I'm saved; why can't I attend church online and please God?  Hebrews 10:19-22  1. Drawing Near Takes Discipline We have the boldness to enter the holiest place because Jesus has opened a new and living way for us. He is our great priest who encourages us to enter God’s presence.  Four conditions for approaching God are given. We are to come with a sincere heart. This calls for genuine devotion rather than hypocrisy. We are to come with full assurance of faith. This demands confidence that God has given us full access to his presence through Christ alone.  We must have our hearts sprinkled … from a guilty conscience. This demands constant confession of our sins and openness to God.  We are to have our bodies washed with pure water. (Baptism) We are not made to grow alone; we are made to grow with accountability. This is why many companies that went to remote work during the pandemic are returning to work, but the world is revolting because we hate accountability. If you want to stay the same, being alone is the best place to be; if you want to grow, being around people who push you and make you better is what will do it. Church is a place where people push us to be better. The church hurt movement is growing because we want all of the accommodations of the church without any accountability. Hebrews 10:23-25  2. Meeting Together Is In-Person The second exhortation appeals to us to maintain spiritual consistency. We are urged to hold firmly to the hope we profess. The third exhortation calls us to be responsible to one another. As Christians, we have a corporate responsibility. We are called to care about The Body of Christ just as much as our own Spiritual well-being. Followers of Christ must meet together to spur other believers forward in the Christian life. Regular fellowship with believers is an essential ingredient in Christian growth.  Regularly coming together with other believers for worship, Christian companionship, and Biblical instruction will provide the necessary encouragement to help us hold firmly to our faith in Christ. The people of Hebrews faced that the day of Christ’s return was coming near, and the world around them was becoming increasingly evil. They needed one another’s encouragement to get through it. You need church at least once weekly to get through this life and not be discouraged. There is nothing wrong with being online, but you get all the information without encouragement. Do I really have to come to church and church activities to get into Heaven? I would say that you are asking the wrong question. Is the end goal heaven, or do we do things for the Lord out of the abundance of what he has done for us? Hebrews 10:26-29  3. We Are Called To A Changed Life Neglecting to fellowship with believers can lead to rejecting Christ’s sacrifice for sin. Read that again. The sin against which these believers were warned involved deliberately rejecting the gospel's truth. To keep on sinning deliberately after we have received the knowledge of the truth is:  to be guilty of trampling on Jesus Christ, which means treating him with contempt.  to behave as if the blood of Christ—his sacrifice for us—is unworthy of our loyalty.  to insult and rebel against the Holy Spirit, who brings God’s favor, love, and power to our lives. Do we get how arrogant it is of us to think that we deserve to be saved without doing what God has called us to do? But that is us as Americans; we deserve everything to be handed to us without any work. Our Christian walk must be more about what we can give than receive, or we may have missed the point. What are our transformational moments? Is God your number 1? Do your plans get in the way of your church attendance, or does church attendance get in the way of your plans? Are you expecting others to do the work that you are called to do?