Worshiping God In Spirit And Truth

Christians serve a beautiful God. Beauty is the absolute foundation of all things. It is transcendent by nature. The beauty and glory of God are far more incredible and far surpassing any earthly beauty one could ever know. Everything about God is beautiful. His power is beautiful. His love is beautiful. His mercy is beautiful. Beauty is rooted in Him.

God is the foundation of all beauty in the universe. Beauty begins and ends in Him. He is the revelation of all that is good, loving, and kind. He even signs His name using the brilliant colors of a rainbow (Gen 9:13). He uses beauty as His messenger, declaring across the universe that He is "altogether lovely" (Song 5:16 NIV). The beautiful God is worthy of worship. The Bible proclaims that we must "worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24 NIV).

Contemplative worship draws our heart to Him as we take the time to gaze upon His beauty and become lost in the intimacy of divine embrace. It pulls the heart upward into the whirlwind of God's glory, and the realm of His unspeakable beauty and the indescribable magnificent splendor of His holiness as the heart is consumed alive with the fire of His presence and fervent passion.

Spiritual Freedom

God is love, so He desires to have people who trust Him. God wants people who worship Him because they want to, not because He does something to make them love Him. The foundation of trust is love. To trust, there must be freedom. But God can't create faith, so He gives human beings an unlimited capacity to love and trust. Faith is something we must provide! It is based on freedom.

Adam and Eve chose not to trust God. Faith requires freedom. The Bible says that the "righteous will live by his faith" (Hab 2:4 NIV). The Hebrew word used here for faith is "amin," where we get the word "amen." The righteous shall live continuously by faith. We must enter into the state of "amen" where no doubt exists.

The anointing of the Holy Spirit gives the liberty to worship. It is as natural to worship as it is to live. The Bible reveals that worship is a combination of inward humility and the reverential attitude of mind and body; the feeling of awe, love, trust, adoration, loyalty, reverence, dependence, obedience, and outward action in service.

True worship comes out from walking daily in humility. Humility requires a total yielding of self and trusting in God. It is esteeming EVERYONE more highly than yourself, casting ALL cares upon Him, taking NO thought for tomorrow, and not being anxious or concerned about ANYTHING (See Matt 6:34; 1 Peter 5:7; Phil 2:4, 4:6). It is a giving up of any last confidence in self that one is better than anyone else and that they could ever possibly obtain the character of God through any of their feeble attempts.

Someone once defined praise as thanking God for what He has done and worship as thanking Him for who He is. Worship is a way of life. The ability to worship should be as natural as it is to breathe. It is not just worshiping but being a worshiper - living a pleasing life to Him, no matter where we are or what we are doing.

We worship God in how we do our jobs - in how we run our business - in how we esteem and care for others - in how we love our family. If we want to be a holy Church filled daily with the HOLY Spirit, we must each be holy and offer our "bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom 12:1-2 NIV).

Intimacy in Worship

The secret to greater intimacy with Jesus is learning to focus on Him breath by breath and what He has done for us, not on what we can do for Him! We must come to that place in worship where we are overwhelmed with His presence - His beauty - His majestic splendor – His infinite love. He desires to love us so intimately that the waves of passion from His flaming heart will make a casual observer blush.

Those who long for His passionate touch will discover that contemplative worship opens the door to feel His heartbeat against their chest, two hearts beating as one. God longs for His majestic love to roll over us like waves upon the seashore - sometimes like the waves caused by a quiet, gentle breeze and sometimes with the intensity of storm-tossed waves pounding, heaving, and sighing, pulling you under, causing you to gasp for breath.