Friday, June 27, 2014
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
CHURCH IS WORD-BASED, NOT WORK-BASED
Have you ever wondered why it's a struggle sometimes to get to church? Why aren't we always willing and inclined to enter God’s house? There are obviously many factors that go into people's unwillingness to go to church. However, many are turned off from church because it doesn't give them what they want or make them feel the way they want. The easy response to such an attitude is to say, "You only get out what you put in." Although this familiar saying applies to many areas of life, it really isn't appropriate when talking about church.
Very often, the more we focus on what we need to do for success, the more we will be discouraged, not encouraged. Saying that what we get out of church corresponds to what we put into it is simply not true. God certainly wants us to be present and active, but church is effective in our lives because God is present through His Word, not because of our own efforts.
This is why many Lutherans say that the church service should be sacramental, not sacrificial. A sacramental service focuses on Christ's desire to bless us with through His atonement on the cross. Two examples of such an activity are Baptism and Communion, sacraments that are commonplace in the Lutheran service. The emphasis in the sacraments is what God is doing for the individual Christian through the power of His Word. A sacrificial service, on the other hand, focuses on what we can do for God through our own works. Now there are certainly sacrificial elements in our worship services (prayer, offerings, praise, thanks, etc.) but these do not compose the heart of our service. And the "sacrifices" we offer to God properly flow from the sacrifice He made for us. The emphasis must always remain on God's Word, not our works.
Perhaps if church feels like a struggle at times it's because you are focusing too much on what you do. Placing too much emphasis on your own feelings and expectations gets in the way of God's desire to come to you in His Word. If you keep His Word the priority, you might be surprised at the new found interest you have in church.
