A very familiar passage, which you may have heard hundreds of times, is Ephesians 5:18–21. Look at it as a little analysis of your spirit as you come into the house of the Lord.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord (two areas, to one another and to the Lord); always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
Regardless of how long you’ve been coming to church, you should make preparation for the service as you come to the house of the Lord. This was done in the Old Testament; there are songs of degrees that were sung as the people were making their way up to the temple. One of them says, “Our feet are even now standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem, city of the Lord” (Psalm 122:2). As they moved along and were approaching the temple of the Lord, there came the song of the watchers on the walls and the gates as they saw the pilgrims coming. All these experiences were beautiful. Imagine the excitement! We read the Psalms matter-of-factly; they don’t mean much to us, but imagine what it was like for them to be singing and chanting them at each station as they moved along. It became an experience of preparation, as they were preparing their hearts to worship the Lord. When they came to the temple they were in the right frame of mind and spirit to receive. They could sing aloud, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalms 84:10).
When you come to the house of the Lord, is this your attitude? “I’m going to church tonight. I hope they minister to me. I want to sit there and have someone pick me out, bring me up and deal with my problem. I don’t care what they say to me as long as they get me out of the hole.” Wouldn’t it be better to have your spirit at a top level when you come into the house of the Lord, and to be ready to worship and praise the Lord?
The Scripture said, “Be filled with the Spirit.” One of the basic things we have learned is the simplicity of infilling and refilling. Every one of us can learn, like spiritual breathing, to speak in tongues and draw in the Holy Spirit. The problem is, why doesn’t this always work for people? Would you like to know why, even though you get down on your knees and speak in tongues for half an hour, it doesn’t work for you, and why you don’t seem to pull out of your problems? Here is the reason.
Receiving the Holy Spirit has to be an act of faith. You can have enough faith to speak in tongues and there is a certain inflow, but it may not reach the area of your emotions; it may not reach the area where your problems are because you are not believing it to. However, if you approach the house of the Lord speaking in tongues and believing, you can literally shoot down the enemy; you can shoot down those troubles which obsess you when you’ve been worrying or thinking on a certain level and you don’t know what to do about them.
When some problem is bothering me, I put it aside when I walk in the door of the church because I have no right to stand behind the pulpit with anything other than that which God wants to say and to do for the people. This is the course I follow with integrity because I don’t want to minister my problems to you. I don’t want you to ever come into the house of the Lord and not feel edified. I don’t want you to be a partaker of something that is an apostolic responsibility. However, I do feel that the Lord can help you to partake in the burden and to pray about many of these things.
This is what our attitude should be: “Lord, I come into your house, but first I must be filled with the Spirit.” Concentrate and focus your faith so that it eliminates some of the problems that are bothering you. That is not easy; but if you don’t, every time the preacher says two or three sentences, your mind will return to a problem and you will have to pull it back. The human mind is like a dog taken for a walk. It has to investigate almost everything on the street; there isn’t anything that it is not interested in. Sometimes it keeps returning to the old ruts. Take hold of it and let the Holy Spirit saturate it. Believe! Shoot down the things that obsess you! Remember, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6, 7. Then the distractions will not get to you to the extent that you can’t handle them, even though you can still be under a tremendous burden.
There is an exception to the rule—there is always the prayer of Hannah, the woman of such a sorrowful spirit that nothing can meet her. It is in the house of the Lord that she must pour out her travail to God, and God will answer her. It may not be understood; Eli did not understand when he said to her, “Put away the wine from you, woman.” He thought she was drunk. She said, “I haven’t been drinking any wine, but I’m a woman of sorrowful spirit.” She rehearsed her grievances and she prayed, and God gave her a son, Samuel, because of that. It was very precious.
Sometimes in these situations when we are so heavy in our hearts, there is only one way—pray them through. But even when I’m under such a burden, I have been able to come to the house of the Lord and say, “Lord, I’m going to set it aside. I can’t do anything else about it now; I will worry and pray and seek Your face about it later. I can’t be anxious about it now but I’m going to make it a complete matter of committing it to You in prayer later.” Then I go on with what I am to do at the moment. You can try to do the same thing when you come with family problems. Maybe the children are acting up; maybe your parents have given you a hard time; anything can happen—but come to the house of the Lord with an honesty.
You say, “This sounds hypocritical, to have these problems and just put them aside and worship the Lord as if nothing ever happened.” I know it could appear that way, but I don’t think it is hypocritical at all. You must do it. In some way you must rise in your spirit above the sum-total of all of your experiences, all your relationships, all your circumstances, all your needs, and even all your blessings. When you come to the house of God you must rise above them. What about your failures? Nothing can defeat you more than self-condemnation when you come to worship the Lord. If you can’t do anything else, come in and kneel for a moment and repent of the sin that you are aware of. Ask God to forgive you; then get up and worship the Lord. This is the procedure of preparation for the service.
“Why do I have to prepare if I come to the service to get blessed?” If that is your thinking you’re down in a hole, and by the time the service is over you’re up to ground level. Wouldn’t it be better to start in a period of victory and see how high you can climb every service? Your spiritual growth will be tremendous from week to week if you will just do this.
Notice the Scripture said, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns,” but I would like to emphasize “speaking to one another.” Be sure that you do! In the house of God there is to be communication and an overflow of being filled with the Spirit. Although the Scripture is talking about speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, it is good to have a greeting in your spirit: the communication of being aware that you do not have any walls up to your brother. There must not be anything wrong in your spirit toward anyone—bitterness, unforgiveness, none of these things. “I’ll speak to them if I have to, but if the Lord just helps me, I’ll work around the pillar and sit down before they get a chance because I sure don’t want to talk to them!” Don’t be that way.
It says, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” There are people who can sing beautifully as far as tonal quality is concerned, but they sometimes have a bad spirit. But God says, “This is how you come before the Lord—singing and making melody in your heart.” This is where it all should start: way down in the heart. It has to be a basic outpouring to God: with nothing superficial and no ritualism in it. It starts when we have no walls up to each other and we don’t see any class distinctions or any other distinctions, but we open our hearts completely to one another. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then ye are Abraham’s seed” (Galatians 3:28, 29). Come with that in your heart. When we stand before the Lord, whether it’s at the foot of the cross or on Mount Zion where the remnant stands, the ground is all level. We are all alike together. That is the way we come, honoring our brothers and sisters, no walls up, listening, singing, praising the Lord with all our hearts.
It isn’t good for people to be singing with no distinction of sounds, so that you can’t tell what they are saying. For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? I Corinthians 13:8. It is better to have less tune and to have distinct words. When we sing unto the Lord, let’s sing with a distinction of sound, right out of a full heart, rejoicing. Maybe the tune will not always be perfect, but at least it will come forth to glorify God. I can say an amen to almost anything, no matter how bad the tune is, if I can just hear it. Do not merely “mouth” the words; focus them. Sing your songs and prophesy your prophecies as though you were focusing the words to a point in front of you; make them sharp and brittle, emphasize the consonants and not the vowels.
How, then, do we come to the house of God? We come with a right spirit, with an openness to God, the melody coming forth to the Lord, filled with the Spirit; then we open up to one another and the result will be there.
You must work on the things that work on you. Surprisingly, the devil’s greatest trick is to defeat you not with big things but with little things. When you come to the house of the Lord, the little things generally spoil the service for you. There may be one little irritating thing: you have scraped a fender, or you come in and see someone singing who owes you fifty dollars—they were going to give it back next week and it’s been six months already. That will bother you. Someone promised you something but they didn’t fulfill it. These are the little foxes that ruin the vine.
