Friday Worship: In Spirit And In Truth

Sep 6, 2024

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 4:23-24 NLT

We are in a series on worship. About recognizing that the Church is not peripheral to the world, that the world is peripheral to the Church. Jesus at the center of it all. About what worship looks like from that Worldview. About offering the totality of our lives as an act of worship to a loving, majestic, and faithful God.

In the passage above, Jesus is speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well. He is answering her question about where to worship. He reveals that He is the Messiah (“the time is coming, indeed it is here now”). And that with His coming, it is no longer where to worship, but how. Those who worship God are to worship Him in spirit and truth.

Application: An active effort to close the gap between one’s heart and the God it adores is worship at its best. So, what does worship in spirit and truth mean?

Worshiping in spirit meant that worship of God would no longer be tied or connected to a physical location (the Temple). But that with the coming of Jesus Christ and with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can worship and have communion with God, Spirit to Spirit. The worship we offer must come from an authentic faith, from the depths of our souls, from the very cores of our being. We are to come to Him with hearts filled with awe, reverence, and adoration.

To worship in truth means that our worship must conform to the Word of God. It must be informed by who God is and what He is like. And by the full revelation now given through the coming of Jesus Christ and of the Gospel and its plan of salvation.

Worship, then, is to be from the heart. Authentic, sincere, quickened by our emotions, and motivated by our love for God and gratitude for all He is and has done. Worship exalts God alone because He alone is worthy. It is treasuring God and longing for His presence. We worship in spirit and truth as we walk in fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit.

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