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Asking for a friend. What do you say to a person that prayed constantly to be healed,but was not healed and instead had to endure surgery and a painful recovery?This person was so convinced they would be healed that they now feel as though God let them down. They do not want to hear about how that the Lord uses doctors and the wonders of modern medicine. Their response to that is God never changes, he's the same yesterday.....he healed back then,why doesn't he heal like that today?Looking for some pastoral wisdom here.Thank “Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”

I know my take is different, but...

There are times when God will do something just because He is God.There are times He will respond to pleas for help just because of compassion and mercy.But there are SOME THINGS that He will do ONLY if there is true faith. We see this in the scriptures where Jesus said This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. He was letting us know that there are things that happen ONLY if we have the requisite faith.Unfortunately, people have come to believe that faith is just really, really, really wanting something...or prayer for it every day...or saying affirmations to ourselves, etc.Alas, I have learned from hard experience that these do not make the grade in terms of faith. Yes, they are powerful. Yes, the can cause God to take note and act. But there are plenty of times when they seem to do nothing. (NOTE: While a person may not be healed, I cannot help but believe that their prayers and the such do not win for them some greater crown.)True faith--of which I have a grand total of experience of TWO TIMES--is a very different thing. It is not a strong wishing. It is not just believing (at least as we tend to mean it today). IT IS A KNOWING.You know it as surely as you know anything...yet there is zero empirical evidence. I have put it this way a number of times:If you have lost your keys and looked and looked and looked to not avail, then, suddenly, you remember what you did with them--that is a KNOWING. No, you don't have the keys in your hand. You can't see them. BUT YOU KNOW where they are.It truly is the substance of things hoped for. So what do you tell someone? You tell them that God loves them. That he can use such things to teach us what true faith is..and is not.

I am in agreement with you. I am running up against a lifetime of teaching that if you ask,you shall receive. My understanding is that God is sovereign. He runs the show,and as such he heals whom he heals,and others he does not. No where does it say I am entitled to an explanation for either case. Unfortunately all of this is falling on deaf ears at the moment. Hopefully time will provide some clarity “Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”

My understanding of traditional COG teaching is this:Always pray for healing - faith is rewarded by receiving what we ask.However, they understood there are many reasons why folks don't receive:- Lack of faith- sin (unforgiveness) in the life of the one needing healing- a specific purpose is being accomplished by your suffering - often one that only God understands right now.My grandparents lost a child in childbirth - their firstborn. They had 4 more kids afterwards. They completely believed in healing by faith in God - but gave God the right to have a specific purpose for the suffering they endured.(much like Lazarus' death and other examples in the Bible

I have learned to not shy from the phrase, I don't know.Any attemp to try and give explanations for the lack of a healing brings the sufferer to condemnation.I've learned to say those three little words--I don't know.I do know that God acts or doesn't act without reason and that His reason is often hidden or unfashionable to me. Whether He heals or not, he is still Lord. How willing am I just to love and trust Him

There are no clear-cut answers as to why God heals some, and not others. We know that Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda. However, he not heal everyone gathered at the pool that day–– why? The disciples also wondered about such matters. John 9:1-3And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Point is, both of their assumptions were wrong.In similar fashion, Job's three friends counseled him on the basis of their limited understanding as to why he was suffering. Their assumptions were incorrect.At the end of the day, I lean on the rhetorical question of Genesis 18:25... Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? We must trust in his sovereignty and providence (Proverbs 3:5,6) knowing he is the potter; we are the clay

I am in agreement with you. I am running up against a lifetime of teaching that if you ask,you shall receive. My understanding is that God is sovereign. He runs the show,and as such he heals whom he heals,and others he does not. No where does it say I am entitled to an explanation for either case. Unfortunately all of this is falling on deaf ears at the moment. Hopefully time will provide some clarity. I don’t find that an appeal to sovereignty is helpful, nor is it necessary in such cases. Saying that to a suffering child of God just makes God seem unfair, arbitrary and stingy. It still leaves the sufferer wondering why God would heal somebody else, but not them.

My friend, that is not false doctrine: It's the Word of God. But there is a lot of falsehood around it:1) The most prevalent falsehood is that it is never our fault. Bless God, I prayed for them, and I had all the faith needed, why I could have moved a mountain with my faith...but God didn't do it because YOU (never ME, always YOU) didn't have the right amount of faith, etc. Preachers need to simply OWN the fact that our win-loss record on healing is so bad it's shameful. We are virtually cessationists in practice (i.e., we don't have a lot better percentage of healings than take place in churches where they don't even believe that God does such things today). But before we will accept that we just don't have enough faith at time--even though our hearts my be as right with God as possible--we blame the person. Do you know why there are CESSATIONISTS? Because they had about the same results as we do, and decided that instead of blaming themselves or others, they would just claim that the reason it doesn't happen today like it clearly did in the Bible is because God no longer does that. We are just one small step removed....

Amen -- weep with those who weep, say I don't know in response to theological questions, focus on the reality of the fallen world in which we live, and most importantly, focus on the future hope we have received and will receive in Christ.