21 Key Bible Verses Showing the Importance of Our Spirit
Knowing our spirit is the key to experiencing Christ! So we need to be impressed with the importance of our spirit!
Many people are seeking to know the difference between the soul and spirit. I believe this seeking is from the Lord. That’s because knowing our spirit and the importance of our spirit is vital to carrying out God’s eternal plan.
It is tragic that so many believers today are still confusing their soul and spirit, possibly missing the experience of their spirit entirely.
Why is this so concerning?
It’s because the mark of God’s eternal plan or economy is His Spirit with our spirit. So if we miss this mark, God’s purpose will be delayed and our experience and enjoyment of Christ will be frustrated.
But I don’t want you to take my word for it. Instead, I’d like to impress you with the importance of our spirit by taking you on a tour of the Scriptures (Acts 17:11).
21 Bible verses that show the importance of our spirit
1. Genesis 2:7 – “Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Genesis 2:7 tells us that God formed us with three parts – “dust of the ground” (our body), “breath of life” (our spirit) and “living soul” (our soul). God made us with a spirit, soul and body for His purpose.
2. Proverbs 20:27 – “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, Searching all the innermost parts of the inner being.”
Proverbs 20:27 tells us that our spirit is God’s lamp. In this way we can contain Him as the light in order to express Him. That’s why we need to receive Christ into our spirit.
Also “the spirit of man” in this verse is the same word as for “breath” in Genesis 2:7. This confirms that the “breath of life” in Genesis 2:7 is man’s spirit.
3. Zechariah 12:1b – “… Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him.”
In Zechariah 12:1, God ranks our human spirit with the heavens and the earth in His creation! This shows the importance of our spirit in God’s plan. The heavens are for the earth. The earth is for man. And man with a spirit is for God.
4. Matthew 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.”
The first blessing the Lord mentioned in Matthew 5 is related to our spirit (v. 3)! This also indicates how important our spirit is to the Lord’s purpose.
To be poor in our human spirit is to be emptied in our deepest part so that we can receive something new of the Lord. We need to be emptied in our spirit so that we can receive the kingdom of the heavens.
5. John 3:6 – “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
In John 3:6 Jesus told Nicodemus that being born anew or born from above is a matter of God’s Spirit entering into our spirit. Being born again, regenerated of the divine life, happens in our human spirit from the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus.
If you haven’t done so already take a moment to pray,
“Lord Jesus, I believe into You. I open my spirit to You. Come into my spirit and fill me with Your eternal life. Amen.”
6. John 4:24 – “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”
John 4:24 reveals that the true worship God is seeking must be in our spirit. This also shows the importance of our spirit to God.
Since God’s essence is Spirit, we must use our spirit—which is of the same essence as His—to contact Him and give Him the true worship that He is seeking.
To contact Him we must exercise our spirit. The simplest way I’ve found to do this is to call on the name of the Lord Jesus from deep within by saying,
“Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!”
Just try it.
7. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 – “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Thessalonians 5:23 is the clearest verse in the Bible telling us that we have three distinct parts—our spirit, soul and body. Our spirit is God’s beachhead for His sanctifying work in our entire being. This also shows the importance of our spirit in carrying out His work in us.
We’d never confuse our body and soul. But some of us might mistakenly confuse their spirit and soul. But this verse makes it clear that our spirit and soul are different.
8. Hebrews 4:12 – “For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit…”
Hebrews 4:12 tells us that our soul and spirit can be divided from one another. We can discern what is our spirit from what is our soul by the dividing of God’s living word.
Pray-reading God’s word is the best way I’ve found to make God’s word living to me.
We need to daily experience the dividing of our soul and spirit so we can cut through our troublesome soul to enjoy Christ who is now living in our spirit.
9. Romans 1:9 – “For God is my witness; whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers.”
Romans 1:9 tells us that our service to God must be in our spirit. This also indicates the importance of our spirit.
