23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:23-24, CSB
It is always important to me to measure everything I believe – no matter where it is found elsewhere in Scripture, against what Jesus taught.
In the Old Testament we read that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6). Paul echoes this in Romans 12 when he tells us to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God.
True worship, therefore, is not found in liturgy or catchy songs, and it is not restricted to a Sunday service.
True worship is a lifestyle. It is a posture of the heart – and this posture of the heart, or the innermost life of man, has the potential to kinetically influence the tangible outer world we know as our everyday lives.
I would like to highlight to passages in the Gospels where Jesus shares on this specifically.
The first and most obvious is Matthew 22:37-40. Jesus says the following: 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
In this passage He is answering a question posed to Him by the pharisees – “which command in the law is the greatest?”
Contrary to what I’ve heard preached in many churches, Jesus is not giving us two new commandments but directly referencing the Old Testament and the tradition of the day – the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:5, also known as ‘The Great Commandment’) and Leviticus 19:18 (often referred to as ‘klal gadol baTorah’ – or the great principal of the Torah – by Talmudic sages and scholars).
In connecting these two commands, we see a beautiful sort of synergy, a kind of two-way chain reaction. In loving God with all our heart, all our soul and with all our strength – in surrendering all of our inner life to God in worship through the practice of spiritual disciplines, seeking Him in practical ways, the goodness, grace and beauty that God stirs up within us will flow outwards, increasing our love for neighbor.
The love we have for our neighbors proves our love for God, becoming an outward expression of our worship. This also amplifies our love for God as we engage in the spiritual disciplines of community and fellowship – communal altars where we find a deeper longing and love for God through the sharing of testimonies and the experience of mutual blessings. Serving one another, journeying with one another – being bound together in our love for God – also further serves to fortify and strengthen our faith, reinforcing it and drawing the individual into a deeper relationship with God.
A lifestyle of worship is a constant ebb and flow of the grace of God from the inside-out and the outside-in. It is not a merely physical expression, nor is it restricted to contemplation.
The songs we sing on a Sunday, the prayers we say before we go to bed and when we rise in the morning, the sandwiches we give to the poor – all of these ‘acts of worship’ mean nothing if the heart is not postured correctly.
By the same token, we cannot say that the heart is postured correctly if it does not lead to physical, tangible, and practical action.
A lifestyle of worship can thus be defined as having both thought and deed aligned and postured in one accord toward God. In Spirit and in Truth.
Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, when asked what true worship looks like, that true worshippers will worship in Spirit and in Truth.
The use of the word spirit (or, pnuema) here obviously refers to the inner life of the believer, the more unseen and eternal aspects of our lives – but the word ‘truth’ is open to interpretation.
When we examine the original texts, we find the word ‘alḗtheia’ (ἀλήθεια) translated as truth.
In ancient Greek culture this word was also used to refer to ‘unconcealedness’ – or as Heidegger put it – disclosure (“Unverborgenheit” – a drawing open of the curtain).
It was used to refer to reality – not as an abstract concept – but rather as tangible as possible, that which can be seen, heard, felt and experienced physically.
Even here we see the connection between the inner and outer lives of the believer.
Jesus urges us to surrender to Him fully, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing unto God – worshipping Him with all our heart, soul and strength – inside and out.