Eph 4:30-32 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (31) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (32) Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

The way we behave as a believer in Christ can be loving and caring to those around us, or it can be challenging and cause sorrow and difficulties. The same is true for the Holy Spirit. How we treat one another, the words we use, and the things we participate in can not only grieve the men and women around you, but the Holy Spirit of God as well.

To grieve the Holy Spirit means that we act in such a way that God is sorrowful over our behavior. Paul reminds us that we have been redeemed from this kind of behavior. The old man has been put away and the new man has come.

He then goes on again to describe some of the things that grieve the Holy Spirit.

• Bitterness – Extreme enmity, grudge, hatred; or rather an excessive degree of passions and emotions
• Wrath – Extreme anger, mingled with contempt, disgust or abhorrence.
• Anger – A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility
• Clamor – To shout loudly and insistently
• Slander – To make false or damaging statements about another person
• Malice – The desire to do evil against another person

When we give into the impure, we drive away the Holy Spirit from making his home in us, and with this we also lose the joy and pleasure that comes with him. But Paul reminds us the way we continue to walk in the Spirit is to be pleasing to the Spirit.

Kindness, tenderness, forgiveness and love are the characteristics of the new man.
Without the power of the Holy Spirit in us it is impossible to be Christ-like for any amount of time.

Early on in my Christian walk I tried really hard to look like Christ. I worked diligently on behavior modification and did what I could to “act right.” The freedom I discovered when I stopped trying to look like a good Christian was refreshing. When I finally learned that allowing the Spirit of God to work through me in order to look like Christ I was able to reflect the love of Christ to those around me.

Paul isn’t giving a list of do’s and dont’s, rather, he is saying that when we are walking in the Spirit of God then it should look like love and tenderness and kindness. If you are filled with the list that grieves the Holy Spirit, then today would be a good day to ask God to fill you with Himself and prune away the old man so that you can reflect the image of Christ in a mighty way.