God is a Spirit

God is a Spirit (John 4:24). They who consider Him a human try to decide whether He should be called man or woman, but in the world of the Spirit, there is neither male or female. Without God's Spirit living within us, we cannot see how this could be because we cannot understand spiritual things (Rom.8:5). We cannot personally know God unless we ask the Spirit of our resurrected Lord to dwell within us, the Holy Spirit who teaches us about the Spirit. (John 16:13).

We are told that God spoke and the earth was formed (Gen.1); the Spirit of God created the world. But we are told that this same Word of God who created the world is Jesus (John 1:10). Jesus is God's Word in all creation--He creates both physical and spiritual life. Before Jesus was born in human flesh, He was Spirit. But when He lived as a human He spoke God's words after the Holy Spirit came upon Him when He was baptized by John the Baptist (John 1:32-34). He came as a human to tell us what God wanted us to know about Himself.

God is Spirit, and after Jesus left the earth, He gave His Spirit to be birthed into any heart of anyone who will accept Him (John 3:5-7). He is the Holy Spirit who leads us to a knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. He is a teacher and a counsellor to bring God's Word to those who love Him.

When we ask the Spirit of the living God to dwell in our hearts, the Bible says we are given a sword to wield against the powers of darkness, the "sword of the Spirit" (Eph.6:17)--the very Holy Spirit himself. But this sword is also called the "Word of God"--the very name of Jesus (John 1:1).

The sword of God is therefore Jesus' Spirit to do His work here on earth, to cut out our fleshly ways so that His Spirit can be activated in our lives. The Bible calls this "circumcision of the heart" (Rom.2:29).

Under the Old Covenant, or Old Testament, the Mosaic law commanded that each Jew be circumcised as a covenant that he belonged to God. Under the New Covenant God requires that each heart be circumcised by His Spirit. The Spirit of the resurrected Lord must circumcise the heart of each new believer. The sword of the Spirit must cut out fleshly sinful ways. Just as the Israelites could not win battles when the men had not received the required circumcision of the flesh, neither can we humans win the battle of life until we allow Jesus to circumcise our hearts to cut out our sin.

God's ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isa.55:8-9). Yet as we become more like Jesus Christ, our rational mind is renewed so that we can think like Him. We are not God, but He has given us His Spirit to help us live the way He would have us live!