A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. John 4:23
Intense pain and a debilitating headache prevented me from attending services with my local church family . . . again. Grieving the loss of community worship, I watched an online sermon. At first, complaints soured my experience. The poor sound and video quality distracted me. But then a voice on the video warbled a familiar hymn. Tears flowed as I sang these words: “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me save that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.” Focusing on the gift of God’s constant presence, I worshiped Him while sitting in my living room.
While Scripture affirms the vital, essential nature of corporate worship (Hebrews 10:25), God’s not bound within the walls of a church building. During Jesus’ chat with the Samaritan woman at the well, He defied all expectations of the Messiah (John 4:9). Instead of condemnation, Jesus spoke truth and loved her as she stood next to that well (v. 10). He revealed His intimate and sovereign knowledge of His children (vv. 17–18). Proclaiming His deity, Jesus declared that the Holy Spirit evoked true worship from the hearts of God’s people, not from a specific physical location (vv. 23–24).
When we focus on who God is, what He’s done, and all He’s promised, we can rejoice in His constant presence as we worship Him with other believers, in our living rooms . . . and everywhere!
Read: John 4:7-24 (NIV)
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”d
8 (His disciples had gone into the towne to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritanf woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.a)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who
it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.”g
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the wellh and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who
drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks the water I give them
will never thirst.i Indeed, the water I give them
will become in them a spring of waterj welling up to eternal life.”k
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirstyl and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her,
“You are right when you say you have no husband.
18 The fact is, you have had five husbands,
and the man you now have is not your husband.
What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.m
20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,n but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”o
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is comingp
when you will worship the Father neither on
this mountain nor in Jerusalem.q
22 You Samaritans worship what you do not
know;r we worship what we do know,
for salvation is from the Jews.s
23 Yet a time is coming and has now comet
when the true worshipers will worship the Father
in the Spiritu and in truth, for they
are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
24 God is spirit,v and his worshipers
must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
INSIGHT
- Where do you enjoy worshiping God?
- How do you enjoy His presence and experience joy while worshiping Him?
Who were the Samaritans? According to 2 Kings 17, after the Northern Kingdom of Israel was defeated by Assyria in 722 bc and most of its people taken into exile, other captured peoples were brought in to populate the region known as Samaria (v. 24). When they first arrived, they didn’t “worship the Lord,” and so God sent lions among them (v. 25). Then the king of Assyria sent a Jewish priest to the land to teach the people how to worship God, but the people continued to worship other gods (vv. 27–29). The Samaritans came from this exchange of peoples and mixture of beliefs.
PRAYER
Amazing God, please help me worship You as I rejoice in who You are, what You’ve done, and all You promise to do. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen!!
Read: John 4:7-24 (NIV) | Bible in a Year: Isaiah 20-22; Ephesians 6
