How do you feel about the church? It’s just a building, right? It is basically a space we use for worship, and that could be any place. After all, we worship in spirit and truth – location is irrelevant.

But, when we worship in a space, that space becomes special, because the Lord himself is present (John 4:23-24; 1 Cor. 14:23-25). An ordinary airplane becomes special when the president of the USA is on board. Moses had to take his shoes off, not because the supernatural soil, but because the LORD was there. Remember Jacob’s dream? After God and the angels had gone, and he woke up, he said: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17).

A place became special because of what happened there.

God is really among his people in worship (1 Corinthians 14:25). When the church worships in sprit and truth, “ordinary space and time” become “kingdom space and time.” During the Sunday worship, the congregation is spiritually transformed, lifted up to heaven, seated with Christ in heaven (Eph. 2:6), in the presence of angels and the church triumphant (Heb. 12:22-23), and the powers of the age to come can be experienced now in the act of worship (Heb. 6:5; 1 Cor. 5:4). (John Jefferson Davis, “Worship and the Reality of God.”)

Perhaps you worship in a forest in Papua New Guinea, a small room in China, a country church, or a cathedral in New York: does the place where you worship remind you of this experience every time you are there (even during the week)? Is this space precious to you? Do you share this experience with your children, your fellow believers? Is this a place you like to bring others, to also experience the presence of God?

Be blessed each Sunday, when you go to the house of the Lord, with your feet standing in the gates of (the new) Jerusalem (Psalm 122).

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