“Do Not Quench the Spirit”

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.

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不要消滅聖靈的感動

不要消滅聖靈的感動。 （帖前五19）

聖靈的聲音柔如微風，除非與神完全契合，否則不能聽見。聖靈的攔阻來得及其柔細，你若不夠敏感，就不能察覺他的聲音。消滅了他的感動，你屬靈的生命就受虧損。他攔阻的聲音總是 微細的，只有聖徒才聽得見。

當心在你個人的見證裡，要追述過去說：[許多年前，我得救了。 ]你若行在光中，就不必追憶，過去一切已經融合在今日與神的合一里了。你若不在光中行，就會變成一個感情用事的信徒；你若活在回憶之中，見證也變得生硬。當心別拿過去行在光中的經歷，來縫補你現今不肯在光中行的破洞。聖靈一攔阻，就要停下來迴轉，否則，你就使他憂傷而不自知。

假設神叫你面臨一個重要關頭，你就差一點點未能勝過。然後神會叫你再面對同樣的情形，不過沒有上次那麼明顯。漸漸地，你對神的辨認減弱了，因自己未曾順服而帶來的羞辱卻加強。

若你仍繼續叫聖靈擔憂，終有一天機會不再有，因為你把聖靈憂傷得退去了。但你若在這重要 關頭中誇勝，無邊得讚美就要對神升起。對那些不斷刺痛神得東西，你絕不應表同情。會刺傷 神得那些東西，你必須撇棄。

祈禱◆噢，主啊，我舉目仰望你，將我的盼望、我的禱告呈獻給你。求你從高處藉著聖靈的內住，使我重新得力，以致神的亮光再今天可以在我們周圍和里面燃點起來。願你按著本身的喜悅，以甜蜜和榮耀來充滿這天。