Today I want to release to you three prayers that I believe you can pray before you sleep that can invite healing to your body overnight. These prayers will alleviate anxiety and fear, take you out of fear, and put you in a position of faith so you can speak in the name of Jesus and see miracles happen.
The Prayer of Thankfulness and Philippians 4
The first one comes from Philippians chapter 4. Here’s what it says: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything—that would include sickness and disease, that would include seeking healing, in everything, all things, everything.
So healing can come under this bracket because it is under the bracket of the everything. All things that I face as a Christian, in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
That is the prayer. That is the position that sets me up as a Christian before I sleep, so I can operate in peace: I go to the Lord in prayer in everything.
And then there’s this key part. See, a lot of times we go to prayer, but we miss out on this part. People are praying about all sorts of stuff, but what they aren’t doing is supplementing that prayer with thanksgiving.
The Power of Thanksgiving Before Sleep
Thanksgiving, I find, for me, is one of the most powerful keys. See, I go to prayer, but I go to prayer out of a position of thankfulness for who he is and what he’s done.
And that is the prayer that’s going to drive me into peace because what I’m doing is, rather than trying to get God to do something—and that’s what we never do, I’m never trying to convince him to do something, or very rarely am I—instead, what I want to do is I look to the word and I look to the promise, and through thankfulness, I see ahead.
I see ahead to what’s coming. And then I thank him for what is coming, and I thank him for what he’s done through the cross of Jesus Christ.
I thank him for what he’s provided. And what it’s going to do is that if anxiety and fear can spiral you down to the place of despair, where, how can I even believe God for healing? How can I even believe that he paid for it?—that thankfulness based on the promise that’s supplicated with my prayer, my communion with him…
And think of prayer not as me sending a letter to God, but think of prayer as a communion with the Holy Spirit. I’m communing with my friend. He’s in the room.
Acknowledge God’s Presence
He’s your friend, and he’s in the room. You are not praying to him in heaven. This is going to deliver you: You are not praying to him in heaven; you are in heaven with him.
And here’s what I mean by that. The Bible says you’re seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And it says he lives in you.
You are not trying to persuade him. You are not trying to contact him. You are not calling someone on the phone and waiting for him to answer.
When you pray, you are speaking to your friend that is right there with you. So, you’re looking them in the eye, and you’re being thankful for what they’ve done, what he’s done—your friend who is in you and in your room before you sleep. He’s already there.
Acknowledge him. That’s what that prayer of thankfulness does: it’s acknowledging the Holy Spirit in the room.
So, guess what? You’re never going to bed defeated. You’re never going to bed under the feet of the devil. You’re never going to bed bound. You are absolutely not.
He’s with you. He’s your friend. He’s here. You’re talking with your friend. What does the devil matter? What do the sickness and pain you face matter? You’re talking to your friend. Ask your friend.
A Prayer of Thankfulness for Healing
Start with your thankfulness and watch yourself come out. Start with the list of the promises. Acknowledge that God is in the room.
Practice that presence:
Lord, you are here. You are present. You are in my room. And you are my friend. And you’ve paid the price for my healing. And I thank you for it. I thank you that that price has been paid, and by your stripes I’m healed.
Holy Spirit, thank you. The power is in me to heal me, deliver me, set me free, rescue me from the grave, and this is under my feet already.
You start doing those things before you sleep. Oh man, that devil’s not going to get access to you anymore. Not to this, not to that mind.
That’s why that peace of God guards you. You all of a sudden reset, and then all of a sudden that peace—that’s what it means in the Greek, it’s peace in every area—that peace comes and reigns in your soul, and it keeps you safe.
He loves you so much, because you see it in thankfulness as you pray and talk to your friend who is in the room with you in thankfulness.
The Power of Worship in Battle
Now the next thing you do is you pray, and you talk, but then you worship. This comes from 2 Chronicles. And in 2 Chronicles, Jehoshaphat is going to war against three armies, and they don’t know what to do. Israel right now doesn’t know what to do. They seek the Lord.
