Five behaviors that push the Holy Spirit away without you even realizing it. Now, when I talk about pushing the Holy Spirit away, I don’t mean that the Holy Spirit literally abandons the believer. I mean that his influence is minimized in your life by certain things that you do.

In Ephesians 4:30, we read, “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. It’s possible to hurt the Holy Spirit. So don’t hurt the Holy Spirit. The way we behave, the way we think, certain attitudes that can hurt the Holy Spirit. He’s personal.

He is a person. Now when I say that the Holy Spirit is a person, I don’t mean that he’s fallible or finite or that he’s mortal. I simply mean that he is personal. He has relationship with you. You can have a friendship with the Holy Spirit. He has a mind, will, emotions, and he is affected by the way that we behave.

And if the Holy Spirit loves you enough to be grieved by your sin, then the Holy Spirit loves you enough to be pleased by your obedience. So your behavior affects the Holy Spirit’s heart. So what are these behaviors that push the Holy Spirit away? That is minimize his influence without us even realizing it. Number one, sins of commission.

This is doing what we know is wrong. These are disobedient acts. We do things that violate the clear teachings of scripture. We do things that violate the nature of God. We do things that violate what God has spoken to us directly. Maybe the Lord gave you a specific instruction for this season. And you’re delaying. Delay is disobedience.

We ought to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit when he speaks to us. In Galatians 5 19- 21 we read, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear. Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.

” Let me tell you again as I have before that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. That is the influence of God’s dominion in your life. So these behaviors push the Holy Spirit away. They minimize his influence. And here’s the thing, this happens little by little, gradually, day by day, moment by moment, decision by decision, we are either maximizing the influence of the Holy Spirit or we are minimizing the influence of the Holy Spirit.

But when we minimize the influence of the Holy Spirit, his influence diminishes over time. So that many times, in fact, most of the time, we do not recognize that his influence is being diminished. And before you know it, you look up and you see that old habits have returned. You look up and you see that old attitudes have crept back in.

Your life has taken a completely different direction. Maybe you look up and suddenly you notice there’s no prayer life anymore. There’s no devotion to the word anymore. There’s compromise in sin. And you say, “How did I get here?” You got there by decisions that you made over time. You got there little by little through compromise throughout each day, each week, each month. And here’s the scary part.

You become used to life without his influence. You become used to life without the sense of his presence. Well, nothing scares me more than to realize that I could lose the sense of his presence. Now notice I said the sense because again the Holy Spirit doesn’t abandon you. But that beautiful resting glory that believers sense on them, that peace, that love, that joy that can be diminished through ongoing disobedience.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.” Now that word stifle is descriptive of a fire-like nature. So we can snuff out that flame that is the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If you want to learn more about the nature of the Holy Spirit, our friendship with the Holy Spirit, then get Holy Spirit God within you at encounterthespirit.com.