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Nothing Special
As I was teaching last night [just hours ago] at Light Force, I was thinking in the back of my mind about this. (For those who wondered… Sometimes the mind wonders even in highly public communication time!)

I am such an “unspecial” communicator of the Word! I’m not really dynamic. I’m not real flashy. I rarely rehearse an entire talk. I don’t have compelling conclusions and I rarely manage the emotions of the hearer well enough. I keep to a simple formula and that’s it. In fact, I do just about everything “wrong.” My weekly formula rarely changes. I start out with a personal story. I quiz them about the context of the book we are studying. I read the passage, explain what’s going on… Often times just merely defining the words. Then I tell them the timeless principle from the passage at hand and a point or two of application. If I’m lucky, I remember to toss in a “cyclical” deal by finishing my opening story.

So what is so special?
Here’s the thing that gets me. Students are responding to my “everything’s wrong” style of teaching. As I was teaching Revelation 15-16 tonight, I was thinking to myself… “Man, I think I’ve basically read every verse of Revelation out loud over the past 4 months!”

Hmmm.
Last night, I concluded with the talk with a simple principle. I said… “True love confronts sin…” After the talk we had a little time of just hanging out and eating pizza. One of my regular students, a girl whom I really think is cool… But I see as utterly lost despite her coming to church her entire life… Came up to me and said, “What is sin?”

I thought to myself… “Are you kidding me? This kid has gone to church her entire life… How can she not know what sin is?” For almost a whole second I thought I was really a great teacher of the Bible. Then it hit me, “This student wasn’t brought along to this point by anything else than just the Word of God.” For whatever reason, the Holy Spirit chose that exact time when I was talking to illumine to her what sin is. As I helped her define that term in a way she could understand I came to this conclusion.

We think too much!
That’s it. Each week I spend 6-7 hours preparing a good message. But how long am I asking the Holy Spirit to illumine to my listeners what He wants to teach them? Honestly? Almost no time! A minute? Maybe two…

The reality is that God’s Word itself, when read, can change lives. I can’t explain it other than using the term “illumination.” God chooses to illumine to us His message at His time when we read His Word.

Why do we in ministry forget this? How could we?

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