Growing Up Spiritually - Kenneth E. Hagin (PDFDrive)

GROWING UP, SPIRITUALLY
Growing Up,
Spiritually
Kenneth E. Hagin
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations
in this volume are from the King James Version of the
Bible.
Eleventh Printing 1996
ISBN 0-89276-504-6
In the U.S. Write: In Canada write:

Kenneth Hagin Ministries Kenneth Hagin Ministries
P.O. Box 50126 P.O. Box 335, Station D,
Tulsa, OK 74150-0126 Etobicoke (Toronto),
Ontario
Canada, M9A 4X3
Copyright © 1976 RHEMA Bible Church

AKA Kenneth Hagin Ministries, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in USA
The Faith Shield is a trademark of RHEMA Bible Church, AKA Kenneth Hagin
Ministries, Inc., registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and
therefore may not be duplicated.
BOOKS BY KENNETH E. HAGIN
* Redeemed From Poverty, Sickness and Spiritual Death
* What Faith Is
* Seven Vital Steps To Receiving the Holy Spirit
* Right and Wrong Thinking Prayer Secrets
* Authority of the Believer (foreign only)
* How To Turn Your Faith Loose
The Key to Scriptural Healing
Praying To Get Results
The Present-Day Ministry of Jesus Christ
The Gift of Prophecy
Healing Belongs to Us
The Real Faith
How You Can Know the Will of God
The Threefold Nature of Man
The Human Spirit
Turning Hopeless Situations Around
Casting Your Cares Upon the Lord
Seven Steps for Judging Prophecy
* The Interceding Christian
Faith Food for Autumn
* Faith Food for Winter
Faith Food for Spring
Faith Food for Summer
* New Thresholds of Faith
* Prevailing Prayer to Peace
* Concerning Spiritual Gifts
Bible Faith Study Course
Bible Prayer Study Course
The Holy Spirit and His Gifts
* The Ministry Gifts (Study Guide)
Seven Things You Should Know About Divine Healing
El Shaddai
Zoe: The God-Kind of Life
A Commonsense Guide to Fasting
Must Christians Suffer?
The Woman Question
The Believer's Authority
Ministering to Your Family
What To Do When Faith Seems Weak and Victory Lost
Growing Up, Spiritually
Bodily Healing and the Atonement (Dr. T.J. McCrossan)
Exceedingly Growing Faith
Understanding the Anointing
I Believe in Visions
Understanding How To Fight the Good Fight of Faith
Plans, Purposes, and Pursuits
How You Can Be Led by the Spirit of God
A Fresh Anointing
Classic Sermons
He Gave Gifts Unto Men: A Biblical Perspective of Apostles, Prophets, and
Pastors
The Art of Prayer
Following God's Plan For Your Life
The Triumphant Church: Dominion Over All the Powers of Darkness
Healing Scriptures
Mountain-Moving Faith
Love: The Way to Victory
Biblical Keys to Financial Prosperity
The Price Is Not Greater Than God's Grace (Mrs. Oretha Hagin)
MINIBOOKS (A partial listing)
* The New Birth
* Why Tongues?
* In Him
* God's Medicine
* You Can Have What You Say
* Don't Blame God
* Words
Plead Your Case
* How To Keep Your Healing
The Bible Way To Receive the Holy Spirit
I Went to Hell
How To Walk in Love
The Precious Blood of Jesus
* Love Never Fails
How God Taught Me About Prosperity
BOOKS BY KENNETH HAGIN JR.
* Man's Impossibility—God's Possibility Because of Jesus
How To Make the Dream God Gave You Come True
The Life of Obedience
Forget Not!
God's Irresistible Word
Healing: Forever Settled
Don't Quit! Your Faith Will See You Through
The Untapped Power in Praise
Listen to Your Heart
What Comes After Faith?
Speak to Your Mountain!
Come Out of the Valley!
It's Your Move!
God's Victory Plan
Another Look at Faith
MINIBOOKS (A partial listing)
* Faith Worketh by Love
* Seven Hindrances to Healing
* The Past Tense of God's Word
Faith Takes Back What the Devil's Stolen
How To Be a Success in Life
Get Acquainted With God
Unforgiveness
Ministering to the Brokenhearted
*These titles are also available in Spanish. Information about other foreign
translations of several of the above titles (i.e., Finnish, French, German,
Indonesian, Polish, Russian, etc.) may be obtained by writing to: Kenneth
Hagin Ministries, P.O. Box 50126, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74150-0126.
Contents
FOREWORD
PART I
1 LOCATING YOURSELF................................................................... 11
2 BABYHOOD..................................................................................... 14
Innocence
Ignorance
Irritability
3 CHILDHOOD..................................................................................... 28
Unsteadiness
Curiosity
Talkativeness
4 MANHOOD....................................................................................... 42
Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly
Deadness to Censure or Praise
Ability to Recognize God at Work
PART II
5 WALKING WITH YOUR FATHER.................................................... 55
Getting Acquainted Through the Word
Experiencing Acquaintance
6 WALKING IN LOVE.......................................................................... 73
"Loves" Compared: Divine—Natural Human
An Expose' on Love
PART III
7 RECEIVING THE KNOWLEDGE......................................................86
The Wrong Diet
The Place of Right Teaching
The Fault of Inadequate Teaching
PART IV
8 WHAT MANNER OF MAN ARE YOU?.......................................... 107
9 THE NATURAL MAN......................................................................109
Knowledge Contrasted: Revelation—Natural Human
The Natural Walk
10 THE CARNAL MAN...................................................................... 117
Walks as a "Mere Man"
Growing Out of Carnality
11 THE SPIRITUAL MAN.................................................................. 129
Knowing the Father
Knowing the Son
Knowing the Holy Ghost
PART V
12 THE RIGHT DIET.......................................................................... 143
Fruit of the Human Spirit
Renewing the Mind
13 A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT............................................... 160
FOREWORD
Growing up is a process.
In this book we'll talk about growing up—
spiritually. Our lessons, which may even seem
unrelated, will be those that will help you to grow.
First, they will help you sum up your own case to
discern where you are spiritually. Then, after you've
located yourself, they will help you grow out of that
stage into another stage—spiritually.
PART I
Chapter 1
1 LOCATING YOURSELF
"... When he (Christ) ascended up on high, he

led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto
men...And he gave some, apostles; and some,
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some,
pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come
in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed
to and fro, and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
10
LOCATING YOURSELF
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up

into him in all things, which is the head, even
Christ:"
—Ephesians 4:8, 11-15
Evidently Paul didn't consider the church at
Ephesus to be grown up yet. Did you notice he said,
"But speaking the truth in love, may grow up...."?
And, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man...."
This is the King James translation. I think when it
says "perfect" our minds tend to run off on a little
tangent and we miss what he's saying to us. Moffat's
translation reads, "until we reach maturity." The
Amplified translation says, "that we might arrive at
really mature manhood." Paul is talking about growing
up to be a man, or a mature person, spiritually. "That
we henceforth be no more children." He's talking
about growing up spiritually, about reaching spiritual
maturity, about becoming a full grown man spiritually.
God wants us to grow.
And the Bible teaches that there is a striking
similarity between spiritual development and physical
development. It speaks of at least three stages in
spiritual development which correspond to three stages
in physical development. They are: babyhood,
childhood, and manhood.
11
As we look at them in just that order and notice

subdivisions under each one, you'll find that some of
the characteristics true of each stage of natural
development are also true of the corresponding
spiritual stage.
And I believe somewhere we can locate ourselves.
12
Chapter 2
2 BABYHOOD
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of

the word, that ye may grow thereby:"
—I Peter 2:2
Here in Peter the Bible speaks about Christians
being "newborn babes." No one is born a full grown
human naturally and physically. They are born babies,
and then they grow up. Similarly no one is born a full
grown Christian. You are born a spiritual babe, and
then you grow up.
There's a whole sermon in just that fact. We are
going to be held accountable for the spiritual babies
born into the family of God around our altars and in
our churches.
I pastured nearly twelve years and really you don't
expect too much out of babies because they can't do
too much for themselves. Someone else though can do
something for them.
13
Too many times someone is saved on Sunday night

and if they make a mistake before Wednesday night
everyone in the church knows it, and is already fussing
about it. They expect him to be living, by Wednesday
night or the next Sunday, just as good a Christian life
as they do when it took them years to get where they
are.
A number of years ago I held a two-week meeting
for a particular minister. We were scheduled to go
longer but I cut it off.
Crowds were coming. The auditorium would seat
800 and it was comfortably full every night. People
were responding. We weren't really having
evangelistic services—I was doing a lot of teaching
and praying for the sick—yet on Saturday night when I
gave the invitation first for people to be saved, thirty-
three adults came for salvation.
They stood across the front as I prayed with them
and led them in a prayer. Then I sent them back to the
prayer room where others would pray with them while
I went on ministering to the sick.
The thing that so impressed me about this service
was that of the thirty-three who came for salvation so
many were young married couples who looked to be
between the ages of twenty-five to thirty-two. I learned
later not one or the group had ever been a Christian;
not one was a member of any church. I asked the
14
BABYHOOD
pastor after the service about these young people.

He said, "None of the thirty-three were backsliders.
They were all sinners who came to be saved."
That was unusual. I asked him if he knew any of
them.
He said, "I don't know a one of them. They've
never been to my church before."
I asked him, "Did you get their names and
addresses?"
He said, "Oh brother, I just figure if they got
anything they'll be back. You don't have to worry
about them."
I said, "I'm closing the meeting tomorrow night."
People are born babies. They need to be seen
about. They had never been to that church before.
They had never heard any Full Gospel preaching
before. They needed to be followed up and prayed
with, talked to, and dealt with. They were newborn
babies.
After a leading healing evangelist held a meeting in
a certain city a pastor who had cooperated with it said
to me, "I'm never going to cooperate with another one
of those city-wide meetings. Never another one."
"Why?" I asked.
"I didn't get a person out of it," he said. "Not a one.
Not a member. It didn't do me a bit of good in the
world."
15
"It didn't?"
"No."
I asked him, "Did you get cards on any of the folks
who came to the altar?"
"Oh yes," he said, "they gave me some cards. But
none of them ever showed up."
I was talking to another pastor in the same town
about the same meeting and he said, "We got twenty-
nine new members out of that meeting. I wish he
would come back."
"How did you get them?" I asked. "How did they
happen to come to your church?"
He said, "Oh they didn't know anything about our
church. I got the cards on some of them and visited
them. I didn't just encourage them to come to our
church, but I insisted they get in some good Full
Gospel church and go on with God. And some of them
came to ours."
We are responsible for babies. Babies don't know.
Babies can't do for themselves. A newborn baby in the
natural can't do much. He doesn't walk yet. He doesn't
dress himself. In fact, he doesn't do anything for
himself. About all he does is eat. And about all he eats
is milk. Spiritually there are newborn babes. And if
they get the sincere milk of the Word, they will grow
thereby.
16
BABYHOOD
Innocence
The first thing that attracts you to a baby is its
innocence. People say, "You sweet little innocent
thing." No one thinks of a baby as having a past. It
doesn't have one.
Do you know something? If you are a newborn
babe in Christ, you don't have any past. You may have
been as mean as the devil. You may have been the
worst wretch that ever walked. But no matter how you
may have lived, when you were born-again you
became a new man in Christ Jesus and you don't have
any past. God looks at you as an innocent babe.
II CORINTHIANS 5:17 17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature (creation): old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new.
Even though innocence belongs to the babyhood
stage of Christianity, it is one characteristic we should
never outgrow. We should maintain this state of
innocence for the simple reason that if we don't, we
will fall under the condemnation of the devil and be
defeated in spiritual life.
A new convert is simple, full of faith, ready and
willing to learn. We should always maintain that
teachable spirit. Yet sometimes when we grow older
we sort of come to the place where we have a "know-
17
it-all" attitude; a "You-can't-tell-me-anything" attitude.

Those people no one can help, including God Himself.
A group of men gathered in back of the auditorium
after service one night in one of the churches I
pastored. As I walked up to shake hands with them one
of the deacons said, "Brother Hagin, what do you think
about..." and he mentioned a certain Bible subject. I
found out later he did that purposely to bring me into
their discussion.
"Well, I don't know just where your discussion is,"
I said, "and whether I could fit in or not."
The man the deacon really wanted to help spoke up
immediately, "Well, I'll tell you. You or anyone else
can't tell me a thing in the world about that Bible
subject. I know all there is to be known on it. I know
all about it."
I said, "If you do, you've got me beat. And if you
do, you have every other preacher beat that I've ever
seen or known of, or any other person."
He said, "Well, I know all about it. No one can tell
me a thing about it."
But to tell the truth, that fellow was the biggest
baby in the entire church. He didn't know all about it at
all.
Keep an open spirit and a teachable spirit, as well
as an innocent spirit, toward God and man.
18
BABYHOOD
Ignorance
Our two children are grown now with families of
their own. In observing our babies and grand-babies I
know this—a baby seems to think everything he can
get his hands on is intended for his mouth.
A newborn puts his hands in his mouth. As he
grows a little older and learns to crawl across the floor
if he finds a screw it goes in his mouth, if he finds a
spoon it goes in his mouth, if he finds a spider it goes
in his mouth.
Babies are ignorant concerning these things. They
don't know what should go in their mouths and what
shouldn't. And babies have died as a result of not
knowing that. They have gotten hold of something
poisonous and it killed them.
In one case I know of, a 14 month old baby,
crawling across the floor, picked up some spoiled food
left there perhaps by an older child. Before they could
get the baby to a doctor, it died. An autopsy revealed
the poisonous food. The parents went back home and
found some of the food on the floor of a room which
was seldom used. That little one didn't know he
shouldn't eat it. He was ignorant concerning the effect
it would have.
What am I getting to? The same thing is true
spiritually speaking. We need to be careful what goes
19
into our spiritual mouths. We need to be as careful

about what we read as we are about what we eat
physically. Christians many times think nothing at all
of gulping down some poisonous doctrine which will
poison life spiritually, rob them of their spirituality,
and ruin their testimony if they accept it.
A number of years ago a denominational minister
was filled with the Holy Spirit and had a marvelous
experience with God. I'll guarantee you this much, I
know of no greater soul winner in any church than that
man. He was outstanding. He would get people saved
when no one else could. It seemed to me you could
stand up the twelve best preachers in America and let
all of them preach and give an altar call—then he
could take the same crowd, preach to them, and get
more souls saved than any of the others after they'd
had first shot at it. That was his ministry; an
evangelistic type ministry. But he got to reading after
some false stuff, finally accepted some false doctrine,
and got off on it. If he has won a soul in more than
twenty years I don't know it and no one else does
either.
I know of some born-again, Spirit-filled people
who were soul winners, getting people saved and filled
with the Holy Spirit. But they got taken up with certain
doctrines. Some of them told me, "God is doing a
different thing nowadays." No. God's not doing a
20
BABYHOOD
different thing nowadays. They're just off their

rockers. He's still concerned about saving people. They
just left the fundamental truths of the doctrine of the
Word of God and went off on something that doesn't
amount to a hill of beans.
Some things are actually poisonous in themselves.
And some things it doesn't make a whole lot of
difference how you believe on them—they are simply
not essential to salvation and it wouldn't make any
difference whether you believed it, or you didn't
believe it.
But too many times Christian people will feed on
everything in the world except the right thing, and will
become poisoned. Then they lead disciples off after
themselves. If the Spirit of God is in it, He is
concerned about there being unity. Did you notice
Ephesians 4:13 says, "Till we all come in the unity of
the faith"? That which will divide Christians is not of
the Spirit of God—it's of the devil. The Spirit of Love
never divides.
I went into a Christian home once and saw some
books I knew to be poisonous lying on a living room
table. They were religious books, but they were
poisonous. (We need not only be careful about secular
books, but we need to be careful about reading
religious books.) I purposely worked the conversation
around to these books. I picked one up and said
21
something about it.

