Much of what they call worship is not.
Chapter 3
Much of what they call worship is not.
The woman said to him: Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem It is the place where one should worship. Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem you will worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we we love what we know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; because the Father seeks such worshipers to worship Him. God is Spirit; and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. that they worship.
John 4:19-24
All the content and truths of the Bible teach us that God, whoever needs nothing desires the worship and praise of their children that has been created. This conclusion is not just a matter of some Bible portions. Our Lord expressed it clearly and certainly. when he was on this earth. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve" (Luke 4:8).
There is not a single tribe on the entire planet that does not have some kind of religion and some form of worship. Human beings possess a instinct towards worship. On one occasion I wrote an editorial in the that I pointed out my point of view on the fact that when a man he kneels down, raises his hands and says: 'Our Father who art in heaven' in the sky," is doing what seems natural to him. An old man, Upon reading the editorial, he made a vehement exception regarding it. I he wrote that 'only a completely liberal editor' would say that the Worship is a natural matter for human beings. The fact is that God made us to worship Him, and if we had not fallen with Adam and Eve, Worship would be the most natural attitude for all of us.
Sin was not something natural for Adam and Eve, but they disobeyed and they fell, losing, in this way, the privilege of perfect communion with God, the Creator. Sin is not something natural; God never planned that was part of our nature. The essence of this important the point is that God still desires worship but we must learn that we cannot do it as we please and worship God as we see fit.
Have you ever thought about the words of our Lord Jesus when he referred to a certain group of religious people of his time and said: "You worship what you do not know"? I dare say to you that Jesus was indeed emphasizing a fundamental truth about the adoration. Human beings have every possibility of finding forms of worship apart from Christ and the salvation that He offers.
I need to even go beyond this assertion to point out a truth similar and parallel. Authentic religious experience is also possible. apart from Christ. I hope you do not misunderstand me and label me a heretic. It's true, I just said that there can be worship apart from Christ and that there can be a religious experience apart from the Lord. But not. I said, because I do not believe it, that such religious experiences or forms of Worship may be acceptable to God. There are certain types of worship that God will not accept, even if they are directed to Him and have the intention of that He accepts them.
The Bible records that when Jesus was teaching on earth, he he told his listeners that the day would come when people would say to him: "Did not Did we not do miracles in your name? Did we not prophesy in your name? "Streets?" Do you remember the rigor and precision of the response? of God? "I never knew you; depart from me." Human beings must learn not to be mistaken about the nature of the true worship, which is always in spirit and truth. It is totally it is possible to have a religious experience and forms of worship that do not they are absolutely acceptable to God.
The Apostle Paul wrote something simple, concise, and compelling to the first Christians who made up the church of Corinth. Paul had a deep certainty that people can have an experience
of worship that is not in accordance with the will of God, reason why the such worship would never be accepted by God.
Observe what Paul declares: 'I say that what the gentiles they sacrifice, they sacrifice to the demons, and not to God; and I don't want that you become participants with demons." (1 Cor. 10:20). The the apostle taught that any form of idolatry is abominable and unacceptable before the living God even if it is a very real experience for those who live it.
That is one of the reasons why Jesus told a certain group of people: 'You adore what you do not know.' It is possible that someone experience the elements of worship (admiration, humility, surrender, attachment) and does not belong to the redeemed. I believe it is worth the it is worth noting that Thomas Carlyle, in his writing Heroes and Worship Heroic, warned us not to make the mistake of thinking that the the great pagan religions of the world are a farce. Carlyle asserted this after conducting your research; indeed, such religions do not they are a farce. They are absolutely real and authentic; precisely that It is their greatest horror, that they are very real.
