I Prayed in Faith – Now What?

One of the most crucial lessons for you to learn in your Christian walk is what to do between your prayer to receive by faith and the time when the answer manifests itself.  Like the fig tree that Jesus cursed, your illness may not die instantly on the outside.

You Don’t Need to Pray to Receive Again

One mistake novices make when the healing they received hasn’t manifested yet is to pray again, figuring that maybe if they “believed they received” some more, they would have some more.  That is not faith, and it can uproot the seed you have already planted for your healing.  Rather than cultivating good ground for the seed, you are throwing away the seed before it has a chance to sprout.  Do not keep saying, “Lord, I really do believe I receive my healing now.”  All that proves is that you didn’t do it the first time.  If you didn’t receive it the first time, you do need to pray again, but don’t let the devil talk you out of anything you’ve already received.

Don’t Let the Devil Do This to You...

The devil will probably whisper in your ear, “You’re not in faith!  You’re not in faith!  You prayed all right, but you weren’t in faith.  You’ll get nothing!”  How will you respond to this?  Obviously, don’t agree with him.  He will lie, telling you that you are not in faith when you are.  He would like you to believe that this unbelief is coming from the inside of you, when it is just coming from him as a thought from the outside.  It certainly does not come from your born-again spirit, which NEVER sides against God’s Word.

Don’t try to defend your faith by thinking of how much you were really in faith when you prayed.  Instead, look to the Word.  That is the only Scriptural method of dealing with the devil.  Dwell on the same passages you thought of when you prayed your original prayer.

“By Jesus’ stripes you were healed” is always a true statement, not just when you prayed.  A good response would be, “I was healed by the stripes of Jesus.  Healing is my covenant right.  Sickness is a curse and I am redeemed from it.  It was true when I prayed, and it is true now.  I will continue to believe what God says about my healing.  My faith is not in my faith, but in God’s faithfulness to His Word.  I ordered this sickness to leave in the name of Jesus.  Jesus promised me that I could ask anything in His name, and He would personally do it.  Jesus is at work in my body, healing me right now.”

How to Pray After Receiving Your Healing by Faith

Every prayer you pray after your initial prayer to receive should reflect the faith of the first prayer, not negate it.  Your prayers concerning your healing now become prayers of thanksgiving and praise to God for the healing that He already gave you.  We who believe have entered into rest (Hebrews 4:3).  You no longer need to petition God for your healing.  You have settled in your heart that you took the necessary steps and you are thanking God for the results in advance.

This is a whole different subject, but praising and thanking God is important.  Praise and thanksgiving do not “get you into the presence of God” (the blood of Jesus does), but they are important, and it is right to come before God with praise and thanksgiving.  If you do not cultivate the praise side of your Christian walk, it can hinder your success in other areas, including healing.  Sometimes you just have to do as Paul and Silas did in jail and sing praises to God when your body is hurting!

It is not necessary to praise God to receive your healing (it’s free), but it is bad taste not to praise Him.  Jesus was critical of the nine lepers who were healed but did not return to give God thanks (Luke 17:12-19).  It is proper to thank God for healing you!  When you have received your healing by faith, you can thank Him that you have already received it, because you have.  You do not have to wait for the manifestation of it in your body.

In fact, if you have to wait for your healing to show up in your body before you start praising God, you are not really in faith to begin with.  If you had really received your healing, you would be thanking God for giving it to you already!