God is Spirit. He desires we worship him truthfully and from our hearts. We belong to a physical world. Not a spiritual one. To bridge the two worlds to have a relationship with our spiritual Father, we must have divine help.
“Jesus replied, ‘… For it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship – is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us.” (John 4:21-23)
I do not fully comprehend what Jesus means when He says, “God is Spirit.” Perhaps Jesus is contrasting our physical limitations with God’s infiniteness. Perhaps Jesus is contrasting our physical form with God’s non-physical form. Jesus may be telling us more about what God “isn’t” than what God “is”: God isn’t human, God’s not one of us, and God is not of the physical realm. To me, “Spirit” seems to refer both to God and the realm of God. It seems to suggest that God cannot be seen by us, unless He manifests Himself in a way that we can.
I understand that our worship of God does not depend on us being in a particular place. It depends on us being genuine and heart-felt. Whether we worship God in Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, or elsewhere doesn’t matter. God does not reside in a single place. He can be found everywhere. And it’s “substance over form” that measures the appropriateness of our worship – not the other way around.
I also understand that I need help from the Holy Spirit. I will not be able to appropriately worship and obey God without it. The Holy Spirit is divine truth. I understand that I should pray to God that the Holy Spirit guides me in Jesus’ name.
Jesus said, “Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t understand it now. When the Holy Spirit, who is truth, comes, he shall guide you into all truth, for he will not be presenting his own ideas, but will be passing on to you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He shall praise me and bring me great honor by showing you my glory. All the Father’s glory is mine; this is what I mean when I say that he will show you my glory.” (John 16:12-15)
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