Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

A Glimpse Into Glory

I Believe in Miracles

My High Calling

Methods

Speaking in Tongues

God and the Institutional Church

Miracles

Women in the Ministry

What About Those Who Are Not Healed?

Healing and the Atonement

Prescription for Healing

Faith

The Gift of Healing

Ultimate Victory

Faith and Gumption

Hard Work: The Secret of Success

Determination

Missouri Cornbread

Nerves

Success and Enthusiasm

Going Under the Power

Ambition

Laziness

Religion of Love

Common Sense

Eternal Security

The Cost and the Love of God

Discipline and Desire

Rich or Poor

Luck

Humility

Prejudice

Dungeons

What Money Won’t Buy

Weakness Is No Excuse

My First Healing

After Death—What?

Foreword

Everyone had an opinion about Kathryn Kuhlman. Especially those who had seen or heard her. And many, many had. Even these years after her death, people are still talking about her.

Some of them are saying her “mantle” is upon them—or upon someone they know.

That’s not so. Kathryn had no mantle to pass on. She was far more kin to John the Baptist than to Elijah. Her task, among others, was to introduce the Holy Spirit to a generation—to a double millennium—who knew Him not. Not since Pentecost had the Holy Spirit evidenced himself with such power and freedom—and yet with such decency and order—as He did in her life.

Dan Malachuk introduced me to her in 1968—just about the time her ministry was being launched on a worldwide scale. Her first book, I Believe in Miracles, had been out for a number of years. Wisely, she had refused to glut the market with more books until her ministry was firmly established. Now she was ready.

We went out to eat in a small, stylish steak house high on a cliff overlooking the Ohio River near Pittsburgh. After dinner—which she just picked at—we talked. She wanted me to write a second book for her—a book of testimonies. I was intrigued, for despite her theatrical voice and mannerisms, and the fact she insisted on paying for our steaks with a one hundred dollar bill (“These people are so nice to me. I try to give them a little something now and then”), I sensed there was something genuinely spiritual about her. From my Southern Baptist perspective, she was all the things I was not. A woman preacher. Involved in a healing ministry. Divorced. Domineering. Demonstrative. Yet she was also genuinely honest. Transparent. And so filled with the power of God that even the waiters in the restaurant stood back in a kind of awe. I took the assignment and wrote God Can Do It Again.

There followed several other smaller books. I attended a number of her miracle services, but deliberately chose not to get too close to her. She was too strong. Too intimidating. We both seemed to realize it would be better if I stayed at arm’s length. Looking back, I realized this was one of the better decisions I made in my life. She totally consumed most of the people working close to her. By staying apart, I kept the objectivity which would be necessary when the time came to write her biography—and was able to live my own life as well.

One night I was visiting with my secretary and her husband in Melbourne, Florida, when the phone rang.

“Jamie, we’ve just got to write one more big book. These healing stories must be told. They are just pouring in from all over the world.”

I had written her saying I would not be available to write any more books. I was filled with questions—not about her, but about me. Was I writing just for the money? Had I become some kind of a “kept man”? (Somehow, the idea of taking money from a woman to write her books cut across the grain of my Southern masculinity.) On more than one occasion she had walked me from her Pittsburgh office on the sixth floor of the Carlton House to the elevator. As I would step on the elevator to return to my hotel before flying back to Florida, she would press money into my hand. “Now, go on out and buy yourself a good steak. You deserve it.” When the elevator door closed I would look down and discover two or three one hundred dollar bills. She was just like that. I loved it. And I hated it. So, I had written her and said, “No more books.” She had tried several other writers. None pleased her. She kept coming back. And I kept resisting.

Then she called me that night while I was eating dinner at the Watsons’. “Please, just one more. We must get this word out to the world. God is still performing miracles.”

Nothing Is Impossible With God was a fun book. As before, she gave me the names of people who had been healed and I began traveling around the country. Interviewing. Talking to doctors. Checking out facts. Attending her miracle services. Then coming home to put the incredible stories on paper. God was, indeed, still healing people.

Not only that, but I began to develop a new respect for this woman upon whom the anointing of God seemed to rest in full power. The more I was with her, the more I realized she was not “buying me”—she was just like that. Her use of money, the way she dressed, these things were not a showman’s trick to attract attention; she was one of the few persons I have ever met who had actually gone beyond the barrier of materialism. She saw money (and she had lots of it) as God’s gift. She used it as she did the rest of God’s gifts—wisely but generously.

I wrote other small books published by Bethany Fellowship. This allowed me to keep in touch with her, as well as to have face-to-face encounters with God’s miraculous power.

Several times I urged her to let me put some of her teachings on paper. While most people knew her only as a woman of miracles, I felt her most lasting contribution to the Kingdom (other than opening the door for the Holy Spirit to enter the churches) was her teaching. For years she had conducted a weekly Bible study at the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Her daily radio broadcasts were gems of truth and wit. I was eager to capture her spoken wisdom on paper—as well as tell the stories of those who had been healed under her ministry.

She finally consented. Her secretary sent me a big box of tapes—samples of her radio programs. I transcribed them, edited the material, then digested several of them into short teaching chapters.

Several months later I was in Pittsburgh and handed her one of the short manuscripts. She sat on the big, flowered sofa at the far end of her outer office—a sofa constantly covered with papers and flanked by two end tables covered with gifts which poured in from grateful followers.

I sat beside her as she read the short manuscript, watching her face for signs. She couldn’t hide a thing. It was impossible for her to tell a lie—or pretend. The only way she could tell a lie was to believe a lie—which she sometimes did. But this morning she was totally transparent.

Throwing the manuscript on the sofa she uncrossed her long legs and stood to her feet. “Nope,” she said. “We’ll not do it.”

I waited. She looked down at me. “Tell me, is that the way I really sound? As you have it on paper.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Not really,” I said, standing up to face her. “I’ve edited your Missouri twang.”

She laughed. A great big throaty laugh. “I thought so,” she said, looking at one of her secretaries. “I’m still Missouri cornbread. I talked that way when I was a girl in Concordia, and I’ll talk that way when I meet St. Peter at the pearly gates.”

Turning back to her office, she said, “Nope, let’s stick to writing stories about people God has touched. I don’t see how anyone could be interested in me—or what I have to say.”

But she was wrong. People were interested in her. They still are. That’s the reason hundreds of thousands bought her biography, Daughter of Destiny. They wanted to know what she was really like. But more than what she did, what she said is even more important.

Before she died in 1976, she asked me to “tell it all.” I thought I had when I wrote Daughter of Destiny. In fact, I told so much a lot of folks were upset. But I knew that was the way Kathryn wanted it. And I knew it was the only way I could write it. Honestly. To have done anything less would have given the glory to Kathryn—rather than to the God she loved and adored.

But now I realize that “tell it all” means more than telling the story about her life. It also means sharing with you what she said.

These little chapters have been carefully transcribed—and edited—from a number of her radio teachings. They also represent the best of some of the messages she preached around the nation. Several of them are from unpublished statements she gave various magazines and newspapers—taken verbatim from interview tapes.

I do not apologize that they sound, in places, like Missouri cornbread. That’s the way she was. “Just like that,” she would say. A small-town girl who became not only a citizen of the world but a prophetic leader in the Kingdom of God. What she had—and has—to say will give us not only insight into the real Kathryn Kuhlman but also provide something far more important: glimpses into glory.

Jamie Buckingham

Melbourne, Florida

CHAPTER ONE

A Glimpse Into Glory

For years I have made it a practice to disassociate myself from anything written about me or said about me. If I listened to my critics—or my fans—I would quickly be destroyed. I have never considered myself to be the best known woman preacher in the world. In fact, I never think of myself in the terms of “preacher.” That’s the reason I never use the word “Reverend.”

I really do not consider myself a woman preacher. Believe me. I’m just somebody who loves souls. I love people. I want to help them. It’s just that simple.

Helping people is the most rewarding thing in the whole world. You do not have to be a Kathryn Kuhlman to help people. The goal of every Christian, every born-again man and woman, should be helping. God’s children are born to serve. That’s what Jesus did. Jesus lived to serve. And if you are a born-again man or woman, you, too, will feel your responsibility in serving and helping people. It’s the most rewarding thing in the world.

Last Christmas between the cards and gifts I received there was a little card with a great big Santa Claus on it. It came from a twelve-year-old girl. The doctors had said that perhaps she would not be living by Christmas. They had wanted to amputate her leg because of cancer. But she sent me this card, and in the card she had written these words: “I am living to see this Christmas. I still have two good legs, because God answered prayer, and you helped.” I cannot begin to tell you the tears I shed over that Christmas card. It was the greatest gift I received. Some people put angels on the top of their Christmas trees. Others beautiful ornaments. But I had the most beautiful gift of all, for I put that little girl’s card at the very top of my tree.

Rewarding? There’s no way to buy what I felt.

When I walk out on the stage at the great miracle services, I realize that sitting there in the audience are men and women who have made great sacrifices to be there. For many of them it is their last hope. The doctors have given up. Medical science says, “No hope.” But I see beyond physical healing. I know that spiritual healing is far greater than the physical. So even though I believe in miracles, I know that far more important is the call for a spiritual healing—for it may be their last chance.

The physical healing is so very secondary, believe me. You can well afford to live and die with a sick body, not having been healed physically. But when those last moments come and the Holy Spirit is speaking at the close of a service, I always remember the spiritual healing is far greater than the greatest physical healing. It’s wonderful to see a body healed from cancer. It’s glorious to see a man or woman come out of a wheelchair, and see that wheelchair pushed down the aisle—empty. But there is something that’s far greater—that new birth experience. I stand there in those last moments of a great service and give an altar call and realize there may be those who are receiving their last call from God, spiritually. And the destiny of that soul is at stake. That, my friends, is the most awesome feeling. That is when the great responsibility is really felt. And when the lights have been turned out in the great auditorium, my only concern is whether I gave every ounce of strength I had, whether I could have done a better job than what I did—not performing miracles, for I am no miracle worker, but in calling men and women to Jesus Christ.

Oh, sure, there is a responsibility when it comes to those who come for physical healing. And I’m just human enough to say the responsibility is so great that sometimes I wish I had never been called to this type of ministry. Sometimes that responsibility is almost overwhelming. It isn’t hard work. I can stand on a platform, the stage of some auditorium, for four and a half hours and never feel the weariness because I am completely yielded to the Holy Spirit. But the burden of the responsibility drains the physical body.

I know better than anyone else that Kathryn Kuhlman has no healing virtue. I’m not a faith healer, please understand that. I have no healing power. I have never healed anyone. Know that. I’m absolutely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit, on the power of God. I have stood before sick people and cried, wishing I could give them the strength from my own body. But without the Holy Spirit I have nothing to give. Nothing.

I remember something that my papa, who worked so very hard, said to me when I was a little girl. I remember him as he extended his open hands, and he said, “You know, baby, you can have anything in the world you want if you’ll work hard enough with your hands.”

That made a very great impression on me, because my papa was a hard worker. I’ve learned to work, and to work very hard. But papa didn’t quite understand the work of the Holy Spirit. I’ve stood before people thinking if it was only hard work that was needed, I’d work the flesh off my bones. When I see a daddy standing there with a little child who has cancer, or perhaps a deformity, and I see those great big tears rolling down the cheeks of that big strong man, I would gladly give my life if that child could live. But I have no power. Hard work won’t impart healing. And in those moments, I know better than anyone else how dependent I am on the power of God.

It’s just like that.

People ask, “Is this not a thrilling experience? Being chosen by God for such a responsibility?” No, not thrilling, but awesome. Sometimes so awesome I wish I had never been called.

But with the responsibility, come the rewards—like that child’s card at Christmas. And even though I’ll probably burn myself out and die in the ministry, I’ll die happy—and satisfied. For the great God who called me has given me, also, a glimpse of His glory.

CHAPTER TWO

I Believe in Miracles

To tell you the truth, I answer every question that’s asked me. I do not believe there is anyone in the religious field today who is more honest in answering questions than I am. And it’s just like that. I want to be perfectly honest with you. I bare my soul to you. When it comes to answering critics and skeptics, I want to be like Jesus who said to them in substance, “If you do not believe that I am all that I say that I am, then believe Me for the very work’s sake.”

That is His only answer. And that is mine. But to honest people, who want honest answers, I bare my soul.

I believe that if the Lord himself would return in person, and do the same works today that He did when He walked this earth in person, He’d have more skeptics than He had when He was here the first time. Back then people did not have as much “worldly knowledge” as they do now. But with the advancement of technology, we have far more tendency to believe in ourselves as the source of all strength, rather than in a God of miracles.

You see, Jesus said, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you, but My Father which is in heaven.” Spiritual things are only spiritually revealed. You cannot force a human being to believe something he does not want to believe. If you do not want to believe in the absolute power of almighty God, if you do not want to believe that God has the power to heal, if you refuse to believe that divine healing is for today, then even if one were to be raised from the dead before your very eyes you would still not believe. People are looking for some excuse not to believe. For to believe in miracles means we have to believe in God. And if He is a God of miracles, then we have to obey Him. And we’d rather obey our own sinful instincts than the God who created heaven and earth. So, when faced with a miracle, we prefer to say, “It probably was psychosomatic.” Or, “The person was hypnotized.” Or, “There’s a catch in it somewhere.”

So, when it comes to skeptics and critics, I leave them with God. But when it comes to answering questions, I answer the questions of the believer and the unbeliever the best that I know how.

Sometimes it is a very difficult thing for me to talk to some inquirer about miracles. He knows nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit, he knows nothing whatsoever about spiritual things. He may be a very wise person and intelligent. But when it comes to spiritual things, he has no idea whatsoever of the working of the Holy Ghost. I try to give answers that I think he will understand, but so often it is like casting pearls before swine. He not only does not understand, but he twists that which is true to fit his own concepts. So I leave them also in the hands of God.

But one day a reporter from St. Petersburg, Florida, who had attended the miracle service, in Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, came back to my dressing room following the benediction. “I came a skeptic,” she said with tears in her eyes, “but I leave a believer.”

That’s the reason for miracles. Not miracles for miracles’ sake, but to lead nonbelievers to faith in—and commitment to—the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER THREE

My High Calling

Recently I returned to that little Methodist church in Concordia, Missouri, where I was converted. I was in Kansas City holding services in the opera house. I took members of my staff along with me, and we drove over to Concordia.

“Oh, you must see where I first accepted Jesus,” I told them. I tell you the truth, I was so shocked when I found out how small that little Methodist church had gotten through the years. There was a time when it looked so big to me, it looked almost like a cathedral. Then I realized that perhaps it doesn’t seat any more than seventy-five or a hundred people. I walked into the little vestibule. There was the same rope that rang the bell—the first bell, the second bell, you know, announcing the time of the services. It was the same bell they always tolled when someone died in town. One ringing meant a child had died, two rings meant a middle-aged person had passed away.

When an elderly person died, they rang it three times. This would cause everyone to rush to the telephone and ask the operator, “Who died?” That’s Concordia, Missouri.

That afternoon I walked into the church. The same pews were still there, the same railing, the same pulpit. Nothing had really changed in that little church. But, oh, how I had changed.

I thought back to that Sunday morning so many years before. Standing there, holding the Methodist hymnal in my hands, I was standing next to Mama. Everybody in Mama’s family was Methodist. Grandpa Walkenhorst always attended that church and sat in the same pew until the day before he died. He lived and died believing sincerely that only Methodists would make it to heaven. Since that time I’ve often thought what a shock it must have been for Grandpa Walkenhorst—if he got to heaven himself—to find out there were Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Catholics in heaven! I’m not quite sure whether he could have adjusted to all that.

Anyway, that Sunday morning was my first introduction to the Holy Spirit. I knew nothing about the third person of the Trinity, but He came with great conviction upon me. And standing there, holding that Methodist hymnal in my hands, I began to shake with great conviction. I was only fourteen year’s old—so I did the only thing I knew to do. I stepped out from where I was standing and went to the front pew, sat down in the corner, and wept. Not out of sorrow, but because of the great feeling that came upon me. Something had happened to me.

One cannot really describe spiritual experiences, because they are spiritual. There are no words in the human vocabulary to describe spiritual things, But I knew, in that exact moment, I had been born again. I never doubted my new birth experience from that moment until this very hour. I knew something had happened to me. I knew my sins had been forgiven. I knew my sins were covered with the blood. In that moment, Jesus Christ became very real to my heart.

My call to the ministry was just as definite as my conversion. You can say anything you want about me, as a woman, having no right to stand in the pulpit and preach the gospel. Yet even if everybody in the world told me that, it would have no effect on me whatsoever. Why? Because my call to the ministry was just as definite as my conversion. And it’s just like that.

I preached my very first sermon in Idaho. I preached to those farmers. Name any little town in Idaho, and you’ll discover that one time, year’s ago, Kathryn Kuhlman came through trying to evangelize it. I would find a little country church that was closed because they couldn’t afford a preacher. I would go to the deacons, or the board, or the members and ask to preach.

I remember going to the head of the board of a Baptist church and saying, “Your church is closed anyway. You haven’t anything to lose, and maybe a little to gain.” And he let me open the church for meetings. Twin Falls, Emmert, Palette, Boise—those were the days when I got my early spiritual training.

All I knew how to preach was salvation, the new birth experience. No one can give any more than what one has experienced himself. All I knew was what I had experienced in that little Methodist church in Concordia. The very first sermon I preached was Zacchaeus up a tree. And God knows if anybody was up a tree, I certainly was when I preached that sermon. I remember well that after the sixth sermon I honestly felt I had exhausted the Bible. I’m telling you the truth. I felt there was nothing more to preach about. Six sermons! I had preached on Zacchaeus, I had preached on heaven, I had preached on hell, I had preached on the love of God—you know—and what more was there to preach about? But years have come, and years have gone, and I have found out that you can never exhaust the deep truths in God’s Word.

I know so well what the Apostle Paul meant when he declared that he was called of God to preach. Why He called me, I do not know. I haven’t the slightest idea why I was chosen to preach the gospel. There are millions who could do a better job, I am sure. Millions better equipped than I.

The only reason I can give you is the fact that I knew I had nothing, and I never, forgot from whence I came. When you have nothing, and you admit you have nothing, then it’s so easy to look up and say, “Lord Jesus, if you can take nothing, use it. Take my hands, take my voice, take my mind, take my body, take my love—it’s all I have. If You can use it, I give it to You.” And He has taken my nothing and used it to His glory.

It isn’t golden vessels He asks for. It isn’t silver vessels. It’s yielded vessels. The secret is yieldedness to the Lord.

One day I will have preached my last sermon, I will have prayed my last prayer, and I will stand in His glorious presence. Oh, I have thought of this many, many times. I have often wondered what would be my first words to Him, the one whom I have loved so long yet have never seen. What will I say when I stand in His glorious presence? Somehow I know the first words I shall say when I look in His wonderful face.

“Dear Jesus, I tried. I didn’t do a perfect job, because I was human and made mistakes. There were failures. I am sorry. But I tried.”

But—He knows that already.

CHAPTER FOUR

Methods

One day, if the Lord tarries His return, there will be advanced technology which God’s people can use to spread the gospel. Until that happens, we use what we have. And the most effective measures I have found are radio and television. I base this on the response we receive to our ministry.

Yet when it comes to the number of letters I receive it’s sort of like the number of folk who come forward when I give an altar call. You have never heard Kathryn Kuhlman say there were 500 who were converted in the service Sunday. I can say to you that there were 500 who came forward, but when it comes to those who were really born again, only God knows that. The same is true when it comes to the response in the number of letters received. People will respond to anything that’s on television. I don’t care what it is. Yet I cannot help but be impressed with the great number who write saying, “I have never in my life written a letter like this. I want to be born again. I watched your telecast. I’m hungry for spiritual experience. I want that more than anything else in the whole world.”

You see, our telecasts are probably different from most telecasts. We do not offer any giveaways. No free books, jewelry, pictures, or prayer cloths. We offer no premiums trying to get people to write us. People write in only because they are hungry for the Lord. They need spiritual help. Our telecasts are supported entirely by the freewill contributions of those who have been so blessed, who have been so helped, those who see the great results from these telecasts. They see it as an investment in the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They know I am not building my own empire. I have all I need or want. Believe me, my only desire is to win souls.

How effective is the TV ministry? I can only tell you that the most unlikely people stop me on the street and say, “I wouldn’t miss one of your telecasts for anything in the world.”

I’ve just returned from one of the most remote parts of the United States. I was shocked to find that everywhere I went, people said, “Oh, you are Kathryn Kuhlman. We watch your telecasts.” I respond at first by saying, “But we’re not on television around here. How do you get it?” Then I discovered it is on cable TV, channeled all over the nation. People I’ve never met, who have never contacted me, have paid to have the program run on their stations.

Seldom do I ever get into a cab but what in hearing my voice the cab driver will say, “Oh, oh, I know that voice. You’re Kathryn Kuhlman. My wife and I watch you on television all the time.” There’s seldom a time I go into a restaurant to eat but what the waitress or the waiter, when I give my order, will say, “That voice—you’ll never know what my family has gotten from your telecasts.”

Financially, the telecasts do not pay for themselves. Sometimes we have to pray like a house afire, as we used to say in Missouri, for the money. But I’m still depending on the Lord to come through. And He’s never failed us yet.

The greatest combination is television and radio. Through means of the radio, we teach. Through television, we testify and inspire. God uses both, and we have an outreach ministry that’s unbeatable.

