Preaching part 3
It's important to practice what you preach. That's how you can preach the gospel at all times. It's not just what you say. It's what you do. It's how you live. Having said that, what you preach is important. Look at Matthew 4:17, "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And look at Matthew 10:7, "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus was concerned with the Kingdom. And the truth that it is at hand. It is available to us. All we have to do is reach out and take hold of it. Fight the good fight of faith and lay hold of the gift we've been given. Receive and release the love of God. Receive it BY releasing it. If you want to feel love... love somebody. If you want to experience the Kingdom... share it with people. Preach the gospel OF THE KINGDOM. The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of love. And don't preach it like this: "You can get to the Kingdom after you die if you do this, this, and this." Don't preach law. Don't preach hoops to jump through. Don't preach religion. Preach love. Preach life. Shew forth the praise of your heavenly Father. And remember that praise is not how we get God to do something. Praise is what happens after we understand that He's done something. The goodness of God will jerk a praise up out of you. What I think I'm trying to say is: You can't preach about what you think (or hope) God is going to do. We are called to be witnesses. To tell people the good news about what we've heard, and seen, and experienced. To tell people the good news that the Kingdom is at hand. To tell people what's available to them. And not in that old time religion, "Do in order to be" earn your bread by the sweat of your brow nonsense. But in the ultimate truth of the universe that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands! Into OUR hands. He did it all so we could get it all. That's a big part of what the cross was all about. It's all about love. So what I'm trying to say today is, we need to know what we're preaching. Because there's a lot of nonsense out there. A lot of stuff that we've kind of accepted or taken for granted. Stuff that really doesn't hold up when we compare it to the God who is love. Jesus was all about the Kingdom. All about life. All about love. Because those three things aren't just connected, they are the same thing. To live is to love and to love is to live. Living in (and out of) the Kingdom is how we experience Jesus's abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love. That's what we need to be preaching. Not, "Get right or get left." But, "The Kingdom is at hand." We don't need to go anywhere. The Kingdom is within us. Because the King is within in. We're not reaching OUT as much as we're reaching IN. It all comes from the heart. What's inside comes out. We don't need to get things from without to fill ourselves with. We need to fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Preach the gospel of the heart. Let what's inside come out. Let the LOVE that is inside come out!