You may have been healed by a manifestation of the gifts of God, all right; but if you don't have enough faith in you to hold on to what you have, the devil is going to steal it away from you.

During the great healing revival, evangelists would hold short meetings, and I'd come along behind them with longer meetings. By the time I got there, I often found people who had been healed in those meetings already had lost their healing. That happened in my meetings, too, but I learned how to get them healed and keep them healed.

In 1952, the foremost healing evangelist held a meeting in the high school auditorium in South Bend, Indiana. I was there for several meetings, and sat in a special sections reserved for preachers. One of the gentlemen there was a Full Gospel pastor from Florida.

Being a minister, he could have gotten in the healing line any time he wanted to. But he was there several days, so he got a card and waited his turn. (But a minister could break in anytime; they granted them that privilege.)

This minister wore a hearing aid. He couldn't hear without it.

The night came when they called for his number. He took that hearing aid off and put it in his pocket.

Finally this preacher stepped up in place and just smiled at the evangelist. The latter said, "We'll, let's see what's wrong with you." He laid hands on him and said, "Oh, oh!" He jumped back and said, "It's your ears. You're deaf." He laid hands on him, and the man's ears were opened instantly.

The evangelist had a very soft, low voice. He stood behind the man, talked in a whisper, and that fellow repeated everything he said. He was perfectly healed.

He had started to return to his seat when the evangelist said, "Hey, you're a pastor. You're a pastor of a Full Gospel church in Florida." He knew that by revelation.

Then the man came back to the preachers' section. We talked to him. He could hear everything, even when we whispered. We tested him. He was perfectly healed.

However, by the time the meeting was dismissed, he couldn't hear a thing. He put his hearing aid back on.

Sustain Your Healing By Faith
Why? He had been healed by a manifestation of the gifts of God, all right, but if you don't have enough faith in you to hold on to what you have, the devil is going to steal it away from you.

That's why I changed my ministry and did more teaching. Yes, I could advertise my vision, fill up an auditorium, and get many people healed—but they wouldn't keep their healing. So I held smaller meetings where I could teach the people daily in addition to ministering to the sick.

A well-known evangelist with whom I enjoy great fellowship told me the following story:

Many years ago—back in the forties at the beginning of this brother's healing ministry—he was holding a meeting and a call came that one of the church members, a businessman with a history of heart trouble, had had a heart attack at his home.

The man's wife called the parsonage and said, "If we move him, it will kill him. But if we don't move him, he won't regain consciousness, and he'll die right here on the bedroom floor."

So the pastor and the evangelist rushed over there. They laid hands on the man and instantly he rose up well. He had been in the process of dressing, so he put on his robe and slippers, walked downstairs, and sat and talked with them for a while in the living room.

Finally the pastor and the evangelist excused themselves, and the man said, "Well, I'll go dress and go to work."

The man's wife, the evangelist said, followed them outside, closed the door, went down the front walk with them, look around to make sure her husband couldn't hear, and said, "You all keep praying for him."

The evangelist said, "Why?"

"Why," she said, "the devil will come back and put another heart attack on him."

The evangelist said, "Sister, do you know what your problem is?"

She said, "What?"

He said, "You've got more faith in the devil than you have in God! You stood right here and told me what the devil is going to do. You believe he is going to do it. You believe he's got the authority and power to come back and put another heart attack on your husband and try to kill him. Why don't you say, 'The devil can't do it'?"

"Aw," she whispered, "I wouldn't say that for anything in the world!"

"Why?"

"Don't you know, the devil will hear me say it?"

Who Are We Believing Anyway?
So many Full Gospel Christians believe in the devil more than they do in God.

Have more faith in God than you do in the devil! Stand on His Word. God's Word is true. As F.F. Bosworth said, "Believe your belief and doubt your doubts."

Yes, the devil will try to put things back on you. But if the Word of God has been built into your spirit—if you've meditated on it long enough, fed on it, and put it onto your spirit until you know it has become a part of your inner consciousness—you can put the devil on the run every time.

If temptation comes—if pain comes—instead of being afraid and panicking, you'll just start laughing.

Source: How to Keep Your Healing by Kenneth E. Hagin
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications