From the Best to the
Worst
We have
several Christian Radio Stations in our city, so I have a choice of
things to listen to depending on my preferences for the day. One day I
heard an AWESOME sermon, and I just have to share
the main point with you, as I think it shows how important our
dependance on God really is...and
should be.
The Pastor shared an experience he had of delivering his
best sermon ever,
and the following week delivering his worst sermon
ever.
The results were amazing...read on...
Let's start with his best sermon
ever...
He said that he spent a great deal of time preparing for
this sermon. The topic was inspiring, one that he liked, and
his preparation went without a hitch. He delivered the sermon
and felt it was the best job he had ever done. Needless to
say, he was proud of the work he had done for the Lord.
But just like in the sports world, where a team plays its best game,
only to follow that up with their worst game ever, so it happened that
his sermon the following week turned out to be what he felt was the
worst sermon the he ever delivered.
He mentioned that his prepartion time was constantly interrupted, and
he just had trouble focusing and getting into the right frame of
mind....you know the story. When we do great, we sometimes
fall into a complacent frame of mind. The time came to
deliver the sermon. He felt he wasn't ready, and didn't feel
at all confident and after the sermon felt it was the worst of his
career.
Here
is where the story gets interesting...
This Pastor mentioned that over the years he had developed a unique
tracking system, one that he felt told him how effective each sermon
was over time. I won't go into the details for the sake of
keeping this blog a bit shorter, but it was quite interesting how he
tracked this process.
As he tracked these two sermons, this is what he found out. The BEST
sermon that he had ever delivered turned out to be
one of his worst when he looked at the tracking results. The
WORST sermon that he had ever delivered turned out to be one of his
best.
And he
proceeded to explain why this happened...
After the first sermon, he felt he did a good job, an excellent job! He
felt confident and walked proud thinking about the good
job that "he" had done. But after the second sermon, he felt
that he had failed in his job as a Pastor. From the moment he
finished the second sermon and all through the week, he prayed about
that sermon and he asked that the Lord would move upon those who heard
it and would produce the results that God intended.
The first sermon was done under his own power, without prayer. He felt
he had done a good job and didn't ask God for help. The second sermon,
although delivered under his own power
once again, was followed with fervent prayer. The first
sermon produced no results. The second sermon however
produced lots of fruit. What a great lesson on "why we need
to pray!
The lesson
to all of this is quite clear. Without God, our best is
worthless.
With
God, our worst is much better than our best alone could ever be.
With God,
all things are possible!
What
other verses would you add to complete this thought?
;)
;)
Come join us in the new Christian Group...
Shall We Gather At The River!
A Christian Accountability Group, geared to helping us help each other daily stay focused on the things of God, to encourage each other, and to be there in times of need. God's word is first and foremost, and Bible Studies/comments/daily tidbits/prayer requests/etc. are all encouraged.
If you like to bicker over the word of God, or find fault easily in most things....this may not be the group for you...as these things are not allowed!