Has God Called You to Declare His Word?

The person who presumes to declare God's Word to the people has to be very careful that they are not diluting the Word or Truth of God while they are proclaiming it.

As the message travels through the conduit or pipeline, which is the one proclaiming the Word, it takes some of the substance of the conduit through which it is transmitted. These are very slight bits of matter (personal traits and mannerisms, etc.) and they usually do not lessen the import and impact of the message. However if too much of the extraneous matter should be leached into the message, it could seriously lessen the import and the impact of the message, which is in fact the Word of God. The message is the Truth as proclaimed by God's spokesperson. Watering it down by whatever means will invalidate the claim that what is said is the Truth of God. The truth will be greatly lessened by too much of the human element from the "pipeline."

The following extensive quote was taken from One Believer’s Thoughts on Various Christian Topics, “Preaching,” Aaron J. Smith, http://bit.ly/gP8Hil . It tops off what I am attempting to get across to you about proclaiming the Word of God:

“Part of the Messenger Goes with the Message. It is important for the messenger to remember that they involun­tarily color the message that God gives them. God does not impart to the messenger the exact words with which to convey God’s meaning to the hearers. We can best view the preacher as a channel through which the message comes from God. As the message goes through him to the audience, some of the channel rubs off – part of his own personality goes with the message. The various epistles in the New Testament and the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament bear this out. Each writer had his own style that he uncon­sciously imprinted on the message although the message itself came from God.

“This does not need to detract from what God is trying to communi­cate to the people if the preacher does not, willfully or not, inject negative jarring factors into their sermon. (We cannot deal adequately with these factors here. Any homiletics course will look at them in detail.) There is a positive element in the vessel’s imparting a part of the vessel to the message: it makes for a variety of modes in which any one common theme can be delivered. Of five different persons expounding on faith, for example, there could be five different presentations. They may all be true presentations, but each individual will have imparted some of the individual’s characteristics to their sermon.

“In a way this imposes a greater burden on the preacher. If the preacher’s choice of words and/or their structure of the sermon and manner of delivery have even a slight effect on the message they bring, they must surely sense the need for improving their expertise in those areas. God entrusts His communication with the preacher and God expects the preacher to do their utmost in imparting that communication effectively to the listeners.

“This approach does not minimize the absolute necessity of speaking under the anointing of God. It is all one package: the natural and spiritual preparation and the anointing of the Spirit of God. For the preacher to be the best he or she can be in the office in which God has installed them, they need the whole package.”

Do you still think you “have a word from God”? If so, proclaim it faithfully and well!