{"id":68,"date":"2010-02-07T05:47:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T12:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.masterofthehouse.org\/?p=68"},"modified":"2017-01-08T15:27:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T22:27:55","slug":"worship-in-spirit-and-in-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/considerations\/worship-in-spirit-and-in-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship in Spirit and in Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Then He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.\u00a0 And Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus upon the well. It was about the sixth hour.<\/span>
\n \u00a0A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me to drink.\u00a0 (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)\u00a0 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews do not associate with Samaritans.\u00a0 Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.<\/span>
\n “The woman said to Him, Sir, you have no vessel, and the well is deep. From where then do you have that living water?\u00a0 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his children and his cattle?\u00a0 Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again,\u00a0 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.<\/span>
\n “The woman said to Him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.\u00a0 Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here.\u00a0 The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have well said, I have no husband\u00a0 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. In that you spoke truly.<\/span>
\n “The woman said to Him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.\u00a0 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.\u00a0 Jesus said to her, Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you shall neither worship the Father in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem.\u00a0 You worship what you do not know, we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.\u00a0 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.\u00a0 God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”<\/span><\/em>
\n John 4:5-24 MKJV<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I’ve read this passage many times and always felt I grasped the last verse, until recently.\u00a0 I’ve come to realize that worship in truth was more basic, and much more personal, than I had first considered.\u00a0 What I noticed in this passage was that this woman from Samaria was no different than me.\u00a0 Jesus told her about the living water that He would give those who asked, so she asked.\u00a0 But to put her request into perspective, I considered a different metaphor for their exchange:<\/p>\n

If Christ had sat by a lottery booth instead of the well, and when the woman approached to get her quick-pick He said, “Whover buys these tickets will need to buy again, but the ticket I have is a jackpot winner for life.”\u00a0 Her response (and mine) would be, “Give me this ticket so I have sufficient money to pay for the rent, groceries, clothing and not need to go back to the construction site to continue earning a paycheque for those things.”<\/p>\n

The response was for personal gain … not yet truth. (“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.<\/span>“<\/em> Mat 6:33)<\/p>\n

How often I have prayed to God for his living water, so I wouldn’t thirst or have to go back to the well.\u00a0 I wasn’t seeking my Provider, or relationship with Him.\u00a0 I was seeking my independence … not yet truth.<\/p>\n

But thank God, Jesus doesn’t give up on us: “Go, call your husband”<\/em>.
\n He brings us to truth: “I have no husband”<\/em>.
\n And accepts us where we are at: “In that you spoke truly”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-collector.\u00a0 The Pharisee stood and prayed within himself in this way: God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.\u00a0 I fast twice on the Sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess.\u00a0 And standing afar off, the tax-collector would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but struck on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner!\u00a0 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.”
\n <\/em>Luk 18:10-14a MKJV<\/span><\/p>\n

Many, many, many times I’ve had to conjure up a proper attitude before morning prayer.\u00a0 It didn’t seem right to come before God when I was mad at a few unwashed dishes on the counter from the night before, or when my mind was overwhelmingly distracted with the details of a work project, or when irritation at a neighbour seemed too much like unforgiveness as I entertained biting retorts in my imaginations.\u00a0 I had to summon up my inner “Pharisee” before coming into His presence.<\/p>\n

“Go, call your husband”<\/em> – Okay.
\n “How do you feel about those dishes?”<\/em> – I’m fine
\n “What has you so distracted?”<\/em> – Nothing
\n “What’s up with your neighbour?”<\/em> – … Lord, I’m ticked!<\/p>\n

“In that you spoke truly”<\/em><\/p>\n

To worship God in spirit and truth does not just require the truth of His Word – it also requires the truth of ourselves.\u00a0 Honesty about ourselves before our Creator.\u00a0 Lord, I’m angry, I’m afraid, I’m anxious … and I come before you confessing this.\u00a0 I had an excellent prayer ready to go, but then I dropped the cat’s water dish and wasted so much time cleaning up after\u00a0my clumsiness!\u00a0 I can’t pretend anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.<\/span>“<\/em><\/p>\n

I come before you.\u00a0 Not like I’d want to be, but as I am.\u00a0 ” God be merciful to me a sinner!”<\/em><\/p>\n

“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Then He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.\u00a0 And Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus upon the well. It was about the sixth hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[46,47,48,49,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-68","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-considerations","7":"tag-gain","8":"tag-spirit","9":"tag-thirst","10":"tag-truth","11":"tag-water","12":"entry","13":"override"},"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Master of the House","author_link":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/author\/master-of-the-house\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masterofthehouse.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}