Focus: I'm Sorry, Holy Spirit!

Text: Eph.4:30

"And GRIEVE not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

The moment a person believes in Christ and is born again, the Spirit of God takes up residence in him. Every one who has become a Christian by means of spiritual rebirth is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

It is important for us to know that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a mere active force, and as a person He can be offended or wounded. Peter says to Ananias, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to LIE to the Holy Ghost…" (Act.5:3). The Spirit can be lied to, and Satan is always behind every lie as its originator and fabricator. In verse 9 of Act.5, Peter says to Sapphira, "How is it that ye have agreed together to TEMPT the Spirit of the Lord?" 

The Spirit can be tempted. On daily basis we tempt the Holy Spirit. Whenever we do or go against what the Spirit wants, we are tempting Him. We tempt the Spirit when we lie to him. The Holy Spirit killed Ananias and Sapphira during a church service for lying. 

Be warned! It is only by the grace of God that we are being spared from suffering the same fate. Let us not trigger the Spirit's wrath against us! Desist from lying to God! Give God all that is due to Him. Accord Him the honor that He truly deserves! Don't keep what is His to yourself!

In Malachi, God says to His people, "You are robbing me." Ask yourself, 'In what ways am I robbing God?' Are you robbing God of His glory or is gold? Remember that the gold and the silver belong to Him. All you own, you owe to Him. Are you restricting and limiting the Spirit in your life? Search your spirit and examine your heart.

Our text says, "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God." To grieve here means to cause intense and immense pain, to distress, to offend or wound, to make sad. O how we cause the Spirit of God pain every now and then! The Greek tense implies that we have been doing this, and must therefore desist from doing so. It also implies that from now onwards we must go on refusing to grieve the Spirit. 

Allow the Holy Spirit the liberty to function! Let Him do His job! He is not living inside us as our tenant, but as the owner of our life. He lives in us for a mission. He wants to use us to achieve God's end. It is by the Spirit that we have been sealed until the day of our final redemption.

Why grieve the one who has your interest at heart, and who is working in your favor? Why make Him bleed for being good to you? The word 'grieve' in the Greek implies pain and sadness that a lover suffers from the one He loves. Check yourself and know in what ways you are wounding the Holy Spirit. We grieve Him through disobedience - not doing what He tells us to do and rebelling against His clear instructions. We hinder His moves. We keep rejecting His GPS signals. We keep taking different routes from the ones He is using. 

We are similarly doing to the Holy Spirit what Balaam did to his ass. We kick the Spirit in anger for trying to stop us from our foolish ways. We are sadly offending the one who longs for, and loves us. He is here to help us in our earthly journey and to bring us safely to our home in heaven. He is here to help us, not to hurt us, but we are hurting Him - causing Him intense pain. We make it extremely difficult for Him to have His way and do right by us. We hinder His flow. We slow Him down.

Paul says, "Quench not the Spirit" (1Thes.5:19). In the next verse, he says, "Do not despise prophetic utterances." In what ways are you putting out the fire of the Holy Spirit and despising genuine prophecy? We douce the Spirit's fire with our complacency. We are neither hot nor cold. We are lukewarm. We kill the Spirit's passion. We undermine His activity and ignore His fervency and urgency. We are lackadaisical in our attitude and pursuit of the Spirit's agenda. 

The Spirit is sharp, but we are dull. We cannot stand the heat of the Spirit. We fail to keep in step with the Spirit. We are sluggish. Paul tell us not to be "slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord" (Rom.12:11). The Spirit wants us to be fervent in spirit and to serve the Lord zealously - with passion. John the Baptist says that Christ "shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with FIRE" (Mt.3:11). If you have this fire, do not put it out! Burn for Christ! Spread the fire! Let the zeal of the Lord's house and of His kingdom work consume you! Stop silencing the Spirit and quenching His fire!

Tell yourself that from now, you will not silence the Spirit, and you will neither shut Him up nor neglect His presence in your life! Kneel down before Him, repenting of your actions and attitudes! 

Tell him, 'I'm sorry, Holy Spirit! I repent and dedicate myself to You afresh. Help me to love You, to listen to You, and to do Your behests!'

Finally, the Scripture says, "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath DONE DESPITE unto the Spirit of grace?" (Heb.10:29). This Scripture is talking about insulting the Holy Spirit.

We must NOT be part of those who demean the redemptive work of Christ, who disregard the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and who insult the presence and operations of the Holy Spirit! The Spirit will not keep tolerating us from disrespecting His sacred space and undermining Him in His earthly mission and official duties. 

Paul says, "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit" (1Thes.4:8). We must discontinue our foolish act or habit of insulting and despising the Holy Spirit. It is insulting when we take the Holy Spirit for granted. We have everything to gain ultimately from yielding to the Spirit in our day to day existence. It is always messy, frustrating and discomforting going against the Spirit of God. We lose our peace and joy. We dry up. We grow lean in spirit and soul. We lose our spiritual agility and buoyancy. Surely it doesn't make sense working against the Spirit, who is essentially here to work in us, work with us, work through us, and work for us. It just doesn't make sense.

Holy Spirit of God, we are sorry! Please pardon us! Forgive our bad manners and awful attitudes! Have mercy on us for our stupidity! We repent in dust and ashes. Remove not Yourself from us! Don't leave us to our own silliness! Rekindle your fire in us and use us as You deem fit! We love You now and forever. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter