All preachers know only too well the value of surrounding our preaching with prayer. Yet, we may sometimes neglect this vital ingredient in our ministry. Martin Luther said, ‘If I should neglect prayer for a single day, I will lose a great deal of the fire of faith’.
The Apostle Paul refers to prayer many times in connection to his preaching ministry. I would therefore like to share a few thoughts from the writings of Paul, to help us pray strategically for our preaching.
(A Devotional by Pastor Dishan Wickramaratne, Senior Pastor of the People’s Church (Assembly of God), in Colombo, Sri Lanka).
Paul says it’s going to continue forever. If you want a legacy to last, if you want people to remember you – love. Love lasts. In fact, nothing else does. I hate to tell you this but people are going to forget all your work. People are going to forget all your wealth. People are never remembered for what they earned. They’re remembered for what they gave away. They’re remembered for their love.
There is a story of a family whose house caught fire. As each parent tried to grab a few belongings and a child’s hand to get out of the house as quickly as possible, the little daughter who was holding the father’s hand, broke free from his grip and ran upstairs to get her teddy bear. However, when trying to come down again, she found that she was trapped by the enveloping flames.
(Our church just completed a 21 day season of Fasting and Prayer, inclusive of a Devotional booklet. From the booklet, I would like to share this inspiring Devotional written by the Senior Pastor of People’s Church in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Dishan Wickramaratne. May it bless your heart!)
God says these are the two things that matter most in life. Love for God and love for people. He says if you get these two things you’ve got it. The Bible is very clear about it. That God put you here on earth to do two things: to learn to love God and to learn to love other people.
Be blessed by the quote below because God has many ‘Unexpected Divine Appointments’ for His children. It could be through,
Scan QR code to view a short video on point 3 shown above. The link to the full sermon article is given at the bottom of this post.
(This is an edited version of a sermon preached at the People’s Church on Sunday, 22nd January 2017. It deals with David’s distressing situation at Ziklag and the lessons we can learn)
Scripture: 1 Samuel 30:1-27
As the background to the story in this chapter, David and his band of 600 warriors had been living in a town called Ziklag in Philistine territory, under King Achish (27:1-7). They now faced the difficult predicament of having to fight as part of the Philistine army against their own Israeli brothers (28:1-2). God however, providentially intervened so that they were released from the battle by the Philistine elders, worried that David and his men might betray them (29:4-11).
(It must be noted that King Saul died in the ensuing battle which meant that David might have been held accountable for Saul’s death if had he been involved in any way in the fighting).
“How can I be sure of this?” (Luke 1:18)
Remember the Johnny Nash song that played on the Radio titled ‘There are more questions than answers’? It posed a few questions like ‘what is life?’, ‘how do we live?’, ‘what should we take?’ and ‘how much should we give?’ Sure, everyone has a question at some time or the other.
Some of us may be asking a personal question right now, like, ‘will I get a salary reduction?’ or ‘will my medical tests be normal?’ Others may be asking ‘wonder what the New Year will be like?’ while many parents may be asking the question, ‘how will my child handle studies this year?’CONTINUE READING
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