How To Prepare The Word
Lesson Overview
This lesson takes you beyond knowing that God speaks. You’ll learn how He gives a word, how to recognize which way He’s speaking to you, and how to prepare a message the way a physician treats a patient: first the diagnosis, then the medicine.
In this lesson you will learn:
- Why the Word of God is the only medicine that heals the Church
- The 9 ways God gives a word, and how to walk in each one
- The Diagnosis and the Medicine Method of preparing a word
- How Jesus Himself modeled this method in Revelation 2–3
- The condition and medicine for each of the seven churches
- How to match the right word to the right condition
- An introduction to Part Two: how to teach the word you have prepared
Part 1
The Foundation: Only the Word Heals
Many churches are failing today because they forgot there is only one way to heal the people of God: through the Word of God. Programs can organize people, events can gather them, and personalities can inspire them, but only the Word can heal them. If you lead a church, hold church meetings, or have people entrusted to your care, this is the heart of your assignment.
“He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” (Psalm 107:20)
When Jesus stood in the synagogue in Nazareth, He read from Isaiah 61 to announce His assignment (Luke 4:18–19). That same anointing rests on every word God gives you to preach:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1)
What the word you carry is sent to do:
- Open doors. It makes a way where people have been stuck.
- Break prison doors. It sets free those held by bondage and strongholds.
- Break chains. It breaks generational patterns, habits and spiritual oppression.
- Give revelation. It shows people what they could not see.
- Give knowledge of God. It shows them who He is, not just what He does.
- Give understanding. It tells people where they are, so they can go to the next level.
This is why preparing a word is hard. You can’t produce that kind of fruit in your own strength.
For the prodigals: Some have walked away from the Word of God. Some never left the building, but they’ve left the Word. Like the father in Luke 15, God is watching the road, ready to run to them. I pray they come back to their Father’s house. I pray they come back to the Word.
Part 2
Prayer First: Consulting the Doctor of Doctors
No good doctor writes a prescription before examining the patient. Yet many preachers prepare a message before asking God what is wrong with His people.
Before you step into the house of God to bring healing, you must ask:
- The Holy Spirit, the Doctor of doctors. What is the sickness? What is the diagnosis?
- Jesus, the Shepherd. He knows His sheep by name (John 10:14).
- God, who made the people. He knows how they are formed and what they need.
You will not know the sickness, and you will not know the diagnosis, until you ask. You have to ask God about the condition of His people. Then ask for the medicine that needs to be administered for them to be healed.
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
Part 3
The 9 Ways God Gives a Word
God gives each of us our own way to connect with Him. From what I have seen in ministry, there are 9 ways He gives a word. No way is more spiritual than another. What matters is that you learn how He speaks to you, and that you stay ready for Him to change the way.
1. The Seed Word
God gives you one word: a phrase, a theme, a name or a single scripture. It’s a seed, and your job is to grow it through study, research and prayer until it becomes a full message.
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
How to recognize it: A word or phrase keeps returning to you in prayer.
How to walk in it: Don’t despise the small seed. Study it: its meaning, where it appears in Scripture, and how it connects to the people. Ask God to grow it as you dig.
2. The Partial Word
God gives you part of the message, sometimes word for word, and you must add the rest.
“For we know in part and we prophesy in part.” (1 Corinthians 13:9)
How to recognize it: You have a clear opening or a few clear points, but the message feels unfinished.
How to walk in it: Honor the portion God gave you exactly as He gave it. Build the rest through study, and keep asking. Often the rest comes as you move.
3. The Full Word
God gives you the entire message: the points, the scriptures, even the order.
“Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.” (Jeremiah 1:9)
How to recognize it: The message arrives whole, often quickly, and with a strong sense of authority.
How to walk in it: Deliver it as given. Don’t add to it to make it longer or take from it to make it comfortable. Your role is faithfulness.
4. The Silent Season
You go to God and He stays quiet. No word, no theme, nothing.
“I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me.” (Habakkuk 2:1)
How to recognize it: You have prayed and sought Him, and heaven seems silent.
How to walk in it: Silence is not rejection. It is often a test of trust and dependence. Keep your post. Keep praying, keep reading, keep watching. Don’t fill the silence with a borrowed sermon out of fear.
5. The Pulpit Word
Some receive nothing until they step onto the pulpit, and then the message comes in that very hour.
“Do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” (Matthew 10:19–20)
How to recognize it: You’ve prayed faithfully, yet you’re led to stand without notes, and the word comes as you stand.
How to walk in it: This is not an excuse to skip preparation. It’s the fruit of a life of prayer. The word that comes in the hour comes from what was built in secret.
6. The Word That Comes as You Speak
You begin to speak with nothing in hand, and as you open your mouth, God begins to speak through you.
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (Psalm 81:10)
How to recognize it: The flow begins only after you step out in obedience.
How to walk in it: Your obedience releases His filling. Start where you are, perhaps with a scripture, a testimony or a prayer, and follow the Spirit as He takes over.
7. The Word Through Scripture
While reading and meditating on the Word, a verse leaps off the page and won’t let you go.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)
How to recognize it: A verse you may have read many times suddenly comes alive and stays with you.
How to walk in it: Stay with that passage. Read it in context, meditate on it, and ask the Holy Spirit why He highlighted it for these people at this time.
8. The Word Through Dreams and Visions
God speaks in the night, in a dream or a vision, and you wake carrying the message.
“In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction.” (Job 33:15–16)
How to recognize it: You wake with a vivid picture or a clear impression that carries weight.
How to walk in it: Write it down right away. Pray over it, test it against Scripture, and ask God for the interpretation before you preach it.
9. The Burden Word
The message sits in your spirit as a weight or a fire, and it will not leave you until it is released.
“But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (Jeremiah 20:9)
How to recognize it: You can’t shake it. It stirs you in prayer, in worship, even in daily life.
How to walk in it: A burden is God’s heart for His people. Carry it in prayer first, then release it with the same compassion God placed in you.
Part 4
The Diagnosis and the Medicine Method
In my experience, one of the methods the Holy Spirit has shown me to prepare a word is what I call the Diagnosis and the Medicine Method. The preparation comes in two parts: first God shows me the condition of His people, then He gives me the medicine.
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)
The Diagnosis
Every church goes through seasons and times, and those seasons change. So I ask God to reveal the condition of the church that day, that season, that week, that moment. Usually He shows me through one of the seven churches of Revelation. Once He shows me which one, I know the condition.
The Medicine
Then I ask God for the medicine for that condition. The medicine is always the Word of God: what to preach so His people can heal from where they stand.
This Is What Jesus Did
This method comes from Jesus Himself. In Revelation 2–3, Jesus walks among the seven golden lampstands, the churches, and examines each one (Revelation 2:1). Every letter follows the same pattern:
- “I know your works.” He sees exactly where they are.
- Commendation. What they’re doing right.
- Correction. What is wrong. This is the diagnosis.
- Counsel. What to do about it. This is the medicine.
- Promise. What awaits those who overcome.
Jesus never prescribed the same medicine to every church. Each condition received its own remedy. That is how we must preach.