SEP 19

John 4:23-24
Memorise Philippians 3:3
“…serve Him in sincerity and in truth…”

The scriptural passage for today sums up God’s requirement on how we are required to worship Him. Remember, man cannot decide how he wants to worship God. When man worships God, he must do so on God’s terms, not his own. Man, in his vain imagination thinks that he can decide on a form of worship that he likes, and then expect God to accept. Is that true? Does God accept just any form of worship? The answer is no. He has clearly revealed His will to man through His Word. The style or manner of worship is not something man has to discover for himself through trial and error, nor can it be up to his whim and fancy. Man is not to invent and imagine for himself ways that God should be worshipped.

In looking at the incident of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, one lesson that we can learn is how God wants us to worship Him. Christ taught “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. The key portion we should focus upon is the phrase “spirit and truth”. To worship God in the spirit means to do so with sincerity, from the heart. Only a spiritual man, a born again Christian can have this sincerity. It is not just about the emotion or the feeling, but it is about the spiritual relationship that a believer has with God. There are some churches who, in defense of their variant styles of worship, contend that God only sees the heart, and the form of worship is not important. They are only partially correct, for they have not considered the other half of this requirement: which is we must worship God “in truth”. What this means is that worship must also be done according to God’s revealed truth. We have to worship God in a style or manner that He has determined for us, not the other way round. Hence, both spirit; (sincerity) as well as truth (God’s way) must be fulfilled for God to accept our worship and be pleased with us. Many of the churches who have adopted a contemporary style of worship have erred in the part of truth. They have not worshipped God in a manner that is acceptable to Him as revealed to us from His Word. God will never accept such worship and is in fact angered by false worship. For us, we must ensure that our worship is done not just sincerely, but also in the truth of God. We must therefore search the Scriptures diligently, to find out the right manner which God wants us to worship Him.

Thought: Does the Spirit prick your heart when you worship in a manner contrary to His Word?
Prayer: Father, teach me to always go to Your Word for the truth.