Preaching with heart
Acts 6:7 The Word of God prospered. Have you ever read or listen to the word of God and a verse just jumped out at you. Sometimes you don’t always understand it yet but your spirit is receiving it. Well that’s what happened this morning with my devotion. Just speaking this verse rings beautifully in my ears. I knew there was more to it. So I started researching. This verse is in Acts 6:7 and it’s in regard to the early church after Pentecost. What God was doing “spread widely”. In fact another translation of this scripture says “the word of God spread”. For something to prosper it has to multiple and that is exactly what was happening with the early church. Which was Exciting stuff! But I knew God was saying more to me then just multiplication and spreading. So I looked up the meaning of the word “word” in greek. What I found was amazing! The word for “word” in greek means logos. Which means; Orig: from 3004; something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ):--account, cause, communication, X concerning, doctrine, fame, X have to do, intent, matter, mouth, preaching, question, reason, + reckon, remove, say(-ing), shew, X speaker, speech, talk, thing, + none of these things move me, tidings, treatise, utterance, word, work. So if you read this scripture again and put it in the full meaning, it could sound like this; The Devine Expression of God spread; The communication of God spread; The fame of God spread;
The talk of God spread; The intent of God spread; The thought of God spread; The doctrine of God spread; The mouth of God spread; The preaching of God spread; The matter of God spread; The cause of God spread; The motive of God spread; The extension of God spread; The concerning of God spread; The account of God spread; The topic of God spread; The reasoning of God spread. All of the above prospered!
Doesn’t this show so much more emotion of what God was doing at that time? It was not just God’s word that was spreading but His whole heart behind these words. His whole embodiment was spreading. He was building a church that was looking like Him in word and character. I get this feeling like we need to get back to not only preaching the Gospel but displaying the full Gospel. Which is God’s heart as well. A Gospel with just words but no love, “is not a Gospel at all”. It is the heart of God that draws people to Himself. People weren’t draw to a book but to a person. Otherwise, we would just have the law and religion. But Jesus was a person and He is living in us and is very relatable and expressive. There is so much love and heart behind the Gospel. Let us not just preach the Gospel without love but with intent of love and cause. Because the Gospel is a sweet smelling aroma to those who are being saved which means its must be desirable. Perhaps the reason why the Gospel spread widely is because they had caught a glimpse of the whole heart of God as well. Maybe if we preached with so much more of Gods heart for others; we would see a wide spread of the Gospel again. Lets us always seek God for His heart for others and us. So we have the whole Gospel to impart to others. Lets us preach in love and heart and not just in “words”. People will be impacted by it.