Daily Verse
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Worship
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Sunday's Reflection
John 4:23-24 — But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Worship is the natural response of a creature who truly sees the Creator. When we grasp who God is — His greatness, His holiness, His love — worship rises in us almost without effort, the way awe rises when we stand before something vast and beautiful. Having spent last week resting in the God who made us, we come now to the response that flows from knowing Him: worship. It is not one activity among many in the Christian life; it is the very center of it, the reason we were made. We were created to know God and to give Him glory.
But Jesus tells us something crucial about what real worship is. It is not mainly about a place, a building, or a form. The Samaritan woman wanted to argue about where people ought to worship — this mountain or that temple — and Jesus lifted the whole question higher. God is Spirit, He said, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. Real worship is a matter of the heart, offered honestly and sincerely, springing from a true knowledge of who God is. It is possible to sing all the right songs and say all the right words while the heart is far away, and it is possible to worship God deeply in the quiet of one's own soul. God looks past the outward forms to the heart behind them.
This week we look at what it means to worship — in a frail man who gave the church some of its greatest songs of praise, in the daily chorus of creation that greets each sunrise, and in the Scriptures that show us worship as reverence, as praise, and as the eternal occupation of heaven. And the most searching thing Jesus says here is easy to miss: the Father seeks such to worship Him. The God of the universe is actually looking for worshipers. The question for the week is whether He will find one in us.
"It is a law both of the intellectual and the spiritual nature that by beholding we become changed. The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is allowed to dwell." (Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 555)
Prayer: Father, You are seeking worshipers who will worship You in spirit and in truth. Make us such worshipers. Lift our eyes to see who You are, and let true worship rise from our hearts, not merely from our lips. Amen.