CHAPTER FIVE

Speaking in Tongues

When it comes to speaking about speaking in tongues, I like just to lay it on the line. That’s the kind of person I am. Do I believe in speaking in tongues? The answer is yes! I have to believe there is such a thing as speaking in an unknown tongue because I believe the Bible. One cannot just take the Word of God and believe only that which is agreeable to them. If you did that, you’d cut out everything you wished was not there. It wouldn’t be long before we’d no longer have a Bible. Thomas Jefferson did that, you know. He published the “Jefferson Bible” from which he had clipped out all he didn’t like. Very few people bought it because it was powerless.

People still want to do that. They keep Psalm 23. They keep everything the Word says regarding heaven. That’s glorious. But either we accept the whole Word of God or we don’t accept any of it. And I’m a firm believer that one needs to stay with the Word of God. If it isn’t in the Word of God, don’t do it. If it is—do it.

We’re in an hour of great deception, and the Lord himself warned us regarding the day in which we are living. If it were possible, He said, the very elect would be deceived. I believe that’s one reason this ministry, through the years, has stood the test of time and the test of the critics. We have no fanaticism. None whatsoever. No one can ever accuse me of being fanatical. Nothing is unseemly in our services. It is done according to God’s Word. It’s scriptural. And it should be so, because the foundation of this ministry is God’s Word.

For so long I was afraid of the word “Pentecostal.” Oh, it was easy to accept everything that was done on the day of Pentecost. Millions still observe Pentecost Sunday. But what millions have not accepted is the fact that we are still living in the day of Pentecost. Everything that happened on the day of Pentecost should be happening in every church in the world at this very hour. The coldness, the deadness, the lack of power in many of our churches today is unnatural, not natural. For wherever you find the Holy Spirit, you’ll find action, you’ll find supernatural manifestations of the mighty third person of the Trinity—including speaking in tongues. The word “Pentecostal” is a word one used to whisper. Now, though—and very boldly—you will find Catholic priests saying, “I am a Catholic Pentecostal priest.” You’ll find a Baptist minister saying, “I am a Baptist Pentecostal minister.” And all those wonderful Lutheran Pentecostals. It’s glorious. Thousands around the world are enjoying the Pentecostal experience.

But remember something. Speaking in an unknown tongue has nothing to do whatsoever with one’s experience of justification. It is the blood that makes the atonement for the soul. I want to repeat it: it is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, that makes us heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. If your sins are covered with the blood, if you have accepted Christ and the forgiveness of those sins, accepting Him as absolute deity and divinity, whether you have ever spoken in unknown tongues or not, when the old heart takes its last beat and your soul goes all the way from earth to glory, you will stand in the wonderful presence of the great High Priest, your Christ, your Redeemer.

The Holy Spirit was not given for our justification. Jesus is the one who effected our justification. But this wonderful experience that the Bible calls the baptism in the Holy Spirit is given for one purpose and one purpose only, and that’s for power for service. Just before Jesus went away, He left a message for the church—the church then, the church now. He said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you...” (Acts 1:8). The greatest evidence of having been filled with the Holy Ghost, the greatest evidence there is, is not speaking in tongues (as wonderful as that is), but power in an individual’s life. You may speak in tongues every hour on the hour, but, my friend, if your life isn’t measuring up with the power of the Holy Ghost, then I wouldn’t give you much for your experience of speaking in an unknown tongue. And it’s just like that.

No one has ever heard Kathryn Kuhlman say that she had one, or more than one, of the gifts of the Spirit. I’m always afraid of the folk who boast of having received special gifts. I’ve come in contact with those who have very boldly stood before me and said, “You know, I have all the gifts of the Spirit.” They say it as though they think they have arrived, and there is nothing more for them. I’m always a little skeptical of those folk. When one has been filled with the Holy Spirit, when one is controlled by the Holy Spirit, he will never be boastful. Never.

That’s the reason I never say I have a particular gift. There is but one gift. The gift given is by Jesus—the person of the Holy Spirit himself. Everything else—tongues, faith, healing, even wisdom—are manifestations the Holy Spirit brings with Him.

All I know is that I have yielded my body to Jesus to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I have surrendered myself to Him. My life is no longer my own. He possesses me: body, soul, and spirit. Anything the Holy Spirit has given me, anything, anything that He does through me, any results that there might be through this life of mine, is not Kathryn Kuhlman, it’s the Holy Spirit. If He has given me something very special, it is still not Kathryn Kuhlman; it is only the working of the Holy Spirit through a yielded vessel. That’s the reason we must be so very careful to give Him the praise and the glory for everything the Holy Spirit does.

The one thing I am so afraid of is grieving the Holy Spirit by trying to share the glory. When the Holy Spirit is lifted from me, I am the most ordinary person who ever lived. There is no woman living today who is more ordinary than Kathryn Kuhlman. I know that better than anyone else. For that reason I cannot boast of something special. All I can do is tell you what the Holy Spirit does—and vow to be very careful to give God all the praise and all the glory for everything.

CHAPTER SIX

God and the Institutional Church

Every Friday for years I have conducted a miracle service in the First Presbyterian Church here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is one of the finest and most influential churches in the nation. The services begin around 9:30A.M. and continue to about 1:30P.M. Every week we see great manifestations of the power of God. They come—Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, every denomination, people from around the world—gathering in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church. Everybody forgets their denominational ties. We worship together on the common ground of Calvary.

What is happening in those meetings in the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh ought to be happening in every church in the United States.

I have a very close tie when it comes to the institutional church. As long as I can remember, Mama was Methodist. Thus I’ve always had a high regard for the Methodist church. Papa was Baptist. And I am still a member of a Baptist church. But if our institutional churches are to be the kind of churches God wants them to be, if they are to carry out the work, the purpose of the Church, they must open their eyes and realize the day and the hour in which we are living.

We’ve come to the place where the world is literally challenging the Church. The youth of this generation have every right to challenge the institutional church. Yet this could well be the finest hour of the institutional church. If only they could realize it. But the Church must do something about the Holy Spirit. The institutional church must realize we are still living in the day of Pentecost. The institutional church must not close its eyes and say, “We will accept only a portion of God’s Word, and forget the rest.” This comes from the highest authority in Heaven and Earth. For to this glorious body of believers that we call the Church (both Catholic and Protestant), Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had been talking to the Father, referring to this body of believers saying, “These that Thou hast given to Me.” And before Jesus went away, He gave to the Church the greatest gift it was possible for Him to give: the mighty third person of the Trinity. The same gift the Father gave to the Son, the Son in turn gave to His own. Long before God gave His only begotten Son, long before Jesus came in the form of flesh to carry out redemption’s plan, the Word of God says He first offered himself through the Holy Spirit to be given. He knew the Holy Spirit better than you, better than I, will ever know the Holy Spirit. He knew the Holy Spirit. He knew the power. He knew He could not go in His own strength, for He was coming to earth in the form of flesh. He would soon become as much man as though He were not God. In perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom, He knew that the hour would come when He would have to stand face to face with satan. He knew that unless He had the glorious power of the Holy Spirit as He walked the earth, He would be powerless in the face of the enemy. He knew it. He recognized it. That’s the reason I say to every minister who stands behind the sacred desk, if Jesus the very Son of the living God needed the Holy Spirit, surely you and I need Him also.

Don’t be afraid of the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid of the power of the Holy Ghost in your ministry. Jesus trusted Him. Jesus had confidence in Him, and He did not fail Jesus. That is the reason before Jesus went away, the very last thing He did was to give this gift to His Church, this great body of believers. And He said, “Ye shall receive power.” To whom was He speaking? Not the unbeliever, but to His own. “And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” What power? The same power that was manifested in His ministry. There was no greater gift ever given to the Church than the gift that Jesus gave—the Holy Spirit, this mighty third person of the Trinity.

The hour has now come for every minister to come face-to-face with the Holy Spirit. That’s the reason I say this could be the finest hour of the institutional church. But if the institutional church will not accept the Holy Ghost, will not accept the manifestations of the Spirit, then, my friends, the Holy Spirit will continue His work in spite of the institutional church. He will carry out God’s plan outside of the institutional church. But it should not be that way. The institutional church should be so powerful that when the world challenges it, when unregenerated man challenges it—it can reply with God’s miracles. God grant that the ministers of the gospel seek God’s best and give the members of their churches the deep truths of the Spirit. We are living in a great hour. God is literally pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh. We are on the threshold of the greatest spiritual awakening, the greatest revival, in the history of the world. But only those who have spiritual ears will hear.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Miracles

“Miracles” may mean one thing to one person and quite something else to another. Webster says that a miracle is an event or an action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws, and so it is thought to be due to supernatural causes, especially to an act of God.

I remember one day coming out of Bullock’s Wilshire Boulevard store in Los Angeles. I had gone in there to get a little something, and I was rushing out of the store when I saw two little boys (I found out later they were brothers), about eight and ten years of age. They were standing outside the store selling candy bars. One came rushing up to me and said, “Miss, would you like to buy a candy bar?” When he looked up into my face, his eyes got big as saucers and he shouted: “Willie! Willie! Here is ‘the miracle lady’! Here is the ‘miracle lady’!”

I just stood there and smiled.

He was so excited, he was stuttering. “You know, I had a miracle happen to me once. I had a wonderful miracle happen to me.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “one day I needed a quarter. I needed it awful bad. I asked God for a quarter. And you know what? I was walking down the street, and there on the street was a quarter! God had made a miracle for me!”

To the little boy, that was a miracle. To a man who needs to be healed of cancer, finding a quarter would not be much of a miracle. The medical profession has told him there is no cure. Then suddenly, in His tender mercy, God reaches down and the supernatural happens. Contradictory to all known scientific laws, the supernatural power of God brings healing. And that is as great a miracle as the little boy’s finding a quarter on the street.

There are two questions I want to ask the Master when I get home to glory. The first one is, “Jesus, why wasn’t everyone healed?” I’d like to know. I don’t have the answer to that question. My second question has to do with the manifestation of the power of God—the slaying power of the Holy Spirit.

I have nothing to do with it whatsoever. I don’t understand that either. Why it is some people fall to the floor when I pray for them. I do know the experience is scriptural. But why it happens in my meetings I do not know. I have read of the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus. Something suddenly happened to him. He found himself physically knocked to the ground. Flat on his back. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there. He didn’t have someone to catch him when he fell either. But the Lord spoke and said, “Come on, get up.” What happened? His face shone with the glory, and he could not answer the question any more than I can answer it. Literally thousands have experienced the slaying power of the Holy Spirit—and they cannot explain it either. All those thousands can tell us today is that it was a supernatural power.

Like all the other miracles, it defies description—defies definition. But, oh, so peaceful. So wonderful. And who needs a definition when they have an experience? Only the skeptics. But there are no skeptics left after God touches. Just amazed believers.

Perhaps it is best expressed in a letter I received from the late Dr. Paul Fryling, pastor of the First Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

We had been in the large arena in Minneapolis. Dr. Fryling was on the front row where several other preachers were seated. When the power of God was falling and people were being slain by the power of the Holy Spirit, Dr. Fryling, too, was slain by the power. Now remember, he was the very conservative pastor of a very conservative church.

After I returned to Pittsburgh, Dr. Fryling’s letter arrived. It said, in part:

People from my congregation and fellow pastors have asked me about the experience of coming under the power of the Holy Spirit, who touched me. To which I can say that it was a very simple and beautiful experience. It was, in fact, the most normal, unsensational spiritual feeling. Far from being, as some might imagine, extremely different from other proper spiritual manifestations, it seemed rather to bring together and harmonize in that moment all the beauty, the charms, which the Holy Spirit had previously given. To be under the Spirit’s anointing is the truly normal state. All else is abnormal.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Women in the Ministry

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I been a man. I really don’t know. For I am very much a woman.

A lot of people seem to think that being a woman in the ministry means I have two strikes against me. I’ve never felt that way. I just lift my chin a little higher and act like I don’t hear the insults. I didn’t ask for this ministry. God knows I’d much rather be doing something else. But He put me in the ministry and those who don’t like having a woman preach should complain to God—not me. It’s just like that.

I’ll tell you something very confidentially—the true conviction of my heart. I do not believe I was God’s first choice in this ministry, in the ministry He has chosen for these last days. It’s my firm conviction. You’ll never argue me out of this conviction. Never. I’m not quite sure whether I was God’s second choice, or even His third choice. Because I really believe the job I am doing is a man’s job. I work hard. Few people know how hard I really work—sixteen, seventeen hours a day. I can outwork five men put together, and I’ll challenge you on this. Only those who know me best know how little sleep I get, the hours I put into the ministry. Those who attend our services know I am on the stage, behind the pulpit, three and a half to four and a half hours. I never sit down.

I believe God’s first choice for this ministry was a man. His second choice, too. But no man was willing to pay the price. I was just naive enough to say, “Take nothing, and use it.” And He has been doing that ever since.

That is why I say to you, I know the power of the Holy Spirit is real. You can’t give without receiving. After all those hours, I can still leave the stage as strong as when I walked on. I have given myself completely to the Holy Spirit. I have given my body as an empty vessel to be used by the Holy Spirit, but as I give, I receive. Even more than I give.

One day in Los Angeles a representative of women’s lib called to ask if I would appear on a television program for women’s lib. I laughed. “You won’t want to hear what I have to say!”

You see, I’d give anything if I could just be a good housewife, a good cook. Oh, I’d like to be a good cook. I’d like to have about twelve children. Sometimes I feel like the mother of the world now. I’ve got so many spiritual children I don’t know what to do. I worry about them. I mother them. I love them. I care for them. It would be so nice to have a man bring in the paycheck. I would just love to have a man boss me. It might not last long, but for a little while it would just be great!

So when it comes to women’s lib, I’m still as old-fashioned as the Word of God. I still think that the husband should be the head of the family. I know how it was at our house. Papa was always the head of the family, and if Papa said it, it was just as though God had said it. We never had any women’s lib at our house, but we had a mighty happy family. Papa did the work, and Mama ran Papa without Papa knowing it. It was a beautiful situation.

A woman’s place is where God puts her. For the housewife and mother, it is with her husband and children. For me it is in this ministry. This is my place, because God put me here.

In 1 Timothy 2:11-12, Paul says, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.” It looks like Paul didn’t believe in women’s lib either. Verse 12: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Let me give you something very simply. I am quite certain that if it was contrary to the will of God to let women preach, Paul certainly would have reprimanded Philip, in whose home he visited. Philip, you remember, had four daughters who were preachers (Acts 21:9). Now that’s a houseful of preachers, I’ll tell you! Paul visited Philip and all four daughters were there. They wouldn’t have missed seeing Paul for anything in the world. But I cannot find a single Scripture that says that Paul forbade these four daughters to preach. Peter quotes Joel in Acts 2:17, saying in the closing hours of this dispensation, not only will your sons prophesy and preach, but your daughters shall also prophesy and preach. Powerful words.

So what do we do about Paul’s command for women to keep silent in the church? Look at the situation. In the synagogues of that day, women would sit in the balcony. This is still done in some parts of the world today, such as India, where the women are on one side and the men on the other. The women would talk so loudly from their places in the balcony that the rest of the people could not hear the speaker. Women are just the same today as they were then. I can just hear John’s wife calling down and saying, “John, do you remember? Did I turn the stove off?” Or maybe they were doing a little voting, and Elizabeth would call down and say, “Abe, say no, say no, you know I don’t like him, don’t put him in office.” They talked so loudly no one else could hear. They just couldn’t keep their mouths shut. So Paul said, “Let the women be quiet.” That did not mean that women were inferior. The Bible teaches that men and women each have their proper places. Each has God-given responsibilities. The man, for example, is the head of the woman. That doesn’t mean he is a tyrant, that he goes around with a big stick. Thank God there is a difference between men and women. But that does not mean that women are somehow lesser—just different. Some of the greatest leaders in Hebrew history were women. I admire Golda Meir very much. She’s a strong personality, a strong leader. What Golda wants, Golda gets. I admire Deborah, a judge of early Israel. I admire Queen Esther. I admire Sarah. I admire Mary, the mother of Jesus. All strong women.

Down through the centuries, in every society, there have been some things men have naturally done and other things women have done. But it was Christianity that freed the woman from her subservient role. I have never understood how any woman could reject Christ, for it was Christ who gave dignity to women. Christians may have problems with women in ministry—but Christ never did. He elevated us. He set us free. I am glad I am a woman.

CHAPTER NINE

What About Those Who Are Not Healed?

Whether one is healed or not is in the hands of God. At no time is it my responsibility. I am not perfect wisdom ... I am not perfect knowledge. I have no healing virtue. I have never healed anyone. I have no power to heal. The whole responsibility rests in the hands of God and the individual. And it’s just like that.

But of course I’m human. No one really knows how I hurt inside when a service is over, and I see those who have come in wheelchairs leaving in the same wheelchairs in which they came. You’ll never know the ache on the inside—the suffering that I feel. But the answer I must leave with God. And one of these days, when I get home to glory, I’m going to ask Him to give me the answer from His own lips, as to why everyone is not healed.

Something happened while I was in Kansas City. The Kansas City Star sent a reporter to the services. I became acquainted with her, a lovely young woman with a keen journalistic mind. She attended all the services, and the last night, following the meeting, she came back to my dressing room. One of my helpers let her in, and she found me crying. She was embarrassed, but I went ahead and just sort of bared my soul to her, forgetting she was a reporter.

I said, “You know, people would think that after a miracle service like this, when scores and scores have been healed, that I would be the happiest person in the whole world. I am grateful I have seen the manifestation of God’s power. But no one knows the hurt and grief I feel for those who were not healed. I wonder if perhaps I had known better how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, more might have been accomplished for God.” I could not hold back the flood of tears, and the reporter finally slipped out.

About three weeks later, I received a letter from this reporter. She said, “I am not writing as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, but as someone who had a friend in that last service. He was an attorney. He was dying of cancer. They brought him in on a stretcher. About a week after you left Kansas City, I went to his home and was greeted at the front door by his wife. She told me Tom had died. I started to leave, but she insisted I come in. Her face was radiant. She said, ‘That service in the auditorium was the greatest thing that happened to Tom. Obviously he was not healed. We took him back home on the same stretcher on which he was carried in. But it was during that service that Tom prepared for death. Lying on that stretcher, while the power of God was falling, my husband accepted Christ and received forgiveness for his sins. Before then, he was struggling. Afterwards, he was peaceful. Death was easy—victorious. It was glorious to hear him thanking Jesus for the forgiveness of his sins.’”

The reporter finished her letter: “Kathryn Kuhlman, don’t weep after a service any more. When you think there should have been greater results than the healing of sick bodies, always remember my friend Tom. The greatest miracle that could have happened to him was the salvation of his soul.”

No, I don’t understand why everyone is not healed physically. But all can be healed spiritually. That’s the greatest miracle any human being can know.

CHAPTER TEN

Healing and the Atonement

Man is a trinity, even as God is a trinity. Jesus died for the whole man: body, soul, and spirit. God would be an unjust God if He permitted His Son to come and die for just a part of man. When Jesus cried on the cross, “It is finished,” the price was paid through the atonement for the whole man, every part of man—his body, his soul, his spirit. The whole debt was paid in full.

I am often asked: “Is there healing in the atonement? Did Christ die to relieve us of our physical as well as spiritual infirmities?” Let’s go back to the first Passover, as recorded in Exodus 12:3-6. “Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.”

In verses seven and eight, it says: “And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread: and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”

It was the first Passover. The blood was to be sprinkled on the lintel of the doorposts of the house, but the flesh of the lamb was to be eaten. We forget the true meaning of the flesh of the lamb. In the Holy Communion—which is the Passover feast of the New Covenant—the meaning of the wine is quite clear to most. Nearly all Christians realize as they hold the cup in their hand, or drink of the wine at the altar, that the shed blood of Jesus Christ makes atonement for the soul. But what about the bread? Every time the bread is served, it should be taken for the healing of the body. The whole man was included in that atonement. That’s the reason Isaiah cried out: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities ... and with His stripes we are healed” (53:5). Yes, there is healing in the atonement. Christ died to give us healing—not only in the spiritual areas, but also for our physical infirmities.

Yet I do not believe anyone can receive a physical healing without also receiving a spiritual healing. The two go hand-in-hand In every one of my miracle services—sometimes right in the middle of the service while bodies are being healed—sinners will come walking down the aisle, weeping, and saying, “I want to be born again.” Yet I have said nothing about salvation or repentance. I have given no altar call. Yet they come. It is the moving of the Holy Spirit. You see, wherever you find a great moving of the Holy Spirit in healing, you will also find Him moving in deep spiritual things. The spiritual healing, which is the greatest of all hearings, always accompanies healing miracles. In fact, that is the very reason for miracles—to glorify God and to draw men and women to Christ.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Prescription for Healing

The greatest enemy a human being can take into his life is fear. If you are able to conquer the enemy of fear, you have come a long way toward bringing health to a physical body.

Life is not built for negative achievement. It’s built for positive contribution, outgoing love.

You can never get rid of your own troubles unless you take upon yourself the troubles of others. When you find yourself oppressed by melancholy, the best way out is to find something you can do for somebody else. When you dig a man out of trouble, the hole which is left is the grave where you bury your own sorrows. Go out each day and do something that nobody but a Christian would do. It won’t be long before you’ll forget about your own troubles.

That, of course, is where the mind enters the picture. I really believe you can talk yourself into being sick. Dwell on the fact you have a little pain, and how that pain increases.

