Healing Prayers: How to Pray for Physical Healing According to the Bible

Topic: Healing & Prayer | Audience: Anyone Seeking to Pray for Physical Healing

Direct Answer

Praying for healing is not about finding the right words. It is about coming to the right Person. The Bible teaches us to pray with honesty, faith, and persistence, bringing our bodies before the God who declared himself Healer. Here is what Scripture teaches about how to pray when you or someone you love is sick.

Key Verse

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
James 5:14-15 (KJV)

What Scripture Teaches About Healing Prayer

When God's people ask how to pray for healing, he does not leave them to guess. James 5:14-16 is the most specific instruction in the entire Bible on the subject, and every word matters.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church." The first instruction is not to pray harder. It is to call for help. You are not meant to carry this alone. James says to reach out to the leaders of the church, people who can stand with you in faith.

Andrew Murray, writing in Divine Healing, explained why the elders were specified. In the time of James, he wrote, "The elders then were the pastors and leaders of the churches, called to the ministry not because they had passed through schools of theology, but because they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and well known for their piety and for their faith." These were people whose prayer lives had been tested. Their presence beside the sick person was not a formality. It was a lifeline.

"Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." The oil is an act of faith, not a formula. In the Old Testament, oil was always connected with consecration and with the presence of the Holy Spirit. To anoint someone with oil was to set them apart for God's work. When the elders anoint a sick person with oil, they are placing that body under God's authority and declaring that it belongs to him.

"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." Notice what saves the sick person. Not the oil. Not the reputation of the elders. Not the volume of the prayer. It is the prayer of faith. This is the prayer that takes God at his word, trusts his character, and believes that he is willing and able to heal.

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." James adds a final instruction that many overlook. Confession is part of the healing process. Murray addressed this directly: "Un-confessed sin presents an obstacle to the prayer of faith." This is not about earning healing through performance. It is about removing whatever stands between you and God, so that faith can flow freely.

How Jesus Prayed for the Sick

If you want a model for healing prayer, look at how Jesus himself did it. He did not pray the same way every time. He used many methods, but the constant was his authority and his compassion. Here is what we can learn from his example.

He Prayed by Command

When a leper came to Jesus and said, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," Jesus did not launch into a long prayer. He said three words: "I will; be thou clean" (Matthew 8:3). No hesitation. No deliberation. Just the authority of the Son of God, spoken directly to the disease.

He Prayed by Touch

Luke records that "when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them" (Luke 4:40). Jesus touched them one by one. Healing prayer is personal. It is not a broadcast. It is one life touching another.

He Prayed at a Distance

The centurion whose servant was sick asked Jesus for healing, but he told Jesus he did not need to come in person: "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Jesus marveled at his faith and said, "Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour" (Matthew 8:13). You do not have to be physically present to pray for someone's healing.

He Prayed from Compassion

Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the multitudes, "he was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick" (Matthew 14:14). The healing started with feeling. Before Jesus spoke a word, he saw the people and cared. Real healing prayer begins the same way: not with technique, but with love.

Murray drew this lesson from the disciples in Acts: "It is not by our own power or holiness that we obtain these graces, but by a faith quite simple, a childlike faith, which knows that it has no power nor holiness of its own, and which commits itself completely to Him who is faithful." The power was never in the one praying. It was always in the One being prayed to.

The Prayer of Faith

James 5 calls it "the prayer of faith." Jesus himself described it in Mark's Gospel:

"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
Mark 11:24 (KJV)

This is not positive thinking. It is not pretending you are well when you are not. It is confidence in the character of God. You believe that when you bring your body to him, he hears you, because he said he would.

Murray described what this kind of faith looks like in practice: "Faith receives healing as a spiritual grace which proceeds from the Lord even while there is no conscious change in the body." In other words, you may not feel anything right away. The prayer of faith does not wait for evidence. It trusts the promise first, and the evidence follows.

This is exactly what Jesus told us to do. "All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive" (Matthew 21:22). He did not say, "Ask, and then wait for proof before you believe." He said believe first. The believing comes before the seeing.

