How well do you prepare for worship? Ecclesiastes 5:1 tells us “we should guard our steps as we go to the house of God and listen instead of offering the sacrifice of fools who don’t even know they are being foolish." (Ecclesiastes 5:1)
How do you and your family prepare for Sunday worship? Because we should show care and think about consequences when we come to meet God. Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote that it is very important that we take time to prepare our hearts to worship God before we set foot in the sanctuary on Sunday morning. In Exodus 19, the people of Israel obeyed Moses, they took the time to prepare for worship. We should do the same by reading God's Word and praying for His assistance to worship Him rightly.
Understanding the necessity of individually preparing for worship is radically different than expecting our worship leaders to generate our worship for us when we get to church. We sing our songs as an act of worship, not to create it. It’s not enough to sing “Your praise will ever be on my lips” on Sunday if we’re not living it on Monday. So if we aren’t prepared on Sunday to respond to God’s countless blessings that occurred all week, how could our worship leaders possibly lead enough songs to prepare us?
Richard Foster wrote, “Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit. Customs and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of customs and rituals. We can use all the right methods, we can have the best possible preaching, but we have not worshiped the Lord until His Spirit touches our spirit.”
We are reminded in Hebrews to approach God’s throne with confidence. Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” When we come boldly into His presence and draw near to Him, we must always remember that we are to regard Him as Holy. In Exodus 19, when the trumpet sounded and the moment arrived for the people of Israel to draw near to God, every person in the camp trembled. As we come to church, we should guard our steps and trembled as we worship our Holy Lord.
As you come to worship our Lord, what have you done to prepare your heart for worship?
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