Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name (Psalm 29:2)
Do you ever critique Sunday service on the way home? Have you ever heard yourself say: “”I didn’t get anything out of that today.” If so, sadly, you’re not alone. Do you realize that you’re not suppose to “get anything” out of the service? Worship is about Him not us. We are in church to give and not to get.
Does “Give God the Glory” sound familiar? It isn’t surprising that we are self-focused on Sunday mornings. We hear about God meeting our needs. We are preached to and sung to. We are prayed for and served. Put yourself in the Pastor’s place. He faces a group that has had a variety of experiences in the previous week. Some good, some bad. Many are happy for a variety of reasons. Many are down for a variety of reasons. He’s suppose to meet all those folks just where they are? Isn’t that considerably unreasonable. Even if God has been speaking to Him all week (and with all the issues he has faced there’s no guarantee that He has), that word may not be the word for every person in every seat.
What if we turned things around? What if we focused on God? What if we come thankful for what He has done rather than moaning about what He hasn’t? What if we came with open hearts looking for the needs of those around us? What if we looked to feed instead of thinking we were guests at an all-you-can-eat buffet?
In order to turn our Sunday mornings around, we need to turn our lives around. In order to show up on Sunday ready to give rather than to get, we will have to be filled all week. We will have to be spending time with God, in His word, and in His will. Instead of looking at church as a filling station where we get gassed up to get us through the week. We will have to look at it as a place where all He’s done for us and through us during the week flows out of us like rivers of living water.
Instead of sucking our ministers dry, we should be filling them up each Sunday morning with the blessings our lives in Christ have been during the week. Most of the “new” people who come into any church each Sunday morning are not lost folks looking for Jesus, they are “Christians” drifting from a church where they weren’t “feed” or “blessed.” Can’t wait to see what good things they will bring to share.
Face it. Not everyone is suddenly going to reverse and show up on Sunday as a giver rather than a taker. But what if you did? What if this week you focused on being all the Christian you can be? What if you went to service this Sunday focused on giving rather than getting? What if you left service asking, “Did I give God everything I had during this service?” rather than “Did I get anything out of this service?”
What if? Would you be more blessed? You bet.
Nick
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