This past week someone very close to me admitted he did not really feel like going to church on Sunday. His motivation was not to be around the fellowship of believers, to hear God's word preached, or confess and sing praises; it was simply to get out of the house.
Fortunately God can take a heart that doesn't want to be at church, a heart which would probably rather be sleeping in or fishing, and do something with it.
This person heard God's word preached and the Spirit really spoke to him. He told me how thankful he was to have come. Had he stayed home, God would have loved him just as much. But had he stayed home God wouldn't have renewed him and empowered him through His Word.
The point of this post is not to make people feel bad for not coming to church b/c they have been up all night coughing, traveling, baby-sitting, etc....You are free to sleep and in most cases probably should sleep. The point of this post is not to make people feel bad at all. The point is simply to realize God can take a heart that is ill-motivated (to be honest, none of us have a perfect motivation to come to worship) and do some amazing stuff with it. Good things can happen when you intentionally throw yourself into the oncoming train that is the "means of grace."
Nevertheless, don't be motivated by guilt to come to worship a God that has taken away your guilt through Jesus. That doesn't make any sense. But if you do happen to come out of guilt or obligation, know that God can break those chains and allow you to walk around in freedom.
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