If you want to know the energy of God—the energy of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ—in your physical body, you must do more than simply think on the tragedy of God on the cross; you must brood upon it. Cut yourself off from distractions, stop taking an obsessive interest in your personal spiritual development, and consider, bare-spirited, the tragedy of God. The instant you do, his energy will be in you.
“Turn to me,” says God (Isaiah 45:22). God must become the dominating object of your attention. Pay attention to the objective Source and the subjective energy will follow. We lose power when we fail to concentrate on the right thing. The right thing is the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the only thing we are called to preach—not salvation or sanctification or healing. In much preaching today, the focus is placed not on the cross but on its effects. Churches are criticized as feeble, and the criticism is justified because there has been no concentration of spiritual energy, no brooding on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.
Concentrate on the cross in your preaching, and though the members of your audience might not seem to pay attention, they’ll never be the same again. If I talk my own talk, it’s of no more importance to you than your talk is to me. But if I talk the truth of God, you will meet it again, and so will I. When you concentrate on the great point of spiritual energy—the cross—keeping in contact with this center where all the power lies, its energy will be let loose. The proclaiming of the cross of Jesus Christ does its own work.
