Daily Word

If the Holy Spirit is grieved, our heart—where we hold our spirit-consciousness and our connection to Jesus—is also disturbed.

Our entire spiritual life is negatively affected.

The next verse in Ephesians 4 describes certain things that have a negative impact on our spiritual awareness: bitterness, outbursts of temper and anger, shouting, and insults.

In short, volatile emotional reactions.

How do we overcome them?

It does not help to gloss over them; we need to confess them as sin and firmly say no to them.

Spiritual forces may be involved; we must renounce them and perhaps seek help to break their influence. Furthermore, our emotional life needs to be cleansed and placed under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Bitterness is the most difficult to deal with. It is usually rooted in unfair treatment experienced during childhood.

This requires confession, deliverance, and deep healing from all memories and pain.

Vexation and irritation also disturb our inner peace.

Ask the Holy Spirit for the strength to stop brooding over your mistakes and getting annoyed by trifles or the behaviour of others. Put up a stop sign the moment these little imps appear again!

Worry is another one of those little imps that can cause a great deal of misery. The Bible is very clear: stop worrying and fretting about everything that might possibly happen. There are no mere "contingencies" in the life of a believer. God has everything under complete control and has the power to always turn the worst situations into the best. We can trust Him 100%.

One of the worst enemies of the spiritual life is over-analysis: constantly trying to figure out the cause of everything and the solution to every problem. Thoughts keep spinning in our minds, disturbing our hearts, and our spiritual life grinds to a halt.

God holds the solution to everything, and He has promised that the Holy Spirit will convey it to us. We need to become like little children who trust their father implicitly and receive everything from him, rather than trying to fix things ourselves.

Do not let anything disturb your spirit-consciousness!