God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. — John 4:24
My leadership journey has taught me more about my relationship with God than I expected. For a long time, I approached my team the same way every meeting. I need this. That is a priority. Here is what has to get done. My interactions were driven almost entirely by need. What the team could produce. What tasks required attention. What I required from the people around me.
And then something shifted. I started coming to those meetings differently. Instead of leading with need, I began leading with appreciation. Acknowledging the work people had done. Recognizing their contributions. Coming to the table not to take but to give. Gratitude, recognition, and genuine acknowledgment of who they were and what they brought.
The culture on my team changed. The relationships deepened. Something that had felt transactional became something genuinely meaningful.
I have thought about that shift often in the context of worship.
Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman at a well when He says the words of John 4:24. She wants to debate the correct location for worship, which mountain, which temple, which tradition. And Jesus redirects the entire conversation. The where is not the issue, He tells her. The how is. Those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Spirit — genuine, from the inside out. Not a performance calibrated for the people around you. Not going through familiar motions because it is expected. Something real, something alive, something that originates in the heart rather than the habit.
Truth — anchored in who God actually is. Not who we prefer Him to be. Not a version of God constructed around what we want from Him. The full, unedited reality of His character. His holiness, His goodness, His sovereignty, His love, honored for what it actually is.
Together, those two words describe a kind of worship that cannot be manufactured and cannot be contained to a Sunday morning service.
Most of us approach God the way I used to approach my team meetings. We come with our list. Our burdens. Our requests. And God welcomes every one of them. He is a God who invites us to bring our needs before Him. But the altar of worship is something distinct from that. It is the place we come, not with a request but with recognition. Not asking God for something but acknowledging who He is before we ask for anything at all.
It is the most selfless posture at the altar. And it is the one that perhaps transforms us most deeply. When I stopped leading with need and started leading with gratitude, my team felt seen. Valued. The relationship became something more than transactional.
When we stop approaching God only as a need-meeter and begin coming to the altar simply to worship Him for who He is, something shifts. Not just in the atmosphere of our prayer life, but in us. We begin to see God more clearly. We become more aware of His greatness. The requests we eventually bring are shaped by a deeper understanding of the One we are bringing them to.
Come to the altar today with nothing to ask. Just come to worship. In spirit. In truth. For who He is. Everything else will find its proper place from there.
Sometimes the most meaningful encouragement comes from hearing how God is meeting people in ordinary moments.
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About Another Well Ministries
Another Well Ministries exists to help people slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the ordinary places of life. Through devotionals, reflections, and spiritual resources, we seek to create space for faith to be formed with honesty, grace, and hope.
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