How the Spirit Leads Us to Listen to Effective Preaching

The reason why the Spirit of God leads us to a deeper experience of prayer, to a fresher understanding and appreciation of his written Word and to exposure to effective preaching is that he wants to develop the real Christ in us. This is spiritual development at its best. It is not we developing ourselves. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. We are here only describing how he does this from what we have learned from God's Word and what we have experienced so that we can flow, as it were, with his force, just as a sailboat sails with the force of the wind if the driver of the sailboat knows how to position the sails.

The Spirit of God leads us to an attentive and obedient listening to vigorous, urgent, life-changing preaching. This is effective preaching. It is not a preaching which tells us what to do, as most preaching in churches does today. It is a preaching which by itself changes the lives of the listeners.

The Pattern of Our Usual Preaching Today

If you listen to the ordinary, usual preaching today in churches, Catholic or non-Catholic, Protestant or non-Protestant, Evangelical, Fundamentalist or name what have you, you would notice the following pattern. The preacher would start from a story, anecdote, or a passage from the bible or an introductory statement about his preaching. Then he would expound a principle or two. Finally he would give an application which he expects his hearers would put to good use in their lives.

Depending on the talent of the preacher he can make his sermon as entertaining as possible, spraying it over with insights and even jokes. The people stare at the preacher if he is really entertaining, then leave the church afterwards refreshed and blest, as they say. They are then encouraged to return the next week and give again their tithes or love offerings.

If the preacher is not that entertaining, then the listeners may be led to an early nap.

But this pattern is still there: introduction, expounding of a truth or principle, application, exhortation to do the application.

In this kind of preaching if the listeners do not change, do not improve, do not grow in their spiritual life, it is their fault. This is because they are already shown by the preacher how they are to profit from God's Word or truth but they fail to apply what the preacher told them.

The Kind of Preaching the Spirit Gives

This is not the kind of preaching that the Spirit of God gives his people. The preaching that the Spirit of God gives is an effective preaching. By the very preaching itself people are changed. They do not have to go out of the church to apply what the preacher said. Right there in their seats or as they stand if they are not seated, they are changed. This is called vigorous, urgent, life-changing preaching.

And this is the kind of preaching that we lack in our churches. This is the kind of preaching that the Spirit gives us. And this is the kind of preaching that the Spirit of God leads us to listen to. How does he do this?

The Spirit's Way in Giving Us His Preacher

The simple answer is that he, the Spirit of God, provides the preacher who will preach the way to do so. He first leads him to a deeper experience of prayer. We already discussed how he does that. Then the Spirit leads him to the written Word of God. We also discussed that already. Then the next is he emboldens this preacher to preach the fruit of his prayer and of his study of the Word.

To be able to have a deeper experience of prayer the preacher is led to be convinced by the Spirit of his inability to preach well. If he refuses this conviction by the Spirit he cannot give to us the kind of preaching that the Spirit wants us to listen to.

And this is the sad experience we have in the churches. Most of our preachers, if not all of them, are convinced of the opposite: that they can preach well. Their years of training in the seminary either as future pastors or future priests have sunk into their consciousness giving them the confidence that they can preach. If they persist in this conviction, that because of their training and experience, they are able to preach well, the Spirit of God cannot use them to give to the people his kind of preaching, the vigorous, urgent, life-changing preaching.

The reason why they cannot preach effective preaching is because they do not have a deeper experience of prayer. And they cannot have a deeper experience of prayer if they think they are able to preach well. They can only have a deeper experience of prayer if like Isaiah they cry, "Woe is me for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips."

Then to be really led to the written Word of God, a person needs to be ignorant or confused in his understanding of this Word. Unfortunately most or almost all of our preachers, whether priests, bishops or pastors, think that they are not ignorant and they are not confused in their understanding of the Word of God. They think they really know it well. Their years of training in the seminary, pouring over the Bible, studying its texts and the different interpretations of Biblical scholars and their own reflections have led them to believe that they are able to understand God's written Word.

