It takes humility and discipline to listen in order to be blessed when you are yourself a teacher.
Unfortunately, many who teach and preach God’s word are not worth listening to. And the basic reason is because they were not sent. The kingdom of God is built on defined designations and assignments. It is about playing divinely assigned roles. And heaven backs each role it assigns with the grace and anointing the task requires.
Unless someone is sent to fulfill a specific assignment, such as, for example, speaking, their output will not bless or heal. And that is simply because they are speaking out of their own heads.
A teacher of the word also needs someone from God to bless them. They may not hear anything particularly new in the cognitive sense, but they will be blessed. The same truth comes in a new way. The personality of the speaker adds some spice that tastes really good, refreshing both the soul and spirit.
O that the churches of God will recognize how injurious it is to place individuals without a call to task over God’s people to teach them. By some of these inauspicious behaviours, the gains of the kingdom are significantly reversed. The death of many great revivals are attributable in part to this.
As we take our journey through the book of Matthew and John, we will observe a unique quality about John and Jesus Christ. Jesus, though greater, voluntarily comes to John to be baptized. It equals an experienced preacher coming down to the pews to listen like everyone else. When, as a much-admired teacher or preacher, it is a problem for you to sit and receive, there is a problem developing.
We remember that when Jesus sat among the doctors of the law in the Temple as a 12 year old, He did a lot of listening and asking them questions. Someone’s intellect shines by the quality of listening, not just by the worth of their words.
I used to preach and teach a lot in a certain church in Ibadan many years ago. One day, I arrived and sat in a Sunday school class. The teacher later told me he lost his bearing when I came in, but I assured him his class was a blessing to me.
We must hold on to the Lord with our two hands and ensure that a great spirit from God does not depart from us.