Bible Verse of the Day Saturday June 24th ,2023

John 4:23-24 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

The notion that we must worship God in Spirit and truth stems from Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well (John 4:6-30). During the conversation, she had with Jesus, the woman at the well was talking about places of Worship. She told Jesus that the Jews worshiped at Jerusalem and the Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim. Jesus had just told her about her entire life, the fact she had been married multiple times, and the man she lived with now was not her husband. She was attempting to divert Jesus' attention away from her personal life and to places of Worship. However, Jesus was having none of it, His lesson concerned true Worship, and she would not divert Jesus from that subject. Jesus quickly got to the heat of the matter, that the time had come that we would worship God in "Spirit and truth." 

 

The specific lesson that Jesus was telling the "woman at the well" and, by extension, all people down through the ages was our worship is not dependent on any physical location. We are to worship God in spirit and truth, regardless of physical location. True proper Worship of God is a gift. Because God is a spirit and holy, we cannot approach Him unless we have the indwelling and blessings of the Holy Spirit. We receive the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit when we completely surrender ourselves, body, spirit, mind, and soul to Christ Jesus and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Genuine worship comes from within and involves our hearts and spirit. There are times that we worship together in ceremonial Worship. However, it is centered on a place and time and cannot hold a candle to our Worship, which comes directly from our hearts and spirit. Soul and spirit worship diverge from each other. Our souls appreciate the beautiful harmony from the choir, and the music merits the ability of the one speaking to us to bring the Word of God in verbal form. On the other hand, spirit worship is an individual thing where we take our needs to God, who leads us according to the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. God speaks to all people the similarly, via His Spirit and Holy Word. 

 

There was an 18th century Pastor and teacher named Jonathan Edwards that summed up the idea of our Worship in Spirit and Truth. He wrote: "I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections [emotions] of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but the truth." 

 

Pastor Edwards acknowledged that truth and only truth could appropriately influence emotions in a way that brings honor to God. The truth of God, being of infinite treasure, is worthy of endless fervency. May we all praise God for the indwelling of His Holy Spirit and ask Him to accept the Worship of our hearts and spirits and may all we do bring honor and glory to the name above all names, Christ Jesus.