Natural human love says, “I just can’t take that any longer!” Love can. Sometimes I start thinking about a few situations and I’m prone to get impatient. Then I begin to think about God. He’s putting up with all of us. Think about His love, His kindness, and His patience!
I have suggested for years that if you own a Amplified Bible, turn to the verses from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 every morning when you first get up and every night before you go to bed. Start confessing, “That’s me. The love of God is in me.”
You’ll change so much that your family will ask, “Is that the same man (or woman)?” You will change so much that your spouse will almost think you’re a different person.
Through the years, relatives or close friends have said to me, “They [someone who had done wrong to me] sure told you off, didn’t they?”
I have replied, “No, they didn’t tell me off. I take no account of evil. I wouldn’t even take time to deny it if they claimed I’d killed my grandma.” I’d just walk in love!
Many years ago when I was pastoring, a woman started a rumor about me. She told people she had seen me down on the railroad tracks with another woman at 4 a.m.
Well, in the first place, what in the world was she doing out on the railroad tracks at 4 o’clock in the morning? (The devil will always give himself away!)
I remember my wife and I were sitting in our living room when one of the women from church came by all concerned because this tale was circulating about the pastor. She said, “This woman is telling that she saw you down on the railroad tracks with another woman at 4 o’clock in the morning!”
I didn’t even respond. I began laughing. I tell you, I laughed so hard I had to get down on the floor! (When I get really tickled, I have to kick or roll—so I just fell onto the floor rolling and laughing, I was so amused!)
There was no truth to that rumor. But I didn’t get into a fight with the woman who started it. I just forgave her and went on. And the rumor never got off the ground.
“I wouldn’t take that if I were you….”
Through the years, when these things have happened to me, fellow pastors as well as relatives have told me, “I wouldn’t take that if I were you. I wouldn’t put up with that! Not me!” I’ve even had pastors tell me I must have a weakness in my character because I wouldn’t take any account of evil done to me—I’d just go along and act like nothing had been said or done against me. And I’d treat the person who did me an injustice just as well as I did anybody else.
But it’s not a weakness; it’s a strength! I just let something on the inside of me dominate me, and I really didn’t know what it was until I got the Amplified Bible and read where it says that love takes no account of the evil done to it.
Then I saw that it was a strength, because love never fails!
“Love…takes no account of the evil done to it…” (1 Cor. 13:5). That has to be the God-kind of love, because Paul says that while we were the enemies of God (Col. 1:21), God didn’t’ take account of the evil done to Him. He loved us and sent Jesus to redeem us. He loved us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8).
“Love…pays no attention to a suffered wrong…” (v. 5). “But they did me wrong!” people say. Can’t you see that if people walked in love—which is what God wants—it would straighten things out in the home and the church? That’s God’s answer.
The next verses read, “It l[love] does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes…” (vv. 6-7).
Natural human love says, “I just can’t take that any longer!” Love can. Sometimes I start thinking about a few situations and I’m prone to get impatient. Then I begin to think about God. He’s putting up with all of us. Think about His love, His kindness, and His patience!
The next phrase tells us that love is “ever ready to believe the best of every person…” (v. 7). I like this one. Until I read this translation, I didn’t know what made me so forgiving, but it was because I listened to the inside of me, and I simply wouldn’t let the outside man dominate me.
Some people believe that everybody’s out to get them, but love believes the best of every person. It’s not God’s love that wants to believe the worst about people; natural human love is ready to believe the worst of everyone; the worst about the husband, the worst about the wife, the worst about the children.
But the God-kind of love is ever ready to believe the best of every person; husband, wife, children as well as brothers and sisters in the church (Children believe the best of every person!).
Love Believes The Best
I’ve followed a policy for approximately 60 years of believing the best of everyone. I don’t believe anything bad about anyone.
We traveled through the country for years, holding meetings in churches, and it’s amazing how many bad reports we heard. Finally I had to say to some preachers, “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. I’d rather you’d cuss.”
They were talking about fellow pastors, fellow Christians. It was just something they’d heard. They didn’t know whether it was true or not.
You can’t go by hearsay. Hearsay won’t stand up in court. A lot of people have slop buckets for ears. They run around to hear anything that’s bad on anyone. “Oh, have you heard the latest?” they ask. They’re sort of gleeful about it.
“Love…is ever ready to believer the best of every person” (v. 7). Children ought to have the right to be brought up in this kind of love atmosphere. Then, when they go out into life’s fight, they’ll win. But when you see the worst in your children, always telling them, “You’ll never amount to anything,” they’ll live up to what you said—they won’t amount to anything.
Children make mistakes. You can’t put a grown head on a child, so you ought to see the best in them. Work on that. Love them. They will amount to something.
Verse seven concludes by saying that love’s “hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything [without weakening].”
Verse eight reads, “Love never fails—never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end.”
If you walk in love you’ll never fail.
Love never fails!
Certainly we’re interested in spiritual gifts, but we ought to put love before spiritual gifts. Paul went on to say in verse eight that prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, and knowledge will pass away. But, thank God, love never, never, NEVER fails!
by Kenneth E. Hagin
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.