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Spirit

 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

          You know the story. A Pharisee – a goody-two-shoes, a do-gooder, a pillar of the community who thought it his duty to guide the community and to ferret out pretenders, imposters, and hypocrites – went to visit Jesus, to find out who and what this new preacher was all about. And it became clear pretty quickly that Nicodemus was in over his head. Either this guy was crazy, or he was demon-possessed, or – maybe, just maybe – he was the Messiah.

          He spoke of being born again. How could a full-grown man, whose mother was probably either an ancient crone or dead, be born again? That’s just crazy talk. Not that crazy talk was unexpected. I’ve read the sayings of quite a few Messiah wanna-bes, and quite a bit of it is crazy talk. But when Nicodemus tried to pin him down, Jesus made it clear he wasn’t speaking of the physical. It wasn’t crazy talk. Jesus was taking Nicodemus back to the basics.

          Jesus reminds Nicodemus that God is spirit. He doesn’t need to eat sheep and bulls. Sacrifices aren’t for His benefit. Those who worship Him must do so in spirit and in truth. Phoning it in, going through the motions, and/or keeping the law perfectly aren’t worship. Lifting hands, not lifting hands, speaking in tongues, not speaking in tongues, singing, dancing, or crawling 600 miles on your hands and knees – none of that is worship unless your spirit is worshipping. And if the spirit is expressing its value of God, its love for Him – doing dishes, sitting at a red light, and changing diapers may be worship.  

          Another thought comes to mind. If worship is worth-ship or expressing our love and value of someone or something, then it is virtually impossible to not worship. But how often is that it worship of God in spirit and in truth? How much of the time is our supposed worship of something other than God? That’s why Jesus said that our worship must be “in truth.” And that brings this bit of potential worship to mind:

Heart of Worship

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