Every Excuse Works

When it comes to faithfulness to the assembly some reasons are valid. Illness, the demands of work, family crisis, even travel for vacation are all proper excuses for not being present on Sundays or Wednesdays.

Lately, however, it seems that for some brethren anything that passes for an excuse is reason enough to skip worship or Bible study. The top non-excuses that I've seen and heard recently:

1. "I don't feel like it"

The Bible says that the flesh and the spirit are at war with each other so that neither can always do what it "feels" like Galatians 5:17. The body rarely feels like making time to worship God, this is its natural state and to give in to this is to lose the battle of the flesh over the spirit. If you wait until you "feel like it" you might never come to church.

2. "I'm too tired"

This can be a legitimate excuse in this stressful world. But I've noticed that when people review their schedules they find that they're not too tired for their kids' sports or watching TV late into the evening, just too tired to go to church. Perhaps if we understood that spiritual life is a much higher priority than entertainment or hobbies we'd make time to rest so we could be fresh for worship.

3. "I'm not into...church"

The problem here is that if you're not into church then you won't be into heaven either. Revelation 21:9 tells us that the church is the "bride of the lamb", the group that will be with Christ in heaven. To reject the church is to reject Christ and His reward.

I notice that our attendance is down lately and I suspect that it's because we've allowed every excuse to become a valid excuse to be absent. We can fool ourselves and sidestep the preacher but God knows whether you should be here or not.