This morning I came across a different kind of statement--one not nearly as difficult to reconcile as yesterday's. In Deuteronomy 12 (verses 12 & 18), Moses exhorts or encourages the Israelites to "rejoice before the Lord your God."
This made me think of how I come to the Lord when I gather with other believers. For a number of years, I did indeed gather to rejoice before the Lord. He was bringing healing in my spirit at a level I never expected. I gathered with hundreds of others to rejoice before the Lord. Often, tears flowed as the presence of the Holy One of Israel made his presence known. Meanwhile, this holy God was changing me internally. Hurts that had festered for long began to wash away. I was indeed becoming a new person in Christ.
But in recent months, that spirit of rejoicing has slowly ebbed away. I must admit that the spirit of rejoicing has rarely accompanied my worship of late.
So what would it look like now to rejoice in the Lord?
Previously, my rejoicing came in the midst of hundreds of fellow followers of Christ. Now I gather in a much smaller congregation. Does the number of worshipers affect my rejoicing? Was I previously rejoicing simply because there were many of us together? Or was I truly rejoicing because God's Holy Spirit came among us?
I feel confident that God's Spirit can come to us regardless of the number of worshipers. So, it must be something in me that is holding me back from rejoicing before the Lord.
I'll have to give this some more thought.
Do you have any input on the subject?
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