1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
2 And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.”
How do you prepare for worship? Do you enter your church’s auditorium each week with expectation or wonder if today’s service will be a good one? Or do you drive up on Sunday morning, ready to express your heart to God alongside your Christian friends?
Unfortunately, worship services have become a bit self-focused for many believers. We come to church hoping the message will be meaningful, but often have few other thoughts about it. Sometimes, we can even be completely distracted by the week’s events or our afternoon plans, and end up treating a worship service like something to get behind us as we launch our day.
Here, Jacob prepares his heart and his family for the act of worship. He enters the moment with anticipation, mostly of what he wants to express to God. There is nothing casual in his approach, is there? Can you imagine how our worship services, and even our daily moments of worship and praise might be different if we prepared ourselves like Jacob and his family did? Imagine a Sunday morning when dozens of our friends came ready to worship God with focused hearts…
– Dr. Mike Clarensau serves as Senior Director of the Healthy Church Network of the Assemblies of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment