and frequent illnesses” (1 Timothy 5:23) or Epaphroditus, who was suffering from a life-threatening sickness (Philippians 2:26–27), or Trophimus, whom he left at Miletus because of his illness (2 Timothy 4:20).
On this topic, John and Sonja Decker wrote:
We contend in prayer with the best understanding and leading we have, and leave the rest in the hands of a gracious and loving Lord. God in His infinite wisdom has the answer for those who are not healed. This remains a mystery to any honest minister who preaches that Jesus Christ is our Healer. Our experience is that not everyone is healed. Many are, but not all…
To not include this biblical principle in our discussion regarding divine healing is to ignore the sovereignty of a loving God who ultimately decides who receives healing and who does not. We pray for the sick, not because He guarantees healing; we pray because He has declared that He is willing! The final outcome rests with Him.1
Don Dunkerley expresses his belief on this issue by referencing portions of the long ending of the Gospel of Mark, which is referred to as such since some of the earliest manuscripts do not include this passage, which says: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17–18).
Dunkerley wrote the following on the topic:
When Jesus said of us, “They will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:18), He did not say that everyone would get well or that those who did would be healed instantly. In the same passage He promised deliverance from potentially fatal accidents (snakebites) and from those who would murder us for the sake of the Gospel (deadly poison). But surely Christians have died in fatal accidents; and Jesus taught that many would be martyred for the faith (Matthew 24:9). He specifically predicted the martyrdom of Peter (John 21:18–19). The promised healings and rescues will happen often enough to commend the Gospel to unbelievers, but they are not promised for every single instance.
The Kingdom of God came with the first coming of Christ, who preached that “the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17). He demonstrated the power of that Kingdom as He advanced it against the kingdom of darkness by healing the sick and casting out demons (Matthew 4:23–25). But the Kingdom of God did not come in its fullness. That awaits the Second Coming of Christ, “when He hands over the kingdom of God to the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:24–25).
So the Kingdom of God is here and, in another sense, not yet. The sick are healed, but not all of them, and not all instantaneously and completely. The presence of the Kingdom encourages us to pray for ourselves, that it may be true of us that “the power of the Lord [is] present … to heal the sick” (Luke 5:17). The absence of the consummated Kingdom keeps us from discouragement when we do not see the powerful results we would like.
We have many questions about the mysteries of God’s sovereign will. Perhaps the best answer is the one Moses gave: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).2
Scripture teaches us that what God has promised, He will perform (Isaiah 46:9–10). His Word is settled forever in heaven (Psalm 119:89), and we can stand on His promises (2 Corinthians 1:20). We also believe that God is God, that He is almighty, that His ways are higher than ours, and that in His divine wisdom and understanding, He may have reasons which are beyond our understanding for not healing someone when we pray for them (Isaiah 55:8–11).
We believe that our compassionate and loving God sometimes does or allows things that to our human way of thinking don’t seem fair or may seem as if He is failing to keep His Word or answer our heartfelt prayers. In such cases, we have to trust that God knows more than we do what will achieve His good and perfect will and purpose. He knows the future, and He has His reasons for everything He does or allows, and His reasons are based in love. Trusting God, even when it seems to us that He is not answering our prayers, takes faith—perhaps as much faith as it does to believe God for His healing.
Some people with healing ministries teach that God can and does use sickness in some cases to draw those who are sick closer to Him. When God doesn’t heal, the patience and faith the sick person needs to sustain them through the illness can draw the person closer to the Lord, and it often does. We read about this throughout the Epistles:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–7).
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2–4).
My personal experience has taught me that not everyone who gets prayed for gets healed, and that those who endure sickness and pain often gain important lessons or spiritual growth from the experience. I’ve seen and read about the lives of those who have physical infirmities and because of those infirmities have helped countless others find the Lord. In times of sickness, I have learned things about myself or about my relationship with the Lord, which have helped me in the long run.
The following excerpt from Got Questions on the topic expresses this well:
A person may sincerely pray and truly have faith that God can heal, but if it is not God’s will to provide the healing at that time, then no healing will come (see 1 John 5:14). Sometimes God’s blessings come in other ways besides physical healing. If it were always God’s will for people to be healed, then everyone would be healed every time he or she became ill. If good health were always God’s will, then Christians should never die.
We can’t blame someone’s malady on a lack of faith, for we know, biblically, that God sometimes uses illness to accomplish His will. Also, it’s not just wayward believers who get sick. Paul “left Trophimus sick in Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20), and Paul himself had a physical ailment that the Lord declined to heal (2 Corinthians 12:7–9)…
Of course, God can and does heal today when He wants to. The question we need to ask in any given situation is, what does God want? Does He desire to heal the individual in this life, or does He have another plan to show His glory through weakness? Someday, all sickness and death will be eradicated (see Revelation 21:4).3
While it’s a good thing to stand on God’s Word, to know that God has promised to—and does—answer prayer, it is also important to face certain truths, such as that not every prayer is answered in the manner we expect and sometimes God chooses not to answer immediately. God is greater than we are, and while we should claim the promises in Scripture and stand on His Word and trust Him thoroughly, we need to understand that His ways are higher than ours and in His infinite love and wisdom, He may do or allow things in our lives or those of others that we don’t understand.
The expectation that God will answer every prayer for healing in the exact way that we request can fail to acknowledge His sovereignty over every person’s life. When a prayer is not answered, or is answered differently than we would have hoped, to put the blame on someone is saying that we know better than God. But we know that is not the case; He knows supremely better than we do what is best for each individual. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
At the same time, we need to remember that there are promises of healing in God’s Word. We also know that Jesus, the apostles, and many believers in the early church and throughout Christian history have received and exercised the gifts of healing in their witness, as well as for one another. As believers, we are encouraged in the Bible to pray for people in need of healing, that “the prayer of faith will raise him up” (James 5:14–15).
We have probably all experienced God’s healing or witnessed people who were healed after they received prayer. Sometimes He heals instantaneously, sometimes progressively. Some people He heals in this lifetime, and others He heals eternally through taking them home to Him. Whether God heals someone in this lifetime or in eternity, we know that He is compassionate and loving. We can trust that as we follow His Word by praying for the sick and committing them into God’s care, He will answer according to His will and good purpose for their lives.
Originally published April 2012. Adapted and republished October 2025. Read by John Laurence.
https://anchor.tfionline.com/post/gods-divine-healing-part3/?=
1 John and Sonja Decker, Doing What Jesus Did (Foursquare Media, 2007), 3.
2 Don Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism (Chosen Books, 1995), 53–54, 68.
3 “Why doesn’t God heal everyone?” GotQuestions.org, https://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-everyone.html.
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