Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad?  2 Corinthians 5:10 NASB

If I were to ask you to join me in church on Sunday, what would your response be? Some of you reading this will be attending your own church provided that you are conscious and not sick with something that is contagious. You are those that faithfully attend church and serve the Lord without fail. Some of you would say that you may attend depending on how you are feeling or if you have nothing better to do. And some of you would begin to list the reasons why you can’t make it to church this Sunday. Some of you will tell me that you don’t need to attend church to worship God, but I ask how often you spend 2-3 hours worshiping God and singing praises to him at home? Hebrews 10:25 tells us that we should not fail to meet with fellow Christians. I am well aware that there are those of you that work on Sundays, but if that is the case you can usually make a Sunday night service or perhaps a Wednesday night service of if you are like my husband and work rotating shifts you can make every other week.

I am amazed by some of the answers that I get when I invite people to church on Sunday. Some people respond with things like, “Well, if we don’t take the boat down the river and go drinking at a river bar, we can be there”.  Others tell me that they go and get groceries on Sunday. Some tell me that they stay out late on Saturday night and therefore, they just can’t wake up on time. Some tell me that Sunday is their only day off and they use it to clean house and do laundry. I have heard many, many excuses.

Now I used to have some of these same excuses. I was raised in church so I always felt obligated to make it to church at least half the time. I always tried to make at least two Sundays out of the month. But as I’ve told you many times half baked or lukewarm service is not what God wants. He wants all we’ve got when it comes to our commitment to Him.

Perhaps we could look at it this way, would you want to be married to someone who only wants to be married part of the time? Would you want to be married to someone who only wants to be married when it’s convenient and when they have nothing better to do? Well, God doesn’t want that kind of relationship with us either.

The thing about each and every thought that we think, word that we speak, or action that we take is that it will either be pleasing or displeasing to God. If your thoughts, words, and actions are displeasing to God then I would suggest that you change them by spending more time in prayer and studying God’s word. I would strongly recommend that you get into a good Bible teaching church. If you tell me you can’t do any of these things, then I would ask, “Why can’t you?”

Many people use the excuse that they don’t have time, well I have learned to ask God to guard my time. By this I mean when I have a really busy day lined out, I ask Him to help me to accomplish all the things that I have set out to do. I give Him the first part of my day through prayer and Bible study and trust Him to work the rest of the day out for me.

I spent many years not giving God my all, so believe me I understand all the excuses. I understand when life is just too busy doing other things to give time to God. But again I ask, “Why can’t you?” I ask this because there is one thing that none of us can escape. None of us can duck out on our invitation to Christ’s throne of judgment. There are no excuses that will get us out of that. We will all come before Christ and we will all answer for all that we have thought, said or done whether good or bad? Will God go through each day of your life and ask why you couldn’t commit just a small portion of that day to Him? Will God go through each and every Sunday and ask why you couldn’t commit to spending the necessary hours just this one day a week to fellowship with other Christians, praise and worship Him and study His word? Will God go through each and every opportunity you have had to serve Him but turned Him down? Will God go through each and every person that you could have witnessed to, but chose not to speak?

There will come a time when it will be Jesus Christ asking, “Why couldn’t you?” By then it will be too late to repent and get a do-over. It will be too late to say I’m sorry, please give me another chance. But right now you have that opportunity to get it right. So, again, I ask, “Why can’t you?”

Have a great day!