Worship in Spirit and Truth

How can a man worship the one true God?
The Lord Jesus says it to the Samaritan woman: 'in spirit and in truth'.
Below is a part from an article by WJHocking [1] (1864-1953).

The mind is that part of us that is wholly independent of place. Our bodies may be here in a church service or meeting, but our minds may be in 'the heaven of heavens'. The spirit that God has given us cannot be confined to one place or another[2]. This was the important mark of worship that the Lord showed to this poor woman. Though she had long gone in sinful ways, yet she had a spirit, and He would redeem it and make it His own, cleanse it by water and blood, and fit it to give praise and thanksgiving to His Father and God.

Our Lord Jesus was in Samaria looking for someone who could receive the love that bubbled up in His heart and overflowed in the sands of the desert. He longed for this love to return to where it came from, in the power of eternal life. He could give this woman water, which would be in her a spring springing up to Eternal Life.

This is true worship. It is the result of a force within you directed at an object outside you.

It jumps up from the heart to God.

It is independent of all external circumstances. The Holy Spirit plants the ability in us, and by His operation it ascends to the source whence it came, to the God and Father of love and grace. How wonderful that we would be made vessels of the Holy Spirit in this way, to continually praise and worship God in a way pleasing to Him!

And God seeks this worship of the redeemed sons of men. "The Father seeks those who worship Him in this way. God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." "What is born of the [Holy] Spirit is spirit," and so we have received a new nature. When with this spirit we also have truth in us, we have the two elements of worship before God.

We can sing a song of praise with our lips, but if our spirit is not there, it is not acceptable worship to God.

I must sing with the mind and with the mind. My heart must come first and then my lips express it. Why? Because I worship the Father, and he seeks worship in spirit.

Worship must also be "in truth," and if it is in Christ and Christ's, it will be in truth, because He is the truth, as is the way and the life, to come to the Father. Through His Spirit, Christ is the One who clothes our words and thoughts with acceptance towards God. He takes, as it were, of His own fragrance and beauty to cling to our poor thoughts and words and make them acceptable. All this service is independent of ourselves, and the Holy Spirit does what is necessary for the simplest and youngest of the saints who want to worship God. The fragrance of worship is not in what we say or think, but in what Christ is to the heart. The Holy Spirit does His part, and the whole is acceptable to God.

The smell of worship is not
in what we say or think,
but in what Christ is to the heart.

“The Father is looking for someone to worship Him.” The Son of God, the Good Shepherd, went up into the mountains to find the lost sheep. He carries it home on his shoulders; but the Father seeks worshippers. The good shepherd looks for sinners; the Father seeks worshippers. Would we reject Him? God the Father is looking now. He seeks worshipers everywhere to worship Him. There are great public churches and secluded monasteries, there are the rituals of beautiful services and beautiful robes with all the appearances so loved by the natural man, but meanwhile the Father in heaven seeks worshipers in spirit and truth. It is possible for you and me to give God the Father what He seeks.

“God is a spirit.” He is the being who is spirit in essence. It's not just that this is his character, as would be expressed if the phrase "God is spirit" is. But God is a spirit. It refers to His being, to the Person. He has no physical form. He is not described as ourselves, and He is an omnipresent spirit, and therefore He is here in heaven, and we are spirit in His presence.

“God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” This is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. But we cannot worship Him without the working of the Spirit in us, and without that truth that Christ has expressed in His life and in His death. How simple, yet solemn!

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Footnotes

[1] Reprinted from an article by WJHocking (http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/WJ_Hocking/WJH_FWW4.html)

[2] The writer means here that with our thinking we can, as it were, 'move' ourselves 'in the mind' to someone or a place elsewhere. He is not referring to using inner visualization or other occult methods to detach from the physical.