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What Faith Is
What Faith Is teaches believers how to lay hold of the desires of hope and bring them into the realm of reality.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
27 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth E. Hagin
427 books657 followersRev. Kenneth Erwin Hagin, known as the “father of the modern faith movement,” served in Christian ministry for nearly 70 years.
In 1968, Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith magazine, which now has a monthly circulation of more than 300,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated worldwide more than 65 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Rev. Kenneth W. Hagin, and several other authors. Faith Library Publications also has produced more than 9 million audio teaching CDs.
In 1968, Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith magazine, which now has a monthly circulation of more than 300,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated worldwide more than 65 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Rev. Kenneth W. Hagin, and several other authors. Faith Library Publications also has produced more than 9 million audio teaching CDs.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 25, 2024
“Faith says, ‘it’s mine — I have it now!’”
I’ve grown up in the milieu of the Word of Faith movement. I live in the city where it took off (Tulsa, OK) and got imported throughout the world, so it’s quite literally everywhere, even if most people will tell you it’s a heretical movement. In Tulsa, they’ll say that, and then go right on believing half of its doctrine because it’s so ingrained in the city’s makeup. I’ll be honest: I have an axe to grind with WOF (as a movement & belief system) because of so much of the harm I’ve seen it do. That said, I’ve always argued against it through the knowledge I’ve obtained of it by osmosis and I’d like to be a better challenger by truly seeking to understand it through its key founders and texts. So I asked my parents if they had any Kenneth Hagin books and they pulled out a box of them among other WOF authors. That’s how I came to this short little book.
Considering the title, it seems this book would be perfect to get the core WOF message and I think I assessed correctly. Hagin’s big thing is: if you have faith, God will give you health & wealth. You can see the problem in that right away though, right? If it starts with “if you…” then you’re off on the wrong foot. It’s never “if you…then God….” Hagin makes all sorts of claims that limit the sovereignty of God like:
“You cannot receive from God beyond actual faith.”
I’m sorry, God cannot work unless you have faith? Unless you allow him? He needs your permission? Nah, God can (and does) whatever he wants. While Jesus certainly asked small things of some folks he preformed miracles for (“stand up and walk,” “stretch out your arm,” or “step out of the boat”), he also often does so without asking a thing (healing of blind man in John 9:1-7, raising Lazarus, or healing the man who Peter cut the ear off of).
Here’s another:
“As long as you hope, the answer will never materialize. But the moment you start believing, it will work.”
Who’s missing in that quote? God! Again, this is a formula that is presented to get what you want. Think I’m being too harsh? Okay, well here’s him presenting a literal formula:
“Here is a little formula of faith patterned after Abraham’s faith which you can make work for you:
First, Abraham had God’s Word for it.
Second, Abraham believed God’s Word.
Third, Abraham considered not the contradictory circumstances.
Fourth, Abraham gave praise to God.
Follow these four steps and you’ll always get through to God! They are four steps to certain deliverance, healing, or whatever you are seeking.”
Sure, the content of those steps is fine, but it’s the fact that he presents it with a 100% guarantee of effectiveness. I think the moment you find the formula that works with God, God’s probably gonna switch it up on you. He’s not your butler. He is sovereign and won’t be pinned down by simplistic little steps like these.
The problem is a fundamental misinterpretation of Scripture:
“who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 KJV
Hagin cites this passage left and right to say that physical healing has already been given to you! All you have to do now is believe it’s yours and receive it. While that might be a peripheral significance of this verse, this is clearly about Jesus’ atonement for our sins — aka of the spiritual, not physical. We’ve been grafted in, reconnected to God, invited into a new way of life — however you want to say the Good News, but Hagin is dead set on this verse supporting the notion that God always wants you physically healthy and to never experience suffering. At one point, while recounting a story about a crippled woman who didn’t ask for prayer (one of the many disabled folks he shames in the book), he says, “some might say, ‘maybe it’s not God’s will’ [to heal her], but I know it IS God’s will to heal people!” That’s quite an assurance to meet such a claim with. I guess Hagin has some supreme knowledge on par with God’s. Chapter 3 is all about how Hagin got this secret bit of knowledge and got healed when he was 17 and it seems pretty clear that he’s turned what happened to him into the rule and damnit, you better not be the exception. If so, it’s your fault that you don’t have enough faith and people are justified to look down upon you for that. In recovery circles most of us are familiar with recovery programs built by men who have you essentially do everything they did. The ol’ assumption that “if it worked for me, it’ll work for you.” But I think God and humanity are too complex for that. I’m just trying to point out that the god of the WOF movement is small and limited. He’s bound by your actions. He needs your permission.
