od is a healing God, and He gave the power to heal not only to Jesus, and not only to the 12 disciples, and not only to the 72 He sent out to "Heal the sick..." (Luke 10:19). He gave it all who believe in Him: "And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name...they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." (from Mark 16:18). Jesus wants you to pray for your family and friends.

Faith Heals - Full Version

by Eric Elder

Good morning. Ready for another spiritual workout today? My goal in this whole series is to help you strengthen your faith, to give you ideas for how you can exercise your spiritual muscles so they can grow stronger and stronger.

There’s a guy I know who’s about as strong as they come. People first started hearing about him back in 1938, and in 1940 they started hearing from him on the radio, recorded live from a radio station in New York. Some of you may have heard him yourself as a kid. Here’s a clip from that very first radio broadcast on February 12, 1940.

ANNOUNCER: Boys and girls, your attention please! Presenting a new exciting radio program, featuring the thrilling adventures of an amazing and incredible personality. Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets. Up in the sky, look! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman! And now, Superman, a being no larger than an ordinary man, but possessed of powers and abilities never before realized on earth.”

Superman: a being no larger than an ordinary man, but possessed of powers and abilities never before realized on earth. It sounds like the Bible’s description of Elijah when it says that, “Elijah was a man just like us,” (James 5:17) but when he prayed for the rain to stop, it stopped, and when he prayed for the rain to come again, it poured.

Normal human beings endowed with supernatural power. Sounds like the stuff of comic books and superheros, but it’s the story of what every one of you can be when you put your faith in Christ. Jesus Himself said:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

We’ve looked over the last two weeks at what faith in Jesus can do. Sometimes faith gives us the power to wait. Sometimes faith gives us the power to act. Today, we’re going to see that there are times when faith gives us the power to heal.

We’re going to be looking at a story in the Bible from Acts chapter 3. But before we do, I want to say a brief word to those of you who may have lost someone close to you, whether recently or in the past. I know how hard it is to lose someone you love.

I sat with my own Mom for the last three days of her life, after praying for her healing from cancer for ten years, and seeing her healed in various ways during that time. But there came a point when I shifted my prayers. I prayed that God would take her home. It was time. I prayed that He would give her a new body, that He would wipe every tear from her eyes. That He would take her to heaven, to the place where, as it says in Revelation 21:4, “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain...” And three days later, God answered that prayer. There’s a time to pray like that, I believe. For the Christian, death can be the greatest and most miraculous healing any of us will ever experience.

But there’s also a time to pray with all the strength and faith you have for God to heal someone, here and now, in the name of Jesus, and that’s what our passage is talking about today.

And that’s what I want to encourage each of you to do today as well, to pray for those around you, to pray with a faith that heals, powerfully and even miraculously, in Jesus’ name. Even though God hasn’t answered all my prayers the way I’ve wanted Him to, I haven’t given up hope praying for healing. Passages like the one we’re going to look at today encourage me to keep on exercising my faith.

If you’ll open your Bibles to Acts chapter 3, Lana’s going to come and read for you from verses 1 through 16.

As you look it up, I’d like to remind you that the book of Acts was written by Luke. Luke also wrote the book of Luke, which covers the life of Jesus from His birth to His death and resurrection. Luke went on to write the book of Acts to cover what happened in the weeks and months after Jesus rose from the dead.

I think it’s also interesting that Luke was a medical doctor. Paul describes him in Colossians 4:14 as “our dear friend Luke, the doctor.” And Luke uses more medical terminology than any other New Testament writer, saying, for example, that Publius’ father wasn’t just sick, but that he suffered from “fever and dysentery” (Acts 28:8). In the introduction to the book of Luke, which he wrote for his friend Theophilus, Luke says that he “carefully investigated everything from the beginning...so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (from Luke 1:3-4).

These are true stories carefully investigated by a medical doctor. Listen to what he has to say about the power of faith to heal.

Lana?

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

11 While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. 12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see” (Acts 3:1-16).

Look again at verse 16 with me. Peter tells us clearly how this man was healed: “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.”

Faith heals.

Who had the faith in this story? Was it the man on the ground? Not really; he was just asking Peter and John for money. It was Peter and John who were exercising their faith. It was Peter who said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” It was Peter who then took him by the hand, helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong....and the man went, and the song goes, “walking and leaping and praising God!”

