Our Worship, in Spirit and in Truth

When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman by the well, He said to her, "Yet a time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4: 23 & 24).

In the Old Testament tabernacle the priest was to burn fragrant incense in front of the altar on which was the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 30:7). The burning fragrant incense is a symbol of worship.

Two passages in the New Testament come to my mind in connection with the terms "worship" and "fragrant incense".

Romans 12 : 1 - Make a decisive dedication of your bodies - presenting all your members and faculties - as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.

When the Lord Jesus is on the throne of your heart and life - where everything He wills and desires becomes our will and desire - then our every thought, word, action, decision - everything, each time - becomes an act that glorifies and exalts Him. Our single minded focus is to let every member of our body become an instrument well pleasing to God. This act is our spiritual worship.

Ephesians 5:1,2 - Here Paul is exhorting the members of the Church, Christ's body, to imitate God and walk in love. Here Paul cites the example of the Lord Jesus showing how His love was an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant offering.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians dwells solely on God's magnificent purpose for us as a Church and how necessary it is therefore as members of the Church to love one another.

Be useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

In Philippians 2:1-5 he writes, If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.

This sincere love for the brethren is what becomes a fragrant offering to God.

The above two forms of spiritual worship are in complete agreement with the two main commandments "upon which," Jesus said, "depends the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)

Oh that our worship would not be just in songs and hymns but in spirit and in truth. For it is the kind of worship the Father seeks. 

The Christian's Course

Ephesians 2:2 - There is a course that the world is taking. It's a course called the ways of the world. There is the prince of the power of the air in this world. People of the world are under his control and are obedient to him. There is the evil spirit that is working in the sons of disobedience - people who live against the purposes of God. The world has a sway over and can influence those who walk according to its ways.

Ephesians 2:10 - But as Christians, we are God's handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus (born anew) that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) that we should walk in them - living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live.

Colossians 1:9 - Paul's prayer is that with all spiritual wisdom and understanding we may be filled with the knowledge of His will so that we may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Philippians 1:9 - Paul prays a similar prayer with different words. He asks that their love may abound in real knowledge and all insight so that they may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus - to the glory and praise of God.

To encapsulate the above we could say that our purpose in life is:

1. to guard our hearts from the spirit of the world. (see James 4:4 and 1John 2:15-17)
   
2. to constantly discover the will of God that He has predestined for us beforehand.
   
3. to seek His face each day that in every thing we do, even in tasks as mundane as eating and drinking, we will glorify God. (1Corinthians 10:31)
   
4. that like Jesus who said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me." (John 4:34) we would have that zealousness to live for the will of God and for that will only.
   
5. to earnestly and perseveringly wait on God to reveal His will at each phase in our lives; strength to walk in it; and grace to exalt Him when we are in it.

The results are plain. We can be certain we would not only be in delight to find that our life's path is aligned with the perfect, flawless and wise ways of God but that - 

• out of the rich treasury of His glory, we would be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit Himself - indwelling in our innermost being and personality.
  
• Christ through faith would actually dwell - settle down, abide, make His permanent home - in our hearts! (see John 14: 23).
  
• this experience would be practical - an experience that surpasses mere knowledge - where we will be filled (through all our being) unto all the fullness of God, enjoying progressively the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself.  

Now to Him who by the action of His power that is at work within us, is able to do superabundantly far over and above all that we dare ask or think - infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams - to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

The above thoughts are adapted from Ephesians 3 : 16 - 21 (Amplified)

The Unending, Fathomless, Incalculable Riches of Christ

When the Apostle Paul describes to the church in Ephesus the riches of Christ that he has been so privileged to proclaim, the Amplified version of the Bible puts it thus:

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints (God's consecrated people), this grace (favour, privilege) was granted and graciously entrusted: to proclaim to the Gentiles the unending, boundless, fathomless, incalculable and exhaustless riches of Christ - wealth which no human being could have searched out.

- Ephesians 3 : 8

Oh that we could ask God, like Paul did - 

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may grant me a spirit of wisdom and revelation - of insight into mysterious secrets - in the deep knowledge of Him, by having the eyes of my heart flooded with light, 

so that I can know and understand the hope to which He has called me 

and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints - His set apart ones. 

And so that I can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for me who believes.

- Ephesians 1 : 17 - 19

My Determined Purpose in Life

Whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as (one combined) loss for Christ's sake.

Furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege - the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage - of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognising and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ, the Anointed One.

And that I may [actually] be found and known as in Him, not having any (self-achieved) righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law's demands - ritualistic uprightness and [supposed] right standing with God thus acquired - but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ, the Anointed One, the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by (saving) faith.

[For my determined purpose is] 

1. that I may know Him - that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognising and understanding [the wonders of His Person] more strongly and more clearly.
    
2. And that I may in the same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers];
    
3. and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even]to His death,
   
   
4. [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body.]

Not that I have now attained [this ideal] or am already made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus, the Messiah, has laid hold of me and made me His own.

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do - it is my one aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ is calling us upward.

So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions, and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also.

- The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians 3: 7 - 15

[Source: The Amplified New Testament]