Churchless in UK--Purity in Worship

I am for the first time since my conversion, churchless. And have been for almost a week. Some of my friends who read here know I've been having problems reconciling certain things of God's Word with many modern church practices including my own for a long time.

For me, leaving aside any personal differences, the crunch came when after a week of extreme ill health, I felt pressured (unfairly) to attend worship last LD. it is now Friday, I am still recovering from the exertion of going out. Sunday night I couldn't get out of my wheelchair and into my bed till six am, I didnt have the strength after being out, and wasn't able to eat beyond a bag of crisps for two days afterwards, as again i didn't have the strength to make it.


The deciding factor came however, when sat in church on the Lord's Day and feeling deathly ill, to hear during the service the exhortation of modern things within worship which I don't believe would have been said if not for the personal differences I was already having with the folks there. But its one thing to feel in the valley of death a good deal of the time, its another to feel so while you feel you are taking part in just by being there and therefore contributing to sacrilege. I'm not one of these people who think if we die with just one sin unrepented of, we won't go to Heaven, but, when one feels so deathly ill, you don't normally go out of ones way to commit or take part in sinful things, and when just being there, made it feel so, its an impossible situation.

I may live with death and disease both prominent in my life. One as a possible because of the other, and yes, I mess up the same as anyone else and get it wrong, but the whole scenario of that event being in God's sanctuary and His house, has now made it impossible to ever contemplate going there again, much less desiring to.

And this has reaffirmed my belief that doing something no matter how small, that is sinful, for the greater good, should not be contemplated or even considered. I stayed at my church the last time I felt I should leave, thinking of the greater good, it led me down a road, that for a little while bought more conflict than ever.

Anyone who disagrees with the compromising on sin, for the greater good, I suggest reading Jeremiah Burroughs Evil of Evils. --Sin vs affliction, and how one should always choose affliction rather than sin or rather than trying to sin our way out of it.

But one thing I do know is, God led me down this road the last few weeks, as it was not outside of His control, and in doing so, He has reaffirmed almost everything I've learned from Him the last several months on different things to do with the Christian life, by almost everything in the whole scenario of my place of Worship, being a testing of the stuff learned. And I can walk away without regret, knowing in doing so, it is the right thing to do, and what God desires of me. And despite the conflict and hardship felt over the last few weeks with this, I'd rather leave this side of it, with no regrets and knowing its right, rather than leaving while somewhere inside wondering, was it the right thing to do. |