Skip to main content

Grieving The Spirit


          And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one antoher, forginving each other, just as in  Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:30-32) 

          Grieve? The Holy Spirit can be grieved? I admit, I regularly think of how I must grieve the Father… and the Son. When I think of God in anthropomorphic terms, I tend to think of Him as shaking His head, or His head lowered… it’s even easy to think of Him as frowning. It’s easy for me to think of Him as grieved. But when it comes to the question of what I’ve done to cause that grief, I don’t often have specifics. It’s just a general thing: I’m a failure. I’m not good enough.
          And those things are true. I am a failure. We all are. I am not good enough. None of us is. But one of the things I was taught years ago was that the Spirit’s conviction will be specific. The devil’s condemnation will be vague, ambiguous, or general. So I try not to put too much stock into the generality. I’m going to think I’m not good enough and I’m right, but God will lead me in the right direction.
          That doesn’t mean I don’t grieve the Spirit. But I don’t want to. So what does Paul tell us about how to not grieve Him? I put the three verses together this morning because they seemed to me to be one thought. The “and” separates them from what what listed in the previous verses. That means not grieving the Spirit includes doing things like getting rid of bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and every form of malice.
           There’s are phrases and a word that comes to mind with each of these words this morning. The phrases are It’s not my fault and He started it. The word is “victim.” These are all characteristic of self-righteousness. I’m not the problem, she is. And I may be right. She might have started it.
          There’s are a few words that give the answer to them: The Spirit, forgive, and response-ability. If I haven’t the strength, courage, or wisdom to forgive on my own, the Spirit can help. The Spirit can give us the ability to respond and hold us accountable for our response as a result. When we refuse, we grieve the Spirit, not simply because we’re doing what we’re told not to, but because we’re effectively refusing His aid. We’re saying, “I can’t!” but not saying, “God, help me!”
           And what does Paul suggest as alternatives to bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and malice? Kindness, compassion, and the sort of forgiveness God gave us in Christ. That means a kind of forgiveness, compassion, and kindness that are not dependent on or deserved by the one who grieved us. The sort that may cost us more than it does them.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more