Awe Full

"Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe..." (Acts 2:1)

When was the last time that you attended a church service, and was filled with a sense of awe? 

Not from a good sermon, a song you really enjoy or an amazing performance by a talented choir. But an awe of who God is, and what He has done. 

You ever wondered how we can enter a church service and leave the same as we came in? Usually it's that way for most in the American church today. Your membership may be growing because the music is suitable to those who attend. Your pastor maybe a great orator. You may have a cool youth minister. You may have great fellowship. Your church maybe the hottest thing on the church scene at that moment. But for some reason, when you leave a service, life is life. Oh the service is awesome and really gets your blood pumping...but when you leave...what is there? 

The New Testament church, the first church, had no problem with being filled with awe. But why were they? They were so amazed that the Holy Spirit, God, would live in them, would save them after what they had done to Him. They were in awe of His love, mercy and grace. So much so they turned the world upside down. 

Vance Havner tells about a missionary who was in a foreign country leading a church service. After the service was over the people didn't leave. The missionary said, "The service is over you can all go home and go to bed". But the people responded, "You just told us that God loves this world so much that He died for it, so that we could live forever!! We can't go home and go to sleep!" Mr. Havner said that those people couldn't sleep after hearing the gospel, but we in America go to sleep while listening to it. 

Where is our sense of awe? What has happened to it? Is our churches, with our million dollar buildings, padded pews, gyms...I mean "family life centers", highly educated staff and nice choirs not enough to cause awe? No! They are not enough...and often times are the reason for our lack of awe. We have gotten so use to being catered to & entertained...that if our pastor said, we are not having choir today or coffee and snacks, we are just going to pray and have Bible study, you would have a slim crowd in attendance. 

I've been as guilty as anyone in the way I had attended church. It is easy for it to become a routine or a habit. But it's not meant to be that way. The first church was in awe of who God was and what He had done for them despite how they had treated Him. They were in awe of the way they felt, the way He was changing them. The love they had for one another. They were in awe of God. 

We need and must have revival in our own lives. Don't wait for others to do it, get alone with God yourself and seek revival in your own heart. Put a fire back into your Christian life, by allowing Christ to live through you. Be the spark that your church family needs to see, so that they too will become on fire for God.  Make your worship full of awe.

Vern