Worship in Spirit and Truth

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

Jesus tells us the old has gone and the new has now come. Paul puts it this way:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!   
(2 Corinthians 5:17)

No longer bound to worship in the ceremonial way of the Mosaic Law, Jesus now shows us what is essential and necessary: to worship God in both spirit and in truth. The stress is placed on the state of our minds and of our hearts. I am reminded of a time when God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to His people in regard to trusting in their place of worship rather than in Him. At that time in history, the Jews mistakenly thought they were safe to do all sorts of detestable practices because they worshipped in the temple of the Lord–practicing a form of outward religion, with no inward change:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Stand at the gate of the LORD's house and there proclaim this message: "'Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" (Jeremiah 7:1-4)

Jesus tells us we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. We are to depend on God’s Holy Spirit for strength and assistance, worshipping with sincerity of heart and bringing glory to the One we worship because we believe Him to be true. Paul says:

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3)

This true form of worship begins by setting our hearts and minds on things above–earnestly seeking to bring heavenly direction to our earthly duties by fixing our attention on the eternal rather than the temporal. We are told in Colossians:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

Take It to Heart

Simply put, the more we know Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we desire to worship Him. The more we worship Him, the more we desire to serve Him. Our worship of Him mirrors the condition of our hearts. The true worship which God desires from His children works from the inside out. Our worship of Him should result in personal transformation.

---

God's Great Love

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The battle rages over the souls of men and while Satan lures us with lies, God lures us with love. God’s ultimate motivation towards His people is love. This love is not limited to a few choice souls or to a few distinct groups, rather His gift of love is given for the whole world.
“The essential fact of Christianity is that God thought all men worth the sacrifice of His Son.” (William Barclay)
To be sure, God delights in us and it is His desire for this delight to be evident to others as well. The prophet Zephaniah tells us:

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)

The Bible teaches that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Paul tells us:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

God loves us–we must let the truth of these precious words resonate in our weary souls–impress them upon our hearts and our minds. Indeed, God loves us! Even when we were His enemies, He so loved us that He gave us His one and only Son that those who believe in Him will not perish but experience life in abundance both now and forevermore.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:15-16)

“The supreme happiness of life,” Victor Hugo said, “is the conviction that we are loved” ... Unfortunately, many people go through life feeling unloved–and unlovable ... No matter the reason, your feelings aren’t telling you the truth! God loves you, and if you begin to see yourself the way God sees you, your attitudes will begin to change. If He didn’t love you, would Christ have been willing to die for you? But He did! The Bible says, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). God loves you. Hammer that truth into your head and mind every day. It will make all the difference. (Billy Graham)

Take It to Heart

“I was the enemy of God. I was stamping through God’s universe, shaking my fist in His face. And in the very moment when I was shaking my fist in God’s face and tramping through the Creator’s universe, muddying all His streams, that’s when Jesus died for me. And if this is when Jesus died for me, what hope it gives me now! Now, even when I fall, the blood of Jesus is enough. He didn’t save me because I was strong; He saved me when I was weak. He didn’t save me when I was a pretty thing; He saved me when I was a mess. On the basis of this reality, I can have comfort.” (Francis Schaeffer, The Finished Work of Christ)

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

Born Again

In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”          (John 3:3-8)

Baffled by Jesus’ words, Nicodemus shows the weakness of his knowledge. What Christ was speaking of spiritually, Nicodemus understood only in a fleshly manner. Jesus responds with this warning:
“I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

Nicodemus didn’t get it. Corrupted flesh will only give birth to corrupted flesh, no matter how many times fleshly birth takes place. Indeed, corruption is bred in us. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians:

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)
Christ reiterates to Nicodemus the necessity of regeneration for one to enter the kingdom of God. To be born again is to be born from above, not through our own wisdom or power, but by the Spirit. King David tells us we are born sinners:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. (Psalm 51:5-7)

Considering the holiness of God and the depravity of man we must not think the necessity of the demand strange–regeneration is paramount. It is an indispensable necessity.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  (2 Corinthians 5:17)

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)

Take It to Heart
Jesus holds out to all of us the right to become a child of the King. Have you ever wanted to be a princess? Ever wanted to be a prince? Now is your chance! It is not just enough for us to behold and admire Christ’s miracles or to give verbal assent to His mission, we must experience a change within us which, as Jesus says, is the equivalent to a new birth. Birth is the beginning of a new life–to be born again is to begin anew. And to be born from above is to begin anew through the power of the Holy Spirit who equips us live this new life. Otherwise, we would begin anew in our own flesh–striving against the wind–only to fail again. Flesh begets flesh, but the Spirit, hallelujah, begets the spirit.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice. (1 Peter 1:3-6)

Children of God

 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who

received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:10-13)

Fully God and fully man condescending to silently grace the world with His presence, the Creator paid a visit to His creation. Taking our nature upon Himself, Jesus humbly dwelt among us. The fullness of the Godhead in bodily form left a throne room and place of glory and bliss to enter into the misery, melancholy, and mayhem of this world brought on by the poor choice of sin–a world where darkness reigns and where Satan waves his withered hand promising all, yet delivering none. For a time, Jesus surrendered His right of deity to manifest Himself visibly to a fallen world.

