John 4:24
Holman Christian
Standard Bible (HCSB)
24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him
must worship in spirit and truth.”
Sylvia and I were studying with a woman who showed much
interest in what the Bible teaches. She had a roly-poly little dog that was
covered in long black curly hair. He would welcome us each time we came with
the exuberance only a little dog can show. Then he would settle in her lap, and
she would feed him chocolates while we talked. (Don’t believe all the stories
about how bad chocolate is for dogs. It certainly wasn’t bad for this little
dog. If you are older, you’ll remember that doctors used to say that chocolate
was bad for us, too.) This woman liked and accepted everything as we went
along.
Eventually, we reached the study of what day was the day of
worship. We pointed out that Jesus kept his Sabbath on Saturday, the day the
Jews went to the synagogue. We talked about how the disciples kept the Sabbath
after Christ’s death and resurrection. We prayed about it and invited her to
church on the next Sabbath. We also told her to think about the topic.
Naturally she had an excuse for not joining us the next Sabbath.
The next time we met to study with her, the little dog danced
and barked his excitement at seeing us again. His whole body wagged with his
tail. We inquired about what thoughts she had about the Sabbath. She answered
readily, “Let’s pray about it!” We concurred.
“Jesus, should I keep the Sabbath!” she demanded in a loud
voice. Then even louder, “Answer me, Jesus! Do you want me to worship on
Saturday?” She continued her pleading and demanding for well over five minutes.
Neither she, nor we, heard any response from Jesus or anyone
else. Finally she turned to us and said decidedly, “See, Jesus didn’t answer
me. He would have answered me if he really wanted me to keep your Sabbath.” We
spent some time talking about how God speaks to us. Sometimes He does speak to
people directly and openly. Much more often He chooses to let us reason from
the Bible what course of action He expects us to pursue. To worship Him in
spirit and truth we need to be open to both sources.
We visited a couple more times, but her spirit had cooled,
and though she didn’t express any animosity towards us, it became evident that
the Holy Spirit could no longer reach her through us. So we parted as friends
and fellow Christians but not as fellow believers.
Lord, please help me
to follow You as You reveal Yourself to me.
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