Needed

I've been noticing something so obvious, so often repeated by churches and pastors everywhere, yet so difficult to really put into action on a regular basis.

And that is...my tendency to let Sundays be an exception. 

One of my joys as a pastor is how awesome Sunday worship is for me. I'm not just saying this because I'm a pastor. As you might hope and expect, every Sunday I find that I cannot preach unless I am right with God, laying everything down before him, listening carefully to what he wants to say to his people so that I don't get in the way with my own agenda. And I say with amazement that he makes this happen every Sunday.

And it feels awesome. 

This isn't to say I don't have my doubts. I regularly end sermons feeling pretty unsure of how things went, though I'm getting better and better at leaving my doubts aside and submitting myself primarily to God's evaluation (as opposed to that of humans). But it has been truly great experiencing pretty much every week the power of God to allow me to lay down my agenda, to listen for what he wants to say to everyone in the room, including myself, and then to stand up and preach that. This action of God not only enables me to preach, it also fills up our time of worship and response in song as well, making every Sunday an incredible experience for me personally.

But then Monday comes. And then Tuesday. And even though I'm working on the message for the upcoming Sunday, a phenomenon so well known a gradeschooler could warn you about it keeps hindering my preparation. And that is: what happens on Sundays is the exception for me and not the rule.

You see, on Sundays what enables me to preach is primarily the fact that I have submitted myself to God and his message for his people. That's the only way I can preach with any conviction. Without that I can feel in my core the total lameness of what I'm saying. So when I don't seek this during the week of preparation as well, I find sermon writing to be difficult at best. 

And here's one of my points in mentioning all of this: I think a big part of it has to do with not making the space and time during the week to really worship God like I do on Sundays. I go through the right motions: I study the passage, I pray, I ask God to say what he wants to say. But I don't ask as seriously on Tuesday as I do on Sundays, I don't reach that breaking point that I do on Sundays, that moment where I know it's going to be his word or mine, and I choose his. 

But I do choose his. Starting today. Pray for me. Pray for United Life.

Now here's my other point, as this goes for everyone: I've run into too many people who have great experiences on Sundays, and then experience nothing throughout the rest of the week. I think our problems are the same. Just like me, you experience God's power on Sunday, when he convicts you to your core, makes whole your brokenness, or reassures your soul (or all of the above), and a good part of what got you to that place was saying yes to God and making yourself available to him on that day of worship. But then you don't then continue to pursue him during the week.

Is it any wonder why you're are plateauing spiritually, why you lack growth?

Choose him today. Make time to worship him. And let's share when we see each other at the end of this week how things went.