Where Is Everybody, Part 2

Well, the first installment of this discussion garnered a pretty good bit of traffic so let's continue the thought...where is everybody, referring to the lack of interest in attending church, especially the "extra-curricular" Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights. Remember as you read, I am totally avoiding any legalistic implications. I believe the Bible not only speaks of public gathering and worship, but literally encourages it through scriptural principles that we should be familiar with. So, last time it was a matter of gladness, or happiness, in our lives, to attend the house of God. Today I want to approach this subject from the perspective of hunger.

It is an interesting phenomena, convenience stores. As a child, I remember 7-11 stores scattered around, with an occasional High's Dairy Store. Nowadays, there are at least two convenience stores at every major intersection and just about every gas station has its own version of the mini-mart. What has brought about the proliferation of Royal Farms, Wawa, Turkey Hill, High's, 7-11, Sheetz, Rudders Market, as well as ExxonMart, CitgoMart, BP, Shell, Sunoco, and Crown with all of their sandwiches, snacks, and sodas? We eat as soon as we even get a twinge of hunger. We don't even know what it feels like to truly be hungry in this country. We feed our self, sometimes when we don't even need to.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 2:1-3, Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Notice the instruction to desire the sincere milk of the word. In some parts of the world, the feeling of hunger is so much a part of living, that it can even be ignored to a point. It seems to me that if an individual has "tasted that the Lord is gracious", in other words, experienced or known the grace of God as in through the gift of salvation, the Bible is saying that we should be desiring, or longing for, the word instead of ignoring the need for it in our life. Are you hungry for the word of God? Do you see the opportunity to sit under Bible preaching as a blessing? Or is it a Sunday morning requisite? We would no sooner try to live off of one meal a day, let alone one a week, but we starve our inner man to a place of spiritual malnutrition. An indication, a birthmark if you will, of the new birth is a hunger for the word of God.

Think about it. Have you been frustrated by a lack of growth, that stuck in a rut feeling? Are you still struggling with the same things that troubled you months and years ago, you just can't seem to get past it? Come on back to the house of God for some preaching, teaching, and singing from the word of God. Get fed. Grow. Get perspective.