Last Sunday, I wanted to go to evening service at Grace Community Church, an hour away from my house. It would kill 3 birds with one stone – take my daughter back to school, watch the baptism of her friend, and enjoy a time of worship since I was not able to attend the service at my church.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, we were half an hour late, because it started at 6:00pm and we thought it was at 6:30pm!<\/p>\n
I missed the singing that I was looking forward to. I missed the baptism that I was looking forward to.<\/p>\n
I only made it in time for the offering and the sermon.<\/p>\n
I was frustrated! “I didn’t drive an hour to listen to a sermon that I could hear online!” “I wanted to enjoy the music led by an awesome band and professional worship leader!” “I missed the whole worship!”<\/p>\n
As I sat there grumbling, God asked me, “Why do you attend worship service? Why do you want to witness the baptism? What is it to you?”<\/p>\n
The answer should be what every good Sunday School student knows – Jesus.<\/p>\n
But my attitude showed that Jesus was not the heart of my worship. I was treating worship as a church service – there is a big difference between the two.<\/p>\n
I was there that night expecting to sit and be happy, to be emotionally moved, to “feel God’s presence”. I want to see the baptism because it’s fun. That’s a church service to meet my needs. Is that worship?<\/p>\n
I treated worship service like an event, similar to going to a concert. I wanted to get there on time so I don’t miss the previews. I drove an hour and I wanted to get my money’s worth. Is that worship?<\/p>\n
God could’ve easily prompted one of us to check the time on the website so we wouldn’t be late. But he allowed us to be late so I can face my wrong attitude.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to attend church service anymore. I want to worship. I want to honor God. He deserves and demands more than a church service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last Sunday, I wanted to go to evening service at Grace Community Church, an hour away from my house. It would kill 3 birds with one stone – take my daughter back to school, watch the baptism of her friend, and enjoy a time of worship since I was not able to attend the service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-life","category-thoughts-on-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katylee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}