Today’s Inspiration – Q is for Quench
Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-22
What does it mean to grieve / quench the Holy Spirit?
When the word “quench” is used in Scripture, it is speaking of suppressing fire. When believers put on the shield of faith, as part of their armor of God (Ephesians 6:16), they are extinguishing the power of the fiery darts from Satan. Christ described hell as a place where the fire would not be “quenched” (Mark 9:44, 46,48). Likewise, the Holy Spirit is a fire dwelling in each believer. He wants to express Himself in our actions and attitudes. When believers do not allow the Spirit to be seen in our actions, when we do what we know is wrong, we suppress or quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We do not allow the Spirit to reveal Himself the way that He wants to.
To understand what it means to grieve the Spirit, we must first understand that this indicates the Spirit possesses personality. Only a person can be grieved; therefore, the Spirit must be a divine person in order to have this emotion. Once we understand this, we can better understand how He is grieved, mainly because we too are grieved. Ephesians 4:30 tells us that we should not grieve the Spirit. We grieve the Spirit by living like the pagans (4:17-19), by lying (4:25), by being angry (4:26-27), by stealing (4:28), by cursing (4:29), by being bitter (4:31), by being unforgiving (4:32), and by being sexually immoral (5:3-5). To grieve the Spirit is to act out in a sinful manner, whether it is in thought only or in both thought and deed.
Both quenching and grieving the Spirit are similar in their effects. Both hinder a godly lifestyle. Both happen when a believer sins against God and follows his or her own worldly desires. The only correct road to follow is the road that leads the believer closer to God and purity, and farther away from the world and sin. Just as we do not like to be grieved, and just as we do not seek to quench what is good—so we should not grieve or quench the Holy Spirit by refusing to follow His leading.
SOURCE: GotQuestions?org
How does a person grieve or quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19; Ephesians 4:30)?
In 1 Thessalonians 5:19, the apostle Paul told believers, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Ephesians 4:30 adds, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” What does it mean to grieve or quench the Holy Spirit?
In 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul uses the same word used elsewhere related to “quenching” or “putting out” a fire (Mark 9:44). The idea was that of stopping or ending the ability of a fire to continue. In the context of Paul’s letter, he was encouraging believers to live a holy life according to God’s Spirit. They were not to stop doing the things they had been instructed to or to live in sin in ways that would quench or put out the fire of God’s Spirit at work among them.
In Ephesians 4:30, Paul commanded the Ephesian Christians not to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” To grieve would mean to make the Spirit sad or do something opposite of what God’s Spirit desires. The context of the passage deals with the issue of anger, sharing, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). We are to build one another up as believers, not tear one another down. Tearing one another down grieves the Holy Spirit as it is inconsistent with God’s purposes for our lives.
In addition to sinning as the result of anger, Ephesians 4 offers other ways believers can grieve the Spirit. These include living like unbelievers (vv. 17-19), lying (v. 25), stealing (v. 28), using bad language (v. 29), bitterness (v. 31), unforgiveness (v. 32), and sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3-5).
In contrast, believers are to speak truth (Ephesians 4:25), not sin when angry (v. 26), work hard (v. 28), encourage (v. 29), and be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving of one another (v. 32). The contrast of grieving the Spirit includes, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).
There are similarities between quenching and grieving the Spirit. Both take place as the result of a believer who sins. Both take place as the result of a self-focused lifestyle that places self above God and others. Both include practicing the former ways a person lived before knowing Christ.
God’s desire is for the believer in Christ to live differently than before coming to faith in Christ. Doing so brings God joy and will not quench or grieve the Spirit of God who lives within those who believe.
SOURCE: CompellingTruth.org (CompellingTruth.org is an outreach of www.GotQuestions.org.)
The inspiration for these alphabet verses came from Crossroad
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