Do not flatter yourselves: if you go to places of worship merely to look about you or to hear music, you are not worshipping God.
Interpretation
Superficial engagement with worship is not true worship.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of sincerity in worship. It suggests that attending places of worship for entertainment or aesthetic pleasure, rather than genuine devotion and reverence towards God, detracts from the true purpose of worship and renders it meaningless.
In practice
During a sermon on genuine devotion, this quote could illustrate the importance of heartfelt worship.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
The encouragement and the deepening of Eucharistic worship are proofs of the authentic renewal which the Council set itself as an aim and of which they are the central point.
Sunday morning, before we go to hear the Word of God preached...let us not rush into God’s presence careless, reckless, and unprepared, as if it mattered not in what way such work was done. Let us carry with us faith, reverence, and prayer. If these three are our companions, we will hear with profit, and return with praise.
I'd rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.
The greatest news that I could ever say is that Jesus is Lord and Savior of my life. He is my friend. He is with me wherever I go. I'm so delighted to continue to grow in my relationship to Jesus.
A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.
The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.
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