Praying Friends,
Thank you for seeking God’s face in prayer each Wednesday for the prodigals and for revival.
Our praying is an act of worship with our chief interest being the glory of God.
While talking to the Samaritan woman by the well at Sychar, the Lord Jesus revealed to her the great desire of His Father’s heart. His Father is seeking worshippers — true worshippers! “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (Jn. 4:23).
Our Father and God is looking for true worshippers. Amazingly, the nameless woman in John four, was just that — a true worshipper. Only minutes earlier she was in her sins, destitute of purpose, lonely, and scared. Then, through wondrous grace, through Christ Himself, she became a worshipper of the living God.
Taking a closer look at this statement of Jesus reveals a few things about true worshippers.
True worshippers honor the Father. This is a slight shift from what God’s people in the past were accustomed to. Their worship was directed to the LORD their God. Here Jesus was saying that we worship the Father. The person is the same, but the relationship is different.
The Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, interpreted “LORD,” reveals God as the ever-existing, ever-present, promise-keeping One, whereas Father infers closeness, tenderness, care, attentiveness, and intimacy. We worship our heavenly Father. How very wonderful!
True worshippers worship in spirit and in truth. This could mean a number of things. It may mean, as the NIV puts it, “in the Spirit and in Truth” meaning in the Holy Spirit and through divine revelation. Or, closely linked, this may be a hendiadys, where two nouns separated by ‘and’ become conjoined to be a noun and a modifier, meaning — In the Spirit of truth. (How did you like the English lesson?) We worship the Father through the agent of the Spirit of truth.
The other possibility that seems consistent with the passage is that Jesus was referring to the spirit realm in true sincerity. Whether Jew, Samaritan, Canadian, American, or any other nationality, our worship is not limited to any specific location.
We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We live in the presence of our God. We worship twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year! What a marvelous privilege!
True worshippers know and love Jesus. This was the experience of the woman from Samaria. When she found out who Jesus truly was, her resistance faded away, and she embraced Him fully. She then ran to the city and announced, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (Jn. 4:29).
Jesus should be the object, the focus, and the center of our worship. When He has first place in our hearts, when He is the motive behind our actions, and when He is the one being lifted above everything else, then the Father is being worshiped.
In his book, Life with a Capital L, Matt Heard says, “Worship is simply the act of attributing elevated worth to something or someone and demonstrating it through the devotion of my energy, resources, focus, time, and anticipation.”
May we seek to give Him that elevated place in our lives. May we be diligent not to allow other things, pursuits, or people to occupy the one place, the first place that He rightfully deserves.
Love in Christ,
Bryan and Rachel
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