June 15, 2015 (Monday)
Today is another one of those “wake-up-with-a-song-in-my-head” days. It won’t go away.
I haven’t sung it in years. It was a chorus we used to sing a lot as young persons long ago. But it has a message. Problem is, I can’t remember many of the words, and I cannot find them anywhere. The last line is, “Preach Christ! Preach Christ! Preach Christ!”
“Preach Christ” is the theme of the song and good advice for everyone who preaches or teaches in the church. That great prince of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, said, “A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. And I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of ‘believe and live.'”
Billy Graham went around the world telling millions of people about Christ. He wrote to a person seeking happiness: ” I urge you to turn to Jesus Christ and commit your life to him. God loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his only son into the world to give his life for your salvation. Make Christ, and not yourself, the center and foundation of your life.”
The Apostle Paul said, “to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NIV).
Christ was central in his life, and certainly in his preaching.
Another chorus we used to sing was “Christ For Me.” I do remember those words: “Christ for me, yes, it’s Christ for me. He’s my Savior, my Lord, my King; I’m so happy I shout and sing, Christ for me, yes, it’s Christ for me; every day as I go my way, it is Christ for me.”