As I sit on my patio on this beautiful early Saturday morning my thoughts reflect on tomorrow, Sunday. My wife and I go to church every Sunday morning. We go because we enjoy going. We like seeing friends. We enjoy singing in the choir. We enjoy being in Bible study. And we love to hear our pastor preach. But if our going to church every Sunday is for the primary purpose of enjoyment and socialization then we have gone for the wrong reason. The most important reason for going to church is so that we can join other believers in Christ to worship him together. The Bible specifically teaches that we are to “meet together” to praise God and worship him. That is the main reason for going to church.
Another very important reason for going to church is to hear and study God’s word. I read this verse yesterday, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” Acts 10:33. When God’s people gather together God is there. When people lift up praises to God he is present. The Bible says that God inhabits the praises of his people. When God’s anointed proclaims the Gospel message he speaks what God has given him to tell the listeners. The Bible has hundreds of examples where God tells his prophet, his messenger, his anointed, “The Lord said”, “The Lord told him”, “The word of the Lord came to him”. Over and over again God gives someone a message that he wants given to someone else. God has done it that way from the beginning, and I believe he still gives pastors, preachers and evangelist the words he wants his people to hear.
Our response is to be where the word of God is being preached and to listen anticipating that God has a message for us. We should go expecting to hear what God wants to say to us. If we listen God will speak to us. We might receive a word of encouragement, maybe be convicted of some sin, hear an answer to a problem, learn something about him that we didn’t know, perhaps find healing, receive a command to follow Jesus in some specific way or be spiritually moved like we never expected. When we hear from God, and know God has spoken to us our response will be to praise him. We have to be careful that we don’t get in a repetitive rut and miss the real purpose for going to church. If our attitude is right God will have something fresh and exciting for us each time we meet together.
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