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These words are taken from 2 Corinthians 13:14. Paul wanted