Capistrano Community Church

September Blessing Journal
Song: Come, Now Is The Time To Worship
Bible Passage: Luke 4: 1-30

Come, Now Is The Time To Worship
Come, now is the time to worship, come now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are to worship, come just as you are before Your God. Come.
By Brian Doerksen

When He came to Nazareth, His boyhood home, He went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the scriptures. [Luke 4:16]

A pastor entered a Sunday School class as the lesson was in progress and asked, "Who broke down the walls of Jericho?" A boy answered, "Not me, sir." The pastor turned to the teacher who said, "I believe this boy is an honest boy, and I really don't think he did it." Leaving the room, the pastor sought out a deacon and explained what had happened. The deacon said, "I have known both the boy and the teacher for several years, and neither of them would do such a thing." By this time the pastor was heartsick and reported the incident to the Christian Education Committee, who said, "We see no point in making an issue out of this thing. Let's pay the bill for the damage to the walls and charge it to upkeep. Anyway, our insurance may even cover it."

The story above maybe funny and facetious but it points out that churches are made up of people just like you and me. People who make mistakes, misread the scriptures, and may totally miss the point at times but we are assured that those “misses” will never remove God’s love from us. Jesus went to the synagogue “as usual,” He was the perfect Son of God, He knew the Word of God inside and out….yet He worshipped regularly at His local church. He didn’t let the foibles, weaknesses or idiosyncrasies of his local congregation and church leaders keep Him from worshipping and coming close to His Father.

Worship, no matter who we are, is important. The pastor of your church needs to be able to worship just like the person sitting in the pew, the deacons, elders and leaders of your church need to worship without someone telling them their latest grievance, the secretary needs to worship without hearing about the mistake in the bulletin. Don’t let yourself be bothered by oversights, personalities, differences, traditions, ideas that children should be in church or should be in Sunday School during church, Communion once a month, once a week or once a year, organ music or guitars….none of these issues come close to matching the wonderful gift of grace that God has chosen to give us. These are issues that Satan can use to rip a church apart and you away. Worship is coming just as you are to give your heart to God…so come for now is the time to worship.

-c anderson

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