We need to commit to even the hard things to understand. This devotional reading looks at what worshiping in spirit and truth means.
Nuggets
- We get that we can’t see God because He is spirit, but that makes us question if He is real.
- Worshiping God in spirit and truth means we worship God for Who He is.
We are at the last word of the acrostic. (Well, remember we switched the order because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with concept).
What does concept have to do with commitment?
A concept is a conceptualization or theory. In more religious terms, it is a belief or conviction.
That got me thinking about a concept that is difficult to grasp. How can we commit to something difficult?
We know God is a spirit. We can’t see Him, and not just because He is in Heaven and not here.
The kicker is how are we to worship God in spirit and in truth? We can’t suddenly become a spirit. What is God going for when it comes to worship?
But when I got into it, I found a really great sermon that was opening up what spiritual worship really meant. The problem was it was taking us away from commitment.
I think we are going to have an introduction/overview in this devotion. Then we are going to really dig into worship.
So, let’s dig in.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
God as a Spirit
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4: 24 ESV)
We get that we can’t see God because He is spirit, but that makes us question if He is real.
Sometimes, it feels like the only thing we know about being a spirit is that it isn’t flesh and bones so we can’t see it.
But then we question how we can be made in God’s image. We’ve talked about this before.
We are made in God’s image because we have His attributes. As children of God, we are to be more like God than worldview people.
Glossary
To read a devotion in the Finding Our Center series, click on the button below.
Barrass got it in one when he said that we should be grateful for God’s revelations. The only way we can understand Who He is, is when He tells us Himself.
Resource
Duryea made an interesting comment. He wrote, “A spirit can only be known by its operations through a material body. God manifests Himself not to sense, but to experience.”
Resource
I agree and disagree.
Pastor Steve and I were just rewatching The Chosen episodes. We just rewatched the one where Nicodemus and Shmuel had their first knock heads session.
Nicodemus questioned Shmuel about his putting God in a box. Shmuel didn’t think that God could take on a human form.
Yes, God is transcendent and all-seeing. A human form would limit Him.
God’s Word tells us several times where God took human form. Jesus is just one instance. He also took the form of man to talk to Abraham (Gen. 18: 1).
Since many of us are visual learners and social people, God taking human form makes a lot of sense. We can truly experience Him.
But ooo, baby! Duryea really missed the mark when he said a spirit can only be made known through a physical body.
Case in point, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes Himself known quite often, and He is never said to have taken a physical body.
I get where Duryea said that God would be limited by a human form – if He took it permanently. But if He couldn’t, Jesus couldn’t have come to earth, died, and become our Savior.
That would have been a really bad scene!
Duryea explained Jesus as being the revelation of humanity in Christ. He wrote that Jesus was “the image of the invisible God.”
Could Jesus have really been the Savior if He was just an image and not really a Man? Worse, if He was not really God?
Think about it this way. We are an image of God, but we are really, really flawed. If Jesus was just an image of God, would He have been the perfect Sacrifice? I don’t think so.
Jesus had to be 100% God and 100% Man. That was the only way that He would be the appropriate substitute to serve the penalty for our sins.
Even with God being a spirit, we can feel His presence and be introduced to His knowledge.
That makes us want to know God more.
Charnock believed that one reason for the separation from sinful people is impure people can’t approach God is because He is a spirit. (Sorry, I struggled how to word that and am not really sure I got it right.)
Resource
Charnock’s justification for this was that there are several big not words that we associate with God. In the less churchy version, we say God is not ending, not measurable, and not changeable. We say God can be those things only because He is a spirit.
I get the not measurable, but part of me wonders what the unending and unchangeable really has to do with God being pure. We could be all those things in our sinful nature and still not be able to approach God.
If we can’t approach God because we are sinful, the only thing that really has to do with the list is that we die.
I guess we can look at it as, if we have hardened our hearts and are unchangeable in our sinfulness, we can’t approach God. But that is more about being impure than unchangeable.
Usually in these devotions, I facilitate the flow of knowledge from someone else to you. I don’t think I did that here.
