GO TO CHURCH EVEN IF YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT
We live in a time that emphasizes the importance of individual happiness and fun. If something is hard, challenging or difficult, we find ways to avoid it. After all, I should only have to do what I feel like doing, right? Not right, not for the servant of Jesus.
As a Christian, my life is not about me but about serving the One who loved me and redeemed me. We do what God wants, whether we want to or not. And that includes attending church. Our Sunday morning pattern should be to gather with God’s people to learn, fellowship and worship. If I “feel like it” or not has nothing to do with it. We are to go, not because we feel guilty if we don’t or expect special favors from God if we do, but because God commands it and we need it. David wrote/sang in Psalm 122:1 “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’”
We need to hear God’s Word preached on a regular basis (Hebrews 4:12). We can get that on TV, but we also need to live in close fellowship with real people who have the same values and struggles we have. Sitting passively before TV is a world of difference from engaging with others who can encourage, challenge, help and pray for you – and you for them. We need fellowship, not entertainment.
When we attend church, we are voting with our bodies, letting others know what we see as most important on a Sunday morning. That encourages the pastor and others who are there, sets a good example for our children and others who know us and strengthens the Body of Christ, Jesus’s Bride.
Imagine living in a culture where church attendance is forbidden. Suppose you had to meet deep in a snow-covered forest during the middle of the night to be able to get together with other believers? Or a dark cave? Or a rice paddy surrounded by jungle? What if you always had to fear someone breaking down the door of the home you were meeting in, or blocking the door and setting the house on fire? We have privileges and opportunities here that many don’t. They could be removed here. A generation ago we never imagined God would be banned from school, the government and social media.
Let’s not pass up any opportunity for fellowship and worship. After all, that’s what we’ll be doing for all eternity. And worship in heaven won’t be all about us, that’s for sure!
Hebrews 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
Psalm 122:1 I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, to praise the name of the LORD.
How regular are you in your church attendance?
What seems to the main thing that causes you to miss church? What can you do about that?
What would be missing in your life if you were never able to attend church again?
Pray for those who can’t freely gather to worship.