Question Of the Day Q. I have read in one of your previous posts that if we continually ignore the Holy Spirits guidance we will lose the ability to hear him. I believe this is called quenching the Spirit and it bothers me for obvious reasons. If someone did indeed quench the spirit is that a permanent event or can it be restored by restoring our fellowship with God? A. People lose the ability to hear the Holy Spirit by consistently ignoring His advice. They ignore Him because theyre unwilling to yield their independence to Him. Since Hes a counselor and not a commander, He cant make them obey Him, so they just tune Him out. In truth, its actually a bit more than just losing the ability to hear Him. When Paul said, Dont quench the Spirit in 1 Thes. 5:19 he literally meant Dont put out His fire. When were on fire for the Lord, the Holy Spirit is a driving force within us. When weve quenched the Spirit were no longer on fire for the Lord. Since God put His Spirit in our heart as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance (2 Cor. 1:21-22) He never goes away. Therefore, people can regain the ability to hear Him. But just as ignoring Him was an action caused by a motive, the decision to begin listening again must be caused by the opposite motive. They must be willing to yield their independence and heed His advice. And just as it took time to lose the ability to hear Him, it will take time to regain it. His voice will be very quiet at first but will become easier to hear as they practice listening to Him and accepting what He says. As they practice, theyll begin to hear Him more clearly again and theyll notice themselves being more on fire again. So if you no longer have that fire for the Lord, thats how you get it back.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:00:00 +0000
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