This person was a born-again, Spirit-filled
Christian but they said "Oh that is the most marvelous
book."
"Is it?" I said.
"Yes."
In the early days of my Christian experience I had
happened to get hold of some of these books and had
detected immediately the poison in them. So I just
turned to certain pages and began to read certain things
aloud.
"Well now, Brother Hagin, they give chapter and
verse in there. I looked some of them up and those
verses are in the Bible."
I said, "Certainly. If they didn't give some verses—
though they may take them out of their setting—and a
little Bible, folks wouldn't read it. If you were going to
poison a dog he wouldn't eat just the poison. You have
to put the poison on a good piece of meat."
Do you see what I'm talking about? You have to
put the poison on a good piece of meat to get a dog to
come. The devil will use some good scripture to get
you to eat it, but he'll put a little poison on it. Be
careful no matter who you read after. Don't read
everything you can get your hands on. Unless you are
a fully mature Christian and able to rightly divide it, it
would be best not to read such things.
22
BABYHOOD
Years ago I held a meeting for a Full Gospel

minister, a very well educated man, a doctor of
divinity. Up to that time I had never seen a larger
personal library than his. There's no telling how many
hundreds of volumes lined the walls from ceiling to
floor. Being a bookworm myself I was interested in
looking it over. I read some of his books while I was
there in three weeks of meetings.
As we talked one day he said, "Brother Hagin, I'll
be perfectly honest with you. There are some things
I've read that I wish I'd never read. They bother me.
They hinder me yet, though I don't read them
anymore..." And he mentioned some of these books.
They were religious books. But he said, "I just wish I
had never read them. It hinders my faith today. It
hinders me in believing God today."
It would have been better for him never to have
built that into his inner consciousness. But he had.
When I start reading something that takes faith out
of me instead of putting faith in me, I have enough
sense to lay it down right then. Be careful what you
feed upon. There is a saying used in the area of man's
natural diet, "You are what you eat." The same thing is
true spiritually, "You are what you read."
Irritability
23
Babies are easily spoiled. And when they become

spoiled they become irritable. It's mighty easy to spoil
them to a light so that you have to keep a light on. It's
mighty easy to spoil them to being handled and held.
They are babies.
But the Bible says something about babies growing
up. David said, "Surely I have behaved and quieted
myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my
soul is even as a weaned child" (Psalm 131:2). The
Bible says concerning Isaac, "And the child grew, and
was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same
day that Isaac was weaned" (Genesis 21:8).
That ought to be a great day—that day when
Christians grow enough to get off the bottle. But you
know, it isn't. It ought to be a feast day; instead it's a
cry day. I know, I pastored nearly twelve years. It's no
wonder to me at all that we're not doing more in some
of our churches than we are. If we do get a newborn
babe in we don't have a bottle for it. Every bottle is in
use. And the older babies are not going to give up their
bottles. Every bed in the spiritual nursery is taken. And
the older babies don't want to get up and give up their
beds.
In the last church I pastored there were two ladies
who lived next door to each other. Bless their hearts.
They had been saved I don't know how long, baptized
with the Holy Spirit and speaking with tongues. But
24
BABYHOOD
that doesn't make you a full grown Christian. They

were the biggest babies in the world. You'd have to run
after them, and run after them, and run after them.
They wanted you to come and pet them. They would
miss church Sunday for you to come over on Monday
and pet them.
So I just quit.
When one of the deacons said something to me
about it I said, "Brother, if you want to go over and
visit them, you go. But I'm never going over there
again. The longest day I live, or the longest day I
pastor this church, I will never set foot inside their
houses again. I'm tired of wasting my time with them.
They are babies who want to stay babies. There are
other people who can be helped. There are new people
to be visited. And others are getting saved who can be
taught."
You couldn't have taught those old babies
anything. So I quit visiting them and never set foot
inside their houses the eighteen months I continued to
pastor that church. But do you know what? When they
saw I wasn't coming again I believe they were more
faithful to church than they'd ever been.
We ought to grow enough spiritually so that instead
of someone's having to come and visit us, and pump us
up, and prop us up, and pray with us, and feed us, we
are able to be out helping others ourselves. When
25
weaning time comes we ought to thank God for it.

Actually, if a child is weaned properly, when
weaning time comes it will turn its face from the
bottle. If it isn't, you have a cry on your hands. If you
can just keep people on the milk, they will grow. Peter
said, "Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may
grow thereby."
I have actually had pastors say to me, in trying to
tell me I was giving their congregation a little too
much, "Now Brother Hagin, I know my congregation
should be better than they are, but you have to be
careful. All they can take is a little milk. All I ever
feed them is a little milk."
I said, "No, you haven't even given them milk.
You've been pastor here thirty years. If they had been
getting milk they would have grown. Peter said that
we would grow thereby."
They didn't grow; so they weren't even getting
milk. They were just getting bluejohn. Bluejohn is
milk with all the cream taken out.
Babies are easily frustrated, easily distracted, easily
hurt. The Lord wants to bring us to the place where
we're not so easily frustrated. He wants to bring us to
the place where we're not so easily distracted. He
wants to bring us to the place where we're not so easily
hurt.
26
Chapter 3
3 CHILDHOOD
"That we henceforth be no more children...."

—Ephesians 4:14
Paul is talking about spiritual children here. He
wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus and we know
they had at least twelve men in that church. Acts 19:7
tells us about twelve men and I'm sure they had more.
When Paul said "that we henceforth be no more
children" he was talking about that they would be no
longer spiritual children but would grow up spiritually.
Characteristics of the childhood stage of spiritual
development are similar to the physical.
Unsteadiness
When my son was a boy of thirteen or fourteen, I
told him to mow the yard. The way he grabbed that
lawn mower and lit out you'd have thought he would
27
have had it mowed in thirty minutes. Back then we had

a push mower, the yard wasn't too big, and he could
have had it mowed in forty-five if he'd kept at it. I had
to go to town to attend to some business. When I came
back after about an hour and a half, there sat the
mower in the middle of the yard. He'd made about two
strips after I'd left. I began to look for him. I asked my
wife where he was.
"I don't know," she said. "Didn't he go with you?"
"No," I said. And I looked to see if I could find
some boys playing ball on the corner. I knew if they
were, that's where he would be. They were. And he
was.
He was unsteady. You couldn't depend on him. As
has been said many times, you can't put a grown head
on a child. You can't. The same thing is true
spiritually.
A mother tells her young daughter, "I want you to
do the dishes and sweep the kitchen. I'm going next
door for a little bit." The daughter starts out all right,
but when the mother returns the dishes are unwashed
or half done and she can't find Mary anywhere. She
goes outside and begins to call her. After a while she
goes to the neighbors on the other side and Mary is
there playing dolls with Susie.
Children in the natural are unsteady
...unreliable...impressionable...spasmodic. Spiritual
28
CHILDHOOD
children are the same way.

When a new pastor comes to a church everyone
comes. I've gone to pastor a church and people would
gather around, pat me on the back, shake my hand, and
say, "Brother Hagin, I want you to know I'm with you.
I'm with you one hundred percent. I'm behind you."
Six months went by and I didn't see them. Nine
months went by and I didn't see them. I thought, "Well
now they're behind me; they said they were." The
trouble was they were so far behind me I never could
reach them. They were too far behind to do any good.
Then as an evangelist I went from church to church
holding meetings for several years. The first service or
two some people would get right in and shake my
hand and hug my neck and tell me, "Bless God, I'm
with you. I believe this is it. We're going to have a
meeting." Then we'd run two or three weeks without
seeing them again. The last Sunday night when the
pastor would announce we were closing I've had them
run up to me, look at the pastor like he didn't know
what was going on and say, "He's not going to close
this meeting, is he?" As far as they were concerned it
had been closed all the time.
Curiosity
Children are full of curiosity. Just as sure as you'd
29
come in with a sack and set it down on the kitchen

table, our second granddaughter, about eight at the
time, would be in that sack. She was full of curiosity.
She wanted to know what was in there.
Some of these spiritual children that have never
really grown up spiritually—though they've had time
and opportunity—as sure as they can catch a little bit
of gossip going want to know, "Who? Who?" They're
full of curiosity.
Curiosity is the characteristic of a child. If you tell
a child not to look in a closet, he is going to get in it as
sure as the world. Curious. Spiritual children are the
same way. They're always poking their noses in the
other fellow's business. The Word of God teaches us to
tend to our own business. God doesn't want you
poking your nose into the other fellow's business.
Learn to be quiet and tend to your own business.
I was pastoring a church when one fellow wanted
to know what all I was doing with my money. I said,
"What are you doing with yours?"
He said, "That isn't any of your business."
I said, "I don't consider it any of your business
what I'm doing with mine."
He got the point. You know, it is no more the
church member's business what the pastor is doing
with his money than it is the pastor's business what the
church member is doing with his.
30
CHILDHOOD
Curiosity is a characteristic of a child.
Talkativeness
Children have never learned the value of silence.
They are talkative. And you will find folks in the
childhood stage of spiritual growth are nearly always
talking.
Did you know the Word of God has something to
say along this line? It tells us, "In the multitude of
words there wanteth not sin...." (Proverbs 10:19). And,
"...a fool's voice is known by multitude of words"
(Ecclesiastes 5:3). We need to learn to be quiet. A
child doesn't know any better so he's always blabbing.
I remember one time when my boy was three years
old. We had gotten into bed late one Sunday night
after church. I had preached twice and was tired. We
all slept in one large room. He was in a bed across the
room from us. The baby was in the crib. The lights out
and it was dark.
"Daddy," he said.
I hadn't gone to sleep but I thought if I pretended to
be asleep he would hush and go to sleep.
"Daddy."
I didn't say anything.
"Daddy."
I didn't say anything.
31
"Daddy."
I didn't say anything, and he just kept getting a
little louder.
"Daddy."
Finally my wife nudged me and said quietly, "Why
don't you answer that child?"
I whispered back, "Knowing him he'll get started
talking." He was three years old and didn't know
anything about the value of silence. He'd get started
talking and you couldn't get him to shut up. I thought
if I didn't answer him he would think I was asleep and
shut up. But he just kept getting louder.
"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy."
Finally I said, "What is it, son?"
"What's tomorrow?"
I said, "Oh, be quiet and go to sleep. It's time to go
to sleep."
"Well, what's tomorrow?"
"It's Monday. Now go to sleep."
"What's the next day?"
"It's Tuesday."
"Is tomorrow always Monday?"
"No, tomorrow is not always Monday. When
tomorrow gets here then tomorrow will be Tuesday"
"I thought you said it was Monday."
"Well, it was Monday, but when Monday gets here
then tomorrow will be Tuesday."
32
CHILDHOOD
"If tomorrow is Monday, how can it be Tuesday?"

"Well, that's just the way it is."
"It's Wednesday."
"Will it ever be tomorrow?"
"Yes. Now hush and get to sleep."
"Thursday."
"Friday."
"Saturday."
"Sunday. That's today."
"Is Sunday always today?"
"No, it's just today today. When Monday gets here,
it will be today."
"I thought you said it was tomorrow."
"Oh, now you have me confused. I want you to be
quiet, and if you don't be quiet I'm going to get up and
give you a whipping."
Like natural children, spiritual children have never
learned the value of silence. We need to be careful
about what we say.
There was a fellow called Father Nash who used to
go along ahead of Charles Finney and get a few folks
together to pray for the revival. Someone once asked
33
Finney, "Do you know a little preacher by the name of

Father Nash?"
Finney said, "Yes sir. He goes along ahead of time
and prays for the revival. I don't have him hired. He
just took it upon himself to do it."
"What kind of a fellow is he?" this person asked.
"Well," Finney said, "he's just like any other fellow
who prays—he is a fellow of few words."
Folks who are talking all the time are usually guilty
of at least three sins. They are often guilty of evil
speaking—talking about and discussing the faults and
failures of people not present. They are often guilty of
vain speaking—always talking about themselves: what
I've done; what I'm going to do; where I've been. And
they are often guilty of foolish speaking—jesting,
joking, and things that are unprofitable.
1. Evil speaking—talking about and discussing the
faults and failures of people not present.
(We'll soon get through with this negative side of
growing up and get on to the positive side. But this
side needs to be dealt with, too.)
I was holding a meeting in Oklahoma when my son
was about twelve. He had a four-day weekend holiday
so I drove down to Texas and brought him back to
spend a few days with me. I was gone all the time and
didn't get to be with him much. We stayed in the
parsonage with the pastor and his wife.
34
CHILDHOOD
One day at the table, the pastor got to talking about

some of the church members, airing some of their
faults and failures. I noticed my boy just kept looking
at him.
Finally I said to him, right at his own table,
"Brother, I wish you wouldn't talk that way in front of
my boy."
He looked at me rather startled.
I said, "I would rather you'd curse in front of him.
That wouldn't register on him. He wouldn't pay any
attention to that. But for the twelve years I pastored, he
always thought every member we ever had was an
angel."
They weren't—any more than all his members
were. But Ken thought all of them were sprouting
wings—he didn't know that was just their shoulder
blades sticking out. He never heard his parents say one
word about any deacon, Sunday School teacher,
superintendent, or church member.
You need to be careful what you say around
children, and other people as well.
I remember one dear soul. Bless her heart. Every
time we took prayer requests she would say, "Pray for
So-and-so," and she'd call her husband's name. He
came with her every once in a while and even if he
was there she'd never stop to think about it; but would
get up and call his name."
35
He rather liked me and I'd go visit him. We'd talk

about the Bible. To tell you the real truth about it, he
knew more about the Bible than she did. And in
talking to him, I learned some things. I learned where
she was missing it. I tried to talk to her about it, but it
didn't help.
So one Wednesday night when there wasn't anyone
there but us; when she said, "Pray for So-and-so," I
said, "Sister, we're not going to do it."
I answered her right back from the pulpit and said,
"We're not going to do it. Don't turn in another prayer
request for him. We've prayed and prayed, but you
undo all our prayers. You run home from church every
single time some woman in the church looks a little
hatefully at you—you think—and you tell your
husband what an awful person she is. And if the
preacher doesn't just preach to suit you, you run home
and tell him what an awful person the preacher is. I
know. I've talked to him. He couldn't have known it
unless you told him. He knows more about what's
going on down at this church than anyone in the
church. You run home and tell him everything that is
—and a lot of things that ain't. You rehash everybody's
faults, failures, and shortcomings. And as long as
you're going to do that, you're going to undermine the
effects of our prayers."
I learned to appreciate that dear soul. She had
36
CHILDHOOD
enough sense to listen and she straightened up. She

became a splendid Christian. And he got saved. I dealt
what seemed like severely with her, but she took it.
She wasn't an ignoramus. People who do have a little
something upstairs are able to know when you are
telling them the truth. Some folks would never know
and you just have to help them the best you can.
2. Vain speaking—always talking about

themselves.
Sometimes I almost get sickened when I go to
church. All the singing is about what I did, what I felt,
and what happened. We scarcely worship the Lord. It's
no wonder to me that God doesn't move any more than
He does in our midst. The Bible said in the 13th
chapter of Acts concerning this group down at
Antioch, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted,
the Holy Ghost said,...." (verse 2). They weren't
ministering to one another.
If we can be humble enough and yielded enough
God can use us. I just don't like the idea of leaving the
impression we are something big and something great.
It's all right to talk about how God uses people and
rejoice about what God is doing. But I've been in some
meetings where those in charge bragged on each other
from the natural standpoint until it was simply
nauseating.
37
Thank God for His blessings. And let's be careful

that we are not taken up with vain talking.
3. Foolish speaking.
It's all right to be friendly. And it's all right to tell
something funny sometimes—but it is possible to
spend too much of your time doing that. The Bible
even says something about jesting and joking that are
not convenient. It doesn't say they are a sin
necessarily, but it says they are not convenient.
EPHESIANS 5:4
4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor
jesting, which are not convenient: but rather
giving of thanks.
I was holding a meeting one time for a fellow, a
fine fellow. I think a lot of him. He's changed
considerably. But I never saw a fellow as full of jokes
as he was then. We had two services a day, and every
time I saw him he'd tell me a new joke. I don't see how
in the world he could remember them. He'd tell me at
least three a day which were brand new. Morning
service, evening service, and when we'd go out for a
bite to eat after church he'd have another one for me;
sometimes several.
I usually quote my scripture as I preach and once
when we were out eating he said, "I wish I could
38
God works with time
schedules. I should too!
CHILDHOOD
remember scriptures like you do."

I said, "You could if you'd spend as much time on
them as you do on jokes. How do you remember
jokes? I can't remember them. I go to tell some of
them and get them all messed up."
The thing about it was I wasn't interested in them.
Now don't go off and say I said it was wrong to tell
something funny. I didn't say that at all. I said it is
wrong to put that first and just blab, blab, blab, blab,
and leave God out. I'm talking about things that will
hinder our spiritual growth. We are never going to
grow spiritually and just feed and talk on those kinds
of things.
I'm a preacher and I fellowship with preachers
more than anyone else. It's a strange thing, but
sometimes in trying to fellowship with preachers you
can't find too many you can really talk to about
spiritual things. I've held meetings in church after
church—Full Gospel churches—and preacher after
preacher wants only to talk about fishing and hunting,
or about how many cattle they have down on their
ranch, or how many houses they have, or how much
property they have. I think it's all right to go fishing.
It's all right to go hunting. It's all right to have
property. I'm glad they do. But if you'd try to mention
the things of God and get in the least bit deep, they'd
look at you like you were a nut.
39
I'm glad it's not that way with some folks. But it is
that way with too many. And we cannot grow
spiritually and spend all our time talking about natural
things.
Give your time to whatever you want to excel in.
40
Chapter 4
4 MANHOOD
There are many scriptural characteristics of the

manhood stage of spirituality. In fact, this entire book
is aimed at seeing this spiritual man. But three of his
characteristics we'll discuss here are:
1. Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly

2. Deadness to Censure or Praise
3. Ability to Recognize God at Work
Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly

"By faith Moses, when he was come to years,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God, than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the
41
recompence of the reward."

—Hebrews 11:24-26
Moses, when he was come to years—that means
when he grew up, when he became a man—refused to
be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Think about what he refused. He saw a difference
in the people of God and the people of the world.
(Egypt is a type of the world.) In the world he was the
son of Pharaoh's daughter, in line for the throne. He
had honor, wealth, prestige. He had the things the earth
and the world had to offer. Yet he esteemed the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt. Heir to the treasures of Egypt, but he esteemed
the reproaches.
One characteristic of growing up is to esteem
earthly things lightly. You cannot put earthly things
above spiritual things and grow spiritually.
God wants to prosper His children. He's concerned
about us. He wants us to have the good things of life.
He said in His Word, "If ye be willing and obedient, ye
shall eat the good of the land" (Isaiah 1:19). But He
doesn't want us to put those things first.
Some are more interested in making the dollar than
in serving God. Spiritual things must come first if you
are to be spiritual. You must esteem spiritual things
more than the dollar, more than earthly things.
No, it's not wrong to have money. It's wrong for
42
MANHOOD
money to have you. It's wrong for money to be your

ruler, your master.
God wants you to prosper.
III JOHN 2
2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou
mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth.
That's talking about financial and material
prosperity, physical prosperity, and spiritual
prosperity. Look at it again. "Beloved, I wish above all
things that thou mayest prosper (material prosperity)
and be in health (physical prosperity), even as thy soul
(spiritual prosperity) prospereth."
The first Psalm is so beautiful—and makes it so
clear that God wants us to prosper.
PSALM 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and
in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in
his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
God wants us to prosper.
43
Our need, however, is to evaluate things as they

should be evaluated—to esteem earthly things lightly
—to put first things first.
We all think the preacher ought to be that way. If a
pastor takes a better church where he makes more
money, people think, "He just took that so he'd be
better paid." But they wouldn't think a thing in the
world of taking a better job, and perhaps moving off
and leaving a good spiritual church and getting in one
where they'd all backslide.
I was talking to a fellow a number of years ago. I
was over in his town on business and ran into him on
the street. This was back in depression days. He had a
good job, making good money, but he'd been offered a
job making $50 more a month. That doesn't sound like
much today, but in those low depression days it was a
lot of money. I knew lots of men with families who
didn't even make $50 a month. He already made a
good salary, but was offered this job in another town,
making $50 more than he was making.
He said, "Did you know I was moving to So-and-
so?"
He was a member of a Full Gospel church and I
happened to know that in the town where he was
moving they didn't have a Full Gospel church.
So I said, "What kind of church do you have in that
town?"
44
MANHOOD
He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Is there a Full Gospel church there?"
He said, "I don't know; I never thought about that."
I said, "No, you were just interested in the $50
more a month. But wait a minute, I knew you before
you came into Pentecost. I happen to know you'd spent
all your money. Doctors thought your wife had cancer
of the stomach. But when she got the baptism of the
Holy Ghost, without anybody praying for her, she got
healed and can eat anything she wants. I happen to
know you'd spent thousands of dollars on one of your
boys physically, but since you've come in where divine
healing is taught, that boy has been in good health."
He said, "Yes, that's right."
I said, "I happen to know that there isn't a Full
Gospel church in that town."
(It would have been different if he was thinking
about going there to start one, but he wasn't capable.)
He said, "You know, I never thought of that."
I said, "No, you'd take your family out of a good
church where the Gospel is preached, where you've
been blessed immeasurably, physically as well as
spiritually, for $50 more a month. I'll not tell you to go
or not to go, but I will tell you you'd better pray about
it."
The next time I saw him, he said, "I'm not going. I
don't believe it's worth it."
45
A man and his wife came to a meeting I was

holding in Dallas. The woman's mother, who had gone
to be with the Lord, was a member of a church I'd
pastored some years before. She was a wonderful
Christian and a great blessing to my wife and me as
young people with babies.
I knew that this lady hadn't always been a
Christian. She used to visit her mother and her mother
said she wasn't saved. But then she had gotten saved,
received the Holy Spirit, and attended an independent
Full Gospel church; a fine church. And she was going
on for God.
So I asked, "Where do you go to church now?"
She said, "Oh, I don't go anywhere."
"What do you mean? I thought you were a member
of..." And I mentioned a certain church.
"Oh, they don't even have a church there anymore.
It was closed down for awhile. Then someone took it
over. Our pastor backslid and quit preaching. We don't
go anywhere; just here and there. While you're here
we're coming over here."
I said, "Where do you pay your tithes?"
"Oh, we quit. We used to pay tithes, but we don't
anymore. We used to pay tithes to our pastor, but he
backslid."
I said, "There's no use in your backsliding just
because he did." I don't know whether they
46
MANHOOD
appreciated it or not, but I said, "You need to get in

somewhere and work for God, and worship the Lord.
A rolling stone never gathers any moss, as we say."
We need each other. We need the fellowship of one
another.
Someone said, "Oh Brother Hagin, I can stay at
home and be as good a Christian as anybody."
You can't do it. The Bible says, "Not forsaking the
assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of
some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching" (Hebrews
10:25).
We see that day approaching—the coming of the
Lord. We need one another. We need to grow up. We
need to esteem earthly things lightly. We need to put
God first.
We don't go to church because we're in love with
the pastor or the wife of the pastor, or the Sunday
School teacher. We should go because we love God
and want to worship Him.
People sometimes lose their children because they
don't put first things first. The children grow up
physically and get away from God, because the wrong
example was set for them.
We were visiting my wife's folks in Sherman,
Texas one Christmas when my daughter was only six
years old. Christmas was on Saturday. The next day
47
was Sunday. I was to preach about fifty-seven miles

away. It was raining and disagreeable. When you'd get
out it would seem to go right through you.
Sunday morning my mother-in-law said, "I'll keep
Pat. Just leave her here. She has a hacking cough and it
feels like she may have a little bit of fever."
I said, "No, we're not going to leave her. We
prayed and believed God. And besides that when we
came over here yesterday she had that same little
hacking cough. Actually she's much better today. If we
don't take her to Sunday School and church this
morning, then we'll leave the impression on a little six
year old that it's more important to eat Christmas
dinner with Grandma than to go to church on Sunday
morning. And that's not what I believe."
Do you see where people lose their children? And
why they grow up and become unfaithful in church?
You can't just tell them. The Bible says, "Train up
a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he
will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).
F.F. Bosworth said, "Some people wonder why
they can't have faith for healing. They feed their body
three hot meals a day, and their spirit one cold snack a
week."
Determine in your heart to put spiritual things first.
First things first. Esteem earthly things lightly, even if
it's your own relatives. Put God before them. Put God
48
MANHOOD
before your own self-life. You will be blessed

spiritually, and better off physically—both you and
your family as well.
Deadness to Censure or Praise

"But with me it is a very small thing that I
should be judged of you, or of man's judgment:
yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know
nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified:
but he that judgeth me is the Lord."
—I Corinthians 4:3-4
Paul had grown in grace to such an extent that he
sought only to commend himself to God. He was not
influenced or affected by what others thought of him.
He did not get in bondage to anybody. It was not a
carnal independence—but a saintly dignity.
The law of love governed him. He was not easily
puffed up, nor was he touchy or resentful. His spirit—
where the love of God was shed abroad—dominated
him.
Immature Christians will feel slighted or puffed up.
If they are criticized—or even imagine that they are—
they are restless, uneasy, and full of self-pity. On the
other hand, if they are noticed and appreciated they
feel lifted up and full of self-importance.
Baby Christians are self-conscious. And ever-
49
conscious of what others are thinking about them.

Therefore they are "tossed to and fro" childishly trying
to be popular.
The mature believer is God-conscious. And ever-
conscious of what God's Word says about him and to
him. Because he is able to testify with Paul, "It is a
very small thing that I should be judged of you or
man's judgment," he is free to walk in and voice his
convictions.
He fits the description given in the Amplified
translation of I Corinthians 13:5. He is not conceited—
arrogant and inflated with pride. He is not touchy or
fretful or resentful. He takes no account of the evil
done to him—pays no attention to a suffered wrong.
Ability to Recognize God at Work

One of the best spiritual examples of this
characteristic is Joseph.
You remember how he saw certain things
happening in a dream and his brothers became jealous
of him. They were going to kill him, but finally just
sold him into slavery. He was taken into Egypt, where
eventually he stood and refused to bow to the wishes
of his master's wife and was thrown into prison. He
stayed in prison seven years.
Most people would have become bitter and said,
50
MANHOOD
"God has forsaken me after these seven years."

He interpreted a dream for a fellow prisoner—
Pharaoh's butler—that in three days the butler would
be lifted up and restored. Joseph asked the butler to
make mention of him to Pharaoh when he was
delivered. The butler was released as Joseph said, but
he forgot Joseph. It was two years more before Joseph
got out.
In those two years most folks would have grown
bitter saying, "That's the way it is. You try to help
folks and they won't help you."
But the time came when Joseph was brought out of
prison. And eventually he was made prime minister of
Egypt.
A famine back in his home country caused his
father to send his brothers to Egypt in search of food.
They had to be brought before him because he was
prime minister.
They didn't know him. But he recognized them; the
very ones who had sold him into slavery. He didn't tell
them who he was but asked, "Is your father well, the
old man of whom ye spake?" They answered that he
was in good health.
Benjamin hadn't come with them. So Joseph said to
them, "Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of
Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your
youngest brother come hither."
51
They went back and told their father, "The man did
solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my
face, except your brother be with you."
Poor old Jacob didn't know that it was God. Joseph
was gone. And now they were taking Benjamin. He
thought all things were against him. But they weren't.
They were all for him. He just didn't know it.
When you're hungry, you'll do about anything, so
Benjamin went with them. When they got there,
Joseph made a feast for them. And he announced, "I
am Joseph."
Do you know what happened?
All those fellows hit the floor. That's what Joseph
had seen in his dream—his brothers bowing before
him.
Here would have been a fine opportunity for most
people, who weren't spiritually mature and still babies,
to have really shown off. Here would have been a
perfect opportunity for Joseph to have stuck his
thumbs in his galluses and said, "Well boys, look me
over. Remember those dreams I had? They came to
pass."
But Joseph had magnanimity of soul. He said in
effect, "Don't worry about it, God did it." He said, "Be
not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me
hither: for God did send me before you to preserve you
a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a
52
MANHOOD
great deliverance" (Genesis 45:5, 7).

When you can see God at work in things, you can
rejoice whatever is going on!
53
PART II
Chapter 5
5 WALKING WITH YOUR FATHER
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought

for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put
on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body
than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not
much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one
cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
54
WALKING WITH YOUR FATHER
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in

all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into
the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 0
ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall
we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles
seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
—Matthew 6:25-34
This is a marvelous section of scripture. But for the
time being there are just two portions of it I want you
to notice. In the 32nd verse, "for your heavenly Father
knoweth that ye have need of all these things." And in
the 26th verse, "your heavenly Father feedeth them."
This isn't talking about sinners (unbelievers) here,
because He is not the heavenly Father of sinners. To
listen to some people talk we are all children of God;
God is the Father of all of us, and we're all brothers
55
and sisters. But no, we are not. The devil is the father
of some people.
Jesus said to some of the most religious people of
that day, "Ye are of your father the devil" (John 8:44).
He didn't say our heavenly Father was their father. He
said the devil was their father.
Yet even though we have been born-again, and
have become children of God, I think so many times
we have never really become acquainted with our
Father. Our theme is growing—growing up spiritually.
We need to grow by becoming acquainted with our
heavenly Father.
When I was teaching down in East Texas on this
subject a woman said to me, "Brother Hagin, I've been
saved for eleven years. And ever since I've been saved
I've loved Jesus. But somehow I just didn't become
acquainted with the Father like I should. Since you've
been teaching along this line though, I have become
acquainted with my Heavenly Father. And I'm just
about to love Him to death."
That was her expression.
There is no truth in all the Bible as far reaching as
the blessed fact that if we have been born-again and
come into the family of God, God the Father is our
Father, and He cares for us.
He is interested in us. I mean in each one of us
individually; not just as a group, or a body, or a
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church. He is interested in each of His children and He

loves every single one of us with the same love.
Jesus was actually preaching here in Matthew to
the Jews. Yet one reason they didn't understand Him
was, He talked about God as being His Father. He
endeavored to introduce to them a kind, loving,
Heavenly Father. They couldn't understand that kind
of a God. His message was, "For God so loved the
world that He gave...." They couldn't comprehend it.
The Old Covenant was the covenant of the law of
sin and death. It was the law of an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth. You knock my eye out and I'll knock
your eye out.
It was the law where God demanded, in awful
judgment, love and so forth. They were not able to do
it because their natures had not been changed. So He
set up the Levitical priesthood whereby the blood of
animals could be shed to cover their sins so they could
be counted righteous in His sight and He could bless
them. The sins of the people could be confessed over
the head of the scapegoat. The goat let go in the
wilderness. And judgment fell out there instead of on
them. They had come up in this hard, harsh
atmosphere of justice.
When God gave Moses the tables of stone of the
law, fire and vapor of smoke overshadowed the
mountain. If even an animal touched it he was thrust
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through with a sword.

In the Old Testament after they built the tabernacle
first and the temple secondly, they didn't know Him as
Father God. They knew Him as Elohim, or Jehovah.
They did not know Him personally. They had no
personal acquaintance with Him. His Presence was
kept shut up in the Holy of Holies. It was necessary
that every male throughout Israel, at least once a year,
go up to Jerusalem to the temple to present himself
before God. That's where He was. And even then they
didn't dare enter into His Presence.
No one entered His Presence save the high priest.
And he only under great precaution. For if you
intruded into that place in the wrong way, and some
did, you fell down dead instantly. This high priest,
after offering sacrifice by the blood of animals for his
own sins and the sins of the people, could enter into
the Holy of Holies and receive atonement for their sins
—pushing them off, so to speak, into the future.
That was the hard, harsh atmosphere they had
come up in. It is no wonder that when Jesus came
along to introduce them to a loving, kind, Heavenly
Father, they couldn't understand it.
But I'm afraid that is not only true concerning those
Jews—I'm afraid it is true concerning the sons and
daughters of Almighty God today. They have never
really become acquainted with Him as being their
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Father.
Here are some of the things Jesus said about the
Father.
"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the
Father in my name, he will give it you" (John 16:23).
"For the Father himself loveth you...." (John
16:27).
"...for your Father knoweth what things ye have
need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore
pray ye: Our Father...." (Matthew 6:8-9). Notice the
utter tenderness of it, "Our Father...."
I like something Paul said when he prayed for the
church at Ephesus. He began his prayer like this, "For
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named" (Ephesians 3:14-15).
Oh, I like to do that. I like to get on my knees and
repeat those words of Paul, "I bow my knees unto the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named." That makes it so
real. It takes it out of a hard, harsh religious
atmosphere. This isn't religion. It hasn't a thing in the
world to do with religion.
Some folks say, "Do you have religion?"
Thank God, I don't have a bit of it. I don't want
any. When it's religion, it's "God"—but when it's
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family, it's "Father."

He may be "God" to the sinner, but He's "Father"
to me. "I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family...." It becomes
the Father and His family! We are in the family of
God. It's not important what church you are in—the
thing that's important is what family you are in.
Getting Acquainted Through the Word

I'm glad I'm in His family. I want to become better
acquainted with my Father, don't you? I want to know
Him better, don't you? Thank God, we can.
How? How can we know more about Him? How
can we become better acquainted with our Father?
I like something Smith Wigglesworth said, "I can't
understand God by feelings. I understand God the
Father by what the Word says about Him. He is
everything the Word says He is. Get acquainted with
the Father through the Word."
It is in the Word that we find out about Him, about
His love, about His nature, about how He cares for us,
about how He loves us. Jesus himself said, "Man shall
not live by bread alone—(How shall he live?)—but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
MATTHEW 6:26
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26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,

neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not
much better than they?
The folks Jesus was preaching to never grasped it.
It was new to them. It's almost new to us. We've never
grasped it, because most of us have been taught to fear
and shrink from a God of justice. We have never seen
the love side of God that Jesus came to bring us.
MATTHEW 6:30-31
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into
the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O
ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What
shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
One translation says, "Be therefore not faithless
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we
drink?...." When you talk that way you are without
faith.
MATTHEW 6:32-33
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles
seek;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness; and all these things shall be
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added unto you.

They won't be taken from you—they'll be added to
you! This proves the Father cares for His own.
MATTHEW 6:34
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow:
for the morrow shall take thought for the things
of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.
I like the translation that reads, "Be not anxious for
the morrow." Sometimes you do have to think about
tomorrow to make an appointment or plan something.
Really the thought He's trying to get over is, "Don't
worry about tomorrow." God doesn't want His children
full of worry. He doesn't want us full of fretting. Why?
Because He loves us.
Your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need
of these things. So have no worry, no fret, no anxiety.
If He is your Father, you can be assured He will take a
father's place and will perform a father's part. You may
be certain that if He is your Father, He loves you, and
He will care for you.
JOHN 14:21-23
21 He that hath my commandments, and
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he
that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and
I will love him, and will manifest myself to
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him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how
is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and
not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man
love me, he will keep my words: and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and
make our abode with him.
Here we have the revelation of the Father's attitude
toward His own children. Two things are emphasized:
1. That you keep my commandments. What are
Jesus' commandments? He said, "A new
commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you...." (John 13:34). That
sums it up. There's no use worrying about any other
commandments for "...love is the fulfilling of the law"
(Romans 13:10). If you keep Jesus' commandments,
you will have fulfilled all the rest of the
commandments.
2. You shall be loved of my father. If you walk in
love, you walk in God's realm, for God is Love. (We'll
go into the love-walk further in chapter six.) The great
Father God is a love God. His very nature—because
He is Love—compels Him to care for us, protect us,
and shield us.
MATTHEW 7:11
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give
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good gifts unto your children, how much

more shall your Father which is in heaven
give good things to them that ask him?
How much morel That sends a thrill through my
spirit. How much more! Are you a parent? Would you
have it as your plan, purpose and will that your
children go through life poverty-stricken, nose-to-the-
grindstone, sick, afflicted, downtrodden, downcast,
down-and-out? No! Parents will sacrifice because they
love their children. They'll work and sacrifice to help
their children gain an education so they can have
things better in life than they had. They want to shield
them, because they love them, from some of the
bumps and knocks and hard times they had. Just
natural folks are that way. That's what Jesus said. "If
ye then, being evil (or natural)...."
Our relationship as sons and daughters is a
challenge to His love. We hold the same relationship
to the Father that Jesus did when He walked on earth.
JOHN 17:23
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one; and that the world may
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved
them, as thou hast loved me.
The Father loves us just as He loved Jesus! And if
He loves me as He loves Jesus, I'm not afraid to face
64
life's problems. For He is with me as He was with the

Master.
JOHN 16:32
32 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come,
that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not
alone, because the Father is with me.
You and I can say, "I am not alone, because the
Father is with me." For if He loves me as He loved
Jesus, then He's with me as He was with Jesus. I am
not alone.
JOHN 16:27
27 For the Father himself loveth you, because
ye have loved me, and have believed that I
came out from God.
Nothing can be stronger or more comforting than
this fact: The Father Himself knows you, and He loves
you, and He longs to bless you.
Against the background of all these statements
Jesus made relative to the Father, other scriptures take
on new light; they become immediately more real to
us.
I PETER 5:7
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth
for you.
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This is a message from the very heart of the Father

God to me, to you. He wants us to end worry—to end
fear and doubt. You might say, "Can I do it?"
Certainly. "How?" By casting all your care upon Him.
He wants you to abandon yourself to His love and His
care so He said, "Casting all your care upon Him, for
He careth for you." Or, as the Amplified translation
reads, and I love this, "Casting the whole of your care
—all your anxieties, all your worries, all your
concerns, once and for all—on Him; for He cares for
you affectionately, and cares about you watchfully."
PHILIPPIANS 4:6
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let
your requests be made known unto God.
Again, the Amplified translation says, "Do not fret
or have any anxiety about anything,...." That's our
Father speaking to us. Our Heavenly Father wants to
walk with us just as He walked with Jesus when He
was here on the earth.
PHILIPPIANS 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me.
Some have said, "Yes, but Paul said that and he
was an Apostle." Paul didn't say he could do all things
because he was an Apostle. He said he could do all
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things through Christ. Paul wasn't in Christ any more

than I am in Christ, or any more than you are in Christ.
It was Christ who strengthened him. And the Father is
just as real—if we let Him be—to us as He was to
Paul, or even to Jesus. And He's sending a message
from His heart of Love to you and me. He's telling us:
You can do anything. You can rise to the place where
you're unafraid in the most unpleasant circumstances
because you know that your Father is on your side. "If
God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31).
The Father's love—and remember He is Love—
compels Him to care for us. When you come to know
His love and to swing free in that love, then all doubts
and fears will be destroyed.
PSALM 27:1
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom
shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
When you remember it is this wonderful Heavenly
Father who loves us even as He loved Jesus, then you
can understand that we need not be afraid, even as
Jesus was not afraid. He is your Light. He is your
Deliverance. (Salvation in this verse means
deliverance.) He is the Strength of your life. Light!
Deliverance! Strength! Then there's nothing to fear.
What can man do to the man whom God loves and
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protects?
HEBREWS 13:5-6
5 ...for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee.
6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my
helper, and I will not fear what man shall do
unto me.
He's your Helper! And He will meet your needs!
PHILIPPIANS 4:19
19 But my God shall supply all your need
according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
This is not religion. It's not preaching. It's a living
truth from the heart of our wonderful, lovely, Father
God to us. He wants us to know that He will supply all
our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus.
Experiencing Acquaintance
PSALM 23:1-6
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
68
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art

with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my
head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord for ever.
To me, no passage describes the love-attitude of
the Father and Jesus toward us more beautifully than
the 23rd Psalm.
Many Psalms are prophetic. The 22nd Psalm is a
picture of Jesus dying. In the 23rd Psalm He is the
Good Shepherd. The 24th Psalm shows Him as the
coming King of kings and Lord of lords upon this
earth.
We are living in the 23rd Psalm right now. "The
Lord is my shepherd." When Jesus came He said, "I
am (present tense) the good shepherd." Romans 10:9
says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, (or, Jesus as Lord)...." The Lord is my
shepherd. Now. We live in the 23rd Psalm.
This is my interpretation of the 23rd Psalm, I
always say it this way: "The Lord is my shepherd, I do
not want." I do not want. Perfect satisfaction. The
ultimate of living.
Verse 2 is where the luscious clover and tender
69
grass carpet the ground. No effort on my part is

required to have or to get enough.
He leads me beside the water, waters of stillness.
Water and food are the requisites that sustain life.
Thank God, He leads me, He leadeth me, He supplies
every need.
He makes me lie down and rest in safety and
quietness in the pastures of plenty. Near me is a
babbling brook. Its Living Waters answer the cry of
my heart. I have water. I have food. I have protection.
I have shelter. I have His care. This is my Father.
When I am frightened and filled with fear, when
my whole being is convulged with agony, He restoreth
my soul. He keeps me quiet. He makes me normal
again. He brushes away my fears and anxieties, holds
me to His breast, and breathes into me courage and
faith.
My heart laughs at my enemies, for He guideth me
down the paths of grace through the realm of
righteousness where I stand in His Presence as though
sin had never been; and romp and play in the throne
room of grace with never a thought, nor a fear, nor a
dread. My Father, you see, is the One who is on the
throne.
He may be Judge to the world, and God to the
sinner, but He's Father to me.
And sometimes I come in, most of the time in fact
70
to visit with Him and I hear Him say, "Son, is there

anything you want? What can I do for you?"
And I say, "Father, I don't want a thing. You're so
wonderful, and so lovely, and so good you've already
provided for me all I'll ever need. And you wrote me a
letter and told me about it. So I don't have a care. I
don't have a need. I don't have a want that hasn't been
met. No, I didn't come for something. I'll tell you,
Father, I just came in to visit with you for awhile. I
just wanted to hang around the throne. I like to be near
you, Father."
My Father said to me (Oh, I could hear His voice
so plainly as He spoke to me), "Son, you don't know
how that delights my heart. No earthly father ever
desired the companionship and the fellowship of his
children any more than I, the Heavenly Father, desire
the fellowship and companionship of my children.
"You know," He said to me, "I made man so I'd
have someone to fellowship with. I made man for my
companion. In fact, I'll put it this way (and He said it
in just these words), I made man so I'd have someone
to pal with. I put Adam on the earth in the garden, and
in the cool of the day, I'd go down and walk and talk
with him."
It is so blessed and so beautiful and so wonderful to
be able to walk with God.
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Chapter 6
6 WALKING IN LOVE
"...the love of God is shed abroad in our

hearts by the Holy Ghost...."
—Romans 5:5
To fellowship with God, to walk with God, to walk
in God's realm, we must walk in love. Divine Love.
For God is Love.
When I was born-again, He became my Father. He
is a Love God. I am a Love child of a Love God. I'm
born of God, and God is Love, so I am born of Love.
The nature of God is in me. And the nature of God is
Love.
We can't say we don't have this Divine Love.
Everyone in the family has it, or else they're not in the
family. They may not be exercising it. They may be
like the one-talent guy that wrapped his talent in a
napkin and buried it. But the Bible says that the Love
of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
72
WALKING IN LOVE
Ghost. That means the God-kind of hove has been shed

abroad in our hearts, our spirits. This is a Love family.
Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that ye are
my disciples—(How are they going to know it?)—if
ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). That's the
way they're going to know us.
This kind of Love is not selfish. "God so loved the
world that he gave...."
The love law of the family of God is. "That ye love
one another; as I have loved you," (John 13:34). How
did He love us? Because we deserved it? No! He loved
us while we were yet unlovely. He loved us while we
were yet sinners. The Bible says so.
(And think about this. If God loved us with so great
love when we were sinners, when we were unlovely,
when we were His enemies, do you think He loves His
children any less? No, a thousand times no.)
"Loves" Compared: Divine—Natural Human

This Love we're talking about is Divine Love, not
natural human love. We hear a lot today about natural
human love, but there is simply no love in this old
world like the Love of God. Natural human love is
selfish. I've heard people say, "A mother's love is akin
to the love of God." I thought that at one time. But it
isn't so. As a usual thing a mother's love is a natural
73
human love. And as a usual thing, it's selfish. "That's

my baby."
"Oh, I love my children, I love them," a woman
came crying to me saying, "I want you to pray for
them. I've brought them up right here in this church,
and I don't understand it. Not a one of them will come
except my girl."
One of her daughters played the piano and she was
the only one who came. In fact, one of the boys had
just run away from home.
She said, "There isn't anyone in this church that
loved their children any more than I did."
I said, "Sister, there has to be a reason. I'm a
stranger here, just an evangelist, but I can see this poor
girl here on the piano bench. You've smothered her
with your 'love.' And I'll guarantee the reason the rest
of them ran off is because you wouldn't let them out
from under your coattail. You wanted to run their lives
entirely. (I'd look at this girl at the piano and she'd
duck her head. She didn't know how to act.) I dare say
your daughter has never had a boy friend in her life, or
a girl friend either."
"Well no," she said, "I just always kept her at
home. I thought I could raise her up better."
I said, "No, you couldn't. Her personality is
twisted."
Natural human mother love; but it was selfish. She
74
WALKING IN LOVE
didn't have her children's interests at heart. She had her

interests at heart. She wanted to keep them with her.
Have you ever noticed that mothers-in-law rarely
have trouble with sons-in-law? It's usually with
daughters-in-law. Many times that mother just feels
there is no girl anywhere good enough for "my boy."
Oh yes, she may be saved, filled with the Holy Ghost,
and talking in tongues every night, but instead of
letting the Love of God in her heart dominate her, she
is letting the natural human love in her flesh dominate
her. Constantly picking. Constantly saying things.
The reason mother-in-law and daughter-in-law
have trouble—if they don't walk in Love—is that for
years that mother was the main one in the life of this
boy. She wants to keep on telling him what to do. And
now the wife wants to tell him what to do. They can't
both tell him what to do. And he's in a dilemma.
The Love of God is in our hearts, but it may be like
the talent that was wrapped in a napkin and hidden in
the earth. We may not use it, but that Love of God is in
our hearts.
If we would use it, and learn to let that love
dominate us, it would make a difference in our lives. It
would cure the ills in our homes. This kind of Love
has never been to a divorce court, and will never go. It
was natural human love that went there. Natural
human love can turn to hatred when it doesn't get its
75
way. It will fight and fuss, claw and knock, cuss and
be mean. Divine Love, when it is reviled, revileth not
again. I didn't say Christians haven't been to a divorce
court; they have. But they weren't letting the Love of
God dominate them.
God wants us to grow. And thank God, we can
grow in Love. The Bible speaks of being made perfect,
or mature, in Love. No, we haven't been made perfect
in Love yet, but we can be and some of us are on our
way.
The God-kind of Love is not interested in what I
can get—but in what I can give. Do you see how that
can solve all the problems in your home?
Too many are selfish. And even though they are
Christians, they let the natural dominate them. "What
can I get." "I'm not going to take this." "I'm not going
to take that." "I'm not going to put up with this." "I."
"I." "I." "I."
It's true in churches. In the second church I
pastored I was twenty and single so I rented a room
from a couple in the church. The man knew the Bible
and had a marvelous experience with God. But he was
the type that said, "I've got my say-so, and I'm going to
have it. I'm a member of that church just as much as
anyone else and I've got my say-so." He had his say-
so, and so did some others, until everything was
wrecked.
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WALKING IN LOVE
I only stayed six months. God told me to tell them

that unless they repented the time would come when
they wouldn't have a church. Through the first
prophetic utterance I ever had He said, "I'll remove
their candlestick. If they don't repent, the doors of this
church will be closed within one year. They will
remain closed two years, and then they will open up
again. I'll give them one more chance. If they don't
make it then, this church building will be moved off
this church lot."
They got mad. They were about ready to do to me
the same thing those folks were ready to do to Jesus in
His hometown of Nazareth. They were ready to throw
Him off the brow of the hill. They reported what I'd
said to some of the elders of the movement, and they
wanted to boot me out, but were a little afraid to.
However, at the end of the year, just as He said, the
doors of that church closed for two years. A padlock
was on it. Then a fellow opened it up again. And God
gave them a certain amount of time. But they didn't
walk in the light and it shut down. It came to pass just
as God said. I could take you there and show you a lot
with no church today, and it still belongs to that
particular movement.
Through the years there were enough of them to
have a church. But they couldn't. Because they
couldn't get along among themselves. They never got
77
above the babyhood stage of Christianity. They

remained babies. They didn't grow.
As children of God the nature of God is in us. And
God's nature is Love. So it is natural for us, spiritually,
to Love. But if I let my outward man and my mind
dominate me, that Love nature in my heart is kept
prisoner. Let's release the Love of God that's within us.
An Expose' on Love
What about this God-kind of Love? What are its
characteristics? They're given to us in I Corinthians 13.
It is to be regretted that the King James translates the
Greek word for divine love, agape, as charity. My
favorite translation of this "Expose' on Love" is the
Amplified. Let's look into it in the Amplified
beginning with verse 4:
"Love endures long and is patient and kind;" A

lot of people endure long—but they aren't
patient and kind while they do it. They just
suffer long because they have to. "I've
suffered all I'm going to. I'm not going to
have it this way any more."
"Love never is envious nor boils over with
jealousy;"
It's natural human love that is jealous. This kind
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WALKING IN LOVE
of love doesn't boil over with jealousy.

"Love is not boastful or vainglorious, does not
display itself haughtily. It is not conceited—
arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude
(unmannerly), and does not act unbecomingly."
"Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its
own rights or its own way, for it is not self-
seeking;"
I wish you would take time to let that soak in.
"Well, I know what's mine though. I've got my
say-so and I'm going to have it. I've got my
rights and I'm going to have them." No matter
how much they may hurt someone else.
This says Love doesn't insist on its own rights.
We'll never make it until we start believing in
God, and believing in Love. It's the best way!
And it's your way!
"(Love) is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it
takes no account of the evil done to it—pays no
attention to a suffered wrong."
Here is the Love thermometer. Here is the Love
gauge. It's very easy to find out whether or not
you're walking in Love. When you begin to take
account of the evil done to you, you're not
walking in Love. As long as you walk in God
and stay full of the Spirit, you won't take
account of the evil done to you.
Through the years things have happened to me,
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just as they have to you. And I've had ministers,

and even relatives tell me, "I wouldn't take that.
I wouldn't put up with that. Not me." But I just
kept my mouth shut and never said a word,
smiled and stayed happy. Why? I wouldn't take
time to deny it if they told on me I killed my
grandma. I'd just keep shouting, "Hallelujah!
Praise God! Glory to God!" Just go on. You'll
come out on top in the long run.
Even ministers have told me, "There must be a
weakness in your character. You never take up
for yourself." No, it's a strength. Because Love
never fails. Many have failed; and have even
died prematurely because they lived so in the
natural they couldn't take advantage of the
privileges and rights of a child of God which
belonged to them. They were always fussing
and fighting until it had an effect on their
bodies.
"(Love) takes no account of the evil done to it."
That has to be the God-kind of Love because
we were enemies of God, and God didn't take
account of the evil we had done to Him. He sent
Jesus to redeem us. He loved us while we were
yet sinners.
"(Love) pays no attention to a suffered wrong."
As an old boy down in Georgia said, "You
might as well come up to the licklog and
80
WALKING IN LOVE
admit it's so," there aren't too many people

walking in Love—in God's Love, in Christ's
Love—even though they have it. They're
walking in natural human love. And they
sure pay attention to a suffered wrong. They
get all puffed. A husband and wife, both
Christians, will get mad and won't speak for
a week because of some wrong. I know I'm
on your toes, but I just want to stand there a
while.
Can't you see how it would straighten things out
for us in the home, the church, the nation, for
men to become children of God and get the
Love of God in them, and then live in the
family of God as children of God?
"(Love) does not rejoice at injustice and
unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and
truth prevail."
"Love bears up under anything and everything
that comes."
Someone said, "I just can't take it any longer."
Love can. "I just can't put up with him any
longer." Think about God. He's putting up with
all of us. "I've taken just about all I can take."
That's old natural human love. The Love of God
in you bears up under everything.
"(Love) is ever ready to believe the best of
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every person."
Natural human love is ready to believe the
worst of every person. It's ever ready to believe
the worst about the husband, the worst about the
wife, the worst about the children. But this
God-kind of Love is ever ready to believe the
best of every person; husband, wife, brother or
sister in the church, children. Believe the best of
every person.
I've traveled across the country in the ministry.
It's amazing what you hear on this preacher and
that preacher, this person and that person, this
deacon and that deacon, this Sunday School
teacher and that Sunday School teacher, this
singer and that singer. I never pay the least bit
of attention to any of them. I don't believe a
word of it. I believe the best of everyone.
Children ought to have the right to be brought
up in this kind of a Love atmosphere. They'll go
out in life's fight and win then. But when you
see the worst in your children, always telling
them, "You'll never amount to anything. You
won't do this and you won't do that," they'll live
up to what you say. Though they may have
missed it, when you see the best in them and
love them rightly it will bring the best out of
them. They will amount to something.
"(Love's) hopes are fadeless under all
circumstances and it endures everything
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WALKING IN LOVE
(without weakening). Love never fails—never

fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an
end."
If you walk in love you will not fail. Love never
fails!
We are interested in spiritual gifts and we ought
to be. But we ought to be interested in Love
first. Prophecies will fail. Tongues shall cease.
Knowledge shall vanish away. But, thank God,
Love never fails.
Oh yes, I believe in prophecy and prophesying.
I believe in tongues. Thank God for it. But you
can exercise these things outside of Love and
they become as sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal.
The thing about it is: Let's have prophecy. Let's
have tongues. Let's have faith. Let's have
knowledge. But let's have Love with it. Let's put
Love first because we are in the family of Love
and have become acquainted with our Heavenly
Father who is a God of Love.
We ought to want to learn. We ought to want to
grow. We ought to want to grow in Love until
we are made perfect in Love. I haven't been
made perfect in love yet, have you? But did you
know the Bible says we can? Not in the next
world, but in this world. I believe some of us
are going to make it. I'm not going to quit just
because I haven't made it yet. I'm going to keep
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after it. Thank God for His Word! Thank God

for His Love!
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PART III
Chapter 7
7 RECEIVING THE KNOWLEDGE
''Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and

of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man..."
—Ephesians 4:13
How is that going to come about?
I guess we all want to be mature spiritually, but just
wanting to be doesn't make it so. How are we to grow
spiritually?
We've already pointed out I Peter 2:2, "As newborn
babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may
grow thereby." God starts us in the spiritual, just like
folks get started in the natural. When babies are born
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they start off on milk. They certainly couldn't eat meat.

