Deuteronomy 4:29-31
Seeking God With Our Heart and Soul
29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. 31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.
John 4:4-26
Worshiping God Who is Spirit
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
John 14:15-31
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
Proverbs 4:23
Guard Your Heart
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Matthew 15:16-20
The Heart
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Acts 15:8
The Heart
8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.
Matthew 5:8
The Pure in Heart
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
The heart is mentioned often in the Bible...With all the things we read in the Bible, the man's heart seems to be the Spiritual Center of our body...The heart seems to be a Spiritual part of us as described in the Bible rather than a physical part...As we read Scriptures is seems more Spiritual than earthly...The heart seems to be this symbolic spiritual piece of us and is where the soul and mind, and the will of our emotions, desires, and feelings come from and somehow meet and connect together...Solomon tells us in the Proverbs to guard our hearts because everything flows from it...Solomon says not just some things, but everything...Jesus teaches us that out of the heart can come evil thoughts...So the heart can have good thoughts and things, but also evil things...What comes out of the heart can be what defiles us and keeps us separate from God...But also love comes from the heart...So, as Solomon says we must watch and guard the heart to get us and keep close to God...To see God our hearts must remain open and loving and pure...We must do our best to keep sinful things out of our hearts...
In this Spiritual Center in us -where goodness and Truth are, I think that is where the Holy Spirit also dwells...And that maybe is where Jesus said the Father sends it when we receive it (the Holy Spirit)...And somewhere, somehow, and someway in our Spiritual Center is our connection to our Creator and Father...There in our Spiritual Center must be where God sends us the Holy Spirit, this Spirit of Truth, the One who Counsels us...And maybe our conscious (the part that tells us when we are doing right and not wrong or evil) is our link to Him...
Jesus at one time on earth went through Samaria...And Samaria was not a popular place for Jews...But being weary and of thirst He needed a stop, and often when man is tired we do such things...A poor tired Man, very much human and like an ordinary Man, and very thirsty from all the walking He had been doing...Tired and thirsty He sat at the well, probably where many tired visitors had passed before...There at the well, He meets a Samaritan woman...Jesus tells the Samaritan woman many divine things...He tells her that Salvation does come from the God of Israel...By the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the Jews know about the power and the knowledge of God...And this knowledge and these scriptures will make its way eventually to all nations from the Jewish Bible and from these Scriptures...The One of worship and the One who is deserving of worship will remain the same and He is God and He is a Spirit...And it is this Spirit of God that allows us to seek and know Him (probably through our heart and our Spiritual Center)...God is a both Divine Spirit and an Eternal Spirit...Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that the time has just arrived for men and women to worship God in this Spirit and in Truth...This is because the Messiah has arrived in Samaria and on earth...God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in the Spirit and in truth...It is the soul, the human spirit, and this Spiritual Center that seeks and worships this Spirit of God, the One who is Divine...
When we worship God, we must worship Him in the Spirit and in Truth...What does this mean?...I have read different things and the stories vary on what is Spirit...Jesus does tell us that a physical Temple or building is not required to worship God now that He is here...And He admits that He is the Messiah to this Samaritan (which is very odd because He discloses He is the Messiah in Samaria (and not to the Jews and in Jerusalem) and Jews and the Samaritans do not see eye to eye on things)...It is not the physical building that matters, what matters is that your worship in a sincere worship and in Truth and from your heart...It is not His physical body either that will be worshiped, because He will soon leave...It is this nonphysical Spirit that we worship -in His Father and in Him...The human spirit seems to seek out and search for this nonphysical Spirit of God...This seeking and searching from the heart and soul is important...For these are the kind of worshipers the Father is seeking...God wants us to be complete in love and pure in heart...Both our love for Him, and our love for all those around us...God is seeking those who love from the heart, because He knows the heart...