At time, it can be difficult for us to understand God as a Spirit. This daily devotional looks at what that means, how we worship Him, and how that meshes being made in His image.
Nuggets
- God is a spirit.
- Because God is invisible, we worship Him in Spirit and truth.
- Being made in His image means we have the character of God.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Finding Our Center series
One of the big differences between us and God is that He is a Spirit and we are not. We definitely are not invisible!
It is difficult at times to wrap our heads around that. We really start to scratch our heads when we remember we are made in His image.
Let’s look at what all that means.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Let's Put It into Context #2
We tried to define spirit before when we talked about the spirit world. We didn’t get very far. Here are the nuggets we dug out then.
- God and Satan exist in the spirit world.
- Jesus told us evil spirits interact with us without our knowledge; they sow havoc, and will be judged in the end.
- Satan’s whole purpose in interacting with us is to get us to sin against God.
- Satan is going to attack us where we are vulnerable.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
The best thing we came up with to describe spirits was a verse in Ephesians. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6: 12 CSB).
Yep, that mainly described Satan, but we can modify it to describe God. He is not flesh and blood. He is the ruler and authority. He is the cosmic power of light. He is good.
God Is a Spirit
“For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4: 24 NLT)
God is a spirit.
I think we get that – but don’t really know what that fully means. Still, God is an entity, and we have a little trouble sometimes reconciling that.
The Homilist argued “that He [God] has a ‘presence,’ a personal existence: that He is as distinct from the universe as the musician from his music, as the painter from his pictures, as the soul from the body.”
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It is just a different presence than ours. Charnock felt that God’s being a spirit showed His excellence.
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Isn’t it logical that God would be something different than we are? I mean, He is perfect; we are far from it.
If we think about it, Charnock and Watson were right. Because He is a Spirit, God could be
- Creator
- “… the LORD alone” (Deut. 6: 4 NLT).
- Eternal
- Self-sufficient
- Unchangeable
- Omnipresent
- Perfect
Yeah, we’ve talked about all of those already in this series.
Stanley made an interesting comment. He noted that God’s spirituality removes barriers to our worship. Even though we use physical attributes like rock and fortresses to describe Who He is, when we spiritually worship God, we gain a deeper meaning.
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What it all boils down to is, right now, we have no context to determine what God as a Spirit is. But really, that isn’t where God wants us to focus our thoughts.
Being A Spirit Makes God Invisible
“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (I Tim. 1: 17 CSB)
Because God is invisible, we worship Him in Spirit and truth.
Burns wrote that “God is a great and glorious Spirit, and therefore we must worship Him in the spirit of reverence and fear.”
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We know that the fear mentioned here is equated to godliness in the New Testament. Godliness is reverence in thought, feeling, and conduct that is promoted by walking in His Spirit and obeying God’s laws and commandments and produces a moral likeness of God.
Let’s connect some dots. Walking in the Spirit and obeying God’s laws and commandments changes our character to be like His. In that way we worship Him because we are focusing on the being, not the doing.
Yes, we end up doing, but not because we want to fix this world. It is not even because we have a heart for people.
It is because we have a heart for God. We love as He loves.
Since He is a Spirit, one way we worship God by praying to Him. Prayer is a two-way communication with God.
Some may think that it would be harder worshiping God because He is a Spirit. Burns thought the opposite. He thought we have a confidence because of His mercy.
Duryea made the comment that we can only know God as a Spirit by His actions through another human. That is a perfect explanation as to why Jesus had to come as a man. We had to have experiences with Him.
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God may be invisible. However, He is “He is a pure Intelligence, circumscribed by no form, bounded by no space, and to be communicated with only through the Spirit which Himself imparts.”
How awesome is our God!
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How Does God Being a Spirit Mesh with Our Being Made in His Image?
“Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy” (Eph. 4: 24 NLT)
Being made in His image means we have the character of God.
Upon conversion, we are given a new nature to replace our sinful nature.
Mankind is made in the image of God – but that doesn’t mean physical image. Charnock wrote, “Man is not the image of God according to his external form, but in the spiritual faculties ….”
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I know. We try to picture a lot of things in our minds. We run conversations we plan to have to rehearse them. We have telephone conversations with someone we’ve never met and try to picture them.
What really throws some is when we talk about the eyes, hand, and face of God. We hook these physical attributes to Him to help wrap our heads around Who He is.
That is a good and a bad practice. We have to determine Who we believe Him to be and what that means to us personally.
We just have to watch that we don’t “… make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea” (Ex. 20: 4 NLT).
We can make images in our minds of what we think God could look like. When we do that, though, we may be limiting Him to what our wee little minds can design.
We probably do not come close to giving Him all the glory that He has. Glory expresses the splendor representing the attributes of God resulting from the authority of God.
It is especially easy to do that when Scriptures give God physical characteristics. Charnock addressed that when he wrote, “His [God’s] wisdom is called His eye; His efficiency, His hand and arm; by His face, we understand the manifestation of His favour; by His mouth, the revelation of His will; by His heart, the sincerity of His affections, etc.”
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Guyse reminded us that God lives and acts. Watson contended that, because God is a Spirit, He can act ceaselessly. We have to sleep. God doesn’t.
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We have to acknowledge that God is pure and perfect. We have to submit to Him as Sovereign God.
We have to communicate with Him in spiritual form. For us right now, this means by “the Spirit renew[ing] your thoughts and attitudes” (Eph. 4: 23 NLT).
Summers had an interesting discussion. He talked about how the spiritual – the mind – is valued over the physical, even nature. The physical and nature are seen as imperfect.
The nugget I got out of Summers’ sermon was “The spirituality of the Divine essence is the foundation of an intimate union between God and His intelligent creation, and should encourage our approach to Him.”
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We shouldn’t be put off that we can’t see Him. Instead, that is the basis of worship.
Making the Connections
But then how are we going to see God in heaven? Hopkins basically said that we don’t understand everything, and we may never.
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We can turn to Paul to see his take. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (I Cor. 13: 12 ESV).
We don’t know what face to face will entail. All we know is that we will “… be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (I Jn 3: 2 ESV).
Whatever happens when we die, I think there is a simple explanation. At death, the eyes of our hearts will be opened, and we will see God and Jesus as They are – whatever that entails.
How Do We Apply This?
If we are to imitate God, how can we incorporate Charnock’s list into our lives?
- We can look at situations and respond through His wisdom.
- Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful (Lk. 10: 2), so we have to be efficient in carrying out our ministries.
- We can show His face to others. Our face may be the only way they see His face.
- We have to be God’s mouthpiece to reveal His Will. Yes, we have to build relationships and talk to people. We can’t just show them God through our lives.
- We can be His heart in this world. We can love as He loves.
Ooo, ooo, ooo. Go back to what we said about communicating with Him by letting “the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (Eph. 4: 23 NLT). Thoughts, attitude – that is right there beside character.
- Renew our attitudes
- Redo our character
In order to do that, we need to “… cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (II Cor. 7: 1 ESV).
So, how do we worship God in Spirit and in truth (Jn. 4: 24)? Watson gave us a list.
- We obey His laws and commandments because that is His Truth.
- That is hooked with piety. Piety is defined as the persistent application of moral virtues to our lives because of our supreme love for God.
- We submit to Him.
- We approach Him in faith and trust.
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God may be different from us right now. One day, we will be as He is. We need to worship Him now in preparation for eternity.
Father God. We love You. We don’t totally understand what it means that You are a Spirit. That shouldn’t be our focus. Our focus should be imitating You. Help us to change our character so that we are like You. Amen.
What do you think?
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