01/16/2018
Do you hear the Word of Jesus and worship God as you should? We go to church and sing songs, pray together, chant, and recite creeds, but these are all physical manifestations of faith that anybody can do. What I am asking is... Do you allow your spirit to enter into worship with the physical you; in the religious things you do?
“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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."”John 4:23-24 ESV
I can go to my prayer closet and speak to God as a man. I can tell Him my concerns and ask Him to provide without engaging my spirit in the conversation all. I read the Bible and it says pray, so I pray; it says love your neighbor, so I love my neighbor; I can go through all of these motions, and claim to be righteous, and then sing Psalms, and claim to be worshiping, but my spirit remains dormant. I am minimally moved by them.
I once took a course called Model-Netics that taught business models, and was designed to give us a common terminology within my company to describe certain behaviors. There was one such model called “The Army Game” in which a person would do just what you told them to do without thought, and without engaging their own intellect (or even in spite of it). So if I was your boss, and I told you to start up a car we had been working on, you would start the car... despite knowing that a part had not been tightened yet, and this would cause harm. Your defense would be “you told me to!”
When we worship physically, and dutifully go through the motions in church we are doing a very similar thing. We are doing exactly what God has told us to do, but we are not engaging our spirit, and we are not worshipping and loving Him with all our heart.
I must admit to you that there have been times when I have gone to church and left my spirit at home. I have sung without feeling, lifted my hands at the appropriate times, recited creeds, prayed without sincerity, and, yes, even taken communion, without an ounce of spiritual heart in it. I was playing the spiritual equivalent of “The Army Game.” Have you done this? Are you doing it most every Sunday? Are you leaving your spirit in the other room when you enter your prayer closet? Is this what Jesus was describing when He said:
“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”John 4:22 ESV
Are you worshipping a God you don’t really know yet? Have you reasoned Him, but not actually felt Him, and allowed your spirit to bring you to Him? Well don’t feel alone, but more than that... don’t think you are worshipping as you should. I read a quote from Andrew Murray this morning that dealt specifically with this...
“True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. In order to be a true worshiper, there must be accordance, harmony, and unity between God, who is Spirit, and our own spirit.” - Andrew Murray
Physically approaching our faith only takes us part of the way there. We are bipartite creatures; we have a physical side, and a spiritual side... and they must worship God together. Our spirits, and indeed our hearts must be engaged. When we use the phrase “he poured out his heart” we are beginning to understand how we should approach God. We are taught to do this by His Holy Spirit. Paul says this by using the Jew of his time as an example...
“But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”Romans 2:29 ESV
If you have never engaged your spirit in worship... if you have reasoned that God exists and that Jesus is His Son. If you have studied, and are approaching faith as a cook would approach a cookbook, then flip forward to the recipe for the Holy Spirit; the comforter, and ask that the Holy Spirit come! Learn to cook by taste and by texture... to worship in spirit and truth.
“"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”John 15:26 ESV
Likewise, If you are going through the motions in a worship service then pray for the Holy Spirit to join you there, pray that He awaken your spirit once again and bring it alive in your worship.
God is not to be worshipped simply by our mouths, our hands, or our intellect; He is to be worshipped in both spirit and truth; from our spirit... from our heart.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for making me as a creature who spans two worlds. I thank you for allowing me to exist in both the physical and spiritual worlds at once, and to worship you fully by engaging the entirety of my bipartite being. You are greater than the world can imagine, and substantial than the spiritual world can contain; you are all in all, and I worship you in spirit and truth. Help me Father when I find my heart in slumber as I praise and worship you. Send your Holy Spirit to arouse in me my spirit so that I can be with you in completeness; so that my worship will be as you have taught me... beyond what words can express and my thoughts can fathom. I seek you Father with all I am, and love you in ways I can’t express or understand. I speak to you in utterances, and cry out to you in the sacrifices of my heartbreak. You are my God and I worship you with all I am... even unto tears.
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”Psalms 51:16-17 ESV
Rich Forbes