We have all read chapter 4 of the book of John where Jesus has a conversation with the Samaritan woman and we see that discussion that there used to be between Jews and Samaritans, of what was the right place to worship God. Jesus does not keep silence at the words of the Samaritan woman that the correct place of worship was Samaria and not Jerusalem, the words of our Lord are the following:
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.
John 4:21-22
Jesus speaks to her in a very clear way and without covering anything of the “Truth of God” and says to her: “you worship what you do not know”. In short, “you worship God, but you do not know God.” Imagine, dear reader, what a strong blow it must be for this Samaritan woman to hear these words from Jesus, perhaps she thought that she had spent all her life worshiping a God who knew, but now finds Jesus telling her that they do not know what they worship. Do you know the God you love? Do you know enough about your God? Try not to be in the same place as this woman. There are so many brothers in our congregations, that they raise their hands and sing all the praises and do not know anything about God, they have only heard of one God, but they do not have a personal relationship with that God.
Jesus continues and says:
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.
Here Jesus is speaking to her of something that is already approaching, of something that is approaching, but that is now, and if we can say that that time was close, but closer than “it had already arrived”. Maybe you will wonder that Jesus was followed by many people, but these people did not follow Jesus as their “Lord (Kyrios)” and “teacher (depostes)”, they did not see Jesus as the one who had the absolute word and as the only one Lord (Kyrios). They only wanted a Jesus that responded to their human needs, healings, miracles and everything else, but this is not the adoration that the Father seeks, for which, the Father did not find true praise in them.
He continues:
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
We must understand three important things about this verse: 1) God is Spirit, 2) You must worship Him, 3) Your worship must be in spirit and truth. On our point number 3, a question arises: Can we worship God with falsehood? Of course, yes, the people of Israel did: The Lord says:
The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is based on merely human rules they have been taught.Isaiah 29:13
Let us not fall into the same error of the people of Israel and the people of Samaria, worship God in spirit and truth, with all our heart, that is a sincere praise, a life offered to God in living sacrifice every day.
