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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.


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