I get prayer requests to pray for someone to be healed that I don’t know. I always try to discover something about the individual’s spiritual life before I pray. Sometimes I find the individual has been long in rebellion against God. Now, and in a possibly terminal condition, he or she still had not repented. In other cases, it is a professing Christian that promotes heresy.

Should we ask God to heal such a person or deliver them from serious troubles? Or should we concentrate our praying for His Word and the Holy Spirit to convict them? Or both?

First, healing is one of God’s benefits that is promised to His people only. We should never tell people that if they surrender to God, He will heal them. He does not make such a bargain. That does not mean God will never heal a rebellious individual. His ways are past finding out. I do not pray for unregenerate people to be healed unless I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to do so. Most of the time I pray they will come to a deep and piercing knowledge of Christ and God, repent, and then be healed. Sometimes, they were saved and healed. In other cases, they remained rebellious until it was obvious they would not recover. I have been with a few that repented practically in their last breath.

As for the latter, it appears some of them so disliked the thought of being a Christian that they waited until they only had to give God a few minutes or even seconds of their lives before entering eternity. I confess I do not know if that is sincere repentance or hedging a bet. In other words, they were repenting just in case God was real. If someone resists Him in such dire circumstances, and only yields in their dying moments, can that be called genuine repentance?

We may never know the answer to that question because God makes all decisions based on the individual, not on a general rule applicable to all no matter what the circumstances.

An example was a woman that had been a church troublemaker for decades. She caused the rejection and dismissal of several pastors and was likely a major reason the church had not been productive in decades. She had already started her campaign against me, but people were not responding.

Not long afterward, her doctor diagnosed her with cancer. It quickly spread throughout her body. I was with her and sat in the hospital with her sister and brother-in-law as she struggled to live. Several times it was about waiting all night or day while she clung tenaciously to life. The doctor told us he had no clue how she was remaining alive.

I went to see her one evening, prepared to spend another night when the Holy Spirit revealed to me why she was clinging so powerfully to life. She knew her life of causing trouble among God’s people was going to be judged. She had repented months ago and repented many times since but had no peace or hope that God had forgiven her.

I knew at that moment that God had forgiven her. There were reasons she has been such a thorn in the church, and God measures everything according to His grace and love. I bent down and told her softly that God had reached out His hand. What the phrase I do not know. I said that He had forgiven her, and she should not fear. Tears rolled down the sides of her face as she struggled to stretch up her hands. Her hands fell back to the bed, and she entered eternity.

People could ask several theological questions that I have no answer for. What I know beyond any doubt is that we should always pray according to God’s will as the Holy Spirit reveals it. We should never give up on people as long as there is hope. While it may seem that some people deserve hell, that is not our judgment to make. Our responsibility is to obey the law of love for people’s souls.

On a final note, I visited an old man on his deathbed. I had never met him before, but his son was in our church group. I talked to him about redemption and asked if he understood. He said “yes,” so I asked him if he wanted to give his life to God now. He said that he might do so in the future. I said, “Richard, considering the circumstances, don’t you think that this is good a time to do that?”

He opened his heart to God, and I never witnessed someone so quickly change from darkness to light. He wept and said repeatedly, “I will never forget the day God reached down and saved my old soul.”

Miraculously, he fully recovered and lived several more years. Many times he would say to people with tears, “I will never forget the day God reached down and saved my old soul.” I was with him when he died. With both hands raised he said, “I will never forget the day God reached down and saved my old soul,” and breathed his last breath. I believe that his testimony convinced his wife to surrender her life to God after he died.

Beloved friend of God, please pray for the lost. If there is any praying more important, I do not know of it. Don’t give up hope of reaching them. This decrepit world is sinking like the Titanic. One day, perhaps on our deathbeds, we will look back. Of all our accomplishments, of all that made us happy, and that brought enjoyment or a sense of accomplishment into our lives, being a light to the lost will be the one thing that we will cherish the most.