In Greek, 'Spirit' and 'Wind' Use the Same Word.

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
(John 3:8)

The Greek word for 'spirit' is 'pnuema'. A Greek word for 'wind' is also 'pnuema'. Generally, the meaning the author intended can be determined by the context in which the word is used. Sometimes, as in the passage above, the author deliberately relates the two. The wind represents power and demonstrates sovereignty. The Spirit is the manifestation of the power and soveriegnty of God. Like the wind, the Spirit may be difficult for us to apprehend. But, as anyone who has been through a tornado can tell you, "you may not be sure where it came from, it's easy to see where it's been!"

We understand the wind because we have experienced it's effects. We've learned about the wind. But the Holy Spirit isn't from this world. We only began to experience the Spirit after we believed. Our natural life doesn't equip us for this kind of spiritual event. The indwelling Holy Spirit is unlike anything we've experienced before Christianity.

Good news, God's ready for you. Though early in the Christian life our awareness of the leading of the Holy Spirit may seem vague (or even absent), as we continue to move our focus from our 'selves' to God, His will becomes increasingly clear.

'Spirit' is a crucial word for the Christian because every aspect of the Christian life is related to it.

According to the Bible the Holy Spirit: teaches, testifies, guides, compels, leads, bears witness, helps us in our weakness, enables us to serve in newness, makes intercession, empowers abundant hope, searches the deep things of God and makes us alive... just to name a few. Wow. It seems like that could be only good news. Let's take a peek at the verses below.

"I indeed baptized you with water, but He (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:8)

It is through the Holy Spirit and the human spirit that we have communication (fellowship) with God.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:64)

"But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:39)

"..He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." (John 14:16-17)

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." (John 14:26)

“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me." (John 15:26)

"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.." (John 16:13)

"And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 13:52)

"When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ." (Acts 18:5)

"When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem.." (Acts 19:21)

"And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me." (Acts 20:22-23)

"For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son.." (Romans 1:9)

"Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:5)

"But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:6)

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1-2)

"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:6)

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Father.” (Romans 8:14-15)

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God," (Romans 8:16)

"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Romans 8:26)

"Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:27)

"I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit," (Romans 9:1)

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13)

"But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10)

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." (1 Corinthians 2:12)

"These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." (1 Corinthians 2:13-15)

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1 Corinthians 6:17)

"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit," (1 Corinthians 12:7-9)

"For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:13)

"Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)

"You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

"..who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6)

"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

"Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 5:5)

"This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:2-3)

"For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." (Galatians 5:5)

"I say then: Walk in the Spirit," (Galatians 5:16)

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23)

"If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Galatians 5:25)

"In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." (Ephesians 1:13-14)

"For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father." (Ephesians 2:18)

"For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power." (Ephesians 3:1-7)

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

"..that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24)

"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4:30)

"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;" (Ephesians 6:17)

"For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit.." (1 Thessalonians 1:5)

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7)

"..according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior," (Titus 3:5-6)

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

"Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart," (1 Peter 1:22)

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit," (1 Peter 3:18)

"..for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:21)

"By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." (1 John 4:13)

"And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." (1 John 5:6)

"For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." (1 John 5:7)

"These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit." (Jude 1:19)

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." (Jude 1:20-21)