God is…Spirit

OK. Let's start with this verse. 

John 4:24(NKJV)

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

God is Spirit.  This is the starting point.  But God isn't the only Spirit that we hear from.

1 John 4:1(NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

1st John clearly tells us that there are other spirits and so one of our jobs is to discern good spirits from bad.  We are told to test (judge) the spirits to see whether they are "of God" (good) or not (bad).  Or in other words we are told we need to make a judgement.  (Again just pointing out that the whole 'thou shall not judge" thing isn't a blanket prohibition against judgement)

Now as I have pointed out before, when God tells us to make a judgement He gives us the standard to judge by and this time is no different.

1 John 4:2-3(NKJV)

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

So let's take a swing at the low hanging fruit and use Muslims for example.  Many people including many Christians say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.  Really?  Let's use the previous verse to test that theory.

Do Muslims confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?  Now here is where it gets in to semantics and I'll let you be the judge.  Some would say yes they do because they believe Jesus was a prophet.  I don't however believe that is what the verse is asking.  I believe that the phrase "come in the flesh" has a deeper meaning.  I believe it is referring to those who believe that God in the person of Jesus Christ came to earth and in that case Muslims would answer no.

At any rate let the Holy Spirit guide you as you wrestle with that one.

The other thing that I found interesting in the study of God is Spirit is all of the Old Testament references to the Holy Spirit which was referred to as God's Spirit.  I think I have written about this before but I'll cover it again.

In the OT it seems that God bestowed His Spirit on individual people as He wanted to.  Not everybody got God's Spirit and they had no say in whether they got it or not.  That all changes in the NT.  In the NT we can all have the Spirit and it is us, not God who decides whether we get it or not. 

If we want God's Spirit all we have to do is ask Jesus to come in to our lives and guide us.  Have you done that yet?  If not why not do it right now?  Just have a conversation with Jesus.  "Dear Jesus…."