As
we approach lent and think about the lead up to Gethsemane, and as we imagine
the walk to Calvary, it seems so right to be here at the feet of Jesus, saying Lord teach us to pray. I cannot and do
not want to process these meditations daily.
I need more time to absorb the richness in each one, and even then it is
a lifetime of receiving.
Lesson
2 – “In spirit and truth …’
‘The hour comes and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such does the
Father seek to be His worshippers. God
is Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth’ John 4:23
These
words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded teaching on the
subject of prayer. They give us some
wonderful first glimpses into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worshippers: our worship
satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him.
He seeks true worshippers, but finds many not such as He would have
them. True worship is that which is in spirit and truth. The son has come to open the way for this
worship in spirit and in truth, and teach it to us. And so one of our first lessons in the school
of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth, and
to know how we can attain to it.
To
the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship. There is first, the ignorant worship of the
Samaritans: “Ye worship that which you know not”. The second, the intelligent worship of the
Jew, having the true knowledge of God: “we worship that which we know; for
salvation is of the Jews.” And then the
new, the spiritual worship He Himself has come to introduce: “The hour is
coming, and is now, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and truth.” From the connection
it is evident that the words ‘in spirit and truth’ do not mean, as is often
thought, earnestly, from the heart, in sincerity. The Samaritans had the five books of Moses
and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who
honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer.
The Jews had the true full revelation of God in the Word, as thus far
given; there were among them godly men, who called upon God with their whole
heart; and yet not ‘in spirit and truth’, in the full meaning of the
words. Jesus says, ‘the hour is coming,
and now is’ it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in
spirit and truth.
Among
Christians one still finds the three classes of worshippers. Some who in their ignorance hardly know what
they ask; they pray earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more correct
knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and often pray most
earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessedness of worship in spirit
and truth. It is into the third class we
must ask our Lord Jesus to take us; we must be taught of Him how to worship in spirit
and truth. This alone is spiritual
worship; this makes us worshippers such as the Father seeks. In prayer everything will depend on our
understanding well and practising the worship in spirit and truth.
‘God
is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and
truth.’ The first thought suggested here
by the Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers;
such as God is, must his worship be.
This is according to a principle which prevails throughout the universe;
we look for correspondence between an object and that to which it reveals or
yields itself. The eye has an inner
fitness for the light, the ear for sound.
The man who would truly worship God, would find and know and possess and
enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving
Him. Because God is Spirit, we must
worship in spirit, as God is, so His worshipper.
And
what does this mean? The woman had asked
our Lord whether Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that henceforth worship is no
longer to be limited to a certain place: ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour comes,
when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the
Father.’ As God is Spirit, not bound by
space or time, but in His infinite perfection always and everywhere the same,
so His worship would henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but
spiritual as God Himself is spiritual. A
lesson of deep importance.
How
much our Christianity suffers from this that it is confined to certain times
and places. A man, who seeks to pray
earnestly in the church or in the closet, spends the greater part of the week
or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with that in which he prayed. His worship was the work of a fixed place or
hour, not of his whole being. God is a
Spirit: He is the everlasting and unchangeable One; what He is, He is always
and in truth. Our worship must even so
be in spirit and truth: His worship must be the spirit of our life; our life
must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit.
‘God
is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship Him in spirit and
truth.’ The second thought that comes to
us is that the worship in the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit: He alone has Spirit to
give. It was for this He sent His Son,
to fit us for such spiritual worship, by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is of His own work that Jesus speaks when
He says twice, ‘the hour comes’, and then adds, ‘and now is’. He came to baptize with the Holy Spirit; the
Spirit could not stream forth till He was glorified. It was when He had made an end of sin, and
entering into the Holiest of all with His blood, had he on our behalf received
the Holy Spirit, that He could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the
Father. It was when Christ had redeemed
us, and we in Him had received the position of children, that the Father sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry “Abba, Father” … ‘Daddy Daddy’. The worship in spirit is the worship of
the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Sonship, as a son / daughter.
This
is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father. We never find one of the Old Testament saints
personally appropriate the name of child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible to
those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. The worship in spirit is only possible to those
to whom the Son has revealed the Father, and who have received the spirit of
Sonship. It is only Christ who opens the
way and teaches the worship in spirit.
And
in truth. That does not only mean in
sincerity. Nor does it only signify, in
accordance with the truth of God’s Word.
The expression is one of deep and Divine meaning. Jesus is ‘the only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth’. ‘The law, was
given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ Jesus says, ‘I am the way, the truth and the
life.’ In the Old Testament all was
shadow and promise; Jesus brought and gives the reality, the substance, of
things hoped for. In Him the blessings
and power of the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy
Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours
in deed and truth, a positive communication out of the Divine life. And so worship in spirit is worship in
truth; actual living fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony
between the Father who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the spirit.
What
Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full
meaning. We are hardly prepared at our
first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take the lesson as he
gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring
God the worship He seeks. But Jesus came
to give the Spirit; He has given him to us.
Let the disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ’s
words have taught us. Let there be the
deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to
Him, the childlike teachable-ness that waits on Him to instruct us; the simple
faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth
– we shall find that the Lord has more to say to us about it – that the
knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness
in our hearts, the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His
Spirit to make us children, is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and
truth. This is the new and living way
Christ opened up for us. To have Christ
the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling
within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers.
LORD TEACH US TO PRAY
Blessed Lord, I adore the love with which you
taught a woman, who had refused you a cup of water, what the worship of God
must be. I rejoice in the assurance that
you will no less teach me, your disciple, who comes to you with a heart that
longs to pray in spirit and truth. Teach
me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only comes from
You. That it is not only a thing of
times and seasons, but the outflowing of a life in You. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer under
the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself to offer
Him, and at the same time of the provision that You my Saviour makes for the
Spirits breathing in my childlike stammerings.
I do bless You, that in You I am a child, and have a child’s liberty of
access; that in You I have the spirit of Sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all Blessed Son of the
Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives confidence in prayer;
and let the infinite Fatherliness of God’s heart be my joy and strength for a
life of prayer and of worship. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment