Nearly forty years ago, when I was a young Bible school student, I read E. M. Bounds's classic book Power Through Prayer, which emphasizes that spiritual strength and effective ministry are rooted in a disciplined, prayerful life.
One of the greatest dangers facing a minister is not simply that he might preach a poor sermon. It is that he might become so occupied with preparing sermons and doing the work of ministry that he neglects the preparation of the man who is doing the ministry.
That is a far more serious problem.
Bounds was relentless in calling ministers back to prayer. His burden was not merely that ministers should add another devotional exercise to their already busy schedules. He was concerned about the spiritual condition of the minister himself. A man may possess gifts, knowledge, experience, and preaching ability, but none of these things can substitute for a life of communion with God.
That is a lesson I believe every minister needs to hear again and again.
Prayerlessness Is More Than a Scheduling Problem
When a minister discovers that his prayer life has deteriorated, the natural response is often to say, "I need to do better." We make a new resolution, set a new schedule, determine to get up earlier, and promise ourselves that tomorrow will be different.
There is certainly a place for discipline. We must actually pray. But I have come to believe that the first response to persistent prayerlessness should not merely be another attempt at self-improvement. It should be repentance.
If I have neglected prayer, I have not merely failed to complete a spiritual exercise. I have neglected communion with God. I have allowed other things to crowd out the One who called me and entrusted His people to my care. The right response is therefore not simply, "I must try harder." It is, "Lord, I repent for being prayerless. Please forgive me. I have neglected You. Turn my heart back to You." And then we do what we ought to do. We pray.
There is a profound difference between self-improvement and repentance. Self-improvement says, "I will become better." Repentance says, "I have gone in the wrong direction; I will turn back to God." The former can still leave us depending upon ourselves. The latter brings us back to dependence upon Him.
To Have Prayed Well Is to Have Studied Well
One of the statements associated with the old-time ministers has always struck me: "To have prayed well is to have studied well."
E. M. Bounds himself attributes the saying to Luther in Purpose in Prayer. Bounds writes, "Luther said: 'To have prayed well is to have studied well.'" He immediately adds, "More than that, to have prayed well is to have fought well. To have prayed well is to have lived well. To pray well is to die well." (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
Bounds was reminding ministers that prayer and study are not competing activities. Prayer is an essential part of the study of God's Word.
Prayer does not excuse poor study. A minister ought to study diligently. He ought to handle the Scriptures carefully, understand their context, consider their meaning, and work hard to communicate the truth accurately. But there is a vast difference between studying the Bible merely intellectually as a preacher preparing material and studying it as a servant of God who is first asking God to speak to him.
The minister should come to the Scriptures asking, "Lord, what are You saying here? What do I need to see? What do I need to understand? What needs to change in me? What do You want Your people to hear?" Prayer prepares the heart to receive what study discovers.
Prepare the Head, but Do Not Neglect the Heart
Robert Murray M'Cheyne provides us with a beautiful example of this. M'Cheyne was a remarkably diligent student and a careful preacher, but he was deeply conscious of the danger of preparing the head while neglecting the heart.
In his diary, after preaching one Sunday, M'Cheyne wrote, "In the morning was more engaged in preparing the head than the heart. This has been frequently my error, and I have always felt the evil of it, especially in prayer." He did not say that preparing the head was wrong. It was necessary. The problem was preparing the head while neglecting the heart.
In another entry, after preaching with what he described as more heart than he remembered having preached with before, he attributed it to the gospel nature of the subject and prayerful preparation. Later he wrote, "Enlarge my heart, and I shall preach."
Bounds considered this so important that he included M'Cheyne's words in Power Through Prayer, in a chapter significantly entitled "Heart Preparation Necessary." He followed M'Cheyne's quotation with the statement that prayer makes the preacher and that "the preacher is made by prayer." (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
A sermon is not merely a collection of ideas that we have arranged in an orderly fashion. It is the Word of God being brought to living people through a living messenger. The truth must certainly be understood by the mind, but it must also work its way into the heart of the man who will preach it.
The Preparation of the Man
I have often heard the thought expressed that the best sermon preparation is the preparation of the preacher himself—the preparation of the man. Bounds wrote, “A prepared heart is much better than a prepared sermon.” The great lesson is not that sermon preparation is unimportant. It is that sermon preparation is incomplete when the preacher himself has not been prepared.
We can prepare the sermon and neglect the preacher. We can prepare the head and neglect the heart. We can become skilled at explaining the Scriptures without allowing the Scriptures to search us. That is a frightening possibility for anyone who stands in a pulpit.
We Can Prepare the Sermon and Neglect the Preacher
It is possible to prepare an excellent sermon while neglecting the preparation of the preacher. A man can spend hours studying the biblical text, consulting commentaries, working through the original languages, developing illustrations, arranging his points, refining his introduction, and polishing his conclusion. He may have a sermon that is accurate, clear, and even compelling. And yet the man himself may be spiritually dry.
We need to remember that God is not merely interested in the message we prepare. He is interested in the messenger He is preparing.
The sermon comes through the man. The congregation does not merely hear our words; they encounter us as men. Our private life eventually finds its way into our public ministry. What happens in the prayer closet affects what happens in the pulpit. What we do with sin in private affects our authority when we speak about holiness in public. What we really believe about God affects the way we speak about God.
We can learn how to preach without learning how to walk with God. We can become knowledgeable about the Bible without allowing the Bible to transform us. We can become accomplished in the work of ministry while slowly losing the life of communion with the Lord that gave us the desire to minister in the first place.
“What we are is developed in our prayer closet.”
The prayer closet is not simply where the preacher prepares to preach. It is where God prepares the preacher himself.
That is why the preparation of the man must never be treated as secondary.
The Shepherd Must First Walk with the Shepherd
This is particularly important for those of us who shepherd the people of God. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are not. We are under-shepherds. The sheep belong to Him. The flock is His. The Word is His. The authority is His. The work is His.
That means that those who shepherd His sheep must remain close to Him. Before we ask, "How can I lead these people?" we should ask, "Am I following Him?" Before we ask, "How can I feed them?" we should ask, "Am I feeding on His Word?" Before we ask, "How can I teach them to pray?" we should ask, "Am I a man of prayer?" Before we call our people to holiness, we should allow God to search our own hearts.
The shepherd cannot give his people what he is not receiving from God. We cannot continually call others to seek the Lord while neglecting to seek Him ourselves. We cannot effectively lead people into the presence of God if we ourselves have become strangers to the secret place.
The health of the shepherd's own soul is therefore not a private matter. It is a ministry matter.
Prayer Must Be More Than a Ministry Tool
There is another danger worth mentioning. We can even learn to use prayer as a ministry tool rather than as communion with God. We pray because we need a sermon. We pray because we need wisdom. We pray because we have a counseling appointment. We pray because we need God to bless the service.
All of those are good reasons to pray. But prayer must become more than a means to accomplish ministry. God Himself must become the object of our desire.
The minister needs God even when there is no sermon to prepare. He needs God when there is no congregation to impress. He needs God when no one is watching. He needs God because God is God, and because apart from Christ we can do nothing.
This is where prayer changes from being merely a discipline on the minister's schedule to being the atmosphere in which the minister lives. Bounds made this point powerfully when he wrote that "the spirit of the prayer-chamber must control our lives." What we are outside the closet affects what happens inside it. (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
The man who wants to pray powerfully must desire to live faithfully. The preparation of the preacher therefore reaches far beyond the hour spent in sermon study or the minutes spent in the prayer closet. It encompasses the whole life.
What Should We Do When We Find Ourselves Prayerless?
If you are a minister and you discover that your prayer life has grown weak, I would encourage you not to begin by making a grand promise to God about how much better you are going to do. Begin with repentance. Tell the Lord the truth. "Lord, I have neglected You. I have been too busy. I have depended upon my own strength. I have given attention to the work and neglected the One for whom I am working. I repent. Please forgive me."
Then do what you ought to do. Get alone with God. Begin to pray. Cry out to Him. Seek Him. Wait upon Him. Ask Him to search your heart. Ask Him to make you holy. Ask Him to renew your love for Christ. Ask Him to give you love for the people He has entrusted to you. Ask Him to make you a man who does not merely speak about God but walks with God.
And then go study the Scriptures. Go prepare carefully. Go to the pulpit. But go as a man who has first been with God.
Closing Words: The Preparation of the Man
Perhaps the simplest way I know to express all of this is this: study prepares the sermon, but prayer prepares the preacher. We need both. We must not use prayer as an excuse for poor study, nor should we use study as an excuse for prayerlessness. But we must never forget which preparation is ultimately more important.
The sermon may be heard for an hour, but the man behind the sermon will be observed for years. The sermon may eventually be forgotten, but the character of the shepherd may leave a lasting impression. The congregation needs more than a well-prepared sermon. They need a shepherd who knows his Shepherd. They need a man who has been with God.
So prepare your sermon. Study diligently. Think carefully. Handle the Word faithfully. Give yourself to the work of preaching. But prepare yourself as well. Let God search you. Let Him humble you. Let Him cleanse you. Let Him correct you. Let Him teach you. Let Him fill you.
That is the preparation of the preacher.
Author's note: If you enjoyed this post, you may also like the other posts in this blog available through the Home page, such as Guarding Your Prayer Life, Ministering from the Overflow, Seeking Him in the Wee Hours of the Night, Success in God's Eyes, and Having a Servant's Heart. You may also access my complete blog directory at "Writing for the Master."
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