Come to church worshiping

By Josh Weisbrod in Thinking About Sunday in Worship on 12/15/11

The funny thing about this blog is that i wrote it a couple days ago but because there were a good amount of blogs coming out of the site i didn’t want to add another to the stream, but after multiple talks with people and even hearing a message on this I figured i should probably post it before i forget it.

In this semester of fusion groups my group has been reading through The Air I Breathe by Louie Giglio. In reading one of the final chapters I came across a section that properly stated what I have been running through my brain for a while. Louie makes a statement that we should “Go to church worshiping”. Now without having the proper time to sum up a whole chapter, let alone a whole book, I will say that the purpose of his writing is to make worship a part of how we live not just an action on a Sunday. So this statement stands as a small summation for a large idea. Before I continue I would like to ask for grace. This blog is meant to be a complete encouragement and expansion on a good idea, and it is not meant to criticize or complain about how any individual shows up to church. I simply want to say and explain this: We should not rely on Sunday as our only time of spiritual intake, but instead be living a life that prepares us to bring something before God during congregational worship.

The first part of that statement is crucial. If we rely on one day a week, and generally one hour in that day, to feed us spiritually we are missing out on the relationship that God wants to have with us. I am always thinking about food, so this idea shifted in my brain to an example regarding food. If I were to only eat one small meal a week, and sometimes only two weeks a month, the physical state of my body would be poor. I would be lethargic because I didn’t have energy, my body wouldn’t function properly, and eventually I would lack any kind of physical fitness. Now if I were to eat properly regulated meals and consumed the right things at the right times then I could most likely watch my body become healthy and strong. Psalms 34:8 says “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. If we only took the time to seek God in our daily lives we would discover that He is satisfying. He wants to fill us up. It isn’t his plan for us that we would live a week without him and then he would have to fight the world for custody of us on Sunday for an hour.

In James 4:8 it says, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” This is a promise that in our lives if we draw near to God he will in turn respond by drawing near to us. I think this is important because in making claims about living a life of worship we can sometimes feel scolded or discouraged, but this is a joyful thing. God is saying that regardless of how bad the world is beating you up this week He can and will draw near to you if you seek him. That is awe inspiring and crucial to the way we think about worship. We don’t have to say, “Well I am having a tough week and I can’t wait until Sunday to worship and be recharged” because we can receive that same relational closeness during the week. Then when we arrive on Sunday to church worshipping in good times or horrific times, we can experience the support and love of a collective body of the church that God has made.

I would encourage you to take small moments in the day to just simply speak to God and worship Him. Worship is an intentional thing, so if you assume that someone is going to force you to do it or that you can stumble into it you are unfortunately mistaken. When we begin to develop our relationship with the true, genuine God we can leave behind the lethargic starving life and take up the filled up worshipful life that He meant for us. So please try and find some time in every day where you can grow your relationship, and watch what God can do when you draw near to Him.

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