Arab evangelist recounts intimate experience with Kenneth E Hagin

I wrote this article a few years ago. This being his 106th Birthday, I would like to share these thoughts from my heart about Dad Hagin; a man who I knew very well personally, and loved very much.

It has been some years since Dad Hagin went home to be with the Lord. I was privileged and blessed to be close to him from 1989 until he left us. There were others who were far closer to him than I was, but I am grateful for my relationship with him and for how he spoke into my life.

I remember very clearly our last one on one meeting in his office. He spoke to me (actually warned me), amongst other things, about living free from the love of money. He told me how he felt such great sorrow about the many ministers who had fallen into the love of money, lived materialistic lifestyles, and misused scripture to get people to give money to them.

I always took everything that he said very personally and with the utmost seriousness. He was, after all, a man who had already run many laps in the race that I felt like I had just begun to run.

There are three personal traits of Dad Hagin that for me stood out above all things. They were his walk with God, his love, and his humility.

Dad always walked close to the face of God. His life wasn’t just about preaching the Word, but about walking with God. I remember a time when Reinhard and Anni Bonnke and I were in a restaurant in Oslo, Norway.

Bro Reinhard told me about the time he had met Dad and ministered at RHEMA. He said, “Christopher, I have met many great men of God; and I have never met a man who walks so close to the face of God as Brother Hagin”

Dad was best known for teaching faith but the key to his faith was his intimate relationship with God. Many have tried to copy his “methods” but without the foundation of intimacy and relationship with God that make the “methods” or “techniques” of faith work.

Many have tried to imitate Dad’s sermons, methods, and even his mannerisms…… but because they never pressed into the presence of God, they discovered that what they supposed was “Faith” did not work for them. That is why we have so many “Faith” preachers today who no longer preach Faith but have gone on to preach other things.

Let us go back to this basic premise – the Christian’s walk with God. Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all thine heart…”. That is what it all comes down to Walking in intimacy with the Father. That is the key, the foundation for faith that is dynamic, powerful, and actually brings the promises of God into manifestation in our lives.

Dad Hagin was a man who walked in love. He never responded to his critics and those who often so viciously attacked him; choosing instead to let God defend him. Dad never showed any harshness of spirit. He was loving, tender, and always kind to all. He understood how much God loved him and passed that love on to others.

Once during one of my visits to Tulsa (I still lived in Sweden then), Dad asked me to take his prayer school class at RHEMA. I was surprised when he showed up backstage in the “green room”. I was very intimidated at the thought of him being there and begged him to go back to his office. He just laughed.

My hair had been somewhat ruffled by the strong wind outside. Dad looked at me and said, “Here let me fix your hair for you”. I’ll never forget how then he took a comb out of his pocket and very tenderly combed my hair before we walked out into the auditorium. It was a little gesture of fatherly love, something that I shall always remember and cherish. It just showed the heart of the man.

Dad was a humble man. I was taken aback when I first saw how small he was in his own eyes. I remember him just before a Winter Bible Seminar wondering whether anybody would even show up to hear him speak! Yes, Dad was always confident in God and in His Word, but at the same time, he was always very humble and small in his own eyes. It was perhaps his most endearing trait, something that one had to be very close to him to see. That is perhaps the reason why he was so shy when he was among people.

But now Dad Hagin is no more with us. He is walking with Jesus today on the streets of Glory. I remember one of our Gospel crusades that we held in Zambia. A sea of humanity was spread out before us. They had all come to hear the Gospel. That night we saw tens of thousands come to Jesus; the lame walked, the blind saw, the deaf heard…. Over 25,000 were baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire. It was glorious.

I was overwhelmed and I looked up to the sky….. I thought that I could “see” the face of Dad Hagin looking down at us rejoicing with us. He was, after all, among that great cloud of witnesses who were watching us as we ran our race for the Glory of God. Tears welled up in my eyes.

I thought of the wonderful and amazing grace that God has bestowed upon us. I thought of Jesus who died upon the Cross to make all this available to us. I thought of all the men and women who God has used to touch and influence my life. I thought of a 17-year-old boy in Texas raised up by God from his deathbed because he believed the simple words of Jesus in Mark 11:23-24. I thought of the way that boy grew up and in his old age taught the words of Jesus to a young Arab man who today is privileged to preach the Gospel of Jesus to millions all over the world.

Brothers and sisters, let us be thankful for what God imparted into our lives through Dad Hagin. Let us walk with God, in humility, in love, in faith. Let us preach the Gospel and touch people, cities, and nations with the love of God. Let us walk worthy of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. Philippians 3:12-14

#Christopher Alam