In Mark 5:19 Jesus said, “…go home to thy friends and tell them how many great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.”
I am ever so grateful for the compassion that the Lord has had on me and I am quick and willing to tell others the great things the Lord has done for me!
I HAD RELIGION
I was raised on a farm in North Dakota. I had good parents who brought me up the best way they knew how. I’ll be grateful to the Lord throughout eternity for the precious and beautiful parents that He blessed me with in this life.
I belonged to a denominational church. I had religion. I knew about God but I did not know Him personally. I was ignorant of spiritual things.
THE WORLD CALLED
In my teenage years, the world called and I got involved in alcohol, drugs, and all the sin of the world. I became rebellious toward my parents and authorities. I was a lonely young man. It appeared as if I had many friends, but nobody really understood me. I would allow no one to get too close to me. I was hurting emotionally. In a drunken stupor I would go to the church building in the middle of the night looking for God at the altar. I thought God could be found in the church building, but He wasn’t there.
DEATH CALLED
In the beginning of 1964 my drug supply was cut off. I didn’t know that at age twenty- one I was already an alcoholic and drug addict. I always thought that I could take it or leave it! I didn’t know that I was going through withdrawal. I drank whiskey straight and couldn’t get high. I didn’t know that the devil really was alive. I still knew nothing about spiritual things. I was a very sick young man, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I lost all hope to live. In February 1964, the devil almost succeeded in killing me as my car hit a highway bridge abutment at a high rate of speed.
The doctors gave me up for dead, but I lived. Shortly thereafter, I married a nurse I had met in the hospital. Marriage did not solve my problems. My drinking got worse and my wife threatened to divorce me in October 1967.
INCURABLE DISEASE?
The pressure was on once again with unpaid bills, bad checks, and the possibility of losing my wife and two daughters. I agreed to go for marriage counseling with my wife. November 2, 1967, found me in a treatment center for alcoholism and drug addiction.
I was relieved to be told that my problem was an incurable disease called alcoholism, and that it could be controlled if I didn’t drink anymore. I began to talk to my “Higher Power” as I understood Him to be. Daily I confessed: “My name is Jim Kaseman. I am
an alcoholic. I have an incurable disease. I’m one drink away from a drunk and if I quit these meetings I’ll get drunk.”
I went back to college to study psychology. I was looking for answers to life’s problems. I couldn’t find them in psychology. I was disappointed. I did not pursue a master’s degree in psychology. Instead I went back into the business world.
At this point in my life the world thought I was a success. I had been sober for four and a half years, a businessman, a commanding officer of the local Army National Guard
unit, church secretary and Sunday school teacher of the local denominational church, college graduate, and had what “appeared” to be a happy marriage.
However, I found myself once again wondering what was the use of living? I was beginning to be tempted strongly to go back to drinking.
HOME BIBLE STUDY
Before I had a chance to drink, my wife and I were invited to a neighborhood Bible study. I am eternally grateful for the couple who started the Bible study and invited me! They probably had no idea of the plans God had to use that Bible study to reach people all over the world! Glory to God!
My wife and I were born again that night. We were told that Jesus was knocking at the door of our hearts (Rev. 3:20), and that we had a free will and we could choose to let Him into our lives or keep Him out. He would not force His way into our lives. We saw how He had paid for our redemption in full and that Jesus Christ was the only way into heaven and that by faith we had to accept Him as our Savior and Lord. (Col. 1:12-13, John 14:6, Rom. 5:17, Rom. 10:9-10, John 3:3).
That night, for the first time in my life, the real problem was solved. Doctors and psychologists were dealing with my body, mind, and emotions; but Jesus changed my nature. I was born again. The spirit man living inside the physical body no longer had the nature of sin and death, but I became a brand new creation and took on God’s nature. I was taken from Satan’s family and brought into the family of God. (II Cor. 5:17, Col. 1:13). I now had a desire to live like God. For the first time in my life, God’s Word made spiritual sense to me and it was exciting to read. I no longer was an alcoholic because Jesus healed me 2,000 years ago according to God’s Word. Oh, Glory! There is no such thing as incurable with God. Jesus became alive to me for the first time in my life!
