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Back to the Altar of Prayer: A Church that Worships: Our Most Urgent Need
Description
WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE CHURCH WE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU AND ME AS THE CHILDREN SONG SAYS:
The church is not a building;
the church is not a steeple;
the church is not a resting place;
the church is a people.
I am the church! You are the church!
We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus,
all around the world!
Yes, we're the church together!
AS A CHURCH WE ARE TO WORSHIP THE CREATOR GOD NOT JUST ONCE A WEEK WHEN WE GO TO CHURCH BUT DAILY AS INDIVIDUALS AND AS FAMILIES. CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME AND SO DOES TRUE WORSHIP. IT IS ONLY THOSE WHO WORSHIP GOD THROUGH MORNING AND EVENING PERSONAL AND FAMILY DEVOTIONS WHO WILL BE ABLE TO GIVE GOD’S FINAL CALL OF MERCY TO WORSHIP GOD IN THE END-TIME.
Psalm 95:6-7
Come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. 7For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart
It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as the common sinner. They are professedly serving God, but they are more earnestly serving mammon. This half-and-half work is a constant denying of Christ, rather than a confessing of Christ. So many have brought into the church their own unsubdued spirit, unrefined; their spiritual taste is perverted by their own immoral, debasing corruptions, symbolizing the world in spirit, in heart, in purpose, confirming themselves in lustful practices, and are full of deception through and through in their professed Christian life. Living as sinners, claiming to be Christians! – {Christian Service p. 41.1}
1 Timothy 3:15
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
E.M. Bounds wrote;
“What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men -- men of prayer.”
Mark 11:17 RSV
“And he taught, and said to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
“The restoration of personal and family worship… is perhaps the most pressing need of our time. But it will not be easy. Today we face the challenge of technology that increasingly occupies our time and alters our minds. Our addiction to media, especially social media, has left us anxious, irritable, lonely, stressed, depressed, sleepless, and unhappy with our station in life. Ironically, personal and family worship have the opposite effect. Worship calms our minds, decreases loneliness, reduces stress, increases peace, fulfills our emotional needs, and teaches us contentment. Might the altar be the antidote to our frazzled minds and restless hearts?” Writes Dwain N. Esmond
The household where God is not worshiped is like a ship in the midst of the sea without a pilot or a helm. The tempest beats and breaks upon it, and there is danger that all on board may perish. – {Adventist Home p. 350.4}
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.