In Defense of the Faith

What Is “the Prayer of Faith”?

Question: The Bible very clearly states in unmistakable language with no conditions attached, “The prayer of faith will heal the sick” (James:5:15And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
See All...). Yet thousands of such prayers for healing have gone up to God unanswered. How can one reconcile the promise with the results?

Response: Once again, the key is in understanding that “faith” is not some power we aim at God to get Him to do our will. On the contrary, true faith is complete and total trust in God, which by very definition must include submission to His will. That fact helps us to understand what the Bible means by “the prayer of faith.” It obviously means absolute and total trust in God to heal the sick and the complete assurance that He will do so.

            On what basis could such a prayer be offered to God? Obviously only if the one who is praying had complete faith that God was going to do what was being asked. How would one have such confidence without knowing that it was the will of God to do so? There is no verse in the Bible that promises anyone a healing every time it is asked or that says it is always God’s will for every Christian to be healed of every instance of illness.

            Thus the kind of faith Christ is talking about could only come as a gift from God. I have experienced this on rare occasions, sometimes for others and sometimes with regard to myself when I was ill. At those times, when praying for a sick person (or for my own healing), I had complete confidence that healing would occur instantly – and so it happened.

            No one can “work up” this kind of faith. It would be presumptuous to try to “believe” that God was going to heal someone unless one was absolutely certain that it was God’s will to do so. The so-called “faith healers” teach that healing can be claimed at all times for anyone and everyone. Their failure to put this into practice, however, on TV and in large rallies is so evident that one wonders how they continue to gather large crowds. The complete assurance that healing will take place in any given situation in response to prayer can come only by direct revelation from God.

            Then should we not pray for the sick unless we have received such a revelation? No. Christ said that “men ought always to pray, and not to faint [i.e., give up]” (Luke:18:1And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
See All...). There are many examples in the bible of godly people (and even Christ Himself) praying for something that God refused to grant. We may always ask God to do what we believe would be for the good of others and to His glory. And we should persist in asking until we know it is not God’s will to grant the request.