A short time later, my wife and I were baptized in the Holy Spirit and had the privilege to pray supernaturally to our Heavenly Father. (Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Mark 16:15-18, I Cor. 14:2, 14-15).
SATAN RULED
The Lord says in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. My wife and I were still ignorant as to how to walk by faith according to God’s Word. We were ignorant of our inheritance and how to pray God’s way. We were not dividing the
Word of God correctly and therefore in our ignorance, we played right into the devil’s hands and he dominated us even though we were born again, Spirit-filled, tongue- speaking Christians who professed to believe the whole Bible.
Sickness and disease reigned in our family as we, in our ignorance, praised God for all things including sickness and disease. We praised God for our son’s sickness and we praised God for our son’s death. We praised God for our wilderness trips. We praised God for hardships and trials because He knew what was best for us and He was helping us to grow spiritually through all of this.
In all of these things, the Word of God WAS NOT DIVIDED CORRECTLY. I even remember thinking from time to time, “Who needs a devil? God serves as both.” The summer of 1974 found me close to turning my back on Jesus. I was a defeated Christian.
THE FAITH MESSAGE
In 1974, through a series of miracles, the Lord brought us to the Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, under the ministry of Kenneth E. Hagin. I didn’t know who Kenneth Hagin was and when I first heard him teach how to have faith in God’s Word and live in victory in every area of life, I thought I had come into false doctrine. But something inside me “bore witness” with what he was teaching, so I listened closely and began to see clearly that God is love, that He gave His best (Jesus) in order that we might have the best in every area of life (spirit, soul, and body)!
What really spoke to me was that so often as Brother Hagin would teach, I wasn’t aware that he was teaching, but I was tremendously aware of the “Word.” It was as if Brother Hagin was in the background and Jesus (the Living Word) was standing in the pulpit speaking directly to me! Well, I began to grow spiritually and become excited about the Lord and His Word like I never had before in my Christian life. Oh Praise God, life is worth living. Jesus is really alive!
GOD’S NOT THE BLAME
There were some “keys” from God’s Word that had an immediate effect on my Christian life. They were very helpful in turning my defeated walk into a victorious walk.
One such key was John 10:10. It became very clear that Satan, not God, is my enemy. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus has come to bring me abundant life.
I then made a decision that made a tremendous impact on my Christian walk. I made a decision never ever again to blame God or praise God for the things that Satan was actually doing in my life. Satan was the one bringing the temptation, hardships, trials, sickness, disease, poverty, accidents, and death. God has already provided a way of escape. God had already redeemed me from Satan, sin, sickness, poverty, death, and anything to do with the law of sin and death. God had already provided this victorious life through Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago! All I had to do is believe it and receive all God has provided by faith.
SPIRIT, SOUL, BODY
The next thing that opened God’s Word to me like never before was when I discovered that I am a spirit man, I have a soul, and I live in a physical body; that God’s Word was my guide book to operating in the spirit world. God’s Word was actually spiritual food for the spirit man and that I had to meditate on, confess or eat His Word daily. I learned how to walk in the Spirit through God’s Word. Now I could really understand what God was saying because I had spiritual understanding. God’s Word cannot be understood by the natural mind or man’s reasoning. I now understood clearly what born again, baptism of the Holy Spirit, tongues, divine healing, faith, confession, righteousness, and many other subjects were all about and how to operate in them!
LAW OF CONFESSION
The third thing that absolutely set me free was understanding that the spirit world is more real than this physical world and that it is governed by many spiritual laws. One such spiritual law was the law of confession. Through God’s Word I began to understand the importance of the words we speak and believe in our heart. I was to speak words in line with God’s Word and then faith in His Word would come. However, if I spoke in line with Satan’s words (death), the world’s words, then fear would come. And that which I feared would come upon me.
MANY OTHER THINGS
We soon learned many other things from God’s Word that enabled us to literally walk hand in hand with God and see victory in every area of life.
ON INTO THE MINISTRY
God called me into the ministry and we have had the privilege to see lives changed all over the world. God has raised up many beautiful people to stand with us to take the message of faith in God’s Word to the whole world. God is good and the “Word” works!