And God says that this sincere milk of the Word will
cause us to grow.
Yet there are some things Paul wrote to the
Corinthian Christians and to the Hebrew Christians
which are of interest to us.
I CORINTHIANS 3:1-2
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto
babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat:
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither
yet now are ye able.
HEBREWS 5:11-14 (Comments in parentheses)

11 Of whom we have many things to say, and
hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
(Some things are hard to get over to folks
because they are dull of hearing.)
12 For when for the time ye ought to be
teachers, ye have need that one teach you again
which be the first principles of the oracles of
God; and are become such as have need of milk,
and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in
the word of righteousness (The margin reads
'hath no experience in the word of
righteousness.' Now why has he no
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RECEIVING THE KNOWLEDGE
experience in the word of righteousness?):

for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that
are of full age (mature), even those who by
reason of use have their senses exercised to
discern both good and evil.
They had the same problem then we face now—
that of growing. They were just like us. They should
have been teachers, but they still needed to be taught.
They couldn't be taught anything very deep, but still
had to be taught the milk. Paul said, "I fed you on milk
for you couldn't take the meat."
The milk of the Word he's talking about here is the
preaching and staying with the first principles of the
doctrine of Christ (Hebrews 6:1-2). Paul calls that the
milk of the Word, not the strong meat. When you still
have to be taught the first principles, you are still on
the milk. It seems to me that's about what we've done
—and about what we've had to do.
But how are we going to grow up? Look back at
this clause in Ephesians 4:13 which speaks about
growing in "the knowledge of the Son of God" unto a
perfect man.
Receiving the knowledge, feeding upon God's
Word: Until you gain a knowledge of the plan of God
which He planned and sent the Lord Jesus to
consummate...Until you gain a knowledge of what you
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are in Christ, and Christ in you...Until you gain a

knowledge of what He did for you in His death, burial,
resurrection, ascension, and seating at the right hand of
the Father...Until you gain a knowledge of what He's
doing for you right now, seated at the right hand of the
Father where He ever liveth to make intercession for
you...Until you gain a knowledge of your standing
before the throne of God...Until you gain a knowledge
of the fact that He defeated Satan and demons, and that
all the forces of the rulers of the darkness of this world
are dethroned powers, and that they can't rule over
you.
When you do that, you're getting out beyond milk.
But you can't preach that to some folks. You can't get
too deep in there. To be honest with you, I know a lot
of things I've never taught yet. Why not? Folks have to
be ready for it. (Paul said in effect, "There are some
things I'd like to teach you, but you couldn't bear it."
They couldn't take it.) And I don't mean it's some far
fetched revelation. It is the pure simple Word of God.
But it is beyond where we have been. So we have to
go slowly so folks can assimilate what we do give
them.
The Wrong Diet

Why haven't we grown?
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If we are real children of God, born of God, and we

haven't grown, it is because we haven't had the right
diet.
I don't blame people. I'm not scolding you. I'm
thoroughly convinced the ministry is to blame. I
believe most people—99.99 out of 100—would rise to
the level of the Word of God for them if they knew it.
But just because a man is one of the ministry gifts
—apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher—doesn't
mean he's a full grown Christian. It just means he has
that calling on his life. He still has to develop and
grow himself.
In the last church I pastored, during the winter of
1947 and 1948, I shut myself up in the church,
sometimes for days at a time, with the Word. I would
kneel and read the Bible on my knees. I read for hours,
and for weeks. I had read it for years, of course, but
this time I took those two prayers Paul prayed for the
church at Ephesus—Ephesians 1:17-19, and 3:14-21.
I would leave one of my Bibles open to that place
all week. And every time I came into the building I
would get on my knees and say, "Father, I'm praying
these prayers for myself." If I had to make a call or
something arose, when I'd come back, even though I
may have already done it several times that day, I'd
pray these prayers for myself. "...That the eyes of my
understanding be enlightened, that I may know what is
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the hope of His calling,...." And so on.

It didn't seem to do a bit of good for a while. But I
just kept on praying them. Then—after a while—I
began to get revelation from the Word. (He couldn't
have revealed the Word to me if I hadn't been feeding
on it.) It began to open up to me!
Within a few weeks, 30 days or so, I'd learned
more than I'd learned in the previous 13 or 14 years of
ministry put together. I said to my wife, "What in the
world have I been preaching? My, my, my, that little
old stuff I've been putting out wasn't even milk. It was
just bluejohn."
This didn't come just because I prayed. That was
just a part of it. I spent equal time, if not more, with
the Word as I did praying. You can't build a prayer life
just praying alone. It has to be built upon God's Word.
So when the Bible speaks about our becoming a
perfect man, the terminology "knowledge of the Son of
God" is used (Ephesians 4:13). It infers that it is this
knowledge which will cause us to become full grown,
and cause us to become mature.
The Place of Right Teaching

We have failed to grow because of the lack of right
teaching. God put teachers in the church. He set them
in there. (Ephesians 4:11, I Corinthians 12:28.)
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There are some ways all of us could do some

teaching. From the natural standpoint we could tell
some people what we know and could teach them to
some extent. But on the other hand, there are those
who are called of God, and anointed by the Spirit of
God, to teach.
Of course, the Holy Ghost is also to be our teacher.
But, after all, that is the Holy Ghost teaching us when
He anoints men to teach. Some people get off on the
idea that "No one can tell me anything. I don't need to
be taught. I've got the Holy Ghost and I know as much
as anyone knows." That is ignorance. God's Word
declares that He set teachers in the Church to teach us.
I'm afraid though that much of our so-called
teaching has been out of our minds and not out of our
hearts. We've gained a general head knowledge,
mental knowledge, of the Word but never got the
spiritual import of it. Through the years what we've
known as teaching has been so cold and dead and not
much to it, we almost turn up our noses at the mention
of it.
But the anointing of the Spirit of God upon genuine
teaching of the Word of God is alive!
I didn't know the difference myself one day. I used
to be a preacher. I could preach Spurgeon's sermons as
well as anyone. I could read them and preach them
word for word. I learned to sermonize and studied
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homiletics. I loved to preach with that old evangelistic

fire and fervor. And, once in a while, I crack down on
it and do it yet.
I was pastor of a church in North Central Texas in
1943. I'd never been a teacher until then. I didn't like to
teach. It was their custom in this church that the pastor
have at the Sunday School hour on Sunday morning
the auditorium Bible class. It was made up of adult
men and women. I didn't want to teach it. But it was
their custom. I had a Sunday School book which I
wouldn't look at all week. I studied the Bible and
prepared sermons, but I wouldn't even look at this
lesson until Saturday night. I knew I could read it over
in 10 or 15 minutes and get up and tell it. They all
seemed to enjoy it, but I was never so glad of anything
in my life as when that class period was over. I wanted
to preach.
But at 3 o'clock one Thursday afternoon in the
parsonage of this church, God gave me a teaching gift.
I knew it on the inside of me. I knew when it was born.
I said out loud, "I can teach now."
To prove this, I started out in a most unlikely way.
I didn't use any of the other main services where folks
would come anyway. A ladies' prayer group met on
Wednesday afternoons at the church and I started
teaching them.
Do you know what surprised me? I could stand
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there just as still, and never move out of my tracks,

never raise my hands, and the anointing would come
on me greater than anything I ever sensed.
I began to teach those seven or eight ladies. They
told their husbands and others. In two or three weeks,
fifteen or twenty were coming. Some of the husbands
took off from their jobs to come. Before you knew it,
we had more people on Wednesday afternoon than on
Wednesday night. Before you knew it, the church
building was practically full.
That proved to me people want to learn and want to
know.
Several years after I left that church I ran into one
of those ladies. She said, "Thank God for those
teaching sessions. That's all I've been living on for the
past seven years. If I hadn't gotten that, I'm sure I
would never have made it. I'm still feeding on it. I've
never heard any teaching since then. All we get is
preaching."
We need preaching all right. But believers need
teaching. People of God need teaching.
Come back to Jesus and His ministry for a moment.
MATTHEW 9:35
35 And Jesus went about all the cities and
villages, teaching in their synagogues, and
preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
healing every sickness and every disease
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among the people.

Reading through the four Gospels, every time He
went into the synagogue, He always taught.
Down by the seashore one day He was teaching.
The crowd pushed Him back to the shore. A couple of
fellows were there washing and mending their nets as
they had been fishing. One of them was Simon Peter.
Jesus asked if He could borrow his boat, got in it and
pushed a little way from shore. And it says, "He sat
down and taught the people out of the ship" (Luke
5:3).
After he was baptized and the Holy Ghost came
upon Him in the bodily form as a dove, and He was
led by the Spirit into the wilderness and tempted of the
devil. And after He came back in the power of the
Spirit into Galilee, Luke 4:15 says, "And he taught in
their synagogues, being glorified of all."
These were the people of God of that day. The
synagogue would correspond to the church house of
today. Every time He went into it, He taught.
The lack of right teaching is the primary reason
we've failed to grow. Certainly we can study for
ourselves and grow to some extent. But God also put
teachers in the Church to help us to grow, to feed us
upon God's Word.
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The Fault of Inadequate Teaching

The Church has not majored in the things it should
have. As one fellow said, "She has majored in the
minors." When something was taught or preached, it
was something of minor importance rather than
something of major importance.
If you're going to grow, you'll have to be fed on the
Word of God.
The Church has been strong in teaching man his
need of righteousness, his weakness and inability to
please God. It has been strong in denouncing sins in
the believer. It has preached against unbelief, world
conformity, and lack of faith.
But the Church has been sadly lacking in bringing
forth the truth of what we are in Christ, and of how
righteousness and faith are available.
A lot of people will tell you what you need, but
they won't tell you how to get it. And you're not a bit
better off. It's like one man said as they went away
from church. His wife noticed something was wrong
with him.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm disappointed and
discouraged."
"With what?"
"With the church. With our pastor. He preached on
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faith this morning. He quoted all those wonderful

scriptures. 'All things are possible to him that
believeth.' 'What things soever you desire, when you
pray, believe that ye receive them, and you shall have
them.' He told us what faith would do if we had it. And
he told us we ought to get it. But he didn't tell us how.
I'm just hanging out here in the air. I know I ought to
get it. I know what it would do if I had it. But I don't
know how to get it."
The real truth about it is he had faith all the time.
Faith to be saved. If he had been taught correctly, he
would have known he could have fed that measure of
faith on God's Word and it would grow. He could use
that same faith to receive healing for his body. He
could use that same faith to get answers to prayer. He
could use that same faith to be filled with the Holy
Ghost. But he didn't know it.
You can't blame him, because what he heard
hindered him more than it helped him. It didn't feed
him. It took out of him.
There was a glow about the face of an obviously
refined lady when she came up after the final service
to shake hands with me. It was the first time she'd
come up during the three-week meeting but I'd
watched her blossom and open up.
She said, "Brother Hagin, thank you."
"For what?"
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"For the Word. You've given me back my joy of

salvation."
I said, "Praise the Lord."
She said, "I'm a visitor here. The last service I
attended in my church, and I can understand that the
pastor was trying to get us to pray; but instead of
preaching it the right way to make us want to, he beat
us over the head for nearly an hour. When he got
through I went to the altar, got on my knees, and stuck
my head under the altar. I said, 'Dear God, I don't
know whether I'm saved or not. I don't know whether I
have anything or not. I don't know where I am or who
I am.' I stayed there and cried until about 1:30 in the
afternoon. But you've encouraged us to pray. And I
believe I'm praying more than I ever did in my life. I
know I'm enjoying my fellowship with the Lord more
than ever. I know I've got back the joy that I had when
I was first a newborn babe."
One reason we haven't grown is we've preached to
believers like they were sinners. We've treated them
like they were sinners, and fed them like they were
sinners, until we've undermined their faith.
We need to present God's blessings and God's
power in such a way that folks want to do it, and get so
hungry they can't help but do it. If you have to force
people, it isn't going to work or be much of a blessing
or benefit to them anyhow.
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I'm talking about things that defeat us.

Our ministry, maybe unconsciously, has fed the
congregations a psychology of unbelief. Instead of
talking about what they have, they talk about what
they don't have.
They talk about politics. Where did Jesus ever say
to go into all the world and preach politics? He didn't.
Where did you ever read that Jesus said, "Go into all
the world and give a book review."? You didn't. He
said, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel."
Unconsciously, our ministry has fed us on a
psychology of unbelief.
Most of the songs we sing are not really scriptural.
(I'm talking about things that keep us from growing.)
Most hymns put off redemption until after death.
"We don't have much here;

Can't expect much here;
But we're going to have it after
awhile.
We're going to have to do the best
we can here;
And wander around like a begger
in this old gloomy world.
When we all get to heaven, it'll be
different."
It would be different now if you'd believe God!
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Listen to the songs. Listen to the sermons.

They tell you we have the promise of eternal life—
preaching to believers. We don't have the promise of
eternal life. The sinner does. We have it! Eternal life
isn't something you're going to have when you get to
heaven. It's something you have right now.
I JOHN 5:13
13 These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye
may know that ye have eternal life....
Present tense. "Have."
The Bible says that we have passed from death,
spiritual death, unto life (I John 3:14). That Greek
word for life here is "zoe." It's the same word that's
used in John 3:16, "...that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Jesus said, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy: I am come—(What did you
come for, Jesus?)—I am come that they might have
life..."
That's why He came! That we might have zoe!
Life! Sometimes it's translated "life." Sometimes,
"eternal life." And sometimes, "everlasting life." But
it's all the same.
He said, "...I am come that they might have zoe,
and that they might have it more abundantly" (John
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10:10).
He said you can have this Life right now—and you
can have an abundance of it! That's why He came!
I listened to a radio preacher telling about how we
have the promise of it, and we're going to have it one
of these days. No, if you don't have it in this life, you'll
never have it in the after life.
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans
6:23). It's a gift you receive now! You receive this Life
—this zoe, the life of God, the God-kind of Life—into
your spirit, into your inward being.
It changes your life! This Life is the nature of God.
It makes you a new creature and displaces that old
nature you had on the inside of you. So you become a
new man in Christ Jesus, with a new nature, "...old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new" (II Corinthians 5:17).
But most of our hymns we sing put redemption and
eternal life off until after death. "We're going to have it
then."
"We're going to have rest when we get to

heaven."
Do you know what the Bible teaches? It teaches we

can have rest and peace right now. Jesus said:
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MATTHEW 11:28-30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye
shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.
The way some people talk, I just wonder what
they're yoked up with. It's always a hard luck story.
Always going through a trial. Always having a hard
time. Always scraping the bottom of the barrel, or else
under the barrel with the barrel on top. "Oh, this heavy
burden we have to bear. We're going to lay down our
heavy burdens one day."
Oh, no. You lay them down when you find Jesus.
"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light," He said. It's
not hard. It's not burdensome. It's not heavy.
What are they yoked up with? Unconsciously
they've gotten yoked with unbelief. Though they
actually belong to Jesus and have been born-again,
they have gotten yoked up with unbelief and their
burden became heavy instead of light. They couldn't
sleep. Couldn't eat. They felt like they had butterflies
in their stomach.
When there is rest in your soul, it will affect your
body. It will affect your entire being.
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"We're going to have victory after while."
No, thank God, we have victory right now!

I JOHN 5:4
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world: and this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith.
"We're going to be overcomers when we get

to heaven"
No, we're overcomers now!

"If God be for us who can be against us?" (Romans
8:31). He's on our side. We're victors now. We're
overcomers now.
"We're going to have peace with God when

we get to heaven."
That isn't what the Bible says. Romans 5:1 says,

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ." It's wonderful to
have that peace.
The Bible does say, "There is no peace, saith the
Lord, unto the wicked" (Isaiah 48:22). If I didn't have
this peace I'd go to checking up on myself. But He
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didn't say that to Christians. He said it to sinners.

When you preach to Christians like they were
sinners you build that kind of consciousness in them.
You hold them under condemnation. They can't grow.
It's impossible. It's the wrong diet. It isn't even the
sincere milk of the Word.
Dr. John Alexander Dowie said, "Our songs are
embalmed with unbelief." That's kept us from
growing. We've sung those songs so much we think
they're so. I don't want to bind you, but it would be
better not to sing than to sing a bunch of junk, a bunch
of unbelief.
"There will be no more failing when we get to

heaven. We have nothing on this side and can't
expect anything on this side except failure,
misery, disappointment, and weakness."
That isn't what the Word of God teaches. Paul said,

"We're more than conquerors." Not just conquerors.
More than conquerors!
"Yes, but Paul was an apostle," someone said.
Paul didn't say he was a conqueror because he was
an apostle. He said, "...we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37). Christ
didn't belong to Paul anymore than He does to us.
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That doesn't mean you won't have any tests. That

doesn't mean you won't have any trials. That doesn't
mean it's just going to fall on you like ripe cherries off
a tree. Or that you're going to float down the river of
time on flowery beds of ease.
It didn't with Paul. He got in jail. He got his back
beat. He got his feet in stocks. He was in the innermost
prison with every reason in the world to gripe and
complain. But at midnight he and Silas prayed and
sang praises to God!
When he got on board that ship a prisoner he said,
"Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and
much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also
of our lives" (Acts 27:10). They didn't pay any
attention to him. Everything seemed to be all right. But
before it was all over he was running the thing. He
started on the bottom, but wound up captain of the
boat.
Don't stay on the bottom! You don't have to. Do
you know what brought Paul out? You can see it in his
words.
When all hope that they should be saved was gone,
old Paul stepped forth right in the midst of it with the
answer. He'd heard from heaven. (We have God's
Word and we've heard from heaven. It couldn't be
anymore sure if an angel came down from heaven and
wrote it with his finger in a granite rock. That couldn't
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be any more sure than God's written Word.)

