Bible Reading: 1 Kings 7; Ephesians 4; Ezekiel 37; Psalms 87 & 88
Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
What could possibly make God’s Holy Spirit grieved? To be grieved is to be sad or full of sorrow. Why does the Bible tell us not to grieve his Holy Spirit? The answer lies in the fact that as believers we can hurt one another with our sinful attitudes and actions. When God’s children fuss and fight, it grieves his Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
When believers are bitter and filled with wrath and anger it makes the Holy Spirit sorrowful. When we clamour and speak evil of one another it literally breaks the Holy Spirit’s heart. The Bible says we must put these things away from us. Any malice that a believer has must be put away because we are to live in peace with brothers and sisters. God wants his children to live in unity.
Psalms 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
The Bible never tells us that because we are children of God that we will not have disagreements anymore. Nor does it say that we will always do what is right. It does say that we must react differently than the lost world when these things happen. We are to be kind to one another. We are to treat others with kindness and be respectful. We are to be tenderhearted toward brothers and sisters in Christ and realize that everyone is dealing with different things in life. When we are wronged we must not grow bitter and get angry. We must forgive one another.
How can we do this? Sometimes we are wronged in a big way by people claiming to be Christians! We are not able to do this on our own. We must remember the cross of Jesus Christ and the fact that God in Christ has forgiven us. Our debts that we owed to God have been paid in full by Jesus Christ. Now, he tells us to forgive others. He has empowered us by his Holy Spirit to do this and we are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The key to not grieving the Holy Spirit is to walk in kindness and forgiveness to others. Remember what God has done for you.
Matthew 10:8b freely ye have received, freely give.
In Christ,
Rody
