Assembling Ourselves Together
It is quite certain that those who are wholehearted for Christ desire to be in His company. They instinctively wend their way to the spot where He is known to be.
Is there such a spot on earth? Yes.
“Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Mathew 18:20.
No one who is truly conscious of the greatness and excellency of His person and of the blessedness of communion with Him, can be willingly absent from that favored place. A neglected Lord’s table and a neglected prayer meeting, speak aloud of a Laodicean state of the heart towards Him. We read that of old “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Alas! that there should be such a lack of continuing steadfastly now.
Does not the Lord say to God, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee” (Heb. 2:12), and can we suppose that He fails to notice whether we are there, or not, to join in the song He leads? In the coming day of review before the judgment seat of Christ, how shall we like the disclosure that self-indulgence, a little unfavorable weather, or a passing tiff with a brother or sister in Christ, has outweighed with us all the mighty motives for a loving response to His wish, “This do in remembrance of Me”? (Luke 22:19).
It is deeply humbling to think that any who have tasted the Lord’s love, can take advantage of not having to work on the Lord’s day, to spend its morning hours in bed, and that others can excuse their absence from the meetings on the ground of visiting, or receiving visits from, friends. Priceless opportunities of gratifying the heart of the Lord, and of showing our attachment to Him, in the scene of His rejection, are thus wasted and lost.
It is mere mockery to repeat, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and use glowing expressions of desire to be with Him in glory, if, by our absence from His table, we betray our indifference to His presence here.
Beloved, “It is high time to awake out of sleep” (Rom. 13:11). May we take to heart the solemn and impressive exhortation of the Word, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:25).
Closely connected with the foregoing is the question of TIME.
Where is our reverence for the Lord, or our sense of His grace – where our responsive love, if we come with lagging steps, five, ten, or fifteen minutes after He has taken His place in the midst of His own?
It was easy, in the freshness of first love, to come early to the place where He manifests Himself in such a peculiarly blessed way. Excuses were not made. Has He become less precious?
The moments we may thus spend together with Him on the earth stained with His blood, are swiftly passing away. Let us not willingly lose one of them.
It is touching to remember that no thought of all the sufferings that awaited Him, of Himself presently becoming the true passover, “sacrificed for us,” delayed the Lord’s appearing at His last paschal feast.
“WHEN THE HOUR WAS COME, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him.” (Luke 22:14).
O! for a holy eagerness to be where He is!