[0:00]5 behaviors that push the Holy Spirit away. Have you ever felt that God was close, and then something changed? You're still saved, you still believe, but this tenderness is gone. The fire is low. The presence feels distant. Let me say this clearly. The Holy Spirit is not super fragile, but he is holy. He's not leaving like an offended friend, but the scripture does warn us not to grieve him, not to quench him and not to resist him. And today I want to talk about these five behaviors that push the Holy Spirit away. And this is not to shame or condemn you, but it's to cause you to protect what is precious. Because many of us are always asking for more of God's presence while practicing habits that actually drive him away or push him away. Now, I want to show you the scripture where it says in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30, "Do not grieve the Spirit of God." In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 19 it says, "Do not quench the Spirit." And then in Book of Acts chapter 7 verse 51, it says, "People can resist the Holy Spirit." Now I want you to notice that Ephesians, Thessalonians, and the people that Stephen addressed were people that were connected to God. These were people who were in covenant with God, and they could still treat the Spirit of God in this matter. And so, this issue, we have to keep in mind that the Holy Spirit is attracted to holiness, humility, hunger, and honor. When we tolerate behaviors that are opposite, it actually pushes him away. Let's look at these five behaviors. The first one is when we allow hidden sin with no repentance. The fastest way to lose sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is to keep your sin private and call it small. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He convicts us, he cleanses us, and he empowers us. When you continually ignore conviction, your heart will get dull. You will feel convicted but then you justify it. You feel warned but you delay changing and repenting. You repent emotionally but not practically. You keep a secret and public life separate. It's not that God will stop loving you. It's that your spirit will become less responsive to his spirit. So, when you fall into sin, when you have made a mistake, you must learn to repent quickly. You got to bring things into the light and you have to cut off what feeds that sin and deal with it immediately. Otherwise it grieves the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows that without him we can't be holy. But when he deals with us and we are slow to respond, we justify things, we grieve him, and that pushes him away. The second behavior, and this is heavy. This is the bitterness and unforgiveness. If you want to have Holy Spirit's nearness, you got to guard your heart. Your heart is the contact point of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians chapter 4, when it talks about grieving the Holy Spirit, it actually highlights things like bitterness, highlights things like wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking. Unforgiveness is like building a room in your heart where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. You cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit and filled with resentment at the same time. Something is going to go, something is going to leave. You cannot replay the same thing that they did all over again. where you enjoy imagining that person who hurt you get punished. Where you talk about it all the time. And you feel justified staying hardened. So, when you choose to forgive that person, you're not saying it's okay. It's that forgiveness is refusing to stay chained to that event and ask the Holy Spirit to help you. The moment you choose unforgiveness, the moment you choose offense, you may feel justified in your head. But it's pushing the Holy Spirit away. If you want to stay close to the Holy Spirit, forgiving others, letting go of the offense is going to be the only way. You cannot deal with difficult people without the component of the gospel, which involves forgiveness. The component of boldness, which involves going to the person you're offended at, instead of just bottling up and say, well, it doesn't matter, it's their fault. They need to come and talk to me first. That's going to push the Holy Spirit away. Yes, you're going to, you know, vent, you're going to bleed all over other people, but you will lose the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and you'll know it. The behavior number three, and that is when you are proud and stubborn. The Holy Spirit is called our helper and our guide. Pride says, I don't need any help. I am all right. I will do it my way. God resists that behavior. He resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. Pride is not just about being arrogant. It's about being unteachable. It's that you can't receive correction. It's that you always have an excuse. You always blame other people, and you will never apologize. You will never submit to correction. Holy Spirit loves a soft heart. A hardened, proud, unteachable, always makes excuses, never submits to correction heart, can be religious. In fact, I will submit to you. Some proud people are very religious. Because they wear religion as a coat to mask their pride, and nothing is worse than self-righteousness, which is another form of pride. Then when their feelings are injured, man, they get so offended, which where offense comes in, but the root of it is pride. And one thing about super religious people that are proud, is they're not sensitive to the Holy Spirit. They could be very sensitive to everyone else, except the Holy Spirit. They usually have a very thin skin and very thick heart. So, what attracts the Holy Spirit to you is humility. And so I always tell our leaders and honestly, it's a motto that I live by. Do what humbles you. If I want to have the Holy Spirit's nearness, I got to choose the humble way. So, if I have for example, I'm dealing with a situation. And there's one way I'm like, well, I'm right, my feelings are hurt. The other way is, yeah, I was wronged, but the humble way would be to apologize, even though majority of the fault is with the other person. The humble way would be for me to reach out first. The humble way would be for me to, you know, yield. The humble way. But of course, I don't want to do what humbles me. I don't want to be a doormat. There's a difference between being a doormat and being humble. If you choose the humility, you will protect your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. You actually will become stronger in your character. No, not a doormat. You're not someone that people will take advantage of. Even though that's what the enemy will tell you that. But no, you actually are stronger than people's feelings and how they treat you. And then you learn to respond in any given situation instead of react. It's a huge thing that is a bedrock of a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit. The behavior number four, and that is constant compromise with worldly influences. Now, this is a very subtle one. You can't ask the Holy Spirit to fill your mind when you constantly fill it with things that defile your consciousness and distract you. This is huge today, because we drown ourselves with impurity, violence, mockery of Christ, constant negativity, spiritless environment of entertainment, endless scrolling, that not only take away our time, but actually kills our hunger down the road. And no, not everything is demonic. But there are many things that are doling us. They are dolling that sharpness of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Because whatever you feed, it will grow. If the inputs into you are fleshly, don't be shocked if your sensitivity to the spirit shrinks. So, how do you change that? You would cleanse the spiritual environment of your life. Change what you watch. Change what you listen to. And what you laugh at. What you follow. Who you follow. Like take 30 days and just replace your spiritual diet. You will be surprised how much hunger, awareness, sensitivity, and closeness to the spirit you will feel throughout the day if you simply change your inputs. Change what comes in through your eye gate, through your ear gate.
