For thought and meditation

[rl69]

Do not quench the Spirit. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.

[buckwheatpaul]

Thanks Ronnie for a great start to the day!

[square butte]

Thanks for the scripture and word this morning - Thought provoking as usual. Always working to hear Gods whispers

[USMC87]

A great lesson, Amen.

[Boaz]

Every day should be worthy of a testimonial .

[Blackwater]

Ah! Quenching the spirit! It's done so easily and commonly! And all we have to do, is just want to be "like everyone else" - which is basically milk toast, doing nothing with gusto, doing everything with the thought that we "might" be wrong, and thus, don't have a right to speak with authority on anything, and particularly to anything that others might not WANT to hear, or might disagree with. THIS is where PC philosophy truly RUINS our innate Christianity so very often! Christ directed us to have courage, but He also warned us to be "as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves," too. I have come to think of this as meaning that we're not to unnecessarily intrude on another's "peace," and disturb them with a rant on Christianity or what he "ought" to be and do, but that when asked or challenged, we are to be fearless and unrelenting in being able to discuss WHY we believe, and do it in a manner that clearly shows the intellectual superiority of belief vs. disbelief. So often, we go about prosteletyzing in all the wrong ways! But we're human, and we can learn. Who among us always hits on the "perfect" answer with his or her first efforts???

Knowing WHY we believe is really a lot more involved than most think. It's as if, once we come to light, we have the attitude of "let those who don't have it get it like I did it." I don't think that's the attitude that Christ tried to instill within us. I know life's full of obligations that take much of our time, but to NEVER have time to figure out all the reasons we believe, is simply not credible. Will we let a soul be lost simply because when asked, we were unable to explain just why we came to belief? I surely hope not, but I fear it's very, very common these days. Once we find a "comfort zone," where we feel "saved," we tend to leave it all right there, and not pursue the matter further. What a mistake that is! There's SO much more to Christ and Belief that tends to make us happy! Is it any wonder, then, that many professing Christians seem so much less than fully "happy?" They've robbed their own selves of much of the joy and pleasure of being Christian! Satan surely is having a real hey day these days, isn't he?