As I have mentioned in earlier posts, not only is this a week of prayer for our church, but I have also declared 2011 to be The Year Of Answered Prayer. As a result, I’m reading and studying more about prayer, and praying more too.
This post is mostly for my fellow pastors.
Pastors, I came across two quotes this morning to which we should pay careful attention. The first is from Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, and the second is from E.M. Bounds’ Power Through Prayer.
“He should be in no doubt that any ability he has and however much he has derives more from his devotion to prayer than his dedication to oratory; and so, by praying for himself and for those he is about to address, he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words. As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting lips he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has drunk in and pour out what has filled him.” —Augustine
“The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching. Light praying will make light preaching. … The preacher must be preeminently a man of prayer. His heart must graduate in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the heart learn to preach.” —E.M. Bounds
Before you prepare it, pray it.
Before you preach it, pray it.
After you preach it, pray it some more.
Pastors, let’s be men and women of prayer before we’re men and women of words.
Craig T. Owens 