Is It Right to Get into a Second Healing Line for the Same Condition?

Yes.

We have the example in Mark 8:22-25 of a man who was ministered to twice by Jesus Himself.  Although this was apparently all at one time, Jesus laid hands on him twice for the same condition, and this was not a sin.  The man was partially healed the first time and completely healed the second time.  Jesus did not refuse to pray for him again, so we should not refuse to pray for people again, either.

Elijah actually did the same thing THREE times.  The first two times, a boy he stretched himself over did not rise from the dead, but the third time, he did (1 Kings 17:17-24)!  I would see this as persistence, not unbelief.

It doesn’t hurt to get another “dose” of the healing anointing if you are looking to receive healing through that means!

It has been suggested that getting in a second healing line for the same condition only proves that you were not in faith the first time.  Well, if you weren’t in faith the first time, you’d better get in line again!  However, you can get in line again even if you are standing in faith, having believed that you received when hands were laid on you the first time.  The idea here is not to “believe you receive” a second time, which is unnecessary, but simply to let more of the anointing flow into your body.

There can be some time between the point when you “believe you receive” and the time that your healing completely manifests in your body.  During this time, if there is an altar call for the sick, you qualify to get in it, even though you are standing in faith.  Although it is your confession that you are “healed by the stripes of Jesus,” you can get in line if your body is still sick.  (You don’t have to get in line; it’s up to you.)  As long as you understand why you are up there, you are not “negating your first prayer” by going up again, nor are you “confessing” that you are not healed by going up.  Altar calls for healing are for anyone with bodily sickness at the time.  If we got really technical about it, we could say that everyone’s healing was already provided by the stripes of Jesus, so nobody should get in line!  Everyone could receive without a healing line.  But not everyone does.

There is a problem if you are getting in your seventy-fifth prayer line for the same thing.  If you find yourself getting in healing lines all the time and never receiving, the best thing you can do is stop getting into those lines and build your faith by studying the Scriptures about healing.  If you continue to build your faith, you will get to the point where you will be ready to receive your healing.  Sometimes it is better to sit out a while and build your faith.  Otherwise, you can get used to going up and not receiving anything, which makes it harder next time.

If you do any amount of healing ministry, you will come across spiritually lazy people who get in line every time but don’t want to put forth any effort themselves.  These people want you to wave your magic wand and make their horrible condition go away, and if nothing happens, they’ll blame you for being unanointed.  You cringe on the inside when you see them coming up yet again!  I am not advocating getting in additional healing lines so that you can make the minister “do his thing” while you do nothing to build your faith.  (Some people show up late and then tune you out while you’re preaching; they just want to get into the line instead of coming to “hear and be healed” as they did in the Bible.)  Getting in line with a lottery mentality, thinking “Maybe this time it will work” is not what I’m talking about and it is not a good reason to get into another healing line.  You won’t benefit by getting in line once, let alone twice or more, with that attitude.  You should either be prepared to receive by faith, or determined to get the minister to agree with you that you’ve received healing already.

Don’t be like some healing line “frequent flyers” whom you may encounter occasionally, who just like getting into lines to feel the minister’s hands because he or she just gets a weird thrill from getting attention and laying on of hands from a member of the opposite sex.  Such people sometimes try to talk the minister’s ear off when going up for ministry in their craving for opposite-sex attention.  You might not believe me, but if you lay hands on enough people, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  This would be more common in a smaller church setting where the minister might be expected to spend more time with individuals who come up for prayer.

Before leaving this question, I have one more comment.  Don’t get in the SAME healing line more than once!  If you’ve already had hands laid on you, don’t run to the back of the line so that you can go through it again.  If everyone did that, the service would look like something out of a Dr. Seuss story instead of the Bible!  I have seen people do it.  If you didn’t receive the first time, you’re in unbelief, so why would you think that going up a second time in unbelief will solve anything?  A friend was doing a meeting with another well-known evangelist in Africa and one night they promised to lay hands on anyone who wanted it.  They ended up with a real-life Dr. Seuss story situation.  People were getting into the other preacher’s line and then getting into my friend’s line while others did the opposite.  Given that there were 50,000 people there that night, they wisely decided never to do things that way again.