The Wind
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
You can’t see the wind, but you can sure see the effects of the wind. Sometimes it is just a gentle movement of the grass or leaves, but other times it can be fierce and even violent pulling trees up by the roots or blowing my trash can into the neighbor’s yard. Even though you cannot see what is actually moving the seen objects, you learn at a very young age that the wind is there and is pretty much always blowing to some degree.
In today’s reading, Jesus compared the Holy Spirit in your life to the way we cannot see the wind, but we see how it moves things in the natural world. So it is with the Spirit. We cannot see Him with our physical eyes, but we can see when the Spirit of God is moving in our circumstances by the way they are turned in a totally different direction than they were heading before we prayed for things to change.
Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Him to ask questions about the things he had heard and seen. Jesus told Him that He had to be born again and that in order to be born of God you had to be born of His Spirit. This is where the illustration of the wind comes in. When a person is living life in the natural world the way they are taught by society; they are heading in a certain direction. However, when the are born again of the Spirit of God, suddenly, their life is changed and heading in a different direction, God’s direction. This is simply a picture to help us understand how the Spirit of God moves.
Another way to look at it would be: When we are born into this world, we live life the way we are shown by others in the world around us, but we are all heading in the same direction away from God because of the sin that is at work in the world right now. When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, our life is turned by the Spirit to now be walking in a new direction toward God. You cannot actually see it happening in the natural physical world, but you can see the effects of that decision in the way you are living life now. Suddenly, you have purpose and suddenly you have a reason for the things you are accomplishing. You are in a new family now, the family of God and even though you may look like the same person on the outside, things have changed on the inside below the surface that cannot by seen by the naked eye.
If you are reading this message today, I pray you have already experienced the change in your life that the Holy Spirit makes when you receive Jesus as your Lord personally, but if you do not know that love and have never experienced that change of direction, you can do it right now by praying and inviting Him into your life today. He will come in and He will change the trajectory of your future and even if you look like the same person tomorrow, that wind of the Spirit will turn your heart in God’s direction, and you will see the effects of His love turn your life around!
Pray: God in heaven, I know I’m a sinner and I need a Savior. I want to turn away from my sinful life to the life You have planned for me. Please forgive my sins, cleanse me from my past, and make me new today. I know Your Son, Jesus died for me. I believe in my heart that You raised Him from the dead. At this very moment, I accept, confess, and proclaim Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior . . . to be Lord of my life from this day forward. I now have a right relationship with God my Father through this salvation in the blood of Jesus. I thank You for giving me Your Holy Spirit to guide me and to empower me to accomplish the things You have planned for my life in Jesus’ name, Amen
Today’s scripture reading: John 3:1-21
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, 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.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
8 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.”
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?
11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
The Daily Dose 