Nougat 7

Have you ever tried to visualize God? I don’t think I’ve consciously done so, but perhaps in my musings. How does today’s Holy Nougat portray God? And what does that mean for us believers?

“For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.””

John 4:24 NLT

Firstly, if God is Spirit, then the way we often dissociate God’s Spirit from God’s self does not hold. God is Spirit. No getting around that.

Secondly, if God is Spirit God cannot be contained. The woman, Jesus’ conversation partner, was trying to make sense of worship, one key point of distinction between the Jews and Samaritans, and in so doing, sought to understand the ways of God. Jesus’ response affirms that as Spirit, God the limits we would frame.

This is important. For it was Jesus – the Jew – who reached out to the woman. Not the other way around. But Jesus the Jew was not any (old) human. John 1 affirms that Jesus IS the Word of God and that Jesus existed with God from the beginning of time. Whether we agree with their views or not, when a CEO speaks, we hear them as the organization and not just themselves. Thus, He Who spoke with the woman spoke with the authority of God. And so, Jesus saying the time has come (see previous verses) for ALL to worship God in response to her question means that the Gospel was now available for ALL. The woman he spoke with, you and me.

Moreover, as Spirit, God doesn’t require us to worship IN Jerusalem only, we are free to worship God in our context. The format may vary, but the essence of our worship is from the heart. God is not keen on our rituals and traditions. God is keen on the state of our heart. That’s where Truth can be found. (Psalm 51:6 suggests that it is not so much our hearts but our inward parts or womb/loins. That aligns with Ephesians 6:14 which presents Truth as a belt in our armor). Worshipping God IN Truth invites us to invite God in and be prepared to have God emanate from our lives.

Spirit, in both Greek and Hebrew texts, transliterates as breath, wind, perhaps even vapor. My somewhat limited biological knowledge says when we breathe in, the air circulates throughout our bodies and into our lungs, providing much-needed oxygen to our system. In a Covid-19 conscious world, every single one of us should have a sense of the value of good air.

When we recognize God is Spirit and cannot be contained; we also recognize and affirm that as Breath when we inhale we inhale the Essence of God’s God-ness.

That’s what God’s Spirit does!

And as we would breathe out out the waste carbon dioxide with each breath, so it is that when we breathe God’s Spirit Within, then there’s scope for us to exhale the junk that causes dis-ease where Truth seeks to dwell.

I want to move us away from literal biology for a moment and take a literary-biblical perspective on Spirit. In Matthew 15:11, Jesus speaks to defilement. And He notes that what is ingested does not make us unclean, rather it’s that which comes out. Although biological; I’m extending that premise to argue that when we worship In spirit and truth, what we exhale ought also reflect God’s Spirit at work in our lives.

God IS Spirit. Utterly God. Uncontainable. Available to all and for all. Essence of Life. Source of our spiritual existence.

Do we receive God’s Spirit within us? How do we worship?

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May all we seek be found in Christ