John MacArthur on Preaching...

As a pastor oftentimes one can struggle when one only hears the "success stories" from well known pastors...thinking, "what is wrong with me? why do I struggle in formulating sermons week after week, when others seem to do it so well?!?" On that note, I sure appreciate Dr. John MacArthur's humility in sharing his own weekly saga..

“I mean, I don’t just sit at my office and say, “Lord, I want to preach a great sermon Sunday. Please, I ask you, give me a great sermon.” No, what I do is I ask the Lord all week for that, and then I seek that by going through the Word of God and reading and reading. And then I begin banging on the Lord, in a sense, by saying, “Lord, I’m struggling with this thing and I want to understand it,” and this one this morning, which isn’t so hot, anyway, I rewrote three times. And on and on you go, struggling with it. But the point is, I realize that God is the only one who can produce through me, but at the same time, I’ve got to be involved in that.”

(from the sermon: “Loving people”; Matthew 7, 7-12)

The key phrase being, "I realize that God is the only one who can produce..." Thank you Lord that you are the One who builds Your church! He does all the work through His word!