Can We Pray and Believe for the Healing Anointing to Manifest?

Definitely, and you should!

We cannot tell God when and how to move through the manifestations of the Spirit found in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, but we can pray and expect to see these manifestations in our services.  The Holy Spirit may manifest Himself differently during different services.  The emphasis in a given service could be on teaching, evangelism, giving, repentance, consecration, healing, prayer, worship, or many other things.  If we consistently ask for “gifts of healings” and “working of miracles,” we should expect that they will manifest consistently, though not in the same way in every service.

You usually can’t tell ahead of time exactly how God will move, so that is why it is so important to “pray out mysteries” in other tongues.  That way, you can pray for God to do things you wouldn’t even have considered.  Your prayer in other languages authorizes Him to do those things!  God has left this “trap door” for us so that He can move on the earth in ways that are “above all we ask or think” without violating the authority that He gave man on the earth.  Man still authorizes His moving, even when he doesn’t know exactly what he is authorizing when he prays in tongues!

Although the Holy Spirit moves through the gifts as He wills, He moves where there is a desire for Him to move.  Otherwise, Paul would have wasted his time telling the Corinthians to “covet earnestly” the best gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31) and to “desire spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 14:1).  If it’s all up to God, what difference would it make?  But you know and I know that there are some churches where the Holy Spirit just seems to hang out and others where the Holy Spirit never manifests Himself.  The difference is that He is wanted and welcome in some places, and He is not welcome or even recognized in other places.  You wouldn’t expect him to be a regular at a church that makes fun of the Holy Spirit manifestations going on across town at a better church.

Thank God, no one told the believers in Acts that they should sit back and just see what the Holy Spirit wants to do instead of praying.  Read Acts 4:29-33.  The believers asked God for healings, signs and wonders – and got them!  If they prayed for that successfully, so can we.  Note that the key was praying for boldness for themselves.  God gave them the boldness to proclaim the Word despite extreme opposition, and He confirmed His Word with signs and wonders.  We have the same covenant that they had!  Go for it!

There is a key other than prayer to seeing signs and wonders.  Mark 16:20 says that God confirmed the Word with signs following.  Part of the preparation for signs and wonders is the proper preaching of the Word.  If we would present the Word better and more boldly, we would see more signs and wonders, since they confirm the Word that is preached.  Of course, this assumes that you are preaching the Word – something that God can confirm – instead of traditions of men and your personal opinions.