COMMITMENT TO WORSHIP

“Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.”  (Psalm 95:6-7 NIV)

In his book “Treasures of the Transformed Life”, John Ed Mathison tells the story of a Sunday morning when an ice storm shut down Montgomery, Alabama. Church leaders wondered whether anyone would be present for worship at Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church. Mathison was amazed when he saw one of the older women of the congregation making her way across the ice to the church. He told her he was surprised that she decided to come to worship on that icy morning. Quick to teach him a lesson, she told him that if she had waited until Sunday morning to decide whether she would be in worship, she might not have come. But she made the decision the previous fall when she made a commitment to be in worship forty-eight Sundays that year. She knew the four Sundays she planned to be out of town, and this wasn’t one of them. She had made a commitment to be in worship, and she intended to keep it. While acknowledging his concern for her safety, Mathison shared her story as an example of a personal commitment to corporate worship. 

-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deeping Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

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