The Revived Heart: Personal Preparation of the Worker

Before Jesus sent the twelve out to preach and to heal, Mark records a deliberate sequence: 'he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach' (Mark 3:14). Notice the order embedded in a single verse: being with Him comes first, being sent comes second, and the sending flows out of the being with, not the other way around. This is the pattern Revangelism recovers for every worker preparing to reach others. We are tempted to reverse the sequence, rushing to methods and assignments while treating personal communion with Christ as an afterthought squeezed in when time allows. But Christ's own design makes personal fellowship with Him the engine, not the accessory, of all effective service. A worker sent without first having been with Jesus has nothing authentic to offer beyond borrowed words.

Surrender is the doorway into this fellowship, and it must be renewed daily rather than settled once and forgotten. Paul describes the Christian life as a continual presenting of the body 'a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God' (Romans 12:1), and the image of a living sacrifice is deliberately uncomfortable, because a living sacrifice has the ongoing temptation to climb back off the altar. Jesus put it even more starkly: 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me' (Luke 9:23). Daily is the operative word. Yesterday's surrender does not automatically cover today. A worker preparing to serve Christ must return each morning to the same posture of yielded hands, because self-will left unchecked will quietly reassert itself and corrupt even sincere ministry with pride, control, or discouragement.

A consistent devotional life is not a spiritual formality to check off before the 'real' work of ministry begins; it is the channel through which the worker's own soul is continually fed, so that there is something genuine to give away. Jesus Himself, though fully God, 'rose up a great while before day' to pray in a solitary place before a demanding day of ministry (Mark 1:35). If the Son of God depended on unhurried time alone with the Father, no worker today can imagine themselves exempt from that dependence. David's testimony captures the appetite this feeds: 'My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is' (Psalm 63:1). A worker running on a dry devotional life will eventually offer others only dry words, however polished the delivery, because you cannot give what you do not have.

Confession is the honest maintenance work that keeps this fellowship unobstructed, and it must not be reduced to a vague general admission that everyone is a sinner. David's model in Psalm 51, written after his sin with Bathsheba was exposed, is specific, broken, and unhurried: 'Have mercy upon me, O God... wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin' (Psalm 51:1-2). He does not minimise, excuse, or rush past his failure toward ministry recovery; he lingers in genuine repentance until his heart is actually clean. John assures us that 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9), but this promise is addressed to those who actually confess, specifically and honestly, not to those who merely acknowledge sin exists in the abstract.

Unconfessed sin does quiet damage to spiritual power long before it becomes publicly visible, and this is precisely why it is so dangerous. The psalmist writes plainly, 'If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me' (Psalm 66:18), not because God is petty, but because cherished sin builds a wall of the worker's own making between himself and the God he claims to represent. A congregation can contain gifted teachers, skilled organisers, and passionate personalities who nonetheless carry little spiritual power, because private compromises have been tolerated and never brought to the light. Revangelism asks every worker to examine, honestly and without excuse-making, whether some habit, attitude, or hidden compromise is currently being protected rather than confessed, because that hidden thing will limit exactly the power the worker is asking God to release through them.

Broken relationships hinder a worker's fellowship with Christ just as surely as unconfessed sin does, and Scripture refuses to separate the vertical and horizontal dimensions of reconciliation. Jesus taught that if you are bringing your gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave the gift, go and be reconciled first, and only then return to worship (Matthew 5:23-24). This is a remarkable ordering: reconciliation with a person takes priority even over an act of worship already in progress. A worker who is quietly estranged from a spouse, a fellow church member, or a former friend cannot expect the fullness of the Spirit's power while nursing that estrangement, however sincere their public ministry appears. Revangelism therefore treats interpersonal reconciliation not as a nice addition to spiritual life, but as necessary preparation for spiritual power.

The seventy sent out in Luke 10 illustrate what genuinely prepared workers look like in practice: they went in pairs, they depended on God for provision rather than their own resources, and they returned rejoicing not primarily in their success but in the fact that 'your names are written in heaven' (Luke 10:20). Jesus gently redirects their joy away from ministry results and back toward their own settled standing with God, because a worker whose sense of worth rises and falls with visible outcomes will eventually burn out or become proud. Prepared workers hold their fruitfulness with open hands, grateful when God grants a harvest, but resting their identity in being known and loved by Christ rather than in what they have accomplished for Him.

As this session closes, the invitation is not to add another item to an already full spiritual to-do list, but to return to the simplest and most foundational relationship a worker has: walking daily with Jesus. Enoch's brief biography is instructive precisely because of its simplicity: 'Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him' (Genesis 5:24). No recorded sermons, no listed accomplishments, only a walk sustained over three hundred years. Before you attempt to cultivate soil, sow seed, or reap a harvest in the sessions ahead, make sure this one thing is settled: are you walking with Christ today, in surrender, in the Word, in honest confession, and in reconciled relationships? Everything fruitful that follows in this course depends entirely on the answer.