There are a number of stories in the Bible where Jesus healed people directly Himself, like the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, and the doctors couldn’t do anything about it, but when she touched Jesus’ robes, she was healed because of her faith (from Luke 8:42-48). Or the story about the blind men who put their faith in Christ and were healed (from Matthew 9:27-30). Or the story where Jesus not only brought Lazarus back from the dead, but healed him of whatever killed him in the first place! (from John 11:1-44).

But what I want to focus on today is that the power to heal wasn’t confined to just when Jesus was with someone in person. We see in this story in Acts 3 that the disciples could tap into that same power by calling on Jesus’ name. In the book of Luke we see that the same power was extended beyond the twelve disciples where Luke 10:9 says, “Jesus sent out seventy-two others and told them to ‘Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’’”

And that the power to heal wasn’t confined to just those seventy-two, but to anyone who had faith in Jesus. Mark 16:17 records Jesus as saying, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Maybe you don’t want to speak in tongues or pick up snakes or drink deadly poison, but at least place your hands on sick people so they can get well!

Here’s what can happen when you have faith that Jesus can heal your friends. It’s a story in Mark, chapter 2, verses 1-12.

1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to Him a paralytic, [a man who was paralyzed] carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Some people then questioned if Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, to which he responded in verse 9 :

9 “Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . .” He said to the paralytic, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:1-12).

Whose faith was involved here? It says in verse 5, when “Jesus saw their faith,” He performed these miracles. It was not only the faith of the man that was involved, but the faith of the friends who so desperately wanted him healed, and believed Jesus could do it, that they cut a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was staying.

I think it’s also interesting to note that the friends brought the man to Jesus to be healed, but Jesus saw something even more important than healing that needed to take place. The man needed forgiveness. Jesus gave him what he needed most first, and the healing came later.

There are times when healing is the primary thing that God wants to do. But there are other times when the healing takes a back seat to something else that God wants to do.

I was in a car with a couple of friends one night when they told me the bad news: their doctor had just told them they’d never be able to have children. They had tried for years, but nothing worked. They didn’t know what else to do. I asked if we could pray.

We went to their house and talked and prayed, and talked and prayed some more. It turned out that one of them had gotten a sexually transmitted disease, which now both of them had. It made it painful for them every time they tried to conceive a child. Neither of them knew where it came from, and that pain and suspicion created a barrier between them.

As we talked and prayed that night, we prayed through a number of issues: forgiveness, for their love for one another, for their renewed trust in each another, and finally, when the night was almost over, for their physical healing so they could have a child.

It didn’t happen that month, or the next. But every time I talked to them, they were so grateful for the prayers and for what God had done in their marriage. Four months later, they called to say they were expecting, and one year and one month from the time we prayed, they had a baby boy.

God really does heal people when we pray for them in the name of Jesus, even when doctors say there’s no hope left. There’s always hope! But what I also saw demonstrated that night was that even when we pray for someone’s physical healing, God may have something else He wants to do first. For this couple, God renewed their marriage. The healing came later and was like icing on the cake.

I want to encourage you to pray for your friends. Not just at home, by yourself, but to pray for them out loud, right when you’re with them. Your prayers themselves can be incredibly encouraging. There was a time when Lana and I would hear someone say they they were sick and we would say, “I’ll pray for you,” then go home and pray. But we’ve shifted our prayers to where instead of walking away, we ask, “Can I pray for you right now?” and then pray for them right then.

Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). Jesus wants us to pray, not just alone, but together.

Lana was talking to a friend on the phone one day when the friend said she was sick. Lana stopped and prayed for her friend right there on the phone. The friend couldn’t believe how powerful that simple prayer was. She had never experienced having anyone pray for her over the phone. She was so moved, that when one of her friends called to tell her she was sick, Lana’s friend began to pray for her on the phone as well.

For some of you, I know that praying out loud is foreign territory, whether on the phone or in person or in front of a group. But if there’s anything I can encourage you to do today it’s this: Pray for your friends, out loud, in front of them.

