One of the most common excuses I hear from people who do not attend Sunday worship services is, “I don’t need to go to church on Sunday – I have a personal relationship with God.” I would modify and revise that statement by deleting “personal” and inserting “private”.
Some people think God doesn’t care if they spend time in public worship and mingling with Christians in other areas of faith. My response to them is, “A personal relationship with God is great and right, but a private relationship with God is bad and unbiblical.” Nowhere in the Bible do we see individuals having their own little private relationship with God. Christians are always with each other. The Bible is full of “one another” passages instructing us to encourage, love, forgive, and build up one another. How can we possibly “one another” one another if we neglect spending time together in worship and other Christian settings?
There is another major reason why we must worship together. I need you and you need me to stay faithful all the way to Heaven! The Hebrew writer says, “let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” He also states how forsaking the assembly can lead to falling away. Consider the following article:
“A minister, calling on a member who habitually absented himself from the worship, found the family gathered around the fireplace. Advancing to the fire, the minster took tongs, silently lifted a big coal, and still silent, sat down and gazed intently at the coal. The coal quickly faded and soon it was only a black mass. Then the man of the house cleared his throat, “You need not say a word, preacher, we’ll be at worship this Sunday morning.”
….Mike