Morning, November 21, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” — Ephesians 4:30

Everything the believer has must come from Christ, but it comes solely through the channel of the Spirit of grace. Furthermore, as all blessings therefore flow to you through the Holy Spirit, so also, apart from the sanctifying operation of the same Spirit, no good thing can come out of you in holy thought, sincere worship, or kind act. Even if the good seed is sown in you, still it lies dormant unless God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do you desire to speak for Jesus–how can you unless the Holy Spirit touches your tongue? Do you desire to pray? Alas! What dull work it is unless the Spirit makes intercession for you! Do you desire to subdue sin? Would you be holy? Would you imitate your Master? Do you desire to rise to incomparable heights of spirituality? Are you wanting to be made like the angels of God, full of zeal and passion for the Master’s cause? You cannot without the Spirit–“Without me you can do nothing.” O branch of the vine, you cannot have fruit without the sap! O child of God, you have no life within apart from the life which God gives you through his Spirit! Then let us not grieve him or provoke him to anger by our sin. Let us not quench him in one of his faintest stirrings in our soul; let us encourage every suggestion, and be ready to obey every prompting. If the Holy Spirit be indeed so mighty, let us attempt nothing without him; let us begin no project, and carry on no enterprise, and conclude no transaction, without imploring his blessing. Let us grant him the due reverence of being aware of our entire weakness apart from him, and then depending alone upon him, having this for our prayer, “Open my heart and my whole being to your indwelling, and uphold me with your boundless Spirit when I have received that Spirit in my inward being.”