How Do I Pray for Healing and Honor God’s ‘No’?

00:00:00.000 | This is a really sharp question.

00:00:06.400 | If God is sovereign, how do we pray for good things while also honoring God's final decision

00:00:12.500 | as the best option?

00:00:13.500 | This is a question from a listener named Connor.

00:00:16.000 | Pastor John, how much confidence should we voice in petitioning God for physical healing?

00:00:20.880 | It somehow feels wrong or cheap to pray, "God, heal this person," but if you don't, that's

00:00:26.000 | okay, your will be done.

00:00:27.580 | I feel less genuine in my asking God to move on someone's behalf when I constantly also

00:00:32.820 | acknowledge to myself that He might not, and I must acknowledge it.

00:00:37.420 | Could you give us an example of how to rightly pray in confidence and with authority on someone

00:00:42.080 | else's behalf for healing while remaining in full submission to the mystery of God's

00:00:47.840 | will?

00:00:48.840 | Well, let me say to Connor that at age 72, I wonder if I will go to my grave without

00:01:00.320 | having come to a satisfactory answer to this question.

00:01:04.800 | I circle back to this question again and again because of the texts that both call us to

00:01:14.200 | confidence that we will receive from the Father what we ask when we ask in faith, like Mark

00:01:20.280 | 11, 23 and 24, and texts that give the Lord Jesus, for example, as a model who, as the

00:01:31.040 | perfect prayer, said after he made his request, "Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done,"

00:01:40.480 | Luke 22, 42.

00:01:44.120 | Clearly it was not sin for Jesus to add that qualifier.

00:01:49.280 | He didn't sin.

00:01:50.980 | So let me simply give you the pieces of the puzzle of prayer that I keep rearranging in

00:01:57.980 | my mind to try to see the coherent biblical picture, because I know there's a coherent

00:02:05.400 | picture.

00:02:06.400 | This is the Bible.

00:02:07.480 | This is God's Word.

00:02:08.880 | If there's a problem, it's a problem with me, not Jesus.

00:02:13.680 | Two of the pieces we've already mentioned, the pieces of the puzzle of prayer.

00:02:19.880 | Strong promises from Jesus in John 15 and John 16 and Mark 11 and elsewhere that whatever

00:02:26.620 | we ask and believe that we have it, we will receive it.

00:02:31.280 | And the other piece is Jesus' words, "Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done."

00:02:37.280 | Now there are a few other pieces of the puzzle, so let me get those out there on the table,

00:02:41.560 | see if we can arrange them in an order that might make a picture we can understand.

00:02:46.680 | Jesus said in Matthew 7, "Ask and it will be given you.

00:02:50.360 | Seek and you will find.

00:02:51.640 | Knock and the door will be opened to you.

00:02:54.200 | For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks

00:02:59.160 | it will be opened.

00:03:01.040 | Or which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for fish,

00:03:06.120 | will give him a serpent?

00:03:07.900 | If you then," now hear this, this is really important for understanding our Father's heart

00:03:13.560 | in prayer, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how

00:03:21.440 | much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him?"

00:03:29.080 | It has been a great encouragement to me over the years that that last verse, verse 11,

00:03:36.080 | seems to promise not that God will give exactly what a foolish child sometimes asks, but will

00:03:45.520 | always give him good things.

00:03:48.720 | How much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask?

00:03:54.640 | So one of the pieces in the puzzle of prayer seems to be that we should always pray not

00:04:02.640 | with the qualification that God will withhold good things—nevertheless, not my good will,

00:04:10.300 | but your bad will be done.

00:04:12.140 | That's not the point of that qualification.

00:04:15.320 | So let's not assume that we're going to qualify our prayers with saying, "Well, I'm asking

00:04:19.700 | for good things, and God might give a bad thing, and so I guess I have to just submit."

00:04:23.360 | That's not what he does.

00:04:24.360 | He doesn't give bad things to his children.

00:04:27.680 | Rather, we should pray with the confidence that what he gives may be different from what

00:04:35.520 | we ask, and yet good, even better.

00:04:39.560 | So the certainty of our faith may not be for the precise thing we think is best, but our

00:04:48.520 | certainty of faith should rest on the goodness of our Father, who always does what's best

00:04:56.960 | for his children.

00:04:59.140 | Now underneath that confidence is what I call the logic of heaven from Romans 8:32.

00:05:06.160 | He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.

00:05:11.640 | So God surrendering his son to die in our place.

00:05:16.800 | He who gave him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things with him?

00:05:24.400 | In other words, because of the blood of Jesus, God has secured, guaranteed, purchased, made

00:05:32.840 | certain all things.

