My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.
(Prov. 4:20)
God tells us to attend to His Word. Let me give you an illustration. Let’s say I meet someone on the street who says, “Brother Hagin, I want to talk to you.” And I respond, “Well, I can’t talk right now. I’ve got some business to attend to.” What does that mean? It means I have to put that other business first.
God said to listen to His sayings. Some people are listening to what others are saying instead of to what God is saying. Donald Gee, a pioneer of the Pentecostal movement, said that every man in his family died before the age of forty.
Well, when he got up around that age, fear came on him. Some of the symptoms his relatives experienced started showing up. And the devil said, “The same thing is happening to you. You’re going to die. You’ll not live past forty. It’s incurable. The doctors can’t cure it.”
As he was driving down the road one day, he dealt with that fear and threw it out of the car. He said, “I’ll not be afraid, because the Bible said, ‘Fear thou not'” (Isa. 41:10). Then he said, “God is with me. God is in me. The Greater One is in me.”
Did he die at forty? No, he was nearly ninety when he went home to be with the Lord. He was the first male in his family to live past the age of forty. Why? He began to attend to God’s words. He began to incline his ears unto what God said.
Confession:
I attend to God’s sayings. I put them first place in my life. I listen to what God says, rather than the words of people. I believe that God is with me. I believe that God is in me. He puts me over in life.
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications
Rev. Hagin served in Christian ministry for nearly 70 years and was known as the "father of the modern faith movement." His teachings and books are filled with vivid stories that show God's power and truth working in his life and the lives of others.
Rev. Hagin was born on Aug. 20, 1917, in McKinney, Texas, a son of the late Lillie Viola Drake Hagin and Jess Hagin.
Rev. Hagin was sickly as a child, suffering from a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. He was not expected to live and became bedfast at age 15. In April 1933 during a dramatic conversion experience, he reported dying three times in 10 minutes, each time seeing the horrors of hell and then returning to life.
In August of 1934, Rev. Hagin was miraculously healed, raised off a deathbed by the power of God and the revelation of faith in God's Word. Two years later, he preached his first sermon as pastor of a small community church in Roland, Texas.
In 1937, Rev. Hagin was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began ministering in Pentecostal churches. During the next 12 years he pastored five churches in Texas: in the cities of Tom Bean, Farmersville (twice), Talco, Greggton, and Van. In 1949, he began an itinerant ministry as a Bible teacher and evangelist.
During the next 14 years, Jesus appeared to Rev. Hagin eight times in visions that changed the course of his ministry. In 1966, he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he opened a ministry office. That same year, he taught for the first time on radio—on KSKY in Dallas. In 1967, he began a regular radio broadcast that continues today as Faith Seminar of the Air. Teaching by his son, Rev. Kenneth W. Hagin, is also heard on the program.
In 1968, Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith magazine, which now has a monthly circulation of more than 250,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated more than 65 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Rev. Hagin Jr., and several other authors worldwide. Faith Library Publications also has produced more than 9 million audio teaching tapes and CDs.
Other outreaches of Kenneth Hagin Ministries include RHEMA Praise, a weekly television broadcast hosted by Rev. and Mrs. Kenneth W. Hagin; RHEMA Correspondence Bible School; RHEMA Alumni Association; RHEMA Ministerial Association International; RHEMA Supportive Ministries Association; the RHEMA Prayer and Healing Center; and a prison ministry.
In 1974, Rev. Hagin founded RHEMA Bible Training Center USA and in 1976 moved the school and ministry offices to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where they remain. To date, RHEMA Bible Training Center USA has 23,000 alumni, and RHEMA Bible Training Centers have opened in 13 other nations: Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Samoa, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand. Together, the 14 schools have more than 28,000 graduates worldwide.
RHEMA Bible Church, pastored by Rev. Hagin Jr., began holding services in October of 1985 on the RHEMA campus in Broken Arrow and has since grown to become a thriving congregation with more than 8,000 members.
Rev. Hagin's daughter and son-in-law, Pat Harrison and the late Doyle "Buddy" Harrison, founded Harrison House Publishers in 1975 and Faith Christian Fellowship International Church in 1977. Both organizations are based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Until shortly before his death in September 2003, Rev. Hagin continued to travel and teach throughout the United States and into Canada conducting All Faiths' Crusades and other special meetings.