In Spirit and in Truth

I've always wondered what Jesus meant when He said that true worshipers would worship in spirit and in 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

Yes, He meant, at least in part, that we would no longer worship in any particular place, as we see in verse 21 (we still do at church, but we are not required to worship only at church); but I've always felt that there was something more to this statement.  What is it about spirit and truth that makes a person's worship authentic and meaningful?

As I was trying to fall asleep last night (at 2am, no less), God started throwing all these random revelations at me.  I didn't get to sleep until almost 5 because of all the thoughts God was giving me.  It was a little frustrating because 1) it was late, and I didn't really want to write everything down, but I didn't want to forget, so I ended up writing down all my thoughts, and 2) there were so many thoughts, and so many of them were so vague, that it would be impossible for me to describe all of them, let alone remember them.  So many of revelations God gave me—all the different things in the world that point to God's existence and the fact that He made everything to work according to His will—were just vague pictures that I couldn't think of the words to describe.  It's like when you're trying to describe a person to someone, and you can picture the person clearly in your mind, but you can't come up with the words to put that picture into the mind of the person you're talking to.  The thoughts, the images, would only make sense in my own mind.

But anyway, around 2:30 or 3 in the morning, God decided to answer the question, "What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?"  And actually, He's still answering it for me right now.  But I'll give last night's answer first.

When we worship in spirit, we worship because we want to.  If you look back at verse 24, Jesus says, "God is spirit."  Why does that matter in this context?  Well, let's change the word spirit to love, because we all know the Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:16).  So now verse 24 reads, "God is love, and His worshipers must worship in love and in truth."  So we worship God because we love Him, and worship Him by showing our love for Him; in fact, our worship is the display of our love for Him.  But now I'm talking in circles: Worship is our display of love, and our display of love is worship.  In other words, every act that shows your love for God is an act of worship, whether it be selfless giving or being joyful in trials or comforting the broken; and when you worship God through prayer, through song, through thanksgiving, through a cheerful heart, through showing love for His creations, you are showing both God and the world that you love Him.  Worship is love, and love is worship.  (From that perspective, you can judge your own worship by saying that if you are not worshiping in love, then you are not worshiping at all.  Just something to check in your own heart.)

Now, what does it mean to worship in truth?  Well, just as worshiping in spirit means that we worship because we want to, worshiping in truth means that we worship because God deserves our worship.  God truly is worthy of all praise.  Or, to put that another way, truthfully God is worthy of all praise.  So we worship God in truth, declaring what is true about Him and praising Him for it; we worship in truth because what is true about Him makes Him worship of all praise.  And I'm talking in circles again: We praise God for what is true about Him, because what is true about Him makes Him worthy of praise...  Like I said earlier, I'm basically trying to describe the face of God with mere words that can never portray an image in the same way that I see it.  So I'm sorry if all of this is confusing.
 
If none of that made sense to you, really all you need to take away from this is that we worship God because we want to and because He deserves it.

If you've read my post about the sevenfold Spirit, then you know that my understanding is that the seven spirits are the spirits of Righteousness, Peace, Truth, Love, Wisdom, Power, and Life, which together make up the single Holy Spirit.  So let's take those spirits and apply them to worship.

We worship in (the Spirit of) Righteousness.  As we are sanctified in Christ, and as we live out our calling to be righteous as our heavenly Father is righteous, our worship comes before the throne of God as pleasing incense.

We worship in Peace.  As the Newsboys say in their song Strong Tower, "When the winds come hard against us, You are steadfast, You are true.  When the ground beneath us trembles, Your Foundation never moves!" and "When the enemy surrounds us, closing in as darkness falls, though his armies rage against us, they can never scale these walls!"  Or as King David puts it, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging" (Psalm 46:1-3).  Even when everything seems to be falling apart, even when it seems like the whole world is against us, when we remain steadfast in the peace given to us through Christ, our trust in the Lord pleases Him as acceptable worship.  And when others around us see our peace in hard times, it draw them to worship God as well, whether they realize it or not.  And with peace also comes patience, the willingness to make peace with our enemies, even when it's the most difficult thing to do.

We worship in Truth.  As I said before, we worship God because He deserves it, but also because that's what we were made to do.  We were made to worship something or someone, whether it's God or something of this world.  We have to make a daily decision, a moment-by-moment decision to worship God, because He is the only One worthy of praise.

We worship in Love.  Again, as stated before, we worship because we love God—because we want to.  This is how the thought process for the new details began: As I thought of God being spirit and God being love, the words spirit and love fell into place as the Spirit of Love, which brought to mind the rest of the qualities of the Holy Spirit.

We worship in Wisdom.  We worship God because we know that, if we delight in Him, He will delight in us.  Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding.  To Him belongs eternal praise."  Even here, wisdom and the worship of God are interconnected.  As we worship the Lord, we will gain wisdom, and as we grow in wisdom, we will worship God even more because of the new knowledge we have of Him.  We worship Him because there is no better thing for us, His creations and His children, to do.

We worship in Power.  Three verses come to mind: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Luke 10:19, and Matthew 5:5.  "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong"; "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you";  "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."  The last verse seems to contradictory to power, but it really isn't.  Thanks to the study on the Beatitudes that I went to several weeks ago (the notes for which I still have to finish typing...), I have come to understand meekness as the possession of power but the refusal to use it to elevate oneself, but rather to be humble and lift others up.  So while meekness may seem to be a lack of power, it's really a possession of power and the refusal to use it for one's own benefit.  So we worship in power in this way: by denying any power in and of ourselves and, instead, claiming Christ's power to brake the chains of sin, and by glorifying God by using the power given us to lift up the lowly, among other humble uses of that power.

And, of course, we worship in Life.  We worship with our everyday actions.  We worship with our joy, our livelihood, and our eager willingness to do even the most menial tasks.  As we worship in the other six gifts of the Spirit, and as our daily lives show that worship, our mere existence becomes an act of worship because we habitual bring glory to God, and also because people praise God when they see us joyfully living for Him.

So let's not worship God in the temple we call church or on the mountains we call self-righteousness and self-sufficiency—the lie that we can please God in and of ourselves—but let us worship and live for Him in spirit and in truth, by the power of the Holy Spirit alone.