WHEN WE GO TO CHURCH
The following are notes I outlined on thoughts I’ve had relative to going to church. Perhaps, and hopefully, these will be helpful to someone today
There is a CONSCIOUSNESS that we want to have when we go to church. First, we need to be conscious of where we are. We are “in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Let this sink in. Secondly, we need to be conscious of why we are where we are. An old hymn reminds us, “Brethren we have met to worship, and adore the Lord our God.” Our church going is not primarily about us, but about God. “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name” (Ps. 100:4).
The CONCENTRATION that is needed when we go to church. Do two things today: (1) make every effort to concentrate on any message there is in the sermon for you, and (2) concentrate on any movement there is of the Spirit on you. Its challenging today, for a number of reasons, for people in the average church to concentrate on what God may be wanting to say to them from His Scripture or how He may be wanting to stir them in their spirits. But such concentration is important when we go to church.
There is something that we want to CARRY AWAY when we go to church. When people go to church, the primary takeaway for them should be a heightened sense of how wonderful and utterly worthy the Lord our God is of our praise and devotion. Secondly, and consequently, Christians, when they go to church, can leave, carrying away with them a renewed sense of direction along with a revived spirit of devotion (Ps. 119:105; Ps 39:3; Neh, 8:5, 6).
When the above three things are part of our church-going experience, people can say with the psalmist, “ was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” If these aren’t part of our church-going experience, the question must be asked, “Why not?”
“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10; 24, 25).
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