Don't Come In to God's Presence. Be in God's Presence.

 

Going to "worship service" was the way of the old covenant.

 

In the old covenant, God dwelt in his Holy Temple. To serve him, or to prostrate before ("worship") him, you went to where God was; you went into the temple. See Psalm 100:4:

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, and bless his name.

When you walked through the gate of the temple, you were in the presence of God, so you hit the dirt, face-down, to prostrate before ("worship") him.

 

But things are different in the new covenant. God no longer dwells in a house made by human hands, where we go to prostrate before him, nor does he need any human hands to serve him.

 

Instead of going to bow before him in this temple on this mountain or in that church building on that hill, we bow before him in spirit, because that's where he now dwells, in the temple of our bodies. He left the brick-and-mortar temple, to take up residence in his new temple, made of living stones; he dwells in his people now.

 

We no longer appear before him three times a year, at special worship services, or once a week, at special worship services. That's old testament thinking.

 

In the 300s A.D. the Catholics started building new brick-and-mortar "temples", and reintroduced to the church the old covenant mentality of "coming into the Holy Place to worship God". We inherited that old covenant thinking from the Catholics, and now defend it as if it is new covenant thinking.

 

But in the new covenant, we are now in God's presence continually; we no longer "enter into his courts" to prostrate before him as was done in the old covenant. We should continually be prostrate before him, in spirit, because we are continually before him.