Morning Devotional
April 17, 2005
"The Woman at the Well" (Part 11) 
    by Don Emmitte

Jesus replied, "Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21-24 NLT).

 

The Samaritan woman entered into a religious discussion with Jesus. Jesus answers back with religion, but He quickly turned the conversation to spiritual issues. Religion, in and of itself, is not always spiritual.

 

God is a spiritual being. One cannot reach a spiritual being through physical means. Many times our religion remains just that, a physical expression. We go to church, which is physical. We read our Bible, which is again physical. We pray, that’s also physical. Sometimes we even believe in a physical way. Yes, all of these actions can be good religious practices, but if they are done as simply physical activities, we will have missed God! God is Spirit and we must reach Him in spiritual terms.

 

What does that mean? To answer this question we must go back to a couple of days ago where we addressed Jesus’ looking into the Samaritan woman’s heart. The Bible says, “With his heart a man plans his course” (Proverbs 16). A person’s heart determines who they really are. With our heart, we relate to God. Although our physical activity might sometimes indicate what is in our heart, what is important in life is what our heart truly believes. Created in the image of God, you and I are actually spiritual beings. We are spirits who live in a physical body in a physical world, but at our core, in our hearts, we are spiritual beings. We must relate to our Creator through spiritual means...through the heart.

 

I know this is difficult sometimes for our “physical” minds to understand, but it is very important. The reason some people miss experiencing God is that they try to make it a physical experience, and God is a spiritual being. If you and I will attempt to relate to God heart to heart, spirit to spirit, we will truly find and know the Living God!

 

Get alone with God and tell Him you desire to know Him spirit to Spirit through Jesus Christ.