21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ~ John 4:21-24
Worshiping in Spirit and in truth cannot begin until one has been born again. I don’t hear many putting much emphasis on this anymore. If you are not a born again, it is not that you cannot worship but that you will not worship the Lord God Almighty.
How does one know that they are born again? There are several ways one can have some idea. I will start with my Dad who is in glory now. My Dad was born again on Easter Sunday 1972. I was 10 years old and even I saw the change. My Dad had a bad temper and profane mouth. But after that Sunday, his mouth cleaned up and he lost his temper far less. He was not perfect but he was changed and remained in church most of his life after that.
Another example is my father-in-law, he was born again sometime in late 2009. I don’t know for sure when because he lived about 500 miles away. Early in 2009 a rare form of thyroid cancer was discovered in his neck. When they took him to surgery they could not get it all because the cancer had wrapped its self around his carotid artery. He lived another 18 months after that. My wife spent a lot of time there with him and we were all with him on his final day. We had noticed a change in him, before he had been arrogant, loud, and prideful. A drinker who enjoyed his pornography and really wasn’t bashful about it. In the last few months he had become quieter and more concerned about his family than my wife had ever seen him. But the thing that struck us most was what we found out about him after the funeral. Sometime in early 2010 he had called the pastor at the church he was now attending regularly and invited him over to his house. Once there he told his pastor about the pornography on his computer and the liquor and asked the pastor to clean this stuff out of this house. He had changed.
Someone may say, “will they were just becoming good moral characters”. No, when men decide to become “good moral characters”, they will clean up outwardly but not inwardly. In both my Dad and my Father-in-law, they publicly confessed their sins, this is humility. And humility is a prime prerequisite for salvation, for being born again. The proud moral man will never confess publicly his sins; he will keep that to himself. This was the problem with the Pharisees, they could keep the law outwardly but they could not keep it in their hearts. Jesus called them “white washed tombs filled with dead men’s bones and all uncleanness”. The man who is born again has been humbled; he has not cleaned up the exterior but the interior of this heart.
This is why being born again is required to truly worship God. God is spirit so true worship must begin in the spirit of man. In the deep dark recesses of a man’s soul the light of Christ must come exposing sin and dross. The man or woman who have truly been born again will not think very highly of themselves. This is not self pity. The born again do not think highly of themselves because of who Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior is, they will see Him in the beauty of holiness, in His majesty. In themselves all they see is a sinner saved by grace. Their only thing of value is the blood of their precious Savior upon them that is their only claim; they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
For the blood washed saints worship is all about the Lord God Almighty. They do not come into worship expecting anything but to praise the Lord with all their heart and to love Him with all they have, no holds barred. The Pharisees worship was all about them, about being seen by the crowds, it was about their talents and their efforts and all the good they did. This is why they prayed on the street corners, so that men would see them. The humbled blood washed saint comes before the Lord God Almighty with full knowledge that they have nothing to offer our great God, but understanding that out of mercy, grace, and love God reached down to them through His holy Son Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And their salvation is entirely and fully about Jesus Christ and there is nothing, not one thing, they can do to save themselves, salvation is of the Lord.
Do you know Him?
You may have doubts, you may have questions, why would this great God want to save me, I am worthless and a gross sinner. He doesn’t want to save you because you are worth something, He wants to save you because of His love for you which you and I did not merit nor will we ever. You and I are worthy and deserving of hell and eternal punishment, that is what we merit. God sent His Son so that men might be saved. David wrote in the 51st Psalm that God will not reject a broken and contrite heart. Jesus said that anyone who comes unto Him He would by no means cast out (John 6:37). Those who are broken and contrite of heart have seen their sin and they hate it. They also have discovered they can do nothing about it. So humble yourself and believe in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, then go and sin no more.
David
Seeking the Ancient Paths 