Holos

13/08/2022

E M Bounds said, “Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes 20 years to make the man.” E M Bounds “Power through prayer.”
Preachers do grow in grace and knowledge of the truth as they study and live for God and their preaching does tend to become richer. However, we know that what matters most is whether or not the preacher is full of the Holy Spirit and faith and whether the Holy Spirit is speaking, in which case a beginner’s first sermon can be as powerful and helpful as their last.

16/07/2022

Charles Finley wrote a short work titled “Power from on high.” I was really impressed with his thinking.

Here’s a little from chapter 6 -

“I do not recollect having ever attended a prayer-meeting until after I began the study of law. Then, for the first time, I lived in a neighbourhood where there was a prayer-meeting weekly. I had neither known, heard, nor seen much of religion; hence I had no settled opinions about it. Partly from curiosity and partly from an uneasiness of mind upon the subject, which I could not well define, I began to attend that prayer-meeting. About the same time I bought the first Bible that I ever owned, and began to read it. I listened to the prayers which I heard offered in those prayer-meetings with all the attention that I could give to prayers so cold and formal. In every prayer they prayed for the gift and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Both in their prayers and in their remarks, which were occasionally interspersed, they acknowledged that they did not prevail with God. This was most evident, and had almost made me a sceptic. Seeing me so frequently in their prayer-meeting, the leader, on one occasion, asked me if I did not wish them to pray for me. I replied: "No." I said: "I suppose that I need to be prayed for, but your prayers are not answered. You confess it yourselves." I then expressed my astonishment at this fact, in view of what the Bible said about the prevalence of prayer. Indeed, for some time my mind was much perplexed and in doubt in view of Christ's teaching on the subject of prayer and the manifest facts before me, from week to week, in this
prayer-meeting. Was Christ a divine teacher? Did He actually teach what the Gospels attributed to Him? Did He mean what He said? Did prayer really avail to secure blessings from God? If so, what was I to make of what I witnessed from week to week and month to month in that prayer-meeting? Were they real Christians? Was that which I heard real prayer, in the Bible sense? Was it such prayer as Christ had promised to answer? Here I found the solution.
I became convinced that they were under a delusion; that they did not prevail because they had no right to prevail. They did not comply with the conditions upon which God had promised to hear prayer. Their prayers were just such as God had promised not to answer. It was evident they were overlooking the fact that they were in danger of praying themselves into scepticism in regard to the value of prayer. In reading my Bible I noticed such revealed conditions as the following:
(a) Faith in God as the answerer of prayer. This, it is plain, involves the expectation of receiving what we ask. ........ etc.
Another really good read. I think it’s 99p on amazon kindle.

13/07/2022

Christian preachers probably read the bible first and foremost but there are other books that inspire and are really worth reading. To pastors who are praying for revival and or church growth, I recommend “Why Revival Tarries” by “Leonard Ravenhill.” It’s available in kindle edition.
His first chapter declares preachers should get unction with all their getting. He says that prayer is key to unction. It's a very good read.

12/07/2022

For sure the Church needs strongly godly leaders who stick to the truth. Sometimes strong leadership becomes too autocratic and hurts people and leader too.

Eccl 8:9-10 All this I have seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt. NKJV

07/07/2022

I’ve been reading a book by Juan Carlos Ortiz entitled “Disciple.” It’s a very good read but it’s out of print.
I was amused by his brief snippet about modern preaching being informative rather than transformative. Here it is. Enjoy:-
“Suppose you get a letter from me, which reads, “Dear Bill: I’m writing to you from Rome, where I have just arrived with my wife and children. So far we have seen .....” and I go on with a long letter.”
You go to church the next Sunday and you say, “Friends, we have received a letter from brother Juan Carlos. Over the next three months now, we will study it.”
“He begins his letter by saying, “Dear Bill’. Now in the Greek the word dear means a person who is loved. He refers to me as a loved one. I can imagine brother Juan taking his pen and writing “Dear.” His heart is overflowing with love. His wife beside him joins in his love.”
“Brothers and sisters, how do you write your letters? Do you begin them with the word, dear? Let us all begin doing that from now on.”
“”Dear Bill” – he calls me by my name. He knows me. He is concerned for me as a person. How about you? Do you call people by name and let them know that you recognise them?” “I’m writing to you ......” He writes to us himself! He isn’t using a secretary; he writes to us directly.
“Well, that’s all for today. Next week we will continue in the letter from Juan Carlos.”
The next Sunday; “ “I’m writing to you from Rome” Ah, the city founded by Romulus and Remus, who were fed by the wolves. The capital city of the Roman Empire, where the Caesars lived. You will remember that the empire eventually split into two parts, the eastern and the western, and then collapsed.”
“Now we will go to the next verse....”
And the people of the congregation say, “Our pastor is so deep! My, he can go two or three weeks on one verse – tremendous!”
At the end of three months, you will have finished my letter, but no one will know what I said.
Yet that’s how we teach the bible. It’s going to be interesting when we get to heaven and Paul grabs some of us teachers and, says, “Come here – I want to talk to you. I never wrote what you said I did!”
We like to impress people by the amount of information we know about a bible text. We think we are being “deep.” But does anyone really understand what we are saying? I doubt it.
We are concerned with information. But Jesus was concerned with formation. We need to learn from Him how to form disciples.
Extracted from “Disciple” Juan Carlos Ortiz published by Lakeland.

29/09/2021

How can you help your pastor?
Eph 6:19
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,

16/12/2017

20/05/2017

Thank You.

12/04/2017