What we are dealing with here is the question of what to think about miracles and healings, for Christians today, particularly in light of how we deal with failures and disappointments in this area.

In brief, a lot of churches believe these things have ceased since the first Apostles died, believing that their purpose was to establish the Gospel, and once that was done, it was not needed any more. That's cessationism, as in cease-ing-ism. As a charismatic blog, I won't deal with this in any detail.

Presumptionism is my word for what the Word of Faith Pentecostals believe (not all Pentecostals are Word of Faith). This is that God always wants to heal and deliver people from demons. This stems from a belief that Jesus wanted his disciples to do what he did, and gave them power for it, and there's no indication that that would stop. It also is backed up by regular occurrences of healings and deliverances. But it goes one step further and argues that we should expect everyone to get healed and delivered.

Let me introduce a summary table and then briefly explain it.

Now, straight away a presumptionist will question why I added "confusion and sorrow" to their experience. This is an important point because it signals to us the main reason why we need a different way of explaining the healings and deliverances that occur—and when it doesn't. This is key: how does one explain when healings and other miracles don't occur?

The presumptionist will generally explain a lack of healing one of four ways:

1. The person praying or the person being prayed for didn't have enough faith

2. The person being prayed for has unconfessed sin

3. The person praying didn't do it right (didn't fast, didn't say the right things, didn't have the right technique)

4. The devil or demons did it

Now, we could get into why this is so from Scripture—and there are some good verses to back this up, although there are counter-examples that need to be addressed. But, I think I need to only illustrate what happens for a lot of people under this type of ministry.

There are a few situations that appear again and again:

In relation to a lack of faith, a person full of faith prays and gets others to pray for their adversity, and they don't get healed. This can happen for years. They wonder if they don't have enough faith.

In relation to sin, a person full of faith, with no clear sin identified, is told they must have unconfessed sin: they are the problem they're not getting healed. This unfounded accusation is itself a fruit of the father of lies and can cause untold devastation and relational schism. Michael L. Brown reminds us this was the erroneous accusation of Job's friends, who were rebuked by God.Michael Brown, Christian Post, 19/09/2017, https://www.christianpost.com/news/why-does-god-heal-some-people-but-not-others.html

In relation to technique, a person prays for others and they don't see healings or breakthroughs until finally it happens a few times. They interpret this newfound success as divine sanction on what they did those times, and teach that as a methodology to copy. As time progresses, others may or may not get it to 'work', and even the original person appears to lose the anointing (or dies from a disease).

In relation to the demonic, Michael L. Brown tells of a faithful and vibrant evangelist Nabeel Qureshi, who died of cancer quite young. Many faithful people "prayed for his healing and rebuked the devil". Yet Nabeel placed his hands in God's protective hands, so to say that the devil did it means that the devil has so much power that he can get in through God to you.Michael Brown (see above). Do you really believe that? Holding onto a God who promises to protect us and yet telling them that the devil is breaching that protection is a tough pill to swallow. It can even make people believe that they've lost their salvation or God doesn't love them anymore.

This is the confusion and sorrow that presumptionism needlessly creates. It's needless, because there is a better way of understanding what is happening, and why healings and breakthroughs of any kind sometimes work and sometimes don't.