JESUS REIGNS 2Esimerkki

A TRUE HEART OF WORSHIP

There is a story recorded in Mat. 15:21-23 about a Syro-Phoenician Greek woman who approached Jesus after he had entered Tyre and Sidon. The woman followed Jesus and his disciples begging him to heal her daughter who had unclean spirit. “Oh Lord, Son of David. My daughter is severely demon-possessed, she cried.” Jesus did not answer the woman immediately and was urged by his disciple to send her away. Jesus replied, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The woman then came and fell at Jesus’ feet, worshipped him and said, Lord, help me! Jesus answered her, it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs. To which the woman replied, True Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Jesus healed the woman’s daughter that very hour.

This woman must have heard the stories about people who had received healing by referring to Jesus as the Son of David; blind Bartimeus for one example. She knew that being a Gentile she has no claim on Jesus as the Son of David, but she was desperate to see her daughter healed. To get Jesus’ attention she pretended to have a relationship with him that did not exist. After the woman came to worship Jesus, he exposed her hypocrisy by calling her a dog. (It is interesting to note that the Greek word for worship used in this passage means to kiss the hand or lick like a dog). Realizing her scheme had been exposed; the woman approached Jesus from the true position of her status and presented her plea. That was the approach that got Jesus’ attention.

True worship flows from a true relationship with God. One can use the expressions of worship used by others, but if their relationship with God is not based on truth, it will not be true worship. God is not impressed with our methods of worship if those methods express someone rather than who we really are. God desires truth in the inward parts.

Do you have a true intimate relationship with the Father? Are your expressions of worship based on someone else’s relationship? Ask the Father to give you truth in the inward parts.