Now, when I talk about pushing the Holy Spirit away, I don’t mean that the Holy Spirit literally abandons the believer. I mean that his influence is minimised in your life by certain things that you do. In Ephesians chapter 4: 30, we read: And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live.
Remember, He has identified you as His own and guaranteed your salvation on the day of redemption. It’s possible to hurt the Holy Spirit, so don’t hurt the Holy Spirit. How we behave, how we think, and certain attitudes can hurt the Holy Spirit. He’s personal. He is a person.
Now, when I say that the Holy Spirit is a person, I don’t mean that he’s fallible or finite or that he’s mortal. I simply mean that he is personal. He has a relationship with you. You can have a friendship with the Holy Spirit. He has a mind, will, and emotions, and he is affected by how we behave.
And if the Holy Spirit loves you enough to be grieved by your sin, then the Holy Spirit loves you enough to be pleased by your obedience. So your behavior affects the Holy Spirit’s heart.
So what behaviours push the Holy Spirit away, that is, minimise his influence without us even realising it?
1. Sins Of Commission and Omission.
This is doing what we know is wrong or not doing what we know is right. These are disobedient acts. We do things that violate the clear teachings of Scripture. We do things that violate the nature of God; we do things that violate what God has spoken to us directly.
Maybe the Lord gave you a specific instruction for this season, and you’re delaying. Delay is disobedience. We ought to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit when He speaks to us in Galatians chapter 5: 18 through 21. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear. Sin of the flesh, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties.
Persons like these, let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. That is the influence of God’s dominion in your life.
So these behaviours push the Holy Spirit away. They minimise His influence. And here’s the thing: this happens a little by little, gradually. Day by day, moment by moment, decision by decision, we either maximise the Holy Spirit’s influence or minimise it.
But when we minimise the influence of the Holy Spirit, his influence diminishes over time, so that many times, in fact, most of the time, we do not recognise that influence is being diminished, and before you know it, you look up, and you see that old habits have returned. You look up, and you see that old attitudes have crept back in.
Your life has taken a completely different direction. Maybe you look up, and suddenly you notice there’s no prayer life anymore. There’s no devotion to the Word anymore. There’s compromise in sin. You say, how did I get here?
You got there by decisions that you made over time. You got there little by little through compromise throughout each day, each week, each month. And here’s the scary part. You become used to life without his influence. You become used to life without the sense of his presence, and nothing scares me more. To realise that I could lose the sense of his presence.
Now notice I said the sense because, again, the Holy Spirit doesn’t abandon you, but that beautiful resting glory believers sense in them, that peace, that love, that joy, can be diminished through ongoing disobedience. First Thessalonians 5:19 says: do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Now, the word stifle is descriptive of a fire-like nature, so we can snuff out that flame that is the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
2. Sins of omission, that is, neglecting to do what we know is right.
In James 4:17, we read: “Remember it is a sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” We lack the fear of God in this generation. For example, maybe the Holy Spirit told you to do something, and you’re withholding your obedience because you’re afraid of what other people will think about you.
You’re afraid of how others might criticise you or perceive you. Well, that’s the fear of man. But let me tell you something. If you’re going to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, you’re going to be misunderstood. You’re going to be offensive to the religious if you want to be one who walks with the Holy Spirit.
If you want to be one who’s sensitive to his instructions, you’re going to be a disruptor. You won’t always fit in. Sometimes you’re going to have trouble finding your place, but that is no reason to withhold obedience. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is telling you to give financially to a certain ministry, and because of fear for the future, or maybe just simple greed, you’re withholding, saying, “Not right now,” or “Maybe later.”
Or maybe the Holy Spirit is telling you to move in a certain spiritual gift, to prophesy, to pray for the sick, to exercise that word of knowledge. And you keep withholding it because you’re afraid. Maybe the Holy Spirit is telling you to share the gospel with your loved ones, but you’re worried about what they might think. Maybe the Holy Spirit is telling you to apologise to someone you know you’ve hurt, but your pride says, oh, well, we’ll just dismiss it. Oh, we’ll just move on.
But the Holy Spirit says no. Apologize. Those are sins of omission, where the Holy Spirit is moving us to do something, and we don’t do it. The more you do this, the longer you delay, the harder it will become to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice as you wait, as you stand there frozen in fear.
