Praying for Healing Using Physical and Spiritual Power
This method of healing prayer combines faith with physical skills in order to lay hands on a person to pray. Those praying silently concentrate on allowing God’s healing power to flow through them and out through their hands into the person.
How to do this prayer practice:
1. Develop your desire and your faith.
The first thing necessary to engage in healing prayer is a strong desire to help others through healing prayer and faith in Jesus Christ. In the past 20 years I have developed my own personal method that I use. I believe any Christian can do this, that we all have the ability. However it takes work to develop the skills.
2. Get prayed up.
You should prepare yourself before praying with someone. Make sure that your relationship with God is current and strong. It requires spiritual and emotional maturity. Read Scripture every day. Pray every day, attend church and stay in a community of believers. Make your relationship with God as strong as possible.
3. Develop your physical ability and awareness.
There are aspects of our body that God created. We have a physical ability that can be developed through exercises and concentration. I believe that there are methods for getting your body attuned to God’s work to aid in the effectiveness of healing prayer.
I do the following exercises at home to condition myself. There are a series of exercises designed to develop the body for healing prayer work. The idea is to be able to see God’s healing energy in your mind, and feel God’s healing energy in your body. I spent many years studying and training in these exercises. These exercises are physically demanding and should only be done with guidance. They seem simple, you stand still in various postures, but I can assure it is not easy.
To start, I pray as I do deep breathing and begin to relax. First, I do a posture I call “standing on a bench.” I imagine God’s energy coming in through my breath, coming up through my feet and out of my hands. As you breathe in, the energy builds up, and as you exhale the energy is released through your hands.
Then I do a posture I call “hugging a tree” – circle hands in front of yourself and, as you breathe, imagining the healing energy circling through your body, going from right to left through the hands.
And then I do one I call “reading The Bible.” These postures will aid in developing the ability to obtain and direct God’s physical healing energy. They will strengthen your body as well. Each posture is held for a few minutes. Standing on a bench is held for 12 minutes, hugging a tree is held for 6 minutes, and reading the Bible is held for 3 minutes. There are some other exercises as well but there is no room to describe them all.
4. Pray in person.
This form of healing prayer works best in person. This healing prayer technique involves the laying on of hands.
5. Don’t be afraid to try.
Many times people will ask you to pray with them. Sometimes you may just get bold and ask the person, “Would you mind if I prayed with you?” And be sure to ask, “Can I touch you?” It is important for the person to want you to pray with them and that they know that you will put your hands on them.
6. Begin by putting the person in a comfortable position.
It’s good if the person can recline in a way that you can touch them on their shoulders or arms without putting physical strain on yourself.
7. Ask the person to join in the healing work.
I tell them to pray about God’s healing love for them. I want them to think about God’s grace and love through Jesus Christ.
8. Invite relatives of the sick person to pray with you.
I have relatives of the sick person pray with me. I give them a brief description of what we are going to do. I tell them to see the healing power of God as the image of liquid light. I tell them to think about the deepest form of love, the love God has for us. The intent is to pass to the person the pure clean belief in the love of God to heal. When I was praying for a teenager, with a tumor on her brain stem, I told her parents and grandmother to put all their love for the child into their touch as well as their belief in our Lord’s ability to heal. In that case, God healed that child.
9. Silently pray as you visualize God’s healing power.
I mentally visualize following God’s healing energy inside of the person’s body and seeing everything as perfect, the way God intended it to be. At times I will sense that the prayer energy will stop and be blocked. I mentally push and pray until the block goes away. I might massage a sore muscle, but usually I only keep my hands on the person. I visualize the Holy Spirit working through me. I see it as liquid light that flows like water. It comes from God, goes into me, into my heart, and out through my hands into the person I’m working on.
10. Ask God to help you sense or feel the issue.
You pray according to what you interpret their need to be through the help of the Holy Spirit. In your mind see God’s light and look for a problem. Often you will see it and feel it. Then ask God to heal this situation. Ask him to intervene, ask for His will. Request God’s energy, and let it move through you to the person.
11. Pray about emotional and mental hurt, too.
For example, say a person is grieving. I can get a sensation or pictures of the emotional state, I see them as very sad or distorted. God heals the emotional aspects of people as well as the physical.
12. Ask the person to report what they’re experiencing.
Encourage the people you are praying for to report any sensations they might be having. They often report what you’re seeing
13. Take your time.
I spend about 20 minutes. I have worked on someone for an hour and also for as little as 5 minutes.
14. To end the prayer time, pray out loud.
I normally pray silently. At the end I might ask the person if they mind if I pray out loud with them. The prayer at the end of the healing session is very calming and reassuring. We thank our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for being present with us to heal this person. We ask that his will be done.
15. Expect to feel God’s cleansing power in your own spirit.
Most people when they first begin doing this work feel an emotional cleansing. When you experience the tangible feeling of God working through you it can be an emotional experience. If you have old hurts or unexpressed anger or have suppressed feelings, this work will bring that out. You cannot do this work and have emotional baggage. God’s energy will bring your emotions out for you to deal with and resolve. A burdened heart will not be able to withstand God’s energy.
I’m not tired after the experience, but rather energized and once you do this for a while you begin to crave that connection with the Lord. When you actually feel God working through you it is a feeling unlike any other. The giver gets as much as the recipient. As you do this work you’ll become more sensitive to other people when you’re around them. You will begin to sense when others are hurting. My hands start tingling to signal that God wants me to pray for them.
16. Leave the results in God’s hands.
I never know what the outcome of the healing work will be. I know that God answers our prayers. It may not be the way we expect, but He does answer. I have seen miracles like tumors going away. I have also had people say they don’t feel any better, but often they do later. I’m planting seeds of faith. It grows and they notice. We cannot interfere with God’s will; He will give us blessings along the way. Pray that God’s will be done.
17. Pray more than once.
Often healing prayer takes time. Your condition didn’t come on at once, so it often doesn’t go away at once, either.
My personal experiences and tips:
As far as healings, I have seen remarkable results. The most remarkable was a teen who was diagnosed with a tumor on her brain stem. Through a number of prayer sessions in which the family participated, the tumor vanished with no medical intervention. I have seen infections disappear, broken bones healed, and all manner of pain reduced or eliminated.
I haven’t seen terminal cancer cured. But I have seen the side effects of cancer treatment dramatically reduced. People report that they do not get sick after chemotherapy and regain their appetite. Many times the pain is reduced and the quality of life improved. I think God can heal anything even terminal cancer, but I have not personally seen this in my work yet. Prayer may not always heal the way we want because we do not know God’s will. God is working in the person no matter what is seen at the time of the healing prayer. We put our faith in Christ and leave the results to Him. I have seen results that cause me to fall on my face and praise my Lord Jesus Christ.
The Biblical origins and traditional roots of this method of prayer:
A good Christian man, a mentor to me, told me to go to the Bible and research how Jesus healed people. He wanted me to see where Jesus touched people when he healed them. Of course Jesus was God Incarnate so we cannot expect the results Jesus had, but he passed on his ability to others through the Holy Spirit. The disciples performed many healing miracles, and through the Holy Spirit they passed their knowledge on to others. The story of Stephen in the Bible, talks about lay people who could help people in need. Stephen was someone “filled with the spirit” who performed “many miracles and wondrous acts.” (Acts 6:8) Yet he never met Jesus in person. He was taught and developed his abilities with spiritual disciplines and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I believe that we all have a God given ability to help others by prayer and faith in Jesus Christ.
John 14:12-14 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” (KJV)
I Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (KJV)
Copyright 2011 Rev. John Dritt. All rights reserved.
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