Derek Prince teaches how to pray for healing by removing things that are keeping you from receiving the healing and blessings that God promises. He starts by introducing the Holy Spirit, and what His role is in the area of healing.

John 16:13-15: “However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will tell you things to come.”

Jesus is speaking, and He says, “He will glorify Me, Jesus, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it or reveal it to you.” Then he says, “All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I say, that He, the Holy Spirit, will take of Mine and reveal it to you.”

Everything the Father has is invested in the Son, and all the wealth of the Father and the Son is disposed of by the Holy Spirit. He is the steward, He’s the keeper of the storehouse.

Let’s make friends with Him! It will pay us.

I realize that in the present state of the church, riddled as it is with so many spiritual problems, and so much unbelief, there will be very wonderful sons and daughters of God who do not receive healing. Let’s be honest and face that fact.

I’ve seen thousands of people healed over the years. But I’ve seen some of God’s choicest children who didn’t receive their healing. I can’t explain that. There are things I can’t explain. But as I’ve pondered over this, and sought God about it, God gave me a scripture, Deuteronomy 29:29. “The secret things belong to the Lord Our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

There are two kinds of things. There are the secret things that belong to God and there are the things that are revealed that belong to us, that we may act on them. God has told me to be a minister of His word. I don’t pry into God’s secrets. It is my responsibility to minister to God’s people and to act on the things that are revealed.

Over the years, in ministering to the sick, I have discovered that Ruth and I have been made particularly conscious of this in the last few years. If there are any barriers, they are not on God’s side. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom and every barrier from God’s side was removed.

But we have learned by experience that there are often barriers that remain within the hearts and lives of God’s people, that are barriers to healing. In order to be able to minister effectively, we have to deal with these barriers. In my teaching this evening, before we begin to minister, I’m going to work systematically through the common barriers that prevent people from receiving healing.

I’ve discovered that this saves endless time, when we come to minister to individuals. We clear the ground first. We don’t have to check with each person, that each person has met these conditions, because we’re going to do it with all of you, collectively. And as far as we’re able, we’re going to remove all the barriers before we begin to minister.

7 Common Barriers to Receiving Healing

1. Ignorance – Ignorance of God’s Word and God’s will.

In Isaiah 5:13, God says, “Therefore my people have gone into captivity because they have no knowledge.” No knowledge of God’s Word. No knowledge of what was accomplished by the death of Jesus on the cross.

Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” I want all of us, collectively, to confess to God, our sin of ignorance. The fact that we haven’t sought God, we haven’t studied His Word, we haven’t taken the time to find out what God is saying. And we want to ask God to forgive us, and we want to commit ourselves to seek, to know the Will of the Word of God.

Pray this prayer:

“Oh God, I acknowledge that in many ways I am ignorant of your Word and of Your Will, through my own fault. Tonight, God, I confess this as a sin. I repent of it. I ask You to forgive me, and to help me to seek the truth from this day forward, more diligently. In Jesus’ Name.”

2. Unbelief

The New Testament calls unbelief a sin. And when we see that, we are ready to get rid of unbelief, and to open the way to receive what God has for us, by believing Him.

Hebrews 3:12, 13 (Addressed specifically to Christians): “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you, an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort (encourage) one another, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened, through the deceitfulness of sin.”

Notice what the writer calls unbelief? He calls it evil and he calls it sin.
This should be done often.

First, confess the sin of unbelief, then ask God for forgiveness, then renounce it and then proclaim your faith in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, and in the Word of God.

This can change you from a place of unbelief to belief.

Pray this prayer:

Oh God, I come to you in Jesus’ Name, and I confess my sin of unbelief. I do not try to excuse it. I am responsible for it. I am sorry for it. I ask you to forgive me, and to deliver me from it, and impart to me Your faith. Today, I want to declare that I believe in God the Father, I believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, I believe in God, the Holy Spirit, and I believe in the Bible, the true, authoritative Word of God. I believe, Lord Jesus, what You said, “God’s word is the truth!” Amen.

3. Unconfessed Sin

Prov. 28:13 – “He who covers his sins will not prosper. But whomever confesses and forsakes them, will have mercy.”
You may try desperately to succeed in life, and you may seek many things, but if there is covered, unforgiven sin in your life, you will not prosper.

In the lives of many, I suspect there are sins that have not been acknowledged, confessed and repented of. You’ve covered them up and hidden them away. Many people think that if they don’t confess their sins to God, He will never know about them. Well, God knows already and He is not asking you to confess in order to find out what you’ve done, He is asking you to confess because when you do that, He can help you. It’s for your good, it’s not for His information.

When you’ve told him the worst about yourself, you haven’t shocked Him, and you’ve told him things he already knew. You can tell God, and He is never embarrassed.

Let’s see if there is any unconfessed sin in our hearts. Confess any sin the Holy Spirit shows you.
The Bible says that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us.

If you confess your sins and ask forgiveness, you can go away as if they’ve never happened, for when God forgives our sins, He blots them out. He doesn’t hold them against us ever again.