You must put things in their right focus, in their right place. It’s a human trait to let Satan get at you, especially at the end of a hard busy day. He reaches your spirit, and then some little thing suddenly balloons up into a big thing and ruins the service for you. It can ruin the walk for you. This is getting right down to where you live. Is this practical? Yes, for if you heed this word today and learn to prepare your heart, in the next five years you will get a thousand times more out of the sermons; you will grow, you will always come blessed, and you will never know what it is to leave a service in any kind of defeat. People tend to look though the wrong end of the telescope. The Lord doesn’t seem quite big enough to handle their problems; so instead of magnifying the Lord, they put a microscope on their little problems and blow them up all out of proportion.
There is a good story, about Martin Luther. After he came out of the Catholic church, he faced problems that seemed insurmountable. He fasted such long periods that he permanently damaged his health. He was married to an ex-nun and they went into business; they had ponds where they raised fish and a couple of breweries to make their living. Besides those activities, there was the spiritual work that he was trying to carry on; he translated the Bible into German, one of the greatest translations that has ever been made. This is just a summary. He was a fantastic man, a man of great labor and great fastings, but one day it got him down; his wife came to him dressed in black, mourning, a veil over her face. He looked at her and said, “Who’s dead?” And she said, “From the way you are talking, God is dead.” She was giving him an illustrated sermon, and he repented because she had put on mourning just as a lesson to him that he was acting as though God was dead.
That’s how you come to church many times, hoping that in the middle of the service someone will have faith enough to resurrect God for you. This is a tremendous truth that you need to know. We must be aware that He ever lives to make intercession for us; we must constantly be conscious of Him and practice His presence. The ability to practice the presence of the Lord and to be aware of His life flow to you is one of the most important things that you can have. You can be aware of everything else, details suddenly loom up until they seem to be the only reality in your life; all you can see are your troubles, your problems, your little grievances, your wishes, and your desires, what you’re aiming for. You are going to miss it unless you can see the greatest reality of all—the Lord and be aware of Him in the situation.
There is a certain person whom I have prayed for, more than most any other. I hang on to God for him because I keep receiving words about him, indications of what he’s doing and what he’s thinking; yet he has not been in communication with me. He is in a period of running from situations, but he’s going to make it. I have staked out before the throne of God a claim for him to be the prophet and the man of God that I know God wants him to be. It is not what I know about him that encourages me, it is what I know about God. That is why I can hang on to him, and that’s why I’m going to keep hanging on to him. I know God, I know God’s choice, and I know God’s love for him, and I bind him over to the will of God. The real issue is: do we trust that God loves him? Are we always aware of God in the situation? We can be aware of other people and magnify their needs and problems so greatly that we don’t magnify the Lord. I realize I’ve done this myself, time and time again.
Keep your hearts open to the Lord; practice His presence and hang on to God. Don’t get discouraged and don’t give up; don’t be bitter, don’t let anything get to your spirit. Even when you have conscious problems, come to the Lord in prayer and cast them upon the Lord.
A passage very similar to the one in Ephesians occurs in Colossians: Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you; with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16. Both in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, the verses that precede these talk about how we are to walk before the Lord, and these passages are followed by definite instructions about the family.
Why in both places does this instruction on family relationships follow the instruction about having an open spirit and rejoicing? Because, nothing affects you more than your family relationships. Nine-tenths of people’s problems and moods come in their family relationships or lack of them. The attitudes of husbands and wives and children and servants to one another is the one area that gets to their spirits more than anything else. This is the source of irritation. When you are very close to each other and God has taught you to take your walls down to each other, you become very vulnerable. Things that happen within the family can lead you into a defeat in your spirit quicker than anything else. You can throw off school problems; you can throw off work problems; you can throw off other problems and circumstances that come up; but you can’t throw off the family problems because there is an openness that God has decreed within the family.
Have you ever come to church and found out that your children irritated you so much before you left that you sat there steaming? A wife will nag at her husband and then wonder why the father can’t get through to the children any longer. A husband won’t minister to his wife, and then he wonders why the wife breaks down in her ministry to the children.
