“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
So said Jesus Christ. But what does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? What does it entail?
(Sometimes WordPress doesn’t show all of my pictures, or places a large gap where I didn’t want one: forgive me if there are gaps in this post).
WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF GOD?
We think of God being in heaven, and so he is. Does that mean he’s a million miles away? The answer is that God is not in a separate compartment called “heaven” way out there-He is here, around us, and perhaps a million miles away as well. God is here by his Spirit. That’s why David wrote, rhetorically,
“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Psalm 139:7-8).
If we were not just four-dimensional beings in a very limited physical realm, we might be able to see some of the spiritual entities which are around us. Once we move from our current bodies we will. John said this:
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).
John said that we are the children of God. But he didn’t mean everyone is a child of God, and it’s clear that not everyone wants to be a child of God. There’s a qualification, but mark this: there is only one qualification. Those who insist that you have to go to their church and give them your money, or go through numerous rituals and hoops of all kinds, or reach an impossible standard of holiness and service, are not telling you the truth. How do I know? Because Jesus himself said so:
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).
Paul’s gospel was equally simple, and he stated, in relation to the words of John above:
“…you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).
So the qualification for being a child of God is faith in Jesus Christ.
HOW WE LIVE DOES MATTER
What about sin and holiness and doing what’s right: doesn’t that matter? The answer is that yes, it matters very much. But it works like this: if you love Jesus Christ and what he stands for, you will live the way he wants you to live. He’s already done all the work of salvation, and there’s nothing else you can do in that regard. But if we really have faith, and if we really love him, we will live, or at least try to live, as he wants us to. That’s why John also wrote:
Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did (1 John 2:4-6).
So we have a measure for others and for ourselves. When we see people claiming to be Spirit-filled Christians, we should not measure them as they measure themselves-in how affluent and prosperous they are, or by how many times they fall over, supposedly “drunk” in the spirit, or by how often they say they’re speaking in tongues, or by how upright and wonderful they think they are. The measure is how they and we live according to God’s will as told in Scripture. I’ve known many people over the years who claimed to be spirit-filled, or who attended a certain church or denomination which claims that the Holy Spirit has empowered them, who didn’t live in the ways of Christ at all. It was Jesus who said:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21-23).
THE EVIDENCE OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN
Do we truly love, including our enemies? Do we keep ourselves from sin and darkness? Do we love God with all our mind, body soul and spirit? Do we love what’s good and hate what is evil? Do we make judgments about life, the universe, and everything, based on what God has said, in what claims to be the very words and message of God to us-the Bible? Do we cling to faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is, the sacrifice of death as atonement for our imperfections and failures, and his resurrection?
We all make mistakes, and we all fail sometimes-that’s not the issue. The issue is the pattern of our lives and the truth in our lives and hearts.
TRUE SPRITUALITY
Our Charismatic brothers and sisters are convinced that by falling over and babbling they are being the truly spirit-filled Christians: they are the ones who are worshipping God with power. This is not Scriptural, but Scripture itself is being left behind or altered by them.
Paul, the man who wrote a large part of the New Testament, and who almost single-handedly “turned the world upside down”, gave numerous pointers as to the nature of true worship, and what it is not. For example, if speaking in tongues were really a more powerful and more acceptable form of worship, as is claimed, Paul would never have written this:
“…in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19).
Ten thousand words not being understood, he said, is a waste of time-not a powerful prayer accomplishing great things. And he said that if no-one understands you, you will be speaking into the air (verse 9). This is the complete opposite of saying that your claimed tongues-speaking is powerful and more acceptable to God than ordinary prayer. If no-one understands what you are saying in church, you are not doing mighty works, or impressing God: you will, essentially, be wasting your breath.
Instead, Paul wrote that true worship is in the way you live your life:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).
This statement of Paul’s is consitent with the teachings of Jesus and of all of Scripture.
I’ll be continuing this theme. Thanks for reading.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 