Just the usual…
Well I finished Psalms yesterday and you can really see how much faith David had in the LORD. He continually praises God for His creation and protection from evil. He ends it with this powerful verse:
6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
In everything we do, we should do it to honor our LORD. Even though we are called to worship the LORD continually, most people seem to think that means going to a special building a couple days of the week, and then for only a few hours. What most people don’t realize is that that God is no longer confined to a single building, but dwells in all of his saints. So that church building is no different than my house, the gas station down the street, or the local Wal-mart, as long as we worship in spirit AND truth(ahem, not Promise Keepers), we can do it anywhere.
John 4
20 “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
21 Jesus saith unto her, “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
The church building has given christians the ability to compartmentalize God, and claim it to be Holy, telling people they have to act different in God’s house. My former pastor told a story about a church he was involved with. They had some type of conflict with the Bridge group and his pastor said there can be no cards in the worship center. Is that place holy? What makes it holy? If you say because believers meet there, well then my house is holy too according to this verse:
Matthew 18:20
20 ” For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. ”
Now I am not claiming it is wrong to meet in a building, just making the point that God is with us when 2 or more believers gather in his name. Don’t even get me started on all this church growth stuff that is going on, with churches spending millions of dollars on renovations and expansion, when that money could be used somewhere else. I will save that for another day.