If you preach regularly, it is easy to get into an unhealthy mindset concerning the ministry. It’s the kind of mindset where you will preach next time because it’s what you do. You did it last week and will do it again this week. I’m sure most of us have experienced this at times. If you feel this Sunday approaching, but a numb feeling inside, take some time to thrash it out with the Lord.

The missing pieces might include a loss of several things: wonder at the person and power of God, sense of the privilege of speaking His Word to others, awareness of the very real and personal needs, or even the peril of the listeners, and the reality of the ongoing spiritual battle in which we currently live.

When I find motivation has faded, or there is a dryness inside, I remember men like David, Job, and Jeremiah. In the Bible we find people who were really honest before God, yet I know my tendency to be superficial and aloof. Perhaps the time will soon come, or maybe it is today, that some of us need to pour out our hearts to the Lord in total honesty. Perhaps we’ll find, like Jeremiah, that once all the emotion is spent, and the energy gone, that there is still a fire in the bones and we must speak for God!

Don’t preach just ‘cos it’s what you do, or you are on the schedule. Preach ‘cos there’s a very deep, God-given and God-captivated, need-motivated, battle-hardened, must-ness in your spirit.