Building from our previous study about praise, today I would like to bring to your attention what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth. God has never left us without guide in serving Him. This shows that He wants us to do what is right in His eyes. In the Old Testament He prescribed what type of animals would be acceptable for sacrifices. That was guidance so that they do what is right in His eyes. In our opening scripture the Lord Jesus said, “God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. This is what He calls true worship. Anything that doesn’t align with that can’t be received by God. Remember that what we offer to God has to be accepted by Him and not man. Firstly, He says worship in spirit. This means we must worship God from our spirits. This shows you must be spiritually conscious of what you are doing and the God you are serving. Fleshly worship can’t be accepted by God. Fleshly worship centers on appeasement of the flesh. This is where we have seen some strange and fleshly dances in the congregations of the Lord in the name of praise. In some cases the dances are very offensive, embarrassing and disrespectful. Many have tried to justify their dances by David’s experience. They are in error as they ignore the context, the kind of dance but also the dispensation changes. In the New Testament praise or worship is majorly from your spirit expressed through your lips thankfully (Hebrews 13:15 AMPC). Any dance has to be a reverential response of what is happening in your heart filled with praise. This is not a rehearsed dance or fleshly dance.

There are acceptable reverential gestures of worship which you see from the Old Testament through the New Testament which are prostrating, kneeling and lifting up of our hands. Philippians 3:3 declares, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the

spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”. In true worship your attention is on God and not people or yourself. Anything whose core attention is man and yourself doesn’t qualify as true worship. The second aspect is about worshiping God in truth. John 17:17 defines truth as the Word of God. Our worship should be substantiated by God’s revelations given to us in His written Word. The songs of praise we sing should be influenced by His Word. Psalm 56:10 says: “In God will I praise his word: in the LORD will I praise his word. We praise God through praising His Word. We thankfully declare what His word says about who He is, what He does or has done. Don’t allow your emotions lead your worship. Let the Word of God lead. This means you must be devoted to His word in study and learning. That becomes the raw material forming your worship. Don’t give God what He did not ask for.