Afternoon Thoughts:

God's Attributes-Spirit
Jesus said, “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." This is one of the core attributes of God.

But what does “Spirit” mean? Both the Hebrew word for spirit (ruach) and the Greek word (pneuma) can mean breath, wind, or spirit. Like the invisible wind that comes from one direction, then another, and can assert itself with mighty power, so does God come as Spirit. Breath, too, is invisible, yet with breath, you are a living being; without it, you are dead. So “Spirit” is a wonderfully precise description of who God is–”the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God…” (1 Timothy 1:17).

We all know that there are two fundamentally different ways of looking at reality. One assumes that only what can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard is real. This is the materialist position. The other view allows that there are realities beyond our senses, the metaphysical beyond the physical. It assumes that there is a divine Spirit who is not limited by the material world as we are. He moves as he wishes; he is actively present in all places at once. He comes to us as pleasantly as a breeze, but also comes as a mighty cyclone.

If you put a negative spin on it, God’s spirituality may seem like an inferior trait, as if he is less than the creatures and things we all daily see, touch, and smell. It may seem easier to ignore God because he is invisible, and to go on with occasional debates about whether God exists or not-which is like talking about someone who is, in fact, still in the room with us. If there were a lion in the room, we wouldn’t ignore it, but it’s not hard to disregard an invisible God.

But God’s invisibility is not some lack on his part. It is what you would expect of a God who presides over a universe in which there are not just three dimensions, but at least eleven at last count, according to some physicists. And if someone says, “Why doesn’t God just show himself?” the answer has to be, “He did!” “The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.”

Excerpt from Putting the Pieces Back Together: How Real Life and Real Faith Connect