John 4:23-24

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.²⁴ God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,   What a sweet thing to be released to live only according to the testimony of the Living God….  I long for this and cry out for this with all my being.   This verse used to be one that caused me grief as for me worship felt like an act of utter hypocrisy as I tried to muster from within my carnal self and praise worthy of the King… I found my lips moving and my heart far removed, caught up in brief moments of true worship but mostly dissatisfied with my unworthy and defiled offering.    The Lord has been working in my heart about many things since then….

Oh the sweet revelation that I am the righteousness of God before the Lord thanks to the blood of Christ, that I am Holy and blameless without a single fault before the Creator of the universe even now….  This insight changed everything (Do check out Colossians 1:10-29 to see and read these precious words for yourselves).    It stirred a revelation I had not pondered on or followed through fully..   There is a very different reality that exists that is very real and that is very powerful.   That part of me, my spirit, is seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus right now, a part of my being that is experiencing and knowing God at a level, intimacy and perfection, right now.  Awesome… and it just keeps sinking in to greater and greater levels.

So what does worshipping God in spirit and in truth actually mean?   Praise God that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all understanding..   for the moment, here is my current take.

In spirit…  if we approach God based on the reality of what our spirit is living and experiencing right now…  perfection, wholeness, pure worship, holy and blameless, seated in heavenly places with Christ right now…   well, we are worshipping from an entirely different perspective than if I consider things from my soul and body perspective….  In fact, allowing our body and soul to have a vote on these things, will almost always lead us away from both the spirit and the truth.

In truth… there is only one Truth, and He is Christ and He reveals Himself to us through the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.   The revelation of both of these things comes from studying, learning, hearing, understanding and believing what the Bible says.    It is the perfect and only means of knowing and entering into this place…

To sum up, I think worshipping Him in spirit and truth is to worship him according to reality of what He has already accomplished and exists already, right now, in heavenly places…   essentially what the spirit part of us is partaking in right now.   And, according to what the Bible reveals about how marvelous, perfect, awesome, loving, amazing (words cannot possible express well enough) the goodness of God.     What is happening at a soul and body level is still affected by the things of this world, but when we worship in spirit and truth, we are transcending the worldly and fleshly realities and entering to the very presence of God.

My next post about submit to God and resisting the Devil is a direct application of this in many ways…