Quenching the Spirit

By Michael Youssef, Ph D.  10/11/21

In our lives, a choice to be truly spiritual involves the removal of two main hindrances to the Holy Spirit’s work. God’s Word refers to these hindrances as quenching the Spirit and grieving the Spirit (see 1 Thessalonians 5:19 and Ephesians 4:30). For a Christian to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he or she must remove these two hindrances. Today we will look at what it means to quench the Spirit.

We all come to a crossroads where we have the opportunity to yield to the Holy Spirit or to quench the Spirit’s work in us. We may sense that we are to serve in some way, to give money to meet a need, or to change a destructive habit. To quench the Spirit is to say no to the Lord in these moments, to refuse to heed His voice, and to choose instead to do what we want to do to achieve our personal goals or comfort. Quenching the Holy Spirit means ignoring or deliberately disobeying the leading of God and doing something that is self-serving and not God-serving.

We can choose to disregard the “still small voice” that encourages, challenges, and compels us to act outside ourselves for service to God and others or that speaks to us about a particular habit or error in our lives that God wants to change.

Along with listening for His voice, a primary condition for being filled with the Holy Spirit is to be willing to do what He commands. The ultimate example of a person not quenching the Holy Spirit is Jesus as He cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). That is the ultimate expression of obeying what the Holy Spirit compels us to do.

Prayer: Father, help me to never quench Your Spirit. Help me to follow Jesus’ example of responding in obedience to You as You lead me with the Holy Spirit. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).