Naked & Unashamed
I am going to share everything I know about worship that God has shown me in these past two and a half years. He has spoken to me personally regarding worship and presented me with His gift of songwriting. It is time I give the glory back to Him and reveal the truth that He taught me. If you pay close attention, you might get a fresh understanding of what worship is. I will share about songwriting and singing new songs in the next entry.
John 4:23-24 reads,
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
What does it mean exactly to worship in Spirit and in truth? Why was it so important that Jesus highlighted this to the Samaritan woman? To understand this, we must go back to a parallel in the Old Testament. Genesis 2:25 is the last verse in the chapter and ends it by revealing the crucial ingredients of an intimate relationship, the way God wanted it, from the beginning of time to the end of eternity.
Gen 2:25 says,
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
See the connection yet? “Naked” stands for “Truth” and “Unashamed” stands for “Spirit”. These are the two things God wants to be present in any relationship, and especially in our worship. I will explain and elaborate further later on.
Before the Fall, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden with God and enjoyed the closest fellowship humans ever had with God and each other. They were naked and unashamed, before God and each other.
They were innocent, sinless and unselfish. God enjoyed them so much He, an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent Being, chose to dwell with adults who were behaving like children in a relatively small and dull garden instead of reigning in His glorious throne in Heaven with the splendorous array of worship the angels prepared for Him.
They were able to look at each other’s naked bodies without a hint of sexual perversion or immorality. They did not love each other with the self-serving type of love found in boy-girl relationships today. They were as intimate as opposite sex friends could be without having any ulterior motives or other ideas. They were first friends, then spouses.
Then sin entered Man through the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Though knowing both good and evil like God, we were unable to handle that knowledge and did many times more evil than good. This is why God forbade them to eat that fruit in the first place. Only He was holy, they were just plain innocent.
Look at what they did after the Fall.
Gen 3:7-11 says,
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
We hid from God and each other not only because of our nakedness, but because of our newfound lust. I bet Adam and Eve could not look at each other without having nasty thoughts of lust.
If you do not believe that lust had entered yet, just look one generation ahead. The thought of murder entered Cain’s mind and he acted it out by killing Abel. I just want to ask this fundamental question, “Who taught Cain to be filled with hatred and jealousy? Who taught him how to kill?” The answer: the knowledge of good and evil.
We were also ashamed of our own nakedness and tried to cover it up because sin corrupted everything which was beautiful. Nudity is considered an art form in artistic circles nowadays and yet it is considered by many Bible characters, prophets and even God as something which is profane after the Fall. Sin changed a lot of things.
That perfect relationship with God and men, with the two pillars of authenticity and purity, was destroyed and never to be restored again in the sense of being physically naked and unashamed. We hid from God, so He hid from us. We were cast out from His Presence, never to see Him face to face on Earth again.
What am I saying? God wants us to strip off our clothes? No, that is not my point at all. We can no longer be physically naked and unashamed but God wants us to be like that in the spiritual sense.
We can no longer be innocent so God has upped the standard to holiness. This is why He says, “Be holy, just as I am holy”. However, holiness alone does not commend us to God. No matter how righteous we become, we still have our past sins as a barrier to approaching God.
We can only be unashamed of ourselves by Jesus’s redemption and the Spirit’s confirmation.
Romans 8:1-4 proves Jesus’s redemption,
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13-14 proves the Spirit’s confirmation,
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
This is why we must worship in Spirit. We ourselves cannot approach God directly by our own righteousness but Jesus has justified us and the Spirit is our only way of access to the Father.
Ephesians 2:18 reads,
For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
Worshipping in Spirit and in truth has an application in confession of sins. God does not want you to pretend to be righteous before Him. He wants you to be honest with Him. He knows we are dirt and He counts us righteous by faith, not by deeds. That is what worshipping in Spirit means, to be unashamed of our past sins because of Jesus’s redemption and the Spirit’s confirmation.
What about our relationships with people? God wants us to be true in these relationships also. This is why resolving conflicts with people first is even more important and urgent than worshipping God with a heart filled with unforgiveness and bitterness.
Matthew 5:23-24 says,
Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
I hope I have not been too long-winded about just these two points. They cover a vast range of issues. I also tried to make things clearer by using Bible verses and my own thoughts. Right now, I will let you listen in on my first composed song.
It was written, a year ago, out of a heart hungry to sing new songs to God because I was sick of singing the same old songs. I am not musically inclined or talented but God inspired me to write this song based on His revelation about being naked and unashamed before Him. I wrote this in less than an hour and edited it over time as I worshipped God with it. This shows that it's from Him and He is the One who inspires; I just write it down.
“Naked and Unashamed” by the Holy Spirit through James Lin Yuxi
Verse 1:
What could I offer that would please Your heart
Simply a new song from the bottom of my heart
Spiritual songs, hymns and psalms
I will sing to You to express my love
Chorus:
I live to worship You oh Lord my God
I breathe to sing another song of praise
Naked and unashamed, I will run to You, not hide from You
I will jump and dance and be mad for You
Verse 2:
Every mouth will confess, every knee shall bow
But I gladly choose to worship You right now
I will dance in the Spirit and be true to You now
Let Your passion consume me, don’t let shyness get me down
Bridge:
Clap, jump and shout to the King
Bow, lift your hands and sing to Him
Whenever we praise and worship Jesus, the enemy will flee
Come, now is the time to claim that victory
Coda:
Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty (X4)
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