If you attend church regularly, what is your motive for doing so? It is a good question! Perhaps it is because your entire family attended church when you were young, and it developed into a habit. But is it more than a habit? Hopefully, it is because you have a strong desire to join your Christian brothers and sisters in the act of corporate worship. As someone once said, “If you expect to answer when the roll is called up yonder, you should be willing to answer more than just on Easter Sunday when the roll is called down here.”
The building we call the church is just the place where the church, which is a body of believers, gathers on a regular basis to worship and sing praise to God. Perhaps you have heard a minister on Sunday pray, “O Lord, as we come into your presence….” Does that mean that God can only be found inside a church building? Absolutely not! He can be found and worshiped anywhere and everywhere. You may try to run from God, but you will never be able to go anywhere that He is not present.
We live in a world where people disappear from one another. Spouses leave a marriage and disappear. Children are kidnapped forever. Some people change their name and start a new life. Our government provides a witness protection program and gives those who testify against powerful crime figures a new life and identity. It is as though the earth swallowed them up. But no one disappears from God.
King David reminds us in Psalm 139:7, “I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God!” God said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Can anyone hide from me? Am I not everywhere in all of heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24). It is not easy for humans to understand these concepts. Wherever we go, God will be there. It is easy for people to think of God as being present only in certain places – like churches.
This is illustrated beautifully in a single Bible verse found in II Kings. Naaman, who was the Syrian commander in chief, held a powerful position – but he had leprosy. A small Israelite maid had been captured in a raid inside Israel and made to serve Naaman’s wife in Syria. She told Naaman that Israel had a prophet by the name of Elisha who could heal his leprosy. Naaman traveled to Israel and presented himself to Elisha. He followed Elisha’s advice, was cured of leprosy, and accepted Israel’s God as his own.
This is where the story gets even more interesting. Before Naaman left to go back to Syria he requested that he be given two mule loads of dirt to carry back to Syria on which he could build an altar to worship Israel’s God (II Kings 5:17). It was common in that day to believe that each nation had its own god. To leave one nation and go to another was to leave one god for another. Hence, if Naaman was to worship Jehovah God in Syria, he thought he must take some soil from Israel with him on which to build an altar.
To us this appears extremely naïve. To people of that day, however, it had definite meaning. The request demonstrated Naaman’s sincerity. It tells us that his faith was genuine, even if he did not understand that God could be worshiped anywhere. How like Naaman some Christians are today to believe they must go to the building where the church family is gathered in order to worship God. May we never lose a sense of appreciation for the importance of worship that takes place on Sunday in the church building.
However, let us never forget that when we are at work, or at home, or driving down the highway, or facing a sunrise or sunset, we can erect an altar where we are, lift our eyes toward heaven, and worship God. And we don’t have to have two mule loads of dirt from Jerusalem in order to do that.
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