Devotions From the Heart: Knowing What We Worship

by Derek Gitsham

"You worship you know not what: we know
what we worship: for salvation is of
the Jews." John 4:22

How true are these words spoken by
Jesus to the woman of Samaria at the
well. Idolatry, idol worship is dead.
False religions know not what they
worship, but the worship of the Jews
is a knowledge—we know what we worship.
The words “what we worship” would be
better translated “who we worship,”
for salvation is of the Jews.

Interestingly here, Jesus likens worship
with salvation. A man has to know the
salvation of God to be a worshipper. That
means he has got to be changed from what
he was to what the Lord now will make him
by regeneration.

If a man is going to have the right knowledge
of God to make him a worshipper, it will be
because God has done a work in him. He
experiences justification, regeneration, and
sanctification/holiness and this in turn will
enable him to worship God. No experience of

God makes a man devoid of the ability to worship.
A man must testify to a complete work of salvation
having been wrought in his life if he is to
worship God. Sin cannot worship Him, dead self
cannot; the old man of sin will not. Sin has to
be slain in the man, the life of corruption put
to death, crucified with Christ, then raised
from the dead to die no more. He then qualifies
to be a worshipper. No death to the old,
no worship. The nature of salvation has got to be right.

So many are lead into the things of God by
spurious means. They have not undergone a death,
not experienced a resurrection or a receiving of
the Spirit. Warm, fuzzy phrases, totally unbiblical,
have wrecked havoc in the Church and lives are
barely changed that claim they are now Christian.

The only way a man can know what he worships is by
knowing what God has done in Him. Salvation is what
God does to you, not what you do for God. This and
only this will cause us to know whom we worship.
We know Him when He sets us free from sin.