Oft We Come Together

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/2nkkfm

Worship should be a time to commune with God. It is a time to praise Him in song, reflect upon His word, partake of the Lord’s Supper, talk to Him in prayer, and give of our means. Sometimes worship can be less than what it should be. In a time-conscious culture the mechanics of worship sometime overshadow the meaning of worship. In other words, sometimes we may be guilty of going through the motions and not adequately reflecting on the meaning of our worship.

Any area of worship can become routine and lose its meaning if we focus on the wrong things. Take, for example, the Lord’s Supper. At one place I preached this part of worship was left for the very last part of the worship hour. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if a prayer went especially long, a few extra verses were sung or if the sermon went over, this time for communion suddenly felt rushed.

Sensing that we were losing our focus on this act of worship, we moved this to an earlier part of the hour and in turn we were able to partake without feeling rushed. Now if a prayer went long or an extra song was sung it was the preacher’s time that was squeezed and not our time in communion.

Jesus spoke of true worship to the Samaritan woman in John 4:23-24.

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

We seek to worship God not only in spirit but also in truth. This means that we are not only wanting the correct appeal toward God in worship, but that we are also wanting to worship Him in the ways He desires.

Paul reflects on this part of our worship in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.”

Tillit Teddlie wrote two songs concerning the Lord’s Supper. In 1923 he wrote, “When We Meet In Sweet Communion” and in 1938 he wrote, “Oft We Come Together.” The first song he thought to be too fast and he set out to write a slower song that would help the congregation reflect more solemnly on the meaning of the communion. Both songs are still in use today and both lead the worshipper into a proper frame of mind before the time for communion.

Here is the first verse and chorus of this song.

Oft we come together,

Oft we sing and pray;

Here we bring our offering,

On this holy day.

Help us Lord, Thy love to see,

May we all in truth and spirit worship Thee.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we reflect upon our privilege to worship God with other Christians and may we determine to worship in spirit as well as in truth.

Our thought for the day: “Emotion without devotion is nothing more than commotion.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.