As Jesus teaches us about the Father, He reveals a Seeker of worshippers: God’s looking for those who worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23-24); true worship is about relationship, loving and enjoying God Himself, not religious form or ritual.
However, this isn’t the same as indulging our emotional impulses; seducing spirits imitate the Holy Spirit and draw careless, uninformed worshippers away. If we aren’t focused on and enjoying Father God as He has revealed Himself, we’re wandering astray, off on our own path (Is 53:6), chasing idols. (1Co 12:2)
So, we should carefully heed Christ’s observation that most worship is ignorant: “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” (Jn 4:22) Unless we know God from a Hebraic perspective our worship is in error, misguided; Jesus and His followers worship in truth because they have a Torah-based mindset. The Jews are the conduit of God’s offer of salvation to the world; through the Tanach God has revealed Who He is, what He is like and how to have a relationship with Himself. (Lk 16:29) We can only worship in spirit and in truth from such a perspective. (Ps 119:7, Is 8:20)
Christ is telling us that if we aren’t cherishing Jehovah God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and what He has shown us about Himself in Torah, we aren’t worshipping God at all, but an idol of our own imagination. (Ro 1:21) In other words, if we aren’t meditating in the Old Testament to comprehend Divinity and how to walk with Him, if we’re getting our theology elsewhere, we’re not even in the ballpark — we’ve no idea what we’re doing.
This is the basic problem with Christian theology: in rejecting the Torah-based foundation it takes the New Testament out of context; it’s a new religion, invented well after the Apostolic era, built on the sand. (Mt 7:26-27) The Jesus offered to the world through Christianity, who abolished Torah, isn’t the Christ of Scripture (Mt 5:17-19), and the various Christianized versions of the everlasting Gospel — inasmuch as they are not grounded in Torah, are false. (2Co 11:4) It’s an elaborate counterfeit (2Co 11:13-15), and to the degree souls are inoculated with this deception the harder they are to reach.
The people of God, who are the Israel of God (Ga 6:16), understand the basics about God as revealed in Torah: Jehovah God is holy, pure light; in Him is no darkness at all. (1Jn 1:5) He is a consuming fire (He 12:29) and will trample underfoot all who err from His commandments. (Ps 119:118) It is a fearful thing to fall into His hands. (He 10:31)
Claiming to know Jehovah God without keeping His commands is lying to ourselves. (1Jn 2:4) There’s no reconciliation with God apart from obedience (Ac 5:32); God doesn’t save us to sin as we please (Ep 2:10), He writes His Laws into our hearts (He 8:10) and conforms us to the image of His Son. (Ro 8:29)
God’s followers obey Him (1Jn 3:7-8), and we do so in love — love for God and others. (10) We obey in faith, knowing God is good, faithful and true, no matter what. God works in us to live like this (Php 2:13), to serve Him with reverence and godly fear, by grace. (He 12:28)
God is seeking worshippers … who know Him as He is: Almighty Jehovah God, laying down His life to justify us (1Jn 3:16), giving us new hearts to love and pursue Him (saving us) (Ez 36:26), requiring perfect obedience of us (Mt 5:48), showing us mercy as we try imperfectly to obey (Ex 20:6) and enabling us to obey Him more and more in spirit and truth (sanctifying us). (1Co 1:30-31)