The Samaritan woman changed the subject of her past sinful life and asked about worship. The Samaritans and Jews worshipped in different places and Jesus now taught her about true worship.
We learn here that Jesus does not love embarrassing people. If it's today, we would tell the woman to first conclude about her five husbands, and marriage and divorce; but not Jesus. Jesus does not love embarrassing people. This also the reason He speaks to us privately. He convicts us by His Holy Spirit in private if there is something we need to repent of or set right. If there is an apology we need to make, or do some restitution or repay a debt or fulfill a promise you made.
Can you imagine if He spoke to us Loudly when everyone is listening and everyone knows what the Lord has spoken to us? We would be very obedient to God, not because we fear Him but because we want to maintain a reputation that we are obedient to God. It is in our private lives that God tests us to see whether we fear Him. What God speaks to you in private and no one knows; it's a test of whether you fear God or not. Many who claim to fear God don't fear Him because they disobey Him in their private and inner lives constantly. What they have is an outer covering of humility and the fear of God but when you look inside, there is nothing. Jesus won't embarrass you but also it's a test of whether you fear God in your life.
Jesus said the Samaritans worshipped what they didn't know but the Jews worshipped what they knew for salvation is of the Jews.
The hour is coming and now is when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth. The Father is seeking such people.
True worship involves worshipping in reality of our lives. It's not singing. For example you can sing we honour you; but if in your private life you have not been seeking to honour the Lord; you are just deceiving yourself.
You can be singing and saying we give you glory; but if you have been taking credit for what God does through you or forget you; you are deceiving yourself.
If you sing you are worthy but in other days you feel in you deserve something and you get offended because of something that was never done for you, you are not humble and broken but proud; you are just deceiving yourself. The words are right, the life is wrong and therefore God will not accept such. There must be a reality in our lives of what we are saying to God.
Paul defines true worship as giving our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Rom 12:1. That is giving your eyes, to only read and watch things that you would not be ashamed of if came to you or lived with you. Have you given your tongue; to only speak encouragement, and bless others and build others up not to destroy them; have you given your ears to only listen to what you would not be ashamed of listening to! In the same way every part of the body you give to God in holiness and a living sacrifice; that means you live a life of sacrifice. This alone is true worship: not singing songs on Sundays.
Abraham defined worship as giving to God what you love more than anything else in the world. Gen 22:5,2, 2Sam 24:24.
Looking at the definition of worship above we can see that what we do on Sundays is not worship; it's singing. Worship is in our private lives before Sunday. If there is no backing up of our private lives during other days, then we do not offer worship to God: yeah, we sing thanksgiving and praise songs and consecration songs but worship have to be in our private lives offering our best to God and giving our bodies to God. These are the people the Lord is seeking. You can be among them.
God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit, that is from their inner selves and truth, that is in reality.
The woman said that the Messiah will come and tell them such and Jesus told her the He was the Messiah.
The previous chapter Jesus told an equivalent of a pastor today, Nicodemus, that he must be born again; in this chapter, a woman who had five husbands and living with the husband of another, Jesus taught her about true worship. These two not explained clearly in any other part of the new testament. God's thoughts are not the same as ours.
If Jesus was to organise a pastors conference today; He would probably speak about being born again, and if He were to organise a conference for women who were divorced and remarried and living with the husbands of other women; Jesus would probably speak to them about true worship. To us us today; we would speak to the pastors about true worship but to the women living in adultery the need to be born again.
This is why we need to seek God constantly and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit because God's ways and thoughts are different from ours. We must always humble ourselves and not imagine that we know what we need to speak to a certain kind of people.
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@Blessed Mshindi Mambo
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