Indeed the light came to shine in the darkness. Yet we are told in our verse for today that “the world did not recognize him.” The world and everything in it that He had created! In fact, this world rejected Him. Isaiah prophesied this rejection of Jesus in the book which bears his name:

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:3-4)

And yet, Jesus counters graciously with a loving “all.” “All” is such an inclusive word, is it not? “All” who would receive Jesus; “all” who would believe in Him; “all” who would come to Him. Indeed “all” who would put their faith in Him would become children of the Great I AM! 

What an unspeakable privilege that we, mere flesh and blood, mere dust of the ground, can become children of the King! How lavishly He has loved us! Oh! What great love is this!

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

Take It to Heart

“To those who believed in his name” is far deeper than simply knowing what Jesus is called. The word translated “name” is from the Greek word onoma meaning “title, reputation, fame; implying authority, dignity, used to indicate the character described by the name or identification with the person bearing the name” (Hebrew Greek Key Words Study Bible New Testament Lexical Aids).

Simply put, believers bearing His name are to bear His character. Just as we bear resemblance to our earthly families, we, as children of God, are to bear resemblance to our heavenly Father. Paul gives us a glimmer of what this should look like in his letter to the Colossians:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.

But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.(Colossians 3:5-14)

Embracing the Light

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5)

Life effervescent; life overflowing; the vital principle animating–enlivening, inspiring, encouraging, giving forth ardor–burning passion, enthusiasm and zeal–all found within our Jesus–all held out to those who choose to follow after Him. Not too dissimilar to King David’s plea in Psalm 34, we find in verse four of our verses for today the Apostle John dangling this carrot before our eyes in his great desire for us to trust in Jesus, the Lover of our souls–both for God’s glory and for our good. King David encourages us as follows:

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.       (Psalm 34:8)

Those who belong to Jesus are offered this abundant life and are given His light within to shine forth in the darkness to a lost and needy world. Jesus transforms us from the inside out, little by little, until we “shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life”          (Philippians 2:15-16).

Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) and “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

The false shepherd, the deceiver of men, the thief and killer of souls comes only to utterly destroy, decimate, demolish, and ravage. Conversely, Jesus comes to give us life and to satisfy us with His pleasing and perfect will. It is a lie from the pit of hell that Jesus is holding out on us; that He wants to make us miserable and squirm and suffer needlessly; that His way for us is somehow boring, unfulfilling, and unsatisfying compared to that to which the world entices us with our eyes.

Have you ever followed the world, or self, or even Satan, and seen the death that comes forth from that pursuit? The death of a relationship, the death of trust, the death of character, the death of love–and on and on it goes. If we would only play out our poor choices and actions to the end result and the consequences, I doubt seriously very many of us would continue down that path.

“We judge things by their present appearance; but the Lord sees them in their consequences. If we could do the same we would be perfectly of His mind; but since we can’t, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is regarded as one of His heaviest judgments when He gives any person up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk according to their own wisdom.” (John Newton)

Defeated Christians are rampant. Defeated Christians do not shed much light. Satan high fives defeated Christians who are called to be the light of the world–a city on a hill that cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14)–yet remain faintly flickering. I love the quote given to D. L. Moody by Henry Varley: “The world has yet to see what God can do through a man or a woman who is fully devoted to Him.”


Take It to Heart

A fully devoted follower of Jesus will shed much light for their King. Paul gives us insightful help in Romans regarding the “how-to” of defending ourselves against Satan’s attacks and against conforming ourselves to this world allowing our lights to shine forth.

The secret lies in the daily renewing of our minds through the Word of God:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

Each one of us is to be a light for Jesus–shining His light to those who are in darkness. As Billy Graham once said, “The Christian should stand out like a sparkling diamond.”

Jesus Is God!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1-2)

Honestly, do you think John could be any clearer? Jesus was in the beginning! He was with God; He was (is) God; He was with God in the beginning. 

In a battle for truth to be known in the hearts and minds of his readers, John starts the onset of his gospel by stating clearly the deity of Jesus Christ. Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who begin their books by focusing on Jesus as a man through birth and his baptism, John begins his unique gospel with a discussion of the eternal existence of Jesus. John’s goal, stated in John 20:30-31, is to clearly present the signs and wonders performed by Jesus in order that those reading it would believe that He is indeed the Christ, the Son of God.

Jesus, “the Word”

John begins by referring to Jesus as “the Word.” The Jews used this term to refer to God–they taught the 

'Word of God” was the same with God. Interestingly, the Greeks used the term “Logos”–translated here “Word”–in reference to the governing power behind all things. John commences by stating Jesus’ existence in the beginning–Jesus existed not only before His incarnation but before all time. He was, and is, and is to come.

Indeed, Jesus tells us the same thing about himself in these verses from Revelation:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22:13)

Jesus, “the I AM”

The Word was with God not from God–He was as ever with God. Jesus also gives us information in scripture confirming His eternal existence:

“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:57-59)

“I AM” was the title of deity to the Jewish people. The Jews knew very well that in stating this Jesus was equating Himself with God, hence their desire to stone Him. “I AM” was also the name God used to identify Himself to Moses in Exodus:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)

In quoting King David from Psalm 110, Jesus plainly tells the Pharisees in Matthew:

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.'”

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:41-46)

Take It to Heart

Is it not amazing that the great “I AM”, the One “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” would choose to remove His cloak of glory to don the mere flesh of humanity–humbling Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross–in order to provide a way for us to be reconciled to God? What great love is this? If He went to such lengths of love to save us, how much more to keep us in this great love?

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)