By minimizing God’s work in the Church, we often disregard His invitations.
If you agree to go to lunch at someone’s house, and they prepare the place and the meal, you don’t cancel unless something important comes up. If you value that person and stand by your own word, you don’t bag out, especially if you know they went to great effort to prepare.
Evangelicals oddly feel free to skip God’s invitations, really His summons to confess, fellowship, worship and commune. I’ve mentioned before how the command to examine yourself in 1 Corinthians 11 regards behavior at the Supper. “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (v28).
Thomas Watson said these “words are not only permissive, but authoritative. As if a king should say, Let it be enacted.” If someone is not in overt sin at the Supper, then let him eat the bread and drink the cup. God went to great pains to set this table. The anger of the One who is consuming fire fell on the Son in order to bring you here, fully atoned for, to feast in fellowship with Him.
Come as His guest.