Ransack the Heart

Throughout his sermons, Jeremiah Burroughs continues to emphasize the point that there must be a "ransacking" of every corner of our heart in preparation for worshiping God, whether that worship be prayer, singing, communion, etc. It seems quite easy to not be prepared when we don't consider the attributes of God. Many will say and acknowledge that God is eternal, but don't really grasp what that means. I've been guilty of that, and to certain extent, we can't fully understand something infinite with finite minds, but we can understand certain implications. One such implication is that God is not bound by time and that the present good is not His primary concern, but the eternal good is. Our "hearts must be taken off from all temporal good things and set upon that eternal good" (Burroughs, pg. 113). The story of Isaiah's vision in Isaiah chapter 6 always paints a vivid and powerful picture of what it means to come into God's presence. R.C. Sproul does a good job of describing Isaiah's mortality in the presence of an immortal/eternal God when he says this, "As long as Isaiah could compare himself to other mortals, he was able to sustain a lofty opinion of his own character. The instant he measured himself by the ultimate standard, he was destroyed morally--and spiritually annihilated. He was undone. He came apart. His sense of integrity collapsed (The Holiness of God, pg. 36)." There is definitely a greater gravity to the worship of God than is commonly perceived today. Most of that seems to be due to a lack of preparation and understanding of the attributes of God. One question that I have is... Is there a responsibility of the church to help its congregation prepare for worship or is it solely individual? If so, what does that corporate preparation look like? I know some churches have a call to worship and read scripture, but many don't.