A proper theology of suffering could waft away most of this nonsense. The Gospel is not that God wants to give you health and wealth and you just gotta let him. Jesus suffered and he invites us to imitate him in doing so. Can we take that too far too? Definitely. But go read Ecclesiastes. It says again in again, essentially, “bad shit happens.” Welcome to life outside the garden here. WOF’s most insidious effect is the denialism it produces. We see it everywhere these days. If you don’t like something, call it “fake news” and pretend it doesn’t exist. Sick? No, God wouldn’t maybe wanna work on developing you spiritually while you’re undergoing hardship, so darn it, I’m not sick! Bad weather? Tell that storm to “go on get” in Jesus’ name and let it destroy someone else’s home. WOF is gnostic humanism masquerading as something Christian and it’s all on full display in this book.
I’ve done a certain amount of criticizing here, so let me say that Hagin’s emphasis on what God has already done for you is actually good. It’s true we are new creations and have yet to realize and live into what we’ve already obtained. Having faith in the work of Jesus is wonderful, so that’s where my stars come from, it’s just that what Jesus has done is framed as unlocking the door with all the prosperity you could ever want as a consumer in a capitalist society.
How does this book end? Of course, with a story about a man who “stopped hoping and started believing” and he got the cabin out on a big acreage he wanted. To make that worse than it is, the man concurs with Hagin that he just needed faith, that he was wasting his time hoping, and that “God didn’t even hear me to begin with.” Hagin makes no comment on this, just silently affirms that, yup, poor ol’ God couldn’t even hear this man who wasn’t praying without hope. Until you get your faith right, God may as well not even exist, let alone care about someone who’s praying “wrong.”
BTW, say what you will about WOF, but the 80s church really had something going with these pamphlet type books that are stapled together & mass produced. Most of church history had brief literature like this, but it’s mostly gone out of fashion. Everybody has to write a book with a certain word count now.
I’ve grown up in the milieu of the Word of Faith movement. I live in the city where it took off (Tulsa, OK) and got imported throughout the world, so it’s quite literally everywhere, even if most people will tell you it’s a heretical movement. In Tulsa, they’ll say that, and then go right on believing half of its doctrine because it’s so ingrained in the city’s makeup. I’ll be honest: I have an axe to grind with WOF (as a movement & belief system) because of so much of the harm I’ve seen it do. That said, I’ve always argued against it through the knowledge I’ve obtained of it by osmosis and I’d like to be a better challenger by truly seeking to understand it through its key founders and texts. So I asked my parents if they had any Kenneth Hagin books and they pulled out a box of them among other WOF authors. That’s how I came to this short little book.
Considering the title, it seems this book would be perfect to get the core WOF message and I think I assessed correctly. Hagin’s big thing is: if you have faith, God will give you health & wealth. You can see the problem in that right away though, right? If it starts with “if you…” then you’re off on the wrong foot. It’s never “if you…then God….” Hagin makes all sorts of claims that limit the sovereignty of God like:
“You cannot receive from God beyond actual faith.”
I’m sorry, God cannot work unless you have faith? Unless you allow him? He needs your permission? Nah, God can (and does) whatever he wants. While Jesus certainly asked small things of some folks he preformed miracles for (“stand up and walk,” “stretch out your arm,” or “step out of the boat”), he also often does so without asking a thing (healing of blind man in John 9:1-7, raising Lazarus, or healing the man who Peter cut the ear off of).
Here’s another:
“As long as you hope, the answer will never materialize. But the moment you start believing, it will work.”
Who’s missing in that quote? God! Again, this is a formula that is presented to get what you want. Think I’m being too harsh? Okay, well here’s him presenting a literal formula:
“Here is a little formula of faith patterned after Abraham’s faith which you can make work for you:
First, Abraham had God’s Word for it.
Second, Abraham believed God’s Word.
Third, Abraham considered not the contradictory circumstances.
Fourth, Abraham gave praise to God.
Follow these four steps and you’ll always get through to God! They are four steps to certain deliverance, healing, or whatever you are seeking.”
Sure, the content of those steps is fine, but it’s the fact that he presents it with a 100% guarantee of effectiveness. I think the moment you find the formula that works with God, God’s probably gonna switch it up on you. He’s not your butler. He is sovereign and won’t be pinned down by simplistic little steps like these.
