Will God Heal My Pets or Livestock?

Yes.

Deuteronomy 7:12-15 explicitly extends the blessing upon you to your livestock.

We often take Deuteronomy 28 figuratively to apply to our business endeavors, but it still can be taken literally as well: “Blessed shall be...the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.”  God blesses the livestock of the man who fears Him.  Now let’s look at the flip side, which is part of the curse for breaking the Law: “Cursed shall be...the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.”  It is not explicitly stated how your livestock would be cursed, but having your animals get sick and die is surely a curse, not a blessing.

Sickness is the work of Satan whether it affects your animals or you.  You have authority over the works of Satan.  Satan, not God, killed Job’s animals (Job 1:16).  You have authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).  You are redeemed from Satan’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13), so he has no right to afflict you OR your animals.

You animals were not healed “by the stripes of Jesus,” so you cannot use that scripture to claim their healing.  However, it does make sense that because you can lay hands on “the sick” and have them recover that you could lay hands on a sick animal in the name of Jesus and expect it to recover.  Sickness is still Satan’s work whether it is in you or in an animal, and Jesus was manifested to destroy Satan’s works (1 John 3:8).  We do not have any Scripture where a New Testament believer laid hands on an animal, but then again, we don’t have any Scripture where there was a worship team in the New Testament, either, and I’ve served on worship teams for many years.  We have to make some conclusions based on the general themes of Scripture where there is no explicit statement.  I will admit that I would not be willing to be burned at the stake before denying that God would heal your cat, but I believe that having the blessing of healing available to your cat is consistent with the spirit of the New Testament.  Of course, if anything happens, it will be by your faith, as your cat cannot exercise faith in the Word, no matter how many Bible verses you read to it.

There is further Bible precedent for believing that your animals will do better than sinners’ animals.  In Exodus 9:3-6, we see one of the plagues of Moses: “Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain [plague or pestilence].  And the LORD shall sever [distinguish] between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children’s of Israel.  And the LORD appointed a set time, saying, To morrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land.  And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.”

When the ark of the covenant was brought into Obed-Edom’s house, notice what happened in 1 Chronicles 13:14: “The ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that he had.”  If Obed-Edom had any animals, which isn’t explicitly stated, they would have been blessed along with Obed-Edom.  If God’s presence could bless everything Obed-Edom had, why shouldn’t God’s presence, which is now IN YOU, bless everything YOU have under your better covenant?  That seems reasonable to me.

Exodus 23:25-26 promises no barrenness of miscarriages, and since the Hebrew is simply “no” (nothing) instead of “no one,” that refers to livestock as well.  (See Notes on Exodus 23:25-26.)

A friend and I were sharing the gospel with a sinner, and we couldn’t get him to allow us to lay hands on him for healing, even though he needed it.  Under my breath, I was asking the Lord what we could do. I felt that He answered me, and we asked the man if we could lay hands on his dog that had been hit by a car and was going around with only 3 legs on the ground.  He at least agreed to that!  So we did.   God healed the dog, and it was running around like any other dog the next day.

I am not suggesting that you bring Fido to the next healing meeting in your city for prayer.  (In fact, please don’t.)  However, you should exercise your authority against the work of Satan.  I don’t want dogs running around a service (or doing worse things); it could be very distracting and dangerous.  As a decent compromise, I did offer to pray for a dog in the parking lot, and God saved it from being “put to sleep” the next day.  In another case, we just agreed for the healing of Sammy the Cat in the service without Sammy being there, and Sammy was healed.  I successfully agreed with someone else over the phone for the healing of her dog.

Someday Rover and Fifi will die, and no amount of prayer will prevent that.  But in the meantime, if something concerns you, it concerns God, so you have the right to take it to Him in prayer.