Following

God’s Plan For Your Life

Kenneth E. Hagin

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations in this volume are from
the King James Version of the Bible.
Electronic Edition Published 2011.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60616-745-8
ISBN-10: 1-60616-745-6
Copyright © 1993 RHEMA Bible Church AKA Kenneth Hagin Ministries,
Inc.
All Rights Reserved Electronic Edition Published 2011.
The Faith Shield is a trademark of RHEMA Bible Church, AKA Kenneth
Hagin Ministries, Inc., registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and
therefore may not be duplicated.
“For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you
and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call upon me
and come and pray to me,
and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me
when you seek me with all your heart.”
— Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)

O Lord, that which I see not,

show Thou me.
That which I know not,
teach Thou me.
And for that which Thou has prepared for me, prepare Thou me.
Preface
We live in a day when we don’t have time to play church or to fool around
with the devil’s games in our lives. The last days are upon us. The end of all
things is at hand. Critical years lie ahead of us, for there is a great work to be
done and a great harvest of souls to be reaped.
Never has it been so important for us to be free from all that has bound us in
the past. Never has it been so crucial for us to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s
leading and for each of us to follow God’s plan for our lives. It’s time to shape
up, friends. It’s time to get serious about serving God and to be everything God
wants us to be.
As you walk in obedience to God, your past failures and shortcomings which
have hindered you from walking in the Spirit won’t be able to keep what the
Lord has ordained for you from coming to pass. If you do your part by preparing
and obeying, all the carnal plans of man and all the demons in hell won’t keep
His plan from being fulfilled. Nothing will be able to detract or offset what God
has proclaimed for your life!
“For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you
and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call upon me
and come and pray to me,
and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me
when you seek me with all your heart.”
— Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)

O Lord, that which I see not,

show Thou me.
That which I know not,
teach Thou me.
And for that which Thou has prepared for me, prepare Thou me.
 Chapter 1

Running the Race

Wherefore seeing we also are COMPASSED ABOUT with so great a CLOUD OF
WITNESSES, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us
RUN with patience THE RACE that is set before us.
— Hebrews 12:1
You have a particular race that God has set before you to run. It is a spiritual
race that has to do with the divine destiny God has planned for you to fulfill. The
Bible says you are not only to run your race, but you are to finish your race or
course (2 Tim. 4:7). In other words, you are to fulfill God’s plan and purpose for
your own individual life. You are not to run someone else’s race or finish
someone else’s course, for God has set a different course before each of us.
Why is it so important to follow God’s plan for our lives? How can we
successfully run our race and finish our course? The Bible answers these
questions for us.
A Great Cloud of Witnesses
But first, notice something important in Hebrews 12:1. It says that we are not
running our race unobserved. While we are running in this spiritual race, the
Bible says we are “compassed about” by a “great cloud of witnesses.”
Who is included in this great cloud of witnesses? Hebrews chapter 11 tells us.
Remember, the writer of Hebrews (who I believe was Paul) did not write this
letter to the Hebrew Christians in chapter and verse. So when we read Hebrews
12, we need to realize Paul was still talking about the “gallery of the heroes of
faith” he had been discussing in Hebrews 11.
As Paul listed these heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, he began with Abel and
then went on to talk about Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob,
Joseph, Moses, and so on. Then at the end of the chapter, Paul referred to all
these heroes of faith, saying, “And THESE ALL . . . obtained a good report
through faith . . .” (Heb. 11:39).
In the very next verse, Paul said, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed
about with so great a CLOUD OF WITNESSES . . .” (Heb. 12:1). So the men
and women of faith Paul talked about in Hebrews 11 are a part of the cloud of
witnesses Paul referred to in Hebrews 12:1.
What does Paul mean when he says we are “compassed about” by this cloud
of witnesses? The Living Bible paraphrases it this way: “Since we have such a
huge crowd of men [and women] of faith watching us from the grandstands . . .
let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.”
Paul used the illustration of running a race to describe how we are to follow
God’s plan for our lives in our Christian walk. He gave us the picture of the
Grecian athletic games that were held in Paul’s day, which were similar to our
modern Olympic Games.
In the Grecian Games, those who ran in these races were compassed about or
surrounded by people watching them from the grandstands, cheering them on.
So in Hebrews 12:1, Paul was saying in essence, “All these heroes I’ve listed
here and all the other believers who have ever died are watching us from the
grandstands in Heaven as we run our spiritual race.”
That great cloud of witnesses in Heaven, as well as every believer on earth,
are all a part of the family of God that Paul talks about in Ephesians 3:14 and 15:
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Let it encourage you to
know you have family in Heaven’s grandstands cheering you on as you run your
race!
This huge crowd of men and women of faith are not watching you as you run
your natural race on this earth. They are not interested in the natural things of
life.
For example, they aren’t watching you as you go about your daily business.
They aren’t interested in whether or not you bought new clothes or a new car or
how much money you have in the bank. They are watching you in your Christian
walk as you run your spiritual race. They are interested in whether or not you are
following God’s plan for your life.
I had a supernatural experience years ago which gave me this revelation and
showed me the reality of the cloud of witnesses watching us from Heaven’s
grandstands.
At a seminar in 1968, Sister Jeanne Wilkerson, an established Bible teacher
and prophetess (who has since gone on to be with the Lord), prophesied that in
the fall of that year I would have an experience similar to Enoch’s in that I would
be caught up to Heaven. Enoch was caught away in the flesh — his physical
body departed from this earth (Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5). But Sister Wilkerson
prophesied that I would be caught away in the Spirit and would receive
revelation from God.
I didn’t do anything to try to make that prophecy come to pass. I just
continued to serve God. Then in the fall of that year, my only sister, Oleta, died
of cancer when she was only fifty-five years of age.
Oleta had been sick once before and had almost died. When I prayed for her,
she was healed. She was a spiritual babe in Christ at that time, so I could get her
healed on my faith in the Word. But this time when she got sick, she was no
longer a spiritual baby, so I couldn’t get her healed on my faith. We won’t be
able to carry other people on our faith indefinitely because God expects each of
us to grow up in faith.
So my sister died in the fall of that year. In fact, our family was all gathered
around my sister’s bed on the evening she drew her last breath. About 1:30 the
next morning, I was lying in bed thinking about what it must have been like for
my sister as her spirit left her body, and she ascended to Heaven to be with the
Lord.
I thought about the time my own heart stopped beating on August 16, 1933, as
I lay on the bed of sickness. When my heart stopped, my spirit left my body, and
as I looked back down, I could see my body lying there on the bed. I saw my
mother holding my hand. Then I thought about my sister again. When she died
and left her body, she must have looked down upon all of us gathered around her
bed and seen our love and concern.
As I was thinking about this, suddenly a bright, golden beam of light from
Heaven about as big as an elevator shaft penetrated right through the ceiling.
When that light touched me, my spirit left my body. I went right up through that
beam of light as if I were going up an elevator, until I reached Heaven.
In Heaven, I saw my sister talking to Jesus. When I walked up to them, Jesus
stopped talking to her and looked at me. When Jesus looked at me, my sister
turned around to see who Jesus was looking at and saw me.
The first thing my sister said to me was, “Ken, don’t feel so badly that you
couldn’t pray the prayer of faith for me. There was a reason why you couldn’t.”
(She didn’t tell me what the reason was.)
Sometimes God doesn’t reveal to us the reason why some people don’t
receive their healing. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong unto
the Lord our God. . . .”
My sister told me she had already seen Granny and Grandpa, my mother’s
parents. She also said she had seen her grandson, Jason, who had died when he
was three years old. Then she said, “Kenneth, I saw Ann.” Ann was her daughter
who had died as a result of an automobile accident when she was only twenty-
five years old, leaving behind two small children.
My sister continued, “The first thing Ann said to me was, ‘How are Bill and
the children?’ (Bill was Ann’s husband.) I didn’t tell Ann that Bill had
remarried.”
Then my sister said something that came as a real revelation to me. She told
me, “You see, people up here are not interested in the natural side of life of those
living on the earth. They are not concerned about whether or not you buy a new
dress or a new suit, or how much money you have in the bank.
“They are concerned about spiritual things. They don’t know what happens in
your life in the natural realm, but they know everything you do spiritually. They
know when you make a decision for Christ.”
My sister was talking about the cloud of witnesses in Heaven watching us as
we run our spiritual race. That was the revelation Sister Wilkerson had
prophesied I would receive during this experience. Before this experience of
being caught up to Heaven, I’d only had a hint or glimpse of that revelation.
My sister also said to me, “Ken, please talk to ____ (and she mentioned the
name of her youngest son). He’ll listen to you.”
The son my sister was talking about had known God at one time and had the
call of God on his life to the ministry. But then he ran away from God and hadn’t
been in fellowship with God for many years.
My sister said, “Tell my son I told you that he will never be happy, and life
will never go right with him until he surrenders his life to the Lord. Tell him
when he rededicates his life to the Lord, I will know it. We know up here what
goes on spiritually on the earth.”
After this experience, I did talk to my sister’s son as she had asked me to.
Although he made a move toward God at the time, he didn’t fully surrender his
life to God. Because of that, just as my sister predicted, nothing seemed to go
right in his life for many years after that.
Then during one of our recent Campmeetings, my sister’s son completely
surrendered his life to the Lord and answered the call on his life to the ministry!
Thank God, my sister knew in Heaven the moment her son rededicated his life to
Jesus. She is rejoicing as he now endeavors to run his race and follow God’s plan
for his life!
Incidentally, when Sister Wilkerson prophesied that I would be caught up to
Heaven like Enoch and receive revelation, she also said that another person
would be involved in a similar supernatural experience. My older brother, Dub,
was that person. The same night I was caught up to Heaven, Dub had a similar
experience. Dub was also caught up to Heaven and had a conversation with our
sister, just as I had a short time earlier.
 At the time this happened to Dub, no one could have accused him of being
spiritual! Dub didn’t understand much about spiritual things, and his experience
in Heaven unnerved him. He called me the next day to tell me about it. He had
no idea I’d had a similar experience the same night.
Dub told me, “When I went up to Heaven, I saw Sis. She was talking to Jesus,
and she looked so pretty. She said to me, ‘Dub, you talk to ____ (and she
mentioned her oldest son). He won’t listen to anyone but you.’” My sister’s
oldest son had also fallen away from the Lord.
Dub did talk to Oleta’s oldest son. And although the young man didn’t make a
decision when Dub talked to him, he did recommit his life to the Lord later on
and is serving the Lord today.
I’m relating this experience I had in Heaven in order to make Hebrews 12:1 a
little more real to you. My sister is just one in that great cloud of witnesses who
is watching us from Heaven’s grandstands. And the Apostle Paul and other
patriarchs of the Bible are also a part of that great company watching us. The
other apostles — Peter, James, and John — are watching us too! They are all
watching us as we run our spiritual race!
If you have any loved ones who have gone home to be with the Lord, you can
rest assured that they’re watching you as you run your race. They are cheering
you on as you follow God’s plan for your life, because they want to see you
finish your course.
I remember watching my son, Ken, in a high school track meet. I was in the
grandstands close to the track, and as Ken came running around the track near
me, I started cheering him on. A runner was closing in behind Ken, so I hollered,
“Run, Ken! He’s catching you!” Ken could hear me cheering him on, and I
watched him as he seemed to gather strength from deep inside. He quickened his
pace until he was twenty yards in front of every other runner!
My son’s team won first place in that relay race. Knowing his dad was
cheering him on helped Ken do his best in that race. In the same way, we can
determine to do our best to run our spiritual race while our family in Heaven’s
grandstands cheers us on to finish the course God has set before each of us!
Lay Aside Every Weight
So how do we run our race in such a way that God’s plan will be fulfilled in
our lives and Heaven will rejoice? Look again at Hebrews 12:1: “. . . let us LAY
ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT, and the SIN which doth so easily beset us, and let us
RUN WITH PATIENCE the race that is set before us.”
 The Living Bible gives us a clearer picture of what it means to “lay aside every
weight and sin.”
HEBREWS 12:1 (Living Bible)
1 Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us
STRIP OFF ANYTHING that SLOWS US DOWN or HOLDS US BACK, and especially those
SINS that WRAP THEMSELVES SO TIGHTLY AROUND OUR FEET and TRIP US UP; and
let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.
Think about the way a runner dresses in an actual Olympic race. He doesn’t
run with an overcoat on, does he? And he doesn’t run with all his street clothes
on. Why? Because that would slow him down. Also, a runner doesn’t wait until
he’s run half the race before he pulls off his overcoat, saying, “This coat is
holding me back.” If he did that, there’s no way he could win the race!
In the natural, wearing an overcoat would slow a runner down and keep him
from winning his race. It’s the same way in the spiritual realm. Sin will slow you
down, it will keep tripping you up, and it can prevent you from running your
spiritual race.
You see, sin in your life will not only hinder your fellowship with God, it will
dull your spirit and cause you to be less responsive to the Holy Spirit’s leading.
Therefore, sin left unchecked will cause you to live only in the natural realm,
and you’ll miss God’s best for your life.
It is also easy to become too entangled with legitimate affairs of life — things
which may be good in themselves but are not what God has called you to do.
There are many things in this life that are not necessarily wrong, but they will
slow you down in your particular spiritual race. They will hinder you from
growing spiritually and from fulfilling God’s purposes in your life.
That’s why God tells us in Hebrews 12:1 to strip off those weights and sins in
our lives that are tripping us up and slowing us down spiritually. And we should
strip them off now so we are not hindered from fulfilling the plan of God for our
lives. If we wait to strip off those weights until we have plodded slowly through
half our race, we risk the possibility of never finishing our course and not
fulfilling the plan of God for our lives (2 Tim. 4:7).
Notice Hebrews 12:1 says you are the one who must strip off the weights and
sins that hinder you and hold you back in your Christian walk. Of course, God
will help you. The Holy Spirit, the Helper, dwells within you to give you the
power and ability to obey God (John 14:26 Amp.). But God is not going to pull
off your “coat” — those weights and sins that slow you down — and lay them
aside for you! You are going to have to do it.
That’s why some people have trouble running their spiritual race; they are not
stripping off everything that would slow them down or hold them back. They are
not laying aside the sin that “wraps itself so tightly around their feet and trips
them up.”
Another reason people sometimes have trouble running their spiritual race is
that they are not running the race God told them to run. They are not following
His plan or His purpose for their lives. When that happens, their race can
become hard and burdensome to run.
But God doesn’t want the race He has set before us to be difficult and
burdensome.
MATTHEW 11:28-30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall
find rest unto your souls.
30 For MY YOKE IS EASY, and MY BURDEN IS LIGHT.
Often the difficulties we face in running our race are not the result of God’s
yoke upon us or trying to fulfill His will for our lives. Many times the difficulties
we encounter are the result of what we have failed to do by not stripping off
everything that would hinder us.
So in the same way you might take your coat off and throw it down, make the
decision to strip off every wrong motive, every selfish ambition, carnal
inclination, and desire of the flesh that will hinder you in your race.
Lay aside weights and sins like pride, double-mindedness, spiritual
slothfulness, and fear. Cast all these weights and sins far from you and refuse to
take them up again. You must do this if you want to do your best to run your
spiritual race and finish your course with joy.
Running Our Race With Patience
Now let’s look at the last part of Hebrews 12:1: “. . . let us run WITH
PATIENCE the race that is set before us.” We can also make our way difficult
and hinder our spiritual growth if we do not run the race set before us with
patience. Running our race with patience can be a challenge. It is so easy to
become impatient in our desire to see God’s plans and purposes fulfilled in our
lives.
For example, humans can be so time-conscious. Many times when we hear
from the Lord regarding His plan for us, we want it to be fulfilled immediately.
But we need to learn patience as we run our spiritual race.
You see, God doesn’t operate in the realm of time. The Bible says that one day
is as a thousand years with the Lord (2 Peter 3:8). God knows no time, no hours,
no days, no years. What may seem like a great length of time to us may be only a
fleeting moment from God’s perspective. That’s why it’s so important to learn to
rest in the promises of God’s Word without regard to time limits. When we learn
to enter into the rest of faith, we give the Lord the freedom to bring His plan to
pass in our lives.
Sometimes when God says something to believers about His plans for their
lives, they try to make it come to pass by their own efforts. When they do that,
they can muddy the waters, so to speak. What do I mean by that? In other words,
they can hinder God’s plan for them so God isn’t free to do what He wants to do.
They need to just stay in faith regarding God’s plan and let God bring to pass
what He has told them. To fulfill their part, they need to prepare themselves
according to the Word and the Holy Spirit’s leading.
I muddied the waters of God’s plan for me more than once when I was young
in the Lord. Sometimes when the Lord said something to me about my ministry,
I would try to jump out immediately and do it. Every single time I did that, what
the Lord told me to do didn’t work out right.
Now someone might think, Well, that just shows that the Lord didn’t really
speak to you. But the Lord did speak to me; I just didn’t get the timing right, so I
hindered God’s plan.
Jesus told me once when He appeared to me in a vision, “I’d rather you were
too slow than too fast when you are trying to follow My leading. At least when
you’re behind Me, you can still see Me out ahead of you. But if you’re too fast
and you jump out ahead of Me, you won’t be able to see Me any longer, and
you’ll get off track.”
As I grew in the Lord, I learned not to jump out ahead of Him, but to just
allow Him to bring to pass His purposes for me as I stayed faithful to prepare
myself. I also learned not only to get the what of God’s plan, but to continue to
pray until I have the when and the how.
You see, just because the Lord says something to you doesn’t mean He wants
you to do it immediately. And it doesn’t mean He wants you to do it next week,
next month, or even next year. That is absolutely the truth.
God has prepared a plan for your life, but you aren’t always ready to fulfill the
next step of that plan. So God will take whatever time is needed to develop and
train you before He brings to pass what He has spoken to your heart.
Preparing for His Purposes
Days of preparation are never lost time. There may be important lessons or
truths that you still need to learn in order to successfully fulfill God’s plan for
you. And it takes time to prepare and establish yourself in God’s Word (2 Tim.
2:15).
However, going through a time of preparation is not always easy, for
sometimes there is a price to be paid. From your perspective, your preparation
time might not always be comfortable because you might have to die to your
own desires and your timing as you allow God to prepare you.
So although it may seem difficult or uncomfortable, preparation is a part of
the race God has set before you to run. And it pays to be faithful during the time
of preparation, even if it means there will be some sacrifice on your part. For
when you are thoroughly prepared and you have proven to God that He can trust
you, He will be able to promote you and move you into the place He had
planned for you all along — a place of greater responsibility, anointing, and
ministry.
However, if you don’t prepare yourself during your preparation time, you
won’t be ready to take the next step in God’s plan for you. If you’ve neglected
your time of training and only concerned yourself with natural affairs, then when
God’s door of opportunity opens, you may not even recognize it. And if you
haven’t prepared yourself, you won’t be ready to go through that door into the
next stage of God’s plan for you.
You see, often our spiritual race is like a relay race in the natural. In a relay
race, the runner races until he reaches a certain station, and then he hands the
baton to the next runner.
In much the same way, there are often different stages to the Christian race,
and there are usually times of preparation before each new stage. Often our own
obedience every step of the way and our faithfulness to prepare ourselves in the
Word determine how long the time is between one stage and the next or if we
ever reach the next stage.
Many times folks hear from God regarding the next stage in their race and just
assume they are supposed to act right away on what He told them to do. But
because they are not ready or they have not fully prepared themselves as they
should have, when they step out to do what God told them to do, it doesn’t work
out right, and they fall flat on their faces. You see, God has a way, but He also
has a timing. And to move out of God’s timing is to move out of His will.
Moses is a biblical example of someone who jumped out ahead of God’s
timing and muddied the waters of God’s plan. While Moses lived in Pharaoh’s
palace in Egypt, he sensed the call of God on his life to deliver Israel from
slavery. But God’s plan of deliverance may have been delayed because Moses
jumped out ahead of God’s timing and tried to make it happen in his own way
and in his own strength.
When Moses was forty years old, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a
Hebrew slave. That was not God’s plan or His way to deliver Israel!
News of what Moses did spread quickly. When Pharaoh heard what Moses
had done, he sought to kill him. Moses had to run for his life to the wilderness
(Exod. 2:11-15).
It took a long time of living on the back side of the desert for Moses to learn
enough patience so God could use him to fulfill the divine plan of Israel’s
deliverance. It was forty years later when God finally told Moses it was time to
deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians.
I can also give you an example from my own life of stepping out ahead of
God. By the mid-1940s, God had already put in my heart much of what I am
doing today in my ministry. I knew in my spirit God had something besides
pastoring that He wanted me to do.
So in 1944, I left the church I was pastoring to go into field ministry, thinking
God’s timing was right then for the next phase of my ministry to begin. But I
jumped into the field ministry out of God’s timing. Therefore, things didn’t work
out right.
Don’t misunderstand me; God blessed my year in field ministry as much as
He could. We had some good meetings, and people got saved and baptized in the
Holy Spirit. But I knew I had stepped out prematurely into the next stage of
God’s plan for me. So I backed up to where I had missed it and went back to
pastoring.
Although God really had talked to me at that time about my ministry, it wasn’t
time yet for those things to come to pass. For example, God’s timing for what He
had put in my heart about going into the field ministry was five years later.
(Some of what He told me came to pass much later, and some of it is still coming
to pass!)
By the time five more years had passed, I had learned enough to say, “This
time I’m not moving unless I get the witness in my spirit that it’s time to move.”
So I continued to pastor my last church until the Holy Spirit quickened to my
spirit in early 1949 that it was time to move out into the field ministry.
Over the years I’ve learned to operate that way in every area of my life. I
don’t move until I get the signal from the Holy Spirit to move. When I get that
signal and act on what God has told me, I have found that God’s plan always
works smoothly.
 For example, I’m doing things today in our ministry that God told me to do
many years ago. But just because I heard from God back then, I didn’t
immediately act on what He told me to do. If I had immediately acted on what
God had told me to do, I would have moved out of His timing. The ministry
would have suffered, and that part of God’s plan for me would have been greatly
hindered.
But instead, I waited until I received the signal in my spirit when to act on
God’s plan. Then I acted on what I knew in my spirit. Because I waited, each
time I acted on something God told us to do, it worked so smoothly, it amazed
me. That’s because I moved according to God’s plan in His timing.
I learned long ago not to try to figure out in my own natural understanding
how and when God’s plan will come to pass. For instance, during my last three
years of pastoring in the late ’40s, I waited upon God in prayer for hours and
days at a time seeking Him and His will for my life. As I waited upon God, I saw
in the Spirit different aspects of my ministry, which have only come to pass in
recent years.
However, I didn’t see the whole picture of what my ministry would involve.
At that stage of my spiritual development, if I had known then what would be
happening today in my ministry, it would have scared me! God doesn’t tell us
His whole plan for us all at once. Often He can tell us only bits and pieces of His
plan because we wouldn’t be able to understand or bear more than a glimpse of
what He has in store for us (John 16:12).
I had no idea how God was going to fulfill what He had shown me regarding
my ministry, so I just left the whole matter in His hands. And as I’ve been
faithful to obey Him step by step, in His own time He has brought to pass what
He revealed to me more than forty years ago.
A person has to be patient to wait for God to bring to pass His purpose in his
life. There is a time and a season for all things (Eccl. 3:1), and the time is not
always now. That’s why the Bible says, “. . . let us run with PATIENCE the race
that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).
Someone might say, “But will things ever change? I know that God is
preparing me, and I want to be faithful. But it seems that I’ve been in this place
of preparation for such a long time. Will it ever be different?”
Just continue to trust in the Lord with all your heart and to run your race with
patience. Don’t try to figure out how and when God is going to fulfill His plan
for you; pray about it, and as you need to know, He will reveal each step you
need to take. Just learn to rest in faith and to flow with the Holy Spirit.
 Be content to be faithful and trust God to alert your spirit when it’s time to
take the next step in His plan for you. Let God be the One to accomplish His will
in your life. Then when it is time to move on to the next stage in His plan for
you, you’ll be thoroughly furnished — not just half prepared — to do what He
has called you to do.
You need to realize that you won’t come into the full potential of what God
has prepared for you tomorrow or next week or next month. But as you are
faithful to prepare yourself and as you learn to yield to the Holy Spirit’s leading,
you will step into what God has planned for you.
You won’t step into the fullness of God’s plan immediately as you would step
through a door. But gradually, little by little, as you’re faithful and obedient, you
will keep moving toward God’s destiny for you. And one day you will finally
stand in the full-fledged orb of God’s blessings and His purpose for your life.
Once you do reach that stage, you’ll look back on your time of preparation and
say, “Thank God for those days of preparation! Thank God I was faithful to obey
God!”
As you run your race with patience, remember also that you are not to try to
run someone else’s race. Don’t look around to see where others are in their race
and then try to get on their track to run. Let God speak to you where you are at in
your race.
Find the race that God has set before you. Strip off the weights and sins that
would hinder you from obeying God. Then run your race with your eyes set on
the goal — the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14).
Determine to follow God’s plan for your life and to finish your course with joy.
 Chapter 2

