What is the spirit?

The spirit, as used in the Bible, is kind of like your conscience, it is your moral compass that guides you to do certain things (can also control emotions, our “heart”).  Within the Bible we see that animals have spirits (Ecclesiastes 3:21), this is what we call their instincts.  A lost person as the spirit of man within them which doesn’t always lead us in the right paths (1 Corinthians 2:11a; Matthew 15:18-19).  Once a person gets saved they get the Holy Spirit and He teaches us how to live our lives for God and how to be righteous (1 Corinthians 2:11b; Galatians 5:22-23).  As a Christian we have the Holy Spirit within us instead of the spirit of man, however our flesh that has the sin nature in it drives us into doing things that we know we shouldn’t.  We need to make sure to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow the path that He sets before us.