Preparing the Preacher?

Man. I can tell that I'm going to have fun coming up with titles for these little blog-a-trons. Ha. Blog-a-trons.

Anyway, thought I'd share a story.

For those of you (I don't actually know who reads this thing) who know Mr. Thomas Mohn, I remember him telling me once, "A long time ago God told me He didn't want to prepare the sermons with me, he wanted to prepare the preacher." I think that's a wise perception. As soon as I started leading worship again in YWAM (almost a year ago) that was a principle I applied to my daily life. I didn't want to be one of those worshipers who spends all his time preparing the music, and making sure everything is perfect while leaving the heart untended. I prayed that God would teach me how to prepare my heart to lead worship and out of that my worship would flow.

He's been faithful to do that so far. Most times I lead worship these days I pick maybe one song in my head that I've felt the Lord speak to me in my time with Him, and the rest of the worship time will turn into prophetic singing, intercession, stillness or more songs that He brings to my mind. And still, I've only scracthed the surface of the depth of power that comes surrendering to God and acting in submission to Him.

Recently, we were doing a locacl outreach in Roma (a rural bush town in Australia, about 6 hour drive south west from Brisbane) and Leah (my leader) asked me to teach at a church in Chinchilla which is a town that we would be passing through on our way home. I agreed but let's face it: I had no clue where to begin. I think it can be so humorous how God will teach something in one area of your life, and then continue to teach it to you until you get it in ALL areas of your life. As I was talking to her and a few other leaders, the message came across, "Only teach what you have to give." Which is true to an extent, but then again I don't think we should limit God to that.
So I went through my journal and through some things that I thought I could teach on-- conviction namely.

The week goes by and I have notes, scriptures and a lot of great stories talking about conviction.. I feel like a bonified teacher at this point. And then I realize something. I'm not really a teacher. I'm not really a preacher either. I'm a helper. Ben Pasley puts it like this, “Helpers, on the other hand, come to us with personal concern and a belief that we have inside of us the tools to excel, but we simply need encouragement and maybe a working model to follow.”
And then another awful realization set in as I was reading a book by Larry Lea.
I hadn't asked God what he wanted to say to the church I was teaching at. I was prepared to speak a message completely from my flesh without even thinkning of what God wanted to do. Conviction set in hard at that point (I know, ironic.) on Saturday afternoon the day before I was to teach.
So I prayed. I sought God with my whole heart and allowed Him to take away my sin and to speak to me.
As I surrendered to God, verses started popping up in my head. I looked them up, read them allowed and started preaching. I started to speaking out the revelation God was giving me and after about 15 minutes I had a whole sermon. Amazed, I took a second to reflect. "Where did that come from?"
I jotted down some notes and praised God.

The next morning, I woke up early and went through the process all over again. By the time, I went up to in front of the church to share, I felt the Spirit dripping all over me. It was heavy. I began to share, and as I did I noticed something: The anointing was there. People were on the edge of their seats listening. They were eager to listen to what I was saying.. It was incredible! And as I allowed God to speak through me, the Spirit was moving on the hearts of the church.
We had a time of prayer afterward for all who wanted it, and that was such a powerful time. One lady fell over as I prayed for her.. So praise God!

Once again, I see fulfillment of that scripture in Samuel: "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Thank you Lord, for being a God who is all about the heart.