Maintaining a Spirit-Filled Life

Wherefore be ye not unwise, BUT UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE WILL [or purpose] OF
THE LORD IS.
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT;
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord;
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ;
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
— Ephesians 5:17-21
Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
Not slothful in business; FERVENT IN SPIRIT; serving the Lord.
— Romans 12:10,11
Many Christians struggle in life wondering what the will of God is for their
lives. God does impart specific direction to His people concerning His plans and
purposes for their lives. But even in those times when God doesn’t seem to be
saying anything specific to them about His plan, believers can know and do the
will of God in their everyday lives simply by being doers of the Word.
Notice our text says, “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but UNDERSTANDING
WHAT THE WILL OF THE LORD IS. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is
excess; but BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT” (Eph. 5:17,18). These verses are
telling us that it is possible to know what the will of the Lord is for our lives. For
one thing, God’s will is that believers be filled to overflowing with His Spirit.
How can you tell if a person is filled with the Holy Ghost? Someone said,
“I’m filled with the Holy Ghost because I spoke with tongues years ago.”
But D. L. Moody once said, “Living only on past experiences is living on stale
manna.” I agree. Ephesians 5:18 says, “. . . be not drunk with wine, wherein is
excess; but BE filled with the Spirit.” In other words, to be filled with the Spirit
is to be filled now in the present tense. It’s a continual, ongoing action, not
something that occurred once sometime in the past.
Greek scholars tell us that in Ephesians 5:18, the Greek words for “be filled
with the Spirit” mean be being filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, we are
to maintain a constant experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The will of
God for our lives is that we be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit.
Notice the expression in Romans 12:11 “fervent in spirit.” Another translation
says, “Have your spirits aglow” (Weymouth). The Revised Standard Version says,
“Be aglow with the Spirit.”
 The Moffatt’s translation says, “Maintain the glow.” I like that one best. That’s
the will of the Lord for our lives. In other words, that’s what He wants us to do:
Maintain the glow of the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit and
maintaining the glow is God’s will for us because it’s written in His Word. And
we know that God’s Word is God’s will.
HEBREWS 1:1,2
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets,
2 Hath in these last days SPOKEN UNTO US BY HIS SON, whom he hath appointed heir of all
things. . . .
The Bible is God speaking to us personally. And the Bible says it is God’s will
for us to “be fervent in spirit” or to maintain the glow of the Holy Spirit (Rom.
12:11). Another translation of Romans 12:11 says, “Be on fire with the Spirit”
(Goodspeed).
Romans 1:7 says, “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints.
. . .” The Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle of Romans to the Church at Rome, but
it applies to every one of us who belongs to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
wherever we might be. God wants each of us to maintain a Spirit-filled life and
be fervent in spirit or maintain the glow.
Maintaining a Spirit-filled life is as much a part of following God’s plan for
your life as receiving specific direction from the Lord about something He wants
you to do. For example, you could receive specific direction from God about
part of His plan for you, and you could obey it. But if you obeyed His direction
strictly from a sense of duty, it still wouldn’t be God’s best for your life. There
would be no fervency of spirit or glow about it, and it would be tough sledding!
In other words, God’s will for your life would be difficult to fulfill.
No, God wants you to be filled to overflowing with His Spirit and maintain
the glow! That’s God’s will — His purpose — for your life, because God knows
that when you are filled to overflowing with His Spirit, it will be much easier to
successfully follow His plan for your life.
Maintaining the Glow Is Recognizable
According to Ephesians 5:18-21, being filled with the Spirit or being fervent
in spirit is recognizable. If it weren’t recognizable, you wouldn’t know whether
or not you were aglow with the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 6:1-3, we see men who were chosen to do a work for God because
they were filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. They were aglow with the
Spirit, and it was recognizable.
ACTS 6:1-3
 1 And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring
of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily
ministration.
2 Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that
we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.
3 Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men OF HONEST REPORT, FULL OF
THE HOLY GHOST AND WISDOM, whom we may appoint over this business.
In the beginning of the Church at Jerusalem, the believers shared all things in
common (Acts 2:44). The apostles were overseeing the Church and had both
natural and spiritual duties to carry out. When some of the people felt that they
were being neglected in the daily ministration of food, the apostles said to the
disciples, “. . . It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve
tables . . . look ye out among you seven men of HONEST REPORT . . .” (Acts
6:2,3).
All the money had been pooled into one treasury, so the apostles needed
someone to take care of the money as well as to serve tables. The apostles
wanted seven men who had an honest report. They sure didn’t want people
handling the money who didn’t have an honest reputation!
The disciples didn’t look out in the world among sinners for seven honest
men; they looked among Christians. Isn’t it strange that among believers they’d
have to say, “Look for those who are honest”? Evidently, there were some in the
Church who didn’t have a reputation for being honest!
An honest report was something the disciples were looking for. In other
words, a person’s honesty and integrity are recognizable. These qualities can be
seen or recognized in a person’s life.
Notice the second characteristic the disciples were to look for in choosing
seven men to assist them: “. . . look ye out among you seven men . . . FULL OF
THE HOLY GHOST . . .” (Acts 6:3).
In much the same way an honest reputation is recognizable, being filled to
overflowing with the Holy Ghost is also recognizable. When believers are filled
to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, they are fervent in spirit or on fire with the
Holy Spirit.
The third characteristic the disciples were looking for was wisdom (v. 3). They
needed men who were honest and full of the Holy Ghost. But without wisdom,
especially in dealing with money, the men they chose could have gotten the
business affairs of the church in a mess.
Notice how this passage in Acts 6 ties in with Romans 12:11: “NOT
SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” The phrase “not
slothful in business” means not being slothful in handling financial affairs.
 That’s the reason some Christians are in a mess financially — they don’t have
any wisdom. Believers could receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit and still lack
wisdom, and they would get things in a mess.
In fact, without wisdom, you could get into trouble spiritually, mentally,
physically, and financially. Without wisdom, you could get into trouble in your
marriage, in other relationships, and in your ministry or on your job.
Without wisdom, you won’t be able to successfully follow and fulfill God’s
plan for your life. But you don’t have to lack wisdom. The Bible says we can
have wisdom by simply asking God for it in faith (James 1:5). God wants to give
you wisdom and cause you to prosper in every area of your life.
We saw in Acts 6:1-3 that the characteristics of honesty, wisdom, and being
full of the Holy Ghost are characteristics that can be seen or recognized. In other
words, you can tell whether or not a person is filled to overflowing with the
Spirit, because certain characteristics accompany the Spirit-filled life.
The first characteristic of a Spirit-filled life is “Speaking to yourselves in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord” (Eph. 5:18).
If you’re filled with the Spirit and you’re maintaining the glow, you will have
a song in your heart. And if you’ve got a song in your heart, you just can’t help
but speak it out of your mouth, because the Bible says that out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34; Luke 6:45).
Notice Ephesians 5:18 says, “Speaking to YOURSELVES in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs. . . .” Speaking by the unction of the Holy Spirit in
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is something you do from your own heart —
to yourself and to God.
A psalm is a spiritual poem or an ode. It may rhyme or it may not rhyme, but
there is always an element of poetry about it. There are 150 psalms in the Old
Testament that were given by the Spirit of God. Many of them were given to the
psalmist David by the gift of prophecy or the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And
if you’ll read them carefully, you’ll find out that many of them were given to
David for his own benefit to encourage him in difficult circumstances.
Those psalms are also to benefit us today (2 Tim. 3:16). And just as those
psalms were given to encourage David, the Holy Ghost will do the same thing
for you! He’ll give you a psalm to encourage you in the midst of tests and trials
and to lift up your spirit so you can maintain the glow!
A psalm, hymn, or spiritual song can be a supernatural utterance given to you
by the Holy Ghost. They don’t have to be psalms, hymns, or songs written in a
songbook. To tell you the real truth about it, so many songs in songbooks are not
given by the Holy Ghost at all. They’re not thoroughly scriptural, and some are
filled with unbelief.
But the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs the Holy Ghost gives register on
your heart and minister to your soul because they are Holy Spirit inspired. And
before you know it, you’re singing or speaking them out of your mouth.
You see, you cannot be filled with the Spirit without speaking.
EPHESIANS 5:18,19
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT;
19 SPEAKING to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody in your heart to the Lord.
ACTS 2:4
4 And they were all FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, and began TO SPEAK with other
tongues. . . .
ACTS 10:45,46
45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter,
because that on the Gentiles also was POURED OUT the gift of THE HOLY GHOST.
46 For they heard them SPEAK WITH TONGUES, and MAGNIFY GOD. . . .
So keep on speaking with tongues and magnifying God! And be continually
filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourself in psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs. This is the will of God for you.
Maintaining the Glow Will Affect You — Spirit , Soul, and Body
If you maintain a Spirit-filled life, it will greatly affect you in every area of
your life. Of course, it will affect you spiritually, but it will also affect you
mentally. As you maintain a Spirit-filled life, you’ll be sharper and clearer in
your thinking. And being filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit will affect
you physically too. This is the will of God for your life — to continually be
aglow with the Spirit of God!
It’s very easy to discern if someone is up to par physically or mentally. For
example, if someone is not feeling good, he’s just not himself. He’s not as sharp
as he could be. You can tell by a person’s countenance if he’s tired or doesn’t
feel well.
Spiritual health is discernible too. In fact, a person’s spiritual health is just as
discernible as his physical health. One of the pioneers of the Pentecostal
Movement who lived in Great Britain illustrated this point by a personal
experience he once had.
This minister was a pastor in England when this happened. He had renewed
acquaintances with a minister friend who had been on the mission field and had
returned home for the first time in seven years. His minister friend arrived home
by boat, so the pastor met him at port.
As soon as they exchanged greetings and began talking, the missionary looked
at this pastor and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean by that?” the pastor replied and began to defend himself.
“Nothing’s wrong with me.”
“You’re not up to par spiritually,” the missionary answered.
Later, this pastor thought, He could tell something was wrong with me.
Something is wrong; I’m not where I should be spiritually. But what’s the
problem?
Then on the inside, in his own spirit, he had the answer. In a city of more than
a million people, his church had been the only Full Gospel church. But then a
fellow came along and started another work in the city, and he had gotten upset
about it.
Some of his congregation began to go to the new Full Gospel church because
it was closer to their homes. The pastor of the established church began
harboring ill-will toward the other pastor because he thought the new pastor had
invaded his territory.
But when did a city of more than one million people get to be his territory
anyway? The Bible says the earth and the fullness thereof is the Lord’s, not a
certain minister’s! Ministers should be glad when someone starts a new church
in their city so more souls can be brought into God’s Kingdom!
Don’t misunderstand me. It is wrong, for example, for some minister to come
to another man’s church, steal his sheep, and go start another church down the
street. That wouldn’t be walking in love and putting the other fellow first.
Ministers should have ethics and walk in love toward one another.
But on the other hand, you can get in a ditch on the other side of this issue too.
For example, the pastor of the established church was only running 250
members in his church out of a citywide population of more than one million.
The new church was started miles across town, yet the pastor of the established
church got mad about it, and it affected him spiritually.
You see, your spirit knows more about spiritual things than your head knows.
In his heart, this pastor knew where he had missed it with God. And when he
realized his mistake, he went to the new pastor in the city and told him he loved
and appreciated him and his ministry. Then he invited the new pastor to one of
his church services. After that, the pastor of the established church got on fire for
God again.
 You see, there’s a lot more to maintaining the Spirit-filled life than just
jumping up and down and laughing and shouting in the Holy Ghost. Certainly,
that’s part of it, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. For example, you
could get blessed in a service where the Spirit of God was in powerful
manifestation, but that wouldn’t mean that everything in your life is right on
spiritually.
Maintaining the glow is maintaining your spiritual health. And that includes
being filled to overflowing with the Spirit every day in your personal everyday
life. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “. . . be ye not unwise, but
understanding what the will of the Lord is . . . be [continually] filled with the
Spirit” (Eph. 5:17,18). In other words, maintain the glow!
Many Christians are caught up trying to receive specific direction from God,
but they forget to be a doer of the Word. But being a doer of God’s Word is
God’s will just as much as obeying any specific direction they may receive from
Him.
Walk in the Light of God’s Word
For instance, God’s Word says we should walk in love toward one another.
That means to walk in love is God’s will for our lives. The Bible says if we’re
not walking in love, we’re not walking in the light (1 John 2:11).
Yet how many Christians miss it and fail to walk in the light of God’s Word —
His will — when it comes to walking in love! How can they expect to receive
specific direction from God and follow His plan for their lives when they’re
walking in spiritual darkness and can’t even see where they’re going!
I remember an experience I had in the Farmersville church my wife and I
pastored more than fifty years ago. We used to sing a chorus in Pentecostal
circles: “Got any rivers you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can’t
tunnel through? God specializes in things thought impossible, And He can do
what no other power can do.”[1]
During one of the services in that Farmersville church, one of the deacons
said, “Sing my favorite chorus,” and everyone began to sing this song. As
everyone sang, this deacon shouted and jumped up and down for joy. He was so
happy, he almost jumped over a pew.
But on their way home right after the service, his wife mentioned to him that
one of their sons needed a new pair of shoes. When she said that, this deacon just
exploded, shouting, “Do you think I’m made out of money! We just bought him
a pair of shoes a few months ago!”
 Of course, this deacon wasn’t considering that a growing boy could outgrow a
pair of shoes pretty quickly! Instead, he lost his temper and yelled at his wife.
It is amazing to me that someone could jump up and down and sing, “Got any
rivers you think are uncrossable” and then stumble over a pair of shoes!
What happened? That deacon didn’t walk in love, and he didn’t maintain the
glow! God’s will is that we maintain our fellowship with Him every day,
speaking to ourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and making melody
in our hearts to the Lord (Eph. 5:18). That’s not just talking about when we’re in
church. That’s talking about an attitude of heart that we maintain wherever we
are.
If you are filled with the Spirit, there will be a song in your heart whether
you’re at church, at home, or on the job — wherever you might be. That’s a
mark of a Spirit-filled life.
EPHESIANS 5:20
20 GIVING THANKS ALWAYS for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Another mark of a Spirit-filled life is a heart full of thanksgiving to God no
matter what circumstances you face.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:18
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is THE WILL OF GOD in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Some people think that when something bad happens to them, they’re
supposed to thank God for it. No, you don’t thank God for what the devil has
done. But right in the midst of tests and trials, you can give thanks to God
because you know He’s going to deliver you out of every test and trial. Giving
thanks to God always — even in the midst of tests and trials — is God’s will for
your life.
The Bible says it’s God’s will for us to give thanks to Him, not grumble, gripe,
and complain. If you murmur and complain about your circumstances, you’ll be
defeated because that means you’re not in faith; you’re over on the negative side
of life. But if you’ll give thanks to God and count your blessings, you’ll get over
on the positive side of life, and God can move on your behalf.
JAMES 1:2
2 My brethren, COUNT IT ALL JOY when ye fall into divers temptations [different kinds of
tests or trials].
Notice James didn’t say it was a joy when tests and trials come into our lives.
He said to count it all joy. And if you count it all joy in the midst of tests and
trials, you’re going to start rejoicing with an attitude of thanksgiving to God.
I got ahold of this scripture as a young Baptist boy. I didn’t know about the
baptism in the Holy Ghost, but I had been healed and raised up from a deathbed.
I was a young preacher, just starting out in the ministry, and I was going through
a severe test of my faith.
I was visiting my grandfather’s farm at the time, and I remember going to the
barn to pray. Then I did exactly what this verse in James says: I counted it all
joy. I knew I was standing on the Rock — on God’s Word — so I looked the
devil in the face and just started laughing.
Someone asked, “Did you feel like laughing?” No, I didn’t feel like laughing.
In fact, I felt like crying. But I started laughing in faith, because I knew in my
heart that according to the Word, the victory was mine.
At that time, I had never seen anyone shout or jump or dance in the Holy
Ghost. But while I was praising God behind my grandfather’s barn, I did just
that! I acted on James 1:2. I acted like God’s Word is true, because it is. I
rejoiced in faith, counting it all joy and counting the victory won.
While I was praising God behind Grandpa’s barn, I said to the devil, “Just go
ahead and put on all the pressure you can. But the tougher it gets, the more I’m
going to shout and praise God.” And I kept on praising God until the burden
lifted, and the oppression of the enemy was gone.
Soon after that, my situation changed almost immediately for the better. But if
I had stayed on the negative side and whined and complained about the test I
was going through, I wouldn’t have come through it victoriously. I wouldn’t
have experienced God’s best in that particular circumstance.
You see, it’s easy to laugh, shout, jump, and dance in a church service. But
when you’re really filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re motivated by Him, and
you’re fervent in spirit and aglow with God all the time. And you can thank God
in the midst of any and all circumstances.
If you’re going through a test or trial, you’re not thanking God because of the
test. But you can thank Him because you have another opportunity to prove Him
faithful and to exercise and develop your faith. That’s God’s will for your life.
EPHESIANS 5:18,21,22
18 . . . but be FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT. . . .
21 SUBMITTING yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, SUBMIT yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Another mark of a Spirit-filled life is humility. God wants us to have a
brokenness or a meekness about us, not a harsh personality that makes us insist
on having our own way all the time. Some people have a difficult time
submitting to others. But when you’re aglow with the Holy Spirit, it’s easy.
Notice verse 22: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto
the Lord” (Eph. 5:22). Paul uses the word “submit” in connection with husbands
and wives, and he uses the same word in verse 21 in connection with believers
submitting to one another.
Some people take Ephesians 5:22 out of its setting and try to make it say
something it isn’t really saying. For example, one fellow said to me, “Bless God,
I’m the head of my home! And I told my wife, ‘You’re going to do what I tell
you to do, or I’m going to knock your head off!’”
Does that sound like someone who’s filled to overflowing with the Holy
Spirit? No, that attitude is no more of God than I’m an astronaut!
A pastor once said to me, “I don’t ever fast. I just can’t do it. In fact, I drive
home for lunch every day because I have to have three hot meals a day. And if I
get home and my wife doesn’t have a meal ready, there’s hell to pay.”
I thought to myself, That fellow ought to get saved! This pastor may have
answered the call of God on his life, and he may have even been in the ministry
God had called him to. But he wasn’t wholeheartedly following the plan of God
for his life because he wasn’t fervent in spirit, and he wasn’t walking in love.
I said before that maintaining a Spirit-filled life will affect every area of your
life — spirit, soul, and body. On the other hand, failing to stay filled with the
Spirit will affect you negatively in every area of your life too.
For example, this pastor didn’t judge himself, and he died at a young age. That
wasn’t God’s will for Him, but he didn’t walk in the light of the Word, and he
didn’t judge himself. The Bible says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we
should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31).
The Bible says wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord (Eph.
5:22). It also says believers are to submit to one another (v. 21). Does that mean
we’re supposed to boss one another? No, and Ephesians 5:22 doesn’t mean that a
husband is supposed to boss his wife and act harshly toward her either.
God Wants Us To Be Teachable
The word “submit” simply means to give in to one another. That’s hard to do
sometimes from the natural standpoint. But if you’re filled with the Spirit and
you’re maintaining the glow, it’s easy, because a fervent spirit makes it easier to
keep the flesh under the dominion of your spirit.
That’s God’s will for your life. And as you keep your flesh under subjection to
your spirit, God’s specific will and direction for your life will become clearer
and clearer to you.
Some Christians fail to submit to one another, and they get easily offended.
For example, some believers get offended at what a minister preaches or teaches
from the Word.
Some folks get so offended they leave the church. But we need to submit to
one another, and we need to submit to the Word! We need to maintain a
teachable attitude.
Humility is a mark of the Spirit-filled life. And without humility and a
teachable spirit, you will hinder yourself spiritually from fulfilling the plan of
God for your life.
I have been in the ministry for more than fifty-five years, and it’s amazing to
me how many Christians who speak with tongues are unteachable.
They brag about the fact they spoke with tongues, and I’m glad they did speak
with tongues. But too many of them stopped at the door, so to speak, when they
should have come on in and walked with God.
We may not agree with each other on every little aspect of the Bible. But we
can maintain a right attitude — a right spirit — toward each other, and we can
submit to one another. Of course, when folks get off doctrinally and get into
error, we have to take a stand for the truth in an attitude of love.
But we shouldn’t argue over minor issues and minor questions such as, “Is it a
sin to drink lemonade?” That may sound extreme, but folks have actually asked
that. Questions like that result in nothing more than doctrinal tangents. In other
words, they don’t affect a person’s salvation in the least.
I said before that maintaining the glow is maintaining your spiritual life. And
one way to maintain a strong spiritual life full of the Holy Spirit is to maintain a
close fellowship with God through prayer.
ACTS 4:13-17,23,24,29-31
13 Now when they [the Sadducees] SAW THE BOLDNESS of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them,
that they had been with Jesus.
14 And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing
against it.
15 But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among
themselves,
16 Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by
them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it.
17 BUT THAT IT SPREAD NO FURTHER AMONG THE PEOPLE, LET US STRAITLY
THREATEN THEM, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. . . .
23 And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and
elders had said unto them.
24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said. . . .
29 . . . Lord, behold their threatenings: and GRANT UNTO THY SERVANTS, THAT WITH
ALL BOLDNESS they may speak thy word,
30 By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name
of thy holy child Jesus.
 31 AND WHEN THEY HAD PRAYED, the place was shaken where they were assembled
together; and THEY WERE ALL FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, and THEY SPAKE
THE WORD OF GOD WITH BOLDNESS.
This passage of Scripture is talking about the same group of people who had
received the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 and began to speak in tongues as the
Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4).
But notice Acts 4:31: “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken
where they were assembled together; and they were all FILLED WITH THE
HOLY GHOST, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” Those folks had
already been filled with the Holy Ghost in Acts 2, but God wanted them to keep
being filled.
Notice what happened in Acts 4 when the place was shaken and they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit. It says, “. . . they spake the word of God with
BOLDNESS” (v. 31).
If you want to maintain a Spirit-filled life, maintain a spirit of boldness
through prayer. Then maintain absolute obedience to God’s Word and to His plan
for your life — to what He’s put in your heart to do.
Fulfilling God’s Will Takes Obedience and Consecration
You will not fulfill the entire plan of God for your life all at once. Fulfilling
God’s plan for your life is a step-by-step journey of obedience and faithfulness
to walk in the light of what you know He wants you to do each day. Obedience
to God and His Word every day, even in the little things, will help you maintain
a Spirit-filled life.
Also, if you want to maintain a Spirit-filled life, you must maintain an attitude
of consecration to God.
If anything is lacking in Charismatic circles today, it’s a lack of teaching on
consecration and sanctification. Consecrating and sanctifying yourself to do the
will of God is an ongoing process. In other words, you don’t just consecrate
yourself to do the will of God once and for all and then never think about it
again.
You may not always know exactly what the Lord wants you to do in specific
detail. But you should always be willing to do whatever He wants you to do and
to go wherever He wants you to go. You will not be able to follow God’s plan for
your life unless you are willing to do whatever He might ask you to do.
In 1941 my wife and I prematurely left the Farmersville church as pastors. In
other words, we left out of the will of God. For two years I itinerated in the field
ministry, and then God sent us back to Farmersville to finish the spiritual work
God had given us to do there.
While we were there the second time, we finished the job we should have
done while we were there the first time. Finally, the time came when God told us
to leave and go into the field ministry.
Later in my ministry, there was a period of time when I struggled with the
thought of going back to the Farmersville church. Sometimes, even in the dead
of winter, I would get out of bed at three or four o’clock in the morning and pray.
I felt like God was dealing with me the third time about going back to that
church.
“No, God,” I would protest, “I don’t want to go back there the third time, and
that’s a cinch.”
Ordinarily, when I lay down at night to go to sleep, I would fall asleep the
minute my head hit the pillow. But I struggled for weeks with the thought of
going back to Farmersville, and I lost many a night’s sleep over it.
Finally, I gave in and said, “All right, Lord. If You want me to go back to
Farmersville, I’ll go.” When I said that, I heard the Lord just as plainly as if
someone were physically present in the room. He said, “I don’t want you to go
back to Farmersville. I just want you to be willing to go.”
I thought to myself, Dear Lord, why did I fight that for so long? Think of all
the hours I’ve prayed about not wanting to pastor that church. I could have
saved myself so much anxiety if I’d just been willing to obey God in the first
place!
Then the Lord said something else to me that startled me, and it would do you
well to pay careful attention to it too. He said, “Son, if you’re not willing to go
back to that church, then I can’t use you in other areas where I want to use you.”
If I hadn’t been willing to go back to that church in Farmersville, God could
not have used me as He is using me today. You see, you’ve got to be willing to
do anything God wants you to do or He won’t be able to use you at all.
Sometimes in following God’s plan for your life, you’ll have to do some
things you’d rather not do. But if you will obey God step-by-step every day by
walking in the light of His Word and being prayerful, obedient, and consecrated,
you will stay aglow with His Spirit, and you’ll eventually fulfill the plan of God
for your life.
[1]Copyright 1945, Singspiration Music. Used by permission of Benson Music Group.




