A preacher was preaching about Jonah, why Jonah ran away from God’s assignment and made a statement. She said “if I was in Jonah’s shoes, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t do what Jonah did”. After the message, the person came to ask me if what she said was good and my reply was “that’s transparence”.
When making use of the pulpit, the Holy Ghost does overwhelm us to the extent that we begin to say things as if we’re not a victim. Even though we are being guilty of what the Holy Spirit is using us for and probably we may be seeing solution to our own challenges from the message too, one thing is certain, the audience wouldn’t know that.
The audience use to see us while preaching as a saint. They see us as persons who have arrived. When preaching about prosperity, the audience views us as someone who has a lot in his account but at times, we may not even have a dime in our bank account.
When talking about healing, we preach it as if we don’t feel sickness symptoms even though we do overcome by our faith. When preaching about holiness, we preach it as though some ungodly thoughts don’t cross our heart. It is normal because it’s the Holy Spirit that’s speaking through us but some little transparency can help our audience.
Our audience gets deceived not because we have the intention to deceive them but because of how they view us while preaching. Many at times, our audience fails to see Holy Spirit in our preaching that’s why some used to think that you’re using them as example. They fail to see Holy Ghost in action and they say “see how he’s preaching as if he’s not a human being. Is what he’s saying easy?”
So, to avoid self deceit of our audience, it’s important to be transparent on the pulpit. Give examples of your challenging times. Tell them your difficult times. Show them that you’re a man helped by God. Someone preached and later someone came to me and say “everything that man was preaching is not possible” meanwhile everything the person preached are what are happening in my life.
Holy Spirit uses us in words; our messages are not results of our rational thinking. We too, as preachers, do receive help in our messages. Dr. Paul Enenche said he listened to one of his messages preached around 90s. He said the message was so powerful that he didn’t believed those words were coming out of his mouth. The same has happened to me too. It was when it happened to me that I concluded that our messages are not our words.
So, as an audience, if you have ever been under a ministration and you see someone preaching powerfully, just as the Holy Spirit is revealing things to you through the message, so also the preacher is also receiving help from the Holy Spirit. Stop deceiving yourself by trying hard to be like the preacher because you think that he’s not a victim of what he’s preaching. Although, he may not but the preacher wants you to be like Christ and the Holy Spirit is the only one who can help you.