A test of our zeal

Now that we are forced to stay home due to an outbreak, I've seen a few people asking questions along these lines: What is the worth of the instituted church? Unfortunately some don't understand the implications of what they are asking and how drastically the earth may be shifting under our feet at this very moment. 

Answering this question will be a culling for Christians. If we already understand how fundamental the instituted church is to our kingdom identity, then this time of "distance" will induce fervent yearnings to be gathered and physically numbered with fellow saints. Indeed, zeal for God's house is consuming us at this very moment. If we don't understand or apprehend the church, then this time is a two-edged sword: It will normalize and seal our habit of neglecting God's house and the means of grace, leading to greater working ignorance, selfishness, and idolatry. However, it may be that some will have their eyes opened and they will begin to treasure what they have lost.

We've all heard the numbers -- Church attendance is down, generation over generation. Each successive decade features an even steeper drop than the last.
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An observed vanity

There are processes at work in your body right now that will, in time, claim your life. If the only purpose you have is to use your breath to achieve some fleeting success or pleasure, how empty that success will be when your chest rises and falls for the last time on this earth.

This truth, when acknowledged, leads inexorably to either hope or despair, with nothing in between. It is unsurprising that when the least blind among the blind realize how little control they have over their destiny, they often choose to end their own lives as both an act of final rebellion and a futile exercise in control. They can’t abide the thought of having terms dictated to them by death, so they choose the “best” death they can dream up — never dreaming, as they should, that despair is completely unnecessary, given we were created to bear God’s image and to bring glory to him; that, in Christ, each and every one of our limited supply of breaths are sanctified to bring glory to Him; that, in Christ, all of the sting and pain of death has itself become empty and vain.