Corporate Worship

One of my favorite Nashville steeples.

December 28
It was so good to be back in church yesterday.
Paul David Tripp wrote:
"Corporate worship is a regular, gracious reminder that it's not about you.  You've been born into a life that is a celebration of another... We gather together to celebrate the One who created, controls, and sits at the center of all things...It's not wrong to desire personal happiness, peace, a healthy body, and healthy relationships.  The issue is this-these things must not rule our hearts, because when they do they place us at the center of our world and make it all about us.  It is sad that many people, even professing Christians, live in a way that is God-forgetting and God-replacing.  We put ourselves in the center, we decided for ourselves what we want life to be like, and we reduce God to little more than the delivery system for our catalog of self-oriented dreams."

Does this theology keep some from coming to Christ, because they think they are here to go for the gusto now?  Those of us who have tasted the completeness of Christ's love need to give testimony to it's life changing and life fulfilling elements.

When you stand in the pew singing praise on Sunday morning is your mind-set that you are walking out of your tents with throngs of others, as the Israelites did, to come together to worship the one who created you and gave you life?  Next Sunday let's turn to someone nearby and in addition to passing the peace say, "Isn't it exciting to be here together to worship Jesus? Oh, I do hope our praise is a sweet aroma!"

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."  John 4:23-24

"Praise the Lord, my soul: all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits!" Psalm 103:1-2