In the comforts of the current lifestyle that you have or the current decisions that you’ve made, as you stand there in your own preferences, little by little the influence of the precious Holy Spirit is being diminished in your life.
3. Ignoring His presence
This is failing to acknowledge the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit is always there, but rarely acknowledged. As believers, we need to eliminate hurry and worry. And by the way, hurry and worry come hand in hand. Yes, I understand that we have many responsibilities, and I understand that we have godly goals, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if those things are causing you to move at such a pace and with such tension that you rarely have any time to ever even acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is with you, then there’s something wrong with the pace.
Something has to change in the order of Your priorities now, keeping in mind that the Holy Spirit abides with the believer. Read Psalm 51:11: Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Filtering this to the New Testament, we see that there is this spiritual principle we can apply today, namely, that we ought to cherish the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We ought not to neglect prayer and the word daily spiritual disciplines that cause us to be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. In Exodus chapter 33, verse 15, we read that Moses said if you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. In other words, God, if you’re not in it, I don’t want it. If it doesn’t include the influence of your Holy Spirit’s presence, then I don’t want to go there.
This is to live a life reliant upon the Holy Spirit, aware that you need His power, that you need His grace, that you need His strength, and that you need his supernatural ability. Approach Him at all times. Be aware of him constantly. When something good happens, thank Him. When you face a tragedy, stop, pause; ask Him for comfort when you’re confused. Ask for wisdom and clarity when you feel alone.
Thank Him for his presence when you feel that weight of heaviness; you know life sometimes has that way of making you feel heavy. You can stop and ask Him to give you the strength that comes to joy when you feel restless.
You can stop and ask Him for gratitude when you start to take the blessings in your life for granted and begin to see them as burdens. You can stop and say, Holy Spirit, help me check my heart; invite Him into the little moments of your life and the big moments of your life.
When we ignore his presence, hear me now, please, we minimise his influence. The next behaviour that I’m going to share with you can really minimise the flow of God’s supernatural working power.
4. Lack of faith
This is doubting God’s ability. This is a lack of trust in His word. Fear diminishes faith. As believers, we ought to have a faith mindset so that when we face difficult circumstances, we don’t become inwardly defeated. We don’t just throw up our hands. Give up and say, well, this is the way it’s always supposed to be, but rather to look at it through God’s perspective and say God will bring me through it, or God has a plan to make things better, or God will work this all out in my favour for my good.
That is the faith mindset. Not to be dismayed, not to be hopeless, not to look at every circumstance as if it’s a mountain that you can’t climb. Remember, we don’t need to climb mountains because we have the faith that moves mountains.
You can speak to those mountains and tell them to be removed, and God will remove them. But this comes when you walk in faith. You see, when you live in fear, it’s because you’re thinking in terms of your own ability. But when you live in faith. Because you’re thinking according to God’s ability.
When you exchange fear for faith, you exchange your strength for God’s strength, your ability for God’s ability, your limits for God’s unlimited power to work in your life. Hebrews 11:6 says: And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.
So as we approach the Lord, we have to come in faith. This is what pleases God. That lifestyle of faith is because it’s trust in his word, it’s trust in his nature, it’s trust in his integrity. God’s never failed you, and he’s not going to begin now.
When we live in faith, we invite the Holy Spirit’s influence into our lives; when we live in fear, we minimise that influence, and now we’re stuck in the negative. Now we’re in deception. Now we’re stuck without God’s power. Why? Because we’re trying to do it all on our own. But faith comes when we involve Him.
Faith comes when we rely upon Him. And as we rely on God, as we live in faith, we experience His unlimited power at work on our behalf in our everyday. So if you want to minimise the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, think out of fear. If you want to maximise the influence of the Holy Spirit in your life, think according to faith
5. Holding grudges
And this one, by the way. You wouldn’t think it necessarily affects your relationship with the Holy Spirit, but it does. And biblically speaking it does. But it’s just not something we think about. Now, as I said, some people don’t necessarily think that this would affect their relationship with the Holy Spirit.
This is because they compartmentalise. They think that, oh, that’s just my relationship with them over there, or that’s just the problem I have with that person over there. But me and God, we’re good. But do you realise that holding grudges against other people actually minimises the influence of the Holy Spirit in your life?
When pride leads us to separate from other believers or carry resentment toward them in our hearts, we need to do a heart check and realise this doesn’t just happen overnight. It slowly begins, and you’ll notice little patterns. You’re a little less patient with them. You’re a little less gracious toward them. You think a little lower of them. You start to see them in a negative light; you start to minimise the good that they do; you start to maximise the bad that they do.
If they don’t meet your expectations, you begin to hold those little things against them, and you collect those offences, and you begin to bury them deep in your heart. And what begins to happen now is that the influence of that bitterness takes over the heart. The Holy Spirit’s influence is diminished.
Now. When you become bitter and let that resentment fester, certain symptoms surface. You become defensive. You can’t have any challenges. You can’t face any disagreements without putting up that wall of fire or reacting very strongly; you become given to anger, little fits of rage constantly, and just that steady place of quiet anger ready to snap at any moment.
There’s tension around you. There are people saying you feel like we’re walking on eggshells with you. There’s just this, like I said, this quiet anger that begins to develop around you. You’re unable to see your own flaws, pointing out everyone else’s flaws around you, unable to see the negative that you’re contributing.
You’re unable to see the good that others do for you, and even if it’s good that they do for you, you either take it as something that should be done anyway, or you question the motives behind it. You become ungrateful and dissatisfied with what God has blessed you with, because now, as that bitterness seeps in, it becomes the lens through which you view all things.
Even the life that you live, even your marriage, even your relationship with your children, even the house that you live in, the car that you drive, the clothes that you wear, the ministry you serve in and the job that you have, the school you attend, the responsibilities that God has given to you. It affects everything about you.
And everything is now seen through that lens. And again, this doesn’t come on right away. There’s just this subtle takeover of bitterness. Maybe you notice that you’re losing grace. You’re losing joy, you’re losing patience, you’re becoming less kind, you’re sharper in the tongue, more judgmental in the mind. 1st Corinthians 1:10 says: I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one. United in thought and purpose. In John chapter 17, verse 21, we read: And I pray they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you, and may they be in us, so that the world will believe you sent me.
Unity is a testimony to the world. You see, the Holy Spirit in me loves the Holy Spirit in you. The Holy Spirit in me is one with the Holy Spirit in you. The same goes for all our brothers and sisters.
So if we have an issue with a brother or a sister, we may think the solution is to cut them off or dismiss them. Well, that’s their problem. Well, that’s how they are. Well, you know, I had nothing to do with it, or I tried my best. And I understand there are times to be in doubt, but I’m not talking about those times.
I’m talking about those times where there’s bitterness. And you may think you could just cut that person off, move on with your life, but you don’t realise that bitterness blows you up. If you do that once, you’re bound to repeat those mistakes again. You’re bound to follow that pattern of bitterness. And if you don’t deal with the bitterness in one situation. It’s going to be much more difficult to prevent bitterness in another situation.
This is why bitter people can easily become even more bitter. Bitter people can easily be offended. Why? Because the heart is already tender. The heart is already harmed. But Jesus tells us that we ought to be one. This is why we should be 1: it’s not just a compartmentalised relationship we have with God. It’s all of us together, the body of Christ.
How you treat others, how you view others, your relationship with other believers. That can affect the heart. And so if you allow resentment to become stronger, more intense, if you don’t deal with that, and I mean in a humbler, you’ve got to deal with it.
You’ve got to go before God and ask him for his help. You’ve got to go to your brother or sister and apologise. You have to deal with what you’ve been holding against them. Let go of your pride, or the pride will lead to the fall.
This is where the Holy Spirit wants to help you, because as you become a person who forgives, who releases, who is kind and caring, as you become a person who lets go of those grudges, you invite the. Of the Holy Spirit to take over.
So Father, I pray you would help us to repent of all these behaviours that minimise the influence of the precious Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for causing us to become pure in heart. Focused on You, Your presence and Your power. Father, we humble ourselves before You today and ask for Your grace as we deal with these behaviours and issues.
Holy Spirit, we want Your influence. We want Your power. I want you to say this out loud as I pray for you: say, ” Welcome, Holy Spirit. Say it again. Say Welcome, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, we welcome your influence. Let them sense your presence and power. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. AMEN!