It’s great if you can tell them you’re praying for them and then go home and pray. But it’s even more powerful, more encouraging, more of a blessing, (and you’re more likely to remember!) if you pray for them right there, in person. It can be as simple as this: “Father, heal my friend in Jesus’ name, Amen.” “Father, heal my sister, in Jesus’ name. Heal my brother, in Jesus’ name.” It doesn’t have to be complicated or long, although it can be. But it does need to be done! God’s the one who does the healing, but He calls us to pray. As James says, “pray for each other so you may be healed” (James 5:16b).

In my ministry on the Internet, people often ask for prayer and I’ll pray for them, typing out my prayers as I pray so they can see them later when they get the email. I can’t tell you how often people write back and say they felt the presence of God overwhelm them in their office or in their home as they read that prayer on their computer screen. It doesn’t matter if it’s one line or ten or twenty. They tell me they’ve printed it out, saved it, reread it and posted it on their walls because of the power that they’ve felt as the prayer came through to them.

We as elders and church staff pray regularly for people to be healed in the name of Jesus. The Bible says, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up” (James 5:14-15). If you want one of us to pray for you, there are always a few of us in the prayer room after each service, whether you want prayer for healing, or for anything. Stop by the prayer room or just stop any of us elders or staff in the hall or wherever you see us and we’ll be glad to pray with you.

The truth is that God wants you to be healed. The Bible says that Satan is the one who “steals, kills and destroys,” but Jesus came to give us abundant life (from John 10:10). He’s wired our bodies for healing. He’s put white blood cells in our bodies so they can fight infections. He’s put tear ducts in our eyes to water them regularly and keep them working properly. He’s designed the blood to coagulate when it comes in contact with air so that it forms a scab to stop the bleeding. He’s designed the skin cells to regenerate so that most of the cuts and scrapes we’ve gotten in our lives are erased entirely. If our bodies weren’t designed to be healed, we’d be amazingly ugly by now from all the scars!

I remember reading a book by Paul Brand called Fearfully and Wonderfully Made about how remarkable our skin is. Man has yet to come up with any material close to it. It breathes, it’s waterproof, it stretches, and when it gets cut, it repairs itself. This is the design of a Designer who is very much interested in your healing. Dr. Brand says that when he and other doctors put stitches in, the stitches aren’t doing the healing, they’re just holding the skin close enough so it can repair itself as it was designed to do.

As I read the Bible, there are times when God allows sickness and suffering for a higher purpose, like in the case of Job, or the case of the man who was crippled from birth, to bring glory to God. But the default setting on our bodies is that we be healed, stay healed, and in the original design, live forever! Anything other than that is from this fallen world, from the work of Satan, from our own destructive behaviors, or at times from the higher purposes of God.

But in general and on the whole, God wants us to be healed. He calls us to be healed, and He calls on us to pray for each other so we may be healed.

Lana had a woman “stand in the gap” for her one time, praying for her when Lana didn’t know how else to pray. After our third child was born, we began to have a series of miscarriages. Four miscarriages later, we didn’t know what else to do. We were trusting God, but getting extremely discouraged and physically and emotionally drained.

Lana went to a youth conference as a youth sponsor. The speaker for the week had seven boys. He said he and his wife were glad to pray for anyone who wanted more children. Holding her newest baby in her arms, the speaker’s wife prayed for Lana that day and told her she’d stand in the gap for her.

A few months later, Lana conceived again and carried the baby to full-term. After he was born, Lana wrote to the woman to tell her we had a little boy named Josiah born on May 21st. When the couple got the letter, they called us back immediately, so encouraged in their faith. It turns out the baby the speaker’s wife was holding in her arms that day was also named Josiah, and was also born on May 21st, exactly one year before ours. They stood in the gap and prayed for us, but were blessed back at a time when they needed encouragement, too. Your prayers for others can come back to bless you, too!

I’ve shared this story with some of you before about the day God called me into full-time ministry on Valentine’s Day, 1995.

A friend of mine had called me to see if I would fly to Houston to pray for one of his friends named Missy who was dying of cancer. She was at the end of what the doctors could do for her and Missy and her husband didn’t have much hope left. I asked God what He wanted to do and felt He said He wanted to heal her, so I flew to Houston.