I can always remember Papa saying something. It wasn’t scientific. You won’t find it in the doctors’ manual. It’s just good common sense. He used to say, “Oh, just go out and work it off.” The best medicine in the world is hard work. They’ve got pills for everything today. We’re almost pilled to death. But no one has come up with a capsule which makes people want to work.

Hard work is the best medicine I know anything about. The right mental attitude is glorious. Those who sit around waiting for a miracle will seldom find it. You help God from within by giving to others. When you do, miraculously, your fears, doubts, and self-centeredness will vanish.

Miracles start from within, not from without. Throw your will on the side of outgoing love, and all the healing resources of the universe will be behind you. Try it. It’s the best medicine I know anything about.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Faith

Volumes have been written, more volumes have been spoken regarding that indefinable something called “faith.” Yet in the final analysis, we actually know so little of the subject.

Faith is that quality or power by which the things desired become the things possessed. That is the nearest to a definition of faith attempted by the inspired Word of God. You cannot weigh faith, or confine it to a container. It is not something you can take out, look at, and analyze. You cannot definitely put your finger on it and positively say, “Now, this is faith.” You can no more explain faith than you can describe time or define energy.

In the realm of physics we are told the atom is a world within itself. The potential energy contained within this tiny world bewilders the mind of the average person. If you attempt to define it, you run into difficulties. And so it is with things in the realm of the Spirit—especially faith.

We do know, however, what it is not. One of the most common errors is to confuse faith with presumption. We must be constantly alert to the danger of mistaking one for the other, for there is a vast difference between the two.

For example, there is a pebble on the beach. But the beach is more than one pebble. It is millions of pebbles. And billions of grains of sand. When the pebble asserts that it is the beach, we say to it, “You are assuming too much.” There are many who mix the ingredients of their own mental attitude with a little confidence, a little pinch of trust, a generous handful of religious egotism, quote some Scripture, add some desire—then mix it all together and label it “faith.”

Not so.

Faith is more than belief. It is more than confidence. It is more than trust. It is more than the sum total of all these things—and none of them in particular. Above all, it is never boastful. If it is pure, Holy Ghost faith, it will never work contrary to the will of God.

One of the chief difficulties is our failure to see that faith can be received only as it is imparted to the heart by God himself. You ask me a personal question: “Kathryn, do you have faith for the healing of that physical body, that one who comes to you wanting a healing for cancer?”

(When the prayer requests come through the mail, by the way, the majority are for the healing of cancer.) Do I have faith for the healing? Only if God gives it to me. If I stand praying for someone to be healed of cancer, and if there is faith accompanying that prayer, that faith is definitely a gift from God.

The Word of God teaches that faith is a gift. And Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. One of the chief difficulties is the failure to see that faith can be received only as it is imparted to our hearts by God himself. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot work it up. You can believe a promise and at the same time not have the faith to appropriate that promise. But we have formed the habit of trying to appropriate by belief, forgetting that belief is a mental quality.

Trying to conjure up faith through belief puts us into the metaphysical realm.

I repeat: We have formed the habit of trying to appropriate by belief, forgetting that belief is mental—while faith is from God.

Faith, as God himself imparts to the heart, is spiritual. It’s warm. It’s vital. It lives. It throbs. Its power is absolutely irresistible when it is imparted to the heart by the Lord. It is with the heart that man believes unto righteousness. Heart belief is faith. Mind belief is nothing more than deep desire combined with mental assent.

That’s the reason faith is a struggle with most of us. It is merely an attempt to believe. It may be that with all our struggling we come at last to the place where we do believe. Then we have been bewildered by the fact that we do not receive the thing for which we pray. We must discern that such belief is not necessarily what the inspired Word calls faith.

Matthew 17 is a chapter of contrasts. It climbs to the heights and then goes down to the depths. It talks of mustard seed and mountains. Of despair and transfiguration. What a lesson the Holy Ghost would bring to you on this great subject of faith through the priceless Word of God. Down from the mountaintop came our blessed Lord, down from the gates of heaven where the glory breezes kissed His cheek, where the angels wrapped His shoulders with robes that had been woven on the looms of light. Down from the place of holy communion and encouragement to the place of human defeat and of despair. At the foot of the glory mountain was a gloom valley, and through it ran the trail of human bewilderment. There was sickness there, a crushed and bleeding heart was there, a father who had met an obstacle which had crushed him in spirit and heart was there.

Sure, the preachers were there, too. They had gone through the formulas—they had rebuked the devil, they had shouted and groaned. Yet the thing for which they had prayed had never happened.

Then Jesus spoke. Oh, matchless words of authority. With Him there was no struggle. There was no groaning, no battle that was fierce and long, to bring the answer to a broken father’s prayer. Jesus spoke. The devil fled. A happy boy cuddled in his father’s arms. A grateful father embraced his boy and looked with tear-stained eyes of love and adoration at the face of the man before whom devils fled. Then Jesus spoke. He said, in answer to the bewildered disciples who had tried but failed: “[It was] because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (v.20).

What a statement from the lips of Jesus himself. “And nothing shall be impossible into you.” All we need is faith as big as a grain of mustard seed, and mountains will tremble in fear as we approach.

Do we realize what Jesus was saying? He declared that the least amount of faith that He could give was greater and mightier than the largest amount of the power of the devil. Here was the David of faith combating the Goliath of unbelief. A mustard seed doing battle against a mountain. And faith always wins. But such faith is only given by God—never acquired by works, never bestowed because you gave an offering or even gave your body to be burned. It comes from on high. And it’s just like that.

Did those disciples believe? Yes, they did. They believed in Jesus. They believed His promises. They believed in divine healing, or never would they have held that healing meeting that day. They believed just exactly like you and I have believed in healing services. They prayed, but nothing happened.

What they needed, according to Jesus, was faith. Not a carload of it, but just a little bit, as big as a grain of mustard seed. That would be enough. That would be all that was necessary, if it was really faith.

Let us face the issue squarely. Let us with open, surrendered hearts ask the Holy Spirit to send forth His light and His truth and lead us to that holy hill. Is it not evident that when we pray what we thought was the prayer of faith, and nothing happens, it must be that what we thought was faith was not faith at all. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? It’s so simple. So simple.

When we see the truth, we shall no longer be standing around hour after hour, rebuking commanding, struggling. With faith there is no struggle. There will be a place for intercession. Know that. But when God’s faith is imparted, the storm dies down and there’s a great calm and a deep settled peace in the soul. The only noise will be the murmured voices of thanksgiving and praise. For then the full realization will steal, like morning daybreak, over the soul; it was not our ability to believe that made the sickness go, but rather the faith which God imparted to us through His mercy.

We can believe in healing. We can believe in our blessed Redeemer and His power to heal. But only Jesus can work the works that will lift us to the mountain of victory. Always remember, faith is a gift—given to us by the Giver.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Gift of Healing

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren....

Paul is writing to the Christians, to those who are spiritual.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant (I Cor: 12:1).

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are absolutely, vitally important. They are essential to the functioning of the church. Without them, the Church lacks its spiritual equipment that is outlined in the first epistle to the Corinthians. This twelfth chapter is so necessary for an aggressive conflict with the powers of darkness. Without it the Church is deprived of that edifying enrichment which comes from the manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in her midst.

The Bible is full of God’s supernatural dealings with His people. The experience of regeneration, whereby we become new creatures in Christ, is so supernatural. Christians readily admit that the devil is supernatural in his person, in his powers and activities. Yet those same Christians often shrink from the thought of the supernatural baptism in the Holy Spirit, with supernatural signs attending it and ensuing supernatural gifts. I don’t know why it is that the average minister is so afraid of the supernatural power of God, supernatural manifestations, supernatural gifts. The early Church was founded on the supernatural, and we need to get it back again—or die. Wherever we find the presence of the Holy Spirit, we will always find the supernatural.

The Lord Jesus said, “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also.” He also promised that “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”

But if we ignore the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we despise the heritage which is granted to us in Christ. That is why the Apostle Paul exhorted his friends in Corinth: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.”

Should any man advance the argument that the gifts were bestowed just to usher in the present dispensation, and that they are not for today, we should quote the Apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost. “The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39). Looking down through the telescope of time, he saw the day, the hour, in which we are living. That’s the reason the promise of the Holy Spirit, the promise of the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit, is not limited to the early church. The promise is unto you (those to whom He was speaking) and to your children (the next generation), and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (and that’s us today). When we speak of the power of the Holy Spirit, when we speak of the gifts of the Spirit, we need to remember it is the heritage of the Church today. Every Christian should be enjoying the supernatural.

If a person is called to be a son of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, that person is also in consequence a prospective recipient of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It’s that simple. It’s just like that.

What do the Scriptures say? “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” The apostle is pointing out that though the gifts are different one from the other, their origin—or their source—is the same. Gifts of the Spirit are really various manifestations of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit manifests himself in different and distinctive ways. The gifts function differently in each individual. Take, for example, the working of miracles. In Elijah, it was associated with the mantle he wore. In Moses, it was with the rod that had been changed into a serpent. In Samson, the miraculous power was inseparable from his hair, which was his sign of submission, so he remained supernaturally strong when the Spirit was upon him. However, in each instance, it was the manifestation of the same gift, although the operations were so different.

The self-same Spirit divides to every man severally as He wills. It is the prerogative of the Spirit to give us what gifts He sees most suitable for the individual.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, we read that while we are to covet earnestly the best gifts, the apostle will show us a more excellent way. What is the more excellent way? It is to seek the love of God first, and to desire the gifts of the Spirit in order that we may serve God better. The answer is given in 1 Corinthians 14: “Follow after charity [or love], and desire spiritual gifts.”

If we put spiritual gifts before the love of God, we shall make a very serious mistake. For the first and the most important thing is love.

Those who love God will normally desire spiritual gifts, since they are manifestations of His Spirit, given for His glory and for the enrichment of His church.

Why do so few people have the gift of healing? That is not a legitimate question. For to one is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom. Why not ask: “Why are there so few who have been given the word of wisdom?” To another the word of knowledge. Why are there so few to whom has been given the gift of knowledge? To another faith by the same Spirit. Then comes the gift of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, tongues, the interpretation of tongues. There are far more gifts than those that Paul named here. Don’t limit the Holy Spirit, whatever you do. Don’t limit Him to just nine gifts. There are more. Many more.

I have come to the conclusion that He who is perfect wisdom, and perfect knowledge, who knows the individual better than that individual knows himself, knows whom He can trust with certain gifts.

It’s something like the man who asked: “Why doesn’t God bless me with riches?” Yet the same man who asks that question has not been obedient to God with that which he has. He doesn’t even give his tithe, that part which is rightfully God’s. If he is not obedient with that with which he has, God will not trust him with more.

Why, bless you, if God were to give certain people a gift, they would misuse that gift within the first twenty-four hours. God knows exactly what He is doing. And that is the reason, you see, I do not brag and say I possess any spiritual gift. No one has ever heard Kathryn Kuhlman say she possessed a certain gift. Do you want to know why? Because I know that along with every special gift is also a great responsibility. And that responsibility calls for us to give all the glory to God, and not even talk about the gift—but always the Giver. It is He whom we praise, not the gift.

I think sometimes people become weary of hearing me say, “Kathryn Kuhlman has nothing to do with it. Kathryn Kuhlman has never healed anyone.” Yet I know the truth of that statement better than anyone else. I know, better than anyone, it is all the supernatural power of God. My responsibility is to be very careful to give God the praise, to give God the honor, to give God all the glory. I must guard that which He has given me very carefully. For one day, when I stand in His glorious presence, I am going to have to give an account of that with which He has entrusted me today.

Look up just now, and remember you are His child, and these things that I have been talking about are a part of your inheritance. Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? He’ll fill all that you yield to Him. Do you want to be given a gift of the Spirit? Search your own heart. See whether you’re being faithful and true to Him with that which He has entrusted to you now. And above all, remember the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given for one reason alone—to glorify the Son of God. Anything less is an abuse of that which is most precious to the Father.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ultimate Victory

I have come to the conclusion that this age knows almost everything about life—except how to live it. It’s not enough to know about life, we must know how to live life.

We’ve handed over our bodies to the doctors, our minds to the psychiatrists, and our souls to the ministers. But we are not three separate entities. Man is a trinity: body, soul, and spirit. Life is a whole. You cannot affect one part without affecting all three.

Doctors vary in their estimate as to the percentage of people who pass on mental and spiritual sicknesses to their bodies. Such illnesses are called psychosomatic: physical illness whose origin is mental or spiritual. It’s easy to pass on a mental or spiritual sickness to your body. A doctor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has contacted me very often. On several occasions he has come up to the office to see me. He said, “You know, Kathryn, I am deeply interested in that which you teach. I have been listening very closely and watching your ministry very closely. I would like to bring into my practice as a doctor that which you give as a minister.” For, he said, “the combination of both would make for a perfect practice.”

They tell me that in a group of Johns Hopkins doctors, one psychiatrist said 40 percent of the cases that come to their clinic are mental and spiritual in origin. Many doctors estimate the cases as high as 80 percent.

Man was made to give himself to a higher power than himself. In other words, man is going to be mastered by something. If you are not mastered by God, then you are going to be mastered by things. Or by circumstances. That’s the reason a Christian need never go down in defeat. Never. No man, no woman, if his confidence is in God, need ever go down in defeat. A Christian knows where to go and what to do in his hour of disappointment. “I’m not going to be mastered by things or circumstances!” is one of the greatest declarations a Christian can utter. The man who is completely mastered by the will of God will never be mastered by anything else.

If you are completely mastered by the will of God, you will not be defeated in the hour of sickness, in the hour of mental strain, in the hour of disappointment, in the hour of temptation.

You and I are not only conquerors, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. Even sorrow, disappointment, and death cannot master us. But when we take our eyes off Jesus, when we refuse to submit to His lordship, His ownership, we gradually turn the control of our lives over to circumstances. Sickness takes over. And we are mastered by things.

That’s the reason I say the greatest healings are not of the body, but of the spirit. If, with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, I can get through to the mind of an individual and allow him to see that God is still God Almighty, bigger than his sorrow, greater than his heartbreak, more powerful than his circumstances, then he can finally understand he does not have to go down in defeat. Jesus has given to each of us all the necessary resources for health and abundant life. All things are at our disposal, and we can live an abundant and victorious life through Christ. “As a man thinketh, so is he.” If you think defeat, you will be defeated. If you think discouragement, you will be a discouraged person. You can’t think pain without feeling pain. You can’t think sickness without being sick. It all goes together.

Oh, don’t go down in defeat. Don’t be a person who is beaten. God is still God Almighty. The God of Abraham is still our God, the God of Elijah is still our God. The God who made the iron to swim is still God Almighty. The God who sent the water from the rock, the manna from heaven, is still alive. The God who supplied the little widow with her meal and her oil is still God Almighty. There is no uncertainty about that.

Don’t be mastered by things. Be mastered by God. Then when afflictions do come (and no human being is immune when it comes to disease and affliction), you will be victorious. No human body is immune from cancer. I believe in divine healing. I preach divine healing. I believe in the power of God to heal bodies. But in spite of all this, my own physical body is not immune to cancer. I think of that so very often. My own physical body. I’m still in the flesh. The mortal has not yet put on immortality. This which is corruption has not yet put on incorruption. I’m still a part of humanity. I’m still living in the flesh. Sickness may come to my body. But when it does, there is a heavenly Father, there is a God to whom I can go. I may die, but I will not go down in defeat. A million times I’ve wondered what people do in an hour of tragedy who do not have a simple confidence in God Almighty. They are defeated. They are beaten. Many give themselves to self-pity. But for those who are “in Christ,” there is no defeat. Death? Yes! For all of us. But we are not only conquerors, we are more than conquerors in the face of tragedy, seeming defeat, affliction, even death. Cancer, heart disease—these may be the agents which snuff out our lives. But God is still God. And in the end—when all else is past and only the issues of life and death remain—God is in control.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Faith and Gumption

Every person has a problem on his hands. That problem is life. I never hold a tiny baby in my arms but what I think, “You dear little thing, you precious little baby, if only you knew what you are up against: just being a part of humanity.” Yes sir, everybody has the problem of life on his hands. And I’ll promise you something. If you do not know what to do with life, life will find something to do with you.

Almighty God knew what He was doing when He created you. He had a purpose for you, a purpose for your life. In order for you to carry out that purpose, He gave you the marvelous capacity to develop faith. Thus, the man who has no faith is defeated before he begins.

Dr. Wernher von Braun, the man who developed our space industry, said, “Today, more than ever before, our survival (yours and mine and our children’s) depends on our adherence to ethical principles.” Then he continued to say, “Belief in God gives us the moral strength and the guidance we need for virtually every action in our daily lives.” Now we would expect words like that coming from a preacher, a priest, or a minister of the gospel. But these words came from the pen of one of the world’s greatest scientists.

Faith is so great, so powerful a force, that when taken in the soul and lived by, it can see you through anything. I do not speak these words lightly, for I am fully aware of the fact that there are those who this very moment are filled with grief, trouble, doubt, and conflict. Yet it is to you I speak—you who have feelings of complete defeat and despair.

But I want you to know something. Against these feelings, against your utter defeat, against your grief, your trouble, your doubt, I offer you the power of God’s tremendous Word. If you have faith, nothing shall be impossible to you. Faith is such a powerful force that when taken into the soul and lived by, it can see you through anything in life.

Millions of words have been written about success. But if these millions of words could be squeezed out in just three short, meaningful words, I believe the formula for success would read: faith and gumption.

Of course the Bible speaks of this in just a little different terms. The Bible says, in James 2:26:

“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” There is nothing quite as dead as the physical body when the spirit has left—unless it is faith without works.

This gets right down to where we live. Anyone can wish for success, but it takes gumption to make things happen. Faith and wishing are not enough. You can have all the faith in the world, but if all you do is sit there claiming faith, and wishing that something would happen, you will sit from now to doomsday and nothing will happen. Works without faith is dead. But faith without works will leave you in the state of accomplishing nothing. You must put forth effort to achieve. It takes gumption.

There is a certain man in Missouri who has a keen, marvelous mind. When he was seventeen years of age, the head of Sweeney School for Mechanics in Kansas City, Missouri, said the lad was a mechanical genius. He was a natural to succeed in the field of aviation. He was such a marvelous genius that the government sought his services at the air base in Wichita, Kansas. All his associates described him as a mechanical genius.

But you know how he spent his life? I’ll tell you. Sitting in a comfortable chair resting. Just resting. That man is my brother. He never has had anything. He never will have anything. Do you want to know why? Oh, sure, he has the mentality. He has the brains. But no gumption.

One day I got so exasperated. I sat down beside Mama and I said, “You know something, Mama? That son of yours is the laziest man God ever let live.” Mama just smiled. I can see it just as well as if it had happened only fifteen minutes ago. She said very sweetly, “Now, Kathryn, you know Boy hasn’t been very well physically since his last operation.” Since his last operation? The only operation he ever had was an appendectomy when he was fifteen years old. And he never had a sick day since.

I said, “Mama, what operation?”

“Oh,” she said, “that operation he had when he was fifteen years of age and had appendicitis. It took a lot out of him.”

That’s mother’s love.

But I’ll tell you something, no mother’s tender love will ever make a success out of any precious boy. It still takes gumption. If you don’t make an effort, you’ll never succeed.

Now I’m going to say something that a lot of people are going to resent. Sickness can come to anyone. So can disaster and misfortune. But in most instances they are only temporary. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of people on relief today, drawing monthly relief checks from our government, all because they lacked gumption. They let the temporary misfortunes become permanent. Many, many people could once again become productive and creative if they would just get up and do something about their condition.

From exactly the same materials, one man builds palaces while another builds hovels. And often the one who builds his hovel is jealous and critical of the one who has worked like a dog and built his mansion.

I know plenty of people who have failed, who have more brains and stronger physical bodies than the ones who have been successful. But they lacked the gumption to succeed.

There are no limitations to what faith and gumption can accomplish. Absolutely none. As long as your faith in God is intact, all the reservoirs of power are at your disposal.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil.4:13). There is no exception. That’s the Word of God, and you can stake your very life on it.

But hear me. God won’t do a thing to help you bring it to pass until you get up and out of that chair and start doing something about it. Faith without works, faith without gumption, is dead. But with God’s power, and your gumption, the opportunities are unlimited.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hard Work: The Secret of Success

Let’s start with the revealing words of a man who rose from humble beginnings to amass one of the great fortunes of our time. Says he, “I have succeeded not because I have any more ability than people who have not succeeded. But because I applied myself harder and stuck to it longer.”

I know plenty of people who have failed to succeed in anything, who have more brains than I have. No. It’s not brains. It’s simply because they lacked application and determination.

I know an executive who started from scratch and had to hurdle many obstacles and disappointments on the way. The man who reaches the top is the one who is not content with doing just what is required of him. He does more. He makes up his mind that if he expects to succeed, he must give an honest return for the other man’s dollar. You absolutely cannot get around it, that is the basic law of success. When you’ve got a job to do, do it with enthusiasm and do it well.

A friend of mine told me about a famed captain of industry who once said, “Give me the choice between a man of tremendous brains without tenacity, and one of ordinary brains but with a great deal of tenacity, and I will select the tenacious one every time. A determined man can do more with a rusty wrench than a loafer can do with all the tools in the machine shop.”

Isn’t that a knockout? That’s great.

