Grieving the Holy Spirit
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4:30-5:2

(Amanda writes) This morning my husband was having his quiet time and I was getting ready for work when I had the sudden compulsion to interrupt the silence with a short line from a movie I loved as a teenager.  It made him laugh, which was the goal, and he even did his best to outdo me.  I'll be honest, the movie it came from doesn't bless the heart of God, nor does the line I quoted.  Right after we stopped laughing I felt a familiar shrinking inside me and I realized that what I had thought was funny actually grieved my Father's heart.  I told Curt that I had quenched the Spirit.  The Lord confirmed it to me when Curt said he had, too. 

What happened this morning?  (Beth writes) Ephesians 4:30 says the Holy Spirit can be grieved.  The Greek word for grieve is lupeo and it means "to afflict with sorrow, to cause grief, offend."  In everyday language, to grieve someone would be to "break his heart."  The word implies that the third member of the Holy Trinity is able to feel pain.  The Word of God cites only one causal agent of His pain: those he inhabits—the very ones who are also a source of his joy.  How can we grieve the Holy Spirit?  The verse following Ephesians 4:30 demands that we get rid of "all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, and every form of malice."

In other words, sin in the life of the believer causes the Holy Spirit to grieve.  Consequently, the Holy Spirit's pain will not cease until we "get rid" of the sin.  How do we get rid of the sin?  Through true confession and repentance.  These are such familiar words to us, yet so often we misunderstand their literal intent.

Many of us learned to pray repeating the words, "and forgive me for all my sins."  Since the word repentance means to turn and walk in the other direction, we can't possibly repent of something vague and unspecified.  For the Spirit to be released from grief and to fulfillment, every known sin must be the object of repentance.  Blanket prayers of forgiveness with no thought to the object of God's disfavor are a waste of God's time.  We cannot confess what we will not face.  We must be specific. 

Second Corinthians 7:10 contains another crucial component of repentance—godly sorrow.  As long as we experience no sorrow for a sin, we have not fully turned from that sin.  We cherish some sins; we treasure them.  We do not want to let go of them; therefore we admit to God we have committed them, but we lack the sorrow that would give us strength to turn away.

When we lack sorrow in the area of a known sin we can ask God to quicken in us a sorrow that leads to repentance.  Oh, Beloved, we are so often enslaved by memories—those we hate as well as those we cherish.  All the while we have no idea how those cherished sins are holding us enslaved and vulnerable to our enemy.  God longs to pour out his blessings upon every believer, but we withhold His hand when we hold on to past sins with our hand.  Grieve not the Holy Spirit: say no to sin.

Heavenly Father, I'm sorry that when I sin I act like it only affects me.  Forgive me for grieving You.  Help me confess my known sins to You individually and to experience the godly sorrow that leads to repentance.  Thank You for Your forgiveness, Lord!  Amen.

Adapted from Living Beyond Yourself, by Beth Moore, pages 38-39. Nashville: LifeWay Press, 1998. Used by permission.