And then here’s what it says: Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Believe in his prophets, and you will succeed.
It is a very strong word. But then how do I reach that level of faith? See, believing is action, but believing is also worship.
Worship as an Expression of Faith
After having consulted his people, he assigned those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him to go in front of the army in holy clothing and said, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Notice they want to believe. And so what does believing look like? It looks like putting your worship first. It’s going to battle with worship.
So when I’m in the moment in the fight, and I’m in thankfulness with my friend in the room, I go to worship. I go to praise. I’m thanking him.
And that’s the power of warfare. But it’s also the power of belief. It’s going to yank you out of that place of doubt and unbelief and pain.
And I know that people are watching this, and this sounds wild and crazy because you’re in so much pain and you don’t know what to do. You lay in that bed, and you try your best.
You lift your hand, and you start to worship, and you start to thank, and you let the tears roll down your face because of who he is and what he’s like for you.
Worship and the Presence of God
And so they worship and notice this: as they’re worshiping and praising and they’re giving thanks, it’s all connected.
Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever. That’s their worship, by the way.
It is for this reason that he concludes, “And when they began to sing and give praises, the Lord took up an ambush against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who were fighting against Judah, and they were defeated.”
I heard one pastor say it like this: they went to praise, and they showed up in the battle, and all they found was dead soldiers.
There is something wildly transformational about the experience of his tangible presence as you worship. Get into that place with the Lord of tangible worship and focus on him. Let his presence permeate the room with you in the pain that you face.
In my opinion, there’s something utterly and incredibly powerful in that when the devil has poured all his力量 into you during the time you’re facing difficulties and striving towards your goals, the only response that comes from your soul is worship.
For the devil cannot keep you down or defeat you; he is already at your feet. The Bible states that the God you serve will soon crush Satan under—not under Jesus’s feet, not under his feet—under your feet, under the feet of the church.
Under your feet is where God wants to have Satan placed, and that applies to sickness and disease too.
Thankfulness, Worship, and Healing
Because you know, Peter would tell us and show us in Acts 10:38 that Jesus went around healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
That sickness is an oppression of the devil, and it’s got to go. And so we go into the place of thankfulness.
We let that go into worship. We are worshipping the one who is already in the room with you, your friend; His name is Jesus, and he has not left you nor has he abandoned you, nor will he ever do so.
That is why peace comes to you when you go to sleep.
Speaking to Your Body and the Prayer of Command
And then what do we do next? Here’s the big clincher, and I believe this is where it all comes together. And it comes from Acts chapter 3.
I want you to look at how Peter talks to this lame beggar.
Oh man, I love Peter’s remarks that what I have I give to you. I would like to let you know today that the thing that Peter had that healed that lame beggar, you have.
His name is the Holy Spirit, and his name is that power. The power of the Holy Spirit- God lives in you. He’s with you. What you have, you can give away.
Speak to the Affliction
So what did he do to give it away? He spoke to the affliction and told it to go.
This is what I tell people all the time; we’ve talked about it a lot: Never beg God for your healing. That is the key.
So you’re in the place of thankfulness, worship, and then start speaking to your body and tell it, in the name of Jesus, be healed!
In the name of Jesus, cancer, you shrivel up and die. You get out of my body in the name of Jesus! Headache, you go, and you don’t come back! Or back pain, you leave! I command you, go in the name of Jesus!
You start speaking.
Take Action in Faith
And then what do you do after that? After you speak to your body, what do you do?
Get up and walk. Try and do something you couldn’t do, and you just keep praising, and you just keep worshiping as you’re speaking to your body and telling it to be healed in the name of Jesus.
Understanding the Prayer of Command
Now, I also understand that understanding the power and authority that we have as a Christian and the impact that it can have through the prayer of command is so crucial when it comes to healing.
If you don’t understand that, I would encourage you to watch this video here, where I dive deep into the prayer of command and how it can be effective in seeing healing in our own bodies.
I believe it’s going to bring powerful deliverance to your life as you seek healing in him. God bless you, and I’ll see you over there.