 Chapter 3

Consecration to God’s Plan

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit
ye here, while I go and pray yonder.
And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very
heavy.
Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and
watch with me.
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS THOU WILT.
And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could
ye not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak.
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass
away from me, except I drink it, THY WILL BE DONE.
— Matthew 26:36-42
In this passage in Matthew 26, we can see the Lord Jesus Christ in His prayer
life praying the prayer of dedication. These verses give us an example of Jesus’
dedication as He consecrated Himself to do the Father’s will. What was Jesus
talking about when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “. . . if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me . . .” (Matt. 26:39)?
Jesus knew the Cross lay before Him. He knew He was about to be made the
sacrifice for sin on our behalf (Heb. 9:26).
Think of all the sins committed by mankind throughout the ages — all the
immorality, debauchery, murder, and hatred! The Bible says Jesus was made sin
for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
But in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing He was going to the Cross, the pure,
spotless Son of God drew back from the prospect of bearing the sin of all
mankind and experiencing separation from God.
No wonder when those final hours drew near, Jesus was sorrowful and heavy
(Matt. 26:38; Mark 14:34). Even though Jesus knew His substitutionary death
for mankind was the reason He had come into the world, He battled the
temptation to draw back from what was to come, and He prayed to God, “If it be
possible, let this cup pass from Me!”
As Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Bible says He sweated as it
were great drops of blood as He wrestled with the temptation to draw back from
the Cross (Luke 22:44). It wasn’t easy for Jesus to fulfill the Father’s plan for
Him. In fact, going to the Cross to be crucified for the sins of the world was a
bitter cup to drink.
But Jesus knew the outcome of redemption would be the salvation of
mankind, so for the joy set before Him, He surrendered to His Father’s will
(Heb. 12:2). Jesus prayed a prayer of consecration and dedication, saying, “. . .
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, THY WILL
BE DONE” (Matt. 26:42).
God is looking for believers who will dedicate and consecrate themselves
wholly to Him to carry out His plan for their lives, just as Jesus did at
Gethsemane and throughout His earthly ministry. The Lord’s eyes roam
throughout the earth to find people whose hearts are dedicated to Him (2 Chron.
16:9 NIV). God is looking for believers who will say as Jesus did, “Not My will,
Father, but Your will be done.”
Also, notice Jesus didn’t just pray this prayer one time. He prayed virtually the
same prayer three times (Matt. 26:39,42,44).
You see, the prayer of consecration is not a one-time prayer, as is the prayer of
faith. The prayer of consecration is a prayer you pray throughout your life. You
will only be able to follow God’s plan for your life if you constantly maintain an
attitude of consecration and surrender to the Lord’s will, whatever it might be.
The Lack of Consecration in Believers
There seems to be a lack of deep consecration to do God’s will among some
Christians today. Recently, I was thinking about the difference between my
experiences in Full Gospel circles fifty years ago and today. As I compared Full
Gospel believers then and now, I realized there wasn’t nearly as much sickness
among Spirit-filled Christians fifty years ago as there is today.
I remembered the great manifestations of the Holy Spirit we used to
experience in our meetings. The move of the Holy Ghost was also much greater
and in more consistent demonstration back then than it is today. As I was
thinking about this, the Spirit of God said to my spirit, “Yes, and the
consecration of My people was greater too.”
Let that soak in! Whether we choose to consecrate ourselves to obey God or
choose not to obey God, it affects every other area of our lives as well!
I’m thoroughly convinced of the truth of what the Lord said to me. The
consecration of believers was much deeper fifty years ago than it is today.
Believers’ appreciation and reverence for the things of God and the move of the
Holy Spirit was much deeper too. And as a result, God honored that depth of
consecration and reverence by giving His people great manifestations of the
Holy Ghost.
Believers today need greater consecration and dedication to God. In the
churches I pastored in the 1940s, we used to gather around the altar and pray at
the end of nearly every service. We often sang the old hymn, “Is Your All on the
Altar of Sacrifice Laid?”[1]We don’t sing hymns like that much anymore, but
many folks today need to heed the message of some of those old scriptural
hymns.
It seems that many believers are willing to lay some things on the altar, but not
all! But God’s plan for their lives is hindered and many of His blessings are
withheld because they haven’t totally consecrated themselves to do God’s will
instead of their own.
Ministers need to teach about consecration so people’s hearts will be stirred to
surrender everything to God and to consecrate themselves wholly to follow
God’s plan for their lives.
Consider your own consecration to the Lord. Consider whether or not you are
able to say from your heart, “Lord, I’ll do whatever You ask me to do. I’ll go
anywhere You want me to go. And I’ll stay where I am if You tell me to stay. No
matter where You lead me, I’ll carry the good news of Jesus Christ to others.”
You see, you need to be willing to do anything God wants you to do. You need
to commit yourself to obey God and do His will every day for the rest of your
life.
Since I was first born again at the age of sixteen, I’ve understood the
importance of total consecration to the Lord. I’ve been a Christian more than
half a century, and I’m still praying the same prayer of consecration I prayed
more than fifty years ago. I’m still praying, “Lord, I’ll go where You want me to
go. If You want me to go to Africa, I’ll go. If You want me to stay where I am,
I’ll stay. I’ll do what You want me to do.”
Never Say ‘Never’!
That doesn’t mean I’ve never made a mistake in being completely dedicated
to do what God wanted me to do. I remember once when I was a young pastor, I
attended a Bible convention. While talking with some of the other pastors about
a particular church, I made the statement, “I’ll tell you one thing! I would never
pastor that church.”
Guess what I was doing less than two years later! I was pastoring the very
church I said I would never pastor!
I learned a good lesson from that experience. I learned that the thing I’m
unwilling to do could be the very thing that God in His wisdom may need me to
do.
You see, God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isa. 55:9). His ways are
above our ways, and He sees the whole picture. So it’s a matter of trusting God
to know what is best for us.
After that experience, I determined never again to say, “Lord, ask me to do
anything but that. That’s one thing I’ll never do.” And I’ve endeavored to keep
my heart consecrated before God.
I remember one of our charter-class RHEMA graduates who learned that same
lesson. Before he graduated, this man had told people he would never pastor.
And he went through the entire school year at RHEMA convinced that God had
called him to be an evangelist.
But at the charter-class graduation ceremony, when I laid hands on this
RHEMA student, I received a word from the Lord for him. I began laughing in
the Spirit, saying, “You said you would never pastor. But you will!”
Then I laid hands on his wife and once again started laughing in the Spirit. I
said to her by the unction of the Holy Spirit, “And you said you would never be
a pastor’s wife. But you will be, and you’ll be so contented and glad that you
are!”
Soon after graduation, this man was driving down a country road, praying
about the Lord’s next step for him. And the Spirit of God said to him, “Go home
right now. Within thirty minutes, a man will call you and ask you to come and
pastor a church in a small town in Oklahoma. I want you to accept that
pastorate.”
The man immediately drove home. Soon after he arrived home, the phone
rang. Just as the Lord had said, the man on the phone asked this RHEMA
graduate to come and pastor the church in that small town. The RHEMA
graduate obeyed God and accepted the offer.
This man and his wife began pastoring, and they were blessed for their
obedience. They found that they were contented and full of joy as they obeyed
God’s will, even though it meant doing what they said they would never do!
Be Willing To Do Anything for God
It’s so important for you to be willing to do anything God tells you to do.
Unwillingness to obey God can hinder or delay His plan from being fulfilled in
your life. The truth of that statement can be seen in a testimony I once heard
about a nationally known Full Gospel evangelist.
 This evangelist related that he had been born again and filled with the Holy
Spirit when he was thirteen years old. At that time, he also sensed a call to the
ministry on his life. However, the evangelist explained that as a new Christian,
he was afraid God might tell him to go to China if he answered the call to the
ministry. In his natural mind, he decided that China was one place he didn’t want
to go.
For many years this young man struggled with the prospect of God’s sending
him to China. He avoided drawing close to God because he didn’t want to hear
what God might tell him. Therefore, he kept himself from developing spiritually,
and he wandered backslidden and out of God’s will for years because there was
one thing he wasn’t willing to do — and that was to go to China as a missionary.
Several times during those years of running away from God, this young man
would go to church, come forward to pray at the altar, and temporarily surrender
to God again.
You see, a person can temporarily surrender to the Lord. At the time he prays,
he may really mean it. But the real test comes when he gets up from the altar and
is required to obey God and do something he doesn’t want to do. If it was only a
superficial surrender to the Lord, the person will draw back from the
commitment he just made and go on doing what he wants to do in life.
One night at a revival meeting when this young man was almost thirty years
old, he once again went to the altar to recommit his life to God. This time he was
serious about serving the Lord, no matter what sacrifice it might mean.
Relating what had happened to him as a young man, this evangelist said, “As
soon as I got back into fellowship with God, I was faced once again with the
question of whether or not I would answer God’s call to the ministry.”
You see, that divine call had been on the young man’s life all those years he
had been running from God, because the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance (Rom. 11:29). God was just waiting for him to surrender his life
completely to Him.
The evangelist continued: “This time I just threw up my hands and cried, ‘All
right, Lord, I surrender! I’ll go to China if You want me to! Wherever You want
me to go, I’ll go. Not my will, but Yours be done.’
“Immediately, so loudly I thought everyone else in the room must have heard
it, I heard the Lord say, ‘I don’t want you to go to China. I just want you to be
willing to go.’”
Once this man fully surrendered to God, he became one of the leading
evangelists in this nation. But, you see, he couldn’t have been the evangelist God
had called him to be in the United States unless he was willing to be an
evangelist anywhere God told him to go, even China.
The same is true in each of our lives. We will only experience the fullness of
God’s plan and the full measure of His anointing and blessing on our lives if we
are willing to obey Him in every area of our lives.
You see, God wants us fully surrendered to His will. He knows if we’re not
willing to obey Him in one area, that unwillingness will carry over into other
areas of our lives and will hinder us from running the race He has set before us.
Nearly everything I’m doing today, my natural mind didn’t want to do when
God first talked to me about it. At one time, I didn’t even want to preach!
Before I was saved when I was a young boy, I wanted to be a lawyer. And if
you’ve ever noticed, in my preaching and teaching, I often “argue my case” in
much the way a lawyer would, only I prove my case with the Scriptures. I don’t
try to do that; it’s just a part of my personality.
When I was nine or ten years old, I would often go to the town courthouse
because I loved to sit up in the balcony and listen to the lawyers as they argued
their cases. And as I listened to them, I was just sure I could have done a better
job than some of them!
But then I was born again on April 22, 1933, at twenty minutes to eight
o’clock in the south bedroom of 405 North College Street in McKinney, Texas,
while lying paralyzed on a deathbed with an incurable blood disease and a
deformed heart. And the first thing I said was, “Lord, You get me up from this
bed of sickness, and I’ll go preach.”
That was another way of saying, “Not my will, Lord, but Thy will be done.” It
was my way as a teenager of praying the prayer of surrender and consecration.
Sixteen months later, the Lord raised me up supernaturally as I prayed the prayer
of faith. And I’ve been preaching ever since!
I’ve prayed the prayer of consecration countless times since then. For
instance, while I was pastoring my last church in Van, Texas, the Lord began
dealing with me about a change coming in my ministry that would take me out
of the pastoral ministry and into the field ministry.
For several years I had sensed in my spirit that this change was coming. God
was preparing me for the next stage in my ministry.
At this point in our lives, my family and I were living more comfortably than
we had ever been in all the previous years of my ministry. I was making more
money than I had ever made in my life. We were living in the best parsonage we
had ever lived in. I was driving the best automobile I had ever driven, and we
were wearing the best clothes we had ever worn since I’d started in the ministry.
Not only that, but the people in the church were pleased with me as the pastor.
The board members in the church once told me, “Brother Hagin, we’d be glad if
you stayed here and pastored forever.”
It would have been fine with me if God had told me to continue pastoring that
little church indefinitely. I wasn’t dealing with any major problems in the
church, our congregation was growing, and there were times to relax and enjoy
fellowship with family and friends.
But then the Lord began dealing with me about going out into the field
ministry. That was a cup I didn’t want to drink! I had a wife and two children to
support, and I didn’t want to leave the security of pastoring. I had pastored
twelve of my fifteen years of ministry. For me, going out into field ministry was
a big step of faith into the unknown.
I want you to know that I prayed more than once, asking the Lord to let that
cup pass from me. I spent two years praying about it! I talked to God every day
about it.
Several times I prayed all night long about it. When the sun rose at dawn, I
would still be walking up and down the aisles of the sanctuary, talking to God
about pastoring instead of going out into field ministry.
I would tell God, “Lord, everyone is pleased with me as the pastor. My family
and I are enjoying life here. Everything is fine.” In so many words, I was telling
God, “Lord, why don’t You leave well enough alone? Don’t disturb my
comfortable life here.”
But I just couldn’t get God to change His mind! You see, the Bible says, “. . .
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). So I finally
surrendered to God’s will and told Him, “Not my will, Father, but Yours be
done,” and in 1949 I took a major step of faith and went into the field ministry.
When I first started out in the field ministry, I didn’t know how good the
results of drinking that cup of obedience would be! Yes, there were hard places
to endure, and it was tough going for a while. But over the years God has blessed
us beyond anything we could ever have imagined, because we were obedient to
His plan, not to our own desires.
We have all had to drink some cups in life we would rather have passed up.
But when we know that the cup is the Lord’s will for us, we can rest assured the
outcome will be for our good and to God’s glory. That’s why we need to stay
open to God’s will and pray just as Jesus did, “Not my will, Father, but Yours be
done.”
Many Christians have never surrendered everything to the Lord. They are
willing to make Jesus Lord of part of their lives. But sometimes they aren’t
willing to give up control of certain areas that their carnal nature holds dear.
Some believers profess they’ve laid everything on the altar, but in reality they
are holding back a part of themselves from the Lord.
It’s so important to make a quality decision once and for all to go all out for
God and follow His plan for your life. That decision will be an anchor to your
soul to keep you in God’s perfect will when the devil tries to bring his best
temptations into your life to distract and deter you from the plan of God.
You see, the devil will bid high for you — he’ll use his best temptations to try
to keep you from obeying God. If you’ve never fully surrendered everything to
the Lord, you stand in danger of being persuaded by the devil’s temptations to
pursue your own will and fleshly inclinations and desires and lose out on God’s
best for you.
The Crossroad of Decision
Many Christians are at a crossroad in their lives right now. In other words,
they face decisions that will affect the course of their lives. They are at a
crossroad where they must decide if they are going to consecrate themselves
fully to do God’s will, no matter what He asks them to do.
Believers who stand at a crossroad can choose to follow the path of their own
plans and desires. That path may look wide and bright and stretch straight before
them as far as their eyes can see.
But if they continue to lean to their own understanding and disobey God, that
straight, wide path will eventually lead them into darkness. In other words,
believers who don’t choose the perfect will of God will encounter trials in life
God never intended them to encounter.
On the other hand, the path God has planned for obedient believers may be a
narrow one that goes over mountains and through deep valleys. God’s path
might have bends and curves in it that sometimes obscure their view.
Believers who follow God’s way may not always be able to see very far down
the path, because following God is a step-by-step walk of faith and obedience.
But despite the difficulties that lie on the path of obedience, such a great future
in the Lord awaits those who choose to walk in God’s ways!
You might say, “No, I don’t much believe I want to take that narrow, curving
path where I can’t see what’s up ahead! I don’t know where it’s going. I can see
the other path stretched out wide and straight before me. But if I go down that
narrow road of God’s choosing, I can’t see beyond the mountains. That way of
obedience looks rugged and difficult.”
But the road of obedience is the one you must choose if you want to follow
God’s plan for your life. And as you choose to obey God, He will furnish you
with the power and ability to climb over the mountains you are facing right now,
as well as the mountains up ahead that you can’t see yet.
Your path will grow brighter and brighter, and many other lives will be
influenced for Jesus because of your obedience. For, you see, it is on the path of
obedience where God reveals His glory and your strength is renewed day by day.
And when you finish your course and meet Jesus face to face, how glad you will
be that you obeyed God!
Each of us will experience many crossroads in our lives — some more crucial
than others. At each crossroad, we must renew our commitment to do the Lord’s
will, not our own.
That’s why we must pray the prayer of consecration over and over in our walk
with the Lord and dedicate ourselves to fully obey Him and His Word.
Consecrate yourself wholly unto the Lord. Even though in your natural mind
you want to follow your own plans and desires, consider yourself dead to carnal
inclinations.
And although it may seem difficult at times to say no to your own will and
plans, the end result of obedience will cause your spirit to rejoice. You will make
your way prosperous, and you will be fulfilled beyond anything your natural
mind can imagine.
There is simply no comparison between a life that’s lived by walking in the
flesh and one lived according to God’s perfect plan!
Pray this prayer of commitment to God from your heart:
Lord, I present myself unto You. May Your will be done in my life. May I never forget that I
have surrendered all I am to You.
I commit myself to be one whom You can use — consecrated and separated unto Your
purposes. I’ll pay the price by denying the flesh. If You call me in the nighttime, I’ll get on my
knees and pray. If I am never seen of men, and if I always work behind the scenes, still I will be
faithful.
I lay aside all personal ambition. I’ll be one who walks in the Spirit and in Your perfect will. In
Jesus’ Name, Your will shall be wrought in my heart, in my life, and in my ministry.
When you are worshipping the Lord with other believers and the Presence of
the Holy Spirit is in manifestation, it’s easy to say those words and to dedicate
your life to the Lord.
 But in the hour of test and trial, when circumstances seem to toss you this way
and that, hold fast to that same dedication. Maintain that same determination of
mind, will, and purpose and say with assurance, “I will walk with the Father. I
will let Him work out His purpose in my life.”
By staying consecrated even when it’s difficult to do so, you will have learned
the great lesson of obedience and consecration and faith. And as you daily
choose to obey God’s will and run the race He has set before you, you will be a
blessing to many. And God will lead you to a wide, open place — a place of
abundance in every area of your life!
[1] “Is Your All on the Altar of Sacrifice Laid?” by Elisha Hoffman.
 Chapter 4

