Lesson 9: In Spirit and in Truth, part 4
John 4:24 – “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly prepared at our first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take the lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit: He has given Him to us. Let the disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ’s words have taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth—we shall find that the Lord has more to say to us about it - that the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness in our hearts; the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children, is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. This is the new and living way Christ opened up for us. To have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers.
Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only comes from You; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons, but the out-flowing of a life in You. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer under the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself to offer Him, and at the same time of the provision You, my Savior, make for the Spirit’s breathing in my childlike stammerings. I do bless You that in You I am a child, and have a child’s liberty of access; that in You I have the spirit of Sonship and of worship of truth. Teach me, above all, Blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives confidence in prayer; and let the infinite Fatherliness of God’s heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and of worship.
Prayer: Blessed Lord, I adore the love with which You taught a woman, who had refused You a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that You will no less now instruct Your disciple, who comes to You with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth. Oh my Holy Master, teach me this blessed secret.