Let me give you an example of what I mean by, “prayer is a service unto the Lord.”
Many people don’t think about prayer as an open door of service to the Lord. But much good is wrought in the Kingdom of God by the faithful prayers of God’s people.
For example, at the Pentecostal church I pastored when I first came over into the Full Gospel Movement, there was a little lady who lived in a nearby town who was about eighty-two years old.
This woman was not a member of my church, but she would visit my church quite frequently because it wasn’t too far from where she lived.
I pastored in a little country town with a population of only a few hundred. Most of my congregation consisted of farmers who lived in the farming area round about, and some lived in town.
Well, we’d have a fellowship meeting every Sunday, and forty to seventy people would attend.
We’d go to someone’s home to have a potluck dinner and a time of fellowship. It was harvest time in the fall of the year, so we only had services on the weekends. We dismissed our Wednesday night service because people were out harvesting their crops and picking cotton.
This woman would come to these Sunday fellowship meetings that were held in someone’s home. As soon as the dinner was over, she would fellowship a little bit, but then she would find a bedroom where she could pray.
Many of those old farm homes back in the ’30s didn’t have rugs on the floor; some of them didn’t even have linoleum. Many of them just simply had old, rough, bare wooden floors.
The woman would ask for a magazine or a newspaper or something she could spread on the floor, and then she would get on her knees and pray the rest of the afternoon.
While the rest of us were visiting, fellowshipping, and enjoying one another’s company, she was praying. I learned that she had lived in Dallas, Texas, and had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost way back at the turn of the century.
After she was filled with the Spirit, she just took it upon her heart to pray a Full Gospel church into every town and city in north Texas. She made a business of prayer. In other words, she made it her business to live a life of prayer to God.
One of the neighboring pastors didn’t have a parsonage, so the woman told this pastor and his wife, “If you want to, you can live in my house.” So they built a partition and made an apartment on one side of her house so the pastor and his wife could live there.
This pastor said that the woman would always arise at 8 a.m. every morning and pray from then until 10 in the morning!
Then, she’d have something to eat; sometimes would fellowship with the pastor and his wife. But by 2 p.m., she was back on her knees praying. She would pray until 6 p.m.
Then maybe she would eat dinner, but by 7 p.m. or so, she would be right back at prayer again and pray nearly all night long.
She did that night after night, day after day, month after month. That was her service unto the Lord. No one else knew what she was doing because she prayed in the privacy of her own home. But God saw it.
So town by town, city by city, this woman prayed until a Full Gospel church was established in every one of those towns and in every one of those cities. She prayed until it happened.
I’m well satisfied that when some of those pastors who established churches in those early days finally get up to Heaven, they are going to get all ready to step up for their reward.
Then the Lord is going to call that praying woman forward for the reward instead. You see, she served the Lord by praying! Maybe she couldn’t preach a sermon or go visit the sick. But there was something she could do—she could pray!
This should be a lesson to all of us, especially those who say, “But I don’t know what to do to serve the Lord.” God is not negligent in opening doors of service for each one of us, but many have been negligent in walking through the doors He opens!
by Kenneth 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.