AND IN DOING, - Spirit and Truth

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-->Jesus said, “But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.  The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way.  For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” John 4:23

So what does this mean to you to worship God in Spirit and truth?

One of the ways to help us define what is living in Spirit and truth is to see what God considers the opposite of living and worshiping God in Spirit and truth is. 

“And the Lord said, ‘Because the people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,” Isaiah 29:13-14

“They fear the LORD and served their own gods according to the custom of the nations from among whom they had been carried away into exile.  To this day they do according to the earlier customs; they do not fear the LORD, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law, or the commandments which the LORD command the sons of Jacob, whom He named Israel.” 2 Kings 17:33-34

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof…” 2 Timothy 3:5

“Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:7

So living and worshiping God in Spirit and truth is NOT:

1.             Head knowledge alone.

2.            Religious tradition

3.             Repetitious prayers or words.  

4.             A complacent or false love for God.

5.             Denying the Holy Spirit in one’s life.

6.             Disregarding a personal relationship with the True and Living GOD.

7.             (What did the Spirit point out to you in these scriptures?)

Spirit and truth.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Think…. This ever-growing revelation of Jesus being “the way, the truth and the life” didn’t come until the Holy Spirit came upon us and resided within us.

For the truth to become “active” in our soul the Holy Spirit must make it “living” in our soul.  For instance scriptures on a page are just words until God’s Spirit awakens them in our soul with meaning, insight, assurance, confidence and ability.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13

Do we hear God?  Do we hear God some of the time?  How much do we hear God?

We shut off God by denying him within our daily lives either consciously or unintentionally.  We can get carried away in daily tasks that we leave God behind instead of Him having him central amongst the tasks of life.  We tend to follow the path of least resistance (our own humanness) if we aren’t mindful, and that path is our ignorance, imagination, our insecurities, our pride, our perceptions, our feeling, our routines, our order of things, our orthodox reasoning, our experiences and even those we surround ourselves by.  We limit God when we think we have God all figured out and know it all.  We shut God off when we think we know His Word in all its richness and fullness.  We shut God off when we think we have “arrived” in some kind of spiritual self-sufficiency.  In such cases God’s Spirit becomes minimized, dormant, and even irrelevant in our lives.

I love this these verse...

“Lift up your heads, O gates!  And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.” Psalm 23:7

How of often does our human intellect and understanding become gates separating us from God?  Where we try to figure out everything on our own.  I find even in the best of intentions in seeking or pursuing God in our ways, we miss God because it’s about us and not us surrendering us to God.  But God’s word says, “Lift up your heads, O gates and be lifted up- that the King of Glory may come in!”      

If we build and base our day on just our self what do you have in the end? Have we gained any greater mindset or heart? Has our relationship with God grown?

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.  Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.  Instead fear the LORD and turn your back on evil.  Then you will gain renewed health and vitality.” Proverbs 3:5

For as long as I have lived I have never known anyone to gain renewed health and vitality in themselves.   How could anyone gain renewed health and vitality without living in Spirit and truth of God?  How could anyone the catch the fire of God when God isn’t allowed in any and all aspects? For this LIFE giving principle of trusting in the LORD and not depending on our own understanding makes us persist and endure in all things!  It’s where we cease and where God’s loving, comforting and encouraging Spirit takes over!

I am reminded of what Jesus said to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2

“I know all the things you do.  I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance.  I know you don’t tolerate evil people.  You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not.  You have discovered they are liars.  You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.  But I have this complaint against you.  You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen from you first love!  Turn back to me again and work as you did at first.  If you don’t, I will remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” Revelation 2: 2-5   

For those who have ever fallen in love, I want you to think on what it meant and felt like to be “in love”. What was that glow?  What was that want to be near that person?  How you threw yourself at that person with a special trust.  You seemed to want to do just about anything for that special person of the opposite sex.  It was no burden or hassle at all.  You seem to be almost floating…  You seem to have this renewed health and vitality about you, did you not as you walked in this unexplainable thing called “love”.  Now put God in that place… Do you see this?.

A. W. Tower wrote: “Behind the veil is God, that God after Whom the world, with strange inconsistency, has felt, ‘If haply they might find Him.’ He has discovered Himself to some extent in nature, but more perfectly in the Incarnation; now He waits to show Himself in ravishing fullness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.  The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of his Presence.  The instant cure of the most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us.  This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged.  This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush.”

Jesus said, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’” Matthew 22:37

How quickly we dismiss such words out of familiarity not realizing they are the key out of cage of ourselves and everything else that chips and nags at us.  We don’t necessary see them as what we are to build and pour our life into but just orders and commands.  But God gives us these words to liberate us from the monotony of close-minded themes that keep us captive within the world’s ideals and ourselves.   Instead God says, “Come to ME, LOVE ME with all your heart soul and mind and I will show you what it means to LIVE.  Take a moment to think how this pertains to living Spirit and truth.

God wants us to develop, grow, endure and mature in the supernatural grace and the glorious unfolding of His daily invigorating love.

