Let us read from Ephesians 4:30, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” In the Message Bible we read this verse as, “Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart.” God has such tender love for us. We must not grieve Him. In many places in the Bible we read that God grieved. Our God is a loving father and He desires a loving relationship with His children. How sensitive we must be as we live on this earth without grieving God by our words or actions. We can make God glad or make Him sad. We can make Him pleased or displeased with our life.
Our sins cause grief in the heart of God. God isn’t angry with us when we sin but rather he grieves. We see in Genesis of the time man sinned. In Genesis 5:5,6 we read, ”Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” God was sorry that He made man. Is our life pleasing or grieving God’s heart? By your evil thoughts you are grieving God. By the way you use your tongue, you are grieving God. By your disobedience, you are grieving God. By the way you grow proud, you are grieving God. When you distance yourself from God and your love for God grows cold, it grieves God’s heart. In many ways we cause grief in God’s heart and we are not bothered and don’t have repentance. Let us draw near to God and examine our life today. Suppose my child does a serious sin which I never expected, as a father what great pain it will bring in my heart! What grief God must feel when we fall into sin!
In Luke 15 we read the parable of the lost son. In verse 13 we read, “And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.” Let us try to picture this in our minds. The father must have grieved when the son went away from Him. When we backslide and our love grows cold, when our simplicity and devotion to Christ becomes cold – God grieves. The father wasn’t angry with this son, but day and night the father must have grieved for him. In verse 20 we read, “So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” This is God’s heart. Come back! He is ready to accept us. Don’t grieve God.
Let us read in Jeremiah a beautiful expression of God’s heart. Jeremiah 13:11, “For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.’” And verse 17, “But if you will not listen to it, My soul will sob in secret for such pride; And my eyes will bitterly weep And flow down with tears, Because the flock of the Lord has been taken captive.” This is God’s heart – He sobs in secret for our pride and bitterly weep. Don’t grieve God. Don’t break His heart.
Apostle Paul had a great ambition and He declares in 2 Corinthians 5:9 “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” He wanted to please God with his life; that means He didn’t want to grieve God in his life. Paul understood God’s love in his life. Let us also have the same ambition in our life. We may fall, but God wants us to come back immediately and restore the relationship. In Psalms 139:23, 24 we read, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.” In the Living Bible translation we read, “Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. Let this be our prayer. Put your lives in the scanning machine and allow God to test and see what makes Him sad. May God bless us all!
