What Is True Worship?

When talking with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (John 4), Jesus makes an earth-shattering statement. In response to her confusion about where people should worship (v. 20), Isa says the following:

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (vv. 23-24)

The reason this is so earth-shattering is because for thousands of years, worship had always been associated with a physical location. The woman tells Jesus that "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship" (v. 20). In other words, she's trying to argue latitudes and longitudes. But Jesus doesn't go down that road. He isn't concerned with temples or mountains. He's stops her dead in her tracks and says, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father" (v. 21).

In essence, Jesus is saying that you no longer need to travel any amount of distance in order to worship Allah. You can worship Him wherever you are. You can worship Him at home, in your car, at work, at the grocery store, in your room, at the bank, at the mall or anywhere else. Allah loves our worship all the time - not only when we're at religious buildings.

I know (from personal experience) that it's one thing to show up at a temple, mosque or church and go through all the motions. But it's an entirely different thing to worship the Father in spirit and in truth - regardless of where we are. And remember, these are the people that Allah is seeking! He desires our worship, regardless of where we do it. For "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:24-25).

Praise and thanks be to God for sending Isa al Masih to show us this exciting and liberating reality. May we all be true worshipers of Allah, wherever we are, in spirit and in truth.

The Greatest Commandment

Mark 12:28-31:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked [Jesus], "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Isn't it odd that love is the single greatest commandment in all of Scripture? The Tawrat, Prophets, Zabur and Injil are filled with commandments from God. Yet none of them surpass the commandment to love Allah.

Futhermore, we are not to simply love the Lord with our words and deeds. We are to love Him with everything we are. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

This means that we can pray five times a day, give alms to the poor, fast from sunrise to sunset, memorize thousands of verses, keep the strictest guidelines of religion - and yet still be disobeying the greatest commandment of Allah. The apostle Paul puts it like this:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

If we have not love, we gain nothing. It is essential that we continue to seek Allah and love Him with all that we are. Isa al Masih has given us the greatest commandment and he longs for us to obey it. Once again, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'"

So how can we truly live this out? By obeying the commandments of Allah. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:2-3).

The commandments of God are not burdensome. He doesn't require us to jump through a bunch of hoops, complete a series of tests or try to merit our own salvation. He wants our hearts, our souls, our minds and our strength to love Him with all that we are. This indeed is the greatest commandment.

Too Good to be True?

When I read the Bible I often run into a very strange problem. The problem is not that God sounds too cruel, impatient or irritated. The problem is that He sounds too good to be true! He sounds too loving. He sounds too caring. He sounds like He knows every hair on my head and listens to my every cry. Here is just a miniscule taste of His goodness:

Psalm 103:13. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.

Psalm 56:8. You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

Psalm 34:18. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Ephesians 2:4-5. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved.

1 John 3:1. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Romans 5:8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Psalm 16:11. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

And the list goes on and on. These wonderful truths about Allah are all over the pages of Scripture. But what do we do with a God like this? And why do we have such a hard time believing these things are true?

I certainly have some ideas of my own, but what do you think? Why do you struggle to see Allah as infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely patient and infinitely loving? I know He is in my head, but my heart doesn't always believe so quickly!

The Scriptures Bear Witness About Me

Reading the Scriptures and immersing ourselves in God's word is extremely essential in strengthening our faith. For "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). And as the psalmist cries, "My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!" (Zabur 119:28).

But it is not enough to stop there. We cannot simply read and hope for the best. Why? Because the reading is not the destination. Jesus is.

Listen to these words from Isa al Masih:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)

This is a rather remarkable statement. Jesus is talking to very devout Jews who likely have most of the Scriptures memorized by heart. These people could often recite the entire Tawrat off the top of their heads. But Isa is not impressed. He isn't satisfied with their intellectual knowledge. He wants them to come to him.

The beauty of the Scriptures is that they are all pointing forward to Isa al Masih. He is the promised Messiah whom all the prophets foretell. (And while we don't have time to fully address this truth right now, it is something that we will continually come back to on this blog.) As Isa himself points out, Allah's blessings throughout the generations are ultimately fulfilled in His Word, Jesus Christ. It is the Sciptures that bear witness about him (John 5:39).

Reading the Scriptures is vitally important to our spiritual life. But we cannot stop there. We must soak in the word of God so that we will be directed to Jesus, and come to him that we may have life (John 5:40). If we simply read for intellectual knowledge, it's as if we're driving a car for thousands of miles with no specific destination in mind. Just as the car is meant to get us somewhere, so also are the Scriptures meant to get us somewhere: To Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isa is calling us to come to him for life. He says to those who hear, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). The Scriptures all bear witness about him. May we come to him that we may have life.