If we’re not serving God in our spirit we’ll lack His inner witness that our service is really of Him. It may be out of our good intentions but may not be something that He can approve of.
10. Romans 8:16 – “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Romans 8:16 indicates that our spirit is where the Spirit witnesses that we’re God’s children. The witnessing of His Spirit with our spirit gives us the inward confirmation that we are God’s children. This strengthens the assurance of our salvation.
11. Romans 8:4 – “That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.”
Romans 8:4 shows us that when we’re walking according to the spirit, God’s righteous requirements are spontaneously fulfilled in us, not by us. That is, it’s not our self-effort, but a living in the union of our spirit with His Spirit, that spontaneously satisfies God’s righteous requirements.
12. Romans 8:6 – “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.”
Romans 8:6 gives us the best indicator to whether our living is one with the Lord. That is, whenever we set our mind on our spirit, there is life and peace.
It’s this sense of life and peace in our spirit, or the absence of it, that tells us whether what we’re thinking, speaking or doing is in harmony with Christ in us. If we lack this sense of life and peace, it is a indication that the Lord in us it not pleased and we need to stop what we’re doing and turn to Him.
13. 1 Corinthians 16:18 – “For they refreshed my spirit and yours…”
1 Corinthians 16:18 shows us that our relationship with our fellows believers must be in and by our spirit. This makes our spirit an important key to living the proper church life.
If we would honor our fellow believers, and refresh their spirit, we must live in and by our spirit.
14. Galatians 6:18 – “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit; brothers. Amen.”
Galatians 6:18 shows us that the Lord’s grace is with our spirit. Are you looking for the bountiful supply to to live the Christian life? It’s the grace that is with your spirit.
For more on grace you may want to read What is the Grace of God and How to Enjoy It?
15. 2 Timothy 4:22 – “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.”
It’s not only the grace of the Lord that is with our spirit, it is the Lord Himself that is with our spirit!
So 2 Timothy 4:22 tells us where we can find the Lord Jesus today. He is with our spirit!
If you’ve received Christ as your Savior, He’s now lives in your spirit. That’s His dwelling place within you.
So the key to experiencing Christ right now is to turn to our human spirit and the simplest way I’ve found to do that is just to call on His name–“Lord Jesus!”
16. Ephesians 1:17 – “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.”
Ephesians 1:17 tells us that our spirit is the organ for us to receive wisdom and revelation to know God and His eternal plan. Paul prayed for the believers to have such a spirit and we should also pray for ourselves and others to have such a spirit.
17. Ephesians 2:22 – “In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.”
Ephesians 2:22 shows us that if we want to be built together with other believers into God’s dwelling place we must be in our spirit. This makes our spirit extremely important both to God and to us.
Here it is no longer just of being in our individual spirit but of being joined in spirit with other believers to be in our “corporate spirit.” This is where the spiritual building takes place.
18. Ephesians 3:16 – “ That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.”
Footnote 6 on this verse in the Recovery Version says,
“The inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life. In order that we may experience Christ unto all the fullness of God, we need to be strengthened into our inner man. This implies that we need to be strengthened into our spirit through the Holy Spirit.”
19. Ephesians 4:23 – “And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
Ephesians 4:23 tells us that renewing is related to our spirit. Renewing depends on this mingled spirit—the Spirit with our spirit—spreading into our mind. When we’re in our spirit, there is the saturating of our mind for our transformation.
20. Ephesians 5:18-19 – “And … be filled in spirit; speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord.”
Ephesians 5:18-19 tells us that we can be filled in our spirit by speaking and singing. Our spirit is connected to our mouth. So when we exercise our deepest part to speak something of Christ to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs we’re spontaneously filled in our spirit.
21. Ephesians 6:18 – “By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition…”
Ephesians 6:18 indicates that to fight the spiritual warfare we need to pray in our spirit. In fact, our spirit is the main faculty for prayer. This also shows the importance of our spirit.