00:05:36.400 | Will he not graciously give us all things—and I'm going to interpret that to mean all things

00:05:43.040 | that we need to do his will, all things that we need to glorify him, all things that we

00:05:49.280 | need to be eternally happy in the fellowship of God forever.

00:05:55.280 | This is the assurance that we can have when praying for good in the lives of God's people.

00:06:04.200 | Another piece in the puzzle that's implied in what we just saw, I think, is that assurance

00:06:10.640 | in prayer must rest upon revelation that God has given.

00:06:17.840 | We don't honor God by assuming we know what's best in any given situation.

00:06:25.200 | We need a revelation from him in order to have complete confidence that what we're asking

00:06:33.000 | for is best.

00:06:35.320 | And what he has promised explicitly in Scripture—this is the revelation we have in Matthew 7-11—is

00:06:42.360 | that he will give good things to those who ask.

00:06:46.480 | So the question now is, how do we bring our requests into alignment with what he regards

00:06:54.640 | as a good thing, the good thing he aims to do through our prayer in this situation?

00:07:01.280 | And here's where another piece of the puzzle comes in.

00:07:04.880 | In 1 Corinthians 12, 8, and 9, Paul describes spiritual gifts of the Spirit that not all

00:07:12.400 | believers have.

00:07:14.200 | He says in verses 8 and 9 of 1 Corinthians 12, "For to the one is given through the Spirit

00:07:21.880 | the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, and according to the

00:07:26.000 | same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the

00:07:34.560 | one Spirit."

00:07:36.200 | Hmm.

00:07:37.440 | Now think about that and the implications that has, that faith is called a spiritual

00:07:45.120 | gift and healing is called a spiritual gift, and Paul says explicitly that not all believers

00:07:54.480 | have these all the time.

00:07:57.000 | Now doesn't that necessarily teach that some will be able to have faith to pray for

00:08:04.280 | healing at points where others will not?

00:08:08.840 | And yet it's not a sin not to have a spiritual gift.

00:08:12.000 | The Bible teaches that it's not appointed for everybody to have these all the time.

00:08:18.120 | The fact that there are gifts of faith, gifts of healing, may go a long way, I think, to

00:08:23.960 | explaining what's going on in James 5, 15, where James speaks of the prayer of faith

00:08:29.960 | that will heal the sick man.

00:08:32.600 | Perhaps that's the gift of faith given in that moment to one or more of the elders who

00:08:38.600 | are praying.

00:08:40.440 | Now there are other pieces of the puzzle of prayer that need to fit into the picture,

00:08:46.120 | but these are enough, maybe, to give you something to work with over the next few years or decades.

00:08:55.560 | So my answer to Connor's specific question—here's what he asked—how to rightly pray in confidence

00:09:06.120 | with authority on someone's behalf for healing while remaining in full submission to the

00:09:13.120 | mystery of God's will.

00:09:14.600 | That's his question.

00:09:16.160 | So here's what I say.

00:09:17.520 | We should rest our confidence and our authority on the promise of Jesus in Matthew 7, 11,

00:09:26.640 | the promise of Paul in Romans 8, 32, that because of the death of Jesus, every good

00:09:34.480 | thing that God's elect need has been purchased for them infallibly by Jesus, and that our

00:09:43.280 | heavenly Father always gives from that storehouse of what is good for his children when we ask.

00:09:52.880 | He gives them good when we ask.

00:09:57.000 | And yes, we should remain open and receptive and eager to receive a spiritual gift of faith

00:10:03.480 | at any given time that might fix our confidence on a specific outcome.

00:10:09.520 | Let's not assume that this is the way every prayer should be made.

00:10:17.080 | Really good question and response.

00:10:18.520 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:19.520 | And thanks for listening to the podcast over at our online home.

00:10:22.600 | You can explore all of our episodes in our archive of about 1,300 episodes to date.

00:10:27.520 | There you can see a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and submit questions

00:10:32.160 | you might be wrestling with yourself.

00:10:33.960 | For all of that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:39.080 | Also be sure to subscribe to us in your favorite podcast app.

00:10:42.640 | Well, how does my obedience connect with my joy?

00:10:47.240 | In fact, how much of our joy in Christ is really only achievable and possible in a state

00:10:52.280 | of robust obedience to Christ?

00:10:55.560 | I'm looking forward to that question, which is next.

00:10:57.720 | It's on Wednesday when we return.

00:10:59.280 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:00.280 | We'll see you then.

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How Do I Pray for Healing and Honor God’s ‘No’?

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