Worship
As you begin your quiet time today, I encourage you to listen to “In Control” by Hillsong Worship and Ben Fielding. You can find the playlist of all the music from our daily devotional with the links to your preferred platform here.
Scripture
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Devotional
This passage comes at the end of Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica, in it we find his closing remarks and admonishments to the church. Nestled in amongst these instructions we find a very important phrase ‘do not quench the Spirit’. How can we quench the Spirit? Ultimately, we quench the Spirit when we wrestle with Him for control and choose not to submit to what He wants.
The Holy Spirit is actively working at all times in our lives and throughout the earth to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. He does this by transforming us, setting us free from sin and prompting us towards love and good deeds. Additionally the Holy Spirit is active in the church, both in her corporate worship of Jesus and her mission to make disciples. We can see all of this really clearly taking place as we read through the book of Acts, the Spirit is always moving on both a macro and micro scale. He’s moving in the bigger picture of the world, He’s working in your local church community and He’s working in your own life. We quench the Holy Spirit when we choose to not come into partnership with what He is doing and instead prioritise our own ideas, preferences or agenda’s. For example, if you are a leader and the Holy Spirit has prompted someone you lead to expand the kingdom and love people through a specific assignment and you do not come into partnership with that, you end up quenching the Spirit. Likewise, if we are not attuned to what the Spirit is doing in our worship meetings we can very easily end up quenching what He wants to do as we focus on what we want to do.
Even in your own life, as you engage with this current battle to overcome sexual sin in your life, there is a strong reminder here not to quench the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants you to walk in freedom and is always working and acting to set you free, don’t quench His work by allowing fear or pride to stop you from opening up to your group and share your struggles. The Spirit might be prompting you as someone else shares their testimony of either struggle or breakthrough that now is the perfect opportunity to share your own pain or struggles and receive ministry - don’t quench the Spirit! Let Him do His work in you. At other times the Holy Spirit will prompt us that we need to prioritise our commitment to his church, to our own relationship with the Lord and this moment of breakthrough he has for us over other things such as work or our social lives. Don’t quench what the Spirit is doing in you, humbly submit to His work in your own life today and trust that He is working for your good, out of passionate love for you.
We can all quench the Spirit, in various ways every single day. Let’s commit together to let the Spirit do His work, in our lives, the lives of those around us, our local church, our Exodus group and the world at large!
Prayer
Lord I pray that you would give me a keener insight today into your leading. I don’t want to quench you Holy Spirit and I’m sorry for the times that I have, I submit my preferences and agenda’s before you today and commit to following your lead. In Jesus’ name, Amen.