When these preachers are convinced that they can understand God's written Word, either because they studied it or because God enlightened them on it, the Spirit cannot use them to do effective preaching. They will only at best be able to preach principles and application with appropriate illustrations and insights that tickle the ears and minds of their hearers but such preaching cannot transform the lives of those hearers.

So, if we ask again how the Spirit lead us to listen to vigorous, urgent, life-changing preaching, the answer is that he does this by providing us with a preacher who is thoroughly convinced of his inability and unworthiness to preach God's Word and also thoroughly convinced of his ignorance and confusion about this written Word. And from time to time he does provide us with these preachers, like Peter the disciple of Jesus, Paul the Pharisee, Peter Chrysologus of Ravenna, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Charles Finney, etc. The names are too many to list.

Effective preaching is one that changes the lives of the listeners by their mere listening. Because the Spirit himself comes with power to change them.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

How the Spirit Leads Us to a Deeper Experience of Prayer

The Spirit of God is the one in charge of our spiritual development. He does this to form the real Christ in us. He forms the real Christ in us by leading us to a deeper experience of prayer, to a personal, profound understanding of the written word of God, and to an attentive and obedient listening to vigorous, urgent, life-changing preaching.

How the Spirit leads us to a deeper experience of prayer is the topic of this blog.

Paradoxically the Spirit leads us to a deeper experience of prayer by allowing us to be ourselves and to do what we want. After a while we are no longer able to do what we want and we cry to God to help us do what we want. That is when we really pray.

Shallow Experiences of Prayer

You may ask me why do I write of a deeper experience of prayer. Is there a not so deep an experience of prayer? Is there a shallow experience of prayer? Unfortunately we go through lots of shallow experiences, and not so deep experiences, of prayer. This kind of prayer is not only useless but even harmful, deceiving. We think we are praying when we are not. We are just mumbling words or we are just reciting as we would recite a poem or another form of literature.

In Christian homes when we were children we were taught to pray, so they said. We were led to pronounce the text of the Our Father and memorize it. And then we used the text to pray. This is a very shallow experience of prayer. We were actually not praying. We recited a formula of prayer, not prayed.

In Sunday schools or catechism classes and in Bible study sessions we were led to make spontaneous prayer. And so we did pray spontaneously, so they said. We prayed for our needs, for our wants, for guidance, etc. This is prayer of some sort, if we really were serious. This is deep prayer, but not deeper experience of prayer. But if we did it because we were told to lead the prayer, or because it was expected of us to say something which began with “God” and ended with “in the name of Jesus”, then it was not praying. It was speaking in public about what we wanted to pray, but we did not really pray.

Deeper Experience of Prayer

Deeper experience of prayer is prayer from the heart, from the depths of our being. That is why it is called deeper, because it comes from our depths, not just from our lips, our tongue or our minds. It comes from where things matter most in our lives, from our inner selves.

How the Spirit Leads Us to Deeper Prayer

And the way the Spirit leads us to this kind of prayer is by allowing us to be ourselves and to do things our own way, until we are lost and get to the dead end. Then and only then do we turn up to him and ask for guidance to get us out of where we cannot get out by our own effort.

You see, all of us human beings are born with certain capacities: the capacity to move, to think, to speak, to write, to invent, to plan, etc. But all these capacities have limitations. We cannot move anywhere we want at the same time. We cannot think of all the ideas in the world at the same time. Most of the time we are not aware of these limitations. We are only aware of our capabilities.

And when we grow we undertake to actualize these capabilities. We move to school, we think of our lessons in class, we speak a distinct language, etc.

Then comes the big thing. We want to make something big in our life. Some of us want to be engineers, others want to be lawyers, still others want to be actors and actresses. Some of us succeed, others do not. In fact, most fail. Then they try and try again.