A few years ago I was in Mexico and I was struck by seeing a very old church. I entered the premises after shedding my hat and I observed that the floor of the church was made of dirt. I made a pause to carefully observe the statues and the engravings; then, I saw an elderly woman entering the temple. She was wearing I get a small bag with some things I had bought. He walked and knelt right by a statue of the Virgin Mary. He observed with deep devotion, supplication, and desire the facial features of the inanimate image. I thought: "That is the kind of longing and spiritual desire I would like to see what people spill before the Lord. There was not the slightest doubt that that woman was manifesting. true worship; the experience was very real for her. With all security was not pretending. He wanted to worship but his worship was spilled over an inert statue that had been crafted by the hands of some human being.
There are many kinds of worship that God will never accept. Worship Cain in the Old Testament was not accepted because he did not recognize the need for atonement for sin, to restore the relationship between our holy God and sinners. Cain wanted to please God in worship but did not offer a blood sacrifice. Instead, "brought from the fruit of the land an offering to the Lord" which probably it was made up of beautiful flowers and a basket of fruit. Upon seeing that God frowned at his offering, the attitude and the response of Cain seems to be summed up with the following phrase: "I don't have the best" idea about that matter of sin and atonement. The rejection of God and the acceptance of 'the firstborn of the sheep' by Abel annoyed so much that Cain decided to kill his brother.
The type of worship that Cain offered to God has three serious flaws. and elemental. At first glance, there is the incorrect idea that God it is not really how it is. This is related to the person and the character of the holy and sovereign God. How can someone worship God? in an acceptable way without knowing what God really is? Cain I really didn't know the true character of God; I didn't believe that the the sin of man was something of eternal importance to God.
Secondly, there is the mistake of thinking that man possesses a relationship with God, when in reality it is not so. Cain assumed that I deserved to be accepted by the Lord without any kind of intermediary. It he refused to accept the judgment of the Lord, according to which man has been separated from God by sin. Thirdly, the record of the Old Testament shows us that Cain, just like others have done countless multitudes of men and women throughout history, he mistakenly assumed that sin is not a really serious matter. If humans will review and consider historical records, they would clearly discover that God hates sin because He is a God saint. The Lord knows that sin has filled the world with pain and bitterness and has robbed us of the purpose and the primal joy of life what it is to worship our God.
The worship offering that Cain presented was inadequate; it lacked a true meaning. By applying that teaching to our world In fact, I assure you that I would not spend an hour in any church that is refuse to teach the necessity of the shedding of blood for the remission of sin through the cross and the merits of death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is another kind of unacceptable worship that is represented by the attitude of the Samaritans in the Bible. The story of the Old The will reveals that Jeroboam, the first king of Israel after the division in the kingdoms of the north and the south, erected two places of worship. He wanted to make sure that his people did not have the habit of to worship only in Jerusalem. He set up golden calves that could be worshipped in convenient places: Bethel and Dan.
The heresy of the Samaritans, the practice of choosing what we like to worship. and rejecting what we do not like is widely spread in the current affairs. In fact, it has generated a whole new field of study for applied psychology and humanism covered with a variety of religious costumes. In this context, men and women they become judges of what the Lord has said. Instead of positioning themselves kneeling and allowing the Lord to evaluate them, they stand up with pride and evaluate the Lord.
I received the report of a youth meeting held in a huge a famous church in Toronto. The guest speaker was taken to that city. to give the following advice to modern Christian youth: Don't believe anything from the Bible that doesn't fit with your own experience.
If you are one of those who choose, you may have chosen the beauty of the nature as the medium through which one is encouraged to worship. Or you it can also be the type of people who think that worship comes from music; in that case, it will talk about music that inspires the it calms and elevates the spirit to a state of ecstasy.
Since we have mentioned the nature and the inclination that some people have their worship begin and end with the
works of creation, I would like to record some ideas in this text. If you truly commit to the study of Scripture, you will discover that the Old Testament is a marvelous rhapsody about creation. Starting with Moses, after reading the instructions from Leviticus, you will find that this wonderful prophet of God feels amazed when developing a sharp awareness of the presence of God in all creation.