You need to have confidence that if you’ve done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well too. A man who emerged from obscurity at the age of forty, to become one of the great wizards of mass production, reminds us that nothing is especially hard if divided into small jobs. An executive who made an outstanding success of his life candidly admits that his chief starting assets were nothing more than a friendly smile, a cooperative spirit, an enthusiastic earnestness to pitch in and get things done. There are no limitations to what you can do, except the limitations in your own mind. Don’t think that you can’t do it. Think you can, and you will.

“Concentrate on the business in which you are engaged,” advised a mighty tycoon. “Resolve to lead in it. Adopt every improvement. Know the most about it, and do not be impatient. The man who informs himself about his firm, its methods, and its products, who does his work so well that there is no need to follow him to patch up the ragged edges, is on the safest, surest, and sharpest road to achievement.”

You see, the surest way to qualify for the job ahead is to work a little harder than anyone else on the job. Employers are constantly seeking men who do the unusual. Men who think. Men who attract attention by performing more than is expected of them. These men have no difficulty making their worth felt. They stand out above their fellows. There is plenty of room for all, and plenty for all in this abundant land. So start working.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Determination

By all means, start now. For this business of making a success of oneself boils down to these simple but oh, so important steps:

First, if you seriously want success, you must go after it with all your heart and soul. With all the energy, all the enthusiasm you possess. You must work, act, live for the goal you seek.

Second, you must not be jarred or discouraged by disappointments and snags. You must take them in stride with a smile. And do not let the pricks of friends, or would-be friends, turn you for a single moment from your aims.

Third, it’s the man who goes about his work with unruffled calm, who is not afraid to cooperate, who welcomes suggestions and criticism, who is always willing to learn, who keeps an open mind and an attentive ear and an observing eye. Who gives the very best that is in him, day in and day out. He’s the one who is sure to get ahead, to be a success.

It takes gumption, but the rewards are great. The opportunities are unlimited.

The same principles that are used in the making of a successful business apply to the Christian life.

If you want to be a successful Christian, you must set your mind to it and never look back. Do you really want to be a Christian? Do you really want the joy of salvation? Do you really want the peace of God in your heart and your mind? You can have it if you want it. But “want” is the key word.

If you’ve made up your mind you want to be a successful Christian, Jesus will come into your heart and into your life in a glorious born-again experience. Then you must work, act, live for the goal you seek. Not just on Sunday. It’s your life. Make up your mind it will be your life. Go in for it with everything you’ve got. You can give no less of yourself in being a successful Christian than you can give in being a successful businessman, or a success in anything you do in life.

That’s why we have some backsliders today. They never went into this thing of being a Christian with everything they had. But it takes exactly that to live a daily, successful Christian life.

“As thy day, so shall thy strength be,” the Bible says. It’s a day-to-day proposition.

Sure, there will be obstacles. There will be trials. There will be heartbreak. There will be temptations. But if you live your Christian life one day at a time, you will meet that temptation. The Holy Spirit will be your holy strengthener. You must not be daunted or discouraged by disappointment or snags. Take them in stride, with a smile. No man, no woman need ever be defeated in this thing of being a successful Christian, unless he or she allows himself to be defeated.

Sure, it will cost you something. Success doesn’t just happen. But I promise you something. The rewards are great, the opportunity unlimited.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Missouri Cornbread

If other folks should open my mail, not knowing anything about my ministry, they wouldn’t know what to think when they began reading a letter saying, “Oh, Kathryn Kuhlman, we just love your Missouri cornbread.” But you see, I can’t help it if I’m simply—and sometimes—corny. I’m just like that. Sometimes I spread a little butter on my cornbread, sometimes it’s Missouri ’lasses, but most times it’s just plain cornbread.

One lady wrote and said, “Honestly, I’d give anything in the world if I really could see the kind of cornbread your mother made.” Well, maybe nobody else thought it was tops, or the world’s greatest, but I sure did enjoy it.

And that’s the way I feel about being a Christian. About preaching. About the Word of God. How often I’ve walked off the stage or the platform after a service and said to myself, “Well, if nobody else enjoyed the sermon, I sure did!” Nobody enjoys being a Christian more than I do. That’s right. I enjoy it. I enjoy my salvation. I enjoy being born again. I enjoy this Christian life and Christian living. I wouldn’t exchange it for anything I know anything about.

If I thought there were something better, I’d go after it. But Christianity is the best thing I know. Oh, I enjoy preaching. I’d rather preach than eat, sleep, or do anything else I know anything about. There’s not a person in the whole world who enjoys preaching any more than I do. The same thing is true of reading my Bible. I can’t read the Word of God without getting blessed. It just does something to me. But most of all, I enjoy my relationship with my heavenly Father. That’s what being a Christian is all about.

There are certain laws which if followed will bring success. There’s no need for failure—not among Christians. If you follow these spiritual laws, you will be a success, not only in God’s eyes, but in your own, too.

The defeated life has never been part of God’s plan. He has given us every implement, every tool that is needed to live a daily successful Christian life.

Do you think that it’s ever in the plan of God, in the mind of Jesus, for any person to be defeated in their Christian life? Do you think Jesus ever had such a thought? Of course not. If you are defeated in your Christian experience, it’s because you have yielded to defeat—not because He was not there to give you everything that would take you through to certain victory.

Paul said, “I can do all things—not in myself, not because I will to do all things, not because of mental attitudes, not because of positive thinking—through Christ.” He is saying there is no need for defeat in your life. All the days of your life you are His child. For each child of God, there is a daily rate of strength, a daily giving of courage, a daily impartation of His faith to you.

If I am ever defeated, I can blame only myself. If you are ever defeated, you have only one person to blame. How easy it is to blame someone else. Everybody else. That’s one of the weaknesses of human nature. It all goes back, you know, to Adam and Eve. Oh, sure, “He tempted me.” “They did this.” “I’m not to blame, it’s all him.” Uh-huh. That’s the weakness in human nature.

But when it comes right down to it, when we look ourselves directly in the face, we can put the blame only on ourselves. We can’t put it on the neighbors, or even the in-laws. The only person left to put it on is God, and since we feel He can’t talk back to us, we blame Him.

Others, fearing God, blame the devil. Oh, I tell you, that is the one thing that gets me. These people who blame the devil for everything that happens. “I tell you, Kathryn Kuhlman, the devil did this to me. Everything would have come out all right, but the devil did this, and the devil did that....”

Go to the nearest mirror. Stand before that mirror. And you will see right where you should put the blame. Be big enough to lay the blame exactly where it belongs.

I believe in satan. I believe in the power of the evil one. But he will never be able to defeat you any more than he was able to defeat the One whom you love—the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus did not yield to defeat, He did not yield to temptation. Neither do you have to be defeated by satan, neither do you have to yield to temptation, or defeat, or failure.

Somebody says, “Was that the kind of cornbread your mother made in Missouri?” Well, she said it was good for me, and it must have been, because I grew up to be a mighty healthy Missourian, and a healthy Christian as well.

It’s one thing to have that experience of being born again, that experience where you know that you have passed from death unto life. It is the greatest transaction in the life of any human being. Yet there are literally thousands who have had this wonderful experience, who wipe away the tears from their cheeks, and then get up from their knees and believe that is all there is to the Christian life.

But my friend, that’s just the beginning. You have only started. You need to go on to improve your knowledge regarding the things of God. You have not used everything you can to know the most about that which you’ve taken into your heart, into your life.

Here we are, living in the closing moments of this dispensation. What a thrilling hour to be alive. This is the day of great adventure for God’s children. He is pouring out His Spirit upon thousands throughout the world.

But do you realize how few people who are filled with the Spirit know what to do with this experience after they’ve been filled? Few are those who know the real scriptural purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s right. That’s the reason so many are bringing a reproach on this beautiful experience. They are bringing a reproach on the person of the Holy Spirit. Because they have been filled without the knowledge of the Word.

The worst ignorance in the world is spiritual ignorance. There is nothing, worse than an overdose of zeal without spiritual knowledge, without the knowledge of the Word. Christians need to go deep into God’s Word. You must not be satisfied just to know your sins are forgiven. The Bible must become, literally, a part of your flesh, a part of your life, a part of your living, a part of your breathing.

So here we are, my friends, in this hour so full of adventure, in this day that is the greatest day in human history. We are God’s children. The Holy Spirit is being poured out on all flesh. The best of the wine has been saved for the last. There is so much that is ours, yet we know not what to do with it.

One of the secrets I learned early in life is this: “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy2:15).

That’s just plain old Missouri cornbread. It’s up to you. God will do the rest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Nerves

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. (Prov: 23:7)

Nervous diseases are not diseases at all, but are varied degrees of emotional outbreaks. No condition or set of circumstances is in itself a calamity to be feared. Always remember that. It is our little reaction to it that makes it a Waterloo or a field of triumph. It’s just like that.

The brain can be likened to the central office of a telephone or telegraph system. Each brain cell appears to be a minute telephone apparatus through which messages are sent to different parts of the body, or through which calls are received from different parts of the body: stomach, liver, fingers, toes, skin, and so on.

The “wires” that connect the brain to the parts of the body are called nerves. They are threads of living tissue consisting of a central core surrounded by membrane, resembling the wire in its insulated covering.

If we follow a nerve from its beginning (perhaps in a cell in the skin), we find it ends up in a brain cell. Bear in mind one thing, however, that the nerves are only a means of communication. They do not govern anything.

Thus in most cases when a person complains of his “nerves,” he doesn’t know what he is talking about. In most of these so-called nervous conditions, the nervous system (the machinery) is found to be in perfect order. Therefore, the trouble must be deeper than that. It is here we come to that unseen worker within who presides over the central office and uses this wonderful mechanism to control the body. We call that worker the “mind.”

We must realize that any of these so-called nervous conditions (from the simplest case of fidgets to the most pronounced hysteria) is caused by some state of mind which interferes with the orderly control of the affairs of the body.

If we understand this point, we are in a position to deal with these conditions.

Let’s take, for instance, the hand. I sometimes find my hand is trembling. I say, “My hand trembles. It must be my nerves. Something is upsetting me terribly.”

Your hand trembles and you say you are nervous. For some reason you are not able to exercise the normal control over the muscles. This is caused by a state of mind. In other words, what we call nervousness is a partial loss of control in the central office. When this becomes acute, we have a condition called hysteria. (All of us know people, some maybe in our own families, who become hysterical at the slightest provocation.) When you let your feelings take charge and give up all self-control, hysteria (or some form of it) is the natural result.

Years ago I was in a Baptist church holding a two-week revival meeting. I was young then and inexperienced. I was staying in the home of one of the church members, a nice little old maid in her seventies. I slept in the guest bedroom. I remember it so vividly because it was election week the year the late Mr. Roosevelt was running for the third term as president.

Miss Anna (my hostess) had a close friend who was probably seven or eight years older than herself. She was a large, portly woman who was absolutely dead set against Mr. Roosevelt’s election to a third term. She was so determined that she had embarked on a one-woman campaign to stop him. Her husband was very wealthy, and she had spent literally thousands of dollars on her campaign.

Well, election night rolled around and she was absolutely exhausted from the mental strain and physical effort. About 7:00P.M. her husband said, “You go to bed. You must get some rest. When the last returns come in, I’ll call you. You won’t miss anything.”

She retired feeling confident she would awaken to a great celebration—a great personal victory.

Those of you who were living then know what the returns were like. Mr. Roosevelt was swept in for the third term. I shall never forget. The telephone rang at Miss Anna’s house. It was the husband of the other woman who was still asleep. He said, “Anna. Come quickly. Mr. Roosevelt, won, and it will kill my wife. When she awakens and I have to tell her, it will be the death of her. She’ll suffer a heart attack. Come quickly and help me tell her.”

Miss Anna said, “Kathryn, I’ll be back in a little bit. I don’t know how long it will be.”

She told me later what happened. It was 2:00A.M. and Miss Anna tiptoed into the room with the smelling salts. She had taken every precaution to keep the older woman from suffering a complete collapse.

She awoke and saw Miss Anna by her side. “Anna? What happened? Did we win?”

Miss Anna, with the smelling salts in her hand, came close to her old friend and said, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Roosevelt is in for the third term.”

The portly woman sat up in bed. With her chins up in the air and her nose higher than ever, she said, “Anna! Anna! We’ll just act like it never happened.”

And to her dying day she never discussed it with anyone. She never acknowledged the fact that Mr. Roosevelt was in office. She just acted as though it never happened. Her heart kept right on beating and not a nerve in her body was affected.

This is one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned. Never a week goes by, believe me, without something happening that could upset me terribly. I could go into a thousand pieces. When you deal with human lives as I do, it is the hardest work in the world. Believe me! But over and over again I have done what that portly woman did. I have said to myself, “Kathryn, just act as though it never happened.” It’s one of the best ways in the world to accept hurt and disappointment.

Sure, it doesn’t change the condition or the circumstances. But I become master over that thing rather than having it master me. It’s just like that!

Do you want to know something? A healthy, wholesome mind is better than silver, better than gold, better than all the material blessings in the world. It’s the truth. An undivided mind—a mind void of fear, anxiety, worry, pettiness—a mind free from jealousy, selfishness, envy—is one’s greatest possession outside one’s salvation.

As a man thinketh, so is he. Hold in mind that nothing you fear is as bad as the fear itself. If you keep that mind intact, if you keep the center of your life intact, then you can come back from anything. But if your mind is filled with worry, fear, jealousy, pettiness, littleness—you’ll be knocked down and defeated by happenings whether they are real or imaginary.

What’s the answer? How can you overcome this condition? The answer lies in fastening your attention not on the thing to be feared, not in the circumstances or the situation around you, not on individuals or personalities—but on Christ.

Remember, you are His. He will defend you. He will protect you. You are His and He claims you now against all adversaries. You are His and no one else can have power over you. You are His and therefore you should trust Him with complete confidence today, tomorrow, and until that last day when your redemption is perfected and you stand in His glorious presence.

Wonderful Jesus, give me a mind that is free from fear, free from worry, free from jealousy. Give me a healthy mind, for this is my greatest possession outside of my salvation. For Jesus’ sake I ask it. Amen!

CHAPTER TWENTY

Success and Enthusiasm

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. (Rom: 12:1)

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Phil: 4:13)

Nobody enjoys being a Christian more than I. That’s right. I enjoy it. I enjoy my salvation. I enjoy being born again. I enjoy this Christian living. I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world. That’s the truth. If I thought there was something better I’d go after it. If I knew of anything better, I’d tell you about it. But there isn’t anything better, believe me.

Yet sometimes I find God’s children so lacking in enthusiasm. I honestly believe we have given the skeptics cause to make much of the idea that God is dead. An awful lot of Christians are going around as though they were at God’s funeral—in mourning every day, black veils, long faces—all leaving the impression that perhaps God actually did die.

That always gets to me. Look at the crowds in the baseball stadium. Even when the Pirates are losing, the Pittsburgh fans yell and scream for their team. Talk about enthusiasm!

Why do God’s children so often show less enthusiasm than sports fans? We’ve got something to get excited about. We’re on the winning side. Our team will never be defeated. Beloved, we’ve got something to rejoice about and shout about. A Christian armed with the Word of God and the person and power of the Holy Spirit is fully equipped for victory. He can do far more than one who is not born again can do with all the tools, machinery, and organizations combined.

Can you see why I’m enthusiastic about this business of being a Christian?

A noted executive who started from scratch flatly asserts: “The man who reaches the top is the one who’s not content with doing just what is required of him. He does more.” This is one of the basic laws of success, and you cannot get around it.

The man who’ll go that second mile, the man who’ll give more than is expected of him is the man who succeeds. Enthusiasm and success go hand in hand.

When you have a job to do, do it with enthusiasm and do it well.

I guess I am a perfectionist when it comes to doing things for God. I can’t help it. I want things done as near perfect as possible. I want every letter that goes out of my office to be as near perfect as possible. When you get a letter from me, I promise you it’s the best I can do, because that letter doesn’t represent Kathryn Kuhlman, it represents the One whom I serve—Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

You know, if some of the folk who are doing, such a sloppy job for the Lord were to do the same kind of sloppy job for their employer they’d no longer be employed.

Many years ago I had a printing job that needed to be done. I sent it to a printer in Pittsburgh. When I saw the finished material, I was aghast. The imperfections were almost unforgivable. I called the printer and asked him to please come back and pick up his work. I couldn’t accept it.

Do you know what he said? He said, “Well, Miss Kuhlman, I figured that since yours is a religious organization, the people wouldn’t notice a few mistakes.”

I said, “Sir, you wouldn’t think of doing a poor job for Mr. Harris of the Ice Capades. You know he would have demanded perfection, and you would have given him a perfect job. I represent something that’s greater than the Ice Capades. You may not look on it as such, but this workmanship as it’s sent out represents the greatest company in the world—a corporation of three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I want perfection for them.”

I believe that. I don’t think we should give Him anything less than our best. You and I have no right to give Him anything less than we would give our employer. That’s right. When God gives you a job to do, do it with enthusiasm and do it well.

Jesus didn’t give a part of himself on the cross. He gave it all. He didn’t spare a thing. And if you want to be a successful Christian, if you want to be all that God wants you to be, then, beloved, it means you’re going to have to give yourself completely and entirely to Him. “Present your bodies a living sacrifice,” Paul says. This and this alone is a “reasonable service.” Jesus asks our all, our best, because He gave His all, His best.

You see, there are certain laws that govern success. If you’re living a defeated Christian life, you can be sure it’s not part of God’s plan for you. God wants you to succeed. He has given you everything, you need to live daily a successful Christian life.

I would have been defeated. I would have been snowed under a long time ago if I’d had to live my whole Christian life in just one day. If I had known at the age of sixteen what I would have to go through before I reached this stage of my life, I would have said, “I can’t do it. I’ll never make it.” But that’s not the way one lives the Christian life.

A man who emerged from obscurity at the age of forty to become one of the great wizards of mass production reminds us that nothing is especially hard if divided into small jobs. That’s the secret of living a successful Christian life, too. God has promised us strength, but only for one day at a time.

“As thy days, so shall thy strength be,” Moses told Asher. Yes, no matter what the day holds. If it’s sorrow, He’ll be the glorious strengthener. If death comes, He’ll give you grace. If you’re faced with temptations, all you have to do in that moment is call on the name of the Lord. He’ll give you the victory.

You and I can conquer anything. I don’t care how big the job, if it’s divided into small jobs, it can be done. All of us can live victoriously and gloriously through Christ who strengthens us.

Dear Jesus, thanks a million for Your blessed promises of victory. Teach us Your Word and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we might do all things through Your strength. In Your blessed name I pray. Amen!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Going Under the Power

I had just returned from lunch and was met by three men who were waiting for me in my office on the sixth floor of the Carlton House in Pittsburgh. I recognized two of them as prominent Presbyterian ministers in the city. They introduced the third man as a professor of theology from a well-known theological seminary in the East.

“My friend said he had heard of you and your miracle services,” one of the ministers said. “He wanted to stop by and meet you before leaving town.”

I welcomed him and showed him through our offices. We went back into our recording studio where we make the tapes for our radio programs, and then I gave him copies of some of our literature. As we walked back into the front offices, the professor got up enough courage to ask a question which obviously had been bothering him.

“Miss Kuhlman, even though I teach theology, there is still a great deal I don’t know about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In particular, there is one facet of your ministry which leaves me completely baffled.”

“Well, ask me. Chances are I don’t understand it either.”

“Well, it’s about all this fainting. I understand from my friends that in your meetings you often pray for people and they, they, sort of, well, faint.”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “They don’t faint. They simply fall under the power of God.” I gave him a brief explanation. He smiled politely but was still obviously puzzled. It was time for them to go.

We were standing in the doorway that leads from my office into the hall on the sixth floor of the hotel. He looked at me and said, “I may never see you again. Would you say a word of prayer for me?”

You know, I still think God has a sense of humor, for as I took a step toward him and extended my hand to place on his shoulder to pray for him, his legs suddenly buckled under him and he fell backwards to the floor. I didn’t even have a chance to begin my prayer with “Dear Jesus” when suddenly he was on his back on the carpet in my office. And it was as though the whole room were filled with the glory of God,

I shook my head and looked down as both Presbyterian ministers dropped to their knees beside him. The secretaries at their typewriters had stopped typing, and I glanced up and saw their faces bathed in tears. There was a heavenly light filling the entire office suite.

The ministers helped the professor to his feet. He was wobbly, and staggered back a couple of steps.

One said, “Are you all right?”

He stuttered for words, and all he could say was “Wheew!” and down he went again, flat on his back on the carpet.

His friends helped him to his feet and he started out the door, still shakin his head with a glow on his face that must have been like the glow that was on the face of Moses when he returned from Mt. Sinai. “Wheew!” he kept saying over and over again.

He was staggering, as if drunk, and he missed the door and walked into the side of the wall. The ministers grabbed him by the arms and pointed him toward the door as he wobbled out, his face still bathed in that heavenly light.

I contend these physical bodies are not wired for so much power. One of these days, mortal will put on immortality, but here in the flesh we can take only so much of God’s dynamite—and we short-circuit.

These old bodies of ours are still carnal. They are made of flesh. They are not geared for heaven. These fleshly bodies literally cannot stand in the presence of almighty God.

The only thing I can tell you is the power of the Holy Spirit is so great that our minds and bodies cannot fathom the bigness of God.