It is when we fail that some of us are led to prayer. It may be failure in the home, our parents separate and we are left alone as children. It may be failure in business when we file bankruptcy. It may be failure in love when we are rejected by the one who we thought loved us.

Not all failures lead us to prayer. Some failures lead us to try and try again. Some failures lead to suicide. The failure which the Spirit uses to lead us to prayer is the failure in which we see no more exit, no more way out of this failure, a dead end, no more alternative. There is only one way to go, the way up and within, the way of prayer. Where some people choose suicide as the way out, the Spirit gives prayer as the way in.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

The First Stage of Spiritual Development

Like in other living organisms spiritual development or the development of spirits in us has a first stage, a beginning. We now go to the first stage in the process of spiritual development.

How Life Begins After Creation

After creation the life of complex molecular organisms begins as a seed. While simple molecular organisms such as the amoeba multiply by mere mitosis or division of cells, complex molecular organisms such as big plants, animals and human beings multiply by the process of seed breeding or fertilization of egg cells.

Plants produce seeds which when planted germinate into seedlings, reproducing their parent plants. Female animals have eggs or ova which when fertilized by the seed or sperm of male animals become zygotes, developing into embryos, then into fetuses to be born later as young animals. A similar process takes place with human beings. The egg cell of a woman is fertilized by the seed or sperm cell of a man. This fertilized egg cell becomes a zygote, developing into an embryo, then a fetus, and is born as a baby human being.

A Similar Process in Beginning the Life of the Spirit

Surprisingly a similar process takes place among spirits in us. Although we cannot observe this process by our eyes because spirits by nature are invisible, we can still deduce that this is the process because of the effects which we can perceive by our minds and from our own experience.

Furthermore we have a book which describes this process and this book is credible and has influenced for good the lives of countless people. This is the Christian Bible. Through this book we can learn about the first stage of spiritual development.

We know that the process of the beginning of the spirit is similar to that of the human being because the spirit begins also, so to speak, as a spiritual egg and is fertilized by a spiritual sperm.

The Spiritual Egg or Ovum

The spiritual egg in us is the image of God. God as we know is a spirit. When he created us he created us in his image (Genesis 1:26-27). He put his egg, as it were, in us.

The image of a thing is a copy of that thing. The difference between the thing and its image or copy is that the thing is real but the image is only a figure or picture of it. Let us clarify by reference to a man's image.

A man produces a picture of himself through a camera, traditional or digital. He develops and prints this picture or image of himself. That image looks like himself but he is different from that image. He is a living being while his image is only a picture. He breathes, walks, talks, eats and works. His image cannot breathe, walk, talk, eat or work. It is lifeless.

In a similar way that is what happened when we say that God created the human being in his image. A picture of himself, of God, was put in us. But it is only a picture, an image. Like the picture of man it is lifeless. God moves, talks, but his image is lifeless.

The human egg in the womb of a woman is useless unless it is fertilized. In fact if it is already in her womb and is not fertilized within a set period of days, it is flushed out by the body as a waste. This is part of the woman's menstrual cycle.

The image of God in us is like the human egg. Unless fertilized within the lifetime of a human person, it becomes useless and the human person has not attained his/her full potential, becoming a spirit like God.

This image of God in us is the egg of the spirit in us. This is where the first stage of spiritual development occurs. This egg needs to be fertilized by a sperm or seed of the spirit. This seed is the Word of God (Luke 8:11).

The Action of the Spiritual Seed or Sperm

The Word of God is in the Bible but the Word of God there needs to be activated or brought to life by an announcer. He/she takes the Word of God, announces this in the hearing of the human person and this Word of God penetrates the image of God within that person (Hebrews 4:12). When a person believes in the Word of God this image of God which is his egg is fertilized and spiritual development or the development of the spirit begins.

This is the first stage in spiritual development, the fertilization of the egg or image of God in us by the Word of God as proclaimed by an announcer. Those of us who have gone through the experience of conversion know that this is what happened to us. And we confirm that this is so.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.