WHERE DO YOU WORSHIP GOD?

November 24th, 2015 § 1

What did Jesus mean when He said that God seeks those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth? (John 4:24)

When Jesus said that to the Samaritan woman He was responding to her question of “where” should one worship God.

She said the Jews say we should worship on the mountain in Jerusalem where the temple is located but we Samaritans worship here in Samaria, on the mountain where Moses read the blessings and curses of the covenant over the people. Which mountain is correct?

Jesus said something new was coming. He said the hour is coming and now is that the true worshippers of God will not worship on either one of those mountains.

Then where?

Her question was about “where” and He answered her question.

He told her the “where” is not a place on earth. It is a place in a different realm. In the Spirit. God who is Spirit dwells in the invisible realm of the Spirit.

Jesus said the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, or in the reality. The word in the Greek language which is translated as “truth” in this passage is better translated as “the real” or “the reality.”

The mountains were just pictures of the real place to worship, not the reality itself. A mountain lifts you up above the earth as a picture of the heavenly realm. People get enamored with the copies of the heavenly things and not the heavenly things themselves. We tend to default to the natural and easily forget the spiritual. The temple, priesthood and sacrifices were but shadows of the good thing to come. Even today, many believers find their identity as a believer more in “a church building” than in the invisible reality of the true House of God in the Spirit.

The Father seeks the true worshippers who live by faith in the unseen reality of His realm and His present reality. When believers worship with this mindset, whether alone with Jesus, or with a few other believers or with hundreds of others, the unseen is vivid and experiential and “the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” All other “worship” is vain and meaningless and of the flesh.

Jesus fulfilled all things through His death and resurrection, removing all sin and bringing in an everlasting righteousness as a gift to all who would believe. He opened a door to another reality in the Spirit where true believers are in immediate contact with the real. God and man have become one in Christ, if we are a believer, and we are now where He is, seated with Him in the Heavenlies, and He is now with us, always, in our journeys all over this earth. An earth with no holy mountains and no holy lands and no holy places, just His Holy Spirit.

James Barron

§ One Response to “WHERE DO YOU WORSHIP GOD?”

  • Excellent Saint James! My favorite part was TRUTH meaning REALITY! Absolutely correct my good friend. And the church is not a building, but a PLACE with each believer, who are stones being laid one upon the other until the TRUE house of God is assembled. And because it is assembled in the heavenly realm, where the REALITY sits, Christ Jesus our Lord, then it stands true that when He returns the TEMPLE of the Lord will come DOWN from the heavenly realm, not go up to the heavenly realm, BECAUSE we are ALREADY seated in the heavenly realm! In the reality.

    Excellent word of TRUTH! Praise God we needn’t go to the mountain or to the Temple Mount! We are always in His wonderful presence.

    Love you dear brother; miss you too!
    Steve

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