Are you glad to go to God's house?

The third of the Songs of Ascents (Ps. 122) provides us with the words that we recite as we begin our service each week. The psalm begins with David saying, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the LORD.” And follows with Israel’s confession, “Our feet our standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” This psalm teaches us that the call to worship is to make us glad. Is that how you would describe the state of your heart right now? Are glad to go to the house of the Lord on Sunday? Or do you make your ascent to God’s house out of compulsion? Because it is what Christians are supposed to do? You children and young folks, do your parents have to drag you out bed and force you to come here? Beloved you all ought to be glad to go to God’s house! You ought to be able to say with the psalmist that a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand outside (Ps. 84:10). What would you prefer to being in God’s house? Would you rather be in bed? Would you rather be in the park, or spending time with friends or family? You must train yourself to prefer the presence of God to everything else in life. You do that by spending time with him throughout the week in morning and evening prayer, in times of song around the table, in reading his Word. You do it by confessing your sins to God and one another, endeavoring by the power of God’s Spirit to walk in new obedience. Nobody who is clinging to his sins is going to be glad to go to God’s house. For our God is a consuming fire. When we join the Israelites in confessing that “our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem,” we are confessing that our feet are standing on holy ground. Therefore let us confess our sins to God and make our ascent with joy and gladness, knowing that He will show us the path of life and in His presence is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).