Psychics vs. Faith Healers: Sharing Perspectives

Background Info: After seeing a social media post that stated: “You don’t see faith healers working in hospitals for the same reason you don’t see psychics winning the lottery,” I wrote a comment in return (from my ministry page). I have shared my original comment below for transparency’s sake. I was then asked to defend my comment with scriptural references. That is where this blog post originated. The additional explanation was far too long to reply in a post, so I have opted to share it here. Many blessing for a beautiful and blessed day!

Original post: “You don’t see faith healers working in hospitals for the same reason you don’t see psychics winning the lottery.”

My response: Respectfully, I disagree. Psychics are tapping into the spiritual power of darkness, the enemy. The enemy does not have the ability to tell the future, therefore their power can only extend so far. Our God is the God of miracles, making the impossible possible, and He is without limits except those which we place on Him with our unbelief, essentially creating a box around our theology and faith that we live within – but it doesn’t make it the truth. A relationship with the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to understand the shortcomings of this statement about faith healers. God – and how He moves – was not meant to be dissected and rationalized with our limited human mind. He is meant to be encountered, experienced, and lived through. The Bible even states that those who do not have a relationship with the Holy Spirit will reject the revelations of His heart. There are a few theological misses in this post – First, I have seen many “faith healers” visit hospitals and I can tell you firsthand – miracles still happen today. But, the Holy Spirit leads and the healing is not by the power of the one who lays their hands on the person, but by the God who works through them. So, relationship is key – both to expanding the boundaries we have placed on God in our own faith and theology and the revelations made available to us this side of Heaven. Many blessings on your journey!

Expanded version of my original response (with scriptural references):

Please hear my heart: What a beautiful truth that you and I will both leave this world behind someday and join one another in Heaven with Jesus! I realize that our disagreements make us feel so different right now, but the eternal truth is that one day we will celebrate together… and that is so important for us to recognize! We are on the same winning team! In Heaven, there will be no denominations, nobody that “got it all right,” and nobody that is loved any more than another by Him. We will all join hands and celebrate as ONE BODY. May we create on Earth as it is in Heaven. Therefore, everything I share here is with love and blessing. If we disagree, it’s okay. My goal is not to prove I am right. My goal is to share my insights and invite you into another perspective and maybe even further a discussion. And then, I pray the Holy Spirit continually illuminate and reveal God’s heart more and more to each of us in the process.

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Most verses referenced are NLT, although I have used some other translations here and there. As per your request, I have broken down the comment piece by piece to give an expanded explanation with scripture references.

My Statement – “Respectfully, I disagree. Psychics are tapping into the spiritual power of darkness, the enemy. The enemy does not have the ability to tell the future, therefore their power can only extend so far.”

I think we can all agree that psychics aren’t tapping into God’s power because every psychic I’ve ever met – especially one that goes by that title – has not been a believer of Jesus Christ, nor confesses to be a daughter of God. In fact, most of them will tell you they know that their “works” are of the dark kind. And the Bible says that there are only two spiritual forces operating in this world today – The Spirit of God and that of darkness (mentioned in Ephesians 6:12), falling under the authority of Satan. Now, we could deep dive into what “power” Satan has, but that would be a whole different discussion. I put the word in quotations marks because we need to understand this ONE VERY important truth – Satan is defeated and, as a child of God, He is powerless in my life, except if I give him power by coming into agreement with his lies (which make no mistake – can, and does, happen to Christians, as well).

But, moving on…

As we know, the power of darkness can be found operating anywhere (within the church and outside the church), which is why we must be able to tell the difference in our walk with God. This goes into the deeper question of discernment, which is of – and through – the Holy Spirit and made possible when we have a relationship with Him. A couple of my reference points here would be 1 John chapter 4, which gives us several ways to test a spirit to see if it’s the Spirit of Truth (Holy Spirit) or the spirit of deception. This confirms that some spirits are of God and others are of the enemy. Rhema is an important, and often overlooked, part of Biblical interpretation –

Ephesians 6:17 – “…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (rhema) of God.”

