Grieving the Holy Spirit
There are things we can do to grieve the Holy Spirit. If we do not daily seek Him and cooperate in following where He leads us, our
Christian experience will weaken. We need to remember that God does not force us to do anything, we are always free to disregard His prompting. Two examples of this are (Eph. 4:24-32) and (1Thess. 5:14-19).
If you grieve the Spirit, don’t become discouraged! I cannot stress this enough. Ask God to forgive you, and He will. (1 John 1:9). Then ask God with a sincere heart to fill you anew with the Holy Spirit and he will do that, too (Luke 11:13).
David knew God’s mercy. He had committed the sins of adultery and even murder. He had walked away and committed these terrible acts. Yet when he was convicted of his sin by the Spirit, he turned to God in Prayer. (Ps. 51:9-12)
If you find yourself slipping away stop right there and ask God for help, it is that simple. David did just that and he was forgiven. We serve a wonderful God. And when we fail Him, He will be right there to stop and pick us up.
Ellen White wrote in “Steps to Christ” the heart of God yearns over His earthly children with a love stronger than death. In giving up His Son, He has poured out to us all in one gift. The Saviour’s life and death and intercession, the ministry of angels, the pleading of the Holy Spirit, the Farther working above and through all… all are enlisted in behalf of man’s redemption.
Supporting Scripture; (Eph.3:16-19), (Ps. 103:8-13)
Personal Reflection and Discussion
- What are behaviors and attitudes of the Holy Spirit seeks to bring into the Christian’s life?
- How can we grieve the Holy Spirit?
- If we do grieve the Holy Spirit what can we do?
- How has the infilling of the Holy Spirit chanced you?
- What is God’s attitude toward His children?
Prayer Activities
- Call your Partner and discuss this devotional.
- Contact the people on your prayer list and let them know you are still praying for them.
- Pray with then and ask for the following;
- For God to continue to fill you and the people you are praying for with the Holy Spirit.
- For God to forgive you when you grieve the Holy Spirit.
- For the individuals on your pray list.
- That we continue to seek the Holy Spirit.
- For today use the following Bible Verse in your prayer (2 Chron. 16:9)
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Yes seek the Holy spirit and to them who do so he will come as he does with me on many occasions.
I agree, I cannot tell you how many times the Holy Spirit has walked with me, but it is easy to see back.
There are soo many wonderful thoughts that fill my mind when confronted with the sweet mercies of the Holy Spirit. I can’t help but feel a bit over whelmed when I think how enduring the spirit is and how much God really loves us. I know even at these moments, when I feel I got a good glimpse of His love and mercy, that I’m still not see it in it’s full light. But even now, with just that little, I feel a love overwhelming in me and encouraged to shout his love from the roof tops.
In Ps. David asks that the Holy Spirit be not taken from him. It shows how enduring the Spirit is. Think also of Samson, he was with Deliah and in sin already for sometime, when then God allowed his hair to cut off and strength taken away…I can’t help see his hair as a symbol of the HS. I’m sure if I look harder I would find other examples of God’s longsuffering and preseverence with us. It show me God is not quick to leave our side.
It takes alot to grieve the HS; not for us to take it light, but for us to take hold of faith and hope and not be discouraged so easily, to the point of giving up even trying. We always strive for perfection, like in a race. We know Jesus is first (and firstfruit) our goal is to endure and finish the race…in this race even the last recieves a crown of glory. That’s another example of our Father’s loving grace.
that feeling you talk about is the same way I feel when I preach. I like the race prespective and yes you are right it is an endurance race not a race to see who comes in first. very good points
It is very easy to grieve the HS but we as believers should not excuse our short comings instead when we come into realization we need to have a complete turn around and allow God to dwell in us al the time. We need our thoughts, action be heavenly directed all the time.
You are right about one thing and that is, as Christians we do not get any free passes. I have seen Christians act worse that a non-Christians and then say well I will pray for forgiveness and it will be ok. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
1st the above comment was made by Joseph.
I wonder if you can realize you’ve grieved the HS… isn’t grieving the Holy Spirit making it give up on you. How then can you feel something…it’s the HS which makes us yearn for God and not of ourselves. Am I right??
I believe that the main job of the Holy Spirit is to give you a stronger desire to love, study, worship and obey God.
I believe the Bible shows the HS actually initiates the desire and contiues to deepen it.