Interaction within a family is either very deadly or very, very beneficial. Coming to the house of the Lord is something to always watch very carefully. Make your peace before you get in the car and come to church.
We are so deeply concerned about what is done in every heart at each service. We are concerned about the services in which there are those who come and go and so little is done. May the Lord help us to correct this by teaching people how to prepare their hearts to come before Him.
Have you noticed when we come to the house of the Lord, how some people get a great deal out of the service? By accident everything seems to be just right for them; they are in the proper mood and nothing comes to discourage them. But others come, literally seething from irritations and various things that have entered into their spirit before they ever entered the house of the Lord. We have to prepare our hearts first. Most of us could take care of problems at home or on the way to church that we normally have ministered to us in the service. Then we would be prepared when we come to the house of the Lord.
Being filled with the Spirit is a command of the Lord. And if we took this command seriously and refused to come to church without the fullness of the Spirit within us, then we would have the kind of conscience that a member of the Body of Christ should have. You should have proper conscience about this preparation; you should refuse to walk within the door of the church unless there is a moving of the Spirit within your life.
You might say, “Well then I’d be staying home all the time.” I would agree that it is better for you to come than to stay home, but why not contend for something higher and come to the house of the Lord filled with the Spirit?
Some people are crepe-hangers. Crepe-hangers goes back to an old custom in America, and before that in England. Whenever there was death, black crepe paper wreaths or sometimes streamers were hung on the front door of the house. That was all a crepe-hanger had to do in life—make a wreath of black crepe paper and wherever he found a death, hang it on the door. Believe me, God didn’t call me to be a crepehanger. I will not just be occupied with the morbid, sorrowful aspects of life; I’d like to crown people with joy.
You can see instances of that same desire in the epistle of Paul to the Philippians. If anyone had a reason to feel sorry for himself, Paul did. Yet, the theme of the epistle to the Philippians is joy; the key words are “joy” and “rejoice.” Paul was in a Roman prison not knowing when he was going to be beheaded. He had every reason to feel very, very heavy-hearted; yet, all joy and rejoicing was in his spirit. It doesn’t make any difference what is going to happen tomorrow, the joy of the Lord should be there in our spirit.
If I would suddenly get news from the Lord that I would be dead in three months, how should that three months be spent? In mourning? No. In putting heaviness upon the hearts? No. It should be spent in joy and rejoicing because this would be something that God had ordained and therefore we should face it with joy and rejoicing. Whatever we do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
There are times that you come with a burden and you cannot do anything but give way to that burden, but as a general rule, cast your burdens upon the Lord. Cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. Walk in the door of the sanctuary believing, “God is going to meet me tonight. I know that He’s going to meet me. I’m going to meet Him right here.” Come with an awareness of His presence, more than an awareness of your troubles. When you do this consciously in your heart, the service will mean a great deal more to you.
Don’t be so preoccupied with yourself that you come into the house of the Lord thinking of no one but yourself. Come with an awareness; start tuning into your brothers and sisters. This is a family gathering. When we have a church service, it’s the Father and His family having precious fellowship through the Lord Jesus Christ. Be aware of your brothers and sisters; take your walls down.
This is the day of the big freeze; people walk down the street with a frozen expression. Do you remember Buster Keaton, old stoneface? He never cracked a smile, but he made thousands of dollars for being unnatural. You’re not getting a penny for it. So relax and smile; don’t work so hard at being old stoneface. Open up to one another; take the walls down to each other.
You can take down spiritual walls to those in the Body, but you can’t in the world. When you take a wall down to the world there is a problem. This happens sometimes when a sister goes out to win souls. She says, “Here is a fellow who is friendly, I’m going to win him to the Lord.” She starts talking about the Lord to him and before she has talked five minutes he has tried to seduce her. Now we have to learn that we are living in a very rough age. You sisters get wise to the fact that you have to keep some walls up to people in the world, but try to reach them spiritually.