But isn’t that what we are to do when we evaluate new information? We have to examine it for its validity. Does it mesh with what we believe is true. If it doesn’t, we need to discount it.
What we can’t do is to buy into the belief that, since there is this confusion, God isn’t real. He is real.
Worshiping in Spirit and Truth
“… and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4: 23-24 ESV)
Worshiping God in spirit and truth means we worship God for Who He is.
Jesus said that we have to worship God in spirit and truth. We’re still physical, so it can’t be that it is spiritual.
I have to think about what Barrass said for a second. He wrote, “Elevation and enlargement in contrast to the Samaritan worship ‘in the mountain’ and to that of the Jews at Jerusalem. No creature was allowed to be offered to God, ‘except such as could run and fly.’”
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My eyes latched onto the Samaritan/Jewish worship because we just rewatched The Chosen episode where Jesus was talking with the Samaritan woman at the well. The Samaritan woman wanted to deflect from her personally by using the bickering that each group thought theirs was the correct way to worship.
To me, what Barrass is saying the correct way to worship is God’s way: elevation and enlargement.
We are to be elevated to God’s level. We are to be sanctified to have His character. Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We can’t focus solely on how we want to worship and what we see as truth. We have to worship God’s way.
The sanctification part is the enlargement part. God wants us to grow once we ABCD. He doesn’t want us to stay as we are.
Watson told us why worship has to be a part of sanctification. He wrote, “It is in acts of religious worship that we acquire just views of ourselves.”
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That touches on God’s desire for us to evaluate ourselves. We have to know where we stand with Him. He can’t be the only one saying, “Elaine, you’re on the right track. Elaine, you just took an exit off the Sanctification Road.”
We have to know that for ourselves. We have to realize what aspect in our walk isn’t up to His standards.
Let’s try something for giggles and grins. How about we try some substitution in John 4: 23-24?
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Christ, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Christ.
Think about it.
- We have to worship in spirit. God is spirit, so we have to worship Him as He is.
- Jesus imitated God, and we are to imitate Jesus. If we are imitating Jesus’ worship of God, and Jesus worshiped God as He is, then we, too, are worshiping God as He is.
- The only way we can worship God is through belief in Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. We can only worship Him when we are in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are in truth. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (Jn. 14: 6 NIV).
- That also means we can’t worship God through the law. God’s laws and commandments do not bring us salvation. They bring us God’s character. In a way, we can say they bring us God Himself.
One way we worship God is to serve Him. Our desire to serve Him has to sincerely come from the heart.
We can’t just give God lip service. That is what got the Israelites in trouble time and time again!
We have to remember that the connecting word is and, not or. We don’t get to do one or the other.
We can’t act like we are interested in the Jewish/Samaritan controversy — or today’s equivalent — because we pick a side and think that makes us religious. We can’t want to do worldly acts of kindness, call them spiritual but leave Jesus out of the picture and think that makes it all good.
What we are talking about here is worship in the heart, soul, and mind — with all our being. We have to be totally submitted to God.
Robertson made a great statement. He wrote, “It is not what a man professes that constitutes worship.”
Resource
We may think we believe in a good cause. If that “cause” isn’t God, it does us no good.
Making the Connections #1
I love what Charnock had to say. He said worship can’t just be “… a picture, an echo, voice, and nothing else.”
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Worship has to be real. Going into our war room and bringing today’s problems with us does us no good. It has to be totally focused on God.
Making the Connections #2
We gain so much when we worship God’s way. We do get elevated to His level, which deepens our gratitude. We are placed in the palm of His hand, which shelters us from the care of this world.
Most importantly, we get ready to spend eternity with Him. We are changed in this life so that we are set to get our new bodies to be able to come into His presence.
How Do We Apply This?
Realize God is searching our hearts to ensure we truly are sincere.
Approach God regularly so that we are not pulled from Him.
Worship God to put the focus on Him, not us.
Blessings are in the obedience, so don’t expect them when we don’t worship Him.
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Father God. We worship You in spirit and in truth. We worship You because we have belief in Jesus. Amen.
What do you think?
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