Christian, you don’t need more faith to be healed
This is a companion piece my video on this topic, which you can watch here.
Do you need to be healed of some sickness, or disease, or other infirmity?
Have you asked the Lord to heal you, and nothing’s changed as far as your physical condition?
If so, are well-meaning Christians telling you to just have more faith?
When you hear that, does it feel discouraging? Because you think, I do believe! I thought I had faith! What am I doing wrong? What more do I need to do? Is it my fault that I’m still sick? Because the problem can’t be with God, right?
This is such an important issue, because God’s children are being harmed by this teaching. When you’re told you should be healed and you’re not, it can be discouraging, and bring disillusionment and doubt. It can make people question whether God loves them. And it’s a terrible witness. Sometimes, this can be outright spiritual abuse.
The Christians who talk this way about healing and faith believe that it is always God’s will for believers to be healed of sickness and disease in this life. This isn’t about that belief, although it may help you answer that. Instead, let’s focus on the role our faith plays, or doesn’t play, in healing.
Jesus healed all who came to Him
The most common defense I’ve heard of these beliefs — that is at least based on Scripture — is that Jesus healed all who asked Him for healing. Amen; that is absolutely true. Every single time, without exception.
And every single time, Jesus’ healings were three things:
Immediate: The healings took place right away. No one ever had to wait for them. Even with the blind man who Jesus healed in two steps, it was still just a matter of seconds. No one ever had to say, “I’m healed, I’m just waiting for the manifestation.” The manifestation always came with the healing.
Visible: Everyone there could immediately tell the person was healed. It was usually a spectacular healing of a visibly debilitating condition, like paralysis, blindness, leprosy, or death. You don’t see invisible things like back pain in the Bible.
Complete: Paralyzed people got up and walked. Dead people rose up and ate. Blindness was gone, leprosy was gone, right there and then. All of their symptoms vanished.
This was what Jesus’ healing ministry looked like, and that of the apostles. That begs the question, is that what it looks like today? Does everyone who asks Jesus for healing today get healed immediately, visibly and completely?
You may say, we don’t go by experience, we go by the word. Generally, I’d say amen. But in this case, we’re talking about something that’s experienced, something that had a real-time manifestation in the Bible. If Scripture is your source and example, then what happened in Scripture should happen today, exactly as it did then. If it doesn’t, we need to ask why.
If someone holds today’s healings to a different standard from Jesus’ healings, then they’re the one saying something has ceased.
Their faith
This is where the faith issue comes in. The most common explanation for why we’re not getting what they got back then is we don’t have enough faith.
Does that mean all the people who got healed back then had more faith than those today who don’t get healed?
Granted, there were times when Jesus responded to faith. He told the woman with the issue of blood, “your faith has made you well.” He healed the centurion’s servant after He marveled at the man’s faith.
But think about why multitudes came to Jesus for healing. Is it because they knew who He really was, like the centurion? Is it because they knew His very existence could change reality, like the woman with the issue of blood?
What did they know about Him? Did they know He was the Christ, the Son of the living God? Obviously, they didn’t know anything about the cross or the resurrection, like we do today.
They only thing we know that they knew about Jesus was that He was healing people. They knew He could heal because they saw it, or they heard about it. In other words, they walked by sight, and not by faith.
Their lack of faith
The thing is, most of the people Jesus healed had no relationship with Him. Look at the ten lepers in Luke 17; Jesus healed all ten, but only one came back to thank Him and glorify God. Only one wanted a relationship with Him. The other nine just got what they wanted and went their way – but still got it. Did they have more faith than believers today who don’t get healed?
Some of the people Jesus healed didn’t even know who He was. In John 9, He healed a man blind from birth. When the Pharisees demanded to know more about what happened, and said Jesus was a sinner, the man said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” Before Jesus healed him, he had no idea who Jesus was.
Four chapters earlier, Jesus healed a lame man at the pool of Bethesda. He was also questioned about his healing. John 5:13 says,
But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.
He also had no idea who Jesus was, but Jesus still healed him.
Here’s another thing about those two healings: They didn’t ask to be healed. They didn’t come to Jesus; He came to them. Jesus took the initiative.
At Bethesda, John 5:6 says,
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus offered healing out of the blue. And not only that, but at this pool, there were many other people with infirmities. Jesus walked in, passed by all the other sick people, went up to this one man, and just healed him. It took zero faith and zero knowledge of anything about Jesus.
Those are far from the only times when Jesus healed someone who did not express any faith or even ask for healing:
Peter’s mother-in-law, Matthew 8: 14 Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15 So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.
Luke 13: 10 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. 12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
Matthew 12, in another synagogue: 10 And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him. … 13 Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.
How about all the times Jesus cast out demons? Someone who’s demon-possessed wouldn’t ask to be healed. In fact, they wanted Him to go away.
How about the people Jesus raised from the dead? A dead person can’t ask to be raised. Nobody thought He would raise Jairus’ daughter or Lazarus. In Luke 11, He just went up to a funeral procession and told a dead boy to get up.
And consider the last person Jesus healed while He was on earth. It was someone who came to arrest Him, the man whose ear Peter cut off. How much faith did he have?
After Jesus, we see this with the apostles, too. In Acts 3, a lame man asked Peter and John for alms, not for healing. But Peter said to him, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” No expression of any kind of faith.
Jesus doesn’t need our faith
Jesus gives healing, freely. He doesn’t make us jump through hoops. He doesn’t demand we have more faith. Jesus is sovereign over who and when He heals, regardless of our faith. Sometimes He’ll respond to faith, but He certainly doesn’t need it.
Some cite the story in Mark 6 where Jesus “could do no mighty work” in Nazareth, to prove that unbelief can hinder Jesus’ healing power. See this article that refutes that.
The fact that Jesus healed all who came to Him actually proves the opposite of what those who constantly say that think it proves. It shows that He did as He pleased, immediately, visibly, completely, faith or no faith.
If you need healing, and you’ve cried out to God to heal you, and you haven’t been healed, please know, it’s not your fault. If God wills to heal you, He will heal you. If He doesn’t heal you, that means He wants something better for you. He always wants the best for you, even though sometimes, it may not be what we want.
