It Is Good To Go To The House of the Lord!
“Perhaps more than any previous generation of Christians, our generation needs to be saturated in the wisdom, grace, goodness, and health-giving clarity of God’s truth. We need our minds decluttered and then refreshed by the ‘wisdom that comes down from above’ (James 3:15). We live in a world of deceptive illusions—powerful, seductive illusions—that are out to ensnare us and kill us. Calvin was absolutely right: we need every given opportunity to hear God’s living, clarifying, deception-scattering word. So my question to you is this: Do you prize every given opportunity to hear God’s Word? You could read this as a rebuke, and in a measure you might be right in doing so. But, rather, see this question as a loving exhortation to hunt out every opportunity to sit under the ministry of God’s Word. Not because quantity matters more than quality; but because God Himself speaks to us by His Spirit through His word every time it is faithfully proclaimed. I have a good friend in the USA who was accused by some church members of being ‘legalistic’ because he encouraged them not to be satisfied with coming to worship once a week. His encouragement was not legalistic, it was the kind, thoughtful, caring encouragement of a pastor set apart to care for Christ’s sheep. May we all be like the Psalmist who wrote, ‘I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”’ (Ps. 122:1).”
Iain Hamilton in The Gospel-Shaped Life