Bring It!

Every once and a while someone will stop me in the foyer before I preach and exhort me to "bring it!" and what they are referring to of course, is the Word of God. The problem with that is two fold:

1. I must "have" it in order to "bring" it. Some Sundays I honestly don't own the text and the text doesn't own me and I'm just trying to point people to it the best I can. Other times, I've been so convicted by Holy Spirit and so filled with a God message that "bringing it" is my only option. It is, as Jeremiah so eloquently put it, "like a fire within my bones."

2. The listeners of the message must "want it" to a degree. I believe that the Holy Spirit can (and does) change a heart mid message however, usually the ones who come expecting a word from the Lord and the ones who get it. If someone is looking for a pick me up and God is bringing a knock me down, then what we often get is a classic "failure to communicate"

Mike Cope shared a great thought about preaching this morning and his first comment came from a guy named Lawrence Underwood, who shared this great quote from Alistair Begg: "Think yourself dry, read yourself full, write yourself clear, and pray yourself hot."

I was Mike's second comment (early bird gets the worm - Second rat gets the cheese!) and shared a quote about preaching that has been heavy on my heart and comes from St. Francis de Sales, a seventeenth century saint and the patron saint of authors: "The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying not, "What a lovely sermon," but, "I will do something!"

I hope we all do something with the Word we receive this morning. It is time for both the speaker and the listener to "bring it" to a world that is in desperate need for "it"