Paul writes with great and humbling admiration:

“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you might inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.  May your roots go down deep into God’s marvelous love.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s peoples should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.  Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and the power that comes from God.  Now glory be to God!  By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.” Ephesians 3:16-20

I don’t know about you but my soul says, “Wow!”  Staying in Spirit and truth, which is to stay in the ‘knowing of God’s love’ brings about the fullness of life and the power that comes from being in His Love.

Is this an easy task? Of course not, for the things of self, love to be our obstacle.   They like to barge to the front of the line and make their demands and in the process redirect our focus away from God.

As A.W. Tozer so eloquently points out, “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.  It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.” 

Realizing this we must make a personal effort to live a circumcised life in Spirit in order to enjoy the encompassing elements of God.  For we were meant to have such a wonderful outlook as Paul speaks yet many times we find ourselves settling for far less.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2

How many times has Christ Jesus overcome for us and shown us His goodness?  Why has he continually made a way where their seems to be no way?  Why has he kept the path clear for us?  This path we love to discover and walk upon but somehow… forget throughout our day.  But Jesus calls to us… Can you hear Him? “Let me be LORD OVER ALL THINGS!”

Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD.  “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.”

Is this not REFRESHING!!!  God’s thoughts and ways are HIGHER then our thoughts and ways!  Some may ask, “Why is this a good thing?”  This is a good thing because we who have been born-again in Christ Jesus can live in, by HIS SPIRIT, in God’s thoughts and ways. We can be in-tuned with God.

“Who can know the LORD’s thoughts?  Who knows enough to teach him? But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16

This morning’s scripture verse reads,

“Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to the Him;  He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.”  Proverbs 16:3

And this is what the Spirit said to me, “Your thoughts of the day’s tasks are transformed when you give and entrust them to the Lord and they become satisfying and liberated because they are in His will which is perfect, pleasing and good for the soul.”

You don’t just see natural contexts of life but in the contexts of life you walk in the spiritual contexts as well -instead of just the tendencies or leanings of our selves.

As we digest these things, “What is established and success in God’s eyes?”  Is it being materially rich? I don’t remember my Jesus ever being materially rich.  And I have seen many who are materially rich who are yet unsatisfied.  So that is not being established or a success in God’s eyes.  Is it having a degree?  Did Jesus have a degree?  How about the completion of many tasks and worldly successes?  We can complete many tasks yet still feel unsatisfied…  God has shown me what is established and a success is those things God put’s His hands to.  It’s allowing God to work in us as his holy priest.

“And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple.  What’s more you are God’s holy priest, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that pleas him because of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5

What is established and a success is how we go about those tasks in life by His Spirit.  I am reminded that everyone’s life’s work will be tested by fire.   Are we doing those tasks in the ways and thoughts of God (Spirit and truth) or are we doing them with burden, only as obligation, self-sufficiency, self-promotion, egotism, etc?  These things neglect the Spirit’s love, counsel and encouragement and without the Spirit there is no “edible” fruit to partake from for us or anyone else.  For the good fruit is our witness of God working in us and manifesting Himself in us.

“But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Here there is no conflict with the law.” Galatians 5:22-23

“If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” Galatians 5:25

“But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law- the law that sets you free- and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1:25

Anyone can accomplish something but it’s in how we accomplish that something that matters most to God.

GOD who inspired the words, “We walk by faith not by sight,” wants to graciously bestow upon us a new perspective daily and hourly.  A perspective only He can give.   No wonder why the Word of God states nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Note Romans 8:39

  Acts 17:28 says “For in Him we live, and move and have our being; as also certain of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”

Jesus said, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.…” John 15:4

To quietly and humbly surrender to the Spirit and truth is to pass through the veil of our stumbling and burdening understanding and have every need… want… thirst… hunger… thought … circumstance… and experience to be “spoken to” and satisfied!

“And God spoke ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.” Genesis 1:3

God wants us to know that in Him we lack nothing….

Romans 8:37 says… “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

I find in many experiences in life we find ourselves out of our league.  We live in this world but we are not of this world.   Most of us are aware of our moment-by-moment need and if we are cognoscenti of WHO can hold and carry us and encourage us through our need we are the most lucky and blessed individuals on the planet. 

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4

And it becomes overwhelmingly clear we can’t have this unless we give our life to the son- Jesus Christ, who is God’s most greatest gift of love.

 ^“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us” 1 John 4:9-19

As I was writing the early parts of these pages a song came on.  I don’t think this was by accident.  Here are the lyrics to “You are my Vision”

You are my vision, O King of my heart
Nothing else satisfies, only You Lord
You are my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Your presence my light

You are my wisdom, You are my true word
I ever with You, and You with me Lord
You're my great Father, and I'm Your true son
You dwell inside me, together we're one

You are my battle-shield, sword for the fight
You are my dignity, You're my delight
You're my soul's shelter and You're my high tower
Come raise me heavenward, O power of my power

I don't want riches or man's empty praise
You're my inheritance, now and always
You and You only, the first in my heart
High king of Heaven, my treasure You are

High king of Heaven, when victory's won
May I reach Heaven's joy, O bright Heaven's Son
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, O ruler of all

 

Jesus said, “But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.  The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way.  For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” John 4:23