Going Away Full Or Empty — It's All Up To Us
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles
The story is told of a family who constantly complained about the manner in which church services were conducted. The father complained about the long sermon; the daughter complained about how dull the announcements were; the mother griped about the song leader who sang the songs too slow or not fast enough, and about selecting songs she wasn’t familiar with.
However, their young son correctly observed: “I thought it was a pretty good service, considering that all we put in was a dollar!”
Brethren, when we leave the church building complaining about the less-than-perfect service, maybe it’s time to examine the motives and intent of our heart (1 Corinthians 11:28; 2 Corinthians 13:5; cf. 1 John 3:20-21). Yes, we understand that any church service will have its weak points — simply because we, as human beings, are weak and do make mistakes. But consider the following observation:
Leaving a worship service without being blessed is similar to going into Walmart where hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise are displayed, and then coming out with a dollar item. Folks, we come out with exactly what we went in to get — no more — no less.
When we go into a worship service with a humble and submissive attitude — we’ll likely receive an overflow of blessings from God (Malachi 3:10). But we’re bound to leave empty if we entered the service with a critical attitude — with the idea of merely being a spectator rather than being an active participant.
In our worship to God, we will always receive abundant [full] blessings from Him if we’ll have the attitude of the Psalmist:
“I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1).
Let us observe the contrast of attitudes recorded in Acts 13:44-52), resulting in the Jews going away empty and the Gentiles going away full.
Brethren, we can go away from a worship service either full or empty — it’s all up to us!
Related Articles:
- Making Our Collective Worship More Meaningful
- Our Worship Must Be God-Directed
- Worship Strategy
- A Heartfelt Desire To Worship The Lord
- Let’s Give Our Best!
- Let’s Be Sincere Followers Of Christ!
- Our Christian Example