John 4:21-24
Worshiping God
21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet 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. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
There are different definitions of worship...Many simply define worship as loving, exalting, and glorifying our LORD...Others define it a little differently...Jesus maybe telling us that people before He came to earth worshiped God formally, and in formal places...Samaritans worshiped God on a mountain, and the traditional Jew worshiped Him in the Temple...But after Jesus can to earth, He changed many things, including these formal places of worship...Worshiping God can now be done informally...Worship can be done individually or in groups...Worship can be done in any place...But it still can be done formally and by a formal, ordained leader...But, regardless of how and where we worship, God wants His worshipers to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth...
Below are a few definitions of worship...
Harold Best writes in his book Music Through the Eyes of Faith "Worship is the sign that in giving myself completely to someone or something, I want to be mastered by it."...
Warren Wiersbe, in his book Real Worship writes "Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does."...
David Peterson, in his book, Engaging with God, writes "Worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible."...
The Archbishop, William Temple said that “Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His Beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”...
Truly worshiping puts our focus on the One we are worshiping...Worship is our personal expression of loving, revering, and honoring our LORD...Worshiping comes from the heart...The worshiping of our LORD focuses our attention on Him, and not on ourselves...
C. S. Lewis said "It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His Presence to men."...Then Lewis said "We only learn to behave ourselves in the Presence of God."...Then he goes on to say “God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”...
To reach our true potential because He created us, we must worship Him, and get to His Presence, to be all the things we can be...When we meet Him, there will be a peace that only He can give us...