A BIG Question Often Asked...

How does God speak through the Holy Spirit? What happens if I don't hear and obey? The Bible explains that rejecting the words of the Holy Spirit has consequences. Are you willing to face those?

The following are ways you can be disobedient to what God tells you by His Spirit:

1) Resisting the Holy Spirit. At times, the word may come as a challenge to confront something in your life. It may be a reminder of how you have been wrong in your dealings with others. At times, He will give you clear direction as to what you should do in order to avoid trouble. Proverbs 16:25 reminds us, "There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death."  The choice is yours. Resisting God's word is willful disobedience.

2) Grieving the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 4:30, Paul simply states, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." Resisting the Spirit focuses on our disobedience; Grieving the Spirit focuses on the results of our disobedience. Every time you willingly sin, God views it as a rejection of Himself. How does that make you feel? It should cause us to be heartbroken over our sin, for we realize that we have not just broken a rule, we have grieved the Holy Spirit.

3) Quenching the Holy Spirit. "Do not quench the Spirit." (I Thess. 5:19) The word quench means to" put an end to, stop, put out. When we allow unconfessed sin to fill us, the Spirit's work is quenched. We cannot be filled with the Spirit and filled with sin at the same time. When you find the Spirit's activity and words to you becoming increasingly rare, you need to examine the condition of your heart.

A BIG question often asked: "What about blaspheming the Holy Spirit? What does that really mean and am I capable of doing it? " The following is taken from the study, When God Speaks by Henry & Richard Blackaby.

"At times people fear thay are not experiencing God speaking to them because they have inadvertantly blashphemend the Holy Spirit. Matthew 12:31-32 tells us, 'And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.'

The Spirit of God had worked mightily to heal a man who was demon-possessed. This was an occasion for the Spirit of God to reveal to the people watching who Jesus was.

However, instead of recognizing and accepting the word from God, the Pharisees declared that Jesus had healed by the power of Satan. This was not an insult to Jesus but to the Spirit of God. They were refusing to accept the testimony from God as valild.

Jesus warned that to reject and scorn the person and work of the Spirit of God could never be forgiven. This is not something a Christian can do. To become a genuine Believer, you must first acknowledge the absolute lordship of God over your life.

To reject a word openly, repeatedly and defiantly from God indicates you have not submitted yourself to Christ's lordship. If you are truly a Christian, you will not have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. However, if you are not experiencing God as you think you could, check to see if you have not resisted, grieved or quenched the Holy Spirit."