When
God is in the House
Genesis
28: 16&17
16 Then
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I did not know it.”
17 And
he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the
gate of heaven!”
I’ve been to perhaps thousands of church services in my lifetime, and
many times God was in the house and I did not know it. And I was not alone in missing His
visitation. I guess the real question is
this: why are you in church on Sunday
morning. (Or, why are you NOT in church
on Sunday morning?) What is your reason
for going to church? Tradition? Duty?
Habit? Guilt? Visiting with friends? Or do you need something that you only get on
Sundays?
You should be going to church to worship God and share in the ministry
there. You should be getting a word and
praying and worshipping, not just warming a pew and watching the time hoping
the pastor isn’t too long-winded today.
You need to know that God is in the house and if you miss Him it’s your
fault not His fault. He calls to your
spirit and will meet with you if you only let Him in.
Church is a time to meet with like-minded Christians and share
fellowship and encourage each other.
Church is not a place to fragment into cliques and argue endlessly over
things that really do not have any eternal significance. Church is a hospital
for the wounded and the weak, not a shooting range to see who you can pick
off. It has been said that the Christian
church is the only army that shoots its own wounded. This is not supposed to be! We need to bind up the wounded.
When we are in church worshipping and gaining strength from God, we
become powerful ministers and we can then go into the world and bring the
Gospel to the lost. This is what church
is all about, to go and meet with God when He is in the house.
Stephen Cram July 20, 2014
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to
the rudiments of the world, and not in accordance with Christ.
Unless otherwise noted all Scripture is
from the New King James Version of the Bible.
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