I hope that from this sampling of twenty-one Bible verses you’ll be impressed with the importance of our spirit in fulfilling God’s plan for us as believers. I also hope you’ll be motivated to seek out the genuine experience of Christ in your spirit every day.
If you’ve been helped by any point in this post please take a moment to share it in a brief comment.
Further Reading:
- Here is one of my favorite hymns on our spirit: How mysterious, O Lord; That Thy Spirit dwells in mine. You can also listen to the tune here.
- If you’d like to know your spirit and make this life-changing discovery something practical in your personal life you may may want to read this post on the Bibles for America blog.
About Tom Smith
Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!
i love z lord and z word of God !
continue brother share z word of God
The more we enjoy the Lord Jesus in our spirit and in His word, the more we can’t help but love Him. He is so excellent! Thank God for making us with a spirit so we can contact Him and drink of Him as the living water (John 7:37-39). Thank you for your comment. Keep loving the Lord and His word!
I am so thankful to find your website. I am going to subscribe now. I was just praying and listening to the Holy Spirit as he was teaching me about soul, spirit and body. And i asked him “what was God’s original intent for giving man a soul?” I felt led to Google my question. Clicked your website and “wow”!! I’m getting so full!! Can you tell me God’s original intent for giving man a soul? I dont see it in your writings. Or maybe I’m overlooking it. Thank you so much! -Marzette
Marzette, God’s original intent for giving man a soul is so that He might be able to be expressed through us. Our spirit is the organ for us to contact God, receive God and contain God. Our soul, with our mind, emotion and will, is the organ through which we can express Him. That is why after being born again or regenerated in our spirit (John 3:6), we need to be transformed in our soul (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
This understanding is confirmed by Mary’s poetic praise in Luke 1:46-47 where it says,
To magnify is to express, even to enlarge the view of something. Like Mary, may we learn to exult in God with our spirit and then express and magnify the Lord through our soul.
I hope you find this response helpful and feel free to comment often.
Amen! wonderful verses telling us of about our spirit, but more importantly, telling us how to use and exercise our spirit, united and mingled with the Spirit, our regenerated spirit, being the center of our being, from which God can flow out to renew our soul, by setting the mind upon the spirit which is life and peace. When we exercise our spirit at first, by calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus, we are filled with the sense of His life in us and are at peace with God, and man. But then the Lord may take us through some situations where we fail and do not sense His life and peace, because of our not living in and by our spirit, but by our natural life in our soul. This will cause us to seek Him again, because of the sense of emptiness inside, to call upon His name again, thereby exercising our spirit to be renewed again with the sense of life and peace, that renews our mind, the leading part of our soul, to live by our spirit, so that we could walk according to our spirit, becoming full of His life within, resulting in a sense of peace with God, that we do not want to depart from. … May the Lord unveil the eyes of our understanding to see the matter of our spirit being the key to God fulfill His purpose and good pleasure in us, for the fulfillment of His heart’s desire, in bring all believers into the oneness of the Body of Christ, through the church. Thank You Lord Jesus. Amen.
Thank you brother Tom for your sharing. “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” (2 Timothy 4:22)
That’s right! We need to see our spirit and to use our spirit all the time. If we see the importance of our spirit to God and to the carrying out of His eternal purpose, we will be governed by this vision and strengthened to exercise our spirit—to call on the Lord and to take care of the sense of our spirit, the sense of life. It is only in this way that we can practically come to experience a living in the reality of the Body of Christ.
This makes it so crucial for us to see our spirit from the view of the heart’s desire of God. Our spirit is not only the means for us to be born anew (John 3:6), but the crucial matter in every step of God’s moment by moment salvation in our life. Then our spirit becomes the vital means in fulfilling God’s plan for the church—from our receiving the revelation of the church as Christ’s Body (Eph. 1:17-23) to the executing the spiritual warfare to defeat God’s enemy (Eph. 6:18). May the Lord cause all of His dear seekers to see such a vision and live according to His Spirit with their spirit so that His plan can be fully accomplished.
