The best way to walk in the goodness of the Lord is to walk in love. Practice and exercise the God-kind of love that is already in your heart.
Yes, your flesh will want to dominate you, but you don’t have to let it. As you practice the God-kind of love, God’s love will grow and develop, and you’ll be a blessing to many.
But if you are going to harbor resentment and ill will toward other people in your soul and refuse to pray for people when they wrong you, it will affect you not only physically, but spiritually.
You can’t afford to meditate on what people have said about you or what they’ve done to you or how they’ve persecuted or used you.
If you entertain those things in your thought life, those negative thoughts will just fester in your spirit and your soul and eventually begin to affect you in every area of life.
For example, have you ever heard people say, “So-and-so just doesn’t like me.”
You ask them, “Well, what are you doing about it?”
“I’m never going to speak to him again!”
Then people wonder why their prayers are hindered and their faith won’t work!
“They’re Talking About Me!”
When I pastored a particular church one time, one night after our Sunday night service, a woman came up to the front of the church to talk to me.
People were standing around visiting. We didn’t have a foyer; it was just a one-room church that seated about three hundred people.
Anyway, this woman came to me just crying. She said, “I wish you’d pray for me.”
“What for, Sister? What’s wrong?”
“Well,” she said, “Sister So-and-so and Sister So-and-so are standing in the back of the church talking about me.”
“Sister,” I said smiling, “I’m sure they’ve got a better subject than that to talk about! Besides, how do you know they’re talking about you?”
“Well,” she answered, “I just know it.”
“Why,” I said, “they’re no more talking about you than anything in the world. There’s no use praying about that. You just need to practice the Word. Besides that, even if they were talking about you, you’re supposed to go ahead and love them anyway.”
She insisted, “Well, I just know they’re talking about me!”
“There’s a good way to find out,” I said. “Let’s go back there and see what they’re talking about.” So we just walked back to where these ladies were talking inside the church.
I said to them, “What are you ladies talking about?”
Come to find out, they were talking about canning fruit and making preserves. They hadn’t been talking about this woman!
Walk In The Light Of The Word
Do you see how people are hindered because God’s Word isn’t abiding in them. Then when they don’t walk in the light of the Word, it hinders their prayer life.
You see, this woman just kept meditating on the thought that these other ladies were talking about her until it festered in her soul, and she got so worked up that she needed prayer. She missed a blessing by not practicing the God-kind of love.
Even if these ladies had been talking about this woman, what should she have done about it? She should have loved them anyway, forgiven them, and prayed for them.
Besides, when you are mature in the God-kind of love, you don’t let things like that affect you. You just keep on loving people in spite of how they may treat you.
I’ve learned not to let people’s criticism affect me the least bit in the world. I’ve told people for a good many years that I wouldn’t even take time to deny it if someone accused me of killing my grandma.
I’d just keep shouting the victory and praising God.
Let people say what they want to about me! I’ll pray for them, but I’m not going to let it affect me. As for me, I’m going to keep on worshipping God and staying healthy!
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.