HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 2, 2026 – One of Jesus’ major accomplishments (among his many, many major accomplishments) was to move his followers away from worshiping buildings and rituals and artifacts and towards worshiping God in what Jesus called “spirit and truth” – that is, worshiping God sincerely, unfeignedly, and through the power of his Holy Spirit. If you worship God in spirit and in truth, you’re always in worship mode: your worship is as natural and involuntary as your breathing. Jesus said we wouldn’t need to go to the temple in Jerusalem or to participate in any of the rituals and sacrifices that take place there. Those requirements were finished with Jesus’ sacrifice. The only ritual Jesus commanded us to observe was the Passover, which we were to alter as he showed us and to do so in memory of him. No other rituals are required.

The dawn of the age of the New Testament was the death of the age of religion. We are in the New Testament age now. Souls that are cleansed with the blood of Jesus need no further sacrifice, as that sacrifice was one-and-done and perfect, as per scriptural requirement. We need no additional messiah, as Jesus is our one-and-only Messiah, and we need no additional god, as our heavenly Father is our one-and-only God. These are the foundational facts of our beliefs embedded within and throughout the old and new testaments: One sacrifice, one Messiah, one God. We need no other.

I get pestered occasionally (I use the term “pestered” lovingly here) by polite young men who walk up and down my street in twos, asking strangers if they’d like to go to church. I’ve been pestered walking up my driveway, pestered walking out of the grocery store parking lot, and pestered just ambling along on my daily constitutional. They are very persistent, these young men, and each time they ask me if I’d like to go to church, I tell them I’m already in church, that I’m in church all the time. This always elicits from them that tight frozen-in-place smile people reserve for those they suspect might be crazy, but it does do the trick of getting them to back off and leave me alone, if only for the rest of my walk. I’m not sure which ‘church’ they’re so eager to get random strangers to attend, but judging from the fact that they’re always formally dressed and always in twos, I suspect it might be the so-called Church of Latter-Day Saints. Maybe next time I’ll ask them.

Worshiping in spirit and in truth means that we’re always in church. There’s no division between our lives and our worship, just as it was with Jesus. In our Church, which is also known as the Kingdom, spiritual Jerusalem, and Zion, there are only genuine born-again believers. We de facto become members of this Church at rebirth; there is no other way to enter it. We worship God through the abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit in us, which was given to us at our rebirth. The presence of God’s Holy Spirit in us also enables us to have constant communication with God and Jesus. They are constantly with us, just as Jesus promised us they would be, as long as we remain in our regenerated state of grace. This is our life; this is our worship; this is our Church. All three are the same. We have no need for religion, and in fact it would be a spiritual step backwards for us to involve ourselves in religion. We are not the worldly church; we are the Church.

Being the Church, we constantly worship in fellowship with our brethren bornagain believers. This is what Paul called the cloud of witnesses that surrounds and envelops us, even if we don’t see them or hear them or know them by name. Through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we are constantly with each other in Spirit, just as we’re constantly with God and Jesus in Spirit. This was another promise Jesus made to us, that we’d be one with God and with each other as he was one with God.

These truths permeate us even as God’s Spirit permeates us, protecting, informing, and comforting us. You’re comforted reading these words, knowing that I’m with you as much as Jesus and God are with you, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. All your genuinely reborn brethren are with you—right here, right now—through God’s Holy Spirit. We are that cloud of witnesses, the Church with no building, no artifacts, and no ritual beyond the one that Jesus commanded us to observe. We are in this Church not by human invitation or self-will, but by divine decree, for which we have God and Jesus’ sacrifice to thank.

We worship God in spirit and in truth, making no division between our worship and our lives. Jesus said that God is looking for people to worship him in this way. At our rebirth, we didn’t (as the religious saying goes) “find God”; God found us.