01/16/2026
Do we hear the Gospel of Jesus and worship God as we should? We might go to church and sing songs, even pray together, chant, and recite creeds, but these are all simply physical manifestations of faith that any unbeliever can imitate. What I am asking is this... Do we allow our bodies and spirits to join as one as we worship with the Holy Spirit by praising God and give Him all the glory and honor for the things we do in obedience to His will? Can we honestly say that we worship Him as scripture tells us to… by loving Him, entering into relationship with Him, and in spirit and truth?
“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
We can go to our prayer closets and speak to God with the voice of a man. We can tell Him what our concerns are and ask Him to provide for us without ever engaging our spirits in the conversation. We often find that we will read the Bible and when it says pray, we will pray; when it says love your neighbor, we will love our neighbor; but we can do all of these things and still find that we are just going through the motions, and claiming to be righteous by our works alone. Sometimes we even sing Psalms while we are attempting to worship but still feel hollow inside because our spirits have remained dormant and disengaged. We are minimally moved by these things that sound like worship because there is no love, no desire, nor any semblance of relationship there… there is no involvement of our spirit.
I once took a course called Model-Netics at my company that taught business models that were designed to give us a common terminology within our organization to describe certain behaviors. There was one such model called “The Army Game” in which a person would do just what their boss told them to do without thought, and without engaging their own intellect (or even in spite of it). So, if I happened to be your boss, and I told you to start up a car we had been working on, you would start the car... you would turn the key even though you knew that a part had not been securely tightened, and that this would cause damage to the engine. Your defense would ultimately be, “Well you told me to!” This is playing “The Army Game” This is doing exactly what we are told and nothing more or less.
When we worship physically and dutifully while going through the motions in church we are doing a very similar thing. We are doing exactly what God has commanded us to do in scripture, and are acting as we believe that Jesus would have acted, but we are not engaging our spirit, and we are not worshipping and loving Them with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are simply exhibiting a form of robotic faith and worship… we are playing the “Army Game” with God and Jesus… we are there without actually being present.
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 praise choruses without feeling them, lifted my hands at the appropriate times, recited creeds, prayed without sincerity, and, yes, even taken communion and recited the Lord’s Prayer 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 almost every Sunday as you dutifully put on your Sunday clothes and drive to church because that is what is expected of you , but neglect to engage your spirit? Are you leaving your spiritual self 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
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Matthew 7:21-23 ESV
Are we worshipping a God we aren’t really in relationship with yet? Have we reasoned with Him, but not actually felt Him or allowed our spirit to bring us into His presence? Well don’t feel alone, but more than that... don’t think you are worshipping as you should. I read a quote from Pastor 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… it is only a reflection of true faith. We are bipartite creatures; we have a physical side, and a spiritual side... and they are meant to worship God together as one. 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 how to do this by His Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul teaches 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 we have lifted our arms to the Lord but never engaged our spirits in that worship... if we have reasoned that God exists and that Jesus is His Son but not translated those truths into a loving relationship are we truly worshiping? If we have studied scripture and yet are approaching our faith as a novice cook would approach a cookbook, by flipping forward to the recipe for the Holy Spirit; the comforter, and simply combining the ingredients we read there? If so then we will never be worthy of the title “Chef” or “True Believer”! No, we must learn to cook by taste and by texture... and likewise we must 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
So, if we are going through the motions in our worship then let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to join us. Let’s pray that He awakens our spirits once again and that our faith is brought alive within us in spirit and truth as we worship.
God is not to be worshipped simply by rote obedience, nor by the words of our mouths, the works of our hands, or our intellectual thoughts alone; He is to be worshipped in both spirit and truth; from deep within us... from our hearts. Can we muster the faith required to do this?
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Matthew 6:5 ESV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for making me a creature who bridges 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 more 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 slumbering as I attempt to praise and worship you with my body alone. Send your Holy Spirit to arouse in me my spirit so that I can join with you in a completeness of relationship; so that my worship will be as you have taught me... beyond what words can express, and greater than anything my thoughts alone can fathom. I seek you Holy Father with all that I am and love you in ways I can’t express or understand without the help of your Holy Spirit. In this way teach me to speak to you in utterances and cry out to you from the spiritual sacrifices and contrition of my broken heart. You are my God, and I worship you with all that I am... even with the groans and tears of my soul, and as I experience you in this way Lord, hear my heartfelt worship in both spirit and truth.
“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
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Rich Forbes