Come to Understanding

They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding,

and they that murmured shall learn doctrine. — Isaiah 29:24

So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense,

and caused them to understand the reading. — Nehemiah 8:8

April 14, 2010

Volume 9 Number 8

Grieve Not the Holy Spirit

Paul cautioned the Ephesians against grieving the Holy Spirit of God:

30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. -Ephesians 4

The word "grieve" means to "make sorrowful." It is the kind of deep, heavy, and sorrowful mourning that we feel with the loss of our loved ones. The more we love them, the more we grieve. Therefore, love and grief are closely connected.

Even though the love that God has for us is beyond our comprehension, the more we understand His love, which He reveals through Yahshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), the more we are filled with the "fullness of God:"

19 And to know the love of the Messiah, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3

God is a Spirit:

24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. -John 4

God is Love:

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.

8 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. -1 John 4

God expressed His love for us through Yahshua the Messiah, the only begotten son of God, who paid for our sins:

9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. -1 John 4

He gave us His love, not for us to keep, but for us to give to others:

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

12 No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us. -1 John 4

God gave us His Spirit which, through faith in Yahshua, dwells in us and we dwell in Him:

13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 Whoever shall confess that Yahshua is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.

16 And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. -1 John 4

If we can understand, as Paul explains, that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, which is also the Spirit of the Messiah, then we can begin to be filled with His fullness.

9 But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of the Messiah, he is none of his. -Romans 8

The Spirit of the Messiah is the Spirit of God, which once dwelt in the physical body of the Messiah on earth. A spirit that once occupied a human body is also known as a "ghost." Therefore, the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of the Messiah, is also known as the "Holy Ghost." Yahshua said that His Spirit, which is also called the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, will live in them that love the Father and that love Him:

23 Yahshua answered and said to him, If a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him.

24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

25 These things have I spoken to you, being yet present with you.

26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said to you. -John 14

The love of God for us is so great, that His Spirit, the Comforter, not only desires to live WITH us, but He desires to live IN us:

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever;

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you. -John 14

Through the Comforter, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Messiah lives in us and gives us life:

10 And if the Messiah is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Yahshua from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up the Messiah from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you. -Romans 8

God’s love for us is great and it is also unconditional. Paul says that he is persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in the Messiah Yahshua our Lord:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of the Messiah? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in the Messiah Yahshua our Lord. -Romans 8

While nothing can separate us from His love, it is our rebellion against Him that separates us from His Spirit. The temple of God is the place where His Spirit dwells. If He dwells in us, then we are His temple. He will not share His temple with idols or other forms of vain worship:

15 And what concord has the Messiah with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an infidel?

16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God Yahweh has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

17 Therefore come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord Yahweh, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

18 And will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Yahweh Almighty. -2 Corinthians 6

The Holy Spirit of God cannot dwell in an unholy temple, where we share our love for Him with that for idols:

4 Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh:

5 And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. -Deuteronomy 6

When we no longer love Him completely, we rebel against Him and His Word, turning Him into our enemy and thereby grieving His Holy Spirit:

10 But they rebelled, and grieved his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. -Isaiah 63

It is because God loves us that His Holy Spirit woos us, convicting us of our sins with the object of restoring us back to life as He lives in us. When we reject that wooing and harden our hearts to continue in our sins, then we become "past feeling." If we love Him, we will grieve because our sin separates us from Him. However, when we do not love Him enough to grieve for Him, we no longer feel the conviction of the sorrowful guilt that He offers to bring us back to Him through repentance. We are then alienated from the life that He offers to us:

18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. -Ephesians 4

It is our rebellion and sin that grieves the Holy Spirit because we have rejected the love that God has for us. If we love Him completely, we will repent and ask Him to restore us back to Him as David did:

9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

11 Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your holy spirit from me. -Psalms 51

Here is God’s love:

8 But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, the Messiah died for us. -Romans 5

If we love Him, then we will not grieve His Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

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