Everyone who attends church has heard, and maybe even used, some excuse as to why worship couldn’t be attended. From the mysterious illness that strikes at 10 on Sunday morning but which clears up by noon so that the mall can be visited, to the sudden visitor who just dropped in as they were “leaving”; to the tiredness from a late Saturday night out; to simple laziness. And anything and everything in between, including, but not limited to, bad preaching, boring sunday school lessons, and too many other things to do.
But the real reason, the 100% always accurate reason, the authentic truth of the matter is that people stay home from worship because they don’t want to have to mend their ways or change their lives. They know, after all, that if they KNOW what God wants them to do, they will have no excuse for not doing it. So, they stay home on Sunday or they trot home after sunday school so that they can avoid the inevitable claim of God on their lives.
They don’t stay home because something more important has come up- because there is nothing more important than God. They stay home because they are afraid that God may want something of them. Namely, them.
