Worship God In Spirit and Truth

Lesson 1

Worship in General

Most people, if not all, now and throughout antiquity have worshipped an entity. “Primitive man feared all manifestations of power; he worshiped every natural phenomenon he could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed ‘acts of God’ and ‘mysterious dispensations of Providence.’” 1

“It is known that between five hundred to six hundred such tribal units had their own independent history of social and religious development … in complete isolation from each other except for occasional marginal contacts at the boundaries of their territories. … In all the tribes of Australia, without exception, there exists a belief in one Supreme Power, who is the first cause of all creation.” 2

Ancient Egyptians had Ra, their sun god, and Osiris, the god of the underworld, while Babylon, Greece, and Rome worshipped mythological gods.

Today a significant portion of the world’s population consists of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who worship God or Jehovah, the God of Moses and Abraham, or Allah, the God worshipped by the Muslims. There are colossal disagreements between and within each of them. Another significant portion of the world adheres to beliefs such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Still, there are others as in primitive nations that have their time-honored ‘spiritual’ beliefs.

These examples point to a fundamental trait of man that existed from creation, a desire to pay homage and to worship some entity. The attitude of man’s heart is most important for Jesus stated "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). Later Jesus stated a new commandment: “I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

“It [the heart] was considered to be the seat of the emotions and passions and appetites and embraced likewise the intellectual and moral faculties-though these are necessarily ascribed to the soul (The International Standard Bible Dictionary).

1 urantia.org/en/urantia-book-standardized/paper-85-origins-worship 2 alislam.org/library/books/revelation/part_3_section_2.html

One is to love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, the whole man, therefore a living sacrifice. But as Jesus showed us true worship is directed to God from love and adoration that goes beyond performing some outward act or ritual.