God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
—John 4:24
When God created man and breathed into him His own spirit, man became a living soul. The soul stood midway between the spirit and the body, to yield either to the spirit to be lifted up to God, or to the flesh and its lusts. When man fell in the Garden of Eden, he refused to listen to his own spirit, and so his spirit 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 regenerated life, it is the spirit of man that must continually yield itself to the Spirit of God. Man’s spirit is the deepest inward part of the human being. The Scriptures read, “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” (Psalm 51:6), and “I will put My law in their inward parts” (Jerermiah 31:33). Also concerning this, Isaiah said, “With my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early” (Isaiah 26:9). The soul must sink down into the depths of the hidden spirit and must stir itself to seek God.
God is a Spirit, most holy and glorious. He gave us a spirit with the one purpose of holding fellowship with Himself. Through sin, that purpose has been darkened and nearly quenched. There is no way for it to be restored except by presenting the soul in stillness before God for the working of His Holy Spirit in our spirits. Deeper than our thoughts and feelings, God will, in our inward parts, teach us to worship Him “in spirit and truth.”
“For the Father seeketh such to worship Him” (John 4:23). He Himself, by the Holy Spirit, will teach us this if we wait upon Him. In this quiet hour, be still before God, yield yourself with your whole heart to believe in and to receive the gentle working of His Spirit, and breathe out such words as these: “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early” (Isaiah 26:9); “On Thee do I wait all the day” (Psalm 25:5).