Hagin’s ‘Jesus’ gave him a special universal method that was said to work any time for anyone who would use it. Hagin describes this method, which his Jesus gave him, in one of his booklets. By using this special method, a person is supposed to be able to get anything he or she wishes. The method can be used by the believers on their own initiative, and it is not necessary to pray to God in order to make it work.
The first step of the method is positive confession. This means that you get whatever you say, not only if it is something positive, but also if it is negative. According to Hagin, Jesus told him concerning the second step that, “Your action defeats you or puts you over. According to your action, you receive or are kept from receiving.” 65 The third step involves that you must be receiving the power which “is always present everywhere.” 66 Step four is that you need to be saying it so others may believe. Summarising the message, Hagin writes that, “all you are and all you have today is the result of what you believed and said in the past.” 67
In this particular vision, Hagin asked Jesus if any believer, anywhere, can write this kind of ticket to victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hagin’s Jesus answered in the affirmative and continued, “If they don’t do it, it won’t be done. It would be a waste of their time to pray for Me to give them the victory. They have to write their own ticket.” 68
This doctrine of the believer deciding his own destiny is one that had a profound effect on me. During the second week of teaching at the Faith Bible school in 1984, a teacher reiterated this doctrine of Hagin’s. A young man who was physically handicapped was sitting very close to me and looking very unhappy. The implications of what we were just being taught were that this young man himself was actually responsible for his handicap. When these implications occurred to me, I began to wonder what he might be thinking. But the atmosphere was not conducive to questioning, so I never asked him. After a few months, he left, and I never saw him again.
At that particular time, the thought suddenly dawned on me: “This teaching is nothing more than the Hinduistic Karma! It is error!” We had that teaching on a Friday and I decided that I was going to leave the Bible school. But during the weekend, I discussed it with a friend and was persuaded to give the school another chance for one more week — that week became three years!
Footnotes
65. Kenneth E. Hagin, How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, p 11.
66. Kenneth E. Hagin, How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, p 14.
67. Kenneth E. Hagin, How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, p 23.
68. Kenneth E. Hagin, How to Write Your Own Ticket with God, p 20.