Learning To Be Led By the Holy Spirit

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
— Romans 8:14
Every child of God can learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit. God’s richest
blessings await those who follow after His Spirit, instead of being directed only
by their senses and circumstances. But in order to be Spirit-led, you will have to
consecrate yourself to God’s plan for your life instead of following after a plan
of your own making.
Learning to be led by the Holy Spirit is of primary importance if you are
going to obey God. If you can’t discern what the Lord is saying to your spirit,
you’ll have a difficult time following His plan and purpose for your life. It’s that
simple.
God Leads You by Your Spirit
How can we discern the Lord’s leading and learn to cooperate with Him so we
can follow His plan for our lives?[1]First of all, we must understand that God
contacts us and deals with us through our spirit.
You see, God is not a physical being, so He doesn’t respond to the call of our
fleshly nature. And He is not a mind, so He doesn’t respond to the call of our
intellect or our emotions.
That’s where so many folks miss it. They try to reach God through their mind
and feelings. They say, “Oh, if I could only feel God’s Presence when I pray!”
But what they actually need to do is crucify their flesh, renew their mind with
God’s Word, and get quiet on the inside as they seek the Lord in prayer (Gal.
5:24; Rom. 12:2). Then the Holy Spirit would respond unto the cry of their
spirit.
God is a Spirit, a divine Personality (John 4:24). Man is also a spirit being.
Man is a spirit, he has a soul (which includes the mind, will, and emotions), and
he lives in a body (see Gen. 1:26,27; 2 Cor. 5:1-4; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12).
The spirit man or inward man is the eternal part of a person that gives the
outward man color and personality. And it is the inward man of a believer — his
spirit — that hears what the Spirit of God is saying.
The Bible says, “The SPIRIT OF MAN is the candle of the Lord, searching all
the inward parts of the belly” (Prov. 20:27). The Bible also says the Holy Spirit
bears witness with our spirit (Rom. 8:16).
In other words, the Holy Spirit will use our spirit to guide and enlighten us as
to God’s will for our lives. He doesn’t communicate with us directly through our
mind or our body, because He dwells in our spirit. Therefore, He communicates
with us through our spirit.
We can expect the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us so we can fulfill God’s
plan and purpose for our lives. The Bible tells us that “. . . as many as are led by
the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Notice it does not say,
“As many as are led by the mind or flesh, they are the sons of God.”
And that verse also doesn’t say, “As many as are led by prophets or by
someone else telling them what to do, they are the sons of God.” Although it’s
good at times to seek wise counsel from someone you respect spiritually, you
shouldn’t look to man to receive God’s guidance for you. That’s unscriptural.
As Christians, we all have the Spirit of God, and we are each responsible to
discern the Lord’s leading for ourselves. We are to be led by the Holy Spirit
according to God’s Word, not by other people’s guidance or opinions.
How does the Holy Spirit lead us? The first and foremost way God leads His
children is by the inward witness. Romans 8:16 talks about the inward witness:
“The Spirit itself [Himself] BEARETH WITNESS with OUR SPIRIT, that we are
the children of God.”
When you are born again, the Holy Spirit lets you know you are a child of
God by bearing witness with your spirit.
You don’t know you’re a child of God because someone prophesied to you
that you’re saved. And you don’t know you’re born again because someone told
you, “In my opinion, you’re a Christian.”
No, you know you’re a child of God because God’s Spirit bears witness with
your spirit that you are born again. You might not be able to explain to someone
else how you know you’re saved, but you just know it down on the inside. You
know you’ve become a new creature in Christ (Rom. 10:9,10; 2 Cor. 5:17).
The inward witness is the way the Holy Spirit guides you in the most
important event that could ever happen to you — becoming a child of God.
Therefore, it’s logical that the inward witness will be the primary way the Holy
Spirit will continue to guide you throughout your Christian walk.
In my own life and ministry, I’m almost always led by the inward witness.
Yes, at times I’ve had spectacular guidance, such as visions, but most of the time
I’m led by the inward witness. That’s the number one way God leads all of His
children.
As you seek to follow God’s plan for your life, there will be many times your
spirit will know things by the inward witness that your head doesn’t know. Your
spirit will pick up that information from the Spirit of God who dwells within.
Sometimes it can be difficult to explain to another person in logical terms how
you know something by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. You just know it
on the inside. It’s not a physical feeling. It’s a spiritual sense or perception.
For instance, when Paul was a prisoner on board a ship headed for Rome, he
said, “. . . Sirs, I PERCEIVE that this voyage will be with hurt and much
damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives” (Acts 27:10).
Paul didn’t say, “The Holy Ghost spoke to me” or “I had a vision.” He said, “I
perceive that this voyage will be fraught with danger.” Evidently Paul had an
inward witness or a spiritual perception about the voyage. His spirit picked up
that knowledge from the Holy Spirit dwelling within him.
The second way the Holy Spirit leads us is through the inward voice, also
called the still small voice. Did you know your inward man has a voice, just like
your outward man does? The voice of your spirit is called your conscience.
You don’t hear the inward voice — the voice of your inward man — with
your physical ears, like you do the voice of your outward man. You hear the
voice of your inward man on the inside of you in your spirit. Your spirit man will
speak to you by the still small voice of your conscience and pass on to your mind
the information he receives from the Holy Spirit within.
The third way the Holy Spirit leads you is through the authoritative Voice of
the Holy Spirit. Although the Holy Spirit may choose to speak to the believer in
the authoritative Voice, we are not to seek after voices. These things happen as
the Holy Spirit wills (1 Cor. 12:11).
There is a distinct difference between the inward voice of your own spirit and
the audible Voice of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, it is
more authoritative.
You’ll hear the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit on the inside, in your
inward man. Or you might hear His Voice out loud; it can seem just as real to
you as if you are hearing a person speak to you out loud.
You see, when the Holy Spirit speaks to you, it can actually seem audible,
even though no one else in the same room hears it. That’s because the Holy
Spirit doesn’t speak in the sense realm, since He doesn’t have a physical body.
He is a Spirit, a divine Personality, and He speaks in the spirit realm.
 You are also a spirit being. So when you hear the Holy Spirit speak, you are
hearing His Voice with your spirit. And His Voice is audible in the spirit realm.
Spiritual things are just as real as material things. In fact, the spiritual realm is
even more real than the natural realm because God, who is a Spirit, created the
material, natural realm. So if you are going to successfully follow God’s plan for
your life, you need to become more Spirit-conscious than you are mind-
conscious or body-conscious.
Too many Christians spend their whole lives conscious only of what their
natural senses tell them. They are sense-conscious and body-ruled, and because
of that, they often become spiritually deaf.
Their spiritual ears get stopped up, so to speak, because they don’t pay
attention to the Holy Spirit inside them, and their heart is all cluttered up with
natural concerns.
Other Christians don’t ever hear from God because they are the ones doing all
the talking. They chatter all the time, and they don’t take time to listen to what
the Lord is trying to tell them in their spirit.
And some Christians don’t even know they have spiritual ears or that they
are supposed to be hearing anything from the Holy Spirit!
Develop Your Spirit So You Can Know God’s Will
Too often our problem in following God’s plan for our lives is that we have
failed to train our spirit as we should have. We have spent most of our lives in
the mental and physical realms, developing our intellect at the expense of our
heart.
When we neglect the development of our spirit, our intellect takes the throne
in our lives. And our spirit, the part of us which should dominate and guide our
mind and body, is kept locked away in prison, so to speak, and is not permitted
to function.
But the Holy Spirit through the inward witness is always seeking to give
guidance to our mind — if we would only take time to develop our spirit and to
listen.
Here’s an important point to remember if you are ever going to develop your
spirit. You must determine to always keep a tender conscience.
Don’t violate your conscience. Instead, make it a practice to always instantly
obey your spirit. Remember, your conscience is the voice of your spirit, and it
relates to your mind what the Spirit of God is saying to you in your heart.
If you persist in violating your conscience, you will make your conscience
calloused to the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Spiritual things will become indistinct
to you, and your conscience will no longer be a safe guide. Once your
conscience is seared, it will be difficult for you to discern the Lord’s leading and
to follow His plan.
Also, as you seek to develop your spirit, remember to make sure you aren’t
being led by your flesh. This is where many Christians miss it. They make
decisions according to their own fleshly nature, desires, and inclinations.
And because their spirits are not in tune to the Holy Spirit inside them, they
miss the things of the Spirit which God has prepared for them in their spiritual
race.
It will also hinder the development of your spirit if you allow yourself to be
led by your soul — your feelings, natural reasonings, and emotions.
This is another area where Christians often miss it. They allow themselves to
get emotionally worked up about plans and desires of their own making, and
then they convince themselves that it is the Lord leading them. But actually, they
are being led by their emotions, not their spirit, and their emotions lead them
astray.
It’s also important in the development of your spirit not to be led by outward
circumstances.
When I was a young pastor, I knew pastors who were led by circumstances.
When they encountered problems in their church, they’d say things like, “If I
ever get the Sunday school attendance back up to where it was, I’m going to
leave.”
Or they’d say, “Once the finances of the church are doing better, I’m going to
take another pastorate.” But, you see, those pastors were being led by natural
circumstances rather than by the Holy Spirit.
As a pastor, I never let circumstances move me. It didn’t bother me the least
bit if the Sunday school attendance or the offerings fell off. I never allowed
myself to be motivated by crowds or money or any other natural circumstance.
When I encountered problems in the churches I pastored, I’d just say to
myself: “I don’t ascertain the will of God by outward circumstances. I ascertain
the will of God by what He’s saying to me in my spirit. God told me to pastor
this church, and I’m not going to question His judgment. I’m not going to
wonder whether or not He’ll tell me to leave next week or next month. That isn’t
any of my business; that’s His business. I’m going to stay put until He tells me to
go.
 “If God wants me to go somewhere else, He has enough sense to talk to me.
He’s an intelligent Being, and so am I. I’ll understand what He’s saying to me.
I’m in contact with God, and I’m open to His leading. He’ll give me the signal
when He’s ready for me to move on. I’ll know it on the inside of me by the
inward witness.”
That’s how I’ve operated in my almost sixty years of ministry as I’ve followed
God’s plan for my life. I go as much by what the Lord doesn’t say as I do by
what He does say.
In other words, I live by the principles of God’s Word and by the leading of
the Holy Spirit in my spirit. I just keep heading in the direction the Lord has
already told me to go unless He sees fit to initiate a new direction in His plan for
my life and ministry. I don’t try to initiate a new direction on my own.
In developing your spirit and ascertaining God’s direction for your life, it will
also help you to strive for unity and agreement with those around you who are
spiritually mature. Be careful about making a move when those who are close to
you and whom you respect spiritually are not in agreement that you have the
leading of the Lord.
For instance, the Early Church practiced biblical principles of unity and
agreement in making some decisions, especially regarding ministry. We see an
example of that in Acts 13 when Paul and Barnabas were being set apart for the
ministry.
ACTS 13:1-3
1 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch CERTAIN PROPHETS AND
TEACHERS; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and
Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2 As THEY ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and
Saul [Paul] for the work whereunto I have called them.
3 And when THEY had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, THEY sent them
away.
The Bible doesn’t say how the Holy Spirit spoke in this instance. One of the
prophets could have spoken out by the unction of the Holy Ghost in prophecy.
Or someone could have heard the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit.
But it doesn’t really matter how the Holy Spirit spoke. The point is that all
five ministers involved in that meeting at Antioch were in agreement that it was
the leading of the Lord to separate Barnabas and Paul to the work of the
ministry.
Now it’s true that as you follow God’s plan for your life, you’re going to have
to make some decisions for yourself. You don’t need to always be questioning
everyone around you about what they think your decision should be. God may
not tell others what He wants you to do in a given situation.
Too many Christians let others tell them what to do because they don’t want to
take the responsibility of seeking God for guidance themselves. But every
believer has the responsibility of receiving the Lord’s direction for his own life.
On the other hand, we read in Acts 13 that everyone involved agreed on what
the leading of the Lord was and then acted on it.
Therefore, it is certainly scriptural for those whom you trust spiritually to be
in agreement when you’re making a major decision that will greatly affect your
life. But that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to allow others to take the
responsibility for receiving guidance for your life.
However, many times it’s wise to consider the counsel of those who know the
Lord and who care about you. In my own life, I can think of some people whose
spiritual walk I have the utmost confidence in. And there are times when I talk to
them about decisions I need to make. The Bible says, “Where no counsel is, the
people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety” (Prov. 11:14).
Also, it’s important that those whose lives are affected by your decision agree
that the Lord is leading in that particular direction. For instance, in the early
1940s when the Lord began dealing with me about going back to pastor the
church in Farmersville (I had left the church earlier out of God’s will), I wanted
that decision to be confirmed by my wife.
I was pastoring another church at the time, and I had been struggling with the
prospect of going back to the Farmersville church for about a month.
Sometimes I’d be praying in the sanctuary, and the burden for the Farmersville
church would come on me so strongly that I’d get up and physically run out of
the building. I was trying to run away from that burden. I kept telling the Lord,
“I don’t want to go back there and pastor!”
You know, sometimes your flesh and your mind rebel against what the Lord is
asking you to do. And you can get all mixed up if you try to listen to your
physical senses, your mind, and your spirit.
So finally I prayed, “Lord, if you want us to go back to Farmersville, bear
witness to that fact with my wife too.”
Soon after that, Oretha and I were washing dishes together, and I asked her,
“Honey, has the Lord been talking to you about anything?”
“No, not that I know of,” she answered.
“Well, let me know if He does tell you anything,” I said to her.
I waited about thirty days, and one morning when we were washing dishes
together again, I asked my wife, “Have you heard anything from the Lord?”
Oretha said, “No, I haven’t.” Sometimes people have heard from the Lord, but
they don’t recognize it as the Lord’s leading.
So I asked her, “Do you have any leading to resign from this church and go
pastor another church?”
“No,” she said.
“Do you have anything in your heart at all about the church in Farmersville?”
I asked.
“Oh,” she said, “I thought that was just me.” You see, she had something from
the Lord and just didn’t recognize it.
“Well, let me ask you a question,” I said. “Do you want to go back to
Farmersville to pastor?”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “A thousand times no!”
I said, “Well, then, it couldn’t be you, could it? You don’t want to go back
there.”
“I guess you’re right,” she answered.
In the natural, neither one of us wanted to go back to that church. But we both
obeyed God and went, and we were happier pastoring that church than we had
ever been in our lives.
Because we had left that church prematurely the first time, God wasn’t able to
accomplish what He wanted to. But as a result of our obedience to go back there,
God was able to teach me how to develop that congregation spiritually more
than any other church we ever pastored.
We learned many valuable lessons there. God’s way is always best!
But the point I’m trying to get across to you is that the Lord dealt with both of
us by the inward witness to go back to that church in Farmersville.
Oretha and I both agreed that the Lord was leading us in that direction.
Whenever possible, that’s the way it should be when more than one person is
going to be affected by a decision.
There may be times when others don’t agree with the direction you sense the
Lord is leading you to take. Ultimately, you have to follow the Lord’s leading to
the best of your ability. But when others aren’t in agreement with you, be very
careful to make sure it’s the Lord’s leading.
Get God’s Direction Clear in Your Spirit Before You Act
It’s important not to be too quick when making decisions that affect your life.
Remember what Jesus told me: “I’d rather you be too slow than too fast.”
Therefore, if you’re going to develop your spirit so you can discern God’s
plan for your life, you need to take enough time to pray until you have the Lord’s
direction clear in your spirit.
The trouble with some Christians is that when they do receive some direction
about God’s plan for their lives, they mix that revelation with their own feelings
and thinking. They follow after their own human thinking and entirely miss
God’s thinking on the matter. Then the plan doesn’t turn out right, and they get
confused, wondering if they ever really heard from God.
The only way you can keep that from happening is to get in the Presence of
God long enough to sift out your own human emotions and thoughts and lay
them on the altar before God. Then pray and meditate on the Word until you hear
from the Lord in your spirit and you know on the inside what to do.
What you need to realize is that God’s thoughts are so much higher than man’s
thoughts (Isa. 55:9). And it is in God’s Word where you find His thoughts. That’s
why meditating and feeding constantly on God’s Word renews your mind so
your mind can come into agreement with your spirit.
You see, the voice that speaks to you in the Word is the same voice that leads
you by your spirit. So being in the Word sharpens your spiritual perception and
ability to hear God’s voice in your own spirit.
Therefore, waiting before the Lord in prayer and in the Word is vitally
important if you want to walk in God’s ways according to His thinking, rather
than according to your own natural reasoning.
When I was still young in my Christian walk, I learned to take time to wait
before the Lord in prayer and in the Word until I got it clear in my spirit what He
wanted me to do. Sometimes I’ve sought God in prayer for several days about
His direction. In fact, I have sometimes prayed several months before making
major decisions in my ministry.
I don’t mean I was on my knees praying all the time. I still went about my
daily business. But whenever I could, I’d pray, many times all night long. Much
of the time I’d pray in other tongues.
Actually, one of the greatest assets God has provided for the believer in
seeking God’s plan for his life is the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence
of speaking in other tongues (Acts 2:2-4).[2]
The Bible says that when you pray in an unknown tongue, your spirit prays (1
Cor. 14:14). Your spirit is actively communicating with God when you pray in
other tongues as the Spirit gives you utterance. This is a great enablement in
prayer because it is through your spirit that God gives you guidance.
First Corinthians 14:2 says that when you pray in tongues, you are speaking
mysteries to God. So as you seek the Lord for guidance and direction, the Holy
Spirit will help you pray out the mysteries of God’s plan for your life as you pray
in other tongues.
In my own Christian experience, I’ve found that praying in other tongues is
one of the best ways to get my body quiet and my mind in neutral so I can hear
what my spirit is saying. You see, you can be just as noisy with your mind as
you can be with your hands and feet! And if your mind is hollering at you —
constantly bombarding you with its soulish thoughts or the devil’s lies — you
aren’t going to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to your spirit.
Over the years, it has become easier for me to get my mind and body quiet as I
pray. It used to take me at least an hour and a half of praying in tongues to get
my soul and my body quiet. But now it only takes me a few minutes.
You see, spiritual things have to be practiced just like natural things do. For
instance, baseball players practice in the spring in order to get ready for the
upcoming baseball season. Similarly, the more you wait before the Lord and
pray in other tongues, the easier it will be to get quiet and listen to your heart.
Of course, that’s not easy on the flesh. Your body won’t necessarily want to
pray. It’s a whole lot easier to watch television or to visit Susie Q or Joe Blow
down the street than it is to make yourself pray, isn’t it? But if you are going to
receive God’s wisdom and direction in your life, you’ll have to keep your body
under subjection to your spirit and diligently give yourself to prayer (1 Cor. 9:27;
