Over the past few days I have been thinking about preparing oneself for worship. I've been thinking about the ways people used to prepare themselves for worship and the connection they found with outward appearance as opposed to what most people I know currently do. As I've reflected on this concept I realized something. Both groups have it wrong. Let me tell you the two groups I am thinking of here. Let me make a qualifying statement here, these are generalizations. This is not true of all people all the time. One group is the group that finds that they must prepare themselves externally and must wear their "Sunday's Best" to go to church. They require that your outside appearance be exemplary. You need to dress nice and if you don't there is something wrong. They are only concerned with the outside appears. There is no attention to the internal. If you wear a hat you a degrading the worship environment, as a man at least. They are unconcerned about what is going on inside the heart. If this is your tradition I am not advocating you stop dressing nice. I actually think that it is good that people come to church dressed nice. It is not a bad thing. The problem arises when the singular purpose of dressing nice is to impress people. We should heed Jesus words "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 6:1 ESV). We need to be wise of our motives when we come to worship the Lord. There is another group that has a completely different problem. This group comes to the Lord completely unprepared. They do not examine their heart or concern themselves with what Jesus has said. They generally come to church as if it was a social gathering and that is the only thing they are concerned about. This group fails to recognize Jesus teaching as well as Paul's. "So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24 ESV), and "Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup." (1 Corinthians 11:28). This later group is the group I often find myself in. Rarely have I found myself examining my heart when I approach the Lord in worship. I generally show up to worship excited and glad I am going to hear the preaching of His word and praise Him through music. But it is not a habit of mine to examine myself before coming into his presence.
My goal hear is not to bash any one group, as you can see I identify with one of them. My hearts desire is to encouraged all of God's people to examine themselves before they come into his presence on Sunday morning, or any other day for that matter. With the Psalmist we must cry out "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24 ESV). So next time you prepare to come to worship God may you look into your heart before you look to your outward appearance or your social calendar. Let your worship of the Lord be your guiding thought. Let your desire to meet the Lord be your primary focus. May you meet Him and find that you are prepared for your encounter. May your heart be prepared to encounter Him in His full glory.
