READ John 4:23–24
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
MEDITATE
Sitting alongside a well in the heat of the day, Jesus chats with a Samaritan woman. As the conversation unfolds, Jesus promises her, “the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24). In this short promise, Jesus refers three times to truth and truthful worshipers; he refers twice to “spirit and truth.”
Jesus has just mentioned “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14), so the woman—and we who are onlookers—can be excused for expecting the Spirit to produce ecstatic experiences and spiritual transport. Instead, Jesus pulls in the reins: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (emphasis added)—in a truthful spirit or a Spirit-inspired truth. There can be no Spirit-inspired worship that is untruthful, no truthful worship that is void of Spirit. The two exist in tandem; the absence of one voids the validity of the other. Truth and Spirit. Spirit and truth.
When you pray for the Spirit, what are you praying for? The ability to speak in tongues? The capacity to exercise other gifts of the Spirit, such as healing, miracles, and prophecy? The fruits of the Spirit—patience, kindness, and generosity? Good! All of these are good. Welcome them as long as you pray too for the Spirit and truth. This may sound odd—more like study than spirituality. Precisely! Jesus teaches that study and spirituality, a vibrant spiritual life and a life of learning, go hand in hand.
I’m not saying this only because I teach the Bible for a living or because I love Hebrew and Greek. I’m writing this because it’s true. Absolutely true.
Let me illustrate what I mean—why truth matters. I fell in love with Priscilla when Duke University’s campus was flush with daffodils and crocuses, when the Carolina air carried hints of spring warmth, when—thank God—my harrowing and harried first semester of graduate school was behind me. And I was smitten by her golden hair, her incredible smile, her soft laugh. Nothing else mattered on the night of our first kiss, when I leaned against her ’68 Rambler after an evening stroll—and she lifted her face to mine. A few months later, we parted for the summer—she to serve churches in rural Indiana, me to teach Greek at Wheaton College—but our love deepened, even at a distance. We returned to a university on the edge of autumn—and to the prospect of life ahead, life together. All of a sudden, golden hair had to take a backseat to vocational plans. Did I want to marry a minister? All of a sudden, a beautiful smile took second place to our take on core beliefs. Did our faiths match? We walked for hours on Sunday afternoons, not always hand in hand, talking, arguing even, about whether “it would work” for the long haul. See what happened? Truth about each other became essential.
We did get married. And I still love her smile and run my fingers through her hair. Thirty-plus years haven’t changed that. But I love her mind, too, and my faith is denser and more durable because I’m married to her. Turns out truth did matter—and enhanced the love I felt in those early, heady days of a southern spring.
BREATHE 
PRAY
Holy Spirit
Spirit of Jesus
Spirit of Truth
Ignite in me a passion for the truth
Instill in me a craving for knowledge
Inspire in me a hunger for wisdom
Not just any truth, random knowledge, indiscriminate wisdom
But the truth about Jesus
who barked at his mother
who cried like a baby
who wore the towel of a servant and washed feet
who prayed the night away
who broiled fish on a spring morning
Come to me as the Spirit of Truth
the Spirit of Jesus
Holy Spirit
Amen