1 Peter 4:7).
As I sought God’s guidance about various decisions, sometimes I’d pray night
after night over a period of several weeks. I wouldn’t stop until I got it clear in
my spirit what the Lord wanted me to do.
The whole time I’d be praying, I’d have my “spiritual antenna” up. Do you
know what I mean by that? In other words, I was constantly alert in my spirit to
hear what God was saying to me.
You, too, can put up your spiritual antenna simply by an act of faith. On the
inside of you, reach toward God with your spirit. As you do, you will contact the
Father God, who is a Spirit, and He will respond to your spirit.
As I prayed during those prolonged seasons of prayer, from somewhere deep
inside, the knowledge of what God wanted me to do would rise up in me. The
Lord’s wisdom and guidance would take shape and form within me, and
eventually I’d know on the inside of me exactly what direction I was supposed to
take. Once I got it clear in my spirit, no one could knock the knowledge of God’s
plan out of me. I had it!
Getting God’s direction clear in your spirit is what will carry you through to
victory when the trials come. If you don’t know for sure what God’s will is for
you concerning a particular matter, you could be easily swayed by adverse and
contrary circumstances. If you don’t have God’s direction clear in your spirit and
you make a decision anyway, you could waste a lot of time wavering back and
forth in fear wondering if you missed God.
Without the knowledge of God’s will fixed firmly in your spirit, you’ll ride the
waves of circumstances, so to speak, up one day and down the next. And you’ll
eventually get off course, because you’ll be led by natural circumstances rather
than by the leading of the Holy Spirit in your spirit. Knowing God’s will in your
spirit is your anchor to keep you on course no matter what comes against you.
Rid Your Heart of Any Hindrances
So make it your lifelong aim to develop your spirit and to always get God’s
guidance and direction clear in your spirit before you make a move. However,
remember this: You won’t be able to accomplish that goal unless you get rid of
anything in your heart that might be a hindrance to your prayer life. If you don’t
rid your heart of hindrances, you’ll spend a lot of time praying with no results.
What can hinder your prayer life? Jesus gives us one hindrance in Mark 11:25.
After talking about the prayer of faith in Mark 11:24, Jesus states that
unforgiveness is a hindrance to getting prayers answered.
MARK 11:24-26
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them.
25 And WHEN YE STAND PRAYING, FORGIVE, if ye have ought against any: that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
When you pray — forgive. Why did Jesus say that? Because Jesus knew our
prayers would be ineffectual if we harbor unforgiveness in our hearts toward
anyone.
Unless you practice walking in the love of God and you are quick to forgive,
you will greatly hinder the development of your spirit and your ability to receive
guidance and direction from the Lord — because it’s by your heart or spirit that
He leads you.
The Book of First Peter mentions another hindrance to the believer’s prayer
life.
 1 PETER 3:7-9
7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them [your wives] according to knowledge, giving honour
unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; THAT
YOUR PRAYERS BE NOT HINDERED.
8 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful,
be courteous:
9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye
are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
Verse 7 says that husbands can hinder their prayers by not giving honor to
their wife as a fellow heir of the grace of life. The truth is, both husbands and
wives can hinder their prayer lives and their spiritual development by not
walking in love toward each other. That’s absolutely the truth!
That scriptural principle is also true for every believer. In other words, if you
don’t rid your heart of every bit of animosity, ill will, or unforgiveness, you are
blocking the channel of communication between you and God.
These are not the only hindrances to your prayer life and to the development
of your spirit so you can successfully follow God in life.
Your prayer life will be hindered if you don’t strip off everything that is a
bondage to you personally — every weight and sin that would try to hold you
back from running your spiritual race to the best of your ability (Heb. 12:1).
So don’t dam up the flood tide of God’s blessing and glory and guidance!
Don’t hold on to weights and sins that clog the flow of His Spirit in your life.
Get those things out of your mind and your heart. Repent of them and get them
under the blood of Jesus.
Take care of any hindrance to your prayer life before you begin to seek God
for guidance on a matter. Then you can be assured that your heart is clear and
uncluttered so you can hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to you.
Let God Remove the Obstacles In Your Path
Once you do have God’s guidance on a matter, don’t be concerned with
seemingly impossible obstacles that might stand in the way of following His
plan. As you continue to seek the Lord for wisdom and obey Him each step of
the way, He will remove each obstacle in ways that will amaze you.
For example, I remember once when God began to deal with me two years
ahead of time about pastoring a particular church. I began picking this church up
in my spirit, and I asked the Lord, “Are You talking to me about pastoring that
church?”
As I continued to pray about the matter, I became convinced that the Lord
wanted me to pastor that particular church.
 Then I prayed, “Lord, I see some major obstacles blocking the way of my ever
pastoring that church. From the natural standpoint, those obstacles look like
insurmountable mountains. So You’ll have to work it out so I can pastor there.”
Some of the leaders at that particular church were opposed to my ministry
because of the message of faith and healing that I preached. They had tried to
confront me in the past, wanting to fuss and argue with me about what they
believed. But I just kept quiet and let them fuss. (I decided long ago that I’m
going to walk in love whether anyone else does or not!)
So I told the Lord, “I’m not going to take what You’ve told me about
pastoring that church and try to make it happen myself. I’m not going to say a
word to anyone. I’m just going to stay committed to the church I’m pastoring
now while I watch You work it out.”
And God did just that! To my utter surprise, two years later those leaders who
had so adamantly opposed me were the very ones who asked me to come and
pastor that church! God took care of every obstacle as I continued to pray and
trust Him with the matter.
But the reason I could trust God to work out the situation is that I first sought
Him in prayer until I had it clear in my spirit that pastoring that particular church
was God’s will for me.
Practical Insights To Praying Out The Mystery of God’s Plan
It’s so important to learn to wait before the Lord and pray out the mystery of
God’s plan for our lives. One way we can do that is to pray in other tongues.
The Bible says when we pray in tongues, we are praying mysteries to God:
“For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto
God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh
mysteries” (1 Cor. 14:2). Moffatt’s translations says we are praying “divine
secrets in the Spirit.”
Many of the bad things that happen to us — or the good things that should
have happened but didn’t — are a result of our failing in the past to pray out
God’s plan. You see, God has planned many things for us in the future that as we
pray in the Spirit we will be praying out ahead of time. (We can pray in the Spirit
both in tongues and in our native language when we pray by the unction of the
Holy Spirit.)
In fact, what is happening in your life in the present, whether good or bad, is a
result of what you have or have not prayed out in days gone by. And what will
happen in your life in the future will be a result of your present prayer life.
 At times, the Holy Spirit will impress you to pray about certain things that
concern His plan for your life. You’ll have an anointing or unction of the Holy
Spirit to pray. But if you ignore the Holy Spirit’s promptings and busy yourself
with natural affairs, that anointing will leave, and you’ll wonder if you ever
sensed it! If you keep ignoring the Holy Spirit’s promptings, you’ll grieve the
Holy Ghost, and He won’t deal with you anymore about that issue.
So determine to always stay sensitive to those gentle promptings of the Holy
Spirit. Take the time to wait upon the Lord in prayer and in the Word to discover
His guidance and direction for your life. Wait long enough before Him until your
mind becomes quiet and is no longer active. Wait long enough in prayer for all
of your physical senses and emotions to be brought into captivity so they no
longer dominate you. Then you’ll be able to hear from your spirit.
Also, as you spend time in God’s Presence, ministering to the Lord in praise
and worship will quiet your mind and strengthen your spirit. That’s why
spending much time ministering to the Lord will greatly aid you in developing
your spirit.
What does ministering to the Lord mean? It means to linger in His Presence,
loving and worshipping Him for all that He is and for all He has done for you. It
means to drink in of His glory and power and to let Him saturate every part of
your being.
Ministering to the Lord will also help you hear from Him. For instance, in
Acts 13:2, it says, “AS THEY [certain prophets and teachers at Antioch]
MINISTERED TO THE LORD, and fasted, THE HOLY GHOST SAID . . .” (Acts
13:2). When you worship the Lord, you create the kind of atmosphere in which
the Holy Spirit can speak to your heart.
As you spend time just loving and worshipping the Lord, it’s so much easier
to quiet your mind and emotions and focus on Jesus.
So if you want to experience intimate fellowship with the Lord and hear what
He is saying to you, spend much time ministering to Him.
It can take some time to get your mind and body quiet. That’s why the
scripture says, “BE STILL, and know that I am God . . .” (Ps. 46:10).
Take the time to let your body become quiet. Let your mind be still. Let your
emotions subside, until there’s no emotion at all in manifestation coloring your
thoughts. Once your mind and body are quiet, listen way down deep in your
innermost being to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. Although at times your
mind may seem to be in a fog, the Lord will enlighten your spirit and give you
the guidance you need.
 Don’t allow yourself to become spiritually lazy and stop short of hearing what
the Lord is saying to you in your spirit. If you become spiritually lethargic, you
could end up following your own soulish desires, thinking all the time you’re
following God’s plan for you.
You have to learn to distinguish between your soulish thoughts and desires
and the Lord’s leading in your spirit. To do that, you must become well-
grounded in the Word, which is the only thing that can distinguish between soul
and spirit (Heb. 4:12).
Becoming established in the Word will also help you learn to recognize the
voice of Satan as well. The devil will try to speak subtle lies to your mind to
deceive you (John 8:44; Rev. 12:9).
However, remember that God speaks to your spirit, and what He says to you
will always line up with His Word. So always examine your leading in the light
of the Bible. God will never lead you one step beyond the principles in His
Word.
Also, examine your motives for taking the step you’re considering. Ask
yourself: Why do I want to do this? Do I want to do it for my own selfish benefit
or because someone else is doing it? Is this something my soulish nature wants
to do or something God wants me to do?
Sometimes it takes a considerable amount of time staying in the Presence of
God for you to settle those questions. You can’t always do it in one session of
prayer.
Sometimes it takes long seasons of waiting before the Lord in prayer in order
to get your motives pure and your priorities sorted out according to the Word so
you can distinguish between the clamorings of your soul and the voice of your
spirit.
But if you’ll get still enough on the inside, and if you’ll meditate on God’s
Word and pray in the Spirit long enough, you’ll get deeper over into the Spirit,
and you’ll be able to differentiate between your soul and your spirit man. You’ll
be able to tell the difference between your own wants and desires and what God
wants for you.
Then from way down inside of you, direction and guidance will rise up. And
you’ll be able to say with confidence, “Now I know what to do! This is the
choice of the Lord. In times past, I was misled by my own emotions and my own
human personality. But now I’ve heard from the Lord in my spirit. And although
all the world might stand against me and say it’s not so, I know what God wants
me to do!”
 And as you obey God’s will and follow His plan, you’ll enjoy the blessings
He has provided for you.
The truth is, ministering to your own spirit — constantly feeding your spirit
by meditating on the Word of God and fellowshipping with the Lord — is the
most important thing you can do to develop your spirit so you can ascertain
God’s will for your life. Only then can you live in the abundance God has
provided for you.
Many Christians miss it by remaining in the mental and physical realms.
Forgetting that the spiritual realm is the root, the stem, and the ground out of
which all else grows, they get all agitated in their mind and emotions. And they
run here and there, seeking for someone to give them mental, natural counsel.
But if they’d only stop, get quiet on the inside, and fellowship with the Lord,
they’d begin to hear Him speak to their heart. Peace, contentment, and
satisfaction would flow out of their spirit into their mind and emotions. All of
their questionings would simmer down and become as nothing, and even their
bodies would respond in joy and health.
Someone may say, “Well, I’ve been praying a long time, and I haven’t heard
anything yet.” Then don’t make a move until you do! Keep on seeking the Lord
in the Word and in prayer.
Someone else may say, “I’m going to give God only this long to give me an
answer. If He doesn’t, I’ll have to do it my way.” No, it doesn’t work that way.
You can’t give God your deadline! If you try, you’ll be going the wrong direction
for sure! You must wait before the Lord in faith that He will answer you in His
time and in His way.
If you want to be led by the Holy Spirit, always be willing to respond to His
leading, even if it doesn’t agree with your own human reasonings, expectations,
or desires. Don’t hinder your ability to discern His guidance through wrong
thinking or selfish ambition. Stay teachable and open in your heart to anything
the Lord may tell you. And as you do, He will teach you His ways and direct you
into His plan for your life.
In my own life, I determined long ago to always respond instantly to the Holy
Spirit’s leading. And through the years, every time I took the time to seek the
Lord for guidance in the Word and in prayer, God always gave me an answer.
The Holy Spirit would bear witness with my spirit to God’s plan, and I’d know
on the inside I had received God’s direction on the matter. I knew it better than I
knew my own name!
You can experience the same success in receiving guidance from the Holy
Spirit. But I want to emphasize this fact: Knowing the will of God and walking
in the will of God is contingent upon your prayer life and upon being established
in the Word.
The more time you spend waiting before the Lord in the Word and in prayer,
the more sure you will be of the next step to take. In God’s Presence, what is not
of God in your life will gradually fall away.
You’ll come to the place where you won’t be bothered any more by those
weights and sins that caused you to stumble in the past. And you’ll find that you
are able to walk in the clearly defined will of the Father.
As you practice praying out the mystery of God’s plan for your life according
to the Word, the Lord will take you deeper in the realm of prayer than you’ve
ever been before.
I’m not talking about some mystical realm where you float around like a cloud
in the sky and are too spiritual to be any earthly good! I’m talking about learning
to enjoy a more intimate level of communion with the Lord. The things of the
Spirit of God will become more real to you than the natural world around you.
That’s the way it should be for every believer. Walking in the Spirit should be
normal for the child of God. It should be as natural for a believer to be led by the
Holy Spirit and to walk by faith as it is for fish to swim in the sea and birds to fly
in the sky.
You see, you can become so attuned to the Holy Spirit who dwells inside you
that in every situation of life, you’ll know exactly what He is saying to you as
you seek Him for guidance and direction. You’ll develop a working relationship
with God.
What do I mean by a working relationship? I mean you’ll become so intimate
with your Heavenly Father that it will become natural to talk everything over
with Him just as a child would talk with his earthly father. You won’t make any
significant decisions without asking Him first, and He won’t do anything that
concerns you without telling you first.
Throughout my own Christian walk, I’ve developed that kind of intimate,
working relationship with the Lord. I’ve kept myself consecrated to God’s will,
whatever it may be. But I’ve always felt free to talk with Him just like a son
would talk to his father.
For instance, on some matters that weren’t that crucial, I’ve asked the Lord,
“If it’s all right with You, could I do it this way?” And the Lord told me, “That’s
fine with Me. It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but if you want to do it that
way, it’s all right.”
 On the other hand, there have been times when the Lord told me, “No, don’t
ask to do that. It wouldn’t be best.” So I’ve trusted His wisdom and obeyed Him.
You can have an intimate relationship with the Lord if you’ll stay in the Word,
stay “prayed up,” and stay yielded to the Holy Spirit’s leading. God wants you to
develop your spirit so you can enjoy close communion with Him. And as you
wait in His Presence in prayer, in that holy place of sweet communion, at times
you will catch glimpses in the Spirit of His plan for you as He shows you things
to come (John 16:13).
Don’t Let Satan Thwart God’s Plan for You!
As you spend time in the Presence of the Lord, not only will you enter into a
new dimension of communion with Him, but you will also gain a greater
understanding of your authority and power in the Name of Jesus to stop Satan’s
strategies in your life.[3]This is extremely important, because Satan will do his
best to thwart God’s purpose for your life from being fulfilled.
Has the Lord spoken to you by His Word and by His Spirit concerning His
plan for you? Perhaps you’ve waited and waited for what He has said to your
heart to come to pass, yet nothing has happened. You need to seek the Lord and
determine if your lack of results is due to Satan’s strategies against you. If that is
the case, you must speak to your mountain — whatever problem or circumstance
Satan is using against you — and command it to be removed in the mighty
Name of Jesus (Mark 11:23).
You see, there are often spiritual battles in prayer that we must wage as we
stand our ground on the Word against the enemy who wants to keep God’s plan
from coming to pass in our lives. I’m not talking about a mental or physical
battle. I’m talking about standing against spiritual forces of darkness in the
Name of Jesus as we fight the good fight of faith by the Word of God (Eph. 6:12;
1 Tim. 6:12).
As we exercise our God-given authority in Jesus’ Name, we enforce the
victory over the devil that Jesus already bought for us on the Cross (Col. 2:15;
Heb. 2:14). That is the kind of warfare Paul was talking about in First Timothy.
1 TIMOTHY 1:18
18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before
on thee, that thou by them mightest WAR A GOOD WARFARE.
In my ministry, there have been times when it seemed like every demon in hell
was ganging up on me to keep me from following God’s plan for my life. For
instance, the first five months after I left my last church and went into the field
ministry, it seemed like I had to stand against more demons than I had the
previous fifteen years put together.
 Everywhere I turned, I encountered oppression and opposition from the
enemy. The devil tried to keep me out of the place of ministry that God had
planned for me, but I overcame by steadfastly exercising my authority in Jesus
Christ in prayer. You see, the Bible calls it a good fight of faith because
sometimes we have to steadfastly and with perseverance take our stand against
the enemy (Eph. 6:11-18).
You can do the same thing in your life. For instance, if a spirit of depression or
oppression has been causing your spirit to be sluggish and your mind to be
unclear, you need to command the enemy to stop his operations against you in
the Name of Jesus.
Command Satan’s power to be broken over every area of your life. Stand your
ground against the enemy’s strategies with the Word of God and the mighty
Name of Jesus.
At the same time, hold fast to your confession of faith that God’s purposes
will prevail in your life. Begin to say, “The Lord has spoken to me and therefore,
in the Name of Jesus it shall come to pass!”
When you walk in that realm of authority in Jesus Christ, no man, no enemy,
no demon, and no circumstance will be able to stand between you and the
fulfillment of God’s purposes for your life. And as you determine to develop
your spirit and to always follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, to a greater and
greater degree you will walk in victory and experience the fullness of God’s plan
for you.
I’ve shared different ways the Holy Spirit may lead you and some scriptural
principles that when acted upon will help you successfully follow the Holy
Spirit’s guidance. But remember, spiritual things require practice, just as natural
things do.
So don’t get in a hurry and become discouraged if you don’t grow up and
develop spiritual maturity in these matters overnight. You didn’t develop
mentally and physically overnight, did you?
You didn’t enter first grade one week and graduate from high school the next
week! You didn’t mature overnight. In the same way, your spiritual development
will take some time too.
So just continue to be diligent to seek the Lord for guidance and direction in
your life. Remember to exercise your God-given authority in Jesus Christ to stop
Satan’s attempts to thwart God’s plan for your life. Most importantly, spend
much time in God’s Presence, meditating on His Word, worshipping Him, and
praying in the Spirit.
 Don’t get upset because you miss it a few times. Just keep on growing
spiritually and developing your spirit. Refuse to walk after your own natural
mind, and ask the Lord to make His thoughts your thoughts. As you are rooted
and grounded in the Word and take time to listen to your spirit, the Bible
promises that you will learn to be led by the Holy Spirit!
[1]For further study on the subject of how to be led by the Holy Spirit, see also How You Can Be Led by the Spirit of God by Rev.
Kenneth E. Hagin.

[2] For further study on the subject of the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, see also The Holy
Spirit and His Gifts by Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin.

[3]For further study on the subject of the authority of the believer, see also The Believer’s Authority by Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin.


 Chapter 5

Different Ways The Holy Spirit Leads

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things
to come.
— John 16:13
We’ve talked about the three primary ways the Holy Spirit leads believers:
through the inward witness, the still small voice, and the authoritative Voice of
the Holy Spirit. But now I want to give you some examples of these various
ways the Holy Spirit leads as we follow His plan for our lives.
God Will Personally Lead You
First of all, however, let me stress that receiving God’s direction for your life
is your own personal responsibility. God wants to personally lead and guide you
in every area of your life so you can successfully run the spiritual race He has set
before you.
God isn’t going to lead and guide you through other people, although
sometimes He will use someone else to confirm what you already have in your
own spirit. He’s going to lead you by His Spirit.
Some Christians aren’t willing to take the responsibility of seeking God’s
guidance for themselves. They are looking for an easy way out. They don’t want
to depend on their own personal relationship with God, because it takes time and
effort to develop spiritually. They’d rather have someone else seek God for them
and tell them what to do. Folks like that miss God’s best for their lives, because
God isn’t going to lead them through other people. Besides, God desires to have
a personal relationship with each one of His children.
God didn’t call any of us to tell other people what to do. Although we might
help someone by giving wise counsel according to the Word and the Holy Spirit,
God wants His children to be led by the Holy Spirit who dwells inside each of
them.
How different life would be for people if they would just accept the
responsibility to hear and heed what the Holy Spirit is saying to each of them!
So many trials and difficulties can be avoided if a person will just learn to follow
the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
In Acts chapter 27, we can see a biblical example of a great trial people
encountered because they didn’t heed the warning of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit gave Paul, a prisoner on a ship bound for Rome, wise counsel about
impending danger. Actually, Paul may have been the only one on board who was
in a position to hear from God. He warned those in charge of the voyage that
there was danger ahead.
ACTS 27:10-14,20,21
10 And [Paul] said unto them, Sirs, I PERCEIVE that this voyage will be with hurt and much
damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.
11 Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those
things which were spoken by Paul.
12 And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart
thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an
haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west.
13 And WHEN THE SOUTH WIND BLEW SOFTLY, supposing that they had obtained their
purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete.
14 But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. . . .
20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all
hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
21 But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should
have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and
loss.
Notice that in verse 10 Paul did not say, “The Holy Ghost spoke to me.” He
said, “I perceive.” Paul must have had an inward witness or spiritual perception
that danger lay ahead of them if they ventured any further seaward before winter.
If the men in charge of the voyage would have listened to Paul, they could
have saved their ship! But they wouldn’t listen. Circumstances seemed
favorable; the south wind was softly blowing, so they set sail.
But soon a huge storm came upon the ship and its passengers. The storm was
the danger Paul had sensed in his spirit before they launched out. Because of the
storm, all of the merchandise was lost. The ship was lost. Every man on board
would have been lost, too, if those in charge hadn’t decided to heed Paul’s words
before the ship ran aground (Acts 27:22-26,30-38).
Because those men finally did listen to what the Holy Spirit told Paul, God
spared the life of every person on the ship (Acts 27:44). But how much better it
would have been if they had listened to what God was saying through Paul to
begin with!
The same thing still happens today. Often folks only start listening to God
when they get in the middle of one of life’s storms and they have nowhere else to
turn. They get themselves in a situation where they are either going to listen to
God and obey His direction, or they’re going under.
The storms of life come to us all. However, some storms can be avoided
altogether if we would just listen to the Lord’s leading in the first place!
 We have a choice. Yes, we can wait until the storm winds of life are tossing us
all about and then start listening to the Holy Spirit. But how much better if we’d
choose to heed His promptings while the south wind blows softly and everything
is going smoothly so we can avoid the storm!
So take the responsibility to discern the Lord’s leading for yourself. Learn to
detect and follow the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. You have a Helper
within you who will help you avoid unnecessary detours and pitfalls in life, and
He will guide you safely along the path of God’s plan as you seek the Lord with
all of your heart.
The Inward Witness
Let me give you some examples of the ways the Holy Spirit leads His
children. I’ll also give you some practical principles to help you follow the
leading of the Holy Spirit in your own life.
I could relate hundreds of instances in my own life and ministry that show
how the Holy Spirit guided me by the inward witness, the primary way God
leads His people.
For example, I knew by the inward witness that I was to start RHEMA Bible
Training Center some time before I spoke it out by the unction of the Holy Spirit
at Campmeeting ’73. I was just as sure by the inward witness that God wanted
me to start a ministerial training school as I would have been if Jesus had
appeared to me in a vision and told me to start it.
For instance, in 1950 Jesus did appear to me. In that vision, He talked to me
about my ministry and gave me a special healing anointing. But I had just as
much assurance by the inward witness that I should start a Bible training center
as I had by a vision of Jesus that I was supposed to have a healing ministry. I just
knew on the inside by the inward witness that it was God’s will for me to start a
ministerial training center, although I didn’t want to do it at first.
It was also by the inward witness that I was led to RHEMA’s present location
in Broken Arrow. You see, during the first two years of the training center, we
operated out of Sheridan Assembly, a church in Tulsa. We had no building of our
own to start RHEMA. The first year we graduated only fifty-eight students, but
the attendance quickly grew, and by the second year, we had to find facilities that
could accommodate more students.
So in 1976 we started looking for a permanent location for RHEMA Bible
Training Center. We knew the facilities we chose needed to have the capacity to
be enlarged as the number of students increased. We didn’t want to turn away
hundreds of students every year.
 Then a businessman friend told me, “I might have found a suitable place for
the school in Broken Arrow.” So my wife and I drove to Broken Arrow to check
it out.
The moment we turned the corner and I saw the office building and warehouse
(now the Kenneth Hagin Ministries Administration Building and Rooker
Memorial Auditorium, respectively), I sensed the Holy Spirit’s signal or
quickening in my spirit. I knew by the inward witness that we had found the
right location.
My wife had the same inward witness. We didn’t experience any spectacular
revelation. But on the inside of us, we both just knew that the Lord was saying,
“This is it!”
So we bought the property and moved the ministry and the training center to
Broken Arrow. That wasn’t an easy decision to make. It was a giant step of faith
for us. The property was mostly undeveloped, and we knew it would take a lot of
money to build the RHEMA campus.
But despite what it looked like in the natural, we obeyed God. And things
have worked out well for us. In the years since we first moved our offices to
Broken Arrow, we’ve built the present RHEMA campus step by step,
accomplishing what many said couldn’t be done. But it all started by obeying the
inward witness of the Holy Spirit.
Here’s a side note to that account which will show you how important it is to
heed the inward witness. Years ago I learned from an elderly Pentecostal woman
how Pentecost had first come to Broken Arrow in the early 1900s. She told me
about a young farm boy named Rupert Bailey who was baptized in the Holy
Spirit in Broken Arrow’s first Pentecostal church. This young man used to live
on a farm located where RHEMA Bible Training Center stands today.
Although Rupert was just a teenager, he had a strong desire to see revival in
his generation and in the generations to come. When Rupert wasn’t working with
his father on the farm, he would spend hours praying on a grassy knoll, located
where Student Development Center 1 was later built. Day after day, he would
pray and travail for lost souls.
One day after praying, Rupert stood up on that grassy knoll and prophesied by
the unction of the Holy Spirit, “From this very spot, there will come a great work
of God that will reach the world!”
Glory to God! No wonder when I saw that property, it was as if the Holy
Spirit set off an electrical charge in my spirit! Obeying that inward witness to
purchase the Broken Arrow property was instrumental in causing the word of the
Lord, which was prophesied almost a century ago, to come to pass! And it was
also an important step in successfully following God’s plan for my life and
ministry in these last days.
Success is always the result of following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Jesus
once told me when He appeared to me in a vision, “If you will learn to follow
the inward witness, I will make you rich [abundantly supplied]. I will guide you
in all the affairs of life, financial as well as spiritual.” The Lord is interested in
every area of our lives. He wants us to prosper and enjoy success as we follow
His plan for our lives.
I remember a fellow who visited RHEMA in the mid-1970s who benefited
greatly financially by following the inward witness. He told me that soon after
World War II, he invested $14,000 in a chemical company. That was a lot of
money back then.
This man related, “Both my CPA and my stock broker advised me not to
invest in this company. But I had such a good feeling in my spirit about it that I
went ahead and made the investment anyway.”
That “good feeling” in the man’s spirit was not a physical feeling. It was a
spiritual perception — the inward witness of the Holy Spirit — encouraging him
to invest the money.
For the first ten years after the man invested his money in the chemical
company, it didn’t look like he had made a wise investment. He explained, “At
one time I could have sold my stock and gotten about half of my money back.
Several years later, if I had sold my stock, I still would have only broken even
and gotten back my original investment. I thought, Well, I sure missed God on
that investment!”
But the man continued to follow the inward witness that had led him to invest
the money in the first place. He had no change of direction in his spirit, so he
just left his stock alone and watched to see what would happen to his investment.
Many years later, this chemical company finally began to show signs of success.
By the time this man talked to me, thirty years had passed since he had first
invested his money. He told me, “I still own that same stock in the chemical
company. And if I sold my stock today, it’s worth about four million dollars!”
Four million dollars is not a bad return on a $14,000 investment! Yet the first
ten years it didn’t seem like it was a good investment. For quite a while, the man
thought he had missed God.
But that man didn’t miss God! Thirty years isn’t long in the eyes of God. In
this case, it just took thirty years for the man to reap the full benefits of obeying
the Holy Spirit’s leading to invest that money.
It pays to follow the inward witness, no matter how long it takes to reap the
benefits of your obedience. If you learn to follow it, you’ll always come out on
top of the situation.
The Lord doesn’t always settle up His accounts every Saturday night or by the
first of next year. But I’ll tell you this: if you’ll stay with the Lord, sooner or
later, God’s Word — including the leading of the Holy Spirit — will prevail and
you will come out on top!
Obey the Checks in Your Spirit!
Now someone might say, “I’m trying to follow the inward witness. And I’ve
made plans, thinking the Lord was leading me in that direction. But I still have
an uneasiness in my spirit about it. What should I do?”
If you don’t know for certain on the inside that you have the Lord’s direction
and timing, don’t make a move. It may just mean you are to pray out His plan
more fully or that you don’t have His timing quite right.
Just stay steady and continue to seek Him for guidance until you are sure.
Wait until you have a release in your spirit that it’s time to move out in God’s
plan.
And if you begin to move in a certain direction and you get a check in your
spirit, then stop! That check or unrest in your spirit is a stop sign from the Lord,
and although you may not understand it at the time, He has good reason for
giving it to you.
You see, God knows the future. And He’ll give you a check in your spirit if
He sees you moving in a direction that will cause you harm or that will hinder
you from fulfilling His plan for your life.
When the Lord gives you a check in your spirit, it’s of utmost importance that
you seek God until you know what it means. If you don’t and you keep walking
in the same direction you’re going, you’ll invariably suffer the consequences of
not heeding the Holy Spirit’s warning.
For instance, I’ve seen pastors miss it by failing to heed that check in their
spirit. Instead of taking the time to seek God and to get their mind, emotions, and
body quiet so they could hear what their spirit was saying, they made a wrong
move in the ministry. Sometimes they even changed churches out of the will of
God.
It took some of those pastors years to get back on track with God’s plan for
them. Others never did get back on track. Some of them continued to flounder in
life and ministry because their wrong move made them start doubting their own
ability to hear God correctly.
Thank God we can hear from God! But we need to seek Him until we’re sure
we have heard from Him! And if we miss it, we need to keep trusting Him to
teach us how to hear Him more accurately the next time.
I’ll share with you one instance of a pastor who missed it in his ministry.
When I was twenty-two years old and pastoring my first Full Gospel church, I
visited a Full Gospel pastor in a nearby town. When I drove up in front of the
parsonage, to my amazement I saw the pastor’s car hooked up to a trailer, which
was piled high with all his furniture and belongings.
I walked over to the pastor and asked, “What’s going on?”
The pastor answered, “I’ve resigned my church.”
The instant he said that, I knew in my spirit by the inward witness that he was
missing it. But I was barely twenty-two. This man was old enough to be my
father. I wasn’t going to just blurt out, “You’re missing it!” unless God
specifically told me to tell him that.
I thought to myself, Doesn’t he know he’s missing it? I helped him pack the
last few items into the trailer. When everything was loaded, the pastor shook
hands with me and told me good-bye.
Then the pastor said something that let me know he didn’t know for sure
whether or not he was doing the right thing. He said, “I sure hope I’m not
missing it.” I never will forget the look on his face and the sound of his voice
when he said that. Then he shook his head, got in the car with his wife, and
drove off.
I just stood there in the driveway, almost weeping. I felt so bad inside as I
watched them drive off, out of the will of God. That pastor ought to have known
on the inside that he was missing it, not because he was a minister, but because
he was a child of God. Every child of God can expect to be led by the Holy
Spirit.
I went home and told my wife, “Brother So-and-so resigned from his church
and took a pastorate in another town.”
My wife said, “Doesn’t he know he’s missing it?” You see, my wife isn’t a
preacher, but she also picked it up in her spirit that the pastor had missed God.
I answered, “He sure is! But it wasn’t my place to tell him unless the Lord told
me to tell him.”
You see, you need to have wisdom in this area. I could tell by the way the
pastor talked he wouldn’t have accepted it even if I had told him that I sensed he
was missing it. I knew God was trying to tell him to stay where he was. But if
that pastor wouldn’t listen to God, he surely wouldn’t have listened to me, a
pastor only half his age.
Another minister came and took the pastorate of the church this pastor had
left. A number of unfortunate things happened over the following months. The
end result was that seven months later, the first pastor who had resigned returned
to that same church.
That pastor was never so glad in his life to get back to his church! And he
stayed there as the pastor for many more years. But while he was gone, the
church had suffered. Because of the problems during those seven months, his
congregation had dwindled to half its original size. If the pastor had obeyed God
and had stayed put in the first place, he could have avoided that mess. And
instead of suffering, the congregation probably would have prospered spiritually
and also increased in size.
Pastors aren’t the only ones who sometimes fail to heed the check in their
spirit and as a result suffer the consequences. I’m sure there are mistakes every
one of us have made that we could have avoided if we had been sensitive enough
in our spirit to hear the Holy Spirit’s warning!
So if you are moving in a certain direction in your life and you have an
uneasiness in your spirit, don’t go any further. Stop and seek God to find out
exactly what He is saying to your spirit.
Don’t Seek Spectacular Guidance
On the other hand, if you know on the inside of you by the inward witness
what God wants you to do, don’t wait around for God to give you more
spectacular guidance. Obey the inward witness.
In other words, when God is bearing witness with your spirit by the Holy
Spirit to go in a certain direction, be careful you don’t ignore the inward witness
because you want God to lead you in a more spectacular and obvious way, such
as by a vision or an angelic visitation. It’s especially easy to do that when God is
leading you in a direction your flesh doesn’t want to go.
Although at times God does lead His children through visions and other
spectacular guidance, it is not our responsibility to tell the Lord how to lead us.
We have no scriptural right to seek visions, voices, or angels to speak to us.
However, we do have a right to claim what the Bible promises us. And the
Bible promises that the Holy Spirit will lead and guide us into all truth (John
16:13; Rom. 8:14).
So we need to find out from the Word how God leads and guides us by His
Holy Spirit. Then we must seek Him for guidance, in any way He may want to
give it.
I made the mistake of doubting the inward witness and seeking more
spectacular guidance when God dealt with me about returning to pastor the
Farmersville church.
As I said, neither Oretha nor I wanted to go back to that church. We loved the
congregation, but we didn’t like anything else about the town.
After Oretha and I agreed that the Lord was leading us to return to
Farmersville, we just committed the matter into the Lord’s hands to work it out.
Less than two months later, one of the board members of that church called
me and said, “Our pastor just resigned. Would you consider coming back to
pastor our church?”
I didn’t tell the board member what the Lord had been saying to me. I just
said, “Well, I don’t know. You have a congregational government at your church.
The people have something to say about it because they would have to vote me
in.”
“That’s the reason we’re calling you,” the board member answered. “The
people have been coming to the board members, saying, ‘See if Brother Hagin
will come back as pastor.’”
So I went back for a few days to preach in the Farmersville church. And while
I was there, the congregation voted me back in as pastor.
But even though I knew on the inside that I was to be the next pastor, I let my
mind start drifting back into the natural realm. I started thinking, Do I really
want to come back here? Except for the people, I can’t think of one thing I like
about this place. And I began to doubt the inward witness.
So I tried to get God to give me more spectacular guidance by fasting for three
days and by praying over and over, “Oh, God, move! Speak to me!” I guess I
wanted Him to write me a message in the sky or paint me a picture in the clouds!
At the very least, I thought, a vision or a prophecy would help me to be sure of
God’s will in this decision.
I was in my third day of fasting and praying when the Lord spoke to me. I was
on my knees, praying, “Oh, Lord, give me a sign!” when suddenly He spoke to
me by the still small voice.
The Lord said, “Get up from there! I’m not going to give you any sign.
You’ve just wasted your time, fasting and praying for some kind of spectacular
sign. You already know on the inside of you what to do, so do it!”
I answered, “Yes, Lord!” And I never said another word to Him about it. I just
obeyed what He had already told me and took the pastorate of the Farmersville
church. And as it turned out, we were greatly blessed for our obedience.
I learned a lesson from that experience. I never sought spectacular guidance
from the Lord again. It was a long time after that experience before I ever had a
vision. But when I did, I wasn’t praying for God to give me one. I’d learned to
be content with following the Holy Spirit’s guidance in any way He desired to
lead me. And most of the time, He leads me by the inward witness.
The Still Small Voice
I said that when I was fasting and praying about the Farmersville church, the
Lord spoke to me by the still small voice. The still small voice of our own spirit
is the second most common way the Lord leads His people by the Holy Spirit.
My spirit was picking up the voice of the Holy Spirit, and that’s how the Lord
led me in that instance.
Let me give you another example in my own life when the Lord led me by the
still small voice. In 1970 my wife and I were in New York holding meetings in
various cities. One Sunday as I was taking our belongings into the hotel where
we were staying, I began to feel physically sick.
Now if that happened to someone else, that might not mean a thing in the
world. But, you see, thirty-six years earlier, I had been raised off the deathbed,
and I hadn’t had the flu or a headache in thirty-six years. (Now more than fifty-
five years have passed, and I still haven’t had the flu or a headache — and I
don’t ever intend to! I’m not bragging on myself. I’m bragging on Jesus! He’s
the Healer!)
In the past if symptoms of sickness tried to attack me, I would simply act on
Mark 11:24, as I did when I first got healed. And always before when I prayed
the prayer of faith, I would either be instantly healed, or I would immediately
begin to feel better.
So I prayed the prayer of faith as I always had. But this time, I got no better
fast!
When I got to the hotel room, I lay down on the bed, feeling like I would fall
on the floor if I didn’t. As I lay there, I began to seek the Lord to find out why
my prayer of faith hadn’t worked.
I said, “Lord, I didn’t make my connection with You when I prayed. I know
You don’t miss it. You never change, and You never fail. So I know I’ve missed
it somewhere. So tell me, Lord, where did I miss it?”
The Lord answered me, not by an audible Voice, but through the still small
voice of my spirit. (My spirit picked up the voice of the Holy Spirit.) The Lord
said, “Lay your own hands on yourself to be healed. Twenty years and four days
ago, I appeared to you and told you, ‘The healing power is in your hands.’”
So I didn’t waste any time laying hands on myself! Immediately I felt a warm
glow go out of my hands into my stomach and spread throughout my body.
Instantly I began to feel better.
Then the Lord said to me, “You haven’t done what you should have done with
the healing ministry. That is part of your calling.” You see, for about five years I
had backed off of laying hands on the sick. But the healing ministry was part of
God’s plan for my life.
“Now go back to Tulsa and start over again,” the Lord told me. “Tell the
people what I said to you in the vision in 1950 — that I gave you a healing
anointing to minister to the sick. And as you obey Me and begin to lay hands on
the sick, a stronger healing anointing will come upon you to abide.”
From that time on, I began obeying the Lord in regard to the healing ministry,
and His words came to pass. I began to operate in a stronger healing anointing.
The Authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit
Another way the Holy Spirit leads His people is by the authoritative Voice of
the Holy Spirit. In my own life, there have been times when the Holy Spirit has
spoken to my spirit in a Voice that seems to be audible, although other folks
around me don’t hear it.
Many times I’ve heard that authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit, and I’ve
asked people near me, “Did you hear that?” To me the Voice was that real.
Usually, they say, “No, we didn’t hear anything.”
I’m of the opinion that Philip heard the audible Voice of the Holy Spirit in
Acts 8:29: “Then THE SPIRIT SAID unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this
chariot.” Whether the Voice was audible to anyone else or not, I’m convinced
that it was audible to Philip.
Another biblical example of the Holy Ghost’s speaking to someone is found in
Acts chapter 10.
Peter had just had a vision while praying on the housetop. In that vision, God
told him that salvation through Jesus Christ was available to the Gentiles (Acts
10:10-16).
 ACTS 10:19,20
19 While Peter thought on the vision, THE SPIRIT SAID UNTO HIM, Behold, three men seek
thee.
20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent
them.
In all probability the Holy Spirit spoke to Peter by the authoritative Voice (v.
19). If you had been on that housetop with Peter, you probably would not have
heard the Holy Spirit speak. But the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit was
audible to Peter. He distinctly heard what the Holy Spirit said to him.
In my own experience, I have found this to be true: Most of the time when
God audibly speaks to me by His Holy Spirit, it means rough sailing is ahead of
me. The Lord tells me by the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit so I’ll hold
steady when the storm hits. When I don’t need that kind of strong guidance to
keep me steady, He doesn’t usually speak to me that way. For the most part,
when I don’t need strong guidance, He just leads me by the inward witness.
For example, we see that principle in the passage we just read. Look what
happened to Peter after the Holy Spirit spoke to him. As Peter preached the
gospel to Cornelius and his entire household, God gloriously saved every one of
them and baptized them in the Holy Ghost (Acts 10:44-46). But then Peter
encountered some rough times spiritually.
After that supernatural experience with the Gentiles, Peter’s actions were
called into question by the other Jewish brethren. The Bible says that “. . . when
Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended
with him” (Acts 11:2). Peter had to defend what he had done in preaching the
gospel to the Gentiles by explaining, “. . . THE SPIRIT BADE ME GO . . .”
(Acts 11:12).
Apparently Peter needed the more spectacular guidance of the Holy Spirit
through the authoritative Voice to hold him steady when he encountered
opposition by the Jewish believers. At that time, the Jewish believers were
opposed to the Gentiles being included in the New Covenant; they didn’t know
that was part of God’s plan of redemption.
Several times in my own life and ministry when rough sailing was ahead, God
has spoken to me in the authoritative Voice. For instance, in 1946 I was
considering the possibility of taking the pastorate of a little church in Van, Texas.
One day I asked God what His will was in the matter. Immediately I heard the
audible Voice of the Holy Spirit speak to my spirit. It was just as plain to me as if
someone were standing beside me speaking.
The Voice said, “You are the next pastor at the Van church. And that will be
the last church you will ever pastor.”
I soon found out why the Lord spoke to me audibly. If He hadn’t given me
such obvious guidance, I would have left that church before I ever started
pastoring it!
The church at Van was what preachers called “a troubled church.” Because of
various problems, the congregation of that church was divided into two groups.
I came with my family to preach so the congregation could vote on whether or
not they wanted me as their pastor.
I quickly found out that it’s not easy preaching to a congregation that has
drawn an imaginary line down the middle of the church — one half on one side
divided against the other half on the other side! The atmosphere was so cold and
dead it seemed as if every word I preached bounced off the back wall like a
rubber ball and hit me in the face.
I thought I was only going to preach Wednesday evening. But unknown to me,
the board members had scheduled me to preach Wednesday through Sunday
evening. That meant every night I had to move my family from one deacon’s
house to another deacon’s house. Otherwise, the deacons would get jealous of
each other! It would have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
I told my wife, “If I didn’t know God was in this, I’d just pile us all into the
car and leave town without telling anyone!” The only reason I stayed was that I
wanted to obey God. But that’s why God had spoken to me by the authoritative
Voice of the Holy Spirit. It was to hold me steady in rough times.
The church members held their election that Sunday evening. I got every vote
but two. Someone said, “Why, that’s a miracle! These people don’t agree on
anything!”
But Jesus had told me I would be the next pastor of that church, so I wasn’t
surprised. I never told the congregation I’d heard a Voice from Heaven. I just got
up and accepted the pastorate as graciously as I could, despite the fact that my
mind and my physical senses were hollering to leave before I even got started!
The first six months of pastoring that church were tough. The former pastor
was still in town. He would visit the half of the congregation who still favored
him as pastor and collect their tithes for himself. And he’d tell any church
member he met, “God can’t bless that church because I’m supposed to be the
pastor.”
Once in a while this former pastor would hold a meeting in another town, and
I’d have a little respite. I could always tell when he was gone. There would be a
difference in the church services; the spiritual atmosphere lightened, and it was
easier to preach.
No one had to tell me when the former pastor came back to town, either. I’d
start preaching Sunday morning, and I’d immediately think, Brother So-and-so
is back in town. The atmosphere was cold again, and I’d sense my words
bouncing off the back wall like rubber balls.
I’d tell my wife after every Sunday night service, “If I didn’t know God
wanted me to pastor this church, I’d rent a truck, load all our belongings in it at
midnight, and leave without even telling anyone we were going. They’d come by
the next day, find the parsonage empty, and think the rapture had taken place!”
We struggled through those six months. It was tough, but things became easier
as I stayed steady and walked in love toward the people, including that former
pastor.
I determined I would endeavor to help this former pastor any way I could.
And in the process of time, I had the opportunity to be a blessing to him.
Love always wins! This pastor and his wife were reconciled to the
congregation and then went on to successfully establish a church in another
town. And although the first several months at the Van church had been rough
sailing for me and my family, over the next few years we were greatly blessed
for obeying God.
Another time I heard the audible Voice of the Holy Spirit was in May 1950. I
heard an audible Voice speak to me from Heaven in the English language. It was
Jesus speaking through the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).
Jesus said to me, “Thou shalt not die, but thou shalt live. I want you to go
teach My people faith. I have taught you faith through My Word, and I have
permitted you to go through certain experiences. You have learned faith both
through My Word and by experience. Now go teach My people what I have
taught you. Go teach My people faith!”
I have endeavored to be obedient to that heavenly Voice. That’s one reason I
teach so much about faith. I’m supposed to! For me, it’s a part of my obedience
to the will of God for my life.
After that supernatural experience, I obeyed God and went back into the field
ministry. And in those early years of field ministry, I ran up and down the hills
and hollows of east Texas, preaching about faith when no one else was. I was
criticized, persecuted, and talked about, but it never fazed me in the least bit.
The Lord had given me a commission through the audible Voice of the Holy
Spirit, so I just kept right on preaching about faith. I was determined to obey the
Lord and follow His plan for my life, no matter what.
Those are just some examples of the many times in my life when the Lord has
spoken to me in the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit in order to prepare me
for what was coming in His future plans for me. That’s scriptural.
God Will Show Us Things To Come
You see, God promises us in His Word that the Holy Spirit will show believers
things to come: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you
into all truth . . . and HE WILL SHEW [show] YOU THINGS TO COME” (John
16:13).
Believers can claim John 16:13 and expect God to reveal His plan for their
individual lives.
Of course, the Lord won’t show you everything that is to come. He isn’t going
to show you His entire plan for your life all at one time from the beginning to
end. He wants you to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).
If He showed you everything, you’d be walking by sight, not by faith. And
without faith you wouldn’t be able to please Him (Heb. 11:6).
There will always be a certain amount of mystery to anything that is
supernatural, including God’s plan for our lives.
Even the Apostle Paul said, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part”
(1 Cor. 13:9). Paul also said, “. . . For now we see through a glass, darkly . . .”
(1 Cor. 13:12). That’s where faith comes in as we walk with God.
But occasionally the Lord will give you a glimpse into the future. As you stay
attuned to His Spirit, God will alert your spirit to those things to come that are
necessary for you to know, so you can prepare yourself and be ready for His
future plans for you.
Glimpses Into the Future Through the Word of Wisdom
God can also reveal His plan for the future through the word of wisdom. The
word of wisdom is one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed in First
Corinthians 12:8-10.
We can define the word of wisdom as a supernatural revelation by the Spirit
of God concerning the divine plan and purpose in the mind and will of God. The
word of wisdom can come through various means, such as dreams, visions, and
the audible Voice of the Holy Spirit.
A distinct characteristic of the word of wisdom is that it always speaks of the
future. It could be given to reveal part of God’s future plans, to give guidance to
a believer, or to confirm a divine call.
Although the word of wisdom usually occurs in more spectacular and frequent
demonstration in the office of the prophet, it can sometimes occur in other
believers’ lives as the Spirit wills. However, regardless whether or not a
layperson ever receives a word of wisdom, all believers can expect the Holy
Spirit to give them guidance about things to come in their lives according to
John 16:13.
Let me give you a biblical example of an instance when God gave someone a
word of wisdom. God gave Joseph a word of wisdom to reveal His future plans
for him. When Joseph was still a teenager, God gave him a glimpse into the
future through two dreams. Joseph dreamed that someday he would rule over his
brothers and even his parents (Gen. 37:5-10).
Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and sold him as a slave to the
Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:27,28). Although the Lord prospered Joseph even in
slavery, eventually Joseph was falsely accused and cast into prison (Gen. 39:7-
20).
Joseph spent many years in prison. Ordinarily, a man would become bitter
after spending all that time in prison for an unjust cause. Most people would
have given up and forgotten what God had told them.
You see, when the Lord gives someone a word of wisdom, often the person
has no idea how long it will take for that word to come to pass. Also, he doesn’t
necessarily know what else must take place in order for it to be fulfilled. Or it
could come to pass in an entirely different way than the person expected it to.
That’s why it’s important for the believer to leave the fulfillment of a word of
wisdom in the Lord’s hands and just stay in faith about what the Lord has told
him.
That’s what Joseph did. For years everything looked hopeless, but Joseph
remained true to God. And because Joseph stayed faithful to God, the word of
wisdom he had received as a teenager finally came to pass.
God highly promoted Joseph, making him prime minister of the greatest
nation of that day (Gen. 41:38-41). And eventually Joseph witnessed the
fulfillment of the dreams he’d received from the Lord when his brothers bowed
down to him as Egypt’s second in command (Gen. 42:6).
I could share several examples from my own life of instances when the Lord
has given me guidance through a word of wisdom. Sometimes the word of
wisdom has come through the authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit.
 Several times God has awakened me at dawn by the audible Voice of the Holy
Spirit and told me something about the future so I could prepare for what was to
come.
For example, in 1956 I was holding meetings in California. As the sun came
up one morning, I suddenly sat up in bed; it was just as if someone had touched
me. I heard the audible Voice of the Holy Spirit speaking as clearly as if a person
were standing in my bedroom. I heard these words: “A recession is coming —
not a depression — but a recession. Get ready for it.”
In the months following that experience, I didn’t prepare as I should have.
And because I didn’t heed the Holy Spirit’s warning, I ended up suffering
financially. However, God later helped me recover from the financial fix I had
gotten myself into because I hadn’t listened to Him.
A similar incident occurred in 1974, but this time I obeyed what the Holy
Spirit told me to do. It was the first year of RHEMA Bible Training Center when
we were still at Sheridan Assembly in Tulsa.
One morning at 5:45, I sat straight up in bed. The Lord said to me, “An
economic crunch is coming to the nation. Get ready for it. If you’ll do what I tell
you to do, you’ll feel the effects of the crunch, but it won’t affect you as it does
other people.”
I wrote down exactly what the Lord instructed me to do. The Lord said,
“Number one, stop operating in outreaches I never told you to get involved with
in the first place. Number two, trim your payroll by laying off this many people
from your staff (and He told me exactly how many people to lay off). Number
three, cut back on expenses. Operate the ministry on ninety percent of your
incoming cash flow and save the other ten percent.”
I immediately set about obeying the Lord’s instructions. I called my son-in-
law, Buddy, who was my office manager at the time, and told him, “I want to
meet with every employee at 2:00 this afternoon.”
When I went to the meeting, I took the piece of paper on which I had written
down the words the Lord had spoken to me. I told the employees, “Now, folks,
I’m going to have to tell you what the Lord said to me this morning.” And I read
what I had written.
I said to them, “I’m going to do exactly what the Lord told me to do. I’ve
never gotten in trouble listening to Him. In fact, every time I haven’t listened to
Him, I’ve always gotten into trouble. I don’t want to suffer the consequences of
disobeying Him.”
So I followed the Lord’s instructions. We laid off the number of employees the
Lord told us to. We also got out of the various outreaches the Lord never told me
to begin. Because I obeyed the Lord, everything worked out well.
I also began saving ten percent of the ministry income as God had directed
me. Then in 1976, we realized we would have to purchase property for the new
RHEMA campus and ministry headquarters. If I hadn’t obeyed God and started
saving that ten percent back in 1974, we wouldn’t have had the money on hand
to buy the property in Broken Arrow!
God warned us of things to come by a word of wisdom through the
authoritative Voice of the Holy Spirit, and we obeyed His instructions. Because
of the Lord’s instruction to us, this ministry only felt a little of the economic
pressure that came upon the entire nation in 1975.
We came through the economic crunch without suffering financially, and we
were able to fulfill God’s plan to move to our new location in Broken Arrow.
Obedience to God always brings benefits!
In guiding believers into God’s plan for their lives, the Holy Spirit may also
give a person a word of wisdom to assure him of his divine call and commission.
For instance, I once heard about the Lord supernaturally giving a word of
wisdom through tongues and interpretation to a missionary woman to confirm
her call. This woman had ministered in India for seven years before returning in
a discouraged state of mind to the United States.
One day this missionary woman was speaking about missions at a small Bible
college. Suddenly one of the students stood up and began to speak in other
tongues. Everyone waited, but no interpretation came forth. However, the
missionary woman, who was sitting on the platform, began to weep. She was
obviously deeply affected by the message in tongues.
Finally, the missionary stood up and came to the pulpit. “We don’t need an
interpretation for that message. That message in tongues was for me!” the
woman exclaimed. “That person was speaking in the dialect of the Indian people
to whom I ministered for seven years.
“You see, my mission board doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve been traveling and
speaking around the country to raise money for other missionaries. It was my
intention never to return to India.
“But God just spoke to me and confirmed my call through that message in
tongues. The Lord said, ‘I called you to India. You are to go back and minister
there.’” Then the missionary woman related to the students what the Lord had
told her in that message in tongues about her future ministry in India.
 Through a word of wisdom, God gave that missionary woman supernatural
guidance and confirmed her call to India. The woman did return to India. In fact,
she spent thirty-five more years there, obeying the will of God for her life.
I’ve given you several examples from the Word, my own life, and the lives of
others to show you some of the ways the Holy Spirit leads us in order to unfold
His plan for our lives.
Remember, the primary way the Lord leads us is by the inward witness. He
might also choose to lead us in more spectacular ways, but we are not to seek
voices, dreams, or visions. We only need to seek the Lord, expecting to be led by
the Holy Spirit as the Bible promises.
You have a personal responsibility to wait before the Lord in the Word and in
prayer in order to receive His direction for your life. Just trust the Holy Spirit to
give you guidance in whatever way He sees fit.
Stay sensitive to His leading and obey what He tells you to do to prepare for
what is to come. If you’ll keep yourself willing and obedient, He’ll take you step
by step into the fullness of God’s plans and purposes for your life!
 Chapter 6

Obeying God Doesn’t Cost — It Pays!

