Check out the pastor’s video message here. And don’t forget to come to the drive-in communion in the lower parking lot of the church between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The pastor will share only the words of institution. You must furnish your own “bread and cup.” Bring a mask so you can greet people afterward on the lawn of the church from “a safe social distance.”

Sometimes it is instructive simply to do a word search and follow it where it leads.

I used my Bible search software to search just the Gospel of John on the word “Spirit.”

The first use of Spirit is in John 1:32,33:

32 And John (the Baptizer) bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’

The Spirit is at the center of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born “anothen,” a Greek preposition meaning “again” or “from above.” Jesus means “from above.” Nicodemus hears “again.” He says, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” In John 3:5, Jesus answered:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

To enter the kingdom of God, each of us and all of us must be born “anothen,” from above, by the Holy Spirit. However, this does not mean that the experience of the Spiritual birth will be the same for all of us. Jesus makes this plain in John 3:8 when he says:

“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.”

In John 3:34 Jesus points out that God does not skimp when it comes to bestowing the Holy Spirit on his followers: (Skip to page 2 below)