Psalm 118:26-27
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
up to the horns of the altar!
Long before social media and the internet, people were saying, “I can worship God without going to church. It’s more personal.” The problem is, it is less biblical. Almost every word of the letters in the New Testament is written to churches. Revelation is actually written to the seven churches around Ephesus. As if that were not enough, we have these verses from the psalmist that are cries of worship to God from the house of the Lord, the Temple. From the time Moses gathered the assembly to the dedication of the temple, the Lord has called his people together. They blessed him for being God and used the temple liturgy to express it with festal sacrifice.
I know a lot about the Bible and the life of Jesus but this I know more than any of that. I need the church. I cannot go it alone and neither can you. When the people echoed this cry in verse 26 to Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem, they did it together. When the early Christians got started in Acts 2, they did it together. They broke bread, prayed, were taught, and had fellowship. That cannot happen when we are alone, even if we are alone together on social media. Let the repeated phrase of this psalm motivate us today. His steadfast love endures forever.
O Heavenly Father, we bless you from your house, for your steadfast love endures forever. May we worship you this Sunday, together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.