Most people are simply playing religion. They talk about God much like they talk about George Washington. They know he is (or was), but they never expect to see him and if he should appear it would literally scare them speechless. So it is with God. We talk about God. We talk about the Holy Spirit. But we seldom have an encounter with Him because it’s all talk. When a person does come face to face with Him it is too much for his physical body. His nervous system short-circuits momentarily, and down he goes.

God is alive. He’s real. He is the very essence of power. He’s not just the author of power, He is all power. Man often tries to conjure up God in his own image, shape, size, and power. But God is more—far more. When we see Him or feel Him as He really is, we simply can’t stand it.

The only way I can tell you about “going under the power” is to say that when the Holy Spirit literally comes upon a person, he cannot stand in His presence. His legs buckle. His body goes limp. Oftentimes his very soul is filled to overflowing with the Spirit himself. It’s not fainting. A person seldom loses his faculties. Usually those who go under the power are right back on their feet and testify that it was like being caught up in a giant charge of painless electricity—that momentarily leaves one out of control.

When you consider the Holy Spirit can heal a sick body without anyone touching that body—that’s power. Therefore, isn’t it logical to believe this body can stand only so much of that power before it is short-circuited?

Don’t you remember what happened when Saul fell under the power, traveling to Damascus and falling to the earth? He was still able to talk. He was still able to think. He was still able to ask questions and make decisions. But he was unable to stand in the presence of the power of the Holy Spirit.

On the Mount of Transfiguration, a bright cloud overshadowed the three disciples who were standing next to Jesus. Then God spoke. “And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid” (Matt: 17:6).

Whenever the Holy Spirit comes in great power, things like this happen.

The Holy Spirit now lives in every follower of Jesus—if they have invited Him in. And when He does come in, He brings the same power Jesus had. What He has done for me is not unique. God is no respecter of persons. Every minister, every lay person, has the same power. When people are slain in the Spirit, it is not me—it is the Holy Spirit. And He resides in each of you. Step out. Do not be afraid. And you, too, will see evidence of His mighty power.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ambition

You know, I think I must have gotten a double dose of ambition when I was born. I think when God made me, He just forgot to stop when He started to pour in the ambition.

I remember the time when I was a kid in Concordia, Missouri. Concordia, you know, never had a population of more than 1,200. The year I was five, a high-powered salesman came to town and offered a pony to any youngster who could get 50,000 wrappers of a certain brand of soap.

Oh, I begged and pleaded with mama. “I know if you’ll just let me, I could sell 50,000 bars of soap. I know it. Please let me. I want that pony so badly. I want it.”

Population of 1,200. Five years of age, and I knew I could sell 50,000 bars of soap to get a pony. Talk about ambition! I had it.

But it takes more than ambition. It takes determination. And plain hard work. Believe me.

You know, it’s a funny thing about this kind of ambition. From exactly the same materials one man builds a palace while another builds a hovel. That’s the thing that always has amazed me. There can be two children in the same family. They have the same mother, same father, same advantages, eat the same food. They get the same attention, the same training. Yet one can be a success and the other a failure.

I never cease to be amazed at the different ways people react to my sermons. One person can have his entire life changed by the power of God; another person, hearing exactly the same words, can go out of the place not having experienced a thing.

The same holds true with life in America. We all have opportunities. There are those who will debate that with me, but beloved, anybody in America can be a success if he’ll pay the price. I believe that. If you want to work, you can work, even if you have to create a job for yourself.

It’s not easy. You get what you go after because you go after it to get it. And the same thing is true in the Christian life. The Christian life is not easy. I would be the greatest deceiver in the world if I told you it is. Its not a bed of roses. It costs you something. It has cost me everything. But I want you to know it has been worth the price. You never get something for nothing. I don’t care who you are.

Even in the Christian life you’ll never get God’s best, you’ll never know the deep truths of His Word until you start digging down underneath the surface. There’s where you’re going to find the deep treasures. There’s where you’ll find the deep oil of the Holy Spirit.

The deeper you dig, the more you’ll find. But you’ve got to dig to find it.

A man who rose from humble beginnings to amass one of the greatest fortunes of our times said, “I have succeeded, not because I had any more ability than people who have not succeeded, but because I applied myself harder. I stuck to it longer. I know plenty of people with more brains than I who have failed because they lacked application and determination.”

Isn’t that a dandy?

In our office hangs a little wooden plaque that the office employees gave me for Christmas. I like it. It says, “If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.”

You’d be surprised if you walked into the offices of the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation in the Carlton House in Pittsburgh. We took an apartment suite and converted it into office space. There’s a little kitchen with a refrigerator and stove—all the comforts of home.

The other day I passed by the stove in that little kitchen. I was looking for something and happened to glance in the glass door of the oven. I thought I saw something. I opened the oven door and there was a pillow, a blanket, sheets, and towels. I couldn’t believe it.

I said, “Girls, what in the world is this in the oven?” They finally told me. Sometimes the work load was so heavy, they stayed all night and slept in the office. Do you see what I mean? If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

I’m not so foolish that I don’t know there are those with far greater talent than I in the ministry. Many people are far more capable. I recognize it every day of my life. I do not profess to be a smart person, a brainy person, or even a talented person. I know myself better than you know me. But I’ll tell you something. A long time ago, I determined that by the grace of God, if I was going to live a Christian life, it wasn’t going to be halfheartedly.

I’ve never done anything in my life halfheartedly. I believe that had I not been a Christian, I would have been the worst sinner in the world. I would have tried everything. I don’t believe something just because somebody says so. I have to try it for myself. I’m just like that.

I want you to know, though, when I decided to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, I made up my mind I was going to be the best Christian possible. I gave Him all there was of me. I closed my mind to everything else.

The Bible is everything to me. I eat it. I sleep it. I live it twenty-four hours a day. I confess I am not a very open-minded person. There are some things to which I refuse to open myself. I don’t want to poison my mind with the things that are not spiritual or not of God. I don’t want to be clogged up with things that are impure and displeasing to Him.

This thing of living a Christian life costs plenty. It has cost me everything. But it’s worth the cost, and I would do it again ten thousand times. I don’t mind reaching for the highest prize. I’ll never settle for anything less than the best God has for me.

Precious Jesus, help us to remain dissatisfied with everything that falls short of perfection. May we always press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in You. Amen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Laziness

Today we are going to have one of the most practical heart-to-heart talks that I know anything about. Of course you understand, the Bible is practical. This thing of living a Christian life is the most practical thing in the world. The laws of God make sense. They are practical. It’s just like that.

A former employee of the Peter Loftus Corporation happened to pass my desk one day and just threw a little booklet on my desk and said, “Here, Miss Kuhlman, read this.” I picked it up. I enjoy reading small things. Big books sometimes overwhelm me.

The first thing I saw was the word “gumption.” Well, I am all for that, believe me. I have believed in gumption even before I knew what gumption meant. I didn’t know what it was, but I sure had a lot of it (and still do).

“Anyone can wish for success,” it stated, “but it takes gumption to do the things that make success possible.”

I stopped right there and I thought, “If that isn’t the truth!”

Not only is this true in a big corporation—it’s true in the Christian life. There are literally thousands of God’s precious children who have done nothing the past ten years but just sit and wish.

There is something I don’t care for, and that’s a rocking chair. You may like rocking chairs. But I don’t like rocking chairs, for there is something about a rocking chair that I associate with laziness. I’ve seen Aunt Litty in Missouri (that was Grandpa Walkenhorst’s second wife) sitting in that rocking chair. She was so big and fat, and she rocked, and she rocked. Mama always said Aunt Litty was the worst cook when she cooked. But she never got much time to cook because she rocked most of the time. Mama said Aunt Litty was the worst housekeeper she ever saw. But that’s because she didn’t take time to clean the house. She had to rock all the time. You came to Aunt Litty’s house at ten o’clock in the morning, she was in her rocking chair. You came to Aunt Litty’s house at three o’clock in the afternoon, she was still rocking. She’d just sit there by the hour, wishing. Wishing the work would get done. Wishing the washing was over with. Wishing that she didn’t have to get Grandpa’s meal. Wishing she had what the neighbors had. Rocking and wishing.

I guess that’s the reason that to this day I don’t like rocking chairs. I’ve seen so many of God’s precious children afflicted with this spirit of laziness. They wish God would do something for them. They wish God would heal their bodies. They wish God would meet their needs. They wish they could have, spiritually, what other people talk about. But they never receive because they are slothful.

You don’t get things from God that way. You’ve got to get yourself out of that rocking chair. You’ve got to put feet to your wishes. You’ve got to have gumption. You’ve got to do something about your dreams—or they’ll never come true.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” Some have never asked. “Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” There are those who have never even knocked. “Seek and ye shall find.” Some have never sought.

If you only knew the potentialities in your own life—the potential you have in Christ Jesus. If you only knew. If you this very moment, sitting there in defeat, despair, and despondency, could only see the great power plant to achieve that is sitting idle in your soul, waiting for you to throw the switch. If you only knew what you could be in Christ Jesus. But laziness robs you of success.

I’d still be in Missouri, my friend. I’d still be one of those 1,200 people that make up the population of Concordia, Missouri, if I had let laziness possess me like it did Aunt Litty. I would have married one of those Missouri farmers. Can’t you just see me out milking cows? Can’t you just see me out there in the henhouse, gathering the eggs? Oh, dear me! But it’s the truth. I would have still been in Missouri, married to a Missouri farmer, if as a teenaged girl I had not determined God had something for me to do. And I did something about it.

I still believe there is more for me as an individual. If only I knew how better to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. If only I knew how to connect with the power of God. If only I had the divine wisdom.

This very moment you may feel that you are rich in the things of God. And you are. You may feel as though you have gone places in Christ Jesus. And you have. But—every person has much more ability than he tries to get out of himself. You have greater potentiality for God than you ever dreamed possible. But you have not been willing to surrender yourself to that extent to Him, so that you might receive greater things from Him.

I believe that I shall live and either go up in the rapture, or die, not having received all that God has for me. I mean that. It’s as I yield myself to Him, as I consecrate myself to Him, that He gets much more from me—and uses it for His glory.

I see people who are so unsteady. They are up one day, down the next. They’ll never grow in God that way. They’ll never know heaven’s best, never in a thousand years. This victory one hour, despondency the next hour. Oh, I know, you call it “temperament.” But we use the word as a screen for our bad disposition, our moods, our laziness. We use it as a screen for our meanness. But when it comes right down to it, nothing really hides an ugly disposition.

You’ll never grow spiritually if you are off-again-on-again with your consecration and your Christian living. Never. God can’t use you. You’ll never be a power. You’ll never be the receiver of great blessings from the Lord. Oh, you say, Kathryn Kuhlman, go a little easy, a little slow.

All right. I’ll give you the Scripture. The little book of James is loaded with wonderful jewels, priceless jewels.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering (James 1:6).

Not up today and down tomorrow. Victory at ten o’clock in the morning, and by noon you have hit the bottom. No sir!

For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. (James 1:6-7)

The off-again-on-again Christian never receives anything as long as he is wavering, as long as he stays on the fence, as long as he teeters one way or the other. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.

Just being ambitious is not enough. You must seriously and earnestly and enthusiastically back up your ambition with determination. I believe that. You know, I always will stop and listen to somebody who will say, “I know it’s true, I can prove it. I can prove it with my own life.” I stop and listen to that one.

I’ve seen some ambitious people who were never successful. They never got anyplace in life. Ambition must be backed with real, honest-to-goodness determination. The lazy man may make it into heaven, but he’ll never amount to anything here on earth.

I never weary of talking about that room in Twin Falls, Idaho. I believe it was one of the most critical times in my life. I was no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age. I believe that was one of the greatest crises in my life. Young, inexperienced.

But I had enough gumption to lick the whole world for God. Enthusiasm? Had I bottled up all the enthusiasm that was in my body and sold it in five-cent capsules, I could have supplied every human being in the world. I mean that, oh, my goodness! Whew! You should have known me back then.

But beloved, it took more than gumption. It took more than ambition. It took more than enthusiasm. It took determination—which is the opposite of laziness.

I remember that old blue bedspread in that rented room in Twin Falls. I remember that old worn-out carpet in that rented room. I remember those faded blue walls in that rented room. I didn’t have the price of a meal. I remember it as though it were yesterday, when I walked the floor of that cheap rented room. Alone, yet literally clenching my fists with determination. I looked up beyond those faded blue walls, beyond that old ceiling where the plaster was coming down. I didn’t close my eyes. I looked with my eyes wide open into the face of my wonderful Jesus, and I said, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it if I have to live on bread and water the rest of my life. I’ll serve you. I’ll preach the gospel. I’ll win souls.”

All laziness died that day—and was never resurrected. And that’s why, with the grace of God, I am who I am today. It was not luck. Or influence. Or by being at the right place at the right time. It was just hard work—and God’s providence.

A great combination!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Religion of Love

We live such false lives. Sometimes, when I think of it, I remember the spun sugar candy I used to get as a child when the fair came to Concordia. Oh, it was beautiful to look at. That wonderful, pink, cotton candy. “Oh, Papa, I think it costs only a nickel. Please, Papa, please!” The first thing I bought at the fair was cotton candy. But did you ever try to eat it? You get only a couple of grains of sugar. That’s all there is to it. It looks so big and wonderful. You think, how in the world am I going to eat all this? But in five minutes it’s all gone. And all you had was just a couple of grains of sugar.

You know, most living is like that. We live such cotton-candy lives, so empty, so useless, so meaningless. It’s all such a big sham. It’s hard to find people who are really genuine. Many people aren’t sincere about anything—so unreliable, so untrustworthy. There are few people that you can say of them as Papa used to say of some of his friends, “Their word is as good as their bond.” Papa never signed a note in his life. When one of Papa’s friends came to borrow money he never asked them for anything. In those days, friends trusted each other. Today, though, we don’t have a bond and we don’t have a word. We don’t have anything. It’s like that.

You say, “Miss Kuhlman, are you a pessimistic person?” Oh, dear me, I don’t have an ounce of pessimism in me. When God made me, He didn’t put one ounce of pessimism in me. The clouds may be there, but I don’t think about them. There may be things to be discouraged about, but so help me, I look beyond the discouragements. I was just born to be optimistic. But remember something, beloved—there are some things you have to face. We are a part of humanity. There are certain laws God has that govern success, and adherence to these laws spells success. Disobedience makes us a sham.

An awful lot depends on how you get up in the morning. A friend of mine once wrote:

Start out every morning with your mind firmly resolved to do your triple best—not just something that’s good enough, not just your best, but your triple best. Without any let-up, without any excuse. And you’ll zoom right past the dilly-dallier, the clock-watcher, the contented cow, the alibi artist, and the intended-to folks.

Every office has the alibi artist—the one who has an alibi for everything. I can think of a person right now who is ahead of his class when it comes to alibis. I don’t care what it is. If I ask him, “Have you done it?” he’ll answer, “I was going to, but....” I’ve never quite figured out whether he can think that quickly on the spot, or whether he spends all his time thinking about what alibi he is going to use next.

Then there is the person who constantly watches the clock. “Oh, girls, thirty minutes more, then it will be time to go home.” “Just fifteen minutes more, and we’ll get out of here.” Five minutes before time to leave, they are gone. You don’t see hide nor hair of them again. The clock watchers. Rare is the person who is so involved in his work, enjoying it so much, that he forgets the clock. This is the person you have to touch on the shoulder and say, “Let’s get out of here. It’s past time.” Yet that’s the kind of fellow who is always promoted to the better position. That’s the kind of person the world is looking for today. He’s never without a job. I promise you that. He’s the one who starts each day happy—living not for himself, but for others.

Mama had a little frame hanging in the dining room. When she died I brought it with me to Pittsburgh—the paper in the frame now yellowed with age. It’s called “Guideposts to Success.” It was mama’s formula for life. This is what influenced me as a youngster. It stated, in part:

Go out of the way to please others.

Be determined to be kind and helpful to everyone.

Be truthful.

Be optimistic, no matter what comes.

Make a great effort always to give somebody a lift whenever possible.

Radiate sunshine, hope, good will.

Scatter flowers as you go along.

Enjoy each day. Live the present to its utmost, and do not wait for tomorrow before you begin to enjoy these things. This is what opens wide the door to happiness.

We really make our own happiness when we come right down to it. If you want to really be happy, go out and do something nice for somebody else. If you do it with the right purpose in mind, if you do it without expecting anything in return, if you do it because you want to do it, you’ll find happiness.

No doctor can prescribe a bigger, better, pep pill. You’ll find yourself so glad, you’ll find yourself so satisfied on the inside. Of course there are some folks who love being miserable. But if you want to be happy and feel good, do something kind for someone else.

There’s a final item on mama’s “Guideposts to Success” list.

You must believe in the religion of love. Love for everybody, everywhere, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the well and the afflicted. That’s the religion of love. It satisfies the heart. It’s deep enough for the soul, and broad enough for the whole world and everybody.

Now that’s exactly what the world needs today. A religion of love.

The religion of love is the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not a religion you can legislate. It’s not something you can force upon men and women. There is only one true religion of love, and that’s the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. This kind of love is not a natural love, it is a love God has to impart. It’s inside. It’s His love. Remember:

You pass through this world but once. Any kindness you can show any human being, don’t defer from it. Be thankful for each day. Get out of it all the good that you can, and give as much good as you can.

That’s the religion of love.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Common Sense

What we need is some good old-fashioned common sense along with the Word of God. I can understand why God would put the anointing on a woman. Sometimes I think she has more courage than a carload of men.

In my case, I have a ministry that has stood the test of time. More than twenty-five years. I’ve given my life, literally, for what I believe. I’ve stayed with the Word of God. And that is the reason this ministry has the respect of all the denominational churches. Not long ago Charles Allen, who pastors the largest Methodist church in the United States, made an appointment with me in Houston, Texas. He said, “Kathryn Kuhlman, I want you to know you have a great responsibility. We Methodist men were not taught regarding the Holy Spirit in our seminaries. We’re watching you very closely. You are one of our guides when it comes to the Holy Spirit. We accept what you say regarding the Holy Spirit.”

I have long recognized that responsibility. This ministry has the respect of the world. I expect to keep it that way. I cannot afford to go where there is fanaticism. I have too much at stake. I have a responsibility to God. I have a responsibility to the great High Priest. I have a responsibility to the Holy Spirit. I have a responsibility to men and women, and I’m going to keep that responsibility clean before God. I want Him to trust me.

You know, I think sometimes the world gets the idea the only people who believe in the power of God are senile women and men who are not too intelligent. We’ve brought this all on ourselves. Some of our actions, beloved, are not intelligent. All the screaming and carrying on—believe me, if I was being introduced to the Holy Spirit for the very first time in a meeting like that, I’d take for tall timbers and I’d never come back again. We need an old-fashioned baptism of good common sense.

The hour has come when we need some good old-fashioned teaching on the Holy Spirit. Spiritual ignorance is the worst kind of ignorance. I’m as Pentecostal as anybody who stands behind the pulpit. I’ve taken my stand before the whole world. I’ve taken my stand before millions. I’ve declared my position. I’m as Pentecostal as the Word of God. But I want nothing to do with fanaticism. I want nothing to do with the demonstrations of the flesh.

Much of our noise is a substitute for power. Noise isn’t power. I once had an old Model T Ford. It was the noisiest thing on the road. I had it when I first started out in Idaho. If noise was power, that old Ford would have been the most powerful thing on the road. Some of the greatest manifestations of the Holy Spirit that I have ever seen in my life, some of the greatest miracles I have ever seen in my life, some of the greatest baptisms of the Holy Spirit I have ever witnessed in my life were so quiet and beautiful. When the Holy Spirit arrives, you want to take off your shoes in His holy presence. Some of the greatest baptisms of the Holy Spirit that I have ever witnessed in my life were so sacred and so beautiful that all you heard was the weeping of the ones witnessing that beautiful experience. When the Holy Spirit speaks, when the Holy Spirit gives utterance, it’s sacred.

Again I say, don’t be afraid of the Holy Spirit. I beg of you, if you’re a minister, if you’re a Catholic priest and you’re just on the edges, don’t be afraid of the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid to trust Him. If Jesus could trust Him then surely you and I can trust the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes Christians get excited over newly discovered truth and get carried away in fanaticism. But I beg you to look beyond the noise and exuberance to the Holy God who still speaks in a quiet but all-powerful voice. Serve Him. Love Him. Follow Him. He will not let you down.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Eternal Security

This is the Church’s greatest hour. This is my greatest hour. This is your greatest hour. Believe me, I tell you the truth. This is our greatest hour. We’re living in the hour of restoration.

There are many who admit to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who’ve never been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Some think they have received the Holy Spirit because they speak in tongues. But that’s all they have. Others think they have arrived because they’ve joined a charismatic organization or church. I’ve never joined any organization. Therefore nobody can kick me out. The only thing I’ve ever joined was the little Baptist church in Concordia, Missouri. But I’ll tell you something, I’ve got the greatest board behind me that any person could possibly have. I have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

We’re living in the greatest hour of the Church. For lack of a better word, we call it the charismatic movement. But it’s more. He’s about to rapture His Church and the Church is about to go up, and when it goes up, when it leaves this old world, it’s going out as a perfect body. It’s not going out in defeat. When His Church, this beautiful gift that God, the Father, gave to His Son goes out, it is going out a perfect Bride.

Do you think for one moment that when the Bride of Christ goes up, do you think for one second that when the Church goes up, that it’s going to go as a defeated body? Not on your life. When the Church goes up, it’s going up with all the gifts, all the fruits of the Spirit restored in full. It’s going out as a perfect Bride.

