Many people don’t attend church. They’ve decided they can worship God anywhere and that “traditional” worship services stifle their relationship with God. But church is essential for a Jesus-believer.
Psalm 100 is a short five verses, but it has a lot to teach us about why it’s important to attend church.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Psalm 100:2 KJV
Jesus built a body of believers while he walked the earth. He did that because he knew community was essential for our spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional health.
It shouldn’t surprise us that he created us for service. In fact, we should serve him gladly because of all he’s done for us, the first of which was create us. The second is that he died to save us, and that’s a priceless gift we will never repay.
This verse in Psalms encourages us to “come before his presence.” Yes, God is everywhere. But he promised to mee with his children in a special place on a special day. If you want to find the Lord, head to church this Sunday.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
Psalm 100:4 KJV
This verse implies there are gates we can enter. That indicates a specific place. This verse refers to the temple gates. Those to the outer court were left open in invitation.
Today, Jesus invites us to come to the house where he wrote his name. He organized it by becoming its cornerstone.
He didn’t do this to leave a legacy. He did it because we are his legacy. He calls the church his body. Paul uses the metaphor of marriage to describe the relationship between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5:25-33).
Don’t let a pandemic or hurt feelings or a bad experience keep you from finding the spiritual community Jesus made for you. If church wasn’t an essential part of our spiritual life, Jesus wouldn’t have spent a lifetime building it for us.
A Pew Perspective 