Worshipping the Father in Spirit and Truthfulness and in the Divine Dispensing

In the Bible there’s a whole chapter that speaks of the worship of God – John 4. Here we see the Lord Jesus taking a detour through a Samaritan city, and while His disciples went into the city to get some food, the Lord talked to a sinful Samaritan woman who came in the heat of the day to draw water from the well.

From the Lord’s conversation with the Samaritan woman, we can clearly see that the worship of God is related to drinking God, and God the Father is seeking not just worship but worshipers, persons who worship God in spirit and truthfulness. The age has changed: we as believers in Christ are not merely practicing to “worship God” but we are sons of God who need to be true worshipers, those who worship the Father (not merely the Creator God) in spirit (not merely in a specific place they call “church”) and in truthfulness.

The worship of God the Father is related to the drinking of Christ as the Spirit; this shows that the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is the supply for us, the believers, to worship the Father in the dispensing of God.

How do we worship God? We worship God in the dispensing of God by drinking God through the exercise of our spirit and by having Christ wrought into us to become our genuineness, sincerity, and truthfulness so that we may render God the worship that He desires and we would be the worshipers He seeks after.

God the Father Seeks Worshipers who Worship Him in Spirit and Truthfulness

In John 4:23-24, we see that, yes, God the Father seeks worship, but mainly He is seeking worshipers, persons who are true worshipers of the Father. Such people don’t merely worship God but they are true worshipers in their being – they worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness. Such people don’t merely turn to their spirit from time to time, during a meeting, or on the way to meeting with the saints, but they learn to exercise their spirit and offer God the worship He desires.

Many times in our Lord’s Table meeting we are quite passive because we don’t exercise our spirit; sometimes we are in our emotions, at other times we don’t exercise our will to fan our spirit into flame, while many other times our mind is absent or focused on other things, and we “wait for an inspiration”. But God the Father is seeking worshipers, those who have the divine reality (the Triune God Himself as the Spirit) revealed to them and wrought into them so that they may be constituted with reality to produce the virtue of truthfulness in them!

God the Father wants to see the divine reality being wrought into us little by little so that it may be expressed through us as truthfulness to Him. When the divine reality is wrought into our being, we may offer a simple prayer to the Father, Thank You Father for Your far-reaching mercy….I worship You for Your mercy that reached me and brought me back to You, my Father! – such deep, sweet, and genuine prayers coming from a true worshiper causes the Father to drink from our spirit, since something is flowing back to Him as a product of the divine dispensing.

However, there’s a battle going on: will we exercise our spirit and pay the price to worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness? Will we experience Christ, exercise our spirit to drink of God in Christ as the Spirit, and be filled with something of the divine dispensing so that we may offer Christ to God for His satisfaction? Or do we merely say some prayers, read from the hymnal, sing some songs of praise to the Father, and offer a prayer to God?

There’s a longing in the Father’s heart for true worshipers; today the Father is seeking such to worship Him! May the Lord save us from repeating the pitiful history of Christianity with composed prayers, prayers for the collection of the money, talented soloists singing “praises” to God, praise and worship bands, etc….may we be the true worshipers that the Father is waiting to have! May we be enlightened by the Lord, convicted by His living word, and may we aspire to become true worshipers, those who worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness!

Lord, make us true worshipers who satisfy the longing the Father’s heart! Shine on us, convict us, and put in us the aspiration to become true worshipers. Lord, work Yourself as reality into us more, so that something from us may be offered to the Father in prayers and praises for worship! Lord, may we sense the longing in the Father’s heart for true worshipers, and may we give ourselves to be such ones who worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness! Father, we worship You for Your far-reaching mercy, Your abundant grace, and Your wonderful salvation!

Worshipping the Father in Spirit and Truthfulness and in the Divine Dispensing

It is very interesting to notice that the Lord Jesus had a deep and wonderful conversation concerning the worship of God not with theologian (like Nicodemus) but with a sinful woman, a woman who had five husbands and the one she was living with was not her husband. Every human being has a desire to worship God, and the Father is seeking worshipers, those who worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:24).

Many people worship God, but God the Father wants us to worship Him in a particular way: in spirit and in truthfulness. Since God is Spirit – the nature of His essence is Spirit – we must use our spirit, our regenerated human spirit, to worship Him. We cannot worship God in our mind, our emotion, our will, or even our zeal for God; we can worship God only in our mingled spirit. Furthermore, we need to worship God the Father in truthfulness.

