There is the person, presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
As a believer, the Holy Spirit lives permanently in you, but access to His
manifest presence and power requires that you avail yourself to Him
consistently on a daily basis and in a personal way. When you commit these sins against
Him, you don’t lose His person you deny yourself of
enjoying the fullness of His presence and power which are responsible for the
unfair advantages you have over unbelievers.
There are three main sins committed against the Holy Spirit:
quenching the Spirit, grieving the Spirit and blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit, two of which are committed by believers. In this post, I shall deal
with the first two sins and the last one in my next post and show you how that
constitutes the unpardonable sin.
QUENCHING THE HOLY SPIRIT
"Do not quench the Spirit." 1Thessalonians 5:19
To quench means to put
off or put out a fire. When the Holy Spirit is causing a stir in you to do
something and you suppress that initiative due to fear, shyness,
procrastination, disbelief or blatant disobedience, you are quenching the Holy
Spirit. Quenching the Spirit really has to do with resisting the things the Spirit tries to
initiate within you. Disobeying the promptings of the Holy Spirit quenches Him.
You know, the only physical body the Holy Spirit has is your physical body
since He dwells in your spirit which also dwells in your body.
Whenever He seeks to do a thing, He will first and foremost
initiate it within your spirit which may be likened to a flickering flame of fire.
When this flicker is cared for very well, it burns until it sets your heart or
spirit ablaze. Most times, when you put out this fire immediately it starts
at the flicker level, you quench the Holy Spirit. This happens when you are
careless and remain adamant to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Refusing to do what he tells you to do is quenching the Spirit.
Refraining from His embrace is quenching Him.
When you refuse His DO! BE! HAVE! commands, you quench him.
How to avoid quenching the Holy Spirit
1. Learn to recognize Him and His promptings
2. Follow His prompts promptly
3. Consider the streams of far-reaching opportunities you are missing
by refusing what He initiates in you.
GRIEVING THE HOLY SPIRIT.
"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." Ephesians 4:30-31
This entails all the things you do that grieves Him. How can
the mighty Holy Spirit be grieved, you may wonder? The Holy Spirit has emotions and a bit
emotional than that of Jesus. What Jesus will overlook and simply brush off, the
Holy Spirit won't easily give it a pass. When Jesus said in John 14:16: "I
will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may
abide with you forever", he didn’t mean he was going to pray like we do, but rather,
request or plead strongly and passionately. The word 'pray' as Jesus used it,
carried with it a picture of the Father holding on so strongly to and not
really willing to let go of the Holy Spirit because of the emotional complexes
of the Holy Spirit; He easily gets hurt. I say it this way due to the inability
of the human language to give full and accurate expressions to divine truths. The
Holy Spirit is another comforter like Jesus but different from Jesus in a
number of ways.
Continuing to do what He is stopping you from doing is grieving the Spirit. Embracing what He refrains from grieves Him. When we embrace His DO NOT! BE NOT! HAVE NOT! commands, we grieve him.
BITTERNESS
WRATH
ANGER
CLAMOR
EVIL SPEAKING
MALICE
ET CETERA ...
Do you remember the Spirit's first encounter in the New
Testament with liars (Ananias & Sapphira) in the church? Instant death! Jesus also forewarns that
blasphemy against the Father or the Son is forgivable but none should try that
with the Holy Spirit.
How to avoid grieving the Holy Spirit
1. Accept and convinced yourself that the Holy Spirit has
your best interest at heart
2. Know also that no scriptural instruction has been written
to take advantage of you. Every scriptural injunction is designed for your
advantage
3. Your power and uniqueness in life are in your obedience to
the voice of the Spirit.
Receive grace to walk with the Holy Spirit.
Very enlightening. Great piece. Hod richly bless you.
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DeleteMay we receive the scepter of grace to assimilate whatever the Holy spirit tells us to do. God bless you for this inspiring and insightful message.
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