Church Attendance - Love In Action
The view that there is but on essential service of the church - the meeting in which the Lord's supper is served - is a persistent and widespread one. Many thousands of disciples in congregations throughout the world regularly attend services on the Lords' day at the morning hour, but are never present at the evening services, or any other. Proceeding on the assumption that this meeting alone is obligatory, they attend it and do not bother to concern themselves with other activities of the church with the satisfying feeling that they have rendered a sufficient measure of devotion to the Lord in this one hour for all the week following. Content to do only what is required, and under the impression that this meeting exhausts such requirements, they attend no other. This attitude, and the resulting disastrous effect on the church, is limited to no one section of the brotherhood. It is a problem of far-reaching proportions, a major obstacle in the progress of the church.
Were those thus influenced correct in the conclusion that the Lord's day morning service is really the only one that cannot be ignored with impunity? The disposition shown must be greatly displeasing to the Lord whose presence they disregard at all the other meetings of the church (Mt. 18:20). It is based on the willingness to do, and be satisfied with less than what one can do for the Lord! The fact that it is possible for one to plan a course in life that deliberately short changes the Creator reveals a worldly and hardened heart. In the parable of the Plowing Servant (Luke 17:7-10) the Lord taught us that when we have done what we ought to do we are still unprofitable servants. If, having rendered service in keeping with a designated obligation, we are still regarded as unprofitable servants, what may be said of the individual who has not done as much as he could?
This parable is a striking and impressive reminder of the fact that we are not our own; we have been bought with a price. Of the legality the Lord's title to us there can be no doubt. This right of ownership extends to the Christian, to what he is, and to what he has, and what he can do. The Lord is entitled to all the service we are capable of rendering, and it is the ultimate in presumption for any creature of His to question the fact.
The faithful servant does not ask, "What do I have to do?" With him the only question is, "What may I do?" He who seeks to put the kingdom of God first in heart and life will not advance fallacious arguments by which to justify indifference and little faith in God. To seek the kingdom of God first (Mt. 6:33), is not to seek it last, or for that matter, second. It requires one to give it top priority in all the affairs of life. When one's personal interests conflict with duty to God, the former must always yield to the latter. To fail to follow such a course is to be guilty of the sin of the rich man in Luke 15.
Those who attend church services irregularly evidence symptoms of lukewarmness, indifference, selfishness, and love of the world more than love of God. The practice is an exceedingly dangerous one because it leads to greater hardness of heart and further departures from the way of righteousness. He who resorts to fallacious and false reasoning to justify absence from the services of the church, or who attends out of an irksome sense of duty, and to still voice of an accusing conscience, will soon have little difficulty in discovering (?) arguments which to him, at least, justify further neglect and unfaithfulness. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:12, 13).
From Our Archives, 1988
By: Guy N. Woods