The Christian Walk: Reflection 1

The Human Soul:

The value of the Human Soul was brought to our attention by Christ Himself in the parable of the rich farmer (Luke 12:16-31). In it Christ pointed out how precious the human soul is in the sight of God. If we could see how precious the human soul is as Christ sees it, our ministry could approach the effectiveness of Christ, says Phillips Brooks in his selected sermons (1835-1893).

May the souls of men always be more precious to us as we come nearer to Christ and see them more perfectly as He does. No one can ask any better blessing on any ministry that that. The ministry of D. L. Moody was effective and forceful as an evangelist and soul winner due largely to his love for Christ and proper view of the human soul. He had a tremendous burden for the lost and a willingness to do whatever God asked him. This is the point at which a person sees the true value of the human soul just as Christ sees it.

Then comes the true words of Henry Varley quoted often by D. L. Moody thus: “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated.”

Preaching:

One of the definitions of preaching is that it is the communication of divine truth through human personality. The divine truth never changes, but human personality does. This explains why two preachers can take the same text and develop two different sermons, and why the same preacher can preach often from the same scripture passage and always discover something fresh. It must come through his character, his affections, his whole intellectual and mental being. This means, of course, that the preparation for ministry is nothing less than the making of the man.

The preacher of truth, therefore, must be a man open to truth, all truth, no matter where it is found because truth comes only from God. It involves delivering a message which we cannot transmit until it has entered into our own experience, and we can give our own testimony of its spiritual power.

When we preach over people’s heads, it is not the fault of the character of the communication, it is the fault of the aim that makes the missing shots. Remember, in ministering to people, every message fortifies each other. Therefore, no one message should be considered alone as completing the task before us. The harvest time is not at the end of the message. We must learn to leave the results in God’s hand.