According to the context of John 4 and the entire revelation of John’s Gospel, truthfulness in verse 24 denotes the divine reality becoming man’s genuineness and sincerity (which are the opposite of the hypocrisy of the immoral Samaritan worshipper—vv. 16-18) for the true worship of God. The divine reality is Christ (who is the reality—14:6) as the reality of all the offerings of the Old Testament for the worship of God (1:29; 3:14) and as the fountain of the living water, the life-giving Spirit (4:7-15), partaken of and drunk by His believers to be the reality within them, which eventually becomes their genuineness and sincerity in which they worship God with the worship that He seeks. (John 4:24, footnote 5, Recovery Version Bible)

This means that we need to worship God the Father in the dispensing of God. The genuine worship of God the Father is in spirit and in truthfulness; the divine reality experienced and enjoyed by us and constituted into us, becomes the truthfulness in which we worship God with the worship that He seeks.

How do we worship the Father? It is by drinking of Him as the Spirit in our spirit. When He spoke of worshipping the Father, the Lord Jesus equated it with drinking of the living water. In ourselves, just like the Samaritan woman, we have nothing to offer; in our natural understanding we are confused regarding the worship of God, and we are not clear what it means – but God has come in Christ to save man, and He wants us to be brought back to worship the Father by drinking Christ as the Spirit, the living water!

The worship that the Lord spoke of in John 4 is the worship of the Father in the Son and in the Spirit, that is, worshipping God in the divine dispensing by drinking of the life-giving Spirit! This means that, if we would have true worship, we need God in His Divine Trinity to be dispensed into our being (2 Cor. 13:14). Hallelujah, we can drink of the Lord as the living water, and through our drinking of the life-giving Spirit, we worship the Father (John 4:10, 14).

When we contact God the Spirit with our Spirit we drink of the living water, and this drinking of the living water is rendering real worship to God. In order to worship the Father in the dispensing of God, we need to drink of the Spirit so that God may dispense Himself into our being (1 Cor 10:3-4; 12:13).

We need to practice such worship mainly in the Lord’s table meeting where, after we partake of the bread and the cup, the Lord brings us to the Father in the Spirit, and we worship the Father in the divine dispensing in the Divine Trinity (Matt. 26:30; Heb 2:11-12; Eph. 2:18). The more we experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the more we will be the kind of worshippers whom the Father is seeking, and we will have the kind of worship that the Father is seeking – worship in spirit and truthfulness and in the dispensing of God.

May we be such ones, those who daily drink of God by contacting God in spirit so that we may offer God the worship that He desires. As believers in Christ and as children of God, our life should be a life of worship, and every day should begin with worship. God desires our worship, and He longs that, in everything, we will worship Him. Let us worship God by knowing His Godhead and confessing that He is God.

Let us worship God according to His divine revelation, with Christ as the offerings, through the cross, by beholding Him and eating and drinking Christ, by experiencing Christ and feasting on Christ with God, and in spirit and truthfulness and in the dispensing of the Triune God! Oh, may the Lord recover genuine worship throughout the Lord’s recovery in all the local churches, and may He raise up generation after generation of true worshippers!

Lord, recover genuine worship throughout Your recovery, and raise up generation upon generation of true worshippers! We want to contact God the Spirit with our human spirit so that we may drink the living water and thus worship God with the worship that He desires! Father, we want to learn to worship You in the dispensing of God! Make us the true worshippers which You desire! May our life be a life of worship, and may all the days of our life be filled with drinking God as living water so that we may worship the Father in the dispensing of God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and Basic Lessons on Service, lessons 5-6 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 10 / msg 10, The Worship of God.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # In spirit and reality / We meet to worship Thee, / And every principality / Must fall down or must flee. / Reality, reality, / O what a joy to see, / That Christ may be enjoyed by us / As our reality. (Hymns #1182)
  # In spirit and in truth, O Lord, / We meet to worship here; / As taught by Christ, the Son of God, / We now in Him draw near. / Thank God, He is a Spirit true, / So near, so dear to us; / That we may contact Him in life, / In truth to worship thus. (Hymns #865)
  # Abba, Father! we adore Thee, / Humbly now our homage pay; / ’Tis Thy children’s bliss to know Thee, / None but children “Abba” say. / This high honor we inherit, / Thy free gift through Jesus’ blood; / God the Spirit, with our spirit, / Witnesseth we’re sons of God. (Hymns #45)