The problem is a fundamental misinterpretation of Scripture:
“who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 KJV
Hagin cites this passage left and right to say that physical healing has already been given to you! All you have to do now is believe it’s yours and receive it. While that might be a peripheral significance of this verse, this is clearly about Jesus’ atonement for our sins — aka of the spiritual, not physical. We’ve been grafted in, reconnected to God, invited into a new way of life — however you want to say the Good News, but Hagin is dead set on this verse supporting the notion that God always wants you physically healthy and to never experience suffering. At one point, while recounting a story about a crippled woman who didn’t ask for prayer (one of the many disabled folks he shames in the book), he says, “some might say, ‘maybe it’s not God’s will’ [to heal her], but I know it IS God’s will to heal people!” That’s quite an assurance to meet such a claim with. I guess Hagin has some supreme knowledge on par with God’s. Chapter 3 is all about how Hagin got this secret bit of knowledge and got healed when he was 17 and it seems pretty clear that he’s turned what happened to him into the rule and damnit, you better not be the exception. If so, it’s your fault that you don’t have enough faith and people are justified to look down upon you for that. In recovery circles most of us are familiar with recovery programs built by men who have you essentially do everything they did. The ol’ assumption that “if it worked for me, it’ll work for you.” But I think God and humanity are too complex for that. I’m just trying to point out that the god of the WOF movement is small and limited. He’s bound by your actions. He needs your permission.
A proper theology of suffering could waft away most of this nonsense. The Gospel is not that God wants to give you health and wealth and you just gotta let him. Jesus suffered and he invites us to imitate him in doing so. Can we take that too far too? Definitely. But go read Ecclesiastes. It says again in again, essentially, “bad shit happens.” Welcome to life outside the garden here. WOF’s most insidious effect is the denialism it produces. We see it everywhere these days. If you don’t like something, call it “fake news” and pretend it doesn’t exist. Sick? No, God wouldn’t maybe wanna work on developing you spiritually while you’re undergoing hardship, so darn it, I’m not sick! Bad weather? Tell that storm to “go on get” in Jesus’ name and let it destroy someone else’s home. WOF is gnostic humanism masquerading as something Christian and it’s all on full display in this book.
I’ve done a certain amount of criticizing here, so let me say that Hagin’s emphasis on what God has already done for you is actually good. It’s true we are new creations and have yet to realize and live into what we’ve already obtained. Having faith in the work of Jesus is wonderful, so that’s where my stars come from, it’s just that what Jesus has done is framed as unlocking the door with all the prosperity you could ever want as a consumer in a capitalist society.
How does this book end? Of course, with a story about a man who “stopped hoping and started believing” and he got the cabin out on a big acreage he wanted. To make that worse than it is, the man concurs with Hagin that he just needed faith, that he was wasting his time hoping, and that “God didn’t even hear me to begin with.” Hagin makes no comment on this, just silently affirms that, yup, poor ol’ God couldn’t even hear this man who wasn’t praying without hope. Until you get your faith right, God may as well not even exist, let alone care about someone who’s praying “wrong.”
BTW, say what you will about WOF, but the 80s church really had something going with these pamphlet type books that are stapled together & mass produced. Most of church history had brief literature like this, but it’s mostly gone out of fashion. Everybody has to write a book with a certain word count now.
January 5, 2021
A precious small book with four chapters that opens with tackling what faith is by first describing what faith is not.
I really appreciated how Hagin carefully differentiated faith and hope, and providing an understanding of how one can move from hope to faith.
I was challenged when I read about the the presence of promises and statements of fact/truth in Scripture. Promises are for things that God will fulfil/do while statements of fact are for things that God already did, like healing! Statements of fact are to be received and declared as done, not begged to be done. Promises are there for us to claim and wait on the Lord to fulfil.
I really appreciated how Hagin carefully differentiated faith and hope, and providing an understanding of how one can move from hope to faith.
I was challenged when I read about the the presence of promises and statements of fact/truth in Scripture. Promises are for things that God will fulfil/do while statements of fact are for things that God already did, like healing! Statements of fact are to be received and declared as done, not begged to be done. Promises are there for us to claim and wait on the Lord to fulfil.
January 27, 2019
It is true that hope is future tense but faith is always now. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith is acting. Brother Kenneth is giving us clear message showing us the difference between hope and faith. It is true that hope is future tense but faith is always now.
January 8, 2021
Faith can't work effectively without hope. Hope paints a picture of your future and faith brings it into the now.
February 5, 2021
I think every once in a while one needs to go back to read this book, small but yet powerful and I find myself making this mistake all the time.
May 23, 2022
Some are correct and some are wrong. He didn’t really define the real meaning of faith based on the original Hebrew meaning of the word.
June 5, 2025
Faith works
I have read this book several times and it has worked for me every time I applied believe instead of hoping.
I have read this book several times and it has worked for me every time I applied believe instead of hoping.
January 17, 2022
Brother Kenneth E. Hagin provides an eloquent teaching about what faith is, faith is now and hope is in the future. As he stated in the last part of this book “I’m praying and believing. And if you say it, it will work for you—now!”
December 8, 2012
Great Book, simple clear and to the point.
May 25, 2016
Great book about biblical faith.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews