It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising
the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes
us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy
through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to
mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of
God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say
mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19),
and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind
on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you
thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you,
but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you
like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a
right-standing relationship before God.
“. . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to
pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help
it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply
going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we
acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a
work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my
idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of
what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind
and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever
the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
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