One prerequisite is often overlooked if you consider all the acts in a worship service. To assemble is the first liturgical act. The fact that we gather together to hear God's word and act out our part in the liturgy of God is a gift from God. The term “liturgy” means the work of the people. The people must be assembled for God to extend the invitation to come and worship and bow down before Him.
To be with God’s people on the Lord’s Day gathering is to participate in something greater than yourself. You do not assemble to act passively but to move towards the holy.
When we gather, we align ourselves to specific actions as a body. For example, we raise our hands together, we hear the word of God together, we confess together, we greet one another together, and we eat and drink as one. There is no room for self-isolated assembly; there is no room for individualized piety. The assembly of God is not a meeting in your prayer closet but in heaven's courts with angels and archangels.
But all of this requires the assembly to come together. So before we hear the call to worship, we have already fulfilled that first liturgical act: that of the assembling of ourselves. The reason Hebrews says that we are not to forsake this assembly is that when we are not here, we are failing to take part in this gospel renewal called worship.
To assemble is the first prerequisite for a people willing to walk to take every thought captive and to give our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. Therefore, we gather to worship the God, who is Three and One. Let us prepare our hearts.