That’s the reason in these last moments I refuse to let any reproach come upon His Church. I refuse to let any reproach be brought upon the Holy Spirit. Not that He needs any defense, but He is so sacred to me. I’ve given my life for Him.

Most people don’t understand, but I’ve given my whole life. That’s all I know. That’s all I’ve done. I’ve given my life for what I believe. And I’m not going to let a reproach be brought upon what we believe. There are some who profess to have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Oh, sure, you say, I’ve received the baptism of the Holy Spirit because I’ve spoken in tongues. And lest there be one who might misconstrue that statement, I’ve taken my stand before the whole world. Everybody knows where I stand when it comes to speaking in an unknown tongue. But beloved, I only believe in the speaking of an unknown tongue as the Holy Spirit gives utterance. And there are literally thousands and thousands in the great charismatic movement who have never become acquainted with the person of the Holy Spirit, only with His gifts. Their actions speak more loudly than their many testimonies.

The Word of God says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God....” Do you really know what it means to be led by the Spirit of God? If one is being led, then that one follows. You ask how these miracles come to pass? They come to pass because I follow the Holy Spirit. He leads. I follow. I die a thousand deaths before I ever walk out on the platform or the stage, because I know how ordinary I am. I know that I have nothing. I’m completely dependent on the Holy Spirit. There is a place in Him, a death. But remember this: Kathryn Kuhlman does not have one thing that God won’t give you if you’ll pay the price. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how ordinary you are. There’s not one thing that I have received but what He’ll give to you if you’ll pay the price. It costs much, but it’s worth the price. It’ll cost you everything, absolutely everything.

There’s a Scripture that few understand, and yet thousands of sermons have been preached on it: “Take up thy cross and follow me.” Always remember the cross is a sign of death. And many a person has said, “My mother-in-law is my cross.” Many a married woman feels her husband is her cross. But that cross on which Jesus died was His cross. It was not my cross, it was not your cross. That was His cross. Before He was ever nailed to it, however, something happened. In those hours before He dismissed His own spirit, He looked up and surrendered His will to the will of the Father.

When Jesus walked this earth, He was as much man as though He were not God. Sometimes we forget that. That’s the reason He offered himself first of all through the Holy Spirit to be given. He knew He’d face satan. He knew that. He knew He could not do it alone. He knew that by taking the form of flesh He would be as much man as though He were not God. He came in the flesh with a will separate and apart from the will of God. In exactly the same way that I have a will, a will of my own which is separate from the will of God, so Jesus had a will. And before He ever died on that cross, He looked up and surrendered His will to the will of the Father. The two wills became as one. “Not My will, but Thine be done,” He prayed.

“If any man will follow Me,” He said, ‘let him take up his cross.” There’s a cross for you. There’s a cross for me.

The greatest hour of my life was the moment Kathryn Kuhlman died. That was the greatest moment of my life. That’s the reason you can talk about Kathryn Kuhlman, say anything you want to. I can read about Kathryn Kuhlman and as sure as God is on His throne, it’s as though I’m reading about someone else. She died. And when she died, her will was yielded to the will of God.

So I wait for His leading, for His will. I fear no man. I fear not all the powers of hell. I fear only one thing, lest I be out of the will of God. But I’ll never get out of His will as long as my own personal will remains surrendered to the will of God.

If, my friends, you’ve surrendered your will and two wills have become one, and you’ve taken up your cross to follow Him and you are following and He is leading and you’ve paid the price of death—beloved, you can’t miss God’s perfect will. For you have one constantly in position of great High Priest, ever living to make intercession for you and for me.

If you ever get to the place where you do not know God’s perfect will, then don’t do anything. Wait. Look up and say, “I don’t know.” Listen not to the voice of man. Be quiet. Some of you are never quiet enough so you could hear Him if He did speak. He was not in the thunder, He was not in much babbling. He was in the still small voice. The Holy Spirit, who knows the perfect will of the Son of the living God, makes intercession for us. Sometimes even praying through you.

The trouble is that 99% of us want our will and not His will.

It’s not that most Christians don’t know the will of God. Rather, they come face to face with the will of God and shrink from it, saying, “It’s too great a price to pay.” Too many of us think of the will of God only in the sense of the ecstasy, the emotionalism that is connected with it. I believe in the ecstasy of it. I believe in the emotionalism of it. But when it comes to the real fundamentals of it, when it comes to the place where you love Him enough that you are willing to surrender your will to His will and you want His will, then it hurts. It isn’t easy to die. Every person wants to live. And spirtual death is the hardest.

I believe in eternal security, but not in the same way that some may believe in it. I face the future unafraid. I have no fear of all hell and all the power of satan. And I’ll tell you exactly why. As long as I stay crucified, the Holy Spirit will defend me. I do not have to defend myself. When I hear one who stands behind the sacred desk defending himself, I smile and I know he’s not dead. He’s a very lively corpse. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. As long as I stay crucified, as long as my will is yielded to the will of the Father and I am in His perfect will, I am safe. Secure. As long as I’m in His perfect will, I’m covered with the blood. I’m overshadowed with His love. He’ll speak through my lips of clay. He’ll take the yielded vessel and use it for His glory.

That’s all He asks of you. Be a yielded vessel. He’ll take your mind. He’ll give the anointing. He will be your defense. Your security.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Cost and the Love of God

There are four steps that lead up to a little landing where the door opens on the stage of Carnegie Auditorium, Northside, in Pittsburgh. There is a black doorknob on the door. I have walked up those four steps and have stood on that little landing with my hand on that black doorknob and Kathryn Kuhlman has died a thousand deaths on that one spot, because I knew that when I opened that door I would have to walk out on that stage, and I knew that sitting out there in that audience were people who had traveled hundreds of miles. People out there from every walk of life. People who had made sacrifices to be in that miracle service. There were people out there who had come because it was their last resort. The medical profession could do nothing more for them, and they had come saying, “This is the last resort. We’ll go into one of those miracle services and we’ll believe God to answer prayer.” I knew that sitting out there in that audience there would be a father who had taken off from work, who had come with his wife with a little child. They had tried everything. Perhaps it was cancer in the child’s body, and that child was more precious to them than anything else in the world. They had come as a last resort bringing their child to God in prayer.

I knew as I stood on that last step with my hand on that black doorknob that there were people sitting out there in the audience who had come in great pain, making an almost insurmountable effort just to get there, and many, whether they had spoken it audibly or not, had said within themselves, “If I can just get there, I know I will be healed.”

I have died a thousand deaths on that last step. Only God knows my thoughts and my feelings, and how often I have been tempted to turn and walk down those four steps. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just run from it all, because Kathryn Kuhlman knows better than anyone else in the whole world that she of herself has no healing virtue—no healing power. And I know myself well; I, too, am human. I have my own weaknesses, my own failures. Standing on that top step I know that I have no power to heal. If my life depended on it, I could not heal a single person out there in that audience. Oh, the utter helplessness and the complete dependency on the power of the Holy Spirit! I wonder if any of you can really understand. I have died not once, not twice, not a half dozen times, but over and over and over again.

Each time the moment arrives, I compel myself to open that door and walk out on that platform. I go out smiling and walking very quickly. Many people have remarked about how rapidly I walk, whether it’s from the wings of the great stage of the Shrine Auditorium or through that door of Carnegie Auditorium, or wherever else it may be. I am not aware of the fact that I am walking unusually quickly. I think I must do so spontaneously because I know that the very second I stand before that great audience, I am no longer Kathryn Kuhlman. The Holy Spirit takes that which I have totally relinquished to Him—myself. It is a yielded, pliable vessel of clay which I give to Him, through which He can work. It is just that simple. Nevertheless, I believe one of the most difficult of all lessons for any one of us to learn is how to yield one’s self to the Holy Spirit. I know how difficult it has been for me, for I discovered a long time ago that the Holy Spirit is not a person or a power that I can use. This is the lesson which you, too, must learn. He requires the vessel and that is all I or any one of us can furnish.

In addressing you in this fashion, I am taking the lid off my heart and baring things to you that few people know and few will ever understand.

There is a place where one yields himself completely to God. When you give your entire being over to Him—your body, your mind, your lips, your voice, your consciousness-you become a completely yielded vessel and it is this that He uses to perform His mighty works.

The other day someone came into my office and said: “Kathryn Kuhlman, did you know that men of great influence in many of our leading denominational churches consider your ministry of the Holy Spirit one of the purest ministries today?” I responded automatically, “Oh, thank you. How nice of you to say that.”

In a somewhat chagrined tone, this gentleman said, “Well, aren’t you pleased, even thrilled? Don’t you consider that a great compliment?”

I could only reply, “Oh, of course I am deeply appreciative. But you know, after one has gone through such sacrifice and stood entirely alone, after one has fought so long to remain completely yielded to the Holy Spirit, the trophy when it is finally given really doesn’t mean very much. You have paid the price, and the price has been high. You have paid the cost, and the cost has been great, but you would do it again with joy were God to ask it of you.”

There are those who say I have the gift of healing; there are those who say I have the gift of faith; however, I do not profess to have even one gift of the Spirit. I contend that if the Holy Spirit has so greatly honored an individual by entrusting to him a gift, if He has so willed to bestow any of His gifts upon a person, such a gift must be treated as a sacred thing. It must be treasured, not talked about, not boasted about, for it is a holy trust. It must be used carefully, wisely, discreetly, for along with the giving of that gift there comes an overwhelmingly great responsibility.

Many is the time I have stood on that top step with my hand on that black doorknob wishing He had called someone else instead of me. With the knowledge that He has given me of the Word, with the cognizance that He has given me of the powers that are, with that which He has endowed me there goes a responsibility so great that it almost overpowers me. It is so overwhelming that more than once I have envied the little woman on that Missouri farm who gathers the eggs from her little henhouse at the close of the day, who perhaps helps with the milking and takes care of her precious little family. I could so easily have been that farmer’s wife in Missouri, had God not called me at the age of fourteen. The farmer’s wife can go to bed at night, tired to be sure, but she rests well, and when the gray streak of dawn breaks she goes again about her daily duties. She has a responsibility to her family of course, but oh, beloved, the responsibility of one who has been called by God—the responsibility that goes with that with which He has entrusted such a one!

At the close of a miracle service when I walk off that platform, those who leave the service say almost enviously, “Miss Kuhlman must feel so well rewarded. Think of those who were healed today in that great miracle service.”

But, beloved, I have walked off that platform seconds before thinking, “Did I yield myself completely to the Spirit today? Perhaps if I had known how better to cooperate with Him, another might have been healed. If only I had known how to better follow Him as He moved in that great audience, someone else might have been set free.” That tremendous sense of responsibility is always with you. I am never from under it, never released from it.

The secret of those bodies healed in the miracle services is the power of the Holy Spirit and it is His power alone. The only part the servant plays, the only part that I play, is in yielding my body unto Him, and He works through that body in lifting up His only begotten Son. But the vessel must be wholly yielded if Jesus is to be lifted up, and herein lies the responsibility.

Thousands have marveled at the fact that I can go through a service which is at least four hours long and frequently six without stopping, continually on my feet, never once being seated. Yet at the end of four or five or six hours, I can walk off that stage just as refreshed as when I went on at the beginning of the service. Doctors have told me that from a medical standpoint it is impossible for any human body to take the punishment to which mine is subjected year in and year out. A medical man in Pittsburgh told me fifteen years ago that at the rate I was going then, my physical body could not last more than three years. Yet here I am, still going at the same pace seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.

Not only do I walk off a platform fully refreshed after a very long service, but I feel as if I could turn around and do it all over again! The secret of it all is this: Kathryn Kuhlman has nothing to do with it. It is the power of the Holy Spirit. An hour under the anointing of the Spirit enables me to walk off that stage more rested in body and mind than when I first walked on the platform. There is infinite renewal for my own body as He fills this body with himself and His own Spirit.

There are those who inquire regarding the slaying power of the Holy Spirit. Quite honestly, I cannot answer these questions, for I neither yield or understand this power. I did not understand it, for example, when one Tuesday night some years ago a woman stood up and said, “Miss Kuhlman, last night I was healed when you were preaching.”

I paused before I said to her, “You mean you were physically healed during the sermon?” She answered, “Yes.” I questioned her closely from the platform and found that as I was preaching, a tumor had literally dissolved in her body. She said, “I was absolutely certain of my healing, and today my doctor confirmed it. He examined me and said, ‘It’s true. The tumor is no longer there.’”

So far as I can recollect, that was the first time in my ministry that anyone had ever been healed as he sat listening to me preach. Since that day, thousands have been healed just sitting in the auditorium. How can it be that someone just coming into a service, just sitting there, no one touching them, is healed? There is no healing line, there are no healing rites, but people just sitting there are suddenly completely healed of their afflictions or diseases. Explain it? All I can say by way of explanation is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is there to heal. He does not need me to lay hands on you or to touch you. I have no healing virtue in my hands or in my body. But the same Holy Spirit who performed those miracles through the body of Jesus as Jesus walked the earth is active today. Christ, as much man as though He were not God, knew that it was the Holy Spirit who doeth these works. Peter understood. He, too, acknowledged it was the Spirit of God who performeth miracles (Acts 10:38). And so today the Holy Spirit continues His healing work and it is He who heals those bodies out there in that great auditorium. Many of the sick are so far from me that I cannot even see them. They are strangers to me, but not to Him.

What God has done for me, He will do for you, for He is no respecter of persons. There is not a minister called to preach the gospel but who can have the same power in his life and in his ministry. There is no lay person who cannot have what I have. It is my firm conviction that if God knows He can trust you, He will give you that which He feels you are sufficiently trustworthy to receive.

As for me, I still feel there is so much more yet to receive, and there is no one living today who is more hungry than I am for more. The greatest saint who ever lived failed to receive all that God had to give. I do not believe that anyone has ever learned how to surrender himself so absolutely that the Holy Spirit was able to do all He could do and was willing to do through that yielded vessel. There is more, and when we get home to glory and stand in His wonderful presence, we will be amazed to know how much more could have been ours if we had only learned more perfectly how to yield to Him.

There is something that I guard very carefully, because aside from my knowledge of being born again it is the greatest treasure I possess. It is something that cannot be adequately described in either spoken or printed word. It is something that is not of myself; but it is the most real thing I know anything about. It is my love for humanity.

This love is distinctly not of myself, but it is divine. “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). And by the power of the Spirit, His love is perfected in us as we yield ourselves to Him. To know His love in this way is a staggering experience which defies both description and imagination. I know that should I ever lose that love, I could no longer reach the souls of men and women, and I would never be effective in praying for sick bodies.

I only wish it were possible for me to really describe my feeling when I pray, let us say, for the father standing there with a child in his arms. I only wish I could tell you how I feel in the depths of my being. The father stands there with his baby in his arms, and at that moment I am completely unconscious of everyone else in that auditorium. There can be thousands in that vast audience, and yet for that moment, I am aware only of a strong man with a tiny child cradled in his arms. I know how gladly that young father would give his own life if only his baby girl or boy would be healed. I feel this with a flaming, consuming intensity, and at that moment I love completely. This is not human love, it is wholly divine. It is not natural love, it is entirely supernatural. It is not my love, for I am totally incapable of this all-encompassing, all-pervading compassion. This is the love of God.

At that moment, I would gladly give my own life to see that baby healed. For a second, there washes over me a feeling of complete helplessness. I, of myself, can do nothing, and how well I know it. I realize anew my utter dependence on the power of God, and then I begin to pray audibly, “Wonderful Jesus, please touch this child.” But the prayer of my heart is one which no man can hear. Emanating from my innermost being, this silent prayer ascends to the throne of Grace and only the Father and myself know the essence of my petition: “Father, please, if that child can live, I am willing and eager to pay the price with my own life.” I have prayed that prayer not once, but a thousand times.

I stand there before a little woman, and what all the crowd sees is the small kerchief on her head. I cannot tell you how she is dressed. All I see are those tired, worn hands, very often twisted and distorted. I see the hard work, the sacrifice, and in that moment, although I may not see her face, I take those hands in mine and pray to God that she can feel the love that is in my heart. My audible prayer may be so simple; perhaps all I pray is, “Wonderful Jesus, forgive me for not knowing how to pray better,” but while I am saying these words, there is that supernatural love—God’s love—in my heart for that precious woman.

Just then I would gladly give my life if the heavenly Father in His great and tender mercy, if the wonderful compassion of our Savior, would just touch that body and relieve her of her suffering. Nobody except God knows what is inside of me when I pray that prayer of faith.

There is a man standing there, but I not only see him as one who is bound by alcoholism, I see more than that. I see the man that he could be when he is delivered from the power of sin.

People wonder why I sometimes ask certain questions before I pray. I ask this man, for example, “Do you have a family?” I do not ask merely to make conversation. I want to know who will be influenced when that man has been delivered from liquor, perhaps young boys, perhaps his own sons who think their dad is the greatest man in the world, yet are embarrassed and ashamed knowing that at any time he may come home under the influence of alcohol and the other kids will say sneeringly, “Is that your dad?”

I see perhaps a little wife who has prayed and prayed, only God knows how long. And many a time when a man has been delivered from liquor I know it is not my prayer that has been answered; it is the prayer of a wife who has prayed for years and years and at that precise moment during the service her prayers have been answered. Or it may be the prayers of a little girl for her father which are suddenly answered as that man is instantaneously set free.

No one knows my thoughts when I am praying my customary, simple prayer; no one knows that the one for whom I pray is surrounded not only by prayer but with an overwhelming love. I see him through the eyes of love. And my friend, if I should ever lose this love, my ministry will cease to be. A sinner may not understand what I am talking about. He may not understand the Bible. He may not understand God. He may not understand a miracle, but if he can feel my love for him and my love comes through, I can win him to the Lord Jesus Christ. For the love that he feels and what I am saying to him is actually the love of Jesus made manifest.

How often in a service there are those who do not understand English. They cannot understand what I am saying. They cannot understand a word of the sermon that was preached. But when the altar call is given, they accept Christ. They have recognized Him at last as their personal Savior. It wasn’t what I said, it was what they felt—the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, himself.

The other day a prominent businessman in Pittsburgh stopped me in the lobby of the Carlton House Hotel. “Miss Kuhlman,” he said, “I have been wanting to tell you something for a long time, and now is my chance. I want you to know this: my mother is from the old country. She is Russian, and she can neither speak nor understand English. But,” he went on, “my mother wouldn’t miss one of your broadcasts for anything in the world. Every morning before I go to work I have to set our radio to the place on the dial where you will be coming on, and she waits for it. She knows the first strains of the music, and she knows this is Miss Kuhlman’s broadcast. She hasn’t missed one of your broadcasts for years, and yet, to this very day, she understands practically nothing that you say.”

The gentleman speaking to me paused and then with a smile said, “But you know, she sits there for one full half hour and just weeps for thirty minutes. The tears of joy toll down her cheeks, and sometimes she will burst forth in the Russian language in praise and prayer. I say to her, “Mom, you don’t understand what Miss Kuhlman is saying. Why do you cry so?” And she replies to me in Russian, “It is because I can feel the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s all so wonderful. I couldn’t live without her broadcasts.”

Stretching out his hand to me, my friend in the hotel lobby grasped mine hard. “Frankly, Miss Kuhlman,” he said in parting, “it has always been a mystery to the rest of us at home. However, thanks for what we don’t understand, but Mom does.”

And now, beloved, I part with you praying that you may know the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. I leave you with these words: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1 John 4:7). As for myself, when I no longer love as I do; when I can no longer love people into the kingdom; when my sermons are no longer backed by love; when I pray for the sick and no longer feel their heartache and their heartbreak and their suffering, then, my friend, I will never preach again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Discipline and Desire

In one of our miracle services, at the altar call, I saw a precious gentleman come forward weeping like a child. I went over to him and I said, “Is this the very first time you have ever accepted Christ as your Savior?” He nodded his head.

“How old are you?”

“Seventy-eight.”

“You have never, in all your life, ever done this? You have never accepted the Lord?”

“I knew nothing about it until a week ago when I came into a service.”

Then, looking at me, the tears just streaming down his cheeks, he said, “Oh, I wish I had done this sooner.”

It’s wonderful when these older folks come to God, but how much more wonderful when the young, with a whole life before them, learn early.

The only way a child learns is through discipline. There is nothing worse than uncontrolled and undisciplined desires.

You know, there is a way of living that may be likened to a horse that lies down in a harness. He won’t move. You can’t get him to move. He refuses to move. He lies there. Then there is the other way which may be likened to the horse that runs free and breaks the harness and smashes everything. Papa had one of those. He never knew when that uncontrolled horse was going to break away from the harness and go down the road, thirty miles an hour. An uncontrolled and undisciplined horse.

But so also was the old Missouri mule Papa had. When he didn’t want to go, he wouldn’t go. Sometimes he would be so balky he’d simply sit down in the harness. Papa had both extremes. One was just as bad as the other.

Abundant living has to find the poise between the two—between lying down and running away. It must find the constructive, but disciplined life. The disciplined life, the controlled life, is the life that goes in the middle of the road. It is neither the balky old Missouri mule that’s lying down in a harness and won’t go, nor the horse that’s raring to go and will break away from his harness at any time and rush down the road, smashing everything that comes in its way.

