What do you expect when you go to worship on the Lord's Day?
Do you go to "enjoy" the service? to be entertained? for food or fellowship?
Often we are looking for something to satisfy ourselves and forgetting that this is The Lord's Day. We are in fact meant to be delighting in it but the focus and worship should be on God and not on self.
I was thinking about that coming home from the service last night. I am very blessed to have a minister who really challenges us to walk back into the week taking up the call to live holy lives. To live out our convictions instead of simply mouthing them. I do love to fellowship with the people of God, and often my spiritual tank is filled up but often too, the message is full of inspiration, challenge, and soul searching. Am I glorifying God? Do I have the zeal which the amazing doctrines of grace should enliven in me? Am I a witness for my precious Lord and Saviour? Do I really live as one one who knows that he has died for me.
Sometimes, it is just not easy to search my heart on matters I might rather sweep under the carpet.
As Pastor moved on in Matthew 5 in the morning we looked at verses 11 & 12. Our witness is distinctive, different. So, am I?......Distinctive, different? Sometimes we do not feel persecution because we are holding back and trying not to look different, trying to fit in with the world. Am I trying too hard to be liked?
Then in the evening looking at 1 John verses 4-6. The abomination of sin, The solution for sin, (found in Christ!) and The resolution against sin, I was stricken again by this message of -how then ought we to live?
Both sermons were detailed and I could share a lot more from my notes, by I am writing now the thoughts I jotted last night. Such a conviction of my slackness and loosing sight of the goal. A friend once used the term "running after the Lord". I like that picture. My walk at times is just too slow and without the zeal and commitment it should have in running the race.
So if I had rolled into worship yesterday to be entertained I would have left disappointed! Thankfully, my eyes and ears and heart were directed toward God and I am not at all let down.
If you are reading this then ask yourself the same questions.
How then ought we to live?
great thoughts. thinking more on them here in small town Canada.
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