[9:52]You allow this entertainment of this world to come in and, you know, you can probably stand on a verse and a chapter that this is not sinful. But things that mock Christ, things that have profanity, things that have nudity, things that have violence, things that have themes that are anti-biblical, spilled all throughout the TV shows, the movies, and the music. You listen to that. The Holy Spirit is going to be pushed away through that, because you're being filled with garbage. Of course, you won't be sensitive to the Spirit of God. And no, it might not open the door to a demon, but it will definitely open the heart to being dull. Where you just dull to the voice, the presence and the awareness of the Holy Spirit. And it has a domino effect. You allow that today, tomorrow you'll notice your other disciplines begin to leave your life. And then you begin to notice small other compromises begin to come into your life, and next thing that happens is you don't want to do other things, and you can find yourself drifting so far that you won't even recognize yourself. It always starts with those small things. Therefore, you must guard the sensitivity and closeness to the Holy Spirit at any cost. And the last behavior that pushes the Holy Spirit away and that is your disobedience to what God already told you. This is one of the most overlooked things. Many people like to say, God, speak to me. But sometimes the Holy Spirit is saying, I already did. Disobedience doesn't always start like rebellion. Sometimes it looks like procrastination, delay, partial obedience. I'll do it later. I'm waiting for more confirmation. And then this delayed obedience actually becomes disobedience. When you continually ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit, you will become less aware of them down the road. Obey quickly, even if it's small. Especially if it's small, and your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit will grow. So how do you draw to the Holy Spirit again if you felt like you pushed him away? There's hope. If you recognize any of these behaviors I just mentioned, you're not disqualified from relationship with the Holy Spirit. Actually, you're invited. David prayed after he sinned. He said, do not take your Holy Spirit from me, but restore to me the joy of your salvation in Psalm 51. This is how you can respond today. Like right now, to get this intimacy, get this closeness with the Holy Spirit back. Repent honestly and specifically. Like don't be general. Like get specific with what you need to repent about. Because convictions are always specific and condemnation is always general. Condemnation says, you're a bad person. Conviction the Holy Spirit says, well, you're wasting your evenings by watching Netflix. You know, that's conviction versus condemnation. Secondly is release bitterness and forgive. If there is someone that constantly was coming to your mind as I was talking about bitterness, that's the person you need to release. Like right now, just release that bitterness and forgive that person. Thirdly, is you need to humble yourself today and make a decision to be teachable. Make a decision to focus more on your growth than your ego. That honors the Holy Spirit. Number four is clean your environment. Like look what is within your room, your playlist, your computer, your subscriptions that currently actually are compromised things. The things that you would be kind of ashamed if Jesus would walk into the room or things you would be hiding if I would walk into the room, or another person walks into the room. Clean those things out. And lastly, obey what the Holy Spirit already told you to do. So, ask the Holy Spirit right now, so Holy Spirit, search me, convict me, and cleanse me. I repent for anything that have has grieved you, quenched you, or in any way I've resisted you. Restore my sensitivity, restore my hunger, restore my joy. Fill me afresh in Jesus name. Amen. I hope that this video helped you to grow in your walk with God. Imagine multiplying that impact through the world. Through this ministry, we've discipled over 160,000 students through our online school. Created over 60 reading plans that over 2 million people have completed already and published resources in 18 languages. But our heart is bigger than content. We're feeding orphans, building homes, and partnering with missionaries on the front lines of the gospel. Would you consider becoming a monthly partner? Every dollar helps to reach, teach, and care for more people. Click on the link below to become a part of this movement.
