THE MIRACLE WORKING POWER OF THE WORD

Recalling an incident that happened during a meeting I held in Oklahoma. One of the seven cooperating churches was pastured by a couple I had known in Texas. They said, "We're going to bring a woman from our church for prayer one night, Brother Hagin. She is crippled. She has not walked a step in seven years. We have taken her to the best specialists in the state, and they have said she'll never walk again 'the longest day she lives.'"

Ordinarily I minister under the anointing. The night she came, I had so many to minister to that by the time I got to her I was exhausted. You see, the Lord is the same all the time, but I am not. Potentially, the anointing is there all the time, but in manifestation, it is not, because when you grow weary, it is difficult to yield to God. Because the anointing was gone by the time I got to this woman, I couldn't conscientiously minister to her as I normally would. They had brought her to the meeting from a distance, and what was I to do? Just send her away? No, no. There was a way to minister to her—because God's Word never fails! The anointing may wane, disappear and be gone, but the Word of God is anointed forever, hallelujah, and His Words are Spirit and Life.

All I did was sit down on the altar beside the woman, open my Bible to this verse of Scripture (1Peter 2:24), lay the Bible on her lap, and ask her to read it. Then I asked her, "Is the Word ‘were’ past tense, future tense, or present tense?" A look of recognition flashed across her face like a Neon light lighting up in the dark. "Why," she said, "it's past tense. And if we WERE healed, I WAS!" (That is believing in line with God's Word.) I said, "Sister, will you do what I tell you to do?" "Well," she said, "I will if it's easy."

I said, "It's the easiest thing you ever did in your life. Just lift up your hands and start praising God, because you are healed—not going to be—ARE!" I wish you could have seen that crippled woman. She had no evidence of healing—she had not yet walked a step—but she lifted her hands, looked up, and as a smile broke across her face, she said, "Oh, dear Father God—whooo! I'm so glad I'm healed! Oh, Lord, you know how tired I got sitting around these last few years. I'm so glad I'm not helpless and don't need to be waited on anymore." (You see, she was acting on the Word. That's what faith is.)

I stood and told the congregation, "Let's all lift our hands and praise God with her, because she is healed." (And yet, from all observation, she was still sitting on the altar, crippled.) After we stopped I turned to the woman and said, "Now, my sister, rise and walk in Jesus' Name!" God and hundreds of people are my eternal witnesses that instantly she leaped to her feet and jumped and ran and danced like the man who went into the Temple walking and leaping and praising God (Acts 3:.

We all shouted and cried with her. Then somebody went off and told a lie about me! He said, "That fellow Hagin healed a crippled woman over there last night." I didn't have anymore to do with it than you or anybody else could have. Jesus healed her nearly 2,000 years ago, and she just found out about it that night! (Kenneth E. Hagin)