Why Is It So Important For Christians To Meet Together?

Why is so important for Christians to meet together?

What’s our real purpose for coming to this meeting of Christians – which is the Church?

Honestly, why am I at this particular meeting of the Church? Habit, duty, to please someone else, to gain favor with God or do I have a really good reason for being here?

Heb 10:24-25 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good

works, Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another (warning, urging and encouraging) and so much the more as you see the Day (of Christ’s return) approaching.

Col 3:23 Whatever you do, do it heartily, as (done) for the Lord and not for men,

Why do we need meetings anyway when we could just sit at home and read our Bibles?

At the beginning of the Church the instruction of Jesus Christ was not to send out Bibles but to send out preachers. While the New Testament had not yet been written the Old Testament (three quarters of the Bible) had been written and much of what Jesus said came directly from the Old Testament since the New Covenant is concealed in the Old Covenant. No, He didn’t tell us to just send out the scriptures so people could read them, He told us to send out preachers so people could hear the living scriptures.

Mark 16:15 …Go into all the world and preach the gospel…

Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

1 Cor 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the (seeming) foolishness of what was preached, to save those who believe (what was preached). NIV

For whom does God send preachers to preach at meetings, rather than send out Bibles?

1. The Unsaved- who cannot hear the Bible but can hear the Bible when it is preached.

And if you’re not yet ready or willing to preach the gospel to an unsaved person, then bring them to a meeting of the Church where there is somebody who will preach it.

2. The spiritually young- Who may have been Christians for many years but haven’t yet much spiritual growth. They cannot receive, nor spiritually understand, nor eat with their hearts Bible truths unless a preacher breaks the word down into bite sized morsels.

Lam 4:4 …The young children ask for bread, But no one breaks it for them.

3. The hard hearted Christian- Whose fellowship with God has been broken, whose spiritual growth has stopped and who desperately need their hearts to be softened through the (living rain) water of God’s word, as it is preached with an anointing.

Ps 65:10 You (God) water (the earth) You make it soft with showers,..

Isa 55:10-11 For as the rain comes down, and waters the earth,… So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth…(through a preacher, and so soften the heart of a Christian and restore him or her to God).

Heb 3:13 But exhort one another daily (warn, encourage, remind and soften each other with the living water of God’s words)...lest any of you be hardened (in your heart) through the deceitfulness of sin.

4. The growing Christian- No matter how mature we are in Christ, or think we are, we still need daily feeding with God’s word. Some feeding we can now receive directly from God but God will also feed us through others–the more we eat the more we grow.

John 21:16 (Jesus speaking) …Do you love Me? …Feed My (other) sheep

2 Tim 1:13 Hold fast the pattern (imprint) of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

Oh but I don’t need to be fed by God through someone else anymore. Really, can you no longer benefit from the five-fold ministry God has placed in the Church for the welfare of every believer. Perhaps you are a minister yourself, one who serves – that is, who serves the living word of God that resides in your heart to others. Can you yet receive more of God’s word and learn more about how to feed it to others?

Eph 4:11-12 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some

evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the

saints for the work of ministry, for building up of the body of Christ,

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a renown Anglican minister advised: “Christian people, you neglect the services of the house of God (His people) to your peril and your great loss”.