I agree with you Amalia, the Holy Spirit does initiates that desire.
Amalia, I am not sure but I feel that anytime we say no to doing something we know God is leading us we grieve the Holy Spirit. Any time we knowingly sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit. So many things we do can grieve the Holy Spirit. This is when we stop, ask forgiveness, ask for help for ruture temptations and with God’s help don’t do it again. If we don’t seek forgiveness and continue down the wrong path then yes the Holy Spirit will leave you. I’m sure it is not that easy to lose the Holy Spirit if we have any desire to be a child of the King but I don’t know for sure. What do you think,Bobby?
I think we can grieve the Spirit by no doing God’s will. And I do believe that we cannot continue to follow the same path and keep asking forgiveness for the same thing. True repentance it stopping the bad or unchristian like habit, not just asking for his forgiveness ever time.
Luke 12:10-12 shows us that blaspheming the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, and I do believe this is the only sin that is not forgiven. Verse 12, I think tells us why…the HS is who teaches us and guides us. Eph. 4:30 tells us not to grieve the HS since he’s the one who seals us for redemption. I think using the word grieve, must imply a death. I do agree that we sadden the HS when we turn away, and we surely miss out on a blessing, but I know he could work all things out for good to those who love him and turns back to Him.
I thank God every day for His unyielding forgiveness. I have fallen so many times in my life and He has never turned away, many times I think He has given me a holy kick in the tail, but it must have worked look what I am doing now. All I can say is Thank you God for loving me that much.
1 Cor. 2:10-16 is a great read! It shows us that it’s the Spirit that reveals the things of God to us, and how no man can know the things of God without the Spirit to reveal it. The HS gives us the mind of Christ.
The Holy Spirit works in us from the first day we except Christ, until the day we die, if we let Him. When we make the decision to except Christ we get a small taste of this infilling. Then as we grow as Christians and pray for God to continue to fill us with the Holy Spirit our life and our heart turns to a life that Christ would want us to have. But we must be careful not to take the infilling of the Holy Spirit for granted and forget that with our Him we cannot continue to grow.
So yes the Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, for as the Bible says we cannot know Christ without the Holy Spirit. But with most people the hard part is not getting there it is staying there, so that is why I think the most important job of the Holy Spirit is the continue to guide us and teach us the ways of Christ.
Ellen White says in “Step to Christ”: God intends that even in this life the truths of His word shall be ever unfolding to his people. There is only one way in which this knowledge can be obtained. We can attain to an understanding of God’s word only through the illumination of that Spirit by which the word was given.
So the Spirit of God touches us and then through prayer and repentance the Holy Spirit continues to feed us more and more as we grow.
Atleast that is the way I look at it.
I was stuck on the word grieve. I always associated the word grieve with death and something final, but I looked it up and found that it means a deep saddening of the mind. So with that definiton I could see then grieving the Spirit everytime we sin. So when I say “grieve” in the above posts replace it with “leaves us” as in that unforgivable sin.
I would like more insight on what the unforgiveabe sin implies. I always seem to think it meant the Holy Spirit would quit working with that person…like when the HS leaves the earth in the end time. Any thoughts on that?
This unforgivable sin or Blasphemy In this particular situation tha refers to, a group of Pharisees that had attributed the power of the Holy Spirit (v. 28) to the devil (v. 24) in the full knowledge that their charges against Christ where false. It was this deliberate rejection of the light that was leading them, step by step, toward “blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.”
I think it is important to note that the statement made by the Pharisees came as the climax of a protracted process of rejecting increasingly clear evidence of divinity of Jesus; this process had begun with the birth of Jesus and became more intense as His ministry progressed, this the Pharisees knew.
The stronger the evidence that Jesus was the messiah, the stronger their opposition to Him was (Hosea 4:6). ans as time went on and each encounter with Jesus served only to reveal their hypocrisy, they became more and more bitter and outspoken. To the point where they came out openly, declaring Christ to be demon possessed and working in collaboration with Satan, as one of his accomplices. At this point they were under the control of the very power they had accused Christ of working for.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, or the unpardonable sin, consists of progressive resistance to truth that culminates in a final and irrevocable decision against it, deliberately made in the full knowledge that by so doing one is choosing to pursue his own course of action in opposition to the divine will.
The one thing we should all note; A person troubled with a haunting fear that he/she has committed the “unpardonable sin,” thereby has conclusive evidence that he has not committed it.