I was going to take two days to do Section B on page 56 but it went quicker than I thought. I posted my work if you want to compare or have some ideas on what you can do. I worked off what I did in Section A. Focus on quality and not quantity. Remember, it is a skill you are seeking to develop not a product to be made.
From one little atom!
This is a review of The Joy of Discovery with plenty of exercises along the way. Feel free to study along and improve your study skills. Be sure to leave any questions or comments in the comments section below to enrich our learning. To go to the start of this series click here.
Click on the "The Joy of Discovery" tag below to see all the posts in this series. To go to the start of this series click here. To access some online study tools like Dictionaries, Concordances, and Commentaries try www.studylight.org
That the Lord, the Creator of all things, would want to teach me something is astounding. This begs to call my attention to His desire to have a relationship with me His creature. I sit here wanting to be taught how to pray; He sits there wanting to teach me how to pray. How do I go about this? This lessons shows me how.
As seen at teamsim.blogspot.com
This is a review of With Christ In The School Of Prayer by Andrew Murray with plenty of exercises along the way. Feel free to study along and improve your prayer life. As Murray said, “Power with God is the highest attainment of the life of full abiding.” I invite you to leave any questions or comments in the comments section below to enrich our learning. To go to the start of this series click here.
Andrew Murray, 1885
2: In Spirit and in Truth
But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is a Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. – John 4:23-24
These words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first glimpses into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worshippers: our worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true worshippers but doesn’t find many as He would have them.[1] True worship is that which is in spirit and in truth. The Son has come to open the way for this worship in spirit and in truth and teach it to us. So, one of our first lessons in the school of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth and to know how we can accomplish this.
Our Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria about a threefold worship. First is the ignorant worship of the Samaritans: Ye worship what ye know not (John 4:22). The second is the intelligent worship of the Jew who has the true knowledge of God: We worship what we know; for saving health is of the Jews (John 4:22). And last is the new – the spiritual worship which He Himself has come to introduce: The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.[2] From the connection it is evident that the words in spirit and in truth do not mean earnestly, from the heart, and in sincerity, as is often thought. The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the true full revelation of God in His Word as far as it had been given; there were godly men among them who called upon God with their whole heart. And yet they were not in spirit and in truth in the full meaning of the words. Jesus said, The hour comes, and now is; it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and in truth.[3]
One still finds the three classes of worshippers among Christians. Some are ignorant and hardly know what they ask; they pray earnestly but receive little. Others have more correct knowledge and try to pray with all their mind and heart; they often pray most earnestly but do not achieve the full blessedness of worship in spirit and truth. It is into the third group that we must ask our Lord Jesus to take us; we must be taught by Him how to worship in spirit and truth. This alone is spiritual worship; this makes us worshippers such as the Father seeks. In prayer, everything will depend on our understanding and practicing the worship in spirit and truth.
God is a Spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). The first thought suggested here by the Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers; as God is, so must His worship be. This is according to a principle which prevails throughout the universe: we look for correspondence between an object and the organ to which it reveals or yields itself. The eye has an inner affinity for the light, the ear for sound. The man who desires to truly worship God will find, and know, and possess, and enjoy God; he must be in harmony with Him and have the capacity for receiving Him. Because God is a Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshippers must be.[4]
And what does this mean? The woman had asked our Lord whether Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answered that from that time on, worship would no longer to be limited to a certain place: Woman, believe me, the hour comes when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father (John 4:21). As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time but in His infinite perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would no longer be confined by place or form; it would be spiritual as God Himself is spiritual – a lesson of deep importance.
How much our Christianity suffers from being confined to certain times and places. A man who seeks to pray earnestly in the church or in the closet spends the greater part of the week or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with the spirit in which he prayed. His worship was the work of a fixed place or hour but not of his whole being. God is a Spirit: He is the Everlasting and Unchangeable One; what He is, He is always and in truth. Our worship must also be in spirit and truth: His worship must be the spirit of our life; our life must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit.
God is a Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The second thought that comes to us is that this worship in the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit: He alone has Spirit to give. The Lord fit us for spiritual worship by giving us the Holy Spirit. Jesus spoke of His own work when twice He said, The hour comes, and then added, and now is. He came to baptize with the Spirit; the Spirit would not come until He was glorified (John 1:33; 7:37-39; 16:7). When He had made an end of sin, entered into the Holiest of all with His blood, and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33), He could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the Father. After Christ had redeemed us, and in Him we had received the position of children, the Father sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:15). The worship in spirit is the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Sonship.[5]
This is the reason Jesus uses the name of Father here. We never find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the position of child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible with those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. The worship in spirit is only possible with those to whom the Son has revealed the Father and who have received the spirit of sonship. Only Christ opens the way and teaches the worship in spirit.
And in truth – that does not only mean in sincerity. Nor does it only represent the truth of God’s Word. The expression is one of deep and divine meaning. Jesus is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The law was given through Moses, but the grace and the truth of God came through Jesus, the Christ (John 1:17). Jesus said, I AM the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).[6]
In the Old Testament, all was shadow and promise; Jesus brought fulfillment to the promise and made it reality – the substance of things waited for (Hebrews 11:1). In Him the blessings and powers of the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours in deed and truth, a positive communication out of the divine life.[7] So, worship in spirit is worship in truth – actual living fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the spirit.
What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly prepared at our first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We shall understand it better later. Let’s only begin and take the lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit: He has given Him to us.[8] Let the disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ’s words have taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him, the childlike teachableness that waits for Him to instruct us, and the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth. We will find that the Lord has more to say to us about it. The knowledge of the fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite fatherliness in our hearts, and the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. Christ opened this new and living way for us.
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Blessed Lord, I adore the love with which You taught a woman who had questioned giving You a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that You will instruct Your disciple now who comes to You with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth. Oh, my Holy Master, teach me this blessed secret.
Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man but only comes from You; teach me that it is not only a thing of times and seasons but is also the outflowing of a life in You. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer under the deep acceptance of my ignorance, as I have nothing in myself to offer Him, but at the same time, Your provision of my Savior makes for the Spirit’s breathing in my childlike stammerings. I do bless You that in You I am a child and have a child’s liberty of access; in You I have the spirit of sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all, blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives confidence in prayer; let the infinite fatherliness of God’s heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and worship. Amen.