Old Paul said, "Sirs . . . there stood by me this
night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before
Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail
with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I
believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me"
(Acts 27:21-25).
I like that fellow Paul. He made three positive
confessions: "I belong to God. I serve God. I believe
God." And that's what caused him to rise.
If he'd been like most folks, he would have been
whipped right in the midst of this crisis and he and the
whole bunch would have gone down. For most folks
would have said, "I've been trying to serve Him all
these many years. The Lord knows I've been trying to
serve Him. If He doesn't intervene somehow, we're all
going."
And they would have gone. I'm not making fun. I'm
just stating facts. That's what defeats us.
Paul didn't say, "I'm trying to serve Him." He said,
"I am serving Him . . . The God whose I am ... I
belong to Him."
Someone said, "I hope I do."
Thank God, I know I do. I belong to Him. I serve
Him. I believe Him.
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PART IV
Chapter 8
8 WHAT MANNER OF MAN ARE YOU?
"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor

to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God."
—I Corinthians 10:32
Here we have God's ethnic division of the human
race: Jew, Gentile, Church of God. The Jew is ever a
Jew. Gentile means the heathen world. Everyone
outside of Christ who is not a Jew is a heathen, or a
Gentile. The Church, the body of Christ, the new
creation stands utterly alone.
Paul has another division in his writings: the
natural man, the carnal man, and the spiritual man.
The natural man is one who has never yet passed
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WHAT MANNER OF MAN ARE YOU?
out of death into life. He has never been born-again.

He's never been recreated. He's never become a new
creature in Christ Jesus.
The carnal man is a new creature. He has been
born-again. But he's never developed or grown. It is
sad but true that the carnal man may remain in this
condition all his life long. He may never develop
beyond the babyhood state of the new creation. He is
governed by his body; by his physical senses, rather
than by his spirit.
The spiritual man is one who has developed in
divine things. His spirit has gained the ascendancy
over his intellectual processes. And his spirit has
gained the ascendancy over his body and his physical
senses. God governs him through the Word.
Let's look carefully at these three men to see which
one we are, and what we can do about it.
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Chapter 9
9 THE NATURAL MAN
"But the natural man receiveth not the things

of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness
unto him: neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned."
Another translation says, "because they are
spiritually understood." If you understood the things of
God and spiritual things with your mind, the natural
man could understand them. But you don't. You
discern them, or understand them, with your spirit.
The natural man is the unspiritual physical man.
His wisdom is earthly; earthly means natural. James
describes it:
JAMES 3:14-15
14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in
your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the
truth.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but
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THE NATURAL MAN
is earthly, sensual, devilish (demonic).

The natural man is motivated by demons. He is
ruled by Satan. Oh no, I'm not saying he is demon
possessed. You see, all those who have never been
born-again have Satan as their god and father. They
are in the kingdom of darkness and they are more or
less ruled by Satan and demons. Remember Ephesians
6:12 says, "rulers of the darkness of this world." So,
the natural man is a Satan-ruled man.
ROMANS 8:7-9
7 Because the carnal mind (other translations
call it "the mind of the flesh") is enmity against
God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. (This natural man cannot please God.)
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if
so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
The natural man is the man that is motivated by the
flesh; a physical man, not a spiritual man.
(I found out years ago it helped me in my studies in
Romans, every place it says "flesh" to substitute the
word "senses" or "physical senses." After all, the only
way the flesh has any expression is through its
physical senses. It will clear up a lot of thinking for
you if you will do this.)
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Knowledge Contrasted: Revelation—Natural

Human
The natural man receives not the things of the
Spirit of God for he cannot know them. You see, all
the knowledge the natural man has is received through
his five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
His mind is actually governed by his senses. I call this
natural human knowledge. Others call it sense
knowledge. That's a good term. The way it comes is
through the five senses. Sense knowledge, natural
human knowledge, is all that the natural man
possesses.
But born-again believers have a knowledge that is
above the flesh, above the senses. It could rightly be
called revelation knowledge. This knowledge is
revealed to us in the Word of God. It's above the
natural. The Bible brings you a revelation, or reveals
knowledge to you, which your physical senses couldn't
grasp. You couldn't understand it even after revelation
comes. But thank God, it's there.
It is deeply important that every believer notice the
contrast between natural human knowledge, or sense
knowledge, and revelation knowledge.
Many modern theologians are not revelation
knowledge men, but sense knowledge men. It's all in
their minds. Most of the leaders of the church world as
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THE NATURAL MAN
a whole are actually sense knowledge men. If they are

saved, they are not spiritually developed. Many aren't
even saved, but just natural men. They are governed
by their physical senses. That leads them to repudiate
revelation knowledge, or to give it second place in
their lives.
The natural man cannot understand "the things of
the Spirit of God." They are foolishness to him. The
Bible is of the Spirit of God. It is not natural human
knowledge. Holy men of old wrote as they were
moved by the Spirit of God.
"Brother Hagin, this is refreshing," someone said.
"I am going to school and my professor said
concerning the Bible, 'If you can't understand it and
reason it out, forget it.' "
Can you understand and reason out God? Well
then, forget Him, according to this professor's (?)
advice. Can you understand and reason out with your
little peanut brain Jesus, the Son of God? The virgin
birth? (This professor had said, "The virgin birth is not
reasonable. It didn't happen.") Can you understand and
reason out the Holy Spirit? Can you understand and
reason out divine healing? Can you understand and
reason out the supernatural? No!
"Well then," he is saying, "if it doesn't make sense,
forget it." This just proves what I am saying. He was
motivated by the senses.
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You can always locate these people. "Now

common sense will tell you...." I know, but where did
you ever read in the Bible that we walk by common
sense? You didn't. It says that we walk by faith and not
by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). It says, "...as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"
(Romans 8:14).
Natural man cannot understand the Bible because it
is of the Spirit of God. It is in a realm he doesn't know
anything about. Someone said, "What you're not up
on, you're down on." The reason a lot of folks are
down on a lot of things is, they're not up on them. If a
man is a natural man and hasn't been born-again, he's
not up on spiritual things. He doesn't know anything
about them, so he is down on them.
The Natural Walk

EPHESIANS 2:1-3
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in
trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our
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THE NATURAL MAN
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of

the mind; and were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others.
Here is a picture of the natural man walking. He is
walking "according to the course of this world." He is
walking according to the "prince of the power of the
air." That's the devil. He is being ruled by the "spirit
that now worketh in the children (sons) of
disobedience." He is doing the "desires of the flesh" or
of the senses. He is "by nature the child of wrath."
That's strong language. But it describes the man
outside of Christ. Notice verses 11 and 12 of this same
chapter.
EPHESIANS 2:11-12
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time
past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called
uncircumcision by that which is called the
Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time ye were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,
and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world:
The American Revised Version of verse 12 reads,
"that ye were at that time separate from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no
hope and without God in the world."
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That was us before we were saved. And that's a

picture of everybody who is not now saved. The
Gentile has no more claim or hold on God today than
he did then. As a Gentile he has no legal standing, no
legal rights. But thank God, he can come and be born-
again, and become a member of the body of Christ;
then he has a standing and he has rights.
I CORINTHIANS 1:28
28 And base things of the world, and things
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea,
and things which are not, to bring to nought
things that are:
Here the Word of God is talking about us when He
chose us in Christ. He calls us the "base things of the
world." He calls us the "things which are despised."
And, "things which are not."
The Centinary translation reveals the "things which
are not" represented the slaves of the Roman Empire.
They had no standing, no voice. They were just things,
so to speak, which were not. But when they became
Christians, they had a standing before God.
I Peter 2:10 says, "Which in time past were not a
people, but are now the people of God:...." The Gentile
has no standing. He is a "no people." With all his
boasted culture, ability, and money, he has no voice;
no standing with God. The picture of utter spiritual
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THE NATURAL MAN
bondage, Ephesians 2:11 describes him as without

hope, hopeless; and without God, Godless. Hopeless
and Godless.
EPHESIANS 4:17-18
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord,
that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles
walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart:
They walk in the vanity of sense knowledge. They
walk in the vanity of their minds. They are darkened in
their understanding. They are alienated from the life of
God. They are filled with their own knowledge;
ignorant of spiritual things.
Isn't that a picture of them?
But thank God there is a way. There's a way out.
There's a way to God. Jesus said, "I am the way. I am
the truth. I am the life."
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Chapter 10
10 THE CARNAL MAN
"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as

unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto
babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat:
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither
yet now are ye able.
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is
among you envying, and strife, and divisions,
are ye not carnal, and walk as men? "
—I Corinthians 3:1-3
Who is this carnal man? He is the babe in Christ.
Not a newborn babe—when Paul wrote these
Corinthians they were not newborn people. He plainly
infers they should have been beyond where they were
in their spiritual development. They seem to have been
in about the same boat as the Hebrew Christians
(Hebrews 5:12).
Paul's letter to the Corinthians is written to born-
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THE CARNAL MAN
again, Spirit-filled believers—even to a church which

has all the gifts of the Spirit operating in it. He said to
them, "ye come behind in no gift," bragging on them a
little first before he started to correct them (I
Corinthians 1:7). He specifically mentioned that they
didn't come behind in utterance—that means the
utterance gifts (I Corinthians 1:5). You can see that
when you get over to where he began to correct them.
They were all trying to talk in tongues at once.
Here is a thought that will help us in some of our
thinking so we can grow. Spiritual gifts don't make
you a full grown Christian. Often folks don't know
what spirituality is. Some think being spiritual would
be exercising a spiritual gift. That couldn't be so
because here it plainly states these Corinthians were
carnal and babes—and they had all the gifts of the
Spirit operating in their church.
I've heard people say when a fellow Christian they
thought to be carnal gave an utterance in tongues, or
an interpretation, or prophecy, "That couldn't be the
Lord."
I said, "Why?"
They'd say, "Well because they're carnal."
I said, "Do you mean to infer that carnal Christians
can't have the Holy Ghost?"
"Yes."
"That can't be so because you have Him. And the
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church at Corinth had Him."

Can carnal Christians have the Holy Ghost?
Certainly!
"Are carnal Christians saved?" someone asked this
question to one of our Full Gospel magazines some
years ago. I thought it was sort of cute the way it was
answered: "Paul seemed to think so." Then they gave
this scripture.
Actually the Greek word translated "carnal" has
created much comment and no little confusion among
Bible scholars. I think only in latter years has the Spirit
of God made this word clear to us. In some scriptures
it is translated "carnal" and in others it is translated
"fleshly." It really means a man who is governed by
his physical senses. That would be the flesh governing
him. Though he is born-again and a new creature, he
walks after the order of natural men.
Walks as a "Mere Man"

Listen again to what Paul wrote, "And I, brethren,
could not speak unto you as unto spiritual (men), but
as unto carnal (men), even as unto babes in Christ...For
ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you
envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal,
(NOW GET THIS) and walk as men?" Several modern
translations read, "and walk as mere men?"
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THE CARNAL MAN
Paul talks about envy and some of the same things

James did in talking about the natural man who had
never been born-again. Paul is saying in effect,
"Though you have been born-again, you are still
walking as a mere man, as a common man, as the
natural man who has never been born-again. You are
walking just like the world men walk. There is envy
and strife among them. You are letting your flesh
dominate you."
One modern translation instead of saying "ye are
carnal" says "you are body-ruled." That's a good
translation. The outward man—the body which is not
redeemed yet (thank God we will have a new body one
day)—rules, instead of the inward man who is a new
man in Christ and has the Holy Ghost dwelling in him
dominating and ruling. Too much of the time in
Christians the outward man dominates the inward. As
long as he does, they will remain babies and carnal.
They will walk just like world men—those outside of
Christ—walk.
You'll run into these baby Christians who have
never grown sometimes, and it is amazing to see how
they think they are so spiritual yet they live in the flesh
or in the senses.
I preached to a church once who before they
received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and became
Full Gospel were what we call old line holiness. Some
119
of them almost thought it was a sin to take a bath. One

did tell me it was a sin to use deodorant. Another one
thought it was a sin to drink cokes.
It wasn't a little church. There were over 500 there
the Sunday morning I preached and the Lord anointed
me and gave me a message just for them. I never
preached it afterwards. And although I was quite
dignified then, much more than I am now, I jumped off
the platform and ran up and down the aisles. I said,
"People talk about worldliness. This is the most
worldly church I ever preached in."
Man, they looked at me.
Then I began to tell them what worldliness and
carnality is. I read what Paul had to say about the
Corinthians, that there was envy and jealousy, debate,
strife, and division. I said, "Personally, I thought Paul
was writing a letter to this church, then I happened to
look up there and it said Corinthians."
Some of them got so angry they were ready to
fight. (That proved they were carnal, didn't it?) But it
helped some of them.
Carnal Christians have not learned the love law nor
the love walk. When you love one another you won't
walk in envy and strife and jealousy and division. The
Corinthians were born-again, filled with the Holy
Ghost, they had gifts of the Spirit; yet they had not
learned the love law, nor the love walk. When you are
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THE CARNAL MAN
spiritual you learn that. When we begin walking in

divine love, Christian love, Bible love, the God-kind
of love, we stop being jealous; we stop strife and
division and backbiting.
Backbiting, bitterness, and jealousy are signs of
underdevelopment on the part of the believer. What
causes these things? It's because people are selfish. As
long as you are selfish, sensitive, and can be hurt, you
are a babe in Christ and cannot grow.
Growing Out of Carnality

God wants us to grow. There is no other way to get
out of the carnal state except to grow out of it. Peter
said, "Desire the sincere milk of the Word that you
may grow thereby." Paul said, "I have fed you with
milk." Paul is trying to get these Corinthians to
growing. He didn't tell them they weren't saved. That
comes as a shock to some folks, but they'll just have to
be shocked.
At the end of the chapter he said to them,
"Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are
yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is
God's" (I Corinthians 3:21-23).
I am so glad for the Holy Spirit and for the Word of
121
God. I am so glad the Lord has been patient with all of

us and helps us.
I can remember praying away back in 1951 at the
beginning of March down in the state of Alabama
where I was holding a meeting. I was praying in
tongues, in the spirit (I Corinthians 14:14).
(The devil and natural people—and sometimes
even some carnal people—don't like this. But it'll help
you, praise God. Most of what I know about the Bible,
I learned by praying in tongues. What do I mean by
that? The Spirit is to be your Teacher. If you will take
enough time to pray in tongues, you'll get your mind
and body quiet while your spirit is functioning. You
are speaking out of your spirit. Then God can
communicate with your spirit because it becomes
sensitive to Him, for He is a Spirit.)
I prayed in tongues for almost 3 hours that day. Yet
it seemed like only about 15 minutes. When I looked
at my watch I couldn't believe it had gone by so fast. I
had my eyes shut all that time praying.
During that time of praying the Lord took me
through the first three chapters of I Corinthians—and it
changed me. It changed the course of my ministry. It
changed the course of my life. It made me a greater
blessing to the Church. It enabled me to do more than
I'd ever done before. It helped me to do some growing.
He took me through the first chapter where Paul
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THE CARNAL MAN
bragged on them a little and then began to tell them

how they were babes and carnal.
He said to me, "If it had been you and some
preachers you know writing to those people, you
would have said, 'You backslidden buzzards need to
pray through and get right with God.'"
That's probably exactly what I would have said up
until then.
He said, "But Paul didn't call them buzzards. Paul
didn't call them backslidden. He did call them carnal,
and he did call them babes. When a baby cries, hitting
him over the head isn't going to make him grow.
Feeding him. Putting something into him, not taking
something out of him, makes him grow. Don't take
anything out of them. Put something into them.
"Do you remember J.W.?" He asked me.
I didn't.
"Do you remember Tuffy?" He said.
That was what we called him, Tuffy. Boy, that was
putting it mildly. Tuffy wasn't a strong enough word
for him. But even when He said that I still didn't
remember because it had been so many years.
Then He called his whole name to me. And when
He gave me his last name I said, "Oh yes, I
remember."
The Lord refreshed my memory that day and it has
enabled me to help others.
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Tuffy's mother died when he was very young. His

daddy was a motorman on the old interurban line from
Waco to Denison, Texas and wasn't home much. So
Tuffy was left to himself. He ran up and down the
back alleys and got into the wrong crowd.
He was still in the 5th grade when I was, but he
should have been in the 8th. And he was making a
straight "D" report card—"D" was the lowest grade
they gave in those days. He had been in trouble and I
overheard the principal telling my Grandpa about it.
He asked, "What are we going to do with Tuffy?
The judge called me again and he wants to send him to
reform school. He's just been lenient on him because
he knew he didn't have a mother."
I heard my Grandpa say, "Mr. Mac, if you'll do as I
tell you, we'll make a man out of him. We'll make a
useful citizen out of him."
The principal said, "Well, the judge is leaving it up
to me for another thirty days."
Grandpa said, "Tell him to give us ninety days."
The principal agreed to call and ask for ninety
days.
"Did you notice how he hangs around me?"
Grandpa asked. "He's gotten to where he stays with me
nearly all the time."
"Yes, I've noticed that," Mr. Mac said.
"It's because I'm the only one who puts anything
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THE CARNAL MAN
into him. I tell him I've got confidence in him. I tell

him I believe in him. Everybody else tells him he's no
good. Everybody else tells him 'You're going to reform
school.' Everybody else tells him he'll never make it.
He's gotten where he won't even play on the
playground anymore. He just hangs around with me.
Now, in the first place, don't whip him anymore."
Mr. Mac would whip him one to three times a day,
every single day. Sometimes folks do need whipping
you understand, but other times it doesn't mean a thing
in the world. You could hear the paddle all over that
floor of the school, yet Tuffy would come back into
the room laughing.
Grandpa told the principal, "I hid in the restroom in
your office to watch and he's the one who stole the
money out of your desk drawer."
They sold candy at lunch period and used the
proceeds to buy playground equipment. Someone had
stolen the money. Grandpa hid to see who got it. And
it was Tuffy.
He said, "You have to start building confidence in
him. So take him out of study periods and tell him,
'J.W., I need someone older than the rest to watch the
office. Someone has been stealing the money.' Point
right to where the money is and show him. If a dime is
ever missing I'll put it back myself."
After they had this conversation at noon we went
125
back to class. The first study period Mr. Mac came to

the door and called Tuffy out. Everybody snickered.
They knew he was going to get a whipping. They kept
listening to hear that paddle. But he didn't come back.
They wondered. But I knew exactly what was
happening.
Mr. Mac had said to him. "Now J.W., you keep the
office. We need someone older over here." He pulled
the drawer open and showed him the money. "Here it
is and someone has been stealing it." Of course, it was
him.
The Lord reminded me how almost immediately I
saw him begin to make passing grades. In fact, he did
so well they began to move him up. He never went to
reform school. He never went to the penitentiary. He
grew up to be a useful citizen.
That day the Lord took me through the babyhood,
childhood, and manhood stages of spiritual growth.
He told me, "Spiritual growth is like natural growth
in a sense. Paul didn't just take out of these people. He
corrected them gently all right, and showed them
where they were missing it. But he didn't take
everything away from them. He bragged about what
they did have. And showed them there was more out
there—encouraging them, 'Go to it! Get after it! It's
your's!'
"Don't beat Christians over the head," He said.
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THE CARNAL MAN
Don't beat anyone over the head. Feed them. Find

somewhere you can hook on with them. Don't fight
other churches and other believers.
"Don't take anything away from anybody," He said.
"Give them something. Put something into them."
That day changed my ministry. I started doing what
the Lord said, and it worked.
Let's look again at what Paul said to them in the
last part of that third chapter, "Therefore let no man
glory in men. For all things are yours...."
Do you mean to tell me, Paul, that these baby
Christians, these carnal Christians who were walking
as mere men, that all things were theirs?
Yes. It all belonged to them. They may not have
come to a knowledge of it yet, but it belonged to them.
They may not have grown to a place where they could
appreciate it and take advantage of it yet, but it
belonged to them.
"...Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come; all are yours; (He didn't take anything from
them. He said, 'It's all yours!') And ye are Christ's; and
Christ is God's" (I Corinthians 3:21-23).
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Chapter 11
11 THE SPIRITUAL MAN
"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as

unto spiritual...."
In other words Paul said, "I couldn't speak unto you
as unto spiritual men." Isn't that a sad tragedy?
Who is this spiritual man? What are his
characteristics?
EPHESIANS 1:3
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in
Christ:
The spiritual man is one who knows what belongs
to him in Christ Jesus, and takes advantage of it.
The spiritual man has drunk deeply at the fountain.
He has fed regularly at the table of the Lord.
The spiritual man has saturated himself in love, the
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THE SPIRITUAL MAN
love of God.
Knowing the Father

This man has come to know the Father in reality.
There was a time in my life that I knew the Lord
Jesus, was filled with the Holy Ghost, had preached a
number of years, and had various gifts of the Spirit
operating at times in my life—but somehow, on the
inside of me, I knew that God could become more real
to me as my Father than a father in the flesh. The
Word said He was my Father. And I knew in my spirit
He could become more real to me than my wife, more
real to me than either of my children. I knew in my
heart—and I said it out loud as I drove down the
highway on the way to revival meetings—that I knew
God could become more real to me than the
automobile I drove. But—I knew He wasn't that real to
me.
It did not come overnight. It did not come in one
month. It did not come in one year. But as I continued
to do what the Bible said—to fellowship with the
Father through the Word and through prayer—little by
little, He became more and more real to me.
Until one day I was able to say, "He is more real to
me and I know Him better than I know my wife. I'm
more personally acquainted with God my Father than I
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am my wife. He is more real to me than my children.

He is more real to me than the automobile I drive." (To
be honest about it, not too many can say that, because
natural things are more real to them than spiritual
things.) I came to the place that every waking moment,
even when I'd wake up in the nighttime, I'd be
conscious of His presence—more conscious of His
presence than I was of my wife's.
Knowing the Son

The spiritual man comes to know the Lord Jesus
Christ in His great ministry at the right hand of God
the Father. Every born-again believer knows the Lord
Jesus Christ as Savior. But just being born-again will
not cause you to grow. Just to know Him as Savior,
you'll never be more than a baby. To grow, the
believer must come to know what he is in Christ, and
what Christ is in him. He must come to know the
present day ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ at the
right hand of the Father.
Knowing the reality of Jesus' present day ministry
did more for me in my spiritual growth than anything
else. We need to grow up in knowing the reality of His
ministry today as High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16), as
Advocate (I John 2:1), as Intercessor (Romans 8:34,
Hebrews 7:25), as Shepherd (Psalm 23:1, John 10:14),
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as Lord!
Just because we've heard this taught is no sign we
walk in the reality of it. It is as we feed upon it and
become acquainted with the truth that we come into
the full knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
(mature) man.
Knowing the Holy Ghost

The spiritual man has come to know the blessed
intimacy of the Holy Spirit as He is unveiled in the
Word. You can be baptized with the Holy Ghost and
speak in other tongues and never know this.
That's the sad thing about it. The baptism of the
Holy Ghost has been preached in a way that isn't
exactly right. And folks think that because "I have the
baptism of the Holy Ghost" that's the end. But it isn't.
It's just the beginning. And because of wrong thinking
they never really learn to know the Holy Spirit
intimately and are cut off from growing.
As spiritual babes they received the infilling of the
Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues, and were all
"taken up" with the outward manifestation. Certainly I
believe in speaking in other tongues. Thank God for it.
But you hear them talking about how "I felt," and
they're trying to "feel" that way again.
(It doesn't make the least bit of difference to me if I
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ever "feel" that way again. I base nothing on feelings. I

base everything on the Word.)
Then when they lose that "feeling" they thought
they had, they think He's gone. But He isn't. Jesus said,
"I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;" (John
14:16). He didn't say He would stay two weeks. He
didn't say He would come on a vacation. He said the
Holy Ghost would come "that he may abide with you
forever."
Somebody said, "But Brother Hagin, don't you
believe that if a man sins the Holy Ghost leaves him?"
Certainly not. If He ever left him he would be
forever doomed and damned. He could never get back
to God. The Holy Ghost doesn't go and come. Not a
scripture in the Bible says so. David, after he'd had the
woman's husband killed and committed adultery with
her, in his prayer of repentance said, "Take not thy
holy spirit from me" (Psalm 51:11). Had the Holy
Spirit left him, he could never get repentance. He
could never pray. He could never come back.
And if He ever left you, that would be the end of it,
too. He's still there to show you the way back to
repentance. If you've sinned and failed He is still there
—because He's a representative of God—to show you
the way out and lead you back.
I've found that when I've missed God and sinned it
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isn't the Holy Ghost inside me who condemns me, it's

my own spirit. Jesus said that He hadn't come into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved (John 3:17).
I found that the Holy Ghost was there to take the
Word of God and open it up to me, to show me the
ministry of Jesus for me today. Gently. Even when I'd
missed it and was so ashamed of it I hated it with
every fiber of my being, yet He was so sweet and so
gentle to lead me, to show me the way out and the way
back.
...as Indweller
I JOHN 4:4
4 Ye are of God, little children, and have
overcome them: because greater is he that is
in you, than he that is in the world.
We need to become conscious of the Holy Spirit's
indwelling presence, and learn to walk in the light of
the Word on this subject. Then in time of crisis we
would remain calm and collected because we'd know
the Bible is so whether or not it "seems like" it is.
If you know "greater is he that is in me, than he
that is in the world," when crisis comes, you won't
have to run around like a chicken with his head cut off,
flopping here and there trying to find help. You'll
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know Help is available. You'll know He is in there; the

Greater One is in there. You're walking in intimate
fellowship with Him, and He'll show you what to do.
In every crisis of life He shows me exactly what to
do. On the inside of me, He'll rise up in me to give
illumination to my mind, direction to my spirit. But He
cannot do it if you're not sufficiently acquainted with
Him to recognize it.
If you've been born-again and filled with the Holy
Ghost, you have on the inside of you all you'll ever
need to put you over. Jesus said, "I will pray the
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter" (John
14:16). The Greek word translated Comforter also
means—and the Amplified translation reads this way
—Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate,
Strengthener, and Standby. What else would you ever
need?
Get acquainted with the Holy Ghost through the
Word. When you know what the Word says about
Him, then you'll know what He'll do. You'll know how
He will manifest Himself, and you'll know how to
yield to Him. You'll know how to walk with Him. And
you can grow spiritually.
...as Teacher
Here is an invitation, a precious invitation, a
blessed invitation of the Spirit to go into the deep
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things of God:
I CORINTHIANS 2:12
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the spirit which is of God; that we
might know the things that are freely given to
us of God.
We didn't receive the spirit of the world—we
received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit which is of God.
Why? For what purpose? That we might know
something.
Jesus said of Him, "He will teach you. He will
guide you into all truth. He will show you things to
come. He will receive of mine and show it unto you."
The "things that are freely given to us" are the
things Paul's talking about in Ephesians 1:3, "all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." And
they are the things:
I CORINTHIANS 2:13
13 Which things also we speak, not in the
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual
things with spiritual.
Now notice something Paul said earlier in this
chapter, "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that
are perfect (mature—baby Christians wouldn't get it):
yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of
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this world, that come to nought:" (verse 13). Another

translation reads, "nor of the dethroned powers of this
world." That's involved in the all things He has done
for us.
Jesus—in His death, burial, and resurrection—
dethroned the devil and all the spiritual forces that had
ruled this earth from the time Adam sold out to him in
the garden. Adam was the god of this world. God gave
him dominion over all the work of His hand. But
Adam committed high treason and sold out to the
devil. Then the devil became the god of this world (II
Corinthians 4:4).
Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Jesus dethroned them! In His great plan of
redemption which God planned and sent Jesus to
consummate, these powers are dethroned. They can't
rule over us any more, but we can rule over them in
the name of Jesus.
Now—this wisdom is "not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth;" (I Corinthians 2:13). It is an unveiling of
spiritual things. You couldn't have knowledge from the
natural, to save your life, that Jesus defeated the devil.
You couldn't see Him do it. The disciples saw Him
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dying at Calvary, but they didn't know why He died.

He was with them and had tried to tell them. But they
didn't know why He died when He died. After He
appeared to them they said, "Lord wilt thou at this time
restore again the kingdom to Israel?" It wasn't until the
Holy Ghost came and began to teach them, that they
understood the plan of salvation and what God did for
them in redemption. This couldn't be seen with the
natural eye. The natural man couldn't understand it at
all. It is an unveiling of spiritual things by the aid and
the energy of the Spirit of God Himself.
His Inheritance
The spiritual man knows his inheritance.
COLOSSIANS 1:12-14
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath
made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light:
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son:
14 In whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Another translation reads, "Giving thanks unto the
Father, who has given us the ability...." If He "made us
meet," He gave us the ability. To do what? To enjoy
our share of the inheritance of the saints in light!
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The spiritual man will know what his inheritance is

in the light—for the light of God's Word will shine in
and open it to him. He'll know he has the Ability to
enjoy it.
His Ability
For God has given us our Ability. He is our
Ability. That Ability reveals itself in unveiling the
treasures of the grace of God that belong to us.
Our thinking has been so shallow in some areas we
have been robbed of God's blessings. For instance, we
have quoted Acts 1:8, "But ye shall receive power,
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye
shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in
all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part
of the earth," and without studying it any we've put
emphasis on the word "power" not realizing what the
word "power" means here.
I was pastor of a community church when I
received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and spoke with
other tongues. To hear Full Gospel people talk about
this "power" I thought it would be some kind of a great
overwhelming physical and emotional experience. But
all I did was talk in tongues. (Yet when I read down
through the Acts of the Apostles that was all I could
find they did. So if the other would have been
important, the Bible would have said something about
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it.) And though I talked in tongues for an hour and a

half and sang three songs in tongues—as I talked in
tongues I said in my mind, "My, my, my, I've had a
greater blessing than this many times just out praying
by myself."
But, you see, receiving the Holy Ghost isn't getting
a blessing. You can get blessings beforehand and you
can get blessings afterwards. It is receiving a Divine
Personality to come into you and dwell in your spirit!
I didn't know that. I'd shake myself, and feel
myself, and think, "My, my, my, I don't have any more
power now than I ever had."
So I went back to my church and never said a word
about it. I didn't seem to have any more power to
preach, but the congregation began to tell it.
They said, "You have something you didn't have."
I said, "What is it?"
"Well, it's a greater ability than you had. It's a
greater punch."
I looked up this word "power" from Acts 1:8 in
Young's Concordance. And I found out that this Greek
word translated "power" here also means "ability."
My congregation could see I had more ability to
preach than I did have. I had my mind hung up on the
"power." God said that we would receive an ability.
An ability to witness. We've overlooked the ability
trying to find the power.
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John called it an unction, he called it an anointing,

he said it is in you. When you know the Ability of God
is in there then you know what he meant when he said,
"Greater is he that is in you."
When you know this, then when you hit that hard
place, you can just lean back on Him instead of
fighting and trying to pray the power down or work it
up. You can just lean back and laugh. You can shout
all the way through because you know the Greater One
is in there. He'll put you over. He'll make you a
success. He'll bring you out.
The spiritual man is going to come to know this,
but the baby doesn't know this. The baby knows he has
had an experience.
God has made us meet, He has given us the Ability.
That ability comes with the infilling of the Holy
Ghost. Yes, the ability to witness. But it doesn't stop
there. He has given us the ability to enjoy our
inheritance.
Deliverance, redemption, is our inheritance
(Colossians 1:13-14). We have been delivered out of
Satan's authority. Satan has no authority over you, or
over me, or over the Church. Let's don't let him take
any. We have been delivered out of his power or
authority and translated into the kingdom of His dear
Son (verse 13).
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Governed by the Word

You're in the place of His protection and His care.
You're in the place where you feed upon the bread of
heaven. The Word of God is the bread. Jesus said,
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The manna
of heaven is the Word of God. As you feed on this
Word, you will grow up spiritually into the image and
unto the stature of the Son of God.
And that's the only way you'll ever get there. As
important as prayer is, you won't get there by praying.
Though fasting may have a place, you won't get there
by fasting. Though self-denial may have a place in the
Christian life, you won't get there by self-denial.
Though experience has a place in the Christian life—
and thank God for experiences—but though you may
have had many wonderful experiences or many
wonderful visions or revelations, they will not get you
there. Nor will spiritual gifts get you there. These
things have their place and their purpose, but the Bible
tells you exactly how to get there. It comes by the
knowledge of the Word.
The spiritual man is the one in whom the Word has
gained the ascendancy over his mind and over his
body. It has brought him into harmony with the will of
God, for the Word of God is the will of God.
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PART V
Chapter 12
12 THE RIGHT DIET
You have to have the right diet if you're going to

grow.
What is it?
Well, of course, the entire Word of God. But
particularly the New Testament. Because we live
under the New Covenant, not under the Old Covenant.
Some things said back there don't apply to us. Many
principles do, but other things don't. They apply to the
Jews.
Certain sections of the New Testament are written
especially for your benefit. (Other sections, like the
four Gospels, are for the benefit of not just Christians
and believers, but the world and sinners.) There are
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Letters which are written directly to the Church. Spend

most of your time feeding on the Epistles.
No one told me to do it, but I believe that on the
bed of affliction where I was born-again as a boy of
15, I unconsciously yielded and was led by the Spirit
of God. The first time I was physically able to have a
Bible brought to my bed, when I looked at it and saw it
said "Old Testament" and "New Testament" I reasoned
that the New must take the place of the Old. So I
started in with Matthew.
I eventually saw that the Letters were written to the
Church—from Paul's writings to the Romans and the
Corinthians right on down through the Letters of Peter
and John. Through these many years I've spent 90% of
my study of the Word of God here. It's the diet I'm
supposed to have. It's the message that was written to
me. There are things there which can't be found any
place else. Paul plainly stated about the mystery of this
revelation that it was "now" made manifest (Romans
16:25-26).
Let your diet be mainly made up of the Epistles or
Letters which were written to the Church. Particularly
let it consist of I Corinthians 13 and the First Epistle of
John.
Get an Amplified translation of I Corinthians 13
and go over it carefully. It will do just what its name
implies—it will amplify those verses and help you
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understand them even better.

