Your question is loaded with an assumption tantamount to asking a woman: Have you stopped hurting your future husband on a daily basis yet? Or asking a bride to be: When will you stop contemplating divorce after you are married?
Further reflection leads me to think of matters such as foul odors, overpowering fragrances, drafts, humidity, cold, people behind me talking when a person on the stage is speaking, boisterous buffoons who yell out inappropriately with chilling effect and a range of other incessant inconveniences—but wait, that was in a theater—just joking.
Further reflection leads me to think of matters such as foul odors, overpowering fragrances, drafts, humidity, cold, people behind me talking when a person on the stage is speaking, boisterous buffoons who yell out inappropriately with chilling effect and a range of other incessant inconveniences—but wait, that was in a theater—just joking.
On a more serious note, the one thing that bores me the most when I am attending a church service is any speaker who is long-winded or not speaking in the conviction and power of the Holy Spirit.
- for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. ( 1 Thessalonians 1:5)
Those who speak an unelectrifying and unedifying gospel message without power, or not in the Holy Spirit, or not with full conviction, are like those who use flattery as a cloak for greed.
- For we never used either words of flattery, as you know, or a cloak for greed. ( 1 Thessalonians 2:5)
Then there are those who speak visions of their own mind and claim that they are speaking from the spirit of God, when they are not.
- The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, prophesy[a] and say to those who prophesy out of their own minds: ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’ Thus says the Lord God, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! …They have spoken falsehood and divined a lie; they say, ‘Says the Lord,’ when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfil their word. Have you not seen a delusive vision, and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, ‘Says the Lord,’ although I have not spoken?” (Ezekiel 13:1-7)
Congregations that have no testimonies to the glory of God are like visiting the morgue—which contributes to a lack of satisfaction and enjoyment and a cause for grieving a person’s spirit.
There are numerous churches that I have been in where the singing is like a funeral dirge rather than a joyful celebration. Instead of an all consuming time of communal praise and worship in song, too many congregations have three short hymns, or supposed spiritual songs, that are usually mumbled, as the congregants appear to grumble about having to attend—which causes a sense of grieving within my spirit.
The celebration of communion ought to be something meaningful, with the expectation that when people come together, Lord Jesus Christ is manifest in the midst of the congregation, rather than an apparently meaningless symbolic rite that is rushed through at the end of the service, if not before—another source of being grieved of spirit.
People who spout church dogma or anything that is not straight out of the Scriptures and demonstrate a lack insight are another source of grief, when having to wait until they are finished—the pain of it all: it is like attending a meeting of atheists seeking meaning in life, when they know they have none, if they are born only to die.
When the presence of God is strong, and the preaching is hot, fresh, insightful, relevant and inspiring, why wouldn’t a person enjoy that part of a church meeting. How much more when there is a congregation that delights in testimony, worship in song, celebrating the Lord’s Supper with reverence, with delight that they are in one accord. When the goodness of God’s blessing is lacking, the commensurate enjoyment is lacking
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