Journey through John 4:19-26

Good Morning Church Family – Journey Through John

Read John 4:19-26

Devo Thought: We have been looking over the last several days at the conversation that Jesus had with the woman at the well and some of the obstacles that keep us from experiencing God’s grace. The last obstacle to address might be the biggest one because it is the one that looks the most God-like, but in reality it is the one that is so often the less like God in its practice. The woman recognizes now that there is something very special about Jesus, so she turns the conversation to religion. She points out that they have different beliefs about where true worship happens, and she knows that only one of them can be right. In part, Jesus affirms that she is right in thinking that one of them is right. He tells her that salvation does come from the Jews, but not in the way she and many others thought that it would come. Like many people in her day, she believed that salvation would come by way of worshipping in the right place in the right way. Jesus corrects her thinking that true worship happens in spirit and in truth. While truth is an essential part of worship (we must know who we are worshipping and why), spirit is also an essential part of the equation. In fact, Jesus emphasizes that God is spirit. By doing this, Jesus is essentially saying that God isn’t bound to a particular place. He doesn’t belong to the mountain of the Samaritans or the temple of the Jews. While the Jews have been telling the truth about salvation coming by way of the Jews, many of them had missed the point and confused the place (the temple) with the person (Jesus the Messiah), which is why he reveals Himself to her.

Let us ask God to help us worship Him in spirit and in truth.