• The incomparable John Owen said worship was “indispensably necessary” based on the simple reality of who God is (think Romans 1). And this “inner” awareness was expressed in how God commanded his people to worship (what Owen called God’s “ appointment” ). Owen argued that if you give up the latter — namely corporate worship with God’s people according to God’s ideas — you are also giving up the former. For what good is the merely private expression of worship if we do it according to our own ideas — it’s more the worship of our own preferences and sensibilities than it is the worship of God.
• Most people don’t know that worship in the early Church was based on Synagogue worship (not the Temple), which in turn was based on Scripture: reading and explaining the Word; singing of psalms; prayers of petition; prayers of thanksgiving; offerings. Early on, Christian worship naturally divided into two parts: a first half that looked like the synagogue; a second half that looked like the Last Supper and the upper room. That’s pretty much what we do each Sunday.
• We think you should make worship a discipline in your life. Not the worship of your own design, but of God’s design.
• By the time you decide to stay home from worship, you feel like the impulse originated in yourself. But much of the time the idea was planted in your mind by the enemy who knows, and plays with skill, sympathetic chords in your soul. He knows there is a part of you that wants to be in worship, hear the word, sing out, recommit yourself again, in spite of all past failures, to Jesus Christ. He also knows there is a part of you that wants to be left alone, that shudders at all the bother of getting ready for worship when virtually all your neighbors are getting up late, eating a big breakfast with danish, then watching a game on a glorious HD screen, from the vantage point of a massive sectional sofa, in flannel pajama-bottoms and a Husky sweatshirt.
• Yes, the enemy hates you, but he hates God more than you. Imagine what worship represents to Satan: creatures that he had successfully corrupted and brought to ruin, creatures that he had crushed in despair, God has forgiven, redeemed, and restored. Now they gather in His presence — something in itself unthinkable in the state in which the enemy had left them — to sing the peace, joy and glory of God. He cannot stand that the God who banished him to the lake of fire would gladly receive your praise. The entire event: the implied unity and love of people he daily entices to hatred; the open proclamation of God’s grace and glory; the participation in a Sacrament that is the essence of his arch-enemy — the entire event is beyond disgusting to him. Your own lukewarm commitment to worship is merely a facet of the enemy’s absolute hatred of it.
• So give some thought to your commitment to worship — especially here in Lent. Remember the fight you are in, and that you are in it for God’s glory, not your own convenience. Judas betrayed Jesus, but only after “ Satan entered into him” (Jn 13:27). Ananias lied to the Apostles, but only after “ Satan filled [his] heart” (Acts 5:3). Next time you’re positive it’s your own idea to stay home from worship, you may want to reconsider.