This week let’s talk about praise and worship! I was about to wrap up these one word lessons for us with peace, but last week the word praise kept popping up and I felt like the Lord was leading me to talk about praise before I got to peace. He has led me to a few verses on praise and worship that we will unpack.
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” John 4:23
This one hit me because if there ever was a time in my lifetime when I felt the urgency to worship in spirit and truth it would be now. There is so much going on in the world! Of course we also have to look at the context of this verse in the Bible. Jesus said these words to the Samaritan woman that he met at the well and asked for a drink of water from. Which was a huge no no In the first place. First of all she was a woman, second she was a Samaritan woman and third she didn’t have the best reputation. So for Jesus to be talking to her much less asking for a drink of water would have been frowned upon. But that’s Jesus, He met her where she was, and He meets us where we are too. Jesus wasn’t just trying to cause a stir, He was after her heart.
At any rate during their conversation, the woman points out that some had worshipped on the mountain but that worship was to take place in Jerusalem. She was delegating worship to a place. She said this because before Jesus came, the people would take their animal sacrifices to the temple and there would be a ritual of killing the animal and cleansing of sins and there they would worship God. Worshiping God took place at a place, in the temple. Jesus was saying the hour would come, which would be His death on the cross, but also that He was standing right in front of her when true worshipers would worship the Father anytime and any place as long as they were with Jesus. No longer would we have to take an animal and sacrifice it as an act of worship. The only thing we need is Jesus. I love singing praises in church but I don’t have to have the church building in order to worship Jesus!
Friends, yes there is craziness in the world. Yes, some days it may feel like the world is falling apart. Some days it feels like, and I keep hearing “end times are near”. But what I believe the Father is seeking is people who are still worshipping Him. We as children of God are not to live in fear, we are not to cower, we are not to get overly frustrated by the current events. We are to continue worshipping Jesus, no matter the craziness of the world or our personal circumstances.
The Samaritan woman didn’t have her life together when Jesus sought her out for a drink of water so that He could introduce her to His living water. We don’t have to have it all together for Him to seek us out either. Take a drink of the living water. Sit with Jesus for a little while today and just worship Him.
Restore 