Prayers You Can Pray

You do not need eloquent words to pray for healing. The woman with the issue of blood never spoke a word to Jesus. She just reached out and touched his garment (Mark 5:27-28). But if you want words to hold onto, here are prayers grounded in Scripture that you can pray right now.

If you need scripture to pray over your body, read through our collection of 20 Healing Scriptures to Stand On When You Are Sick. Let God's own words become your prayer.

When the Answer Takes Time

Sometimes healing comes the moment you pray. Sometimes it does not. Jesus told a parable specifically about this, and Luke tells us why he told it:

"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
Luke 18:1 (KJV)

The parable is about a widow who went to an unjust judge again and again, asking for justice. The judge did not fear God and did not care about people, but the widow's persistence wore him down. Jesus' point is this: if even an unjust judge responds to persistent asking, how much more will your loving Father respond when you cry out to him day and night?

"And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily."
Luke 18:7-8 (KJV)

Murray applied this directly to healing prayer. On persevering prayer, he wrote: "Delay in the answer is intended to prove and strengthen our faith; it ought to develop in us the steadfast will which will no longer let go the promises of God, but which renounces its own side of things to trust in God alone." The delay is not God ignoring you. It is God building something in you that can hold what he is about to give.

E.M. Bounds, one of the great writers on prayer, said it this way: "The short prevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God in a mightier struggle of long continuance." Bounds was making the same point as Jesus: the prayer that wins is the prayer that will not stop.

If you have prayed for healing once and nothing happened, pray again. If you have prayed a hundred times, pray a hundred and one. The widow got her answer because she would not leave. Do not leave.

Callout

"What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer."

E.M. Bounds understood that the power of prayer is not in the technique. It is in the One who answers. When you pray for healing, you are not performing a ritual. You are calling on a Person who has already declared himself willing to heal.

Application

Three things you can do today:

1. Pray with Scripture in your hands. Open your Bible to the healing scriptures and read them aloud as your prayer. Let God's own words become your words back to him. When you pray Psalm 103:3 out loud, you are not making a wish. You are declaring a promise.

2. Do not pray alone. James 5 says to call for others. Ask a trusted friend, a pastor, or a prayer group to pray with you. Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). There is power in agreement.

3. Keep praying. The persistent widow got her answer because she would not stop asking. Healing prayer is not a one-time event. It is a posture of faith you maintain until the answer comes. Murray wrote: "He who prays six times fervently and stops there, when he ought to have prayed seven times, deprives himself of the answer to his prayer."

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I pray for healing according to the Bible?
James 5:14-16 gives specific instructions: call for the elders of the church, have them pray over you and anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord, confess any sin, and trust that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." You can also pray personally using the healing scriptures as your guide.

Q: Does God always answer healing prayers?
God always hears. His answer may come immediately, gradually, or in a way you did not expect. What Scripture promises is that the prayer of faith is never wasted, and that God is always working, even when you cannot yet see it. Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow specifically to teach "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1).

Q: What should I say when I pray for healing?
Start with honesty. Tell God exactly what you need. Then declare what his Word says about healing. You do not need eloquent words. The woman with the issue of blood did not even speak to Jesus. She just reached out and touched him, and he said, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole" (Mark 5:34). Your faith matters more than your vocabulary.

Q: Can I pray for someone else's healing?
Absolutely. The centurion prayed for his servant. The Canaanite woman prayed for her daughter. The friends of the paralytic carried him to Jesus on a stretcher. Intercessory prayer for healing is modeled throughout the Gospels and encouraged in James 5. Jesus said, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 18:19).

Call to Action

You may have come to this page searching for a prayer to pray. But the real invitation is not to recite words. It is to know the One you are praying to.

If you have never given your life to Jesus, that is the first step. Not because healing requires it, but because knowing him is the point of everything. He is the Healer, and he is also the Savior, the Shepherd, the Friend who sticks closer than a brother. He is looking for you.

Learn how to begin a relationship with God through prayer.

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Keep Reading

• What Jesus Said About Healing: Every Healing in the Gospels
• 20 Healing Scriptures to Stand On When You Are Sick
• Healing Scriptures: The Complete Guide
• Scriptures for Strength When You Feel Like Giving Up