What is Really Important

In Psalm 19, David says:

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” (v 14, NIV).

And in Psalm 51, he says to the Lord:

“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (vv 16,17).

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that:

“A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain [Samaria] nor in Jerusalem… A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21,23,24).

There are other Bible passages that could be quoted to the same effect, but these are sufficient to make an important point. The Psalms passages tell us that our heavenly Father is interested in what we say and what we think. He is interested in our spirits (our minds) and our hearts, and with what attitude we approach Him — much more, it would seem, than in the small, extraneous details of the actual services or sacrifices that we offer to Him.

And the verses in John tell us that the Lord God expects our worship of Him to be not so much about precise place and procedure, but much more about “spirit and truth”. Or, to put it another way, our worship must be, as we might read that last phrase, about “spiritual truth”, and/or “a true spirit”.

We might conclude from this that it is more important to have a proper attitude than to stand or sit at exactly the right time, or to say exactly the right words, or to follow exactly the right format or procedure.

It is important that we consider, one by one, the primary parts of our Memorial Service, not just to examine how we worship God, but also especially the spirit, the understanding, and the state of mind with which we come into His presence.