Don’t Tell Me You Care If You’re Skipping Worship

Hey and happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is well.

Today’s post is a little different.

I’ve already written a post on the importance of going to worship, you can read it here.

In summary: We gather together on the first day of the week, following the example found for us in the New Testament (Acts 20:7). We gather together to praise God, remember Christ’s death and resurrection by taking communion together (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), to hear the Word and continue to grow (Romans 10:17), and to edify one another (Colossians 3:16).

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”-Hebrews 10:25

I fear that this post will come off as mean, but that’s not the heart behind my words.

2 Timothy 4:2 says to “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” 

There are three approaches listed there, one of them is rebuke and in this instance, that one is needed and the only effective approach.

I am discouraged and disappointed at times in the way people who know better act. 

If you know the importance and vitality of assembly and you are forsaking it (this is excluding health matters in this time), you are showing the world and the members of the church that you don’t care.

You don’t care about what God’s word says.

You don’t care about the church.

You don’t care about your own soul and the souls of your family.

You don’t care. 

Stop lying to yourself and others.

When you reject the words of the Bible as needed and live the way you selfishly want, you say “so what?” to Jesus’s sacrifice. 

Stop choosing sports over praising God.

Stop choosing food over fellowship.

Stop choosing comfort over the word of God.

I’ve had people around my age talk to me and tell me that they’re having a hard time going to worship because their family isn’t going, and they don’t drive.

The answer is simple: be faithful and ask someone for a ride. Try.

Stop letting your parents lead you to hell when you should be striving to lead them to faithfulness and life. 

So, don’t tell me you care if you’re skipping worship.  

Grace, that’s so harsh, you think.

It’s not. People make time for the things they prioritize. 

If you are not making God first and foremost in your life, there is an issue.

The issue is you being lukewarm, the issue is you being unfaithful.

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”-Revelation 3:16

And that is so disgusting that God will spew you out.

“For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”-2 Peter 2:20-22

You are going back to the pollutions of the world instead of back to worship.

Why? 

Two Truths about Your Worth

When I was asked to write about confidence and self-image, I couldn’t help but feel like the worst person to do that.

I am not confident by any means, I can be and am deeply insecure about everything about myself.

It’s been a struggle and something that I am also still working on, so I get it.

It doesn’t matter how many times you are told you’re pretty, you’re still not going to believe it at the end of the day. 

It doesn’t matter how much you diet and workout, you’re still going to look in the mirror and think fat. 

It doesn’t matter how many friends you make or how many guys ask you out, you’re still going to feel unlikable. 

I’ll tell you a secret now:

All the makeup, plastic surgery, money, and anything else that this world tells you that will make you happy and secure, won’t. 

Why is that?
Because we are searching for our worth in all the wrong places. 

Here are two truths I think we all need to tell ourselves every day:

 

1. God defines my worth

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”-Psalm 139:13-15

God defines your worth, not a significant other, not a number of likes, friends, or how many compliments you do or don’t get. God created you fearfully and wonderfully, His works are marvelous, and so are you. 

2. I am created for God’s glory

Our purpose is to ultimately bring glory to God.

^“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”-Ephesians 2:10

We don’t exist to be good looking, popular, athletic, or top of our class, not that there’s anything wrong with any of these things, but they’re not the point.

They aren’t eternal. 

Your value doesn’t decrease because the world and people of it cannot see your worth in Christ.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”-Luke 12:6-7

You are worth so much more than this world will ever tell you, so don’t listen to it, listen to the truth found in God’s word.

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”-Proverbs 31:30

Dear Parents, Where are You?

Maybe I’m not the person to be writing this post, I’m not a parent, I really have no qualifications when it comes to giving advice to parents.

Maybe you’re a parent and you’re reading this and already think I’m rude and immature, maybe you’re wondering where my parents are.

Maybe you already feel disrespected by this post although that is the farthest thing from my intentions.

Maybe you want me to be silent. To you my age means that I cannot think for myself or speak for myself, so I should not be addressing you at all.

Children are to be seen and not heard, right?  

Where are your parents? You might be thinking, but I am here to ask you: where are you? 

Where are you when there are adults commenting sexual things in the comment sections of videos of your nine-year-old dancing to an explicit song on tik tok?

Where are you when your fifteen-year-old daughter is posting sensual photos on Instagram looking like a twenty-five-year-old?

Where were you when your son got addicted to pornography?

Where were you when your daughter got pregnant?

 

I know it’s not fair to blame it all on the parents, y’all are human too, but where were you?
Where are you?

 

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m glad my kid isn’t doing stuff like that.”

Are you sure? 

I am here to tell you that as a peer of your children and as someone whose younger siblings are peers to your children, that there’s a lot you don’t know.

I see twelve-year-olds with iPhones with full access to the internet, and I shutter.

Because I know.

Peer pressure.

Social media.

Anything they can imagine at the tips of their fingers, all they have to do is go to a search bar. 

If you’re not looking over your child’s shoulder, if you’re not picking up their phone and going through it, you’re dumb.

I trust my child, you say.

Ok, but you are their defender, you’re their advocate, and you’re just going to stand aside and let them be attacked like this?

I scrolled through the accounts a boy that I had been talking to followed on Instagram, account after account was soft porn… he followed over 2,000 people.

He wasn’t a minor anymore, but he had been on social media for years, where were his parents when he followed the first accounts?

 

It’s discouraging as a seventeen-year-old girl to realize that I am the one having the conversation with your sons about sex outside of marriage, pornography, and all these other issues because you didn’t. 

I look at my generation, a generation of boys and girls who are ruining themselves and already ruining future relationships, and I am so thankful that my parents loved me enough to not trust me fully. 

I’m thankful that the first phone I got only sent texts and calls and barely even did that.

I’m thankful that when I finally got a nicer phone, my parents took off safari, didn’t let me get social media, didn’t allow me to download apps without them looking into it, approving, and putting in their password. I’m thankful that they read through my texts, and went through everything.

Was it embarrassing at the time? Yes.

Was it hard to feel left out when all my friends downloaded snapchat, Instagram, and everything else? Yes.

Would it have been worth the exposure to sex, language, and worldliness that floods my eyes now when I make the mistake of clicking on some people’s profiles? No.

 

I am so thankful that my parents were there. I’m thankful they’re still there. When I check my Instagram and see who viewed my recent story, my mom’s name is always the first to pop up, and I am thankful. I need accountability, I need parents, not another friend. 

 

I am so thankful that they are there for my brother, hopefully, he’ll never make another girl feel terrible when she looks through who he follows and sees naked girls with unattainable bodies–hopefully, he won’t have an account to follow them on for years, if ever.

I can’t imagine how hard and overwhelming it can be for y’all, but just like your children can access information in a second, so can you. 

I’m asking you this, no, I’m begging, please be there. 

Please put parental controls.

Please look through their phone.

Please don’t let this go on.

 

This is coming from a seventeen-year-old, we need y’all. 

Your sons need you.

Your daughters need you.

We need you to be there.