Worship #3
Spiritual worship has come to mean all kinds of things. In Charismatic circles it went through some evolution from emotional worship to a spiritual "mood" worship to a spiritual "shaking" worship, to prove God was in it, and I think now it is maturing to a worship that is emotionally engaging. I don't decry the process. Sure it would be great to begin with perfection and stay there, but in case we haven't noticed, we aren't perfect yet! This means that the church and the individual have to grow into what true "spirit" worship is. Thank God for the folks who engaged their emotions and not just their minds, but Jesus said that there is a lot more still.
When you think about the phrase of Jesus - John 4:21–23 "Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." - it is more simple than we think. Spirit worship is worshipping from your spirit. I am not talking about a dualistic approach (the spirit and the body being totally separate), but a holistic or total person approach that originates in the spirit. Doesn't Paul write (under inspiration) that it is the spirit of a man that knows that man? Aren't our spirits the part of us that was raised from death to life when we were saved? Doesn't the Holy Spirit properly dwell in our spirits? It is the spirit of a person that propels the rest of the person (soul, body) to be completely abandoned and in service and worship to God.
To worship from your spirit is to worship without any non-sense or fleshliness. It is the connection with God by the part of us that is directly connected to God and some would even say, perfected by God! The tricky thing is to not disengage the whole of our lives but to allow the spirit to lead us in all of our lives. It was the Samaritan Woman who talked about worship as an event. All of us need to "line up" with our spirit man so to speak. Worship is not about getting pumped up through jumping around or humbled by kneeling down, it is a way of life that is led by your spirit which is lead by the Spirit of God. Your mind, your will, your emotions, your heart and soul AND body will be led by your spirit to truly worship the Lord. Spirit worship is true worship - everything else is substandard.
Let's not seek a "place" to go worship the Lord, but worship Him at all times through a life that is led by the Spirit.
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I like the way The Living Bible, (loosely) translates it. "For it's not where we worship that counts, but how we worship-is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit's help? For God is Spirit, and we must have His help to worship as we should." It seems to lend itself to the notion that even in our approach to the Father we must first be prayerful (Phil. 4:6) for His intervention into our lives so we might obtain the good and right posture before Him, and in doing so finds ourselves being lead by our spirits in concert with His. Good stuff bro! Thank You!
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