Church Time – mere routine/ritual or spiritual?

So I used to be like this before

This could define me back then

I was honestly guilty of this before

But not anymore

Sunday was show-off day, or a routine religious day.

I was brought up to know that the best clothes were worn on Sundays.
Those clothes were my ‘church clothes’. For no reason or on no occasion were they allowed to be worn for any trivial event or occasion! Even if they’ll be worn at all outside Sunday, it was for extremely special events like weddings or birthday parties.

So, forgive little old me, who had been wearing normal clothes all week long, Sunday was show off or dress up day. These clothes were different and special and that was enough to make babygirl excited. So all week long I longed for the one day when I would get to wear my Sunday’s best and look all glam. So yes… Sunday was show off day.

Going to church was more routine than it was spiritual. Aside the fact that the church clothes had to be worn, it was somehow important to gather with fellow believers, sing hymns and listen to pastor or Sunday school teacher preach about the many surreal things that were in the Bible. There was a time church for me was in the children’s section, where we were taught to memorize bible verses by turning them into songs. We graduated from children’s church to teenagers’ church where hanging out with our church friends was way more important than listening to whatever the Sunday school teacher had to say.

All the lessons we were taught sounded cool in church, I mean it’s a church na, so ‘church stuffs’ should be discussed abi? We smiled at those lessons we could relate with and utterly discarded the ones that didn’t fit into the life we were allowing the society dictate to us.

lol!

It was like the Sunday school teacher was saying one thing and we were hearing another. Almost like we came to church with our own sermon. If it correlated with what was taught, Awesome, but if it wasn’t, well, we just ‘unlistened’ to what the Sunday school teacher was teaching and ‘relistened’ to ours.

But Babygirl has grown past all that.

But have we all really grown past all that?

How exactly do we go to church and why exactly do we go?

Some of us have just become adult-babies who have stuck with the child-like attitude but added a little adult swag to it. Same attitude but different form.

We’ve attached all sorts of sentiment and ideas to something so basic and important that it has almost lost the very value for which it stands.

Folks will dress up in their most glamorous outfit to church and feel too important to sing, dance and truthfully praise the One for whom they are supposedly wearing the glamorous outfit.

Do you bring your Ego to church?

It’s bad enough that we’ve got ego. That in itself is a tale for another sunrise, but that of all the places to bring the 3 letter canker worm, church was included is disheartening.

Really?

Lifting up holy hands and worshipping the King of kings has become impossible or even mechanical for some.

Some folks instead of loosening themselves up and worshipping God, they analyze the praise leader, the instrumentalist and everyone and everything else to the point where praising becomes impossible.

Errrrrm……excuse me o, is it the praise leader that brought you to church? Or is it the instrumentalist that saved you from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light? Why are they all of a sudden so important that you can’t get you gaze off them and your praise on God?

Let’s stop playing hide and seek with God. Honestly, let’s just stop the bad habit.

If the earth is His footstool, please where can’t His feet get to to kick you real good in the butt? Where?

We’ve become glorified hypocrites who claim to be doing one thing but are honestly doing the opposite.

The God whose gift of salvation defines us, is not an audience for your fashion
parade. A 3-piece suit doesn’t move Him, neither does the adornment of the world’s finest outfit make Him trip. He wants the heart beneath all of that and not the attire it is covered in.

I think God would be delighted if folks leave everything else at home and come before Him with nothing else but their hearts. Hearts that are willing to surrender completely to Him and hearken wholly to His voice.

Poppa wants to see the parts of you that no adornment can cover. Those are the parts He wants fellowship with. The paths that have got np ‘I’ written anywhere but has got ‘HIM’ written all over.

Funny thing is, the One whom we are trying to impress knows the very parts of us we try to cover up. The parts of our lives we think we can dress up before Him are totally naked before His all-seeing eyes.

So we can stop putting up the show for the non-existent audience?

Let’s come with hearts on our sleeves, willing and ready to allow our porter mould us into shape. Let’s come willing and ready for God to meet us right where we are at. Let’s let all the swag go and come in complete surrender. Let surrender be the state from which we appear.

Some of us are expecting God to give us maximum attention when we’ve brought nothing but a spoonful of ourselves.

The Creator of the universe yearns for fellowship with His Created Ones. Not the ones with swag or ego attached, but the ones with spirit and truth all over.

Men might fall for the facade we put on. The may even rate or rank us as being true worshippers, but since they are not the ones being worshipped their vote totally doesn’t count.

If fellowship is what you call it, if worship is what you call it, if praise is what you call it and if God is the One to whom it is done, it had better be done without the stench of pretense, or self, otherwise it’s just a show for an audience that’s not watching.

Sunday is not dress up day, praise time is not time for choreography, worship time is not pretense time, CHURCH TIME IS HEART TIME.

So if you’re going to go at all, go with all your heart, in complete surrender, drop every other thing else. I’m hoping by the time church is done, you won’t be able to pick ‘every other thing’ up anymore.

Just a thought