Weekly Devotional 3-24-24 Sunday Preparedness

Weekly Devotional 3-24-24 Sunday Preparedness

How often have I gone to church on Sunday morning not being prepared to worship God and to have God honoring fellowship with other believers? Perhaps more than I would like to think. This is a question that we each should ask ourselves since going with the wrong attitude is not pleasing to God and therefore is a work of the flesh.

As I think about this, my thoughts lead me to Jesus’ conversation with the woman of Samaria (John 4:6-39). She claimed that she and her fellow Samaritans worshiped God, but Jesus said to her that the time was coming and had arrived when true worshippers would worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection were to inaugurate a new phase of worship. Accepted worship was to be Holy Spirit generated. If true worship is Holy Spirit generated (and it is) and I have a right perspective, will I not consider the person of God in my worship? Will I not consider the person of God in my fellowship with other believers? And, is not worshipping in truth and Spirit to extend beyond Sunday? Should this be my way of life? The answer of course is yes, and if this is my way of life, I will be prepared for Sunday worship and fellowship. Worshipping in truth and in the Holy Spirit is, after all, a condition of the heart.

A Christian’s heart should be filled with love for God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Love for God elevates Him above one’s own self, it esteems Him first. Love for God should motivate a Christian to do those things that please Him. Love for God should constrain a Christian from doing those things that displease Him. The measurement of a Christian’s love for God is his or her conduct of life. How can a Christian be prepared for Sunday worship or fellowship with fellow believers if he (or she) has lived for self during the week? It is hard, if not impossible. We are what we are and the way we live during the week prepares us for Sunday morning worship and fellowship. A seared conscience does not change reality. We either love God or we do not. If we love God “we will keep His commandments” (John 14:15).

The apostle John wrote, “1Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.4Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. 7Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 9Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. 10In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:1-1).

If what John wrote motivates us, we will be rightly prepared for Sunday worship and fellowship with other believers.

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