ATTRIBUTES—-
SPIRIT
WHO IS GOD? SPIRIT
We first experience God in the opening lines of the Bible as an invisible being creating and speaking life into everything (Genesis 1–2). God is Spirit, meaning that He’s not confined to a body or made up of parts. He is also divine, holy, and invisible.
Around the world and throughout history, people in different cultures have had many varying ideas about who God is and what He looks like—the sun, various animals, kings or queens, and even carvings made from their own hands. But God has revealed Himself to us as He truly is. He is Spirit, and He has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus became like us, taking on flesh—a human body—so that He could come and carry out incredible, life-giving acts of love, mercy, hope, and forgiveness and make it possible for us to know Him again.
In John 4:24, Jesus reminds a woman (and us) of a truth we should never forget: “God is Spirit.” And because He is Spirit, He also made us spiritual beings, designed to know and worship Him for how amazing and loving He is. The problem is that we often think only in physical terms, and in fact, according to the Bible, are actually born spiritually blind—unable to know God. That is why we tend to make up a bunch of physical ideas about who God is. But we no longer have to feel our way in the dark to try to find Him. He has appeared to us through His Son, Jesus—God the Spirit in human flesh!
WHO AM I? SPIRITUAL
In the very beginning, the Bible says that God “breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Genesis 2:7). We see here that God, who is Spirit, breathed life into the first human, and we also know that He made man and woman in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). This means that we are just as spiritual as we are physical.
Our culture and our science classes don’t tend to teach this truth, but Jesus makes the point clear when He tells Nicodemus, who depended on keeping the Old Testament rules, that “the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life” (John 3:6). In John 4, we see the Samaritan woman learn that God is Spirit and needs to be worshiped in Spirit, no matter what physical places a person lives or worships in.
Being born again spiritually (John 3) and worshiping God in Spirit (John 4) are about knowing God through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, rather than through physical places or religious practices. As spiritual people given life by God, who is Spirit, we do not have a relationship with Him because of physical places or religious practices; instead, our relationships with Him come from knowing Him in truth and worshiping Him in a spirit made alive again through faith in Jesus.
WHAT DO I DO? BELIEVE IN THE SAVIOR & WORSHIP
With one sentence, Jesus changed a woman’s life. The woman’s perspective naturally came from her semi-Jewish heritage when she spoke of religious practices and where she believed God was properly worshiped. But Jesus corrected her, teaching her that God (whom He, the Messiah, declared Himself to be) is more than a physical being to be worshiped only on a special mountain or in a temple. He told her, “God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Jesus was introducing a new, radical idea. The Messiah—He Himself!—had come, and He was establishing a new covenant with people who would be reborn spiritually by faith in Him and consequently able to worship God in a new way.
God is Spirit, so He asks us to believe in Him and receive new spiritual life through Him so that we can interact with and worship Him freely. Services, buildings, holy days, and religious practices aren’t bad things, but they aren’t the real means to knowing and worshiping God. We are saved by faith in Jesus, and we get to know and worship God through the Holy Spirit He has sent to live inside of us. Do you have a desire to worship God? What are the motivations that cause you to give praise to Him? Is Jesus the center of truth in your worship? Does God’s Spirit cause you to worship Him out of thankfulness to Him for saving you through His Son?