Years ago when I was in the field ministry, I drove to most of my meetings. At
the time it was more convenient to drive so I could take all my teaching books
and tapes with me on the road.
Once my wife and I were traveling through Missouri, and we saw a large
billboard on the turnpike that read: “It doesn’t cost; it pays.” The message on
that billboard was referring to advertising, but I said to my wife, “You could
apply that spiritually too. It doesn’t cost to surrender to God; it pays.”
Some Christians, bless their darling hearts, are always talking about what they
had to give up and what it cost them to be a Christian. I’d just as soon hear a
donkey bray at midnight in a tin barn than to hear folks talk like that!
It doesn’t cost to obey God and to dedicate your life to Him. It pays! It will
cost you not to obey God. It may cost you in dollars and cents. It may cost you
sickness, disease, and premature death. It may cost you heartache and sorrow.
But, oh, thank God, it’s so good over in the perfect will of God, where you’re
fully surrendered, fully dedicated, fully submitted to the will of God! It’s just so
much better to obey God than to disobey Him.
Disobedience Puts the Light Out
A person can disobey something specific that God told him to do. That’s
disobedience. But a person can disobey the Bible, God’s revealed will, and that’s
disobedience too. And it will cost him.
For example, I remember when God first began to deal with me about the sin
of worry. I was on my deathbed, paralyzed because of a deformed heart and an
incurable blood disease. I had to deal with the sin of worry before I could receive
healing for my body in faith, because worry and anxiety hinder a person’s faith.
I was just a fifteen-year-old boy. You may say that a child couldn’t worry. But,
yes, children can worry. Children are just replicas, so to speak, of their parents
and what they see their parents do.
I learned to worry at a very early age. My mother and grandmother were
world-champion worriers, and I probably came in third place right behind the
two of them!
I was born again on my deathbed, and I had promised God that I would never
doubt anything I read in His Word. But as I began to read the Scriptures, I got
bogged down in Matthew chapter 6, and it took me six months to get out of that
chapter because I was under such conviction about it.
MATTHEW 6:25,27,28,31
25 Therefore I say unto you, TAKE NO THOUGHT for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the
body than raiment. . . .
27 Which of you by TAKING THOUGHT can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why TAKE YE THOUGHT for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin. . . .
31 Therefore TAKE NO THOUGHT, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
I had promised the Lord I would never doubt anything I read in His Word. I
told Him, “When I read Your Word and understand it, I promise You that I will
put it into practice.” But when I got to Matthew 6, spiritually speaking, the light
seemed to grow dim because I didn’t put Matthew 6 into practice.
You may say, “Well, I never made any promise to God never to doubt His
Word and to always put into practice what I read and understand.”
But if you are saved, you’re not supposed to doubt God’s Word. Some people
think if they don’t commit themselves to be faithful to God’s Word, then they’re
safe in disobeying it. But if you’re a child of God, God still requires faith of you
whether you’ve committed yourself to believe Him or not.
Matthew 6:25 says, “. . . Take no thought for your life. . . .” The Bible I was
reading while on my deathbed had a little footnote at the bottom that read, “Do
not be anxious about tomorrow.” In other words, Jesus Himself was saying, “Do
not worry!”
When I realized what the Lord was dealing with me about, I said in
astonishment, “Why, Lord, if I have to live like that, I’ll never make it as a
Christian.” I thought I couldn’t live without worry or without being anxious, so I
shut my Bible.
Up until then, everything in God’s Word had been all clear and light and a
blessing to me. But when I chose not to walk in the light of what God showed
me in His Word, everything became dark and fuzzy and unclear to me.
I thought to myself, I’ll keep reading, but I’ll just skip Matthew 6. So I kept on
reading. I even began to study about the antichrist! The subject of the antichrist
was not a problem area with me, so it didn’t convict me when I read about it. But
worrying was a problem, and my conscience smote when I read about it, because
I wasn’t practicing the Word in that area.
You see, you’re not going to get any more light from God until you walk in
the light you already have. So don’t be concerned about the things you don’t
understand in God’s Word; just see to it that you practice what you do know. The
rest of it will take care of itself.
Finally, I said to the Lord, “Forgive me for worrying and for being full of
anxiety. I know You will forgive me because First John 1:9 says if I confess my
sin to You, You are faithful and just to forgive me and to cleanse me from all
unrighteousness. I promise You, Lord, that I’ll never worry again the longest day
I live.”
God as my witness, many years have come and gone, and although I’ve been
sorely tempted, I have not worried.
It just pays to obey God and His Word. In fact, if you are not walking in the
light of God’s Word, it will be very difficult for you to walk in God’s specific
will for you and to follow His plan and purpose for your life.
Dear friend, God has a perfect plan for your life, and that plan includes
walking in the light of His specific will for you. But it also includes walking in
the light of His holy written Word.
Healing Is Part of God’s Plan for Your Life
For example, it is God’s perfect plan for you to walk in divine health. Now if
you do get sick, there is healing for you, but God’s best is that we walk in health.
God doesn’t have any less for us under the New Testament than He did for His
people under the Old Testament. In fact, the Bible says that in Christ we have a
new and better covenant established upon better promises (Heb. 8:6).
In the Old Testament, God said to Israel, “I’ll take sickness away from the
midst of you” (Exod. 23:25).
EXODUS 23:25,26
25 And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I
WILL TAKE SICKNESS AWAY FROM THE MIDST OF THEE.
26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: THE NUMBER OF THY
DAYS I WILL FULFIL.
Notice the Lord didn’t tell the Israelites they would never die. He said, “The
number of your days I will fulfill.” That meant that they would live and die
without sickness and disease, because in the previous verse, He said, “I’ll take
sickness away from the midst of you.”
Some people in their natural thinking ask, “Well, if that’s true — if the
Israelites could live free from sickness and disease — then how would they ever
die?”
The Old-Testament patriarchs who walked under the provision of the covenant
didn’t die sick or diseased. They just sort of wore out, bless God! Many times
they would call in their children first and lay hands on them and bless them.
Then they would just say, “It’s time for me to go,” and they gave up the ghost
and went on to glory!
“Yes,” someone said, “but that’s under the Old Testament. That only belonged
to Israel. It doesn’t belong to the Church.” But we just read that in Hebrews 8:6
it says that in Christ we have a new and better covenant established upon better
promises! How much better is the New Covenant than the old Covenant if they
had the privilege of living free from sickness and disease, but we don’t have that
same privilege?
I saw a sign in a pastor’s office in a church where I held a meeting, and it
read: “I was rich, and I was poor. Rich is better.” I paraphrased that to say: “I
was well, and I was sick. Well is better.”
Since we have a new and better covenant established on better promises, it has
to include all that the Old Covenant had and more, or else it wouldn’t be better.
Obedience Has Its Price
Notice that God’s promise of healing to the Israelites was conditional. It was
conditional upon their dedicating and submitting themselves to God’s Word and
to God Himself. When they dedicated and submitted themselves to God and His
Word, He kept His part of the covenant and took sickness away from their midst
and caused them to enjoy long life on the earth.
You see, it doesn’t cost to obey God and His Word; it pays.
God wants us to submit to His Word, which is His revealed will to man. But
He also wants us to submit to His will or plan for our individual lives. I’m
talking about fulfilling your place of service in the Kingdom of God. If you will
obey God in every area of your life, it won’t cost you; it will pay off!
I once heard a minister say, “Preaching or teaching the Bible or discussing
Bible truths is like climbing a mountain. If you climb up one side of the
mountain, you have one view. If you climb up the other side, you have another
view entirely.”
That is certainly true. For instance, preachers will often minister on the love of
God, and that’s scriptural. Thank God, God is love. The Bible says God is love
(1 John 4:8). But did you know the same Bible also says God is a flaming fire
(Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29)? Did you know that the Bible also says judgment
begins at the house of God and that if the righteous are barely saved, what will
become of the godless and the wicked? (1 Peter 4:17,18)?
Many people don’t like to hear about the judgment side of God. They would
rather hear that God is love and that they can do anything they want to do —
cuss, smoke, drink, commit adultery — and God will just sort of wink at it.
People who do things like that are not dedicated to God in the least. They are
dedicated to the flesh, the world, and the devil.
Certainly, God is love. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). God gave us the gift of His Son, but what
have we done with the gift? To reject God and His Word brings judgment. Folks
bring judgment on themselves when they persist in disobeying God and His
Word.
Some people think they can do anything they want to do and live any way
they want to and God will still love them. Thank God, He does, but there’s still a
penalty for wrongdoing.
If you fall away from God and then repent and turn to Him, God loves you
enough to take you back and cleanse you and straighten you up if you’ll let Him.
But if you persist in wrongdoing and disobedience, it’s going to cost you.
Many times, bad things happen to folks, and they ask, “Did God do this?” No,
oftentimes people open the door to the devil through their own disobedience.
Don’t misunderstand me. Just because you’re experiencing tests and trials
doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in disobedience. The devil will try to attack you
even when you’re in the center of God’s perfect will. He will try to see what
you’re made of spiritually and if you really believe what you say you believe
about the Word. But if you’ll stand your ground in faith on God’s Word, payday
will come, because it doesn’t cost to obey God and be faithful to Him and His
Word; it pays!
It pays to serve God! It pays to surrender to the Lord! It pays to dedicate your
life — all that you are, all that you have, all you ever expect to be — to God.
God Rewards Faithfulness
In surrendering to the Lord and letting Him have His way in our lives,
sometimes it seems costly right at the moment, because there is often a price to
pay on our part to obey God. But, thank God, in the long run, it pays well and
good to obey God.
Let me give you an illustration from the Bible to show you that even though
God’s plan may not seem easiest at the moment, in the end it always pays to
obey God. In Genesis chapters 37 through 50 we read the account of Joseph and
the price he had to pay to obey God.
 You know the problems Joseph had. God had given Joseph dreams about His
plan for his life. Joseph’s brothers got jealous of him and wanted to kill him, but
one brother intervened, and they sold Joseph into slavery instead. Then they told
their father, Jacob, that a wild beast had devoured their brother.
Joseph went to Egypt as a slave, and after much persecution and hardship
spent seven years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Then he interpreted
dreams for Pharaoh’s chief butler and baker. He told the butler that his dream
meant he would be restored to his position, and he told the baker that his dream
meant he was going to be beheaded.
Joseph asked the butler to remember him when he was restored to favor, but
the butler forgot about Joseph. Joseph had already spent five years in prison at
that time. And he spent another two years locked up before he was finally
released.
When Joseph realized the butler had forgotten about him, Joseph had the
opportunity to give up on the dream God had given him. But instead he
remained faithful. If that would have been most folks, Joseph would have said
something like, “I obeyed God, and I did a favor for the butler, and what do I
get? Forgotten. It just doesn’t pay to serve God.”
But Joseph remained faithful, and later when Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s
dream, he got promoted to prime minister of Egypt!
Joseph’s obedience paid off, although I’m sure at times the price seemed too
great to pay to walk in God’s will for his life.
When a drought came and there was a famine throughout Israel, Joseph’s
father, Jacob, sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain. He didn’t send his youngest
son, Benjamin, however. Joseph and Benjamin were his youngest sons, born to
him by Rachel. Jacob had already lost Joseph, and he didn’t want to lose
Benjamin too.
Joseph recognized his brothers when they came to buy grain, but they didn’t
recognize him. At first, Joseph accused his brothers of being spies and spoke
harshly to them. Joseph was working a plan to try to see his father and his
brother, Benjamin, again.
GENESIS 42:12-15,19,20,24
12 And he [Joseph] said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
13 And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan;
and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.
14 And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies:
15 Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your
youngest brother come hither. . . .
19 If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry
 corn for the famine of your houses:
20 But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not
die. . . .
24 . . . and [Joseph] took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.
The brothers returned home to their father, Jacob, with a limited supply of
grain and told him everything that had happened. When they told him that the
prime minister of Egypt had imprisoned Simeon and demanded to see Benjamin
before he would give them any more grain, Jacob was downcast. He said to
them, “. . . Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is
not, and ye will take Benjamin away: ALL THESE THINGS ARE AGAINST ME”
(Gen. 42:36).
Jacob thought the circumstances were against him, but all the while God was
working them out in his favor! Jacob was going to have to risk losing Benjamin
in order to survive the famine, and it seemed like a terrible price to pay. But as
Jacob gave in, God worked everything out to his good, and in the long run
Jacob’s decision to send Benjamin to Egypt paid off.
It always pays to obey God and His Word and to submit to His guidance in
life. But as I said, it will cost you something to disobey.
Don’t Learn Obedience the Hard Way
I know an account of a well-educated denominational preacher who enjoyed
great success and fame as a traveling minister before World War I. He had
published a few books and was in great demand as a speaker all over the world.
He lived in a mansion in southern California and had a library worth thousands
of dollars. He drove the best cars and had large savings accounts in several
different banks.
This minister had gotten in on some Charismatic prayer meetings in
California, where he saw the truth concerning the baptism in the Holy Ghost. He
said, “I saw that God wanted me to be filled with the Holy Ghost with the
evidence of speaking in other tongues.
“One night at one of these prayer meetings, as I was waiting before the Lord,
the Holy Ghost came upon me, and I began to stammer and speak in other
tongues.
“Then I began to think about what was happening. I thought about what my
denomination believed about Charismatics or tongue-talkers. They thought
tongue-talkers were in some kind of cult.
“I thought, What will this do to my standing in my church? What will this do
to my income? When I entertained these thoughts, the anointing left me like a
bird flying away. I knew God wanted me to be filled with the Holy Ghost, but I
said, ‘It is too big a price to pay. I’ll lose my prestige and the approval of my
denomination.’
“When the anointing left me, I quietly slipped out of the meeting while no one
was looking.”
During his next meeting — before the month was out — this minister became
very sick. And during the following two years, he spent all of his wealth on
doctors and hospitals trying to get well.
The minister grew worse and worse, but doctors couldn’t find out what was
wrong with him. Finally, he lay dying in a charity hospital because he couldn’t
even pay his hospital bill. He had lost all of his great fortune and had become a
charity case.
Someone asked, “Do you think God sent that sickness on him?” No! A
thousand times, no! God didn’t put that on him, but when you’re in disobedience
to God and His Word, you’re on the devil’s territory where he can attack you.
The minister asked his brother to put him on a train so he could go back home
and spend his last days at his mother’s farm in Texas. His brother had to borrow
the money for a train ticket, but he sent his brother to Texas to die.
The doctors said the minister would die before he got to Texas, but he didn’t.
An ambulance was waiting for him at the train depot to take him to his mother’s
farm.
The minister rejoiced to see his mother, who was now in her eighties.
Someone else farmed the land for her, and a nineteen-year-old boy lived on the
farm to help her with the everyday chores. This boy became the minister’s nurse
because the minister had become so weak, he couldn’t even turn himself over in
his bed.
One day the nineteen-year-old boy said to the minister, “Reverend, why don’t
you let the Lord heal you?”
“What do you mean, heal me?” the minister asked.
“The Bible says, ‘Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up
. . .’” (James 5:14,15).
This world-renowned minister, who had studied at a university and a
seminary, asked, “Is that really in the Bible? Get me my Bible and find that
scripture for me.”
“I can’t read,” the boy replied.
 “Then how come you know that’s in the Bible?” the minister questioned.
“Because I heard my pastor preach on it.”
“Your pastor preached from that scripture? Does he anoint people with oil and
pray for them to be healed?”
“Yes.”
“Then take me to him,” the minister said.
Some men made a bed for that minister and put him in the back of an old
Model-T Ford. They drove him out in the country to a brush-arbor meeting,
where the boy’s pastor was preaching. (A brush arbor is just four posts put up
with a little wire over it topped with brush to keep the sun out!)
The minister related: “I could hear this pastor preaching, and afterward, he
came out to the car and anointed me with oil and prayed. When he finished
praying, I said, ‘That’s it, glory to God! I’m healed.’”
It was midnight before they got home from the meeting. They carried the
minister in the house, and he said to his mother, “Momma, make me some
biscuits and some of that good gravy and ham. I want something to eat.”
His mother replied, “Son, you haven’t had anything solid to eat in two years.
You can’t eat a big meal like that.”
“Yes I can. God healed me.”
“Well, how do you feel?” she asked him.
“The Bible says I’m well. According to the Word, I’m healed.”
From that moment on, that minister was completely healed. He began to
regain his strength and started writing articles for various magazines about his
healing. Then calls began coming in for him to hold meetings.
Just before he was about to leave to speak at a citywide meeting in a certain
city, the nineteen-year-old boy who had helped him said, “Reverend, before you
go, you ought to let God baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”
Remembering what had happened two years before when he ran away from
God and wouldn’t pay the price, he said to the boy, “Yes, you’re right. I’m not
going anywhere to minister until God baptizes me with the Holy Ghost.” And,
thank God, he was baptized in the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues.
This minister went on to become an internationally known Full Gospel
preacher. When he submitted to God and His Word, God made it up to him and
restored what he’d lost. I never heard this minister preach, but I read some of his
writings and they were marvelous.
 Folks who knew him told me that when the time came for him to go home to
be with the Lord, he just sat down and began to sing, “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot” and went on home, glory to God!
The Lord’s way is always best! The Lord’s way is a way of blessing,
protection, and victory even in the midst of life’s greatest tests and trials. It
doesn’t cost to obey God and His Word; it pays! It will pay you great dividends
to obey God’s Word and His plan for your life.
God’s Word Is God’s Will
As I said before, some Christians get so caught up trying to receive specific
direction from God about what He wants them to do, they forget to be doers of
the Word. For example, the Bible has a lot to say about forgiveness, but for some
reason, many believers don’t practice forgiveness the way the Bible teaches it.
The subject of forgiveness has a twofold application. In other words, you have
to forgive others when they miss it, but you also have to forgive yourself when
you miss it in some area of your life. If you don’t learn this lesson, you’ll be
crippled and handicapped all the rest of your life in living for God and walking
with Him.
First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If you’ve repented and
confessed your sin to God, the Bible says He is faithful and just to forgive you
and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And God will not remember that
you ever did anything wrong (Isa. 43:25).
HEBREWS 8:12
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and THEIR SINS AND THEIR INIQUITIES
WILL I REMEMBER NO MORE.
Since God doesn’t remember your sins, then why should you remember them?
It would be in poor taste to remind God of your sins when He has forgotten
them.
ISAIAH 43:25,26
25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and WILL NOT
REMEMBER THY SINS.
26 PUT ME IN REMEMBRANCE: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be
justified.
Notice verse 26: “Put me in remembrance. . . .” In other words, remind God
of what He said in His Word. Certainly, you need to remind God, because He
commanded us to remind Him. But you need to remind yourself too. If you don’t
remind yourself of God’s Word concerning the forgiveness of sin, you could fall
prey to the devil’s accusations that he will try to bring against you to remind you
of your past and keep you in bondage to failure and defeat.
 Forget the Past — God Wants You To Succeed!
When you’ve confessed your sin to God and received forgiveness, the devil
will invariably bring up your past as a photograph. But, after all, that’s all it is —
just a picture — because your sin doesn’t exist anymore once you’ve confessed
it to God. The Bible says, “I, even I, am he that BLOTTETH OUT thy
transgressions FOR MINE OWN SAKE . . .” (Isa. 43:25).
Notice the phrase “for Mine own sake.” God didn’t say He would blot out
your transgressions and not remember your sins for your sake. Don’t
misunderstand me, you would reap the benefit of God’s forgiveness. But He said,
“I will blot out your transgressions and not remember your sins for My sake.” He
will not remember your sins for His sake so He can bless you, help you, and
demonstrate His great love and mercy on your behalf.
PHILIPPIANS 3:13,14
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, FORGETTING
THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND, and reaching forth unto those things which are
before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
The Apostle Paul wrote this to the Philippian Church. He was talking about
himself, although these verses apply to every believer.
Before any believer can go on with God and reach his fullest potential in the
ministry or whatever God has called him to do, he will have to forget about the
past, especially his past mistakes.
Notice something else Paul said about himself in writing to Timothy.
1 TIMOTHY 1:12-16
12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry;
13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy,
because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus.
15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all
longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
Then let’s read what Luke was inspired to write about Paul, or Saul of Tarsus,
in the Book of Acts.
ACTS 7:58
58 And cast him [Stephen] out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
ACTS 8:1
1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. . . .
ACTS 9:1,2
1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went
 unto the high priest,
2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way,
whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
Thank God, God’s mercy reached Paul, and Paul got born again and became a
new creature in Christ. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY; behold, all
things are become new.”
That’s what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:13: “. . . FORGETTING
THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before.” Through the new birth, Paul didn’t have any past. And in
God’s eyes, Paul stood before God completely righteous — as though sin never
existed in his life.
But Paul had to learn to forget too. After all, it was terrible the havoc he had
wrought in the Church before he got saved. From the Scripture we know he
consented to the death of Stephen, and he threatened other disciples of Jesus
Christ.
If Paul hadn’t learned to forget, he could have never fulfilled the call of God
and stood in the office or ministry God had called him to. We, too, must learn to
forget, or we won’t be able to successfully follow God’s plan for our own lives.
Forgive Yourself
It’s just as wrong to be unwilling to forgive yourself as it is to be unwilling to
forgive others. Failure to forgive others and yourself and forget the mistakes of
the past will hinder you from receiving from God, from growing spiritually, and
from being what God wants you to be.
Once after a meeting I held in Texas some years ago, a lady approached me as
I was leaving the building, and she said, “Brother Hagin, I want you to pray for
me.”
“What for?” I asked her.
“Do I have to tell you?” she replied.
“Yes, I’m not going to pray for you unless you do, because I can’t agree with
you and have faith for something when I don’t know what it is I’m believing
for.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” she said. “But you won’t laugh at me, will you?”
“No. I might laugh with you, but I won’t laugh at you.”
She said: “I’ve been born again and filled with the Holy Ghost for about eight
years now. My husband is still unsaved.
 “Before I got saved,” she continued, “I was always hot tempered. I had a fiery
temper and would have temper tantrums just at the drop of a hat.
“Awhile ago, my husband, who is a fine gentleman, came home acting like he
was drunk. I got mad at him and lost my temper and began yelling at him.
“Then he hollered, ‘I’m not drunk! I’m just kidding you. I thought it would be
fun to come home and pretend to be drunk.’
“That made me madder than ever,” this woman continued, “and then I really
let him have it. I yelled and screamed at him, and then I went to our bedroom
and slammed the door.
“After I cooled off a little, I was so embarrassed because of some of the things
I had said. So I got down on my knees and prayed nearly all night long, ‘Dear
God, forgive me.’
“The next morning at the breakfast table, I said to my husband, ‘Honey, I want
you to forgive me. I prayed nearly all night long, and I know God says in His
Word that He’ll forgive me. But I want to ask you to forgive me too.’
“My husband said, ‘Well, if anybody ought to ask for forgiveness, it’s me. I
ought to ask you to forgive me, because I started the whole thing. I’m to blame,
not you.’
“We agreed to each take part of the responsibility and just forgive each other,”
the woman said.
I told her, “You haven’t asked me anything. You just told me something. What
in the world do you need to pray about?”
“Well,” she said, “I wanted you to pray that God would give me some kind of
feeling so I’d know He has forgiven me.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t keep from it. “Why, Sister, do you know what
you just got through telling me? You just told me that you’ve got more faith and
confidence in your unsaved husband than you do in God! You asked your
husband to forgive you, and he did. And that settled it for you. But you won’t
take God at His Word. God said, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’” (1 John 1:9).
I continued: “When your husband said, ‘I forgive you,’ you didn’t get on your
knees and say to the Lord, ‘Give me some kind of feeling so I’ll know my
husband has forgiven me.’ No, you just accepted your husband’s forgiveness.
You have more confidence in your unsaved husband’s word than you do in
God’s Word.”
“I see it now,” she said. “I was wrong to ask you to pray that God would give
me a feeling to let me know He’s forgiven me. Just forget I asked you to pray.”
Just as she started to walk away, I called to her, “Come on back here. Do you
know what your problem is?”
“Do you?” she asked. “I sure do.”
“Tell me then.”
I said to her, “You are unwilling to forgive yourself for losing your temper.
God has forgiven you, your husband has forgiven you, and you have forgiven
your husband. But you haven’t forgiven yourself. Forgive yourself for losing
your temper, and stop holding it against yourself. Pretty soon you’ll feel all right.
You won’t have to pray that God will give you any kind of feeling.”
In about two or three days, this woman came back to the meetings, and I
didn’t have to ask her if she had forgiven herself. Her face was radiant. It looked
like a neon sign turned on in the dark! She was all smiles because she had
learned to forgive herself.
Many Christians are unwilling to forgive themselves for mistakes of the past
— for their disobedience to God and His will. Some Christians even try to
punish themselves by giving up on the dream God has put in their heart to fulfill.
But as I often say, it’s not what mistake you’ve made in the past that counts; it’s
what you do afterwards that counts with God.
Remember the Apostle Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). But you can’t press forward
toward the mark until you take the first step: “. . . FORGETTING those things
which are behind . . .” (Phil. 3:13).
No matter how you may have disobeyed God in the past, God wants you to be
obedient to His Word and His will for your life today. As you surrender to God’s
holy written Word and to His plan and purpose for your life, you will reap great
dividends. In the long run, it will never cost you to obey God; it will always pay!
 Chapter 7

