Rev. Ray and Pat Amos
Luke 4:16
“Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.”
Our retirement from pastoral ministry has made us realize how much we appreciate church family. If you have a church home, please cherish it and support it; and pastors, among the greatest blessings you will ever know are the folks that the Lord has given you to love and care for.
Tomorrow is our opportunity to gather as the church. Your presence is important to the local congregation that you call your church home. The Bible has much to say about the way it hurts the Lord when worship loses its place of importance in our lives. To be blessed with the good health, the opportunity, and the ability to attend church is a great privilege that many do not have.
Too many empty pews and church closings are telling a sad story of people who are being lured away from God. What if God said that He was going to take some time off from loving us? What if He even looked away for a single moment? Jesus made it His custom to attend the Synagogues regularly. Have you read how they treated Him in some of those services? Yet He went back because being there was important; His Father was pleased.
Be careful how we make excuses for not attending worship. Be thankful that God doesn’t remove our excuses; our hearts could not stand it. It is ironic that many of our excuses should be our reason for wanting to attend with hearts of praise and thanksgiving.
We attend church because we have an appointment with God. “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25)
It is important that we along with our children and grandchildren lift our voices to sing the grand old hymns; and that we hear the Scripture read, and sermons preached from the pulpit. Despite all the human flaws that are in the church, it is still God’s House, still a place where we hear His voice.
I have faith to believe that our lives will be different because in the church we get a glimpse of something greater than ourselves.
“How pleased and blest was I,
To hear the people cry,
“Come, let us seek our God to-day!”
Yes, with a cheerful zeal,
We haste to Zion’s hill,
And there our vows and honors pay.”
Grace and Peace, Rev Ray
Link to Youtube – Zion’s Hill
