ARE YOU GRIEVING THE HOLY SPIRIT?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Yet they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy and He Himself fought against them.

Isaiah 63:10

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

When Jesus walked among the people of this world more than 2,000 years ago, He showed them first-hand how they were to live in righteousness, fully obedient to the will of God the Father. There was no need to seek any other way because Jesus Himself said that He was the way and the truth and the life, and that it was only through Him that a person could find their way to God to share life for all eternity.

But Jesus only lived for 33 years before He was falsely accused and convicted, sentenced to a death sentence by crucifixion. And although He rose from the tomb three days after His death in resurrection power and appeared to many people afterwards, He would ascend to heaven and be placed in a position of authority over all creation by God, sitting at the right hand of His throne.

So how would people know how to live after Jesus departed?

They would do so by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Counselor Jesus promised His disciples would come to provide guidance and direction for the rest of the time there was life present on earth.

Indeed, the Holy Spirit did come as Jesus promised and has been leading God’s people toward living as Jesus did ever since. All we need to do is be obedient to the instruction we’re provided.

Therein lays the problem with us. We don’t want to be compliant.

Rather than adhere to the ways God wants us to live, we too often reject those ways to chase after our own desires and wants. The world’s enticements are always beckoning for our attention and unfortunately, we’re all too easily attracted and tempted to disregard God in order to follow our own will.

In other words, we ignore the steering of the Holy Spirit toward righteousness and instead turn to sin and wickedness instead.

This behavior is simply referred to as grieving the Holy Spirit.

You see the Lord is gladdened when we follow Him with a willing eagerness to be the kind of people He wants us to be. We hunger and thirst for living in a way that brings Him joy, a way that lets others see that His Spirit is alive and well inside us.

But when we choose to rebel against the Lord, ignoring the direction of the Holy Spirit, we sadden His Spirit and then that sadness turns to indignation because God will not stand for being disrespected. He is God and we are all subordinate to Him, expected to give Him our absolute all just as He gave His absolute all in the way of His Son Jesus to save us.

Question: Are you living in a way that is grieving the Holy Spirit today?

Go back to the times of Isaiah and you’ll see where the people of Israel chose to do so. Although God had delivered and redeemed them time and time again, they would always slip back into a defiant, non-compliant attitude, even choosing to worship gods and idols instead of Him.

That obviously wasn’t going to fly and as we will see in our scripture verse today, the Israelites made a huge mistake in wronging the God who had done so much for them. Look again at today’s verse:

Yet they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy and He Himself fought against them. Isaiah 63:10

Ask yourself this: How would I fare if I was God’s enemy and had to fight against Him?

Frankly, it would be no contest and only a fool would even willingly go there.

And yet, the people of Israel did just that, rebelling against God and making Him their enemy.

Not smart.

What’s equally not smart is the fact that we seem to not have learned a thing here in the 21st century. Look at the world we live in and there is rebellion occurring everywhere. Truly, God is being disrespected and slighted daily and as a result, the Holy Spirit is being grieved in a daily basis. I hate to say it but I don’t see it getting better anytime before God sends Jesus back to judge this world and mark the end of its existence as well as the end of life for everyone who failed to believe in Jesus as Savior (Revelation 20:15, 21:1-4).

On that day, the Holy Spirit will be grieved no more and neither will the multitude of Christian believers who will go onto the new heaven and earth to live in light and love and peace with God and Jesus forever.

I’m grateful I’m counted in that number and I hope you’ll be joining me.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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