Due to yesterday being the MLK holiday, I have been reading some of his quotes. One quote that grabbed my interest was:
1). “We don’t have a shortage of preachers who can preach with the best of them; we have a shortage of preachers who are in tune with the least of them.”
For me to “preach with the best of them” is of little importance to broken and hurting people who need the gospel to come alive in their souls. If my desire is to “preach with the best of them,” that is a desire saturated in vanity and pride. I must not let this sin occur in my life.
I must preach the gospel and the whole counsel of God as a broken man to a broken people, as a beggar who has found the Bread of Life to other beggars who are starving for that same life-giving Bread.
I must also love them. I am nothing if I do not have love for “the least of them.” That was the context of Paul’s famous 13th chapter in 1 Corinthians.
By the same token, we, as McDowell FBC, must not be concerned with “doing church with the best of them.” We must be concerned with reaching a people dying in their sins with the gospel of Christ. We must be a Great Commission church.
As a church, we are nothing if we do not have love for “the least of them.” SEE: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.
Another quote by Dr. King that gives me a cause to examine myself was:
2). “We have too many ministers in the pulpit who are great spellbinders, and too few who possess the spiritual power.”
It is the Spirit-filled preacher who will please God and be of legitimate use in building the Kingdom of Christ.
The building of sermons without Holy Ghost power involved is the constructing of well-crafted speeches to feed one’s own vanity and nothing more.
By faith I must labor before Holy God to keep myself clean, asking Him to fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit daily, if I am going to have legitimate, Spirit-driven power in the pulpit.
By the same token, McDowell FBC must seek to have power in and of the Spirit in everything we do.
It is not enough to have well planned and crafted programs and events. If the Holy Ghost is not empowering our programming and events, they are just that, programs and events and nothing more.
3). Conclusion:
If we are going to reach “the least of them'” we must know the least of them and love them as the image bearers of God who they are.
If we are going to reach “the least of them,” we must do so with and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We must be surrendered to Him in our personal and public lives.
The Holy Spirit must be leading us in our church and community programs, events, and ministries. For without Him, it is all in vain.