I was very hesitant to enter the pastorate. As I look back now, I see God had been preparing me for this all my life, but I was reluctant to take on such a heavy spiritual responsibility.
When I finally submitted, I made a covenant with God: “I never want to preach a sermon where my finger is pointed at the congregation, where I am saying, ‘You people better listen to this!’ But I only want to share what You have been challenging me to do and become. I want the congregation to hear an overflow of the work being done in me.”
I recently read a paragraph from Oswald Chambers that validates that covenant I made—
“It is an easy business to preach, an appallingly easy thing to tell other people what to do; it is another thing to have God’s message turned into a boomerang—‘You have been teaching these people that they should be full of peace and of joy, but what about yourself? Are you full of peace and joy?’ The truthful witness is the one who lets his light shine in works which exhibit the disposition of Jesus; one who lives the truth as well as preaches it.”
My pastor friend, don’t preach it if you’re not living it! Or another way: live it first, then preach it.
Craig T. Owens 