Start with your heart

Everything we express comes from our heart, everything we do flows from it and God knows it deep down.

That’s why we first need to fill ourselves to be able to overflow. This is being a channel, because we can’t take people around us to a place we haven’t been to yet.

Born from within

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Proverbs 4:23

When we fill our heart with gratitude, worshiping the Lord becomes a natural response from our body. Praising Him is in our essence. Our body needs to worship the Creator, but this needs to start first in our heart.

I’ve always heard that first we need to introject, and only then can we project. You can never lead a person to worship if you have never worshiped in Spirit and in truth.

Many times, even before you minister over someone’s life in words, people will see God in you, in your actions, and in your lifestyle. When you are filled with the Spirit, you exhale it naturally, without having to strain. It overflows from within and reaches hearts, without needing words in sermons.

Jesus, even without speaking, on several occasions healed and demonstrated God’s love. Only in His way of living and acting did He express the Father.

Expressing out

“I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips.”

Psalms 34:1

In this text of Psalms we can see in the NIV version a special order of worship and praise: I bless the Lord, I adore Him and, after everything happens internally, in my heart, my lips will praise Him.

We need to first contemplate Him, and then express everything we feel. Bringing people to the Lord without knowing Him is like talking about a stranger on the street. We don’t have in-depth knowledge about the person who just passed by us on a sidewalk, or about that friend of a friend we’ve only heard about.

We must worship Him and seek to know Him more and more, in order to praise the Lord for Who He is and bring people into His kingdom, presenting Him with knowledge and depth, just like when we talk about someone in our family.

Good channels

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Colossians 3:23-24

Closeness to the Lord leads us to know Him and thus we can present His word to the people around us.

Having a relationship with God is not about serving in church just on Sunday, it is about reading about Him, studying His words and worshiping Him in secret to know the path to the Holy of Holies.

Regardless of the area in which we serve, all our actions must facilitate people’s path to the Father. But if I have never known the path to Him, how would I know how to facilitate it for someone? How could I be a channel?

Each pipe is specifically designed for a different purpose. You cannot take a pipe that is made to transport water and transport gas, for example. The channel must be prepared to transport in the right way.

God needs to prepare us, but in addition we need to know the way to Him because, only then, can we be good channels, even if still undeservedly, but covered by His grace.