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. (John 4:23 NIV)

I don’t think “Ol’ Blue Eyes” would have gotten very far with that song had it been written for the church. Not sure that Hillsongs would have picked it up for their album or if you’d see many of the Southern Gospel quartets belting it out on any of the recent Gaither videos. Seems to almost be the antithesis of what worship is really supposed to be about.

But Jesus was addressing an issue with the woman in this passage. The Samaritans were trying to worship God the way that ‘they’ felt comfortable doing. They wanted to place God through the filter of ‘their’ form of religious practice, not actually place ‘themselves’ through the filter of God’s desire.

We can often put limits on how often, how deep, and how sincere we enter into times of worship. We tell God that we’ll give Him ‘this’ and ‘that’… but we won’t worship Him ‘here’ and ‘there’.

And there lies the dilemma of our encounters with God. The moment that we dictate how we plan on expressing our worship to God… then ‘we’ control the worship… which then doesn’t become really effective worship at all. For when we hold back on giving Him His worth, aren’t we therefore calling the shots on what is acceptable or not for Him? Are we no better than a woman at a side of a well saying that ‘their’ way was better… even if it didn’t find support in the Bible?

I pray that all of our worship this week, however it is expressed, is firmly and deeply rooted in the desire to know Him more, pursue His Presence more, and sincerely express to Him just how Great He is… not how it best fits us… but how it best glorifies Him.

At least that’s how I see it,

Craig