I spent all of yesterday on Phil 4:4-7. I was preparing for Sunday's message. It was good getting away from the marathon of meetings to carve out an oasis for study and revelation. It was refreshing. It was invigorating. It brought me back to life!
The Holy Spirit is given to us to illuminate us and lead us into all truth. I love it when I sit opening the Word and I find the Lord using His Word to challenge my assumptions; violate my expectations and shift my paradigms. The effect for me is transformational.
That's what happened all day yesterday. And at the end of it the Lord gave me what was needed to take an old familiar passage, which people have read and heard so many times before and make it NEW with fresh insights.
The best speakers have a way of saying old things in new ways. I want to be like that in my preaching.
Usually, when you hear someone preach, you can tell the difference between something that is manufactured and something that is anointed. It is the difference between predictable and prophetic. It is the difference between theoretical and practical.
But anointed, prophetic and practical preaching comes from the unhurried time you give to the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Word into your soul. You allow the Holy Spirit to make you think; make you feel the passage. And I just love it when that happens to me as I open the Word.
One last thought. I love a speaker who makes me think and makes me feel. They have great thoughts, but they speak from the heart. And I believe they do so because they have been in the presence of the Lord.
Remember: Your best innovation flows from revelation. You must prioritize the presence of God to flow in revelaton.
