GRIEVE NOT

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"The church is at a status quo. There is little or no communication between it and God. He is longing to visit with His children. God longs for communion and fellowship with us."
 
 
Ephesians 4:30: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."
 
One definition of the word grieve is to wait for longingly. It is interesting that Paul puts this statement in the middle of the other verses: 25-32. It is right in the middle of the "bad sins" like lying, stealing, anger, etc.  How many times do we as Christians grieve the Holy Spirit? There are many ways-- we don't listen to God; we don't spend time with Him; we are so busy we have no time to spend in prayer or the Word. Since this verse is in the midst of these other sins, Paul (and God) must have thought it was really important.
 
God longingly waits for us to be with Him. The church is at a status quo. There is little or no communication between it and God. He is longing to visit with His children. God longs for communion and fellowship with us. He wants a "face to face" meeting- like He had with Abraham.
 
If there is no face to face encounter with God now- it won't happen later when times get really hard. We must be prepared before this happens. We need those face to face times with God- to enter into His presence and truly spend time with Him.
 
In Mark 3:5 Jesus was grieved at the "hardness" of their hearts. He knew their thoughts and He was grieved. Many Christians today have hard hearts. This happened because they only have done just what they think is required of them. They don't seem to care how very important it is to spend time in prayer, spend time with the Lord. They are much too busy doing other things. They come to church maybe once a week because they think that is what will get them by. Then, the rest of the week they think little of God.  But sad to say- that is so wrong.
 
1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us to not quench the Spirit. We are to not put out, extinguish or smother the Spirit in our lives. The more we do this, the harder our hearts become and finally nothing gets through.
 
Spend some face to face time with the Lord today. Seek His face and then listen to and obey what He tells you. Prepare yourself to be that sanctuary for Him to dwell in. It will not happen automatically. We must take advantage of the time we have now- instead of filling our time with things that will never matter to eternity.
 
 
(Taken from Pastor Keith's message 10/6/2013

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