SCRIPTURAL WORSHIP

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24)

We live in the New Testament era when God has no favorite people and no favorite place of worship. There are no gender nor ethnic boundaries for who may worship Him. Peter used the "keys of the kingdom" and opened the doors into the majestic presence of God to both Jew and Gentile. "God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (Acts 10:34-35). By faith, repentance and baptism we become his children.

As children of God we are to worship Him. This worship must be in harmony with truth. We learn how to worship God by the explicit and implicit commands of the New Testament. We cannot devise our own plans for such worship. To do so is to corrupt God's ways and place our souls in jeopardy. But even though we do the right things in worship, that worship may not be acceptable unless it is "in spirit" also.

In spirit has to do with attitude or disposition. This has to do with the inward man. The outer man is doing the right thing but is he doing it with his spirit? The spirit of man might be described as the heart of man, the spiritual mind of man, the inner man. The people in Corinth were eating the bread and drinking the fruit of the vine but ate and drank damnation to themselves inasmuch as their hearts were not right in so doing. James said the prayers of some were not heard inasmuch as they had the wrong attitude.

Many people are worshiping God in this present time but their worship is in vain for the same reason that the worship of the scribes and Pharisees was not acceptable. "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9). Worship God with all your heart, soul and mind and do it His way. That's the kind of worship God is well pleased with.

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