Practical Application of John 4:24 Today
These days, worshiping anywhere and everywhere seems so easy—perhaps too easy. A lot of people say they are too busy to read their Bibles or to pray, but they also seem to think it has to happen in a certain way, at a particular time, and only at a church.
Many non-Christians also mistakenly think they have to get their lives sorted out before coming to Christ. Two things that help us relate John 4:24 to our own time are:
1. God meets you where you are. He doesn’t wait for you to get your act together. Try him out. As Spurgeon says, “It will be a new thing if He shall have to say, ‘You are beyond My power. You have sinned beyond the reach of My love.’”
2. Trying to hide our sin is what separates us from God. He expects us to mess up, but He also wants us to be real about our mistakes. The Spirit intercedes for us, so that we can worship in truth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, without being condemned. The truth is that God accepts our repentance, forgives us, and we are free to worship.
5 Ways to Worship in Spirit and Truth
1. Connect people to God. God detested how His people “compartmentalized. They disconnected what God connected.” Even if someone won’t hear the truth of the Gospel, treat him or her as a child of God, created by Him. Don’t compartmentalize based on faith, ethnicity, socio-economic standing, or education.
2. Be real. “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” (Psalm 139:23) Invite God to know you, and be prepared to show Him the real you...the truth. Repent of sin.
3. Don’t be afraid. Jesus said the truth has set you free (John 8:32), so even though you are inviting Him to see the real you, know that nothing can separate you from the love of God.
Jesus saw into the heart of the Samaritan woman, and He offered her grace in exchange for sin. Recognize your sin. Admit it. Give it up. Consider this: if the Samaritan woman had not recognized her sin and felt shame, she would have come to the well in the cool of the day. She would not have met Jesus.
4. Invite refinement. God will let you experience fiery trials. Remember King David’s son Adonijah? “His father had never rebuked him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?’” (1 Kings 1:6)
Adonijah exalted himself, was humiliated, and later killed. God loves you too much not to rebuke you. He will discipline those He loves (Hebrews12:6). The Samaritan woman endured the noon-day sun. Jesus used her discomfort to bring her to Him.
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