Spirit and Truth – Being a Pilgrim

“Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.””
John 4:21-24 NLT

So we have a situation where the Jews maintained that the place to worship God was in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim. One more source of conflict fuelling the animosity between them. But Jesus cut through all of that with the statement that “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth”, and not just in a geographical location. He elevated the whole basis of worship to a new level based on the relationship between the worshipper and God.

When Jesus came to Planet Earth, He levelled the ground giving all people everywhere the opportunity to have a personal relationship with Him. His substitutionary death at Calvary fulfilled what he said to Nicodemus in John 3:16-17, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him”. Later in John 14:6, we read, “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me”. And Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:18, “Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us”.

Worship is that relational experience between God and man where our hearts are passionately responding to our Heavenly Father. We praise Him, with grateful hearts, proclaiming all that He has done for us. We prostrate ourselves before Him, connecting spirit to Spirit, overwhelmed in our love of Jesus. But the “truth” bit means that we must know our God, and not just an image of what we think He might be in our minds. Knowing God takes a lifetime. Reading the Word. Praying. Developing a relationship with Him day by day. Many people develop a distorted picture of God based on their experiences with their own natural fathers. So some view God as a stern policeman with a big stick ready to beat them when they step out of line. Others view Him as a Father Christmas figure, just there to hand out gifts when they need them. But a truthful view of God can only be found in the Bible, through prayer to Him, and from the teachings of trusted pastors, teachers and apostles.

Note that our worship of God is independent of our circumstances. Some Christians I know find that in difficult times they cannot worship God, as though in some way they are blaming Him for their troubles. Such believers would do well to read the book of Habakkuk, which ends, “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Nothing was going to stop that man from worshipping God because he saw beyond the circumstances in his trust of his Father in Heaven.

We pilgrims worship God at every opportunity in “spirit and truth”. There is no other way.

Father God. Once again we fall on our knees before You in worship. You are the King of kings and the Lord of all lords. Amen.

“For Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’ (to bring Christ down to earth). And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead?’ (to bring Christ back to life again).””
Romans 10:5-7 NLT

Paul continues with his apparent obsession with the Law. He quotes a bit of Leviticus 18 , thought to have been written by Moses, – “You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the Lord your God. If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them. I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:4-5). There is no middle way for the Law-followers. All or nothing. To be made righteous through obeying the Law, all God’s “decrees” and “regulations” had to be followed. The Law’s content, as originally given by God through Moses, wasn’t difficult. Much of it was common sense. So it should have been easy to understand. But the trouble is that human beings start to make things difficult. The Rabbis, the Jewish leaders, started to introduce additional rules and regulations, and expanded on what God had said in the original Mosaic Jewish Law books. This made the Law more difficult to follow, and the intent of the Law, in terms of reconciling a person to God, was lost.

But before we pilgrims start to take the moral high ground and say that we would never get caught in such a trap, we need to look at our denominational liturgies and see how much they have strayed from the simplicity of the Gospel. For example, we have introduced prayer books, and a routine of worship by rote. The liturgy will have us bobbing up and down, and uttering pre-scripted responses and prayers, all the same, and repeated week after week. Before we know it we have replaced the spontaneity of relational worship to God with something that avoids us having to be engaged with the process. We sing the songs and hymns, enjoying the melodies, but not thinking about what we are singing. We sing songs with words like, “I will worship You with all of my heart (mind, strength)”. Really? Often our minds instead will be dwelling on yesterday’s football, or the meat in the oven. Or am I being too cynical?

Thankfully, God knows our feebleness. Our inability to keep our sin-soaked minds always focused on Him. Of course, we know how wonderful He is. We thank Him that His grace is unlimited. And we know that one day we will be amongst a great crowd of totally uninhibited worshippers. We read in Revelation 19:1, “After this, I heard what sounded like a vast crowd in heaven shouting, “Praise the Lord! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God”. What a time that will be! At long last we will be freed from the chains of humanity, able to worship God in the way that He deserves. But back to Planet Earth – by introducing spontaneity into our worship and prayers we get a brief glimpse of the wonders of Heaven. God doesn’t want us to be disengaged and so busy that we have no time for Him. Perhaps we need to look at our diaries and separate the essential from the indulgent. The last thing the enemy wants is for us to be close to our Maker. So he will load us up with busy-ness to keep us from true worship.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, as recorded in John 4:23, “But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way”. God’s search hasn’t yet ended. He is always looking for faithful worshipers. Join me in reaching out to Him today, praying that we will indeed connect with our wonderful God in the way He desires.

Father God. You desire our worship, not because it is something You need but because it does something within us. Spirit to spirit we worship You today. Amen.