You Are the Caretaker

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Kenneth E. Hagin


Satan has no authority—no legal right—to dominate the Christian. Each and every member of the Body of Christ has a perfect right to experience all the blessings of redemption, including healing and deliverance from any Satanic oppression. The Name of Jesus is the key—what will you do with the Name?

I have said many times in my preaching and teaching over the years that the last headache I had was in August 1933. Now, I never said that symptoms didn’t come; I said, in effect, “I’ve been without headaches for all that time.” And I have, because when I demanded that pain to leave in Jesus’ Name, it left!

Whenever I had an experience like that, I would go along for several years, and the devil wouldn’t try that one for awhile—I wouldn’t have any more symptoms of a headache for a long time. But, you know, the devil is persistent. You remember in the Gospel of Luke, where it said, “After Satan tempted Jesus, he left Him for a season” (Luke 4:13).

Notice it didn’t say, “Satan left Him and never came back.” It said, “He left Him for a season.” Yet later on, it said that Jesus “. . . was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). That’s the reason we have in Jesus such a faithful and compassionate High Priest to help us (see vv. 15–16). He understands what we’re going through. And we have a right to use His Name when we experience adversity!

So if pain comes, if sickness or disease comes, instead of accepting it and telling somebody, “I have this, that, and the other thing,” you say, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, leave my body.” And the pain or the sickness or disease must go.

I said it must go, because you are the master of your body, not me or anybody else. And I am the caretaker of my own body. You are the caretaker of your body; your spirit is the caretaker that lives in that house, your body.

The body is the house that you live in. And you are to rule your body. But that’s where folks get into trouble; they don’t rule their bodies.

The Apostle Paul said about himself (and he admonished believers to do the same), “. . . .I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection . . .” (1 Cor. 9:27). In other words, Paul was saying, “I rule my body.”

A failure to rule the body produces carnal Christians. One translations calls them “body–ruled” Christians. In other words, their bodies rule them.

I heard Brother Lester Sumrall, who knew Smith Wigglesworth personally, say that during one of their visits, he asked, “How is Smith Wigglesworth today?” The older preacher answered, “I never ask Smith Wigglesworth how he feels; I tell him how he feels!”

Now some folks, bless their darling hearts, don’t get that. But, you see, you rule your body. Paul said, “I keep under my body. I bring it into subjection.” Paul was talking about his spirit, the real man, or the inner or hidden man (1 Peter 3:4).

Somebody said, “Yeah, but that was Paul. He was an apostle, so he could do that.”

Now isn’t that illogical reasoning? Just because Paul was called to the office of the apostle didn’t make him any more a Christian than you or I or anyone else. Paul wasn’t any more saved than any member of the Body of Christ. The office Paul stood in didn’t give him any more authority to rule his body than you have authority to rule your body. And it didn’t give him any more power to do it, either.

I will further prove to you from the Bible that all Christians, not just a select few, can rule their bodies.

ROMANS 12:1
I[Paul] 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.

Now, Paul wrote the epistle, or letter, of Romans to believers. He addresses the letter, “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints . . .” (Rom. 1:7). Well, “saints” can apply to people everywhere who are born again—“to all that be born again in” Tulsa, the United States of America, or wherever you’re from!

Well, what did Paul say that saints should do with their bodies? He said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that YE present your bodies . . .” (Rom. 12:1). So you see, you are to do something with your own body. This verse proves that you can do it.

You are the master of your body. If you weren’t, you couldn’t present it to God. You wouldn’t be able to do anything with it. But you are the master, the ruler, of your body. And thank God, you have a right to freedom from pain and sickness and disease in the Name of Jesus! You can command those things to leave your body in that Name, and they must go. But notice who has to do the commanding—you do!

In the early days of my ministry, I pastored for nearly 12 years. And in those days, I’d sometimes have to get myself by the ear and lead myself out to the church, saying, “Come on, boy, you’ve got to pray!” Then I’d put myself down on the altar, and I’d make myself pray. The Bible says, “. . . the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). Sometimes you—the real you, your spirit being—just have to assert yourself. And you must take advantage of your rights and privileges in Christ, including your right to use His Name.

Just after I was healed and raised up from the bed of sickness in 1934, I read an article in a magazine about a certain government building in Washington, D.C. In front of the building were two little plots of grass on either side of the main walkway. Well, people entering and exiting the building would cut across the grass to and from the walkway. Eventually, they wore a path in those little plots of grass.

The caretaker put up stakes and string as a barrier to protect the grass so it would grow back where it had been worn down. But that didn’t help. People just stepped over the string and continued cutting across the grass.

Eventually, the caretaker painted two crude signs on pasteboard and placed them on each plot of grass. The signs read, “Gentlemen will not, and others must not, trespass on this property.”

You see, it was that caretaker’s job to take care of those grounds. He was the custodian or guardian of that property, and it was his responsibility to ensure that the building and grounds were kept neat and in good repair. Similarly, I—the man on the inside—am the caretaker of this building of mine, my body. And you are the caretaker of your body.

When I read that article and got to the part about the “No Trespassing” sign, I simply put up a sign on my body in the spirit realm. I wrote on it with invisible ink with the pen of the Spirit of God: “Gentlemen will not, and others must not, trespass on this property.” Then I wrote in parentheses, “Devil, this means you! Don’t you trespass on God’s property!”

Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” That new creature is the man on the inside, the spirit man. And you, as that new creature are the caretaker of your body, the overseer of your house.

You are the caretaker of your body, but, really, your body doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to God.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20

19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own[well, whose are you if you’re not your own]?

20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

As a new creature in Christ, you and the Father are one. As I’ve said many times, concerning John 14:13–14, when you use the Name of Jesus to exercise spiritual authority, you’re not demanding anything of God the Father. You and the Father are one, and He has given you authority in that Name over demonic forces. Directly or indirectly, sickness and disease come from the devil; they don’t come from God. So when you command sickness and disease to leave your body in Jesus’ Name, you’re just taking your place and demanding your rights. You’re exercising the authority that God gave you and commissioned you to exercise. And you’re acting scripturally as the caretaker of your own body.

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