The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect them, you will quench the Spirit, and your personal spiritual life will be harmed. His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the saint notices.
When you give testimony about your relationship with the Spirit, beware if you find yourself having to look back and say, “Once, many years ago, I was saved . . .” If you are walking in the light, there’s no need to reminisce. The past is transfused into the present wonder of communion with God. If you stop walking in the light in the present moment, you will become a sentimental Christian, living on memories of feelings. A hard, metallic note will creep into your testimony. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did. Whenever the Spirit warns you that something isn’t right, call a halt and rectify the situation, or else you will go on hurting him without knowing it.
Suppose God has brought you to a crisis, and you nearly go through it, but not quite. God will engineer the crisis again, but it won’t be as clear and as sharp to you as it was before. You will have less discernment from God and more humiliation at not having obeyed the first time. Go on grieving his Spirit, and a time will come when the crisis cannot be repeated, because you will have grieved the Spirit away.
Never sympathize with the thing that is grieving God. The thing must go; God has to hurt it until it does.