Matthew 4:4 – “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Romans 10:17 – “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word (rhema) of God.”

Rhema is different than Logos. Where logos is the written word of God, in the original text, Rhema was specifically used to mean an utterance – personal – breathed upon – spoken word of God revealed to a person << through the Holy Spirit.

Because of this distinction, it’s important to see that sometimes the use of “Word” references the written word, but at other times, it actually references the Holy Spirit breathing on the Word to give personal application or illumination (or revelation).

Charismatic Christian culture believes that we have been given the Holy Spirit so that we may know the heart of God as He speaks to us personally and individually. I’ll go into this a bit later, but how incredible is it that the God who created the stars, mountains, moon, and earth wants to personally speak to us and reveal His heart! (Scriptural references are available further down for this statement.)

This is THE truly life-changing part. God is a living God and He wants a personal relationship with me. He doesn’t want me to just know who He is. He wants me to know Him. And that relationship changes your entire life!

So what did I mean by illumination? I’ll share that a bit later. Hang in there.

Before I leave this point, John 16:13 says, “When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” We can rest in the fact that since the Spirit of God lives within us, truth is always made available to us as children of God. Truth gives us discernment.

We do not have to fear false prophets when we have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. He will reveal truth to us. We will walk with discernment. We will walk with the Spirit of Truth. What could be more peaceful than resting in the guidance and direction of the incredible God we serve? We don’t have to be the judge and jury. We just trust Him with it all. But this is key – personal relationship is the only way we can grow in sensitivity to His direction and nudges. We must become familiar with Him through the pursuit of a personal relationship with Him. And through our relationship with Him, we are invited to walk in a truth and wisdom that supersedes the natural – and natural things.

Satan will use any place he can to insert himself and lead God’s people down the wrong road. Satan cannot, however, possess God’s omniscience. He is described as wise, crafty, and observant. He can study human behavior, hear conversations, and use deception to mislead. This can give the impression that he “sees” the future, but it is based on inference, manipulation, and observation, not divine foreknowledge. I am just connecting dots here. Only God is all-knowing. He is the King of Kings, the Creator of all, and the One who is above all. Therefore “power of darkness” cannot equal the power of our God!

Whew! Amen!

My Statement – “Our God is the God of miracles, making the impossible possible and He is without limits except those which we place on Him with our unbelief, essentially creating a box around our theology and faith that we live within – but it doesn’t make it the truth.”

Matthew 20:26 – But with God, everything is possible. NLT

I also love the Passion Translation’s interpretation of that scripture – But what seems impossible to you is never impossible to God!

John 14:12  – I tell you that truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father!”

Nothing is impossible with God! – Luke 1:37

Matthew 21:21 Jesus to His disciples – “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, ‘may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. You can pray for anything and if you have faith, you will receive it.’

Passion Translation – “If you do not doubt God’s power and speak out of faith’s fullness, you can also speak to a tree and it will wither away…. Everything you pray for with the fullness of faith, you will receive.”

^^ These verses are part of why I prefaced this explanation by asking if you believe that healings still take place today (which you termed cessationism vs continuationism). Because if we believe differently, we will likely view most of these verses through a completely different set of lenses. This is where I would like to further explain my claim about our own individual boxes (PS: We all have them!) –

Our lenses, our belief system, our interpretations, create an often-unrecognized box around what we believe God still does today, how He moves, who He is (His character), and who we are in Him. And our faith to pray for something and believe for it follows this structured belief system that we hold onto tightly. Again, we all have one. Therefore, if we believe that He does not still empower “anyone who believes in him” to do the same works as he did (healings, miracles, etc) then it literally creates limits on what we ask God for in our lives and, what we pray when we pray over others. It also limits what we are willing to learn – and unlearn, which is important, too.

It creates boxes that we live within, but God is not limited to.

And sometimes, we build walls around how we believe God works and in doing so, we can completely miss what He is still doing today!

God is always bigger than our theology.

I once heard a pastor say that if we believe we have God all figured out, we are probably practicing religion, not relationship, because God – and the ways of His Kingdom – are far too big for us to wrap our minds around this side of Heaven. We can only hope to continually grow in revelation, understanding, and intimacy.

Sometimes we have to let our faith stretch far enough to just ask Him the question instead of trying to defend our own side – God, do you still do miracles today? And wait for the Holy Spirit to answer.

My Statement – “A relationship with the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to understand the shortcomings of this statement about faith healers. God – and how He moves – was not meant to be dissected and rationalized with our limited human mind. He is meant to be encountered, experienced, and lived through.”

Even if we believe that God still empowers anyone who believes in Him to do these same miracles and even more, it does not mean we will always understand the when, where, how or the biggest (and often hardest) one… why. That is God’s business. We are not to dictate where God leads us any more than any of those He sends (or sent in the past)… We are to follow, obediently, and lean not on our own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5) Jesus did everything in sync with the will and direction of the Father (John 5:19, 8:28, and 14:10). We are instructed to do the same, with the Spirit of God within us as a guide in all things:

In 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, Paul says that the Holy Spirit empowers him with wisdom from God. He says God revealed things to him by His Spirit (verse 10). “For His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths… we understand these things for we have the mind of Christ.”

We have received God’s Spirit! << What a beautiful invitation to every single one of us believers. God will send His Spirit to make His home in us and reveal the Father’s heart, discernment, guidance, wisdom, direction, and so much more! The fruits of the Spirit are incredible byproducts of our life with God when we choose to invite His Spirit to dwell within us.

“But the one who joins himself to the Lord is mingled into one spirit with him.” – 1 Corinthians 6:17

In 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, Paul speaks of the fact that our human mind is limited in understanding. We could never dissect how and why God works the way He works within the restrictions of our limited natural mind. But through faith, relationship, and the Spirit, we’ve been given access to wisdom that goes beyond the natural. It’s supernatural. And as we grow into a deeper relationship with Him, we are continually invited into more illumination of the word and revelation of the Spirit. For if we have invited the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, we have access to not just our own wisdom, but God’s wisdom, discernment, guidance, and direction.

You have been given a teachable heart to perceive the secret, hidden mysteries of God’s kingdom realm. Luke 8:10 TPT

My Statement – “The Bible even states that those who do not have a relationship with the Holy Spirit will reject the revelations of His heart.”

1 Corinthians, chapter 2 (as mentioned above) speaks to the wisdom that comes through the Holy Spirit. Verse 14: “People who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.”

Just prior to this, Paul was saying that the words given to him were given by the Spirit. He also says, “we have received God’s Spirit.” In John, chapter 14, we see Jesus saying:

“I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. (post crucifixion)” John 14

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. If we are operating only in the physical world, within the boundaries of our very natural mind and reasoning, we will not understand revelations of the Spirit of Truth (Holy Spirit). Further, if we are not looking for Him and asking Him to breathe upon our understanding of scripture, we can easily misunderstand, misconstrue, misrepresent, or misuse verses or applications. A relationship with the Holy Spirit is the key to understanding truth in all things of God’s heart.

Denominations – and even those within the same denomination – usually have major differences in how they interpret scripture. I would dare to say that Satan probably knows the Bible better than us and has studied how to manipulate it to deceive us. God knows that when you put all that stuff together, it’s a lot of variables and can get confusing and misleading. So, how does He keep us safe from misinterpretation, deception, and untruths?

He has given us the Holy Spirit as our source of truth in all revelations between the pages of Genesis and Revelations. Apart from His Presence in our lives, we are vulnerable to falling into the twisted gospels that are spoken of all throughout the New Testament. We have access to God’s truths through our relationship with Him, the Spirit of Truth (Holy Spirit), not through our own understanding.

This is why I always try to be a student of the Holy Spirit first. A student is not the teacher, nor claims to know all that the teacher knows. They sit at the feet of THE Teacher and seek to learn and understand. Sometimes this includes unlearning something that we first learned wrong. And that’s okay, too. If we really have the heart of a student, we want to carry what is truly in God’s heart – not what makes us right. At least that’s how I seek to grow in all things.

My Statement – “There are a few theological misses in this post – First, I have seen many “faith healers” visit hospitals and I can tell you firsthand – miracles still happen today. But, the Holy Spirit leads and the healing is not by the power of the one who lays their hands on the person, but by the God who works through them.”

(Much of the Biblical reference points for this part have been stated earlier.)

This part of the topic needs to address how we define “faith healers.” Anyone who places their hand on someone and prays for healing is tapping into their faith in God to provide a miracle – therefore they would be defined as a faith healer. (See earlier verses about the Biblical relationship between faith and miracles).

Now the question came up as to whether someone can be called in this area of ministry, specifically. Well, I will not defend any one specific person because that’s not my place, but this is the way I see it –

If someone in ministry believes in God’s ability to move in the miraculous enough to put their hands on someone and pray for them – and God heals that person – then the faith of the person praying grows.

Now, they go and put their hands on 5 more people – and what if God heals several (or all) of them? Their faith grows even more.

Now they go lay their hands on 50 people and pray for them.

At what point do they become a “faith healer?” The first time they prayed in faith for someone to be healed? Or when they start attracting crowds because people are hearing about the healings that are taking place? I don’t know. I guess that’s up to each person’s definition.

But one truth remains: What is happening in these miraculous healings is of God’s power – not theirs – as God works through them. However, each time God shows up and people are healed, their faith grows and grows.

Note here that just because we see few people doing this is not a matter of being called or not called to be a “faith healer.” << It’s a matter of God using a vessel that is willing to step into a space that few are willing to go. God grows our faith the more we are willing to step into the deep waters and walk into things that are impossible apart from His Presence. If we stay in what is comfortable, known, and without risk, we aren’t truly asking God to move us in the miraculous. Just look at Peter. A man cannot walk on water, but Peter asked Jesus to call Him out onto the water and Peter walked on water. The more we are willing to trust God in the things that we cannot manufacture ourselves, the more God will use that willing vessel to do great work in – and through – him or her.

Pretty soon, that same person from above may be putting their hands on 100 people in one night and praying. And word may spread that this person prays for miracles. And crowds gather, as a result. The question then becomes –

Where is this rooted? How do we know if it’s fake? Well –

If the person is in relationship with the Holy Spirit, it is:

Directed by the Father.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit.

And walked out in faith by the Person.

Which is entirely Biblical.

But if we are in relationship with the Holy Spirit, He will give us discernment over whether this is of His Spirit or the spirit of deception. Each case will be different.

Lumping all “faith healers” together is dangerous because although there is always potential for the spirit of deception to try to deceive God’s children into following the wrong person, there is also the Spirit of God who is moving through His children still today.

And the Spirit of Truth knows the difference between the two and can reveal it to us.

Now, whether you believe me or not is up to you, but regardless of if we define “faith healers” as anyone who puts their hands on someone and prays in faith for a healing – or as those that have prayed for 100 people or more – I have seen both visit hospitals, or work in medical care areas, and I have seen both have accounts of incredible miracles.

But again, it’s always led by the Holy Spirit and the power of the miraculous comes through the Holy Spirit. We are but a willing vessel, following God’s lead and submitting to His direction.

Before we can open the door to seeing such things happen around us, we must be willing to expand our belief to create space for the question: God, do you still do miracles? And then allow Him to stretch what we “know” beyond the box we have built; to include all the mysteries of Heaven that we haven’t yet experienced but are invited into.

Is it possible that we have limited how we see God move simply because we don’t believe and therefore we haven’t asked?

Just ask Him. God is so good and faithful to teach us with love, grace, patience, and joy.

“So, relationship is key – both to expanding the boundaries we have placed on God in our own faith and theology and the revelations made available to us this side of Heaven. Many blessings on your journey!”

I truly pray over this message to you, friend. May it be covered in grace and leave you blessed, even if we disagree. God is a loving God and we are called to be loving to one another. May His Glory surround you today and always!

Much love – Shannon Singh

Shannon Singh Ministries