Is it not true that Jesus was sinless? certainly. Are you sinless? Hardly! So there were no obstacles to flow of power of Holy Spirit through him. There ARE obstacles in us. These come from sin and sin comes from selfishness. So we need to concentrate our efforts on eliminating latter. Greater success will follow, albiet as a long term achiement.

3. Lack Of Attention To Basic Problems In The Sufferer Do you know person you are praying with? Sometimes, of course, we know people very well. We need to make explicit use of that knowledge to isolate any possible abstacles to healing.

What is their expectation of healing going to be? Have they any experience of being prayed with? Do they remain still and receive or insist on praying as well? Are there any serious ares of sin in their lives of which you are aware which could constitute an obstacle to sin? (But be very careful how you approach these).

In some situations we may not know person at all. When we are praying with people at public Christian meetings, days of renewal, conference and like, we may often find ourselves ministering to strangers. Follow any information path which seems to be of possible relevance. There are often reasons for nonhealing tucked away in peoples lives.

4. Lack Of Proper Diagnosis Would you be worried if your doctor began proscibing medicine at your next visit without asking about problem or investigating its causes? We also need to investigate possible causes. One of most common reasons for nonhealing lies with a failure to conduct a proper investigation into person's problem.

Do not feel that you have to get straight into praying bit. Take your time and don't let anyone hurry you unnecessarily.

5. Expecting God To Work Instead Of Ourselves Who accomplishes healing? God, of course. But does he choose to do it independently of us? Obviously so in some cases. But often he does not - or why do we bother praying with people for healing? If we are in healing ministry he expects us to do that share of work which he has entrusted to us. If we skimp on it, if we do not do all that we can if, in short, we fail to love our fellows, then we are at fault and healing will often not occur.

We need to do all we can, as part of our ministry, to ensure that healing happens. Always ask "why" when it does not. If there is no obvious reason lodging with person being prayed with, perhapsthere is a fault which lies with us. If we examine ourselves in this way, we may learn something new for next time.

Yet we do not have to be in difficulties before we can turn to Holy Spirit for assistance. The example of Jesus is that we should seek Spirit's guidance at every turn of our lives.

Starting Small On whole, what we see of Jesus in gospels is his handling of big things in his life. Yet letter to Hebrews tell us in chapter 5.7 - 8 that, through his prayer, Jesus learned to submit to Father's will. In fact, his obedience came only through suffering.

We suffer whenever we have to bend our own will to that of someone else. We seem to have an inbuilt desire to do our own thing. And that is something world encourages in us. Just take notice to a few TV adverts to see that.

Now, where other people are concerned, we can often argue that we know as well as they do. But where God is concerned we can never say that. Got always knows best - and even more, God's love for us is so pure that he never acts except in our best interest. Hence we can never do better for ourselves than to do what God wants us to do!!!

It's not always easy to hear God. In fact, there are two general situations. The first is when God speaks, as it were, without prompting. He just says something - and there is always something about that which marks it out from usual kind of thoughts. Secondly, there are those times when we are asking God about something. Then it can be more difficult to hear him. If you meditate regularly on Scripture, you will soon get used to discerning his communications. (This is discussed at some length in my book "The Keys To Christian Mediation", but is rather too involved to detail in a short article)

If we have not tried to discern God's will for us on a daily basis, we should start small. Ask him about small things first: if forthcoming weekend is free, ask how to spend it; if thinking about buying a book, ask Spirit whether or not you should - or which one, if there are alternatives. Small things like this.

Leave bigger things until some experience has been gained. But objective is to gradually bring whole of one's life under domain of Spirit. Then he lead our life. We do not lead it ourselves. And it is all better for that!