My friend picked me up at the airport and we went to Missy’s home. I talked with her and her husband about all they’d been through, what the doctors had said, and all the people they’d had praying for them.

I began to tell Missy stories about how God had worked through me and through the Bible. She told me of stories she’d heard and read about. When it got time to pray for her, even though I thought it was obvious what she needed, I asked, “What do you want me to pray for you?”

She surprised me when she said, “I want to hear from God. I’ve been a Christian for all these years and I’ve never heard God speak to me. I’ve never heard His voice. What’s the use of being healed of cancer if I can’t hear Him speak? I want to hear from God.”

So that’s what we prayed. Then we prayed for her healing, too. I was so full of faith, I was hoping to see those lumps of cancer fly off her body. At midnight, I felt God said I was done, it was time to go home. I started to protest... “But God, the cancer?” But I didn’t know what else to do or pray, so I went home.

I called Missy later that week to see how she was doing.

She said, “Eric, I’ve never been sicker in my whole life.” But then she said, “But Eric, I can’t explain it. I don’t even want to tell my friends because they’ll think I’m crazy, but for the first time in my life, I believe I’ve been healed. I went to hear a speaker and you wouldn’t believe what the topic was for the night. It was all about how long and high and wide and deep is the love of God for each one of us. It was the first time I’ve really felt that God loves me. I felt like God was speaking directly to me.”

I said, “Missy, I believe you’ve been healed. God healed your heart on Valentine’s Day.”

I kept praying for Missy’s physical healing, but she died two months later. But there’s no doubt in my mind that God answered our prayers. On the day she died, she was healed more completely than she ever could have been here on earth. And now she hears from God every day.

Your prayers for your friends are important. When people are ill, they often have doubts, wondering what they might have done wrong, or why God is allowing this to happen to them. Like Missy, some people feel that God must not love them anymore because of their illness. That’s when your prayers can make all the difference in the world.

When the time comes for me to die, I sometimes think it would be nice to be taken in an instant. But one of the benefits, if you could call it that, of being diagnosed with something that could potentially kill you, is that it gives you time to say goodbye. Time to make things right with God. Time to make things right with the people around you. Then if He heals us here and now, hallelujah. But if He heals us later when He takes us home, hallelujah, too. Either way, you win. You can’t lose when you put your faith in Christ.

And you can’t lose when you pray for healing for your friends, praying in faith in Jesus’ name.

Even if we were as strong as Superman, it doesn’t mean we still don’t have our bouts with healing in our own lives. Even Superman was subject to the weakening effects of Kryponite, which would make him weak and could potentially kill him. In the 1978 movie Superman starring Christopher Reeve, there’s a scene where Lex Luther, which sounds very similar to me to Lucifer, another name for Satan, puts a chain of Kryptonite around Superman’s neck and pushes him into a pool.

Later, Lex Luther’s assistant shows up, and although she has no supernatural power of her own, she could lift the Kryptonite off Superman’s neck if she wanted to. Superman asks her to help him so he can go and stop two rockets from blowing up millions of people. Drowning, he says, “Please, you can’t just stand there and let millions of innocent people die.” To which she responds, “Maybe.”

God doesn’t want you to answer, “Maybe.” God wants you to say, “Yes, I’ll pray for the sick and dying. Yes, I’ll pray they’d be healed in Jesus’ name.” I know it’s hard. I know it’s uncomfortable, it’s not easy. That’s where God wants you to stand up in your faith, to exercise your faith. Ask them if you can pray for them, then pray a simple prayer of faith in Jesus name: “Father, heal my friend, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Lex Luther’s assistant finally helps Superman take off the chain, saving him and many more as a result. You can be that friend to someone today. If you’ve put your faith in Christ, you have that power. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, it’s in your blood. You can stand in the gap for your friends, pray for them, and ask God to heal them in Jesus’ name.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You for Your Word which is so rich in true stories about people who have faith in You and what can happen as a result. Give us the faith to pray for our family and friends for their healing, both in private, and out loud, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

If you’d like to make things right with God today, I invite you to do that right now, where you’re sitting, or to come forward to put your faith in him, to be baptized, or to receive prayer for healing. If you’d like to join our church, I’d invite you to come forward as well and just let us know that you’d like this to be your church home.