The Anointing To Pastorwas a learning period, but it still wasn't my calling.
Back in 1948, somebody came along mightily used of God
and anointed to minister healing. A pastor friend told me,
"Brother Hagin, you could do that. The same anointing that's on
him is on you."
I hadn't thought a thing about such a ministry; I was still
pastoring.
My friend said, "When you preach for me and get on the
subject of healing or faith, it's just like a dog on a rabbit's trail.
You just take off!"
That was because God was going to anoint me to do what
He had called me to do. If I had persisted in doing something
else, like pastoring, the anointing wouldn't be there and I would
have diminished the overall anointing upon my life and ministry.
I preached my farewell sermon at my last pastorate the first
Sunday of February 1949.
When the Lord appeared to me in that first vision in 1950 in
the Rockwall, Texas, tent meeting, He said, among other things,
"When you left your last church, at that time you entered into
the first phase of your ministry."
At that time I had already been in the ministry 15 years
(from 1934 to 1949). Twelve years of it had been in pastoral
work. The rest had been in evangelistic work. And I'm not an
evangelist either—that's not my calling. (That's the reason the
anointing to preach won't come on me very often.)
So when the Lord said I had entered into the first phase of
my ministry when I left my last church, I argued with Him about
it. (Ananias argued with Him, too, over going to pray for Saul of
Tarsus.)
I said, "Lord, that can't be so. You mean I preached 15 years
in the ministry and never even got into the first phase of the
ministry You have for me?"
He said, "That's exactly right."
Then He said something we all need to think about. He said,