It was never God’s intent to have these 15,000 member mega-churches that cover four city blocks. Churches where you have so many members you have to conduct multiple services every Sunday just to accommodate everyone. These big churches are so large there is no way you can meet and know all the members of the church. The closeness and fellowship is not there except for small circles of friends. Mega-churches were the invention of man because humans are conditioned to think in terms of bigger is better.
I’m not saying these churches are wrong to grow this big, I’m just saying there’s a down side to it. I enjoy watching Pastors like Jeffress, Hagee and Jeremiah hold their Sunday services on television as much as anyone. I’m saying it’s not required or necessary to belong to a big church in order to worship God. I don’t blame the Pastors for growing their churches so large because they were taught bigger is always better. All Pastors want bigger buildings, more buildings along with constant growth and expansion. All Pastors dream of televising their Sunday services.
The mega-church model is the gold standard for churches because the more members you have the more money comes into the church coffers. It’s all about the money. Pastors want their flocks inside the four walls of the church on Sunday so they can squeeze a tithe out of them. Churches want us to believe we must give 10% of our income as a tithe to the church so they can keep the enterprise going. Big church is big business. The continuous building programs must be funded. Scripture does say we are to give 10% of all we have to the Lord. That 10% could be a tithe to the church and usually is but it could also be used in a number of other ways that would also glorify God such as doing good works. Don’t let the church or society make you feel guilty about tithing. Everything you have belongs to God, including your money. Let the Holy Spirit guide you how to spend God’s money.
Most church members spend a couple of hours on Sunday worshipping God and then they forget all about God until the following Sunday; and the cycle repeats itself. That is not what God intended. All God’s creations, both angel and man, were created to worship the Lord. We see in the Bible that angels in heaven are constantly singing to God, praising him and worshipping him. Lucifer, in particular, was created specifically to worship God. I see angels doing their part to worship God but I don’t see men doing what they were created to do.
God created man to continually worship and serve him by using our minds. We know the human brain has a much greater capacity than we need to survive as a species and that’s with us using only using 10 % of our brainpower. Man has a consciousness, a self-awareness, that cannot be explained. God created our mind as the organ through which we are to worship him. Think of our brain as our, “worship organ.” Our mind is the nexus between the physical world and the spiritual world. Do you remember the movie “Stargate” starring Kurt Russell and David Spader? Our mind is our stargate; our portal between worlds. Through the portal of our mind believers can access the throne room of God and our mind is the medium through which God speaks to his creation.
Satan and his demons can only assault us through our minds because it’s the only part of us exposed to the spiritual world in which they operate. Our mind is a spiritual receptor, an antennae, capable of accessing the spirit world which is why the Bible tells us to guard our minds. Science has proven man only uses 10% of his brain capacity. Why is that? Adam had 100% of his brain power so he could worship God in the Garden of Eden. When Adam sinned against God he was expelled from the Garden of Eden and God reduced his brain capacity to 10% because Adam no longer needed 100% of his brain function to live on earth. The minute we enter heaven God will give us 100% of our brainpower back because we’ll need it in heaven to worship God as he intended, with our minds. Man will be continually worshipping God in heaven one day just like the angels are doing now.
Let’s face it, 99% of Christians are doing a pitiful job of worshipping God, me included. Two hours a week in church worshipping God isn’t going to cut it. God made our bodies to be holy temples of God, not because of our arms and legs, but because of our minds. The Holy Spirit indwells our mind because our mind is where we interface with God and the spirit world. Scripture says we are to worship God in spirit and that occurs in the mind of the believer whether we’re in church or at home on the couch.
God gave us a wonderful mind to worship him continuously anytime and anywhere. As I mentioned in my previous blog, worshipping God is not an act you perform like mass or something you do a certain way. God made us to be worship machines. We use our minds to worship God when we mentally show our respect and admiration for who God is, his holy attributes, and what God has done for us and what he will do for us in heaven.
Walking outside and exclaiming to God what a beautiful day he has made is worship. When you read the Bible you are worshipping God. Every time you say grace before a meal or pray to God you’re worshipping God the Father. To use our mind to think about God is to worship God. It’s why God gave us such a wonderful brain in the first place. Because God is good and God is great it’s impossible to meditate on God without praising and worshipping him in our mind which is by, definition, how we “glorify” God. Worshipping God is as easy as breathing in air so let’s make a conscious effort to do it and do it often. Then stand back and watch as God blesses our lives.
In short, you don’t need a physical church to worship God. Pastors want you in church because they need your money and they want you dependent on them. The simple truth is the believer is the church and not some building. Our bodies are holy temples of God. Therefore, we worship God in his temple (our bodies) through the use of our minds. You are worshipping God with your mind when you are meditating on God. What we need to do as believers is train ourselves to worship God more by simply thinking about God more often. Thinking about God is worship. We now know what worship is. We know we can worship God anywhere just by focusing our mind on him. We know we can and should be thinking about God all through the day.
If we work at it we can progress to the point where it’s easy to think about God continually so that we are worshipping God all day long. You are what you think about so be holy and think about God a lot. As we worship God more often we’ll develop the “fear” of the Lord that is the hallmark of Christians who humbly walk in fellowship with their God. To “fear” God means to look upon the Lord with awe and reverence. It’s a state of mind. Reverence means deep respect and admiration. In the dictionary reverence and worship have the exact same definition. When you revere God in your in mind you’re worshipping him without saying a word. But God knows those who worship him and he’ll bless them for it.