God-pleasing worship is from the heart
In the John 4, "..worship in spirit..", is not referring to the Holy Spirit, but to your spirit. Made in God’s image, you are a spirit that resides in a body, and God designed your spirit to communicate with him. Worship is our spirit responding to God’s Spirit.
Jesus said it another way when he commanded, "Love God with all your heart and soul."
Worship must be genuine and heart-felt. I know some of you blog-readers struggle in this area. It’s not just a matter of saying the right words; you must mean what you say. Heartless praise is not praise at all! You can deceive all you want but only God knows and it is worthless, and an insult to God.
When we worship, God looks past our words to see the attitude of our hearts. The Bible says, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." Since worship is delighting in and enjoying God, it engages your emotions. God gave you emotions so you could worship him with deep feeling - but those emotions must be genuine, not faked. God hates hypocrisy. He doesn’t want a show, or pretense, or phoniness in worship. He wants your honest, real love. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.
Of course, sincerity alone is not enough; you can be sincerely wrong. That’s why both "..spirit and truth.." are required. Worship must be both authentic and accurate. God-pleasing worship is deeply emotional and deeply doctrinal, straight from the Bible. We use both our hearts and our minds.
I want to emphasize again that worship is more than music. Actually, worship predates music. Adam worshiped in the Garden of Eden but music isn’t mentioned until Genesis 4:21 with the birth of Jubal. If worship was just music then all who are non-musical could never worship. Real worship happens when your spirit responds to God, not to some musical tone.
Unfortunately, many equate being emotionally moved by music as being moved by the Spirit, but these are not the same. In fact, some sentimental, introspective songs hinder worship because they take the spotlight off God and focus on our feelings. Your biggest distraction in worship is: yourself, your interests and your worries over what others think about you.
Therefore and thankfully, we're given the opportunity to repent from hiding our heartless, just-for-show, pretense, phony and hypocritical worship. It is the grace God desires to give us a pure heart to daily worship Him!!
"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalms 51:10 (niv)
Once again, how is your heart in your worship to God now?
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