In Spirit and Truth
Posted on Thursday, March 26, 2015, 3:34 pm By
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The importance of understanding what is meant by Spirit AND Truth is fundamental to understanding the Christian life.  For you can not come to God or be saved by God or give worship to God or serve God or please God unless you do it in both spirit and truth.  John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.“  The Christian life is like a walk along a balancing beam to toward God and you must move in both Spirit and Truth to draw closer to God, to do one without the other will make you fall off the beam and to do neither means you are sitting on the floor.

2 Corinthians 3:17  “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”   Some Christians think this verse tells them that they have the liberty to do anything they want to do and God will approve of it because they claim the are doing it in the Spirit of the Lord.  The point of this verse is not to give people a license to sin in God’s name but it’s intent is to teach that as Christians we are not under the laws of Moses for ceremonial cleanness such as being required to wear certain clothing or eat certain foods or obligated to offer an animal sacrifice or required to worship God on a certain day.  The Jews were required to rest and worship God on the Sabbath (Saturday) because of the 5th commandment but as the church we have liberty to “come together” and worship God  on any day or everyday and most churches meet on Sunday because this is the day that Christ was resurrected from the grave.  We have “liberty” to worship God according to the “Truth” that is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit within us (John 16:13), not according to laws of Moses or the traditions of men.  In other words, the “Spirit” of Christ gives us freedom to be “holy” in Christ by obeying the “Truth” of Christ given to us on Mt Calvary.  We are no longer merely trying to observe laws written on stones given to us at Mt Sinai.  

And this is the other side of the balancing beam, Truth.  John 8:31-34 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.  The Scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus day thought that by following the laws of Moses in the closes possible way, they were justified before God.  They wrote up hundreds of “traditions” of men that told a person how to live a holy life.  But in most cases these traditions were used as “excuse” to avoid the responsibility of helping your neighbor or even your family.  A good example of the hypocrisy of holiness that the Scribes and Pharisees practiced is seen in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  A person has been robbed, beaten and lies half dead on the road, a Priest and a Levite see the injured man but pass him by on the other side of the road so they won’t become “unclean by his blood”.  A Samaritan man had compassion on the man, bandages his wounds and takes him to an Inn where he pays for his care until he recovers.  And Jesus asks, which one of these man acted like a neighbor?

So you see “the Truth” is not found in observing man made laws to prove you are holy and self righteous before God but “true actions of compassion toward your fellow man are demonstrated” when you are “under the influence of the Holy Spirit in surrender to God“.   Truth is not found in keeping the law but truth is found in keeping a personal relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.  The law keepers of the world fail to acknowledge that Jesus is the Truth and we need God’s Spirit to know the Truth of Jesus and we need God’s Forgiveness to be born in both Spirit and Truth.   For it was Jesus who reminded Nicodemus, a Pharisees and ruler of the Jews, in John 3:3 that Nicodemus needed to be born of the Spirit of God in order to have True fellowship with God.  Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

“Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”

– Warren W. Wiersbe

If you just give in and agree with every opinion of man then you are a worthless hypocrite who is really saying that someone who murders a baby is equally virtuous to someone who cares for a baby’s needs.  And if you think everyone who is not working is just a lazy blight upon society, then you are a brutal maniac who is not interested in understanding the suffering of others and helping them get back on their feet.

1 Corinthians 13:2 “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”  Christian love requires both Spirit and Truth or it is worthless.  If you have all the knowledge of things to come and how to be prosperous in this world but you do not share this knowledge with others so they can benefit, then you are only benefiting yourself and giving yourself glory.  Another way to say it is that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.  If you demonstrate care towards people, then they will be willing to listen to the reason for why you are helping them.  The saying on the Christian mission field is “empty stomachs have no ears“.  You must demonstrate the hand of God’s fellowship by feeding the hungry mouths before you can tell them about the God who provides them salvation to feed their hungry soul.

A Christian “Love” is like the cross, you must first make a “Vertical Spiritual” relationship with God before you can make a meaningful “Horizon Truth” relationship with others.  If you are really drawing closer to God in the Holy Spirit, then you will be compelled to act in truth to others, helping them and correcting them to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  And the other side of this coin is that if you call yourself a Christian, yet you are not compelled to do good the works of Christ, then your faith is “dead” (James 2:17) or perhaps it was never began with a “born again” relationship with God.  For God is building a person of Christ in you but that life must first be “born again” in Spirit and Truth before it can grow in Spirit and Truth.  The Holy Spirit reveals the Truth of God’s word and the Truth of God’s word is confirmed by the Holy Spirit within the born again believer.

Luke 10:27 And he answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”   If you are worshiping the Lord with the Holy Spirit of passion only, with all your heart, soul and strength but your mind is not engaged in loving the truth of the words you are hearing or saying then you may just be experiencing an emotional high, like a drug that temporarily satisfies but just as quickly fades and you are left in despair with nothing to sustain you, since you have no “meat of God’s word” to feast upon.  If you worship the Lord in Truth with your mind only, repeating some formula of prayer or going through some liturgical motions but your heart, soul and strength are not engaged in the Spiritual activity then you will find no satisfaction in worship and you will be unable to convince anyone of the joy of the Lord, including yourself, since you yourself have never committed yourself to a Spirit born life.

The worship of God must be both “in spirit” that engages the whole heart and “in truth” that engages the whole mind.  With the mind we study God’s word to know Him better, to know who He is, what He is doing and what He wants to do in us and through us.  His word is truth but we can not understand God word or apply His word without His Spirit that confirms God’s word and allows us to surrender our self to Him without reservation.  It is by both Spirit and Truth that God is glorified through our life and at the same time we find the peace, love and joy that we desperately need.  Amen.

– Rogersings

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