Question: Is it wrong to take medicine to relieve pain after I have prayed to be healed?

How do most people determine whether or not their prayers have been answered? Typically it goes something like this:

I will pray.
If I see the manifestation, then God heard and answered my prayer.
If I do not see the manifestation, then God did not hear and answer my prayer.

More specifically regarding pain:
I will ask God to heal me.
If the pain leaves, God heard and answered my prayer.
If the pain does not leave, God did not hear and answer my prayer.

The trouble is, that's not how Jesus taught us to pray. That is man's own definition of prayer ... apart from the mind of Christ. Here is how Jesus taught us to pray:

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

"Believe that ye receive..." When? NOW, WHEN YOU PRAY!

"Ye shall have them..." When? The word "shall" indicates "future tense."

Normally, there is an interval of time between the "prayer" and the "manifestation." So, during the standing time, what is a person to conclude? The pain has not yet left, for example. Does that mean God did not hear you? Not according to Jesus. In fact, the key to answered prayer is to BELIEVE GOD HEARD AND ANSWERED YOU WHEN YOU PRAYED ... not based on manifestation, but based on TRUTH! If you believe God heard and answered WHEN YOU PRAYED, then it is only a matter of time until you "shall have it."

If you DON'T believe you "received when you prayed," based on the lack of instant manifestation, then you didn't pray in FAITH to begin with. Your manifestation is not coming! You are still being controlled by "manifested circumstances" rather than by what the Word of God says.

So let's talk about appropriate action during that interval of time from when you prayed and "believed you received" and the manifestation that comes when you "shall have it." For teaching purposes, let's take a simple headache. You pray, asking for healing and for the pain to leave. You "believe you receive" right at that moment. According to Jesus, you "shall have it." But let's say that the pain does not leave instantly. What to do?

This is where the "Abraham" type of faith must be employed that "calls those things which be not as though they were." You rejoice and praise God for hearing your prayer and answering (even though the pain has not left). You call yourself healed and whole. You KNOW God both "heard and answered" your prayer based on the finished work of Jesus Christ alone (not based on apparent circumstances).

Still, the pain has not left as you continue to do this. Concerning the pain, what you do now depends on whether or not you are still religiously minded and see God as some type of severe, cruel taskmaster who has little regard for the suffering of His people ... or whether you see Him as a loving Father who delights in His children.

If you are the former, you will not take any type of natural medicine because you believe that God gets some kind of perverted pleasure from watching His children suffer in pain. You will think it brings some kind of strange joy to Him as He watches you "endure" the suffering. You think that taking aspirin, for example, would somehow disappoint God and cause Him to refuse your healing. Sadly, I saw God like that for years ... to the point that it nearly cost me my life when I stopped taking heart medicine that I needed at the time.

If you are the latter, you understand that it is not God who is holding up the manifestation of your healing in the first place. The only thing holding up your healing is your own unbelief! You know that the very process of "calling yourself healed" in the face of contradictory circumstances is actually building FAITH in your heart. You know it is only a matter of time until you "shall have it." That being the case, do you think God is "pleased" with you suffering pain during the standing time?

Well, does it bring joy to your heart when one of your children is suffering pain? God forbid! You do everything you can do to stop the pain, do you not? Who do you think put healing elements into nature in the first place? The devil? Give me a break! The devil has never done ANYTHING to "help" mankind in any way. It was God who created all things, INCLUDING the natural healing substances found in nature ... from which we get "aspirin," for example.

Had I remained with the former attitude regarding my heart medicine, I would have died in 1995. Wouldn't the devil have loved that? That was his intention, to keep me "religiously" minded to the point I would refuse the heart medicine and literally die before there was sufficient faith developed within me to receive my healing. We are not to be "ignorant of Satan's devices."

If we all had "perfect" faith like Jesus, the AUTHOR of faith, then we would all receive INSTANT manifestations like He did. My faith is much more developed than it used to be, but I myself am a long way from having perfect faith. I sometimes get "instant" manifestations, I sometimes do not. If I do not, I praise God for my healing and at the same time I thank Him for medicine that alleviates the suffering until I "shall have it." It does not displease Him.

In my lifetime, the devil has tried to destroy me with polio, severe asthma, cancer and supraventricular dichartia. If you saw me in person today, you would never believe I ever had any of those things. God is a faithful creator. Regardless of all my imperfections, this much I know ... My Father loves me. He is always my answer ... never my problem!

Your fellow servant for Christ,

Gary Carpenter