It’s Monday morning. If you are a pastor who preached yesterday it means that you probably are somewhat discouraged. Of course you try to shrug it off by thinking through it logically but even that reminds you that you left some runners on base.
So what do you do? By about noon you start to feel the blood pumping a bit as you look ahead to the week. You might even go and grab the Dr’s medicine, Preaching and Preachers by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (MLJ). He does a fair job of reminding us of the task at hand. It’s good. You start to get encouraged, but then it hits you, “I wish I could preach like MLJ.”
Well, I have some help for you today. I discovered his “secret sauce” so to speak. I was reading through Ian Murray’s (shorter) biography of the Dr recently and a little nugget jumped off the page. Murray noted that MLJ read through the Bible daily using the McCheyne Bible reading system for 51 years! 51 years!
Brothers, think about this. That is (at least) 51 times through Lamentations and Philemon and Judges and Acts. No wonder the guy was dripping Bible—he marinated in it every day for his entire life!!
Listen, we may not have the preaching gift, intelligence, or even the fresh accent that he had; however, we have the same access to the Word of God. Aside from perhaps personal prayer there is nothing more valuable to you as a minister of the gospel than to regularly read through the Bible. I can guarantee it will help your preaching.
There is so much that we as preachers cannot control. But, this is something that we can. We should do everything we can do to help our preaching. Intentionally reading the Bible devotionally will help you.
So, how about making a plan to regularly read through the Bible? I know it’s not January, but that doesn’t matter. Saturate your heart with the truth of God’s Word. Find yourself being increasingly inclined towards the Word of God and the God of the Word. And then, lead your people towards the same.