Sunday Morning

By Larry Pasley

    A woman knocks on her son's door early Sunday morning, to wake him up for church. The son groaned, rolled over, went back to sleep... and had to be called two more times.
    "Tell me," he said, "Why do I have to get up? Give me three good reasons."
    "Well for one thing," the mother said, "It's Sunday and we always go to church. Two, you're 55 years old and should know that by now. And three, you're the preacher!"

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    There are many reasons we should attend the assemblies of the church. We will discuss three of those reasons.
    First, we should attend because we are commanded to assemble for our encouragement: "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:24-25).
    Second, we should assemble because it is an opportunity for us to be with Jesus. "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).
    Third, we should assemble together because it gives us an opportunity to encourage and build up others. We can only do that if and when we come together. "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:11-16).
    May we always understand the importance of our being in the assemblies and always make it our desire to attend every assembly we possibly can.

- Larry Pasley serves as a minister with the Jackson Street Church of Christ in Alexandria, LA. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at http://www.JacksonStAlex.com