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Preparing to Preach

by MBG

The call to preach is the highest calling God gives to men.  We Preachers are His ambassadors to His own people, not just to the world.  We grace a pulpit not to fill time, but to make an eternal difference in the hearts and lives of people.  With so great a responsibility on our shoulders, we must be well prepared for such a high office.

Our life must be ready.  You are what you preach, and as the very much trite expression says “actions speak louder than words”.  People will not listen to what you say if you words and you’re walk do not match up.  The pulpit is no place for the hypocrite, who performs greater than any Shakespearean actor ever dreamed, and then leaving the light to live in the dark as we please.  We are what we are in the dark, not what we are in the light.

Our heart must be ready.  Preaching is sharing my heart, my burden, so that it becomes another’s burden.  How many times do we see a prophet arise in the Bible whose heart is stirred or saddened by the Holy Spirit, and then we see the transfer of the prophet’s heart, to that of the hearer?  Strive to preach not out of ritual or duty, but because your heart requires you to do so.

Our mind must be ready.  It should be obsessed and occupied with the truth at hand, so that thoughts flow, not as a flood, but as a steady stream.  There is danger in not having enough or too little information on the subject at hand.  Have more than you can every say so that the people leave wishing you would have kept on preaching and not leave wishing you would have halted when you rambled to fill time.

Let us not neglect our duty, Preachers!  Let us not scorn our position and actions so that we neglect being prepared.  Preparedness is one of the major factors that separates the successful and the failures.

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© 2010 by Matthew B. Gage