Thank you for your confirming comment.
Amen, what a Marvellous discovery, the human spirit is, what a Blessing to know we can just call: ohhhh Lord Jesus and we are joined to the Lord!!! Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!!! I will Praize unceasingly. Lord we Bless Your Holy Name Forever, how profound and wonderful is Your Name, how we marvel at You for saving us, showing us through this Ministry of Life what You have become to man. Lord Jesus, we Love You!!! Praize You, and like Mary my soul extol You and marvel at YOU!!
Thank you.
From Mozambique – Africa
Glad you enjoyed the post on the “importance of our spirit.” Many believers appreciate the Holy Spirit but they do not realize the importance of their spirit as the organ to contact Him. It is like appreciating electricity but missing the switch to apply it. When we exercise our spirit by calling on the Lord, singing His praise, rejoicing, thanking and walking according to the spirit, we enjoy the divine transmission as the divine supply to live the Christian life. Thank you for your comment. You may also enjoy reading Living in the Mingled Spirit, The Secret of the Christian Life, a post that further develops the importance of our spirit.
Praise the Lord Brother Tom Wonderful that is a deepest revelation from the Lord, may God bless you and give you more revelation
Our human spirit is a deep revelation and a great discovery in our Christian life. It is really the key to experiencing the indwelling Christ. How blessed it is see the from 2 Tim. 4:22, “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” We simply need to turn to our spirit, for there we meet the Lord and enjoy Him as the grace we need to live the Christian life and practice the church life. Thanks for your comment.
Thank you for these revalation it open a new life for me in Christ Jesus
It is a great blessing to discover our human spirit both from the revelation of the Scriptures and also in our experience with the Lord. Try calling on His name, “Lord Jesus!” deeply throughout the day. Rom. 10:12 promises us that the Lord is rich to all who call upon Him. Since the Lord Jesus in resurrection is now the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) indwelling our human spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), whenever we exercise our spirit by calling on Him, we touch the Spirit, who gives life. This is the source of supply to live the Christian life. You may want to read the “Key to Experiencing Christ—the Human Spirit at ministrybooks.org. You may also download it as a free ebook here (The last chapter in Basic Elements of the Christian Life, vol. 1)
What is the secret of regeneration?
To understand regeneration it is crucial that we see the two Spirits—the divine Spirit and our human spirit. This is how we experience the reality of regeneration. In John 3:6 Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) is spirit (the human spirit).” To be born again or regenerated is not merely a outward conversion, or a new start to your life. A wonderful footnote (note 2) on this verse in the Recovery Version study Bible says, “The first Spirit mentioned here is the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, and the second spirit is the human spirit, the regenerated spirit of man. Regeneration is accomplished in the human spirit by the Holy Spirit of God with God’s life, the uncreated eternal life. Thus, to be regenerated is to have the divine, eternal life (in addition to the human, natural life) as the new source and new element of a new person.” So the secret to regeneration is to contact the Spirit with our spirit. The most basic way I have discovered to do this is to call on the name of the Lord Jesus from deep within. When we cry out “Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” we touch the Spirit whom the Father sends in the Son’s name (John 14:26) and are regenerated and joined as one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). You may also enjoy reading my post on What Does it Mean to be a Born Again Christian?.
Thank you for this article. I found it quite comprehensive.
Geoffrey, Our spirit, as the organ to contact and receive God, to experience Christ is often missed by Christians. BY seeing the importance of our spirit in the Bible, we will be better equipped to live a life in one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17) and cooperate with Him to fulfill His eternal plan. Thanks for sharing your appreciation in a comment.
This is so deep. Amazingly helpful. If you ever allow mentorship conversations once a month or anything similar, it would be an honor and helpful. Thank you so much for this summary. God bless you and your family Tom- Louis
Louis,
Yes. I would be glad to talk. You can let me know through the contact page how best to reach you.
Grace to you in Christ,
Tom