From My Devotional Archives – 2

“MEN ARE NEVER DULY TOUCHED AND IMPRESSED WITH A CONVICTION OF THEIR INSIGNIFICANCE UNTIL THEY HAVE CONTRASTED THEMSELVES WITH THE MAJESTY OF GOD.”

I came across this quote from John Calvin, the reformer in my notes. It’s remarkable how this particular quote has helped me to stay humble and have a realistic sense of who I am in God’s eyes.

Have you ever contrasted the majesty of God with the nothingness of man? What did you find? Let me hear your views. Cheers!

From My Devotional Archives – 1

My next few posts here will be from my archives. Over the years I have been privileged to learn a lot of things, of which I have been able to document quite a few. It is impressed on my spirit to share a little from some of those writings. Be blessed, dear friends.

On Tuesday, April 14, 1998 I wrote:

God needs manpower
And man needs God’s power
But God works only when man works
The work of praying
For, when man works, man works
But when man prays, God works.

God is sovereign, but He needs our cooperation in the place of faith and prayer to work in our lives and in the world.

ARE YOU EDUCATING WITHOUT ENTERTAINING?

This is an observation to my fellow men of the cloth but it should come in handy for anybody who does any form of public speaking.

Brent Filson in the book Executive Speeches wrote: “The Constitution guarantees free speech, but it does not guarantee listeners. Even if you do get listeners, there is no guarantee that they will be listening. So your first responsibility as a speaker is to gain and keep the audience’s attention.” I couldn’t agree more!

Now, to gain and keep the audience’s attention you must not just have something meaningful and beneficial to say, you must be able to say it interestingly. I believe that as a speaker the way to engage your audience and guarantee their attention is two-fold: entertain and educate. Better put, I want to entertain my listeners while educating them. (You say, “Heaven is too serious for that!”) You can’t be more serious than Jesus yet He was entertaining. How else could He have spoken to more than five thousand people for three days straight and got their attention without a public address system. They were so engrossed in what he was saying that they forgot to eat!

As a speaker I had always wanted my listeners to say something like, “I see! That was interesting. Now let me begin to take action on what I’ve learnt here.” I want to ‘preach’ to people without being ‘preachy’! To tell them something without them feeling being told – that’s what I mean by being entertaining while educating.

I consider it my life calling equipping people to find, follow and fulfill their God-given destinies. My listener must not only be able to discern their life purposes through my messages, they must also be inspired to identify practical steps to take to accomplish the same. Education that lacks entertainment content is not only boring but accomplishes little. In a similar vein, entertainment that has no solid educational value falls short of any lasting impact. The question therefore is “Are you entertaining without educating or educating without entertaining?” YOU WILL SUCCEED!

P. S. I have written on the subject of public speaking here before in a series of posts titled 10-Tips-for-Speaking-to-Impact-Lives. To read those pieces you can click on the link and these: 10-tips (2); 10-tips (3) and 10-tips (4).