A gentle word. Standing on God's promises goes hand in hand with good care. Keep seeing your doctor, take what you have been prescribed, and talk to someone you trust. If healing is slow, that is never proof that your faith was too small. The people of the Bible waited too.
If you are reading the promises of God for healing today, you or someone close to you may be in pain. Maybe you are in a waiting room right now. This page is meant to sit with you there.
The Bible says a great deal about healing, and almost all of it is tender. God names Himself as a healer. Jesus spends whole days touching sick people others would not touch. The apostles tell the church to pray over the sick. The same Bible is honest that some good people stayed sick for a while, and that the last and full healing is still ahead.
We will look at the healing promises in the order they appear, and for each one, who first heard it and what it meant. Then we will talk plainly about praying while you wait.
The Lord that healeth thee: a name given at Marah
Israel walked for three days into the wilderness of Shur, past the Red Sea, without finding water. When they finally reached a spring at a place called Marah, the water was too bitter to drink. The people turned on Moses. Moses cried out to the Lord, and God showed him a tree to throw into the water, and the water turned sweet.
Right there, beside a spring that had just been healed, God spoke to the people:
And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
Exodus 15:26 (KJV)
Many Christians call this name of God Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals. Notice two things. First, the promise was spoken to Israel as a nation, with a condition: to listen to God and keep His commands. It was about the plagues they had just seen fall on Egypt. Second, the end of the verse is not a condition at all. It is God telling them who He is. Rules and seasons change through the Bible. His character does not.
A few chapters later He gave them a similar promise as they served Him: He would bless their bread and water and take sickness away from the midst of thee.
Forget not all his benefits
Psalm 103, which its heading calls a psalm of David, is a song to the writer's own soul, reminding himself of all God had done. Healing is on the list, right beside forgiveness.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Psalm 103:2-3 (KJV)
David put the two together on purpose. God cares about the whole person, the guilt you carry and the body you carry it in. The psalm goes on to praise the God who redeems your life from destruction and crowns you with kindness. If you are too tired to pray much, reading this psalm out loud is a prayer in itself.
Hezekiah: prayer and medicine side by side
King Hezekiah of Judah was sick unto death, and the prophet Isaiah told him to set his house in order. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and wept and prayed. Isaiah was still crossing the middle court when God turned him around with a new message:
Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.
2 Kings 20:5 (KJV)
Then Isaiah did something practical. He said to take a lump of figs, they laid it on the king's boil, and Hezekiah recovered. God added fifteen years to his life.
This story is a gift to anyone who wonders whether seeing a doctor shows a lack of trust. God heard the prayer and used a remedy. Healing came through both.
By his stripes: healing and the cross
Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah described a Servant of the Lord who would suffer for others. It is one of the most loved healing verses in the Bible:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)
The New Testament points back to this chapter in two ways. Matthew says that when Jesus healed all the sick who were brought to Him one evening, it fulfilled Isaiah's words that He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Peter quotes the same verse about the cross and our sins: by His stripes you were healed, so that you could live for righteousness.
Sincere believers read this verse in different ways. Some stress healing of the body now, and some stress the healing of the soul from sin. Both views agree on this much: the suffering of Jesus is the ground of every good thing God gives us, and our pain matters to Him.
What the Bible tells the sick to do
Ask your church to pray
James wrote plain instructions for a sick believer. Call the elders of the church. Let them pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord.
And 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.
James 5:15 (KJV)
He adds that believers should confess their faults and pray for one another, that they may be healed. Healing in the Bible is rarely a solo project. Do not carry this alone.
Keep the doctor in the picture
The Bible never treats medicine as the enemy of faith. Jesus said that people who are sick need a physician. Paul traveled with Luke, whom he called the beloved physician, and told Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach.
So pray the promises, and keep your appointments. Ask your doctor hard questions and ask God for wisdom about the answers. Both are ways of caring for the body God gave you.
Healing for a broken heart and a weary mind
Not every wound shows on an X-ray. Depression, anxiety and grief can hurt as much as anything in the body. The promises reach those places too. A psalm says the Lord healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. David wrote that the Lord is near to those with a broken heart.
When Jesus read from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, He said He had been sent to heal the brokenhearted. If your mind is hurting, you are not too much trouble for Him.
Mental health care is real care. Talk with your doctor or a licensed counselor. If you ever feel you might hurt yourself, in the United States you can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline any time, day or night. In an emergency, call 911.
When healing is slow
This is the hardest part, and we will not rush past it. Paul, who saw many people healed, asked God three times to remove his thorn, and the answer was grace instead. He left his coworker Trophimus sick in Miletum. Another friend, Epaphroditus, was sick almost to death before God had mercy on him. The Bible never says any of them lacked faith.
If you or someone you love was not healed in the way you prayed, it was not because you failed to believe hard enough. Please put that thought down. God's love for you is not measured by your test results.
The Bible's last word on sickness is not a waiting room. It is a promise for everyone who belongs to God:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Revelation 21:4 (KJV)
A prayer for healing
Lord, You are the God who heals. You know this body and this pain better than any doctor. Please heal me. Give wisdom to the people caring for me. While I wait, hold me close, and do not let me forget all Your benefits.
Read them one at a time
Book One goes through Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus, including the spring at Marah where God calls Himself the Lord that heals. Each promise has its own page with the King James verse, who heard it first, the condition if there is one, and a prayer you can say out loud.