Many things happen because we think they ought to happen. Recently I read about a scientist who says that after you reach a certain age, it becomes more difficult for your brain to remember things.

When I got past forty years old, I found I could not remember Scriptures as well as I once did. After awhile, I said to myself, "There is no need for this. After all, the brain is simply a physical organ that the mind operates through. The mind is part of the inward being - and the mind never grows old."

The moment I started believing, thinking, and talking right, I could quote all the Scriptures I ever quoted. I could remember everything just as easily as ever - and my memory actually got better instead of worse!

We fail many times because we get ready to fail. We prepare for failure. We think it, believe it, and do it. But we as believers should never talk failure, doubt, or unbelief. We should talk faith.

If you are defeated, you are defeated with your own lips. I appreciate and thank God for all the good material in print today on this subject, but years ago I got the secret from the Book of Mark (See Mark 11:23-24).

Believe it in your heart; say it with your mouth. That is the principle of faith. You can have what you say. Jesus said, "What you believe in your heart and say with your mouth will come to pass."

Once you commit yourself, you are located. When I was very sick and still bedfast, I refused to go back on my confession of faith. The devil kept telling me, "It's not working!" I told him, "I'm not going to believe you, you are a doubter." I held fast to my confession. I refused to give it up. I said, "That scripture is what Jesus said when He was here on the earth."

I kept telling Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the angels, the devil, and evil spirits, "I'm going to hold fast to it." I told God, "If it doesn't work it will be because your Word has failed under me. I'm standing on it. Jesus and I will have to go down together, because I'm not going to turn him loose."

When I was healed, I pulled the New Testament out of my shirt pocket, opened it to Mark 11:23-24, and read it to the devil. I said, "I told you it would work all those months you told me it wasn't working, and wouldn't work, and wasn't going to work. I told you it was the Word of God. And here it is!"

And don't know what people thought, seeing a seventeen year old boy standing on the street corner with a New Testament in his hands, tears rolling down his face, talking to somebody. But I did not care. I had begun to hold fast to this Scripture out of my bed of sickness, and I've been holding fast to it ever since.

Source: You Can Have What You Say by Kenneth Hagin.
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications