How to Grieve the Agent of God's Grace
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I love the presence of God but I think we can become caviler with God.
Caviler means = having an unconcerned attitude about important matters.
We can take Him for granite
We come to the place were we love Him but we don’t have a reverence for Him and we don’t have a healthy fear of Him. Not fearing the Lord is a lack of respect.
Ladies how does it take for your husband to pull away from you if you disrespect him?
33 However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly].
Lack of reverence and fear will repeal the presence of God
John Bevere story:
John Bevere shared a story about how he was on his way to a national conference in Brazil with a stadium full of people.
He approached the building his excitement and anticipation mounted as he listed to the familiar praise choruses being sung.
Once inside, I was ushered directly to the platform. The auditorium, which held approximately four thousand people, was full. The platform was rocking with high-intensity praise music. The music quality was very good, for the musicians were skilled and flowed well together. The singing was also excellent, the leaders gifted with very good voices. Yet I quickly noted a complete absence of the Lord’s presence. As I scanned the crowd and musicians, I thought, Where is God? So immediately I questioned, Lord, where is Your presence?
As I waited for His reply, I noticed what was happening in the building. Through the bright lights of the platform I could see the people milling about. Many stood with their eyes open looking at something or someone in the building. Many appeared to be bored. Their hands were thrust into their pockets or hung heavy at their sides. Everything about their body postures and countenances gave the appearance of a casual crowd waiting patiently for a show to begin. Some talked to one another, and others roamed the aisles, wandering in and out of the auditorium.
I waited, hoping the people would enter into a true reverence of the Lord. I thought, Surely this atmosphere will change. But it didn’t.
When the song service ended, it seemed as if over an hour had transpired, but it was actually less than forty minutes
As the service transitioned and they were asked to sit down and the Bible verses were being read but the underlying rumble of casual conversation could be heard throughout the auditorium.
I knew now that my question—Lord, where is Your presence?—had been answered. His presence certainly was not here.
Instead I opened with this question, “How would you like it if, while you spoke with someone, they ignored you the entire time or continued to carry on a conversation with the person next to them? Or if their eyes roamed with disinterest and disrespect?”I paused, then answered my own question: “You wouldn’t like it, would you?”I probed further: “What if every time you rang the doorbell to visit a neighbor’s house you were greeted with a careless attitude and monotone sigh, ‘Oh, it’s you again; come on in’?”
I paused, then added, “You wouldn’t visit them anymore, would you?”
Then he stated firmly, “Do you think the King of kings and Lord of lords is going to come into a place where He is not given due honor and reverence?
---- John begin to call them to repentance and without hesitation 75 percent rose to their feet in repentance.
-----Immediately the presence of the Lord filled the auditorium. sobs and cries rising from the crowd could be heard.
-------After a few minutes God’s presence subsided
--------A few moments passed, and another wave of His presence flooded the building. There were more tears as the crying intensified. His presence was even more far-reaching this time, and more people were touched by the Master. This lasted a few minutes, then again subside.
---------- the sound of a rushing mighty wind immediately blew through the auditorium sounding like a jet passing by at a hundreds yards away but there was no jet near by. Almost simultaneously the people erupted in fervent and intense prayer, their voices rising and combining into almost a single shout.
------ The mighty wind wasn’t the voices crying out but the wind of the Holy Spirit. He said the roar of the wind lasted for about 2 minutes. It left in its path praying and weeping people.
-------The awesome aftermath of His presence continued for fifteen to twenty minutes
We grieve the Spirit and don’t think nothing of it.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
The 2nd half of Eph teaches how to stay anointed. We have the anointing within which is our inner well that we live out of as a Christian and we have the anointing upon that is power or anointing from on high to that comes upon to witness and the hands and feet of Jesus. Its an anointing to minister.
The Holy Spirit is grieved by our conversations.
Grieved by our lying:
1 But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property,
2 and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”
The Ark Story of guy dying Uzzah died when he reached out to catch the Ark
19 Do not quench the Spirit.
Lack of presence with my Livingstones / we can say that we don’t go by feelings and their is truth to that but
We don’t hate what He hates and we don’t love what He loves.
The Spirit of Grace
29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
We are the people of the Spirit right?
The Law of the Spirit has made me free of law of sin and death
Not under the letter of the law for the letter kills but the spirit:
4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.
5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.