When we come to the house of the Lord, however, we ought to treat one another as brothers and sisters in all purity. We should be able to take down our walls and together come without any offense; we should be able to come without any hard feelings or any misgivings. When we open our heart to each other, there should be no unforgiving spirit or anything that is revengeful.
This is where you learn to prepare your heart for the service. With a forgiving spirit, with walls down to one another, and with faith to help one another, you come to the house of the Lord. You might say, “I’ve been wronged so many times, they’re just going to cheat me again.” Yes, that’s the happy thing about the Body—it’s the only place where you can cheat someone again and again and again and he has to forgive you. That’s a happy thing. I don’t think you should take advantage of it and try to cheat people repeatedly, because then the Lord will deal with you. But you should be willing to rather suffer wrong.
It is surprising how in a single service the level of optimism, courage, and faith can rise in everyone’s heart. You can come to the house of the Lord again and again and always go home with a good feeling. You don’t know how it was generated, but you go home with something that has lifted you up.
If we didn’t come to the house of the Lord often and encourage each other, we would soon give up the walk and drift away. That is why Hebrews 10:25 tells us, “We should not cease the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.” The great day of the Lord is approaching and this is all the more reason we should come to the house of the Lord. Don’t neglect this. Keep your spirit open, be as filled with the Spirit as you can; keep your walls down to one another, and a great many things can happen.
In spite of deep disappointments, we take faith together and we keep coming to the house of the Lord; and we keep building ourselves up. If one of our business ventures fails, that’s only money; the important thing is that we don’t lose one of the precious brothers involved in it. The important thing is, that we love each other and we help each other and hold one another up. We only do that when there are no walls up to one another and we have a basic faith in God. Regardless of whatever else happens, we’re going to love each other, we’re going to help each other and hold one another up in the name of the Lord. Some problems could be absolutely insurmountable in people’s lives. We cannot face these things with our heads; we must face them with hearts that are open to each other. Then God will meet us beyond our expectations.
You say, “This is not important to me.” It will get around to you. You will have a problem, sooner, or later. No one comes in this walk without getting the jolt of his life sooner or later. If the devil can knock you out of the running, he will do it. Something will come that will make you so bitter, so disillusioned, that you will want to withdraw. I think the greatest word the Lord can give in prophecy over you would be, “He never shut His heart up to any man.” I stop and think that in my own life this has been true. No matter what happened, I was always ready to open my heart again and again and again. Why? Because you aren’t influenced by any personal offenses or what people say; that is not important. You keep your heart open to each other and to the Lord, and when you come to the house of the Lord, you’re ready then to worship God.
Remember what Jesus said? “When you stand praying, forgive your brother his trespasses.” If you don’t forgive your brother his trespasses against you, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. That has been made very real to me. I have forgiven men many grievous things and it has been a joy in my heart because it was a guarantee that the Lord was going to be very merciful to me. “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:2). “For the same measure with which you meet it will be measured to you again.” No one is so high and mighty that he is not going to need mercy at some time from the Lord.
You are going to need understanding. If you’re proud and arrogant, God is going to put you in a place where you need it. Come to the house of the Lord with a predisposition toward mercy. “Blessed are the merciful.” This is preparation for us to come to the worship service. What you sow, you’re going to reap. Remember that. I find the only people who complain, “Nobody in the church loves me, nobody cares for me,” are the people who have put up walls themselves. They don’t want to be hurt; they don’t want to give. Take down the walls and start loving each other. Become involved with the Body. This is the attitude with which you approach that worship service.
It is easy to be critical. The Lord hates murmuring. He hates bitterness and criticalness. That’s the one thing that seems to turn God off as far as the showers of blessing are concerned. Keep this in mind. Be loving and forgiving, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. That’s the way the Scripture reads. Don’t be bitter, don’t be critical, don’t murmur. Have a right spirit toward each other. When you stand in His presence, God is more concerned about your spirit toward one another than you realize.
