by Esther Thomas
John 4:23-34 “23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
As a worship leader this is a passage I often quote in my prayers in the pre-worship-practice devotions I love to do with the worship team before practices, to centre our hearts on God before we practice.
I also love the way the Passion translation puts it in the same chapter “Your people don’t really know the one they worship” and goes on to say “From now on, worshipping the Father will not be a matter of the right place but with a right heart. For God is Spirit, and He longs to have sincere worshipers who adore Him in the realm of spirit & truth”.
Growing up I always had an intimate relationship with God, He was always so real & tangible to me, I spoke to him every day and He spoke to my heart constantly. But one day as a teenager, the deep revelation of God’s grace fully sank in and all I could do was fall on my face before God weeping and praising Him and I didn’t get up for 2 days (even though I was meant to go to school). Since then, I have had quite a lot of these moments, and they have often come when i’m worshipping God.
When the revelation and awe of who God is, and what a privilege it is to be able to stand in His presence and worship him sinks in, worship looks different. It sounds different. It is the purest form of worshiping in Spirit and in truth. Knowing that the creator of the universe, created me, sees me, knows me, loves me enough to send His son to die for me and freely invites me to come into His presence. Wow! What a privilege and incredible reality that is.
Coming together to sing some nice songs about God saving us, is almost pointless if we don’t know the true why behind what. If you’ve grown up in the church, it can be easy to fall into just “doing church” and ticking off Christian/moral boxes. We’ve all done this i’m sure. Coming to church, singing some songs (sometimes begrudgingly because we don’t really want to but it’s the ‘Christian’ thing to do), listening to a sermon while thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch etc. This is dangerous territory. Thinking we are being morally good because we’re coming to church, standing & singing the songs when we’re told to stand and sing, and listening to a 20–40min sermon. And feeling like we’re ticking all the right boxes of Christianity.
I believe God’s heart for us is for us to SEEK Him and WORSHIP Him with EVERYTHING we are.
Imagine Jesus is standing in front of you and the reality of His grace and love is surrounding you, what would you do? For me I feel like there would be a lot of awe & overwhelm, and I couldn’t help but fall down and praise Him for who He is and what He’s done for me. In my opinion, this is what true worship should look like. It should look like genuine awe, and wonder, and praise, and sometimes overwhelm of the reality of who we are worshipping. It should look like us praising God with our whole hearts and whole selves, it should look like a genuine seeking to know more of Him and to be more like Him. It should look like genuine repentance, with a knowing like in Romans “oh wretched man that I am” and our need for God. It is all about Him.
This can take many forms. This can look like singing a song of praise with my whole heart and might, this can look like being on your knees or face before God seeking him, this can look like weeping in repentance or revelation. This can occur at home in individual worship or in corporate worship, this can occur through singing a hymn that holds a special place in your heart or this can occur through a spontaneous word that is sung or spoken either as a moment of ministry or of corporate declaration, this can occur through a time of prayer or scripture reading, this can occur during the preaching of God’s word.
There isn’t a box for how God works and moves in his people, you only have to ready the New Testament to see that! At times we can become too comfortable with things being done a certain way or sounding a certain way or looking a certain way, that we can unintentionally place God in a box and miss many opportunities where he wants to move in and through us in new and wonderful ways.
I feel such a yearning in my heart for the Christian church to grasp this revelation of worship. To hunger after genuine worship that is both grounded in God’s word (truth) and is led by the Holy Spirit. To connect ourselves - our body, mind & spirt to God - the Father, son & Holy spirit. That we might know God and be known by Him. That when He is standing at the door knocking, that we would let Him in.
I want to encourage you to dwell on John 4:23-34 and ask the Holy Spirit to highlight areas in your life where maybe this hasn’t taken first place. I then encourage you to spend some time worshipping Him through song or prayer and invite Him to come and reveal himself to you in a new and fresh way, as you focus on worshipping him in Spirit and in Truth.
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