1. Keep Your Heart Open.
Cultivate love for souls. Dwell much on God’s love, which gave up everything for sinners to be saved and blessed according to His purpose. You will soon learn to give up leisure time and your best to be in line with His heart. Think of the Lord Jesus and His sufferings to save them; you will learn to suffer hardships and fatigue to win souls for Him. Think of how the Lord Jesus wept when sinners rejected His testimony. If you think of sinners, you will pray for them, and we learn to love those for whom we pray.
2. Keep Your Eyes Open.
Do not be afraid to use illustrations from nature or nature’s objects, nor hesitate to use in moderation instances of conversion, which you are prepared to substantiate. We cannot improve on the Master’s way of doing service, and He illustrated His addresses from the common objects of everyday life. He used facts from natural history, episodes from domestic life, transactions between masters and servants, and even occurrences in the political world. Even the weather served Him time and time again.
3. Keep Your Notebook Open.
In your private readings you will often pick up useful material. Use a notebook for yourself; jot down things that come to you. Often a train of thought will occur to you in a chapter of a book of the Bible — jot it down! Sometimes an illustration of a truth will flash into your mind — jot it down! Now and then a point or two for a gospel address will take shape as you watch and pray — jot it down! Or you may hear a pithy remark or a stirring subject from another saint seeking to serve the Lord — jot it down! Then use these notes as the Lord leads.
4. Keep Your Wallet Open.
It is wonderful what an interest we take in the Lord’s work when it costs us something! Wealthier saints may give much, and we may be able to give comparatively little. However, the Lord is able to multiply and use what we have, and there is sweetness and profit in doing that which costs us something. God is a giving God and He loves a cheerful giver. It is His grace that makes us givers in a world like this.
Adapted from To Every Man His Work