Preacher, if you don’t get the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the sandals of the Gospel, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation on Monday through Saturday you will never be ready to wield the sword of the Spirit on Sunday.
Reservoirs have their place but remember most are man made. God created a world of flowing rivers. We are not reservoirs of knowledge but rivers of truth shared.
We have to get our mind right before we can get our movement right. We must understand the battle (Eph 6: 12) before we can stand (Eph 6: 14) for the battle and withstand (Eph 6: 13) through the battle.
If we were not living in evil days (Eph 5: 16), today could not be THE evil day (Eph 6: 13), but because we are living in evil days, any day can be THE evil day for any of us.
Get into the text contextually, grammatically, etymologically, theologically, and practically until it lives in you in such reality that it can only come out as it was written and went into you.2/2
Text driven preaching suggests the subject, structure, and even the spirit of the message be determined by the text. Obviously, that is easier stated than achieved. The best method I know to get there is not so much a procedure but a passion. 1/2
Legalism tends to focus on the practices of the Christian faith while liberalism tends to focus on the principles of the Christian faith. Sadly, given enough time, they wind up with practices or principles and not much Christian faith.
One of the first lessons I learned as a young preacher is that when you believe you can’t preach, won’t preach, or don’t preach, the Word of God can, it will, and it does.