Something to consider

And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for one-fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God. – Nehemiah 9v3

This verse was worth a second look just to see how these folks acted while they were ‘at church.’

We saw yesterday that they spent half the day in church. I mentioned what they were doing but want to just look at that for a moment. Half of the service was hearing their Bible and half of the service was spent confessing and worshipping the Lord.

It is obvious that the main purpose of their getting together was to get things right with God. The focus was on Him.

Now I realise that in the New Testament church a major part of our fellowship is to edify each other and build each other up, but at the same time I think we can glean from this that we need to use the time together to hear God’s word, search our hearts and confess our sins, and worship Him.

In Christ we have a new kind of relationship with God. We have become His sons. We have confident access to Him. We have the great blessing of an ‘Abba’ relationship.

At the same time God is still God and His word is still His word. His word is worthy of our awe and undivided attention. Our sins need to be confessed and repented of. He is still worthy of our worship.

Our sweet fellowship and communion is based on and only possible we are our in proper fellowship with the One who makes is possible.