Value coming together as a church
Probably every A.G.M. I plead with church members to be at services Sunday AM, PM and Church Night whenever possible. I’ve pointed out many times that the New Testament from the close of Acts to the end of the 3rd chapter in Revelation is almost entirely about living out your Christian life in the context of a local church. We’ve recently finished a series on the 4th book of Psalms in which the psalmist repeatedly pleads with us to attend corporate worship and this year we have taken Psa 100:2 as our Year Verse which contains the exaltation
“Come into His presence with singing!”
And yet this one virus is probably being more effective than all of those others put together in making us better aware of how important and wonderful it is to be able to come together as God’s people for corporate worship.
It is often said that you don’t really appreciate something until you lose it. We see the truth of that in our health, our freedom to go out where we like, our senses (how horrific it would be to lose your sight or hearing), but hopefully one of the lessons that God is really bringing home to you right now during this virus is how precious is the gift of being able to meet together regularly with other Christians to worship God and how much we miss it when it is taken from us. This week leads up to our celebration of Easter and yet for the first time in many, many years (I wonder when last it happened) none of the churches in this village will be open for worship on Good Friday or on Easter Sunday, and what a loss it will be to us.
We are so fortunate to have some amazing technologies in our generation that mean we can ‘see’ each other and watch ‘virtual’ services and, of course, in the normal times there are televised services on Sunday, podcasts, many online teaching and preaching sessions, and maybe you’re thinking that it would be good if we continued projecting our own services after this virus ends so that we can sometimes stay at home and still feel part of the service.
But friend, these are simply NOT corporate worship. And however good they are, they are NOT us “coming together in Jesus’ Name”. It is when we come together in the name of Jesus that God promises to meet with us in a special way and not when we sit down in our homes to watch a pre-recorded service! So please, please, please, value these services for what they are but hunger for, long for, pray for, and look forward to when D.V. we can once again meet together in the house of God! And make a resolution now – that when this is over you will always try to be present at these means of grace and thereby show to God and to your brothers and sisters how very much you do value this grace of corporate worship.
And always remember in your prayers your brothers and sisters who are never able to meet with other Christians whether through infirmity, persecution, imprisonment or any other reason.
Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”