1. God is a Spirit
By Andrew Murray
“God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (Jn 4:24)
When God created man, and breathed His own spirit into him, man became a living soul. The soul
stood midway between the spirit and the body and had either to yield to the spirit to be lifted up to God,
or to the flesh and it’s lusts. In the Fall, man refused to listen to the spirit and became the slave of the
body. The spirit in man became utterly darkened.
In regeneration it is this spirit that is quickened and born again from above. In the regenerate life and in
the fellowship with God it is the spirit of man that has ever to yield itself to the Spirit of God. The spirit
is the deepest, most inward part of the human being. As we read in Psalm 51:6 “Thou desirest truth in
the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart”; or in Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put my
law in their inward parts” (KJV). It is of this also that Isaiah says: “My soul yearns for thee in the night,
my spirit within me earnestly seeks thee.” The soul must sink down into the depths of the hidden spirit,
and call upon that to stir itself to seek God.
God is a Spirit, most holy and most glorious. He gave us a spirit with the one object of holding
fellowship with Himself. Through sin that power has been darkened and nearly quenched. There is no
way to restore it but to present the soul in stillness before God for the working of His Holy Spirit in our
spirit. Deeper than our thoughts and feelings, God will in our inward part, in our spirits within us, teach
us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.
“The Father seeketh such to worship him” He Himself by the Holy Spirit will teach us this if we wait
upon Him. In this quiet hour, be still before God and yield yourself with the whole heart to believe in
and receive the gentle working of His Spirit. And pray such words as these:
“For God alone my soul waits in silence.”
“My soul years for thee in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks thee.”
“On Thee, O God, I do wait.”
From the 6-month devotional "Every Day" with Andrew Murray