Preparing several messages a week is not something I find easy. This week I am juggling between the Sunday's message which is top priority and the upcoming messages for the men's breakthrough weekend. On top of that, I just began the process for the preparation of the church camp messages.
But it is not the hours involved preparing, or even the mental effort that's difficult. It's the spiritual challenge. Its kindling my enthusiasm on a given morning with a new pair of passages and a blank piece of paper.
How do you stay fresh?
Quoting the Psalmist, Paul answered: “I believed, therefore I have spoken” (2 Cor 4:13).
Here is the key: convictions keep us preachers preaching. A preacher can preach without eloquence, commentaries or training. But one thing he cannot preach without is convictions. He can perhaps ‘talk’ of spiritual generalities, or convey some humanistic message. But he cannot really preach unless his words are coming from his heart, from the deep burners of his soul.
‘I believed therefore, I spoke’, said the Psalmist (Ps 116:10). What will not only propel a man into the ministry, but keep him there? It's conviction. It's a non-negotiable. And conviction cannot be rushed. It cannot be micro-waved. It comes from struggling through the text to understand the heart of the God behind the text and then coming to the place of surrender to it's call.
Without conviction, the preaching is simply rhetoric, a lot of dazzling words without the depth of His Word darting through the soul. A T Robertson once wrote, "The highest excellence in preaching is where reverent learning is united with great pulpit ability and deep conviction."
