What does "grieve the spirit" mean?

Answer 1

Question: "What does it mean to grieve / quench the Holy Spirit?"



Answer: When the word "quench" is used in Scripture, it is speaking of suppressing fire. When the believers put on the shield of faith, as part of their armor of God (Ephesians 6:16), they are suppressing the power of the fiery darts from Satan. Christ described hell as a place where the fire would not be "quenched" (Mark 9:44, 46, 48). Likewise, the Holy Spirit is a fire dwelling in each believer. He wants to express Himself in our actions and attitudes. When believers do not allow the Spirit to be seen in their actions, when we do what we know is wrong, then we suppress or “quench” the Spirit. We do not allow the Spirit to reveal Himself the way that He wants to.

To understand what it means to "grieve" the Spirit, we must first understand that this is a personality trait. Only a person can be "grieved"; therefore, the Spirit must be a person in order to have this emotion. Once we understand this aspect, we can better understand how He is "grieved," mainly because we too are grieved. Ephesians 4:30 tells us that we should not "grieve" the Spirit. Let's stay in the passage to understand what Paul wants to tell us. We can ‘grieve' the Spirit by living like the pagans (4:17-19), by yielding to our sin nature (2:22-24), by lying (4:25), by anger (4:26-27), by stealing (4:28), by cursing (4:29), by bitterness (4:31), by being unforgiving (4:32), by sexual immorality (5:3-5). To "grieve" the Spirit is to act out in a sinful manner, whether it is in thought and deed, or in thought only.

Both "quenching" and "grieving" the Spirit are similar in their effects; both hinder a godly lifestyle. Both happen when a believer sins against God and follows his or her own worldly desires. The only correct road to follow is the road that leads the believer closer to God and purity, and further away from the world and sin. Just as we do not like to be grieved, and just as we do not seek to quench what is good – so we should not grieve or quench the Holy Spirit by refusing to listen to His leading.

Found this from: http://www.gotquestions.org/grieve-quench-Holy-Spirit.html

Answer 2

Grieving the spirit means to do things against the will of God.

Answer 3

To "grieve the spirit" means to wilfully sin, and in turn grieve or hurt God. Don't forget, the Spirit is a person.

Answer 4

when your heart is in pain the spirit inside us tells us right from wrong
,when our spirit is grieved we feel hurt and know that we have done wrong our spirit being the love of God tells us as our conscience does when we are out of His will