In the last part of the book of Job, one is amazed by what sublime of the language used to describe the world around us. Read the Psalms and you will find David literally dancing. beautified, delighting in the wonders of God's creation. Start reading the book of Isaiah and you will encounter noble scenes that are not the fruit of the prophet's emotion, but of the wonderful world of God that Isaiah sees.
These men, who can be counted among the holiest and most pious from the ancient world, they revealed in their writings that they felt fully in love with the natural beauty that surrounded them. But they always saw nature as the work of art of a glorious, all-powerful creator and absolutely wise.
Allow me to make one more observation about our civilization. I consider it a sad and unfortunate fact that in his majority, the people of our time seem like zoo lions born in captivity. They are born in hospitals, walk along platforms of concrete, they breathe contaminated air and finally return to the hospital to to die. They never have the chance to feel the earth under their feet.
In the environment in which we operate, beauty is not common. from nature be communicated to our being. We almost never raise our eyes to contemplate the sky that God created, except when a plane crosses the sky or when we want to know what clothes dress because of the weather. It seems absurd, but in the middle of the countless wonders created, we have lost in a way almost imperceptible is our ability to be amazed.
If the Holy Spirit were to descend again as at the beginning of the church and will visit the congregations with the sweet and burning power of Pentecost, we would become greater Christians and beings more saints. Even more, we would be better poets and better artists. inspired; we would love God and His universe with greater intensity.
Men continue to try to convince themselves that there is many correct ways to worship. But in His revelation, God has us taught that He is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. God removes the topic of hand worship. of men and puts it in the hands of the Holy Spirit. None of we have the capacity to worship God if we are not imparted the Holy Spirit. The operation of the Spirit of God is what equips us. to worship God in an acceptable way through the person of Jesus Christ, who is God Himself. Therefore, worship originates in God comes to us and goes out of us as if reflected by a mirror. God does not accept any other type of worship.
We live in an upside-down world in which many people do not they have no clarity regarding what they believe or what they should to believe. Most of those people excuse themselves by telling us that they are seeking the truth. Some churches also have that slogan and They assert that those who attend their congregation do not have to believe. nothing but simply seeking the truth.
Those who do not focus on the new birth or the guidance of the Spirit. Saints will respond to the natural impulse we have to worship something. If these types of people are not very educated, they might kill a chicken, put the feathers on their heads and dance in a circle. To those people we call them sorcerers. But if they are educated, perhaps they will write poetry and Say something similar to what Edwin Markham said in his writing. I made a pilgrimage to find the gods.
Markham wrote: "I saw his shining hand sending me signals from the sun." In my case, I never had those kinds of signals. We live in a country in that there are Bibles available everywhere and the gospel is preached with fidelity. Nevertheless, men seek God at ancient altars,
in graves and in dark and dirty places. Rightly so, finally They end up believing that God is sending them signs from the sun.
Generally, there are people who get annoyed with me when I say that we need to unmask these types of 'truth' seekers. We need to double our efforts to tell the world that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. truth. It is necessary for the Holy Spirit and the truth to intervene. Not we can worship only in spirit because the spirit without truth remains defenseless. We cannot worship only in truth because we fall into theology without fire. Worship must be in spirit and in truth.
It is necessary that the truth of God and the Spirit of Lord. When a person surrenders to the Lord, they believe the truth of God and is filled with the Holy Spirit, even the simplest whisper is an act of worship.
The tragic and succinct fact is that the effort that many make idols to worship is unacceptable before God because without an infusion without the Holy Spirit, there can be no true worship. This is something Seriously. I find it hard to rest in peace every night knowing of what millions of religious people simply have traditions ecclesiastical and religious practices but fail to access God.
We must humbly worship God in spirit and in truth. Each one of us is facing the truth to be evaluated and it becomes clear that the presence and power of the Holy Spirit of God, far from being a luxury is an option in our lives as Christians, it is a necessity.