Feed on all five chapters of I John.
You will find that in these two writings—I
Corinthians 13 and I John—the great love teachings
are unveiled and revealed. John comes back to it again
and again:
"We know that we have passed from death unto
life, because we love the brethren" (I John 3:14).
"But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God
in him?" (I John 3:17).
"But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the
love of God perfected:...." (I John 2:5).
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth
out fear...He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (I
John 4:18).
These are just a few of the many such statements
there.
God's nature is Love. As His child you have the
Love nature in you. Yet that nature has to be fed in
order for it to grow. Unless you feed where this is
found it will not grow and develop in your life.
I am thoroughly convinced that if every Christian
would get into I Corinthians 13 and I John and live
there awhile, it would only be a little while until they'd
be so different they'd have to pinch themselves and
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say, "Is this me?"

It wouldn't be long until their homes would be so
different it would be absolutely amazing. For one
statement in I Corinthians 13 is, "(Love) seeketh not
her own" (verse 5). The babes are always seeking their
own—naturally and spiritually, too. The baby is
always saying, "Mother, Johnny has my cart." Or,
"Mary has my doll." Strife. Quarreling over their own.
The quarrels in our homes, the divorces, give us a
picture of the babyhood state of the modern church.
Those who walk in love and have matured in love
wouldn't be acting this way. This babyhood condition
in the church can be remedied only by the study, the
feeding upon, and the putting into practice of the Word
of God.
Study the plan of redemption. Find out what you
are in Christ—and what Christ is in you. Find out your
standing before God. Find out that you are the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Find out what He
did for you in His death, burial, resurrection,
ascension, and seating at the right hand of the Father.
Find out what He is doing for you right now at the
right hand of the Father in His present day ministry
where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. This
knowledge will help you grow out of the babyhood
state into a full grown man in Christ.
Here's God's commentary on the subject:
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I CORINTHIANS 4:7
7 For who maketh thee to differ from another?
and what hast thou that thou didst not
receive? now if thou didst receive it, why
dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received
it?
Whatever we have from God we received by grace.
EPHESIANS 4:7
7 But unto every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Each believer—though born-again as a babe—has
a measure, a deposit of grace that will meet every
emergency in his life.
Every believer has the same new birth, the same
Eternal Life, the same Love of God, the same grace,
the same Holy Spirit (we know Him first in a measure
in the new birth, but then there is the fullness of the
Spirit available to us), the same Eternal Intercessor,
Jesus Christ, the same matchless Heavenly Father.
If all this be true, then there is no reason for us to
be weak and to remain babies when by reason of time
we should be developed.
Let's look again at the full grown believer in
Ephesians 4:13-14, "Till we all come in the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
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the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more

children...."
God never planned on your remaining a baby
spiritually any more than He planned on your
remaining a baby physically, or mentally.
We're attracted to little babies. They're so sweet
and wonderful. But wouldn't it be sad for a little one to
live twenty or twenty-five years and not grow
physically or mentally? I saw an individual like that—
thirty-eight years old and still in a bassinet. His mother
nearing seventy would pin a diaper on him and feed
him just as you would a small baby. How your heart
bleeds for them. Aged parents, the other children
grown and married, and they are left with this one.
But, you know, how sad it is for Christians. Many
are in the same boat. If we could see spiritually,
they've never developed. They're still babies. Forty
years old and still a baby. Selfish. Sensitive. Easily
hurt. Envious. Jealous.
A deacon, an older man who'd been saved and
filled with the Holy Ghost thirty years came crying to
the parsonage bawling like a baby, "Brother Hagin,
you don't visit me like you do some of the others. I
saw your car three times last week over at Brother So-
and-so's house."
I said, "Yes, and there's another verse right under
that. I'm not coming to see you either. You get up and
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testify, 'I was saved thirty years ago last October, filled
with the Holy Ghost for thirty years.' "A big thirty year
old baby.
This man he'd seen me visiting had just gotten
saved in our meeting a week or so before. Because he
was just a newborn baby he'd stumbled around and
missed it. God talked to me in my heart and sent me
out there to deal with him. So I went out to help him.
I said to this deacon, "You don't need anyone
running out there to visit you and feed you the bottle.
You need to be out visiting others yourself."
We have churches full of babies. Take their bottles
away and you have a cry on your hands. Try to get
them to get up and get out of the spiritual nursery and
give up their bed to some newborn babe and they
wouldn't do it for anything in the world.
Another deacon, a leader, supposed to be setting an
example in the church, got mad and wouldn't come. I
knew something happened because his wife kept
coming. (Some men would be in a mess if they didn't
have good wives.) I saw him in town and he would
hardly talk to me. He was hard and cold, puffed up like
a toad frog.
His wife was a sweet person and I asked her,
"What's wrong with him?"
She said, "Oh, he's mad about something. He went
home from church and went to bed. He wouldn't even
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talk to me for three days. I finally just asked him what

was wrong. I thought maybe it was me. But it wasn't.
And it's not exactly you. Somebody sat in his pew. He
always sits right here in the second pew, the second
seat from the end. When he got here and someone was
sitting there, he got so mad he stood up. He wouldn't
sit anywhere else."
A man like that isn't fit to be a deacon.
God never planned that he would remain a spiritual
baby. He wants us to grow spiritually.
Exhortations to Growth and Spirituality

EPHESIANS 3:20
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us.
There is no need for us to stay in a state of
babyhood, or under development. We have the Power
of God working in us! We have the Ability of God
working in us! But instead of yielding to that, babies
yield to the flesh.
PHILIPPIANS 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me.
See! No place for under development!
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HEBREWS 5:11
11 Of whom we have many things to say, and
hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
The Book of Hebrews isn't written to the world; it's
written to Christians, to believers. If the believer isn't
careful, he can become dull of hearing so that the
Word cannot reach him. This can hold him in that
babyhood state and carnality. Going on with the next
verse...
HEBREWS 5:12
12 For when for the time ye ought to be
teachers, ye have need that one teach you again
which be the first principles of the oracles of
God; and are become such as have need of milk,
and not of strong meat.
This doesn't mean that everyone of them would
have a teaching gift. It means that because they have
known and have been fed on the Word themselves,
they ought to be able to teach someone else. Every
believer ought to aspire to be the teacher of at least
one. But you can't teach if you're a babe, and still on
milk.
HEBREWS 5:13-14
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in
the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are
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of full age,....
Paul talks about the same things in Timothy.
II TIMOTHY 3:7
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth.
Isn't that the picture of some today? Going to
church Sunday after Sunday, ever learning, yet never
arriving. If calamity comes, if sickness comes, if the
loss of property, or the death of loved ones comes,
they stand paralyzed and helpless in the presence of
the enemy.
They have the resources of God because they are
believers and He has made provision for them. They
have the Ability of God. They have His loving Words.
But they have never taken advantage of it. They never
avail themselves of the riches that are theirs when the
crises come.
Crises of life come to all of us. But it makes a big
difference when a crisis comes whether you are in the
carnality babyhood stage, or whether you have grown
at least to some extent.
Children who have never developed when crisis
comes, are unable to take advantage of what belongs to
them. They've stayed in their infancy. My what a
picture.
Ephesians 5:1 and 2 shows what they could be.
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EPHESIANS 5:1-2
1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear
children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved
us, and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling
savour.
I like another translation which reads, "Be ye
therefore imitators of God, as beloved children."
What's it talking about to follow God? to imitate God?
Remember, God is Love. In the First Epistle of
John, which I wanted you to stay in for awhile, John
says in effect that if you walk in love, then you walk in
God, and God is in you and you're in God, because
God is love.
Imitate God in love. "God so loved the world." He
loved us while we were yet sinners. Well, imitate Him
in that. It's easy to love those who love you. Anybody
can do that. But we're supposed to do like God—to
imitate Him in love—and love the unlovely, love the
unlovable, love our enemies.
You can't do that unless you have the Love of God
in you. And you'll not do it unless you grow in Love.
When you're sensitive and easily hurt, it doesn't
take enemies outside the body of Christ, but just a
believer, a brother in the Lord, to do something that
doesn't amount to a hill of beans and you're so easily
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hurt you're almost ready to cut his head off.

Be imitators of God walking in Love. This is our
privilege. This is where we should and could live. We
have this New Covenant law to govern us as a Church:
JOHN 13:34-35
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That
ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye
also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Fruit of the Human Spirit

Love is the first fruit of the human spirit when you
are born-again. It's not the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The
translators were entirely wrong in putting a capital "S"
in Galatians 5:22. It refers to the human spirit.
Jesus said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches"
(John 15:5).
Where does the fruit grow?
On the branches.
Who are the branches? The Holy Spirit?
No. We are.
This fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) is fruit that
grows in your life because of the Life of Christ within.
How are you going to know and tell that you are
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saved?
"We know that we have passed from death unto
life, because we love the brethren" (I John 3:14).
This is the fruit of the recreated, born-again human
spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). You can take each fruit of
the spirit and prove by the Bible that if you're saved
you have it. For instance, one is peace. Romans 5:1
says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
If you are born-again, this Love is in you. You may
not be practicing it. But it's in your inward man, your
spirit.
If you're ever going to grow and develop out of the
babyhood state, you will have to learn to feed this
Love nature on the Word of God, and exercise this
love nature in the arena of life. Then you will grow in
Love.
You'll not do it any other way. You could sit
around all day and pray, "God, give me love. God,
help me love my brother. God, help me love the
world," and it wouldn't do any more good than to
twiddle your thumbs and say, "Twinkle, twinkle, little
star; How I wonder what you are."
But when you recognize the Bible teaches that
because you are born of God you are born of Love;
that you are made a partaker of the divine nature,
God's nature, which is Love; and you have it, a
154
THE RIGHT DIET
measure of it at least...and then you get ready to feed

that love nature on the Word of God, and to put it into
practice...you will begin spiritual development and
growth. And not until.
Love is absolutely to govern the heart life of the
Church.
I CORINTHIANS 10:24
24 Let no man seek his own, but every man
another's wealth (or good).
How many of us are seeking our own good? Most
of us. When love does not rule, then the motives of life
become distorted; conduct becomes abnormal, and the
body rules the spirit causing the mind to be brought
into captivity to earthly things.
Renewing the Mind

ROMANS 12:2
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect, will of God.
The primal need of man is to have his mind
renewed.
"And be not conformed to this world...." (Another
translation says, "Be not conformed to this age.") Don't
155
think like this age thinks! Don't think like this

generation thinks. Don't think like this world thinks!
Don't be fashioned according to this world, or this age.
"...but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God." This infers that
if your mind is renewed—and it becomes renewed by
the Word of God—then you will know what is the
good, the acceptable (one translation says
"permissive"), and the perfect will of God. But until
your mind is renewed, you will stay in the state of
babyhood.
COLOSSIANS 3:10
10 And have put on the new man, which is
renewed in knowledge after the image of him
that created him:
It is deeply important that the believer's mind be
renewed after the image of Jesus. That's one reason He
sent the Holy Ghost to indwell us and be our Teacher
and Guide. He said, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:..." (This
can only come as the Spirit, through the Word, guides
us into the reality of our redemption in Christ.) "...for
he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall
hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things
to come" (John 16:13).
156
THE RIGHT DIET
EPHESIANS 4:23-24
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after
God is created in righteousness and true
holiness.
You know as well as I, that if you put on the new
man created after God in righteousness and true
holiness, that is going to be the end of envyings,
jealousies, strifes, and divisions, isn't it? Therefore,
you wouldn't be a babe in that carnal state anymore.
ROMANS 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind....
Paul didn't write this to unsaved people. It came as
a real shock to me, after fifteen years in the ministry,
when I realized that Paul is saying to people who are
born-again and filled with the Holy Ghost that it hadn't
affected their bodies or their minds.
Therefore the new birth and the baptism of the
Holy Spirit are not mental experiences, nor physical
experiences, but spiritual experiences.
After you are born again, and after you are filled
with the Holy Ghost, it is up to you to do something
157
with your body. It is up to you to do something with

your mind.
The real you is the man on the inside—the spirit
man. You are to present your body to God. (He does
want transfigured bodies.) And you are to get your
mind renewed. How? With the Word of God. By
meditating on and practicing the Word of God.
158
Chapter 13
13 A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Don't become discouraged because you don't

become a full grown Christian overnight. You didn't
become a full grown human overnight.
The Bible says for us to examine ourselves. It
doesn't say for me to examine you, or for you to
examine me. But to examine yourself. As I examine
myself, in some areas I think I'm growing pretty well,
that I'm pretty well matured. But as I look at another
place, it seems like I'm still a baby in that area. And
then as I look in another area it seems like I'm in the
childhood state. I dare say you are in the same boat.
Is anyone fully grown up? fully spiritual? already
perfected in love? I don't think so. But, praise God,
we're on our way!
Don't be discouraged because you don't get there
overnight. You didn't become discouraged because
you went one week to school and they didn't graduate
you the next. No, you stayed on in the first grade and
159
were tickled to get in the second grade the next year.

You will not grow up spiritually overnight any
more than you grew up mentally or physically
overnight. But there's one thing about it—there's no
need of your not growing.
It is always the greatest concern of my life whether
or not I know more about God and have grown any
this year above last year.
I believe in going on to perfection. I'm not perfect
yet, are you? But I'm going on. I'm not going to stop
and quit just because I didn't grow up last week, or
because I made a mistake or failed.
The full grown Christian won't do that either,
because he knows that Jesus is right there to represent
him at the right hand of the Father.
Every step out of love is sin. Too often we've
gotten in our minds that you didn't sin unless you
broke one of the ten commandments. But that was the
law of the Old Covenant. The new law of the New
Covenant is that we love one another. So every word
said out of love is sin. Every act made out of love is
sin.
But this Epistle written to the Church says, "My
little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin
not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (I John 2:1).
As I look back—and I guess anyone who has had
160
A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
any spiritual growth is the same way, we thought we

were doing pretty well spiritually, back when we were
in some areas of babyhood. We thought we were
living practically sinless. We met all the human
standards they set for us, so we thought we were
practically sinless. But then, as we grow up a little and
develop spiritually, and we look back we see we were
sinning more than we thought we were. We come to
find out we missed it more than we thought we did.
We failed to walk in love.
But just because we failed, we didn't stay there. We
got up and went again.
It is the knowledge of God's Word that helps us to
grow. That Word is spiritual food—food for our
spirits!
161
With millions of Faith Library books in circulation, the printed page
continues to be a major outreach of Kenneth Hagin Ministries. The voice of
Kenneth Hagin Ministries is further amplified around the world through the
following media: A 24-page free monthly magazine, The Word of Faith; an
international radio broadcast, "Faith Seminar of the Air"; nationwide All Faiths'
Crusades; Faith Library tapes; and RHEMA Correspondence Bible School.
These outreaches are vital to the part Kenneth Hagin Ministries shares in
fulfilling the Great Commission—yet, there is more . . .
RHEMA Bible Training Center is another dynamic outreach of Kenneth

Hagin Ministries. Founded in 1974, RHEMA offers a high quality of
ministerial studies designed to train and equip men and women to enter the
Evangelistic, Pastoral, Teaching, Missions, Helps, Youth, and Children's
ministries. Today thousands of graduates of RHEMA have ventured into every
inhabited continent of the earth, carrying the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ—with signs following.
To receive a free, full-color brochure
on RHEMA Bible Training Center, a free
monthly magazine, The Word of Faith, or
to receive our Faith Library Catalog with
a complete listing of Kenneth Hagin
Ministries' books and tapes, write:
Kenneth Hagin Ministries

P.O. Box 50126
Tulsa, OK 74150-0126
In Canada write:
P.O. Box 335, Station D, Etobicoke (Toronto), Ontario Canada, M9A 4X3

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GROWING UP, SPIRITUALLY

Eleventh Printing 1996

In the U.S. Write: In Canada write:

Copyright © 1976 RHEMA Bible Church

"... When he (Christ) ascended up on high, he

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up

As we look at them in just that order and notice

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of

Too many times someone is saved on Sunday night

pastor after the service about these young people.

it-all" attitude; a "You-can't-tell-me-anything" attitude.

into our spiritual mouths. We need to be as careful

different thing nowadays. They're just off their

something about it.

Years ago I held a meeting for a Full Gospel

Babies are easily spoiled. And when they become

that doesn't make you a full grown Christian. They

weaning time comes we ought to thank God for it.

"That we henceforth be no more children...."

have had it mowed in thirty minutes. Back then we had

children are the same way.

come in with a sack and set it down on the kitchen

Curiosity is a characteristic of a child.

"If tomorrow is Monday, how can it be Tuesday?"

Finney, "Do you know a little preacher by the name of

One day at the table, the pastor got to talking about

He rather liked me and I'd go visit him. We'd talk

enough sense to listen and she straightened up. She

2. Vain speaking—always talking about

Thank God for His blessings. And let's be careful

remember scriptures like you do."

Give your time to whatever you want to excel in.

There are many scriptural characteristics of the

1. Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly

Esteeming Earthly Things Lightly

recompence of the reward."

money to have you. It's wrong for money to be your

Our need, however, is to evaluate things as they

He said, "What do you mean?"

A man and his wife came to a meeting I was

appreciated it or not, but I said, "You need to get in

was Sunday. I was to preach about fifty-seven miles

before your own self-life. You will be blessed

Deadness to Censure or Praise

conscious of what others are thinking about them.

Ability to Recognize God at Work

"God has forsaken me after these seven years."

great deliverance" (Genesis 45:5, 7).

5 WALKING WITH YOUR FATHER

"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in

church. He is interested in each of His children and He

through with a sword.

family, it's "Father."

Getting Acquainted Through the Word

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,

added unto you.

good gifts unto your children, how much

life's problems. For He is with me as He was with the