Love’s Way Is the Best Way

Love never fails. . . .
— 1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV)
Do you want to successfully follow God’s plan for your life and do God’s will
on the earth? If you want to follow a path that is guaranteed to lead you into
certain victory and success in life, then follow the way of love — God’s love.
The Apostle Paul said, talking about love, “. . . yet shew I unto you a more
excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). Love’s way is the best way — the more excellent
way — because God is love, and love never fails.
Love is of the heart. It is a fruit of the recreated human spirit. Therefore, love
can grow. How can a
person grow and develop in God’s love?
The Bible says, “. . . the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:5). The love of God is already in our
hearts if we are born again. But we grow in love by confessing it and acting on
it.
My wife and I were once holding a meeting in the western part of the nation,
where we renewed acquaintances with a young couple I’d met earlier at a
ministers’ convention. Both the husband and wife were ordained ministers.
After I preached, the couple asked us to go out and have a bite to eat with
them. At the restaurant, the wife of this young minister said to me, “Brother
Hagin, you’ve got me confused.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t have you confused. You were confused before I got here.
The light of God’s Word just showed it up. But what is the matter?”
She said: “In your message today, you quoted First John 3:15: ‘Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him.’”
“Yes, that’s right,” I answered. “I plead guilty. I said that.”
In ministering, many times the Holy Ghost will have you say things you didn’t
plan on saying. Those things just come out of your spirit by the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. For instance, when I quoted First John 3:15 to the congregation, I
said, “The Bible says that whoever hates his brother — that means mothers-in-
law too — is a murderer.”
 “Well, I hate my mother-in-law,” she continued.
I knew this woman didn’t really hate her mother-in-law. Instead of letting the
love of God dominate her, she was letting her human reasoning and her flesh
dominate her. Walking in the flesh will get you into trouble every time.
I said to her, “Well, if you do hate your mother-in-law, you’re a murderer, and
you don’t have eternal life abiding in you. If the life of God was in you, then the
nature of God would be in you, and God’s nature is love. So the love of God
would be in you.”
“What am I going to do?” the woman asked, desperate.
I answered: “Sister, look me in the eye and say, ‘I hate my mother-in-law.’
And at the same time, see what happens in your spirit — in your heart.”
So she said, “I hate my mother-in-law.”
“When you said that, what happened down in your spirit?”
“There’s something down there ‘scratching’ me.” she said.
“Sure it is,” I told her. “It’s the love of God. It’s constraining you. It’s trying to
get your attention. But instead of yielding to that, you’re just letting your mind
run wild and your flesh dominate you.”
“What am I going to do?” By now she was really desperate.
I said, “Act like you love your mother-in-law, because you do.”
We live so much of our lives in the flesh that many times we forget that we’re
really spirit beings. We’re not physical beings, and we’re not soulish beings. We
are a spirit; we have a soul; and we live in a body.
It would help you become more conscious of spiritual things, and the things of
God would be more real to you if you’d think of yourself as a spirit being,
because that’s what you are (1 Thess. 5:23). In fact, it would help you to say that
out loud: “I am a spirit; I have a soul; and I live in a body.”
The Bible says, “. . . the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:5). The love of God is shed abroad in our
heart or spirit. It’s not shed abroad in our soul or body.
The Love Walk in Connection With Healing
This woman invited my wife and me to their home for refreshments after the
last service of the meeting I was holding. She also invited her mother-in-law.
That night at their home, the woman took us to the side and said, “You were
right. I don’t hate my mother-in-law. My in-laws are wonderful people. They’re
Christians and they love God. I realize the love of God was in me all the time. I
just wasn’t letting it dominate me.”
This young couple had three children. The youngest child was a girl between
three and four years of age.
For the first two years of her life, this little girl was in perfect physical
condition. But then she began having epileptic seizures. Her parents took her to
the leading medical specialists all over the world. One of the best doctors in that
field ran tests on the little girl and told her parents her case was the worst he’d
ever seen in thirty-eight years of medical practice.
The little girl had to take medication, but even the medication wouldn’t stop
the seizures; it only made them less intense. The parents were endeavoring to
receive healing for their little child.
We were getting ready for church one night when this woman called and
asked us to come over and pray for her little girl. The child was in the
preliminary stages of another epileptic attack.
Ordinarily, we don’t visit everyone who asks us, because if we did it for one,
we’d have to do it for everyone, and we wouldn’t have time to do anything else
but pray for folks. But when God tells us to go, we obey Him and we go. That
night the Lord told us to go and visit the family on our way to church.
Driving over there, the Lord spoke to me, and it was just as real to me as if
someone were sitting in the back seat. It wasn’t an audible voice, because my
wife didn’t hear it.
The Lord said, “Don’t pray for the child. Don’t anoint the child with oil. Don’t
lay hands on the child.
“When you get there, say to the mother, ‘Under the Old Covenant, I said if My
people walked in My statutes and kept My commandments, I would take
sickness away from their midst and the number of their days I would fulfill.’”
Paraphrasing that in New Testament language, Jesus said in John 13:34, “A
new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved
you, that ye also love one another.”
The Lord continued: “Then tell her that when she walks in My commandment
of love, I’ll take sickness away from the midst of her and the number of her days
I’ll fulfill. Say to her, ‘You tell Satan, “Satan, I’m walking in love. Take your
hands off my child!”’”
When we arrived, I did exactly as the Lord commanded me. I barely got the
words out of my mouth when the mother turned toward her little child and said,
“Satan, I’m walking in love. Take your hands off my child!”
 I’m a witness and my wife is a witness that as fast as you could snap your
fingers, that child’s seizure stopped right then. It stopped immediately — the
very second the child’s mother said those words.
Five years later when the little girl was eight years old, she was still healed.
She was beautiful, happy, and full of life and never did have another attack. The
mother told me that twice over the five-year period, some minor symptoms
showed up. I asked her, “What did you do?”
“I said, ‘Oh, no you don’t, Satan. I’m walking in love.’”
Somebody said, “Yes, that worked for her, but I haven’t been walking in
love.” She hadn’t either, but she repented and got back in walking in love.
If you get out of walking in love, get back in as fast as you can. Every step out
of love is sin. And every step taken out of love is a step in the wrong direction.
Failing to walk in love will hinder you from following God’s plan for your life.
I was healed more than fifty-five years ago in McKinney, Texas, as a Baptist
boy reading Grandma’s Methodist Bible. I was raised up from a deathbed, healed
of two serious organic problems. My body was nearly totally paralyzed because
of a deformed heart, and I had an incurable blood disease.
In fact, Dr. Robason, the fifth doctor on my case, said, “Son, I’ll be honest
with you. If you didn’t have the deformed heart and the paralysis, this incurable
blood disease alone would prove to be fatal to you.”
In all these years since I received my healing, I continue to study the Word of
God along the lines of faith and healing. And, of course, you can’t study faith
and healing without studying love, because the Bible says faith works by love. I
have always made it my practice never to permit the least bit of animosity or ill-
will in my heart against anyone.
I can go five to seven years at a time and, from the standpoint of experiencing
any discomfort, don’t even know that I have a body. The only times I’ve ever
been attacked with sickness is when I acted foolishly and didn’t take care of my
body, and when I didn’t walk in love.
Your body is still mortal, and you’ve got to take care of it. If you don’t, you’re
giving place for sickness to attack. For example, there have been times my wife
has said, “Honey, you ought to take your topcoat. You always get hot when you
preach, and it’s not a good idea to go out into the cold when you’re hot.”
Sometimes I didn’t listen to her, and I did just that — I went out into the cold
weather after I’d been preaching up a storm, and my throat would tighten up and
begin to get sore. Then I had to repent of my stupidity first before I could get
healed. But nothing has ever been seriously wrong with me in these more than
fifty-five years except when I missed God and I got out of walking in love.
Walking in Love Toward God
You understand there’s more than one way to get out of the love walk. Not
only are we to walk in love toward one another, but we are to love God. That
means we are to put Him first.
When you’re in disobedience, you’re not walking in love toward God. The
Bible says, “. . . Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt. 22:37). At times, I’ve gotten out of
walking in love toward God by getting into disobedience about God’s plan for
my life. You’re not following God’s plan for your life if you’re not walking in
love and obedience to Him.
But when I would get into disobedience, I’d run just as fast as I could to get
back in love. The minute I got back in love, I was all right as quickly as you
could snap your fingers.
But I had to repent just like you’ll have to repent if you disobey God and His
Word and walk out of love. If you’re in disobedience, you know it. And if you’re
in disobedience, don’t wait to repent. Be quick to repent and get back into love.
Love’s way is the best way, because love’s way is God’s way.
I know it’s possible to walk in divine health. I’ve walked in divine health for
more than fifty-five years. Divine health is God’s will for His children.
“How do you do it?” someone asked. I walk in love. I’m not bragging on me;
I’m bragging on Jesus. I’m bragging on the Word. And I want you to get to the
place if you’re not already there of walking in divine health. God is no respecter
of persons. He doesn’t favor me over you. God favors anyone who is committed
to His Word.
Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If you’re
committed to believing and doing God’s Word, you’ll be walking in love toward
God and your fellow man. And you’ll be fulfilling the Law.
ROMANS 13:8
8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law.
Many people take this scripture out of its setting and try to make it say we’re
not supposed to buy anything on credit. But that’s not what this verse is saying.
If you buy something on credit, you don’t owe anything until the payment comes
due. And if you pay it, you still don’t owe anything. It’s when you don’t make
your payments that you owe something.
 If you’ll study this verse carefully, you’ll understand that it is really saying
that you owe it others to love them, and it’s a debt you’ll never get paid. You’ve
got to keep on loving others.
Love Fulfills the Law
Notice the last part of that verse: “. . . for he that loveth another hath fulfilled
the law.” In other words, if you’re walking in love, you’re walking in God’s will
for your life, and it will be easy to follow His plan and purpose for you.
Think about it. Under the Old Covenant, God’s people could fulfill the Law
and sickness would be taken away from them and the number of their days
would be fulfilled. But under the New Covenant, he who walks in love has also
fulfilled the Law.
Under the New Covenant, if I could fulfill the Law, I should get the same
results they did under the Old Covenant: healing and divine health. If I don’t get
the same results, then God would be unjust.
ROMANS 13:9,10
9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt
not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is
briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10 LOVE WORKETH NO ILL TO HIS NEIGHBOUR: THEREFORE LOVE IS THE
FULFILLING OF THE LAW.
The Old Covenant had Ten Commandments. The New Covenant has one
commandment. Somebody asked me, “You mean we don’t have to keep the Ten
Commandments?” Certainly not. If you’re walking in love, you’re not going to
break any commandments. That’s what Paul said in Romans 13.
If you’re walking in love toward your fellow man, you’re not going to kill
him. If you love him, you won’t tell a lie on him. In fact, the Bible says, “. . .
love covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12). If you see someone doing wrong, you
shouldn’t go tell it to others so as to expose and embarrass him. No, you should
pray for him and help him, because love covers a multitude of sins.
If you walk in love, you’ll never break any of the commandments that were
given to curb sin. So love is the only commandment you need to concern
yourself with. Love is the fulfilling of the Law.
That’s the reason I said if I miss it and get out of love, I run to get back in
walking in love as fast as I can, because if I walk in love, I am fulfilling the Law.
And God said to those who fulfilled the Law, “I will take sickness away from
your midst and the number of your days I will fulfill.”
So that’s one thing I’ve always been doubly careful about — and that is
making sure that I walk in love. As I said, I never allow the least bit of
animosity, ill-will, or wrong feeling in my heart toward anybody. I won’t let
negative feelings toward others touch me for a minute. I want to follow God’s
perfect plan for my life and experience His best blessings. I couldn’t do that if I
didn’t walk in love.
An evangelist held a meeting for me one time, and there’s no doubt about it —
he did me wrong. I’ll not tell what he did, because it wouldn’t be edifying.
The devil said to my mind, “If I were you, I wouldn’t take him up another
offering.”
When we held meetings every night, it was our custom to take offerings on
Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday nights for the evangelist or guest speaker. The other
nights we took up an expense offering to cover the other expenses of the
meeting.
When the devil said that to my mind (I knew it was the devil, because it
wasn’t love, so it couldn’t have been God speaking to me), I said, “Just for that,
Mr. Devil, I’m going to take up an offering for him every night.”
You see, the Bible says, “. . . LOVE your enemies, BLESS them that curse you,
DO GOOD to them that hate you, and PRAY for them which despitefully use you,
and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). Another scripture says we are to return good
for evil (1 Thess. 5:15).
So I took up an offering every night for this evangelist, even though he had
done me wrong. I told the devil, “If you say anything else about him, I’ll take
him up two offerings a night.” The devil never mentioned another word. He
doesn’t want any preacher to receive two offerings a night! He’s mad enough
about them getting one every night.
My church back then was smaller than some of the churches this evangelist
had preached in, so I asked this evangelist how much he averaged when he
preached a meeting. I gave him three times that much, and I put a third of it in
myself, out of my own pocket. That’s walking in love, and that’s what the Bible
says to do.
Do you want to stay healthy and well and be blessed and be able to
successfully follow God’s plan for your life? Then do what the Word says to do
and walk in love.
GALATIANS 5:14
14 For ALL the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.
If you’re not careful on any Bible subject, you can get into the ditch on one
side of the road or the other, instead of going down the middle. For example,
some folks get in the ditch over on one side, saying, “Well, we’re just going to
walk in love,” and they never take a stand on anything.
But many times you can’t help folks when you don’t take a stand for
something. Sometimes you need to speak the truth to them in love. Then you can
teach them and help them, especially if you’re a minister.
Sometimes you have to love people enough to tell them the truth — Bible
truth. You see, love isn’t always quiet or tolerant of sin.
Certainly, God is love. But as I said, there is a judgment side of God. Does
that mean that He’s not a God of love? No, God is always love, and He always
does the right thing.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-5
1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so
much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might
be taken away from among you.
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were
present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the
power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus.
It wasn’t God’s best that this man be turned over to Satan for the destruction
of his flesh. But it wasn’t God’s best that this fellow live in sin either. If he
wouldn’t judge himself and put away sin, then if Love didn’t do something about
it, the man would wind up in hell.
So it was really an act of God’s mercy that this man be turned over to Satan
for the destruction of his flesh so he would judge sin in his life and repent.
Someone who has known God, but has fallen away, will usually turn back to
God when his flesh starts hurting.
That’s not God’s best, but it sure beats going to hell. And Paul, through the
love and mercy of the Holy Spirit, turned this man over to Satan to keep him
from going to hell. That was love, not hate.
Obedience Is Love’s Way
Suppose you had a little four-year-old boy, and you saw him playing with
matches. So you reprimanded him and said, “Son, don’t do that. You could burn
the house down and kill yourself and others.”
What if your son paid no attention to you, and two or three days later he did
the same thing. This time, you’d spank him and say, “I told you not to do that.
Don’t do that any more.”
 But then a few days later, you catch him and he’s already got a fire going. So
you give him a good spanking this time. Only this time, he learned his lesson,
and he never played with matches again.
Did you do that because you hate him? No, you did it because you love him
and you’re interested in his well-being. You did it to protect him.
Sometimes a pastor has to do much the same thing with the members of his
congregation. It’s love for a pastor to correct his congregation if need be so
people can walk in God’s will for their lives.
I took the pastorate of a certain church one time. There was no order at all in
that church. The young people in the church were not saved, and it was no
wonder, because the parents just let their kids do whatever they wanted to do.
They’d sit there and talk out loud while I was preaching. I kept talking to them
gently for three or four months because I was new there, and I didn’t want to
cause a big disturbance.
I kept talking about how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God.
Then after I was there about five months, some young people got to talking so
loudly, I could hear them while I was trying to preach. Everybody was looking at
them talking in the back of the auditorium.
So I stopped right in the middle of the sermon and said, “Is somebody
talking?” Some folks in the congregation nodded.
“Listen!” I said, and I just shut my Bible. “Listen carefully to me.” I didn’t
want to embarrass them, but they ought to have known better than to be talking
out loud during a church service.
“Now I want to tell you something,” I continued. “I’ve been talking to all of
you about four months about talking out loud during church. Now parents, look
at your watches right now, because from this very second, the next time any of
your children talk out loud in church or misbehave and create a disturbance, I’m
going to have them arrested for disturbing public worship, and they’ll be put in
jail.”
You say, “Is that love?” Certainly it’s love. If you let children continue to
misbehave, they’re liable to wind up in hell.
I continued: “I’ll have them arrested, and you parents will have to pay their
fine.” In those days we had a county farm, and you could work off your fine if
you couldn’t pay it because those were Depression Days.
I said, “They’ll have to work their fine off out there on the county farm unless
you pay it.”
 In the past, the young people had been threatened for misbehaving, but
nothing was ever done about it, because some of the elders had said, “Well,
we’ve got to act in love.” But the kids were still just as bad as they ever were.
I ended the service and began talking to the parents of the teenagers one by
one. I walked up to one man with two deacons as my witnesses. “Brother
H____, I want to speak to you personally. You heard what I said from the pulpit,
but I wanted to talk to you personally. I’m going to have your daughters arrested
and put in jail if they persist in disturbing worship.”
This man dropped his head in shame, and then he looked up at me, tears
running down his face. “Brother Hagin, you’re right. This is the house of God.
I’ve tried to talk to them and make them behave, but I can’t do it.”
I knew what his problem was. He would try to reprimand his two daughters,
but the mother would let them out the back window of the house and let them
stay out all night long. Well, when there’s friction and disagreement in the home,
there’s going to be problems.
He said, “I’m with you, Brother Hagin. Go ahead and have them arrested. I
can’t pay their fine. They’ll just have to work it off on the county farm.”
So then I went to another parent, a dear lady. Her husband wasn’t saved and
never came to church. I said to her, “I’m going to have M____ arrested because
she’s one of the worst ones about misbehaving and talking in church.”
She said, “Brother Hagin, I try to keep an eye on my daughter, and every time
I look back there, she’s behaving herself.” I said, “Yes, but I’m on the platform,
and she watches you. And the minute she sees your head turn, she straightens up
and starts behaving.”
“Well, every time I look . . .” she argued.
I said, “Do you think I’m lying to you? Just ask the people who sit around her.
You ought to have her sitting with you on the front pew. In fact, you ought to
have all your children down there with you. The others are misbehaving, too, but
she’s the worst. And I’m going to have her put in jail if she does it again. I know
you can’t pay the fine. She’ll have to work it off on the farm.”
You say, “Is that love?” Absolutely it is, because it’s love to teach and train
children. If children aren’t taught to be obedient, how are they ever going to
grow up to be obedient to God and His Word? How can they ever successfully
follow His plan for their life if they can’t even obey their parents or their pastor?
This dear lady answered, “Yes, Brother Hagin, but if I have the kids sitting up
front with me, I can’t enjoy the service.”
 “Why not?” I asked.
“Well, because they’re always talking and squirming around.”
She had just finished telling me her children didn’t talk in church!
This woman would dance in the Holy Spirit in church, and she was a blessing
to the rest of the church. But I told her, “You’d be a much greater blessing to this
church if you didn’t dance so much and saw after your children more.”
After the service was over and my wife and I had gone to bed for the night,
Oretha awakened because she heard somebody crying. She got up and looked
out the window and saw this dear lady sitting on the front steps of the church,
crying and bawling at two o’clock in the morning.
My wife said, “I’ll go out there and see about her.”
I said, “No, you’ll ruin everything if you do. She’s trying to get our sympathy.
She thinks we’ll rescind what we said. She’s feeling sorry for herself because I
told her she’d be a greater blessing to the church if she’d have her kids sit with
her and make them behave.”
I also talked to another family. The husband never came into the church
sanctuary. He always stayed outside. The wife was saved, filled with the Spirit,
and brought her two daughters with her to church.
I went outside to talk to the husband. I took the two deacons with me, and I
went up to him and said, “Mr. H____, I want to talk to you. I’m going to have
your teenagers arrested for disturbing public worship if they don’t straighten up
and start behaving.
Mr. H____ said, “Well, there’s one thing about it. You and these deacons
aren’t always on these church grounds.” He was threatening me, so I stepped
right in front of him nose to nose — all 138 pounds of me — and said, “There’s
one thing about it! I’m not afraid of anyone or ashamed of anything.”
When I did that, he ducked his head and started talking in a different tone. He
said, “You’re right. You’re right. But my kids aren’t the only ones.”
I said, “No. They’re not the only ones, but they’re just about the worst. Now
they’re all going to behave.”
Did you know that in six weeks’ time, we had every one of those young
people saved and filled with the Holy Ghost?
What happened? Love got them. We could have let them continue to
misbehave, and probably not one of them would have been saved. But we got
them to the altar seeking God because they got quiet and got to listening to the
Bible.
 So love doesn’t mean that you don’t take a stand when it’s necessary, because
it is necessary to take a stand sometimes.
I’ve heard folks say about their children, “We’ve got to win them, so we’ve
got to walk in love and just let them do as they please.”
No sir! That’s not love any more than it is to let a little child continue to play
with matches! He could end up burning himself to death. Love would stop him
and get him on the right road.
EPHESIANS 6:1-3
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
I never had to spank my children a lot. But when I did, I’d read the Bible to
them first, and I’d read these scriptures in Ephesians 6:1-3. I was training them
to be obedient so they could successfully follow God’s plans and purposes and
fulfill the call of God on their lives.
I’d tell them, “Do you want it to be well with you? Those are not well days
when you’re sick. Don’t you want to live a long time on the earth?”
“Yes,” they’d say.
“Well, that’s why I have to spank you. I’m not spanking you because I want
to. I’m spanking you because I have your best interests at heart.”
I remember when Ken was about six years old. One morning I said to him,
“Son, after breakfast, I want you to empty that wastebasket.”
That night after we had all prayed and read the Word together, I was studying,
and Ken said to me, “Daddy, I want to talk to you.” He started crying and said,
“Daddy, find that scripture and read that where it talks about living a long time
and not being sick and about children obeying their parents.”
So I found it and read it to him. He began to cry harder and said, “I didn’t
empty the wastebasket this morning like you told to me to. I’m sorry.”
I thought he had emptied it, but his mother had emptied it. I just saw it
emptied and supposed that he did it.
But Ken said, “You told me to empty it, but I didn’t. I want you to forgive
me.” In fact, he said, “Spank me.”
I said, “No. I’m not going to spank you. I didn’t tell you I was going to spank
you if you didn’t empty it. I just told you to empty it. No, I’m not going to spank
you.
“I forgive you, son, but let’s get down here on our knees and ask the Lord to
forgive you.” We did, and God forgave him.
 God Wants You To Have His Best
You see, God has our best interests at heart too. And He’ll take His stand with
you sometimes if you are persisting in wrongdoing and you don’t judge yourself.
He knows you won’t be able to follow His leading in your life if you persist in
sin and wrongdoing. But the Bible says, “. . . if we would judge ourselves, we
should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31).
I remember in the days of The Voice of Healing, there was a certain minister,
about thirty-five years old, who had the biggest tent in those days and always
preached to the biggest crowds. God said to me, “You go tell him that I told you
to tell him that unless he judges himself, he’s not going to live much longer. And
the number one thing he needs to judge himself on is walking in love toward his
fellow ministers.”
About three years after God said that to me, he was dead because he wouldn’t
judge himself. Does that mean divine healing is not for us today? No, divine
healing is still just as real as it ever was. I mean if an Israelite under the Old
Covenant died prematurely because of sin, would that do away with the fact that
God established a covenant of healing with them? No!
And under the New Covenant, just because somebody dies prematurely, that
doesn’t mean healing is not for us today. Healing is for everyone because love is
for everyone. God wants His people healthy and to live long lives on the earth.
God is love, and He is no respecter of persons. He wants us all to walk in love so
we can walk in His perfect plan and live in the blessings of the New Covenant.
That young minister wouldn’t judge himself, so God had to do it. God turned
him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit would be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus.
That wasn’t God’s best but it sure does beat going to hell.
People need to be taught that love’s way is the best way and that it pays to
love God and obey His Word and His plan for their lives.
What does it mean to judge yourself? For example, if you miss it, say to the
Lord, “I didn’t walk in love in that situation. God, forgive me.” And if you need
to, ask the person you’ve sinned against to forgive you, and get back in love.
But if you’re going to persist in wrongdoing and not judge yourself, sooner or
later, God is going to judge you.
When you walk in love, you can walk in God’s perfect plan for your life. If
you haven’t been walking in love, don’t wait to repent and get back in the love
walk. Begin walking in love and in obedience to God today. The rewards will be
great because love’s way is the best way!
It is not difficult to follow God’s plan for your life. God wants you to succeed
more than you want to. So wholeheartedly consecrate yourself to obey His Word
and follow His leading in your life. If you will give God your best by walking in
love and obedience to Him and His Word, you can claim God’s best and live in
the blessings of God in this life.
God wants every believer to run his own spiritual race and finish his course in
life with joy. You can successfully follow and fulfill God’s plan and purpose for
your life.
 About the Author
Kenneth E. Hagin
Kenneth E. Hagin ministered for almost 70 years after
God miraculously healed him of a deformed heart and an
incurable blood disease at the age of 17. Even though
Rev. Hagin went home to be with the Lord in 2003, the
ministry he founded continues to bless multitudes around
the globe.
Kenneth Hagin Ministries’ outreaches include The
Word of Faith, a free magazine; RHEMA Bible Training
Center; RHEMA Alumni Association; RHEMA
Ministerial Association International; RHEMA
Correspondence Bible School; and the RHEMA Prison
Ministry. Rev. Hagin’s son and daughter-in-law, Kenneth
W. and Lynette Hagin, cohost RHEMA Praise, a weekly
television broadcast; Rhema for Today, a weekday radio
program; and Living Faith Crusades held around the
world.
More Information from KHM

Visit www.rhema.org/wpc
Visit www.rhema.org/wof
Visit www.rhema.org

Visit www.rbtc.org
Visit www.rhema.org/rcbs
 Table of Contents
Following God’s Plan For Your Life
Preface
Running the Race
Maintaining a Spirit-Filled Life
Consecration to God’s Plan
Learning To Be Led By the Holy Spirit
Different Ways The Holy Spirit Leads
Obeying God Doesn’t Cost — It Pays!
Love’s Way Is the Best Way
About the Author
More Information from KHM