Make Sunday More Meaningful for Your Soul…
Going to church tomorrow? I hope you will be in a healthy, thriving, gospel-centered, substance-rich environment. A healthy church is the most beautiful organization on earth, and makes Sunday the BEST day of the whole week. I hope you can anticipate Sunday! I hope God has placed you in a church where you are nurtured with green pasture and still waters.
Yet, even the healthiest and most nutritious church can fall dead on a lethargic or poorly prepared heart. So, would you like to make Sunday more meaningful to your soul?
Here are ten ways to do so:
1. Get enough sleep Saturday night—simple but huge! Groggy and irritable are not ways to wake up Sunday morning.
2. Invite someone to be your guest—someone will come if you invite them, and trust me—with a guest, you’ll be engaged in every single part of the service!
3. Seek to bless more than be blessed—most come to church as consumers—we all need to be blessed. But when you seek first to bless, church takes on a new level of joy! Serve, greet, help, encourage… someone else needs you.
4. Deliberately engage in worship—get off auto-pilot and decide to legitimately think about what you are singing. Abandon your insecurity or inhibition and actually sing in honor to the Lord. Your heart will be seriously impacted!
5. Ask God to speak through His word—this simple prayer can prepare you to actually listen for what God is trying to say to you.
6. Decide to respond before you even hear—anticipate the change God desires to bring about in your life, and the positive outcomes that accompany submission to His word.
7. Bring an offering of worship—Jesus said that giving engages our hearts. Invest into the gospel and watch your heart grow in love for the gospel.
8. If possible, pre-read the text—Just before you sleep, read the passage you will be studying in the service the next day. Sleep on it and see how God expounds it.
9. Anticipate spiritual battles—Is there any day of such intense spiritual battles and distractions like Sunday morning? If Satan is working that hard to drive you insane and keep you home, do you really want to let him win?
10. Focus your heart upward and outward—Inward focus (who’s my friend, how do I compare, me, me, me) is always a joy-killer at church. Look up to Jesus and outward towards others, and watch your heart come alive in worship and service.
If you attend a healthy church, you are a part of that health. If you attend an unhealthy church, you are a part of “un-health.” Decide to be the health that you hope your church will have.
It’s Saturday night—your pastor is praying and prepared. The music is rehearsed. The teachers are studied. The building is cleaned. The teams are prayed over. Seed is sown. Gospel has been shared. Discipleship is in process. New hearts are anticipating what God will teach them tomorrow. In a few hours—Welcomes will flow. Coffee and donuts consumed. Worship will rise. Fellowship will flourish. The gospel will be shared. Grace will be seen. Lives will be rescued. Homes will begin to mend. Hearts will find strength. Hurts will begin to heal. Unconditional love will be displayed and then proclaimed. Decisions will be made that will change the course of lives for generations.
Hearts will find the love they’ve been seeking their whole life.
We get to be a part of it.
There’s no other day like Sunday! Anticipate it. Prepare for it. Don’t miss it!