It is easy for us to come and say, I have a grievance; I want revenge; I want God to avenge me of my adversary. What you are crying for is justice. You say, “I don’t want justice for myself, only for other people; Lord, give him justice, but give me mercy.” Is that the way we think? No. Don’t come to the Lord demanding, “I want justice.” Come in love. Don’t give way to your own wrath or revenge. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” As long as it is in His hands, you keep your hands out of it. When you stand before Him calling for justice, you’re going to get it! “To the froward thou wilt show thyself froward; to the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful” (Psalm 18:26). God will deal with you just the way you deal with others. Now you know why God sometimes deals with you harshly—you have dealt harshly with your brother. Deal generously with your brother and God will deal generously with you. He that judged without mercy, shall also be judged without mercy (James 2:13). That is the royal law of liberty in the book of James. “Forgive us our trespasses even as we also forgive those who trespass against us.” That’s the way you come to the house of the Lord. I can’t express this too strongly; you are to come into the presence of the Lord determined that there will be no resentment, no hostility in your spirit.
People can be so much on the defensive. If they just hear you say, “I’m not critical; I’m on your side; I’m on with you,” they start melting and breaking down. The best way to take down your neighbors walls is to take your walls down; then your neighbor starts working at his.
Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (that worship that comes up out of your spirit); always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God even the Father. It takes either a man of faith or a blooming idiot to do that. Giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Frequently we look up and wonder, “Lord, why did you do that?” We have a question instead of saying “Thank you, Lord.” We need the faith of that comic strip character who, when someone slaps him, says, “Thank you, I needed that.” Sometimes we say, “Thank you, Lord, but I didn’t need that very badly. I’ve gone through enough already. You didn’t have to do that to me again. I already know that lesson.” Have you ever had that feeling? It just doesn’t seem like that is quite the thing the Lord ought to be doing with us. Always give thanks to God for all things.
Always be thankful for all things; this takes a faith. It takes faith to give thanks so that no matter what happens or how things appear, you know God is on the job; he isn’t wasting your life. He isn’t trying to teach you sadistically; He’s doing something in your life that’s important. He’s treating you like He would treat a son. He scourges every son whom He received. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens. Be thankful.
Now, why should we talk about that? Because a lot of people come to the services with a secret hidden rebellion in their hearts. There is something coming up that keeps them from worshiping God, and that is a deep rebellion against what they are going through. You have to get over this because if you don’t, you will stay in it until you do get over it. Have you ever noticed that the problem never stops, until in your own spirit it ceases to be a problem? The Lord removes it. He is teaching you something. Open your heart to it.
“I think we all have too many truths in our lives that haven’t been made real or living within our lives. This is what I’m crying out against. Much knowledge puffs up, but love edifies and builds up the Body of Christ; and there is no Body save what we see right here. It is before us, it is in our presence. Too often we begin to see the invisible church or some great mystery. That is what Christendom is all about; it has become a thing of doctrines and teachings that are obsolete and ancient. The real thing is the living Christ and the living word. That is what we have been delivered from sin to serve; that is what we have been delivered from sin to be open to and to lay down our walls for. The Lord went up on the mountain and taught, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are those that are poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” He spoke these simple words, yet they are the words and the principles of the kingdom. And this is what we have to do.
“There is too much bitterness and rebellion against circumstances, too much that says, “Well, I’d rather be off here, I’d rather be there.” And really you’re never content with where you are. That is what America is about, striving and ambitious and trying to attain something, which is nowhere; there is no end to it. I think finally we have to say, “I’m going to be content where God set me. I’m not going to be content with the limitations,” I find the only cry of my heart has been to learn this submission so that my heart be broken and my heart be crushed; I want to begin to sense the canopy of glory that rests upon the people of God and the deep burden for them. I know I won’t survive in this walk unless the love is there. There is nothing else to keep me here except that love and a dedication to a body of people. And that has to be. I seek that and I’m believing for that deep crushing of spirit.