In Spirit and Truth - Pastor's Pen for 31st August 2025

Martin's Bay

The Jews of Jesus' time no doubt saw the religion of the Samaritans as syncretistic and therefore an abomination to them, sullied as it was by outside influences originating from the Assyrian practice of moving conquered peoples around their empire.

Jesus had no problem traveling through Samaritan territory. He was not focused on the outward purity and religious practices of Judaism or the Samaritans, but on human beings whose hearts were transformed by God. He said to the woman by the well; ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.

As a young person, I was greatly concerned about having 'got it right', as if faith in Jesus was a formula for success, boxes that needed ticking. Instead, I discovered that the God of grace wanted to transform my life bit by bit through Jesus Christ, patiently waiting as my understanding grew of what it was to worship 'in spirit and truth.' Leon Morris writes;

"God is the living God. He is ceaselessly active as the life giving Spirit, and he must be worshipped in a manner befitting such a Spirit. People cannot dictate the how or the where of worship. They come in the way that the Spirit of God opens for them."

A wonderful freedom grows up when we realise we do not have a performance based religion of works and achievements. The God of love draws us to God's-self in Jesus through the Spirit. The more we realise the truth of this the more we can live abundantly in the spirit of this way that has opened for us.