PRESENCE VS PREACHING

God’s Law is freeing; man’s rules are restrictive.

God’s Presence is transformative; man’s teaching is informative.

God’s ways are simple; man’s ideas are complicated.

It’s perplexing to me when I listen to a debate by very learned teachers and pastors that I respect on how often their churches offer Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the “Do this in memory of Me meal”.   The responses centered around time, or lack of time for its observance.  The issue is how to squeeze it in and still have an hour for the preacher’s sermon.  What I derive from this is, what the preacher has to say about God is more important than remembering and celebrating God’s Presence with His people.  Somehow in my soul that feels wrong.

I absolutely think that teaching, especially expository teaching from the Word of God is crucial in the life of the believer and in the invitation of a relationship with God in the life of an unbeliever.  But there are seven days in a week for that to happen.

This is why I question the whole concept of church.  Everybody has an opinion; everybody has their way of doing things; everybody follows rules set down by human beings and human doctrines.  And then we wonder why the concept of church is failing in the world today.  Does anyone remember the statement that, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain”? 

There are many external problems in the churches today; there are many internal problems in the churches today.  But I believe the number one problem in the churches today is that the people who make up these churches still refuse to listen to the words God spoke to and through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 2:13

“For my people have committed two evils:

They have forsaken Me, the fountain

of living waters,

And hewn themselves cisterns-

broken cisterns that can hold no water.”