APRIL MEMORY VERSE
“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.”
John 4:23-24
The Gospel of John gives us valuable insight into worship. It tells us we are all creatures made in the image of God and that our Creator designed us to worship Him in spirit and truth. We also come to understand that to worship is to assign worth or value to God.
In this passage, Jesus has a conversation about worship with a Samaritan woman at a well in the town of Sychar. At that time, Samaritans worshipped God at Mount Gerizim, while the Jews worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus intentionally describes two things about proper worship, the kind of worship God wants from His people. He explains that worship that pleases God is not about the place but about offering it in spirit and truth. It seems the truth portion of worship is not difficult to understand. Truthful worship precludes idolatrous forms of worship which substitutes something in place of the true God.
Worshiping “in spirit” is more challenging to interpret. Though translations differ on this passage, the Bible speaks of the “spirit” in two distinct ways. The most frequent reference is to the Holy Spirit, but Scripture also speaks of a person’s spirit. In His conversation with the woman at the well, it seemed Jesus was talking about soulful worship, which flows from a person’s heart. God desires that we worship Him from the deep core of our being that no one else can see or measure because it is unique to each person.
John Calvin was passionate about reformation and focused on worship because he knew our proclivity to idolatry was the greatest enemy to the health of God’s people. Calvin pursued offering pure worship to God, something we seem to have lost today. We often tend to be more interested in entertainment than worshiping in spirit and truth. Every Christian is a worshiper, and we must recognize our duty to worship Almighty God in public and private. To that end, we need to know what kind of worship pleases Him. Without this knowledge, our attempts to worship will fall short of His glory.
Recall the famous altar Paul found in Athens inscribed “to an unknown god.” As Christians, we must not resemble agnostic Athenians; instead, let us love the Lord our God with all our minds and worship Him in spirit and truth.
by Dale Hayden
