A Prepared Bride 7 – Loving God Spiritually

Loving God Spiritually

The first wall in our lives that needs maintained and often repaired is that of worship – the action and attitude of devotion to our God. As we have seen in Matt 22, Jesus instructs us that the first is greatest commandment is to love God with all of our hearts, minds, souls and, from Deuteronomy, strength.

For the sake of our discussion, I want to concentrate on one of the interpretation of heart from Scripture – the spirit.

Our God and Father is not looking for automatons or robots who will spew out endless repetitions but for a people who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.

Jesus had an encounter with a woman from Samaria. During His discussion with her, Jesus states,

"Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24 NIV

Jesus tells us here that the Father is seeking, looking for, and awaiting those who will give themselves freely and openly to loving Him without hesitation or restraint. However, unlike other religions, God seeks a relationship with those who worship him. He wants there to be an exchange – our death for His life.

Another encounter Jesus had illustrates the need for this relationship.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." John 3:1-8 NIV

In order to have a relationship with God, you must be born into His family, i.e. born again, born of the Spirit. As Jesus said to the woman at the well, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” We must be of the same Spirit. Jesus told Nicodemus, “the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”


To be born of water is to be born naturally – the fluid in which we float for those months in our mothers’ womb. To be born again or born of the Spirit is to have eternal life breathed into out dead spirits. As one fellow put it, “Jesus did not die to make bad people good. He died to make dead people live.”

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved. Eph 2:4-5
NIV

Outside of Christ, we are dead – eternally dead. That is what hell and the lake of fire are all about – eternal, never ending, unrelenting death. There are many who believe that hell is the absence of the presence of God, that it is a place where God isn’t and that is what makes it so terrible. How can this be? Is God omnipresent or not? Is He everywhere present at all times or is there is little niche where He isn’t that we call hell?

David wrote in Psalm 139, verse 8,

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. NIV

The Hebrew word translated “depths” is Sheol. It is the place of the dead which we would translate as hell.

Among the teachings we receive in Bible College or Seminary is those which demonstrate the nature and character of God. We use such words as immutable (unchanging), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere present simultaneously). If God cannot change and He is everywhere then hell is not the absence of God but the presence of God without mercy!

Therefore, to avoid the judgment of God and enjoy the mercy of God in His presence, we must enter into a relationship with Him. This is a relationship that He himself initiated.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:17-21 NIV

Our sin separates us from God. He chose to die on our behalf so that we could be reconciled, reconnected, reinitiating our relationship with our Heavenly Father. He wants to have a relationship with us. He is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.


Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
Isa 30:18 NIV

Though our God is a just and righteous God, He looks for opportunities to be merciful. We just need to obey. We need to be faithful. We need to accept Jesus as the Christ, as our Lord and our Savior. We must recognize our sin – our disobedience, our rebellion. We must repent – turn away from our sin and turn to God. We must embrace His death as our only way to eternal life. Then we can enter into a relationship with the God of all creation, He who created us from the beginning, and worship Him – heart to heart!