Back in my soccer playing days it was always interesting to see how guys prepared their mind for the game at hand.

Some kept to a rigid routine driven by superstition, others lost themselves in some Jedi-like “the Force is with you” mental game, and many piped music through their headphones to drown out the world.

Apart from prayer, the way I like to prepare to preach is by reading something from The Prince: Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Sometimes it’s a sermon, other times it’s a lecture on ministry. One of my favorite paragraphs to meditate on comes from his lecture “Sermons – Their Matter.” Maybe it will be just what you need to ascend to the sacred desk with purposeful power.

In [preaching] it must be our aim to use the subject in hand with energy and effect, and the subject must be capable of such employment. To choose mere moral themes will be to use a wooden dagger; but the great truths of revelation are as sharp swords. Keep to doctrines which stir the conscience and the heart. Remain unwaveringly the champions of a soul-winning gospel. God’s truth is adapted to man, and God’s grace adapts man to it. There is a key which, under God, can wind up the musical box of man’s nature; get it, and use it daily. Hence I urge you to keep to the old-fashioned gospel, and to that only, for assuredly it is the power of God unto salvation.

Keep to that old-fashioned path and slay the Devil with the Spirit’s sharp sword.