Follow me a minute. Desires are the God-given forces of the personality. And as such, they are right. Without desires, life would stagnate. You cannot cure the ills of life by reducing life. You cannot get rid of your headache by getting rid of your head. The remedy of life is not less life, but more life. You must have enough inward life to master outer environment and circumstance. But if life is to be raised, it can only be raised through disciplined desire.

The desire itself is not a sin, is not wrong. But it must be disciplined. The only way to get rid of a desire is to replace it by a higher desire. Or to fasten the already existing desire upon higher ends and higher goals.

Desires are the driving forces. The driving forces cannot be taken out of life. If you take them out of a youngster’s life, you defeat him before he ever gets started. But they must be redirected through discipline. They must be controlled. There is nothing worse than uncontrolled and undisciplined desires.

That’s exactly what’s wrong with many of our teenagers today. They are running wild with undisciplined, uncontrolled desires. Yet how can one discipline and control the desires of teenagers, when their dads and mothers have never had their desires controlled and disciplined?

There you are. This is so serious, that literally one may be ruled and ruined by undisciplined desires.

A child, any child, will eat every piece of candy in that candy bag if he isn’t stopped. He likes candy. You give a bag of candy to a youngster and he will eat every piece of candy in that bag, unless he’s stopped. I would have eaten every cookie that ever came out of that oven when Mama was baking cookies, unless she spanked my hands. The hotter they were, the better they tasted. I would have eaten those cookies until I got a stomach ache, had I not been disciplined.

One of the best things you can give your child is discipline when he is young.

I am not writing as a mother, for I have never been a mother. I can only share as one who has been a child.

As a child I was taught to wash dishes. I’m sure that Mama would far rather have washed those dishes herself. It would have been much easier. I can remember that I had to wash dishes when I was so small that Mama put the oven lid down off the range, put the dishpan on that lid, and I had to wash dishes. I had to set the table. There were just certain things I had to do in the kitchen as a child. I was never taught to cook. But I watched Mama do it. As a child, I was given the laws of cooking. I was disciplined as a youngster. I had to work.

When my friend Eve died, the hardest battle I had to fight was walking into that kitchen. I had no part, no place, in that kitchen as long as Eve was with me. She took care of the kitchen. She was the queen in the kitchen. Why, bless you, since a child in those early days of my childhood, the kitchen played no part in my life. I was busy doing other things. I was preaching. I was on the public platform. I was in public life.

When I walked into the house for the very first time after Eve was gone, I never felt more defeated in my life than I did standing alone in that kitchen. The first thing I did—I’ll admit something to you—I went to the refrigerator. I took every bit of food out of that refrigerator. I emptied it. I was so defeated. Every thing that even looked like food, I emptied out of that kitchen. And it remained that way for nearly a week. Then one day I looked myself directly in the face and I said, “Do you mean to tell me that you are so small that a little thing like that could defeat you?” I went out and bought groceries for the first time. I put food in that Frigidaire. I learned how to cook a good pot of coffee. I learned how to make good mashed potatoes. Then I conquered spareribs. I cooked my first ham. And do you know something? As I did it, my early training came back. It came back to me. It all came back to me. Bless you, I mastered the thing, and I tell you, I’m a pretty good cook today.

Why? “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Desire and discipline had been matched.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Rich or Poor

Rich man, or poor man. You may be living in a little attic room, own not one stick of furniture, have not a copper cent in the bank; but if you can look up and know that the mighty God of this universe is your heavenly Father, then you have something all the money in the world cannot buy.

What could be more thrilling than learning that we had been remembered in a legacy? That riches beyond all our dreaming had been left at our disposal? Beloved, that is the believer’s position exactly.

Jesus, in taking His departure, called His servants and delivered unto them His goods. That puts you in the center of the highest possible sphere of service. You are entrusted by the Lord with His most priceless possessions. You are charged with making the most of them during His absence on this earth. Ascending to the Father, victor over sin and death, He received a name which is above every name. It is His name which He has left us. “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).

What a bequest! You are rich. You are His child. Perfect in life, triumphant in death, glorious in ascended splendor, coming again with great power and glory, occupying a position far above all the rule and authority and power and dominion—all that is given over to us. Think of it. “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

You talk about a family tree! Think of the spiritual family tree that is ours. The mighty God of the universe is our heavenly Father. Jesus Christ is joint heir with us. We are joint heirs with Him. We are rich. We are no longer poor.

There’s more He left us in His legacy. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Think of it. His peace is ours. That peace is as real as the air you breathe. It faded not under the shadow of the cross. It remained unaltered under the severest strain known to history. This tried and tested peace has been bequeathed to us—to you and to me. It’s the peace that Paul spoke of which passes all understanding. It’s ours.

Beloved, have you accepted this bequest? Are you living in the calm of its conscious possession? Is His peace your peace? If you have that peace, if you are enjoying that peace, you are rich. You are not poor. You may have a title deed to this whole world, and yet without that peace, you are poor. You may not have a copper cent, but with that peace of mind, you are rich. If you can lie down at night with that peace of mind, you are rich.

Then, He’s left us His joy. “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full”(John 15:11). Think of it. My joy, He says. The secret of the unfailing source of His joy in our hearts is His abiding presence in our lives. In His presence we enjoy this sweet sense of His love, we walk in obedience and in His perfect will, we bask in the smile of His approval and rejoice in the consciousness of His presence.

Do you want to know something? Happiness is outward, it is governed by circumstances. Happiness is ours only as our happenings warrant it. On the other hand, joy is personal. It is found deep down in the soul where circumstances and conditions and happenings cannot faze it.

Are you maintaining the relationship with Jesus, where in spite of persecutions, in spite of circumstances, in spite of trials, His joy is filling your cup to the fullest? Is it part of your inheritance? If you have that kind of joy, you are rich. Without that joy, you are poor. If all that you have is just happiness, then you are being controlled by circumstances, and you are poor. If you have joy, His joy, you are rich.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” John 14:2-3).

Drawing His own closely about Him, with a depth of tenderness unsurpassed, the Master lay bare His heart. He revealed the provision that He had made for His own in His Father’s house. His own heavenly home would be made over to them as their home. That is the height of His provision, the goal, of His thought for His children. “That where I am, there ye may be also.”

Do you have that hope in the future? If so, then you are rich. You may be living the finest home in America today, with servants and everything money can buy. Yet, without the glorious hope, hope of the hereafter, you are poor.

On the other hand, even though you may live in one room, with threadbare furniture, if you have assurance of this, glorious hope beyond the grave, then you are rich. Rich in the things that money cannot buy.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Luck

Last Saturday, sitting in my office, I had a few minutes to spare and casually picked up a newspaper. There was an interesting discussion regarding “luck.” Do people make their own luck? Four people shared their opinions.

The first, a personnel officer, had this to say: “People influence their own luck by their attitude towards life. If a person is pessimistically inclined, bad fortune seems to follow.”

The second was an ice cream vendor. “Up to a certain point, we do make our own luck, good or bad. Take me, for instance. I could be sitting back, brooding and doing absolutely nothing but complaining that luck is against me. But instead, I’m out selling ice cream on the streets, and I consider myself lucky to be able to do so.”

The third person was a meat inspector. This was his idea: “First let me say there is no such thing as luck. Whatever success we attain we do it by our own ambition and efforts. People who say luck is against them are usually those who refuse to get off their seats.”

The final opinion came from a retired postal employee. “Luck is something we are destined to have or not have. For example, one person with a lot of ability for reason of what we might call luck, cannot enhance his status, whereas someone else with less ability but lots of luck reaches the top.”

This thing of luck has been discussed by practically everybody living. I have my own ideas. You have yours. Papa had his.

You see, Mama was Swiss, and Papa was German. Papa used to say to me, “Baby, don’t ever be jealous of anything anybody else has. No matter what it is. No matter what they have, never be jealous of that. Because if you work hard enough, you can have anything anybody else has.” That was Papa’s philosophy. I was brought, up on that.

“If you work hard enough....” Believe me, my Papa really worked. I was brought up as a little girl to work. I had to wash the dishes when I was so little that mama had to put the dishpan down on the oven door. I was brought up in an old-fashioned home where we worked. Everybody worked. That was Papa’s philosophy: work hard enough, and you can have anything in the world you want.

Since I have grown up, I have found out that Papa’s philosophy doesn’t really hold up. Work alone is not enough. I have seen some people work from five o’clock in the morning until the last ray of light. They work and work and work and yet they have never gotten ahead. They have no more at the end of the year than they had at the beginning. They will have no more at the end of next year than they had at the end of this year. It takes something more than just hard work to get ahead.

Consider with me for a few minutes. On the morning after the greatest fire in Chicago’s history, the merchants were deciding what to do. A young man, whose store was still lying in smoldering ashes, turned to the men around him and said: “Gentlemen, on this spot I am going to build the world’s greatest store.” It seemed impossible. His whole world had crumbled and was now lying in smoldering ashes. All others could see was seeming defeat, but he had a vision. On that very spot today stands Marshall Fields, one of the greatest stores in the world.

Why? Because a young man’s determination turned defeat and failure into victory. That was not luck. That did not just happen. It was a combination of work and determination.

Glenn Cunningham, the man who became the fastest human in a mile race, was so badly burned as a lad that the doctors said he would always be an invalid. They said he would never, never walk again. Bad luck, some said. The fire was in a little country schoolhouse in Elkhart, Kansas. The school had burned to the ground. Yet the young lad, horribly burned, gritted his teeth as he lay in the hospital bed, lips trembling and great tears brimming his eyes. He turned to his mother after the doctors had left the room and said, “But I will walk again! I tell you, I will walk again.” Brushing away the tears, his little chin stuck out in determination, he continued: “I’ll not only walk again, but I’ll run. I’ll not only run, but I’ll be the world’s fastest runner.” That’s what a little youngster said, lying there with third-degree burns over his entire body. It made no difference that the doctors had just said he would never walk again, that he would spend the rest of his life in an invalid’s chair. He had determination.

Ninety thousand people packed Madison Square Garden in New York City and screamed and applauded as Glenn Cunningham broke all records as the world’s fastest human in a mile race. The boy who was destined to be an invalid turned that destiny into victory by sheer determination. Don’t you tell me Glenn Cunningham’s success was due to luck. He set about his own success by hard work, determination, and an undefeated spirit.

There, my friends, is a magic formula.

If you will turn to the Scriptures, you will find it outlined, described again and again, for the writers of the Holy Scriptures are the greatest writers who ever held a pen.

Here is a marvelous story I have always liked. It deals with Peter and John, a strangely assorted pair. One was always getting angry. He never had any control over himself. He is referred to as “a son of thunder.” The other was an impetuous fisherman, a rough kind of fellow. Yet when the Holy Spirit invaded their lives, everything changed. One day, on their way to the temple to pray, they encountered a beggar with his dirty hands outstretched, begging for alms. He was lame from birth, with withered limbs. Every day friends carried him to the steps near the gate, coming back at night to carry him home. He sat there all day crying for alms. “Have mercy on me, give me some alms, alms.” People dropped coins in his hands. But that did not solve his problem. His problem was not one of money, but of defeat.

Peter and John knew that giving him money would do him no good. They were not as enlightened as our government agencies. They did not believe that all you have to do is hand out something to everybody, and life will be sweet. No, they were just poor, simple fellows, watching the beggar. They noticed he did not even look up at the passing people. Peter, always first to speak, said to the beggar, “Look on us.” But not being in the habit of looking up, he paid no attention. Again, Peter said to him, “Look on us.” There was something of a command in his voice, an undefinable power that caused the beggar slowly and painfully to lift up his head. His weak, watery eyes met Peter’s level gaze. He saw that Peter’s weatherbeaten face was kindly yet strong. And there was a certain light—a light from within. In his eyes there was something the man had never seen before.

Then Peter spoke. “As you are now, so once was I. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

The beggar cried, “But I’ve been lame from my youth. I cannot walk.” You know, sometimes people long in prison, though they think they hate their chains and pray for freedom, really do not want to be free.

Peter repeated his command, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” Slowly the man reached out his hands. Peter took one hand, John the other. They pulled him to his feet, and the beggar rested his whole weight upon ankle bones that had never been used. A look of amazement, of joy and gladness, shone in his eyes. And the Word says, “He leaping up stood, and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

Somebody, right now, reading this, has lived a life like that beggar—full of skepticism, refusing to believe that this thing can happen. You do not believe there is any such astonishing power in the universe, a power that can change defeat into victory. You say you are unlucky. You blame your own defeat on hard luck.

Beloved, there is a Christ who will turn your bad luck into victory. Right now, you can be healed. Rise and walk!

In Proverbs it says “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov:3:5-6).

Do you want a life of victory? There are three things to follow: hard work, determination, and, wisdom. Not your wisdom. No. Lean not to your own understanding. It’s His wisdom. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.

Are your life plans broken up? Then you can say, by God’s grace, I’ll make new and better ones.

Not by luck. By God’s love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Humility

When St. Augustine was asked the first of the Christian graces, he replied, “Humility.”

When asked what he considered the second greatest Christian grace, he replied, “Humility.”

He was then asked, “What do you consider the third greatest Christian grace?” he again replied, firmer than ever, “Humility!”

This thing of humility is grossly misunderstood. Yet I do not believe there is a harder lesson to learn than that of humility. It’s the rarest of all the gifts, the hardest of all lessons.

We have gotten to the place where we feel that humility is a sign of weakness. My friend, humility is not a sign of weakness. It is not a weak and timid quality. It’s a show of strength and maturity. Show me the virtue of humility, the greatest of all Christian graces in the life of a man or woman, and I will show you an individual who has great spiritual strength, and great spiritual security. Only the one who is spiritually secure can afford to be humble.

The first test of a truly great man or a truly great woman is humility. Humility is the solid foundation of all the other virtues.

Humility allows one to make a right estimate of oneself. Nothing is worse than the person who brags about his humility, the person who is always talking about his humility. So humble, yet so proud of it. Uh-huh.

Sometimes you feel like doing what the little girl did who took out her pin and punctured the toy balloon. Whoosh! You would just like to take a pin and puncture their spiritual pride. Only when all spiritual pride is out do you find a vessel yielded and flexible, and a vessel that God can use.

The Master himself said, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.”

The more spiritual a person becomes, the more of Him he has in his life, the more he has of the Holy Spirit, the more yielded he is to the Spirit of the living God, the more consecrated he becomes, the closer to the Lord he gets, the more humble he becomes. It is not a sign of spiritual timidity; it’s a sign of spiritual strength and spiritual security.

The day came when mighty Abraham said, “I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.” Abraham, seeing himself, had a right estimate of himself. He cried, “I am dust and ashes.”

Today, if God spoke to one as He spoke to Abraham, giving mighty promises and covenants, such a man would become so puffed up, and so proud you couldn’t get him inside of his coat jacket. The buttons would pop off, and he would go around saying, “Oh, look what God told me. Look what God promised me. Look what great covenants God has given to me and my seed.” But not with Abraham. He said, “I am but dust and ashes.”

Look at Moses. Look at the relationship Moses had with God. Look at the closeness Moses had, look at the favor Moses had with God. Yet Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth an answer of peace?”

Look at Solomon. The wisest of all men, Solomon, still quoted even in today’s courts. Yet Solomon said, “I am but a little child. I know not how to come out or come in.”

That, my friend, is real wisdom. The more an individual knows, the more he realizes how little he knows. It’s an ignorant person who feels he knows everything. It’s an ignorant person who never takes advice. It’s an ignorant person who cannot be told. The more one knows, the more he realizes how little he knows. That’s the reason Solomon with all his knowledge said, “I am but a little child. I know not how to come out or to come in.”

Look at David. In all the Psalms, one cannot find one place where David makes any mention whatsoever of killing Goliath. He left that for somebody else to tell. The spiritually secure individual, one with spiritual strength, doesn’t have to go around blowing his own horn. No. He treads softly. He treads quietly. Knowing he is absolutely dependent on the power of God.

I still say this lesson of humility is the hardest of all lessons to learn, which is the reason it was the last lesson Jesus taught His disciples before going away.

You know the incident well. He had overheard the conversation of the disciples as to who would be the greatest in the kingdom. The Master very quietly girded himself with a towel—as a slave—and got down on His knees. He, as much God as though He were not man, the One who had all power in heaven and earth, washed the feet of His disciples. Then He said, “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent him” (John 13:15-16).

Great men do not have to worry about monuments to leave behind. God never ordained that any one of His children should leave a great monument unto themselves after they were gone. The greatest monument a Christian can leave is having led some soul to the Lord Jesus Christ.

After Pentecost, Matthew took up a pen to write. But as he wrote, he kept Matthew out of sight completely. He called himself “the publican.” Peter put himself down and lifted Jesus up. Luke would be “Dr. Luke” today, but you can’t find Luke’s name in the Gospel he wrote—much less his title. John kept undercover by saying, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And Paul, the greatest of all saints, when speaking of himself said, “the least of the apostles, less than the least, the chiefest of sinners.”

That, my friends, is humility.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Prejudice

Human weakness is as old as man, yet as current as today’s newspaper. Man’s intolerance of his fellows. Down through the ages this fault has darkened history’s pages with hatred, feud, and war. Again today it threatens to wipe mankind off the face of the earth. Our ignorance of others’ aims or virtues, failure to discover them or refusal to tolerate them drive us to hate—and murder. Misunderstood long enough, people and nations become demons in our eyes, and we in theirs.

A faded clipping turned up the other day, pasted on a cue card. It was the theme of some speech, probably to a service club some forty or more years ago. Yet the message of an unknown writer is more timely today than it was before.

When you get to know a fellow, know his joys and know his cares,

When you’ve come to understand the burdens that he bears,

When you’ve learned the fight he’s making and the troubles in his way,

Then you’ll find that he’s different than you thought him yesterday.

You find his faults are trivial, there’s not so much to blame,

In the fellow that you jeered at when you only knew his name.

You are quick to see the blemish in the distant neighbor’s style,

And you can point to all his errors, you may even sneer at him awhile.

And your prejudices fatten and your hates more violent grow,

As you talk about the failures of the man you do not know.

But when drawn a little closer and your hands and shoulders touch,

You find the traits you hated really don’t amount to much.

When you get to know a fellow, know his every mood and whim,

You begin to find the texture of the splendid side of him.

You begin to understand him, and you cease to scoff and sneer,

For with understanding all these prejudices disappear.

You begin to, find his virtues, and his faults you cease to tell,

For you seldom hate a fellow when you know him very well.

When you get to know a fellow and you understand his ways,

Then his faults won’t really matter, for you’ll find a lot to praise.

I do not know who wrote those words, but they are just as fresh as today’s newspaper.

After I read those words the first time, I began to think. Jesus uncovers our Father. He also uncovers our brother. He lifts the veil from our prejudiced eyes and lets us see the infinite worthwhileness in every man of every race, of every color, of every class. The Gentiles were not problems to Jesus, they were possibilities.

All Christendom needs the baptism of the Spirit of God. We need a fresh baptism of the love of God in our hearts, to turn our religion into a revelation of possibilities of people instead of into something that bolsters our prejudices and causes hatred in our hearts.

Christianity is a double revelation: of God, of man. When Christianity does not show us man the way God sees him, it is no longer Christianity. We need a religious faith that brings faith in people as well as in God. Every Christian should pray and practice this prayer:

Dear God, help me this day to catch Your vision of the infinite possibilities in all people. However overlaid by strange wrappings these possibilities may be, even though we do not understand, I pray that our love shall cover our misunderstandings. Help me to set out on the great adventure of bringing out those possibilities in all people. And perhaps as I do so, some of my own may be brought to light.

Dr. George W. Carver, the black saint and scientist, who has done more for the agriculture of the South than anyone living or dead, white or colored, wanted to be an artist until the teacher said, “George, your people need agriculture more than they need art.” He put those brushes away in a trunk and did not look at them any more for a number of years. He lost himself in his people’s need. Now he has unconsciously painted his image in the hearts of all of us. He forgot himself into greatness.

It’s so easy to be small. Small in our ideas, small in our thinking, small in our religion, small in our attitude toward people, small in our love. I pray to God that we shall in this hour when it means so much, when so much is at stake, forget ourselves into greatness. We shall forget our prejudices into greatness. We shall forget, that we might be used of Him.

For me to live is Christ, and Christ is love.

Again this hour I am reminded of the words of Jesus, found in John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

Did you give him a lift? He’s a brother of man,

And bearing about all the burden he can. Did you try to find out what he needed from you?

Or did you just leave him to baffle it through?

Do you know what it means to be losing the fight

When a lift just in time might set everything right?

Remember, you are God’s child, and for you to live is Christ, and Christ is love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Dungeons

This letter arrived in my morning mail:

Dear Miss Kuhlman,

All day I contemplated suicide because I cannot go on. I lost my dear mother who was eighty-five years old. I felt God had betrayed me. Now I have nothing to lean on.

She led a good life, the perfect example of a godly mother. Yet I wanted her for just a few years longer. My four sisters and myself lived with my mother. We sat with her constantly and kept her company, and now it is so hard having no part. I feel I cannot go on.

I am a business executive, but nothing matters now. Please pray that my faith may be restored. I need your help.

As I read that letter, I wanted very much to stand face to face with this man and tell him he was one of the most ungrateful persons I had ever heard from.

I too had a mother. No girl loved her mother more than I loved mine. Yet in that hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, when my mother took her last breath, I slipped to my knees by the side of her bed and I thanked my God for the years He had given Mama to me. I thanked my God that in His tender mercy He so graciously took her without having her to suffer for years longer.

