Preach It In Season and Out

288 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from 2Ti 4:2, “ Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” (2 Tim 4:2) Wow! Sounds like an awful lot of responsibility placed on the shoulder of Timothy and all other pastors who would follow in his footsteps. Preach! Be ready! Convince! Rebuke! Exhort! We've already covered preaching. Pastors are to be like town criers declaring messages from the Mayor of the universe....God Almighty! Next, pastors are to be ready, the word means, “to stand,” Pastors are to stand on this Word of God that they proclaim! It goes without saying that a pastor is to know the Scriptures. He must know what he is proclaiming and what he is standing on! Peter speaking of this word in 2 Peter 1:19 says, “We also have a more sure word!” When is the pastor supposed to preach and stand on this “more sure Word?” In season and out of season. Hmmm, that pretty much means always doesn't it? Now here is where I find myself asking, “why did the Holy Spirit choose to use the word season here? He could've said “always be ready to preach and stand,” and leave it at that, but He didn't. Seasons, speak of opportune times. Farmers know about seasons, it's when they make hay, so to speak! So the Holy Spirit is preparing Timothy, and all future pastors, for the fact that sometimes the Word is received (makes hay) and sometimes it falls on deaf ears. What a relief for the pastor to know! It's not on him! It's on the season of life that the hearer is experiencing at the moment, and what the Holy Spirit will do with that proclaimed Word! Some are ready to hear, (it is their opportune time) and some aren't ready to hear ( it is an inopportune time for them.) One of the traps the pastor can fall into is preparing his message with certain people in mind. He might be thinking, “oh, so and so will need to hear this word,” well maybe they do, but if it's not their season, they won't hear it anyway. Many times people will come up to me after I preach a message and tell me what they got out of it, and it was not anything that I intended as I prepared the message, and you know what? That's a good thing! That's the Holy Spirit working in the proclaimed Word and the season of someones life, a season that I was not aware of! And it serves as a reminder to me to simply preach the Word and stand on it. Let the arrows fly and let the Holy Spirit direct the message to HIS intended target.....not mine!