Better is one day in his house

Better is one day in your courts, better is one day in your house...the contemporary praise chorus goes. In Psalm 84, the Message translates it this way, "One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin."

I hear from time to time reasons people are absent from church on Sunday. "They had people in town," I hear. "They were travelling," I hear. And on and on.

I have had people come to things on Saturday and then miss Sunday worship. I simply have to say, I don't understand that.

Better is one day in your house...

Worship is never perfect. I certainly am not. I certainly don't lead as well as one would want. My choirs are not great. Our music isn't always wonderful.

But worshipping God is, or should be, the highlight of the week. It's better than a few minutes on the beach, better than a kid's baseball game, better than working on the car, better than cutting the grass, better than a thousand relatives visiting. It is. God is in the house and even if the house isn't packed, God is there. Why wouldn't people want to be there?

One can only reason that they don't think that is true. They don't think God is there.

How sad I would be if I didn't have Sunday worship.

Now, one can argue that one can worship at home, and one might reasonably make that argument some of the time. But not always. His house is his house. His worship, with many, is his worship.

Better is one day in his courts, better is one day in his house. Better. Not perfect. But better.