Take a few moments, and ask Him, “Is there something, that I have done or said, maybe some years back, but if the Holy Spirit brings it to your remembrance, you response by saying, “God, I was wrong, I’m sorry, forgive me, cleanse me in the blood of Jesus.”

Say out loud, “thank you, thank you God, thank you for forgiving me, God. I receive your forgiveness.”

One more thing you may need to do. You may need to forgive yourself. Sometimes that’s the hard part.

Say this, “God, because you’ve forgiven me, I forgive myself.” Amen.

4. Unforgiveness – Attitude of unforgiveness to other people.

Mark 11:25 – “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in Heaven may also forgive you of your trespasses.”

This is when you are in the attitude of prayer, Jesus says, “before you start to prayer, check – is there anybody you have somebody against? ” Why does He say this? Because if you pray with any resentment and unforgiveness in your heart, that resentment and unforgiveness are a barrier to the answer to your prayer.

Jesus is saying that if you want a clear communication channel with God – an openness to receive what you pray for, then before you pray, if there’s anything in your heart against anyone (and that leaves out nothing and no one), forgive, then pray.

I want to tell you that forgiving is not an emotion, it’s a decision. It’s a decision of the will. I’ve explained to people that sometimes it’s like having IOUs from someone else. Forgiving is tearing up the IOUs.

Remember that God has a lot of IOUs to Him. God says, “you tear up your IOUs, and I’ll tear up mine”.

[00:24:22] Holy Spirit, we ask you now, in Jesus Name, speak to the heart of each one here. Show us if there are areas of bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness and make us willing to forgive.

The Holy Spirit may give you a specific name, or names, or a specific situation.

Pray This:

[00:25:02] Lord, if there has been any resentment in my heart, any unforgiveness, any bitterness, I renounce it now. I lay it down. If anyone has ever harmed me or wronged me, I forgive them now, as I would have God forgive me. Lord I forgive them, in Your Name, Lord Jesus, and I believe You forgive me. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus Name.

5. Occult Involvement

Fortune Telling, ouija boards, Horoscopes, Palm Reading, Horoscope reading, troll dolls, Sun God emblems, rock music, rabbit’s foot, voodoo dolls, or any of the innumerable ways in which superstition and satanic cults have invaded our contemporary culture. Those are invariably a barrier to healing.

Contemporary music, hard rock, and so on, is really satanic. It has demonic power, and if we have exposed ourselves to it, we could need deliverance from it.

Rock Music can open you up to demons.

Exodus 23:24 and following.
These are instructions from Moses, to the children of Israel, as to how they are to deal with the forms of religion before they came there. Moses warns them to have no part whatsoever in such satanic practices.

24 – “You shall not bow down to their Gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works. But you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. (In other words, there is to be no association with any of those kinds of occult practices.) So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one will suffer miscarriages or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.”

This is only for those that break totally from the occult.

Years back I was in a typical charismatic house ___. I found myself next to a young man, whom I found out had a Catholic background. As I was talking to him, I asked him if he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. He said, “yes, but”. Now, when anyone says “yes, but” to that question, you know what that means… “but, I don’t speak in tongues.” I asked him if he had ever been to a fortune teller. He said, “yes, once, when I was about 15, but I just did it as a joke, I didn’t believe in it.” He asked the boy if he would be willing to acknowledge to God that this was a sin and ask him to forgive you and release you from its consequences. He agreed, and I led him in a little, simple prayer, “Lord, I confess that I went to a fortune teller, I should not have done it, I realize it was a sin, I ask you to forgive me, and release me from its consequences, in Jesus’ Name.”

Then I put my hand on him, and prayed for him, and he spoke fluently in tongues.

[00:32:23] That was the invisible barrier.

This is how to renounce all occult involvement (approximately 50% of people in the auditorium need this). This is so subtle today. There are so many different ways. You can go into a souvenir shop, and pick up some little idol, and take it home as a little ornament.

[00:33:38] (Story of woman who picked up a sun god emblem in Mexico, and brought a curse upon herself.)
It puts you under a curse. The Bible says that if you bring an accursed thing into your home, you are accursed like the thing.

God has an intense hatred of idolatry. Let the Holy Spirit rest upon you. He can take you back 20 years, to something that happened.

[00:37:12] Pray This:

Lord, if I’ve ever been involved in the occult, even ignorantly, whatever it was, I confess it as a sin, and I renounce it. I ask you to forgive me, and I commit myself now, that never again, will I be involved with those things. Forgive me Lord, and release me from their influence, right now, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

6. Make No Covenant with Them, Nor with Their God

It is possible for people to enter into some kind of a covenant with people that have false Gods. If they would do that, you become involved in the guilt of those people, and their Gods. This may seem remote and abstract to you, but I’m going to specify one particular, common case.

Some of you may be offended, but I say this in love, because I know it to be true.

There is a very common covenant group, a secret society, which prevails throughout the English speaking world, which is Free Mason. If you are in involved in free masonry, you are under a curse. Not only you, but your family and your decendents.

Free Masonry is a false religious system.
[00:40:12] (More on free masonry)

There may be other similar organizations, secret societies, satanic organizations. There are many in the world today. If you are involved in any of those things, renounce them.

Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, I want to serve You and to love You. If there is, in my life, or in my family, the curse of free masonry or any other cult, I ask you to release me and forgive me and break its power over me, right now. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

7. The Effects of a Curse

Common indications of a curse over a person’s life or their family.
The good news is, Jesus was made a curse, that we might be redeemed from the curse, and receive a blessing. But most times, we need to renounce the cause of the curse, and claim the release.

1. Mental and Emotional Breakdown
2. Repeated and chronic sicknesses (especially hereditary)
3. Repeated miscarriages, barrenness or female problems (tumors disappear when the curse is lifted) (always treat this as a curse)[00:46:10]
4. Break down of marriage and family alienation. If a family has a history of marriages breaking up, and different branches of the family at war with one another, you can be almost sure, there’s a curse.
5. Continuing financial insufficiency (never get out of the poverty syndrome)
6. Accident prone
7. History of suicides or unnatural deaths

When I try to describe what a curse is like, I say it’s like a dark shadow from the past, that just always seems to hover over you. Or it’s like a hand that reaches out, and every time you’re about to make it and succeed, it trips you up. If I were to choose one key word, the word would be frustration. I’ve dealt with many people who had all the qualifications for success and time and time again, they were on the verge of success, and something went wrong. That’s a curse.

Take a moment to think back over your life, and consider if it has the marks that I’m describing.

<span style=”background-color: #FFFF00″>Thank you, Lord Jesus, that on the cross, you were made a curse, that I might be redeemed from the cruse, and enter into the blessing. And because of what you did, tonight, Lord Jesus, in Your precious Name, I release myself, from every curse over me and my family, and I claim the blessing that you’ve purchased for me with your blood. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Give Him a little praise. Hallelujah, glory to God.</span>

There’s one other thing you need to be aware of. When we come to pray for the sick, sometimes sicknesses are caused by or associated with the presence of evil spirits and the ministry of healing frequently includes the ministry of driving out evil spirits. It isn’t done in some churches, but Jesus did it.

Luke 4:40, 41 – “Now when the sun was setting, all those who had anyone sick with various diseases, brought them to Him, and He laid his hands on every one of them and healed them, and demons, or evil spirits, came out of many, crying out.”

When the supernatural power of God comes into operation, evil spirits can’t stand it any longer. They have to come out.

There are two different main ways in which evil spirits are associated with sickness. (Derek goes on to describe one, but does not describe the other – it probably slipped his mind before he started praying for those needing healing.)

1. Evil spirits can be direct causes of sickness.
There are spirits of infirmity, of pain, of crippling and of death (to name only 4 that we deal with commonly). For instance, many people who have some kind of spinal curvature, or deformity of the spine, that is caused by a crippling spirit, and for that person to receive full release, it is necessary for that crippling spirit to be driven out.

Jesus encountered a woman who as bent over, double, and couldn’t stand up straight. He didn’t treat it as a physical sickness. He said, “this woman has been bound by a spirit of infirmity 80 years. He loosed her from the spirit, and she immediately straightened up.

We have dealt with all these, many times. The way the spirit of death works, it causes a person to be infirmed and weakly and ultimately, to die untimely. Such a person, somehow tends to have a morbid outlook on life. They will tend to look on the dark side of things. They may tend to wear dark clothes. There is something morbid about them. I’ve had to say to several young ladies, “I suggest, you don’t wear black any longer.” You may think this is strange, but there is an association between the two. I’m not saying people should never wear black, but for some people, for whom it is not altogether wise to wear black.

Ruth and I have probably dealt with hundreds of cases of people who need deliverance from the spirit of death. We’ve discovered, as always, that the right thing to do is replace the negative with the positive. One way the spirit of death comes in, is that you get discouraged, disheartened, oppressed, and you say, “I might as well be dead” or “I wish I were dead, what’s the good of living?” When you say that, it’s an invitation to the spirit of death to come in and take over, and it doesn’t need many invitations.

Psalm 118:17 – I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord. That’s a positive declaration. Say this out loud like you mean it.

Say, “I’m not going to lie down under the devil. I’m not going to let him trample over my emotions and my attitudes.”

Praise You, Lord Jesus – Glory to your Name, glory to Your Name. Victory, victory, victory, through the blood of the Lamb. Amen, Amen, Amen. Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord Jesus. Hallelujah! You’re so good.

Mark 16:17 – “These signs shallow follow them that believe. In My Name, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

[00:58:16] Keep thanking God until the healing is completed – that’s how you keep the plug into God’s power outlet.

Jesus says they shall recover, but he doesn’t say how long it will take. Sometimes it’s instantaneous, praise God, but not always.

Some of you will be instantaneously healed – some of you will get healing that begins. If it begins, keep your plug in. If you say, when you walk out the door, “I didn’t get healed, and nothing happened.” then you’ve pulled the plug out and nothing more will happen after that.

If you say, “they laid hands on me, God touched me, I’m going to keep thanking him until it’s complete,” it will be complete.

Derek Prince Ministries