Day 1 | Spirituality Definition

Read John 3:1–21

God is a spirit (John 4:24), but what do we mean when we say spirit? For many of us, the term spirit means something like “emotion” or “sincerity.” But the term is much richer in the Scriptures. There, spirit describes the immaterial, non-composite, and metaphysical dimensions of the universe—the essence of the universe, its seat of intelligence, of will, of emotion, and of life. There are all sorts of spirits, but God is the quintessential spirit, the highest spirit, and the source of all other spirits.

So, to say that God is a spirit is to claim that God is essentially different from the physical creation. It is to say that God possesses a glory that physical beings cannot attain. It is to say that God is the intelligence, the power, the life behind all things physical. The one and only difference between a dead frog on the dissecting table and a living frog at the pond is life—a non-physical and immaterial quality that, of course, makes all the difference in the world. God is the author of this. God is the spirit behind it all.

Passing through your body right now are a thousand songs, but they are riding on electromagnetic waves. You can only hear them if you turn on your radio. Physicists often speak of many more dimensions than the three special dimensions in which we live. These dimensions are already right in the middle of us, but we cannot see them because we are not attuned to them. In the same way, God the Spirit is everywhere, all around us, all the time, always working out His holy will. But you will only see Him if you tune into Him, which you do through His Holy Spirit.

Or, to use the analogy used by Jesus, you cannot actually see the wind, but you can see its effects on things around you. In the same way, you cannot see God physically, but if you open your eyes, you will see His glory already all around you.