3 Dangers of NOT Listening to the Holy Spirit
There have been times throughout my Christian walk that I have felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to do something. Honestly, most of the time I did, but sometimes I didn’t. There are dangers that come with not listening to the Holy Spirit on a consistent basis.
As a general rule, failure to listen to the Holy Spirit will result in a lack of spiritual growth, a lack of repentance and spiritual fruit, and leave you emotionally exhausted. The Bible warns of the dangers of not listening to the Holy Spirit and what happens when we don’t.
Failure to listen to the Holy Sprit results in a complete lack of life-transformation. Let’s see how these two concepts are connected and what not listening to God’s Spirit will take us.
What The Bible Says About Ignoring the Holy Spirit
The Bible is full of verses that talk about the Holy Spirit, its role in our life and the dangers of not ignoring the Holy Spirit.
One of the most important verses that mention ignoring the Holy Spirit is Matthew 12:31, “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. ” In context, Jesus is talking about ascribing to the Devil the work of the Holy Spirit.
To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to give credit to the devil for the power of the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus Christ. That’s exactly what the Pharisees were doing when Jesus made this remark. So, we blaspheme the Holy Spirit when we choose to deny the Jesus.
The Holy Spirit lives inside every believer. As Christians, we cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit, but we can grieve Him and ignore Him. Doing, so results in many dangers.
You Miss Out on Growing Spiritually
Consistently ignoring the Holy Spirit will result in a lack of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is vital to our salvation. If we choose to ignore the Holy Spirit, we will remain baby Christians our entire lives.
Once Christians accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, they are saved. They are credited with Christ’s righteousness and gifted the Holy Spirit as a seal of their salvation. Jesus’ righteousness is like our parent’s shoes that we would walk around in as children.
They are clearly to big for us right now. But the Holy Spirit helps us to grow into those shoes. His role is to aide in our spiritual growth.
Jesus prayed in the garden before his death, asking the Father to sanctify us (to help us grow into Jesus’ shoes) by the truth (John 17:17). Then he tells us what that truth is: God’s Word. You see, the Holy Spirit uses the Bible as a tool to help us grow spiritually.
Failure to listen to the Holy Spirit will result in less frequent Bible reading and studying. This has a direct effect on our spiritual growth.
You Become Emotionally Exhausted
Consistent failure to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit will also drain us emotionally. In announcing the Holy Spirit’s soon arrival, Jesus described the Holy Spirit as an Advocate, a Comforter, and a Helper.
John 14 describes the role of the Holy Sprit in our lives. He is to…
- help us
- be with us
- teach us
The Holy Spirit is like a therapist, mentor, counselor, friend, and teacher all rolled up into one. With the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have peace, we are never alone, because we always have someone we can turn to for comfort and encouragement even in the hard times.
But what that means is that if we ignore the Holy Spirit in the hard times then are losing one of our biggest cheerleaders, one of our biggest supporters. We’d choose to ignore the greatest emotional support we have, and that will leave us emotionally drained and exhausted.
You Fail to Repent or Bear Fruit
Lastly, when we fail to listen to the Holy Spirit, then there is a very real danger of not repenting of sin or a lack of bearing spiritual fruit in the lives of others.
One of the main roles of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people today is to convict them of sin. The Holy Spirit shows us where we are right and where we are wrong when it comes to living under God’s authority.
Therefore, if we ignore the Holy Spirit, then we risk not dealing with a specific sin that He may reveal to us. That’s a choice to continue to live in sin. What does that do to our Christian witness? Nothing good.
That brings us to another thing, a lack of bearing spiritual fruit. Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
These are things that grow in our lives if we choose to listen to the Holy Spirit. But failure to do so will result in the opposite. We’ll have not fruit. And because we ignore the Holy Spirit, God cannot use us to share the good news of the gospel with others.
In summary, there are real dangers of not listening to the Holy Spirit. We will remain weak, baby Christians who are emotionally exhausted and not living up to our full potential in Christ. This should encourage us to stay strong in Bible study and prayer.
