THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Ministry of the Trinity

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” 2Corinthians13:14

These three represent the main three present day ministries of the Godhead towards mankind;

God the Father manifested and continues to manifest His love toward us.

Jesus Christ provided and continues to provide all the grace we will ever need through His death, burial, and resurrection.

The Holy Spirit communes or fellowships with us.

What does the communion of the Holy Spirit mean?

Let us look at this word ‘communion’ first;

It is the Greek word koinonia and has several meanings which we can discuss;

Koinonia carries the idea of an intimate joint participation with someone or something. The root word is koinos and it means ‘common’.

Koinonia has the idea of having something in common with somebody or having a common goal.

Fellowship. The word koinonia was translated most of the time in the New Testament as ‘fellowship.’ And this is how we also use it most of the time. So we could translate the last part of 2 Corinthians 13:14 “and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

Sharing. Many times the word koinonia was also used to describe the sharing or giving of things such as material possessions (see Philemon 1:6, 2 Corinthians 8:4, Philippians 1:5 & Hebrews 13:16). So we can translate it as “and the sharing of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

It can also mean partnership. So we could translate it ‘and the partnership of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’

The English word communion is a derivative of two words ‘com’ which means with, together, jointly and the second word ‘union.’

So communion literally means to unite two together. Communion with the Holy Spirit is uniting together with the Holy Spirit.

By believing on Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit we have partaken of Him, and He now lives on the inside of us that we may feed on the several benefits that He has to offer

So how does this work in our daily lives?

We are to be in fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

This means that we are to work together with the Holy Spirit in a close and intimate way. The Holy Spirit wants us to have a deep and rich and fulfilling relationship with Him so that we can partake of all His benefits and depend on Him for everything.

Through this fellowship and partnership He is able to share and release Hs fruit, gifts, life, power and anointing in us as we unite with and partake of Him all the time as Jesus did.

We see this throughout the book of Acts as the early church walks in an intimate communion with Him. for example Acts5:3-9, 5:32, 8:29, 8:39, 9:31, 10:19, 11:12, 11:28, 13:2, 13:4, 15:28, 16:6-7, 20:22-23, & 21:4.

In all of these passages, Luke and the apostles talked about the Holy Spirit as if He was a person there with them and another member of the church.

It is as if He was physically in their midst. Of course we know that He was there with them. Not physically but on the inside of each one of them and He led them, anointed them, empowered them, strengthened them, healed them, guided them etc.

These guys were in tune with Him and heavily relied on His direction and guidance unlike us today. We have so much more that we choose to rely upon.

All they had was the Holy Spirit. And He was more than sufficient.

How do we fellowship with the Holy Spirit?

Most Christians do not know how to fellowship with the Holy Spirit and so they don’t do so. This is further compounded by the fact that Jesus never told us to pray to the Holy Spirit. he told us to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus. So where does this leave the Holy Spirit?

The answer to this is to look back to the life of Jesus and His disciples. Remember that the Holy Spirit is another comforter of the same kind as Jesus was and His relationship to us is similar to Jesus’ relationship with His disciples. We discussed this before using John14:16-17

Our fellowship with the Holy Spirit is exactly like the disciple’s fellowship with Jesus. 

We never see the disciples praying to Jesus. Therefore there is no need for us praying to the Holy Spirit.

Instead we see the disciples fellowshipping with Jesus. How? They conversed with Him, they reasoned with Him, they discussed with Him, and they asked Him questions.

They listened to His instruction and guidance. They followed Him wherever He led them. They related to Him like they did to each other. They treated Him as a person who was there with them physically. Not someone somewhere in heaven. Jesus was right there with them.

Fellowship is different from prayer. Now prayer can include fellowship and communion, however not all prayer is fellowship or communion.

Communion is intimate, two way, one on one fellowship. It is talking and listening, discussing, conversing, asking questions and receiving answers, exchanging things, seeing things, hearing things etc.

To commune with the Holy Spirit is to just simply talk to Him, converse with Him as you do with anyone else, to ask Him questions and listen to the answers He gives you, listen to His instruction about any situation or decision, follow His counsel, and to acknowledge Him.

Most Christians have actually never had this kind of communion with the Holy Spirit. We just pray to the Father in Jesus’ name or pray to Jesus but we don’t know what to do with the Holy Spirit. As a result we miss out on a lot.

Have conversations with the Holy Spirit, talk to Him and listen back. He will talk back to you. Ask Him questions and listen, He will answer them. When you notice something or see something tell Him about it, He will respond, when you need to make a decision, ask Him what to do, He will tell you. This is better than saying you are confused and don’t know what to do.

Ask Him for help, have you lost something, ask Him to remind you, do you need to wake up early, ask Him to wake you up etc. Treat Him like someone who is there with you. He is. Acknowledge Him.

This is how the disciples related to Jesus. They didn’t wait for prayer time to talk to Him, they talked to Him all the time, had conversations, asked Him questions, asked Him what they should do, listened to Him and acknowledged Him as someone that was there with them.

Relating to the Holy Spirit like this is not irreverent in any way. It doesn’t mean that you are not respecting Him. On the contrary, it is actually irreverent and disrespectful to ignore Him and behave as if He is not there. And yet this is what most of us do.  

We ignore His presence and do not take advantage of His help. This would be the same as the disciples having Jesus with them and not talking to Him or ignoring Him or refusing to follow Him where He went. We don’t see them doing this at all. We should stop doing this to the Holy Spirit.

As we discussed before, the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ twin. He is exactly like Jesus, He behaves the same way, does the same works, acts in the same way and is here to continue from where Jesus stopped.

We need to commune with Him as Jesus did. This is one of the keys to victorious and successful life.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” 2Corinthians13:14