Good evening church family. It’s an honor to come to your homes and private places of study. I do realize this is an unconventional way of meeting together, but God will still be in this tonight. This is out of the norm for all of us. Not just in our church, but others as well. This won’t be perfect, I am not good with typing or computers in general. Do not pay attention to my poor grammar or anything else but God’s word. I would like to personally thank our church leaders here at Eddy for making such a safe decision that was necessary. We ask God’s Blessings to be upon this study tonight.

Please start tonight in your home with prayer with your family. Pray for our country, President, military. Pray for our church and its leaders as well as other churches…as we are all in this together. Pray for this world as a whole that God would see fit to make this terrible sickness cease and die. Remember those specifically who have been affected by COVID-19.

*Disclaimer: please open your bibles and use them to properly do this study. Please turn to each biblical scripture reference listed*

Tonight let dig into to God’s Word together, we will be focusing on the topic of worship. Please turn in your bibles to John 4:20-24. This is a very familiar scripture to us, we all know how it goes. Jesus is speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well. Towards the end of this passage the topic of worship gets brought up by the woman after she perceives Jesus to be a prophet. I would like to ask and answer the following questions: why do we worship, how do we worship, when do we worship and where do we worship. Although we cannot be together in a physical sense, we do still need to worship (Hebrews 10:25). Church is a good thing, the family (the home) was founded by God. The church was founded by God, for the family. We are the church, until we can gather together for worship together in the sanctuary as we are told to do (Psalm 150:1), we still must worship at home. After all, we go to church to worship the Lord and get fed spiritually.

Lets start with the “Why”. Why do we worship? (I will be referencing a lot to a few chapters in Psalm and other books in this study). First, of all believe it or not we were created to worship God. In the heart of a true born again believer it is your desire and purpose. When a person gets saved he or she has a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). This new heart has a natural desire to worship God (Psalm 27:4). Worshipping the Lord feeds the soul and without it a Christian will starve (Matthew 4:4). If you did not feed yourself with physical food you would starve, same goes for our “Inner Man” the soul must be fed with spiritual food. Feed your spirit with mana from above! Also, we are told to worship (Psalm 150:6, 147:1). It is an essential not something you can do without. If you do not have this desire to worship God, I would advise us to check ourselves.

Now the “How”. How do we worship? We all have different ways of worshipping God. If you look culture to culture, nation to nation Christians all over the world worship God many different ways. As long as we follow Jesus’s guide given to us in our text tonight (John 4:23-24) this is what matters. We must worship God in spirit and truth because God is a Spirit (John 4:24). Worshiping God in our flesh is impossible, because He is not flesh but rather Spirit. A few examples of different forms of worshiping or “praising God”(true worship will give God praise): Psalm 134:2, Psalm 146: 1, 7, Psalm 149: 3, 5, Psalm 150: 3-5 all examples of methods of worship. Psalm 100 tells us to simply make a joyful noise! It does not matter if you can sing or not, what does matter is if you are doing it (Ephesians 5:19). We all must worship God with everything in us! By worshiping The Lord in Spirit and in Truth, we will be doing nothing but glorifying, magnifying, Magnifying Him and not us.

Next the “When”. When do we worship? We should worship God everyday, not just on the Sabbath. In the world we live in most Christians are just “Sunday Christians”, this lifestyle is contrary to the scriptures on what a true Christian is (Mark 8:24). It is safe to say that half of a congregation will show up ready and willing to “go to meeting” (worship). That said, you figure only half on the “Sunday Christians” are even worshiping God on Sunday. We can expect even less than that for mid week services or Sunday night or anything outside of Sunday morning….”just too busy preacher”, “just don’t feel like it”…Imagine if God didn’t have time for us or didn’t feel like doing anything for. What a mess we would be in for sure! We should take more time to serve and worship God whether we feel good or not. I do encourage you to designate Sunday for God, family, and church, but may I challenge us to treat every day as Sunday (except us having to work, sorry to get your hopes up)! The Psalmist David says in Psalm 34:1 that he will worship at all times. This should be the same for us.

Finally lets look at “Where”. Where do we worship? The answer is anywhere and everywhere! Sure we have Houses of Worship designated for worship, we should worship not just in the sanctuary but at home, work, school or wherever you may be. Jesus addresses this issue in our text (John 4:20-21, 22-23) saying its not so much where you worship but rather how you worship, or that you do worship. I remember as a child being taught the importance of church. I remember being told, “just make sure you are in church”…”rather here or there just make sure you are in church”. This common statement that most of us were taught growing up is in reference to our text tonight. We put to much infuses or this church or that church, we all have our personal preferences (which often times are used to please us not God). As long as we are in a sound doctrine, fundamental, bible based church, then I believe true worship can and will take place there. For now, not being able to go to church to worship, we must still worship. I realize it doesn’t even seem right or feel right not to be in just and oh how we know we all miss it, we can still worship at home. Although the home was never meant to take place of the fellowship of the saints in the sanctuary (Hebrews 10:25), we must instate our homes as our “church” for the time being. Think back to the early church when they had to meet in secret places and homes, it is kind of the same thing, yet without people gathering from everywhere (as we practice social distancing). It is very similar to that time in The Church’s history, excluding the persecution of that day which is why they met like this (how thankful we should be). This is the time in our lives that we should be thankful for our text tonight that Jesus said what He said and it was recorded for us to know. Isn’t it good to know we can still worship God while unable to go to church? It is a great thing to know we can worship The true and living God wherever we are!

In closing tonight may we all sing the song together “Holy Mana” aka “Brethren We Have Met To Worship”

I hope and pray that this devotional was a help to you. Feel free to share it with someone in need. As we close this service tonight, please know that God does not want us to fear but he does expect us to use the knowledge and wisdom that He has given us. I like to call it good old fashioned common sense! I do realize this is not what any of us want, but for now, it is the best and safest option that we have. We are told in the Bible to also obey our rulers and the laws of the land. How long will this pandemic last? Only God knows…until we meet again good night and may God Bless you and yours!

“The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:  Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace”. -Numbers 6:24-20 KJV