“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Hebrews 10:23-25

Here in Hebrews Chapter 10, the earliest believers in Jesus were commanded to come together regularly to worship the Lord. We’ve spoken of this numerous times at our church, but in our day of apathetic service to God it’s important to share with the church at large that these people were commanded to congregate in the face of possible peril. Their possessions, and even their lives, could have been forfeited because of their decision to assemble to worship Jesus. God knew this, and yet He told them to not forsake the assembling of themselves together. Why? Did God want them to prove their loyalty to Him in the face of death? Did He get His “kicks” out of requiring such drastic measures? No! God required this of His people for a number of reasons, all for their benefit, not the least of which is the same reason why He still wants us to faithfully assemble ourselves together today—because when we gather together as a group with the purpose to worship Him, He speaks!

God speaks to us, He speaks over our lives, and the same force that said, “Let there be” as recorded in Genesis 1 is unleashed into our present and goes into our future when we assemble together! Have we gotten so familiar with God’s Word that we’ve forgotten how powerful it can be? Hebrews 4:12 tells us that it is living (quick), “and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.” It goes on to reveal that it can discern between spirit and soul, and lay bare the human heart. God still uses this powerful Word to create in our lives. He still speaks into our personal world to create the landscape He desires for us.

Now, at this point, some would argue, “Yes, God speaks, but He doesn’t require a group or an intermediary (minister at a church service) to speak to human hearts today. He can and does speak to us all individually.” To which I respond, yes, you’re correct. God does speak to us all individually, but that doesn’t satisfy His desire to speak into the lives of His people. He still desires to speak even more. What’s more, this “Me and my God only” mentality that is behind some of these arguments against organized church fails to understand a couple of very important truths. First, the human heart has a propensity to self-affirm our own dispositions. In other words, we are very good at justifying our own lifestyles, whether right or wrong. If we have no “checks and balances” in our lives by hearing God’s Word through others, “God’s Word to us” can easily become a disguise we put on our own desires. Secondly, this mentality fails to understand that specific areas, and groups of people that live there, deal with different strategies and attacks of the enemy, and God has the antidote for that poison. He attempts to cure those regional and local ills through the words spoken through and to those local bodies of believers (churches). God wants us to consistently assemble so we can realize we are not dealing with these problems in isolation, and so He can, right in our collective midst, break the power the enemy has usurped over whole regions.

With all that said, more and more we should desire the opportunity to come to our God directed “House of the Lord.” It gives us the chance to see our church family and grow those bonds of relationship that we so desperately need (even if we don’t realize we do), and most importantly, it gives God another opportunity to speak “Let there be” in our lives!

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.