Does God Still Heal Today?

Yes. God names Himself “the LORD that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26, KJV), and the psalmist praises the One “who healeth all thy diseases” (Psalm 103:3, KJV). Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8, KJV). Nothing in Scripture suggests that God has lost His power or His compassion for the sick.

But “God heals” needs two honest additions. First, He heals in more than one way: through prayer, through the body's own recovery, through doctors and medicine, and now and then in ways no one can explain. Second, He does not heal every sickness in this life. The same New Testament that records miracles also records Christians who stayed sick. A faithful answer holds both.

If you are looking for words to pray right now, start with these prayers for healing, or hold onto these Bible verses about healing while you read on.

Healing filled Jesus' ministry. Matthew sums it up in one sentence:

He healed with compassion. When a leper knelt before Him, Jesus, “moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean” (Mark 1:41, KJV). He touched a man nobody else would touch.

He healed to show who He was. When John the Baptist sent to ask whether Jesus was the One, Jesus pointed to what was happening: “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear” (Matthew 11:5, KJV). His miracles were signs of a kingdom that puts the world right.

Faith mattered, but it was not a formula. Jesus often said, “thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mark 5:34, KJV). In Nazareth, where people would not believe, “he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them” (Mark 6:5, KJV). Yet He also healed people who showed no faith at all: the man at the pool of Bethesda did not even know who had healed him (John 5:13), and the servant whose ear Peter cut off was healed with a touch (Luke 22:51; John 18:10). Faith opens our hands to God. It is not a fee that buys a result.

He did not heal everyone at once. At Bethesda lay “a great multitude of impotent folk” (John 5:3, KJV), and the Gospel tells of one man healed that day. And everyone Jesus healed still died one day. His healings were previews of the resurrection, not the end of the story.

The apostles carried on this work after Jesus rose. Peter told a man lame from birth, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6, KJV), and on Malta Paul prayed for the sick and they were healed (Acts 28:8-9). Mark's Gospel is a good place to see this for yourself: it is short and full of healings. In Faithero you can have it read aloud, chapter by chapter, with a sleep timer for long nights.

James gives the church a simple practice. The sick person calls for the elders, the leaders of the congregation. They pray over him and anoint him with oil in the Lord's name, and James promises that the Lord will raise him up and forgive any sins. Then he widens it to everyone: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16, KJV).

Notice three things. Healing is the business of the whole church, not only of a few gifted people. Prayer and forgiveness belong together. And it is the Lord who raises the sick up; the oil and the elders are not magic.

Churches still practice this. Catholics call it the Anointing of the Sick, and the Catechism lists among its graces strength, peace and courage in illness and “the restoration of health, if it is conducive to the salvation of his soul” (CCC 1532). Orthodox Christians call it Holy Unction, which the Orthodox Church in America describes as “the Church's specific prayer for healing”; it adds that because physical healing is not always God's will, the sacrament is always prayed in the spirit of “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10, KJV). Pentecostal churches such as the Assemblies of God cite James 5:14-16 for their belief that divine healing is “an integral part of the gospel.”

Christians agree that God can do anything and that He answers prayer. They disagree about whether the miraculous gifts seen in the apostles, such as “the gifts of healing” (1 Corinthians 12:9, KJV), still work in the church the same way. There are two main views, and sincere believers hold each.

Continuationists believe these gifts continue until Christ returns. Paul says prophecies and tongues will pass away “when that which is perfect is come” (1 Corinthians 13:10, KJV), which many of them take to mean the return of Christ. Pentecostal and charismatic churches hold this view, and the Assemblies of God teaches that deliverance from sickness is provided for in Christ's atonement for all believers. The Catholic Church also believes miracles still happen and examines claims with care. At Lourdes in France, more than 7,000 reported cures have been studied, and by April 2025 the Church had recognized 72 of them as miracles. Doctors, including the International Medical Committee of Lourdes, examine a cure first; only then does the bishop of the healed person's diocese decide whether to declare it a miracle.

Cessationists believe the miraculous sign gifts, such as healing at a word, ended with the apostles, whose message they confirmed (Hebrews 2:3-4). This view is common among confessional Reformed and Presbyterian Christians and some Baptists. It is often misunderstood: cessationists do not deny that God heals today. They pray for the sick and believe God can, and often does, heal in answer to prayer. What they deny is that anyone today carries the apostles' gift of healing.

Where both can stand together. Both views pray for the sick. Both believe God answers. Both should be humble about claims they cannot test, and wary of anyone who sells healing. When Simon tried to buy spiritual power, Peter told him, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Acts 8:20, KJV). Jesus sent the Twelve out to heal with the words “freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8, KJV).

No. The Bible never sets prayer and medicine against each other.

Luke was a doctor. Paul calls him “Luke, the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14, KJV), naming his profession with affection, and Luke was still at Paul's side when others had gone (2 Timothy 4:11).

Paul gave Timothy medical advice. “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Timothy 5:23, KJV). He did not tell Timothy that his stomach trouble showed weak faith. He told him to take what would help.

God promised Hezekiah healing, and Isaiah still prescribed a remedy. God said, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears” (Isaiah 38:5, KJV), and Isaiah told them to “take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil” (Isaiah 38:21, KJV). The promise and the remedy worked together.

Jesus assumed that doctors help the sick. “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick” (Matthew 9:12, KJV). And the Good Samaritan, the neighbor Jesus told us to imitate, “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine” (Luke 10:34, KJV).

Even churches that stress divine healing say the same. The Assemblies of God's position paper on healing says that belief in divine healing does not oppose or compete with doctors, and that God, the source of all healing, can work through them. So take the medicine, keep the appointment, and pray for your doctors and nurses as you go. If you are facing an operation, these prayers for surgery may help.

This is the hardest part of the question, and the Bible does not hide it. Paul, who had seen God heal many people, prayed for his own healing and did not receive it:

Paul asked three times. The answer was not yes, and it was not silence. It was a promise of grace that would be enough, and of strength shown in weakness. Paul was not short of faith. God had a purpose he could only partly see.

He was not the only one. Paul wrote, “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick” (2 Timothy 4:20, KJV). Timothy lived with “often infirmities” (1 Timothy 5:23, KJV). Epaphroditus was “sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2:27, KJV). Some were healed and some were not, and the New Testament never says that the ones who stayed sick lacked faith.

Scripture also explains why the waiting still hurts. Until Christ returns, Paul says, “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23, KJV). Every healing in this life is partial and for a time. Full healing is promised in the new creation, when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4, KJV).

If you have prayed and not been healed, please hear this: it is not because you did not believe hard enough, and it is not because God does not care. Jesus wept at the grave of His friend (John 11:35). In Gethsemane He prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42, KJV). You are allowed to lament, to ask how long, as the psalmists did (Psalm 13:1-2), and to keep asking. For more on this, see Why Does God Allow Suffering?

If illness has left you without hope, or you are thinking about ending your life, please reach out now. In the US and Canada, call or text 988. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists helplines in many countries.