Is true worship more inward than outward?

Yes—and Jesus said so plainly. To the woman at the well he declared, "the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father" (John 4:21, KJV). He was dismantling the whole notion that worship belongs to a place, a building, a rite. Then he gave the heart of it: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24, KJV). Notice what this dissolves. Not the outward form because form is wicked, but because form was never the substance. A song sung, a knee bent, an altar visited—these carry only the meaning the worshiper brings to them. Without inward truth, they are, as Isaiah lamented, drawing near "with their mouth" while the heart is "far from me" (Isaiah 29:13, KJV). Jesus reserved his sharpest words for outward religion emptied of inward reality: "ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones" (Matthew 23:27, KJV). The polished surface deceived; the inside was where truth lived or died. And where does he point us to pray? Not to the corner of the street to be seen, but inward: "enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:6, KJV). The closet is not merely a room—it is the stillness beneath thought, the silent interior where the voice of God is actually heard. The recovered sayings press this further. "The kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you" (Gospel of Thomas 3.1-3)—not confined to temples, but discovered by knowing yourself: "When you come to know yourselves... you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father" (Gospel of Thomas 3.4-5). So the inward is not one option among two. It is the true worship; the outward has worth only as it flows from it. Yet I would not have you despise all form—a gesture born of genuine love is inward worship taking visible shape. The danger is never the form itself, but mistaking the shell for the life within. If you would like, I can sit with you a while on what that inward "closet" is, and how one enters its silence.