So I say to the letter writer, “Sir, thank God you had your mother those many years. You say she was eighty-five years old when she died. That’s longer than most folk have their mothers. Be a man. Face the situation. Remember it’s not what happens to you that’s so important, it’s what you do with that thing after it happens that determines the results.”

Whether life grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on what he’s made of. Any man, any woman can make any calamity in their life count for God and for good, if they will only use it.

Sure. We all have our sorrows. We all have our heartaches. We all have dungeons of various kinds. Sometimes it’s hard to find grace in our dungeons. But God will give you that grace. God will give you that strength. All you have to do is ask for it.

Clifford Beers, once in an insane asylum, later wrote A Mind That Found Itself, and founded the National Commission for Mental Hygiene. The mentally upset today owe much to a man who himself was mentally upset.

Another man was set aside with a broken hip. While lying in bed day after day looking at the wallpaper, he conceived the idea of becoming a sketch artist. And he became a very successful one. He found grace in the dungeon.

A poet who failed on the very first night of a public reading felt the next day that everybody was pointing the finger of scorn at him. He went home, wrote his greatest inspirational poem on the ability to take it when you fail. That poem fell into the hands of a man in the hospital who had lost both his arms and feet. It so inspired him that he became a very successful public reader. All found grace in their dungeon.

Dr. Mary McCracken was totally crippled in her lower limbs from infantile paralysis. The medical colleges of America refused to allow her to take a medical course, saying she could never practice. What did she do? She went to China and took her medical training there. She stood at the top of her class at Peking Medical, then returned to the very city of Philadelphia where she had been refused a medical course, and began practicing medicine in an institution for crippled children.

Among the most beautiful of Paul’s writings are these lines: “This salutation is in my own hand. Remember, I am in prison. Grace be with you.”

Oh, sure, you would have expected him to say, “I am in prison. God give me grace.” But he didn’t. He put it the other way. “I am in prison. Grace be with you. I have found grace in the dungeon. Not only grace, but enough and to spare. I pass it on to you.”

No, it is not what happens to you that’s so important. It’s what you do with that thing after it happens that determines the result. And to the letter writer with the broken heart, I say, “Instead of contemplating suicide, you who have just lost your mother, go out and give comfort to another who needs that comfort.”

For every hill I’ve had to climb,

For every stone that bruised my feet,

For all the blood and sweat and grime,

For blinding storms and burning heat,

My heart sings but a grateful song;

These were the things that made me strong.

For all the heartaches and the tears,

And all the anguish and the pain,

For gloomy days and fruitless years,

And for the hopes that I’ve lived in vain,

I do give thanks. For now I know

These were the things that helped me grow.

Tis not the softer things of life

Which stimulate man’s will to strive,

But bleak adversity and strife

Do most to keep man’s will alive.

O’er rose-strewn paths the weaklings creep,

But brave hearts dare to climb the steep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

What Money Won’t Buy

A twelve-year-old boy enclosed a picture of his father with his letter. This is what he wrote:

Dear Miss Kuhlman,

Today is my dad’s birthday. He said he would like a pair of bowling shoes. That’s such an easy gift to give him. But instead of giving my dad what he asked for, I am praying that my heavenly Father will give my dad a birthday present—my dad’s salvation. Because you see, Miss Kuhlman, I would rather have my dad give his heart to Jesus than anything else in the whole world. I am sending you a picture of my dad at work. One of these days, Miss Kuhlman, I hope soon, I can introduce him to you. He’s great.

Danny

A twelve-year-old boy. I looked at the picture of his father. His dad was a good looking man dressed in carpenter’s coveralls. I can tell by looking at him he would be willing to work his fingers to the bone to earn some money to supply the needs of his young son. He thinks he’s being a wonderful dad by paying for the food on the table, buying shoes for the lad’s feet, clothes for his body, providing a good home for him, a good bed to sleep in—everything that money can buy.

But here is a dad who is missing the mark. He is only looking through eyes that have a dollar and cent value on them. His twelve-year-old son has far more wisdom: “My dad would like a pair of bowling shoes. That’s such an easy gift to give.”

It’s easy because it’s something money can buy. But what this lad wants for his father is something that all the money in the world cannot buy.

Poor is the man who has only money. Poor is the man who can see only through eyes of money.

I’m not belittling the fact that money is essential. It is. But the day has come when even the church counts its blessings in materialistic things—dollars and cents.

Money is a good servant, but a mighty poor master. Money never made a man happy. Nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and triples that want in other ways. Money has little value to its possessor, unless it also has value to others.

Consider something. Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life. The unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

Have you ever considered what money cannot buy? It can’t buy the love of a twelve-year-old boy. It can buy popularity. It can buy attention. It can buy flattery. But it cannot buy a youngster’s love.

It cannot buy the love of a good woman. The love of a good woman is not for sale.

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. (Prov: 31:10)

Money may buy you flattery of a younger woman. It may buy insincere affection. It may buy the attention of one who will feed your ego. But all the money in the world cannot buy the genuine, sincere, unselfish love of a good wife. And it’s just like that.

Though you may be the richest person in the whole world, money cannot buy peace of mind. The older I grow, the more I value my peace of mind. To be able to come to the close of the day and have peace of mind is the greatest treasure in the world. It’s priceless. To be able to lie down at night, close your eyes, and in those last moments before sleep overtakes you, have peace of mind, is life’s greatest gift. To be able to awaken in the middle of the night and lie there in absolute stillness and have peace of mind is something money cannot buy.

But hear me. Most of all, the wealth of kings will not buy your way into heaven.

I have looked, as it were, in a dream, through the gates of heaven.

I stood, as it were, by an angel’s side, who was there to guard the way.

And as I stood there, the spirit of a rich man came and tried to get admission with his money.

Money. It had bought him prestige. It had bought him political power.

It had bought him membership in the best clubs while on earth.

And he told the angel of his wealth, and the vast treasures he had gathered on earth.

But the angel only pointed to his gold and said, “Ha. We pave our streets with that stuff.

You have not enough to buy even a glimpse of heaven.”

No, my friend, though you have the world’s wealth, though you hold the title deed to this world,

It won’t buy your way into heaven.

It takes the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. It’s accessible to the poorest man, the poorest woman, who lives and breathes this hour.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Weakness Is No Excuse

I get so weary of hearing people say, over and over, “This is the way I was made. This is the way I was born. This is what I am. I am weak, and I can’t help it. This is the way it’s always going to be.”

Hearing people’s troubles is my life. I walk down the street, and I seldom get a half block before somebody has stopped me and begun to tell me their troubles. It’s just like that. Invariably they place the blame for their difficulties, their failures, and their defeat on somebody else. How often they have made excuses for their sinning on their weakness. In conclusion they say, “This is my weak point. This is my weakness.”

But why does it have to be your point of weakness? Why do you accept the idea you have to be weak at some point? God never built weakness into anybody. If weakness has developed, it is because we have developed it.

A man says “women” is his weakness. But God didn’t put it there. His weakness for women was developed and encouraged by himself. Another says he has a weakness for liquor. Yet his weakness for liquor has developed because the man himself developed it.

A man sat in my office one day and actually said he had to steal. It was the greatest thrill of his life. He said he had to do it. Then he went on to excuse himself for this sin by saying that he was just weak along this line. God never built this weakness into this man. If this weakness for stealing has developed, it’s because the man himself developed it since a young lad. Perhaps as the result of bad associations.

I want to tell you that there is a power, a power that is available whereby any man or woman can overcome their weaknesses. I have seen people whom I had written off as absolutely hopeless, who have become wonderful, efficient, reliable, and successful individuals. This is one’s starting point: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” It’s there. Read it. In 2 Corinthians 5:17. And the authority comes from the most reliable Book ever written—it comes from God himself.

Without a doubt this is the greatest thought ever to occur in the human mind. Far greater than Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am.” It means that you and I can become new. All these old weaknesses, that have plagued us for years, can be done away with.

“Oh,” somebody said, “she wants us to embrace religion.” The strange thing is, that embracing religion isn’t the solution. I mean that. Being a Presbyterian won’t save you from sin. It may take the joy out of it, but it won’t save you from sin. That is just the difficulty in many partly changed lives. The joy of the thing is gone. But the fact of sinning is not, it is still there.

To indulge in joyless sinning is no joy. You have just enough religion to make you miserable by your sinning, and not enough to make you masterful by our Savior. Then where is the snag? Is this the best that Christianity can bring? Some modern theologians frankly say yes. And they continue going around muttering “God have mercy upon us.”

Suppose a child should go around the house and continually mutter, “Father, Mother, have mercy on me. Please have mercy on me.” Do you know something? That attitude would very effectively block the relationship between parent and child.

In exactly the same way, God doesn’t want us to continually put the emphasis on our guilt, but rather upon His pardon, His goodness, His love, His forgiveness. Not upon me at all, but upon Him.

The definite transaction of conversion must take place. The attitude of repentance must come. It has to come, and come decisively. But it should lead us out of penance and into pardon, then that pardon leads us to fellowship, and that fellowship into joy. The joy of salvation. The gift of God has been accepted by the individual, and the one has become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things having passed away, and behold all things having become new. You are now reconciled to God. You have put off the old man. You may be conscious of your weakness, but you will be more conscious of the mighty power that is sustaining you. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil: 4:13).

My friend, there is no defeat in those words. There is no place for weakness in that promise. “I can do all things.” All. “Through Christ.” And where does the strength come from? “Christ which strengtheneth me.”

There are elements of strength behind the man, the woman, who accepts Christ as Savior, who overpowers, who overcomes all weaknesses all fears, and all defeat.

Remember to Whom you belong.

I am His, by Him created; I am His, by Him redeemed; I am twice His, by original right and by purchase; I am His, and He will defend me, He will correct me, He will make use of me, He will love me, He will delight in me. I am my beloved’s, and no one else possesses either right or power over me, except according to His will. He is mine, and all that is mine is His. All my sin, all my weakness, all my condemnation, all my misery, all my fears, all my shortcomings, I give to Him. They are His. His strength is my strength, His righteousness my righteousness, His wisdom, His holiness, His salvation, and His God is my God. His Father is my Father. His brethren my brethren. And His Heaven my home. For I belong to Him, and He is mine.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

My First Healing

I had the most perfect father a girl ever had. In my eyes Papa could do no wrong. He was my ideal.

He never spanked me. He never had to. All he had to do was get a certain look on his face. Mama wouldn’t hesitate to punish me when I needed it. But Papa punished by letting me know I had hurt him—and that hurt worse than any of my mother’s spankings.

When I was a little girl I used to have terrible earaches. Mama would pour sweet oil in my ear and use all the home remedies she knew. But the thing that eased the pain best was for Papa to stay home from work, take me on his lap in the rocking chair and let me lay my aching ear on his shoulder.

My father, Joe Kuhlman, was mayor of the little town of Concordia, Missouri. He had been a farmer, but later moved into town. And that’s where I was born, the third of their four children.

When I was fourteen I was born again in the Methodist church (Mama’s church) and was baptized in water in the Baptist church (Papa’s church). Two years later I was called to preach.

My first preaching experiences were in Idaho. I went from community to community, sometimes having to hitchhike. I would find an empty building, advertise the services, set up benches, and the people would come—strictly out of curiosity to see a red-headed, teenage girl preacher. If I found an abandoned church building, I would ask around until I found out who owned it, then request permission to hold services.

Usually my congregation consisted of a handful of Idaho farmers whose only reason for letting me use the church was that they couldn’t pay a regular preacher. I sometimes slept in somebody’s guest room or perhaps a small rented room that I had found myself. And once when there was no other place to go, I slept in a turkey house while holding nightly meetings in a deserted church located at the crossroads of a little country community. But I was full of enthusiasm and felt I could lick the world for God.

My only regret was that my father had never heard me preach. I yearned for the day when Papa could be in the audience and see his daughter behind the pulpit. That would be a great day.

It was a whole year before I managed a trip home; travel was expensive and I needed every penny to buy handbills and newspaper space. I spent a few wonderful summer days with my parents and my younger sister who was still at home.

Then I was off again. By December I had reached Colorado. It was my second Christmas away from the family, but invitations to speak had started coming and I couldn’t stop now. My first services in Denver were in an empty store building on Champa Street and I had arranged with the lumber company to furnish the material for benches. Mrs. Holmquist, who owned the St. Francis Hotel, rented me room 416 for four dollars a week.

It was there at 4:30P.M. on the Tuesday after Christmas that the phone rang. I recognized the voice on the other end as an old friend from home. “Kathryn, your father has been hurt. He’s been in an accident.”

“Hurt—bad?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Tell Papa I’m leaving right now. I’m coming home.”

I had bought an old V-8 Ford and I threw a few things into the back and started out. Only God knows how fast I drove on those icy roads, but all I could think about was my father. Papa was waiting for me. Papa knew I was coming.

The weather got worse as I drove out of Colorado into Kansas. The roads were covered with ice and drifting snow, but I didn’t stop to eat or rest.

One hundred miles from Kansas City I stopped at a telephone station beside the deserted highway and called ahead. My Aunt Belle answered.

I said, “This is Kathryn. Tell Papa I’m almost home.”

“But, Kathryn,” Aunt Belle said in a shocked voice, “didn’t they tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I said, feeling my heart begin to pound madly in my chest.

“Your father was killed. He was hit by a car driven by a college student who was home for the holidays. He died almost instantly.”

I was stunned. I tried to speak but no words came out. My teeth were chattering wildly and my hands shaking as I stood in that forlorn phone booth, surrounded by the swirling snow. I can only remember the biting wind freezing the tears on my cheeks as I stumbled back to my old car and resumed my trip homeward.

I’ve got to get there, I thought. Maybe it isn’t true.

The next hundred miles were like a nightmare. The highway was a glare of ice. Mine was the only car on the road. Night fell and my headlights shone back at me from a wall of blinding white. I was crying, trying to hold the car on the glassy road.

Papa can’t be dead. It’s just a bad dream. If I ignore it, it will go away.

But it didn’t go away. When I arrived home, my father’s body was in an open casket in the front room of our big white frame house on Main Street. I sat in the bedroom upstairs alone, refusing to go in and look at him. I could hear the soft shuffle of feet on the front porch and the whispered talk around the house.

I was afraid that if I went in there and saw Papa’s body, I would suddenly have to face the reality of his death. I felt if I awakened from this bad dream and found it was all true, my whole world would come to an end.

And I was struggling with another feeling. Hate. It surged in me like a volcano and to everyone who came into the room I spewed out venom toward the young man who had taken the life of my father. I had always been such a happy person. Papa had made me happy. But now he was gone, and in his place were these dark strangers of fear and hate.

Then there came the day of the funeral. Sitting there in the front row of the little Baptist church, I still refused to accept my father’s death. It couldn’t be. My papa, so full of love for his “baby,” so tender and gentle, it couldn’t be that he was gone.

After the sermon, the townspeople left their pews and solemnly walked down the aisle to gaze one last time into the casket. Then they were gone. The church was empty except for the family and attendants.

One by one my family rose from their seats and filed by the coffin. Mama. My two sisters. My brother. Only I was left in the pew.

The funeral director walked over and said, “Kathryn, would you like to see your father before I close the casket?’

Suddenly I was standing at the front of the church, looking down—my eyes fixed not on Papa’s face, but on his shoulder, that shoulder on which I had so often leaned. I remembered the last conversation we had had. We were in the back yard, last summer. He was standing beside the clothes line, reaching up with his hand on the wire. “Baby,” he said, “when you were a little girl, remember how you used to snuggle your head on my shoulder and say, ‘Papa, give me a nickel?’”

I nodded. “And you always did.”

“Because it was what you asked for. But, baby, you could have asked for my last dollar, and I would have given you that, too.”

I reached over and gently put my hand on that shoulder in the casket. And as I did, something happened. All that my fingers caressed was a suit of clothes. Not just the black wool coat, but everything that box contained was simply something discarded—loved once, laid aside now. Papa wasn’t there.

Even though I had been preaching for a year and a half, that was the very first time the power of the risen, resurrected Christ had come through to me. Suddenly I was no longer afraid of death, and as my fear disappeared, so did my hate. It was my first real healing experience.

Papa wasn’t dead. He was alive. There was no longer any need to fear or hate.

Numerous times I’ve been back to the little cemetery in Concordia where they buried the body of my father. There are no tears. This is no grief. There is no heartache, for that morning in church I knew the Apostle Paul’s words to be true: “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor: 5:8).

That was many years ago. Since then I have been able to stand at the open grave with countless others and share the hope that lives in me. There have been mountain tops across those years, opportunities for travel and ministry and preaching. But, you know, growth has come not on the mountain tops but in the valleys.

This was the first valley, the deepest, the one that meant most. When I walk offstage today, after hours of confronting sickness and need in every form, I go back to the dressing room. And often at that moment I have a strange feeling. I feel that Papa is there. He never heard me preach, in earthly form, but I know he knows that his girl is trying to do a good job for the Lord. And he knows that now I constantly lay my head on the shoulder of the heavenly Father, knowing I can claim all the blessings of heaven through Jesus Christ.

(Editor’s note: “My First Healing” is copied from Guideposts Magazine, June, 1971.)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

After Death—What?

Man is a trinity consisting of body, soul, and spirit.

It’s hard for us to understand this unique aspect of man. The trinity of man may be likened to the trinity of a peach. The flesh of a peach is the part we eat. Peaches are often thought of only in terms of the meat, or flesh, that part which we eat, can, and put on our cereal in the morning. But a peach is also the stone. And the peach is also the kernel. The peach is a trinity: flesh, stone, and kernel.

The kernel is not the stone, neither is the stone the flesh. What the flesh is to the peach, so is the human body to man. Each of us has a human body. But inside this body of flesh resides a soul. What the stone is to the peach, so is the soul to man. The Bible also teaches, however, that the soul is not the spirit. Each is separate and apart from the other. What the kernel is to the stone, so is the spirit to the soul.

Remove the flesh of the peach, and the kernel still has a body: the stone.

This soulish body of man can hear, speak, think, feel, and remember—therefore it must have a tangible form. Just as I am as much myself when I am stripped of my clothing as when I have my clothing on, so I am just as much myself as when I am stripped of my fleshly body. Even after the soul has left the body, and the body is placed in the earth, I remain myself forever. My flesh dies; my soul and spirit live on forever.

Let me make something so clear there will be no confusion in your mind whatsoever. At the time of physical death, the child of God goes right on living. If you know Jesus Christ and His saving power, then you are an heir of God and joint heir with Jesus. The greatest inheritance, the greatest possession, the greatest treasure any man can possess is eternal life with Christ. If death comes to that one this very moment, immediately the soul and the spirit of that one goes all the way from earth to be in the presence of the Lord. Two-thirds of that one leaves the body instantly. Only one-third is left here on earth. just as the flesh of the peach is left, so the body of that one is left.

“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8. That happens instantly when the old heart takes its last beat.

Right now, while I’m talking to you, if my own heart should cease to beat, and life goes out of my body, that second, even before my body slumps in the chair where I’m sitting, my soul and my spirit in that split second will be in the presence of the King whom I love and adore and serve, yet have not seen. When you hear Kathryn Kuhlman has died, don’t believe it. Since I’m born again, I shall be in His presence. I shall see Him. Only one part shall remain on earth—my body. That which will be placed in the casket is only the flesh of the peach. And when they place my body in the grave, that will be all of me that will be placed there. The real me lives on.

No, beloved, the soul does not sleep. The spirit does not sleep. All on earth that’s placed in that open grave is just the body. You can never place me, not the real me, that part of me which is eternal, that soul, that spirit, in a tomb. I will never be buried. Death cannot touch me. Fire cannot destroy me. Only my flesh will be placed in that grave. And even that part shall await the glorious resurrection morning when it shall be reunited with the real me.

As long as I’m still in this body of flesh I am susceptible to sickness, disease, sorrow, and heartbreak. It’s a body of corruption. It is a mortal body. But one of these days it shall no longer be a vile body. It shall be changed from corruption to incorruption. It shall be changed from mortal to immortal. It shall be raised, not as a vile body, but as a body fashioned like unto His body, the body of our wonderful Jesus.

We thrill to the glorious fact that our sins are covered with the blood. But my redemption will never be perfected until that day when that which is now corruption, that which is now mortal, shall be raised in incorruption and immortality. One day I shall stand in His glorious presence, with a glorious new body. When the trump of the Lord shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and those which are still alive shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, so shall I ever be with Him.

Those who have gone before are not lost, not separated from us permanently. One of these days I’m going to see Papa again. One of these days I’m going to see Mama again. One of these days I’m going to be with my loved ones.

I won’t exchange that glorious hope for a title deed to all the world. My place in Heaven is prepared. My hope is secure. I’m ready to go—I’ll see you on the other side.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

A Glimpse Into Glory

I Believe in Miracles

My High Calling

Methods

Speaking in Tongues

God and the Institutional Church

Miracles

Women in the Ministry

What About Those Who Are Not Healed?

Healing and the Atonement

Prescription for Healing

Faith

The Gift of Healing

Ultimate Victory

Faith and Gumption

Hard Work: The Secret of Success

Determination

Missouri Cornbread

Nerves

Success and Enthusiasm

Going Under the Power

Ambition

Laziness

Religion of Love

Common Sense

Eternal Security

The Cost and the Love of God

Discipline and Desire

Rich or Poor

Luck

Humility

Prejudice

Dungeons

What Money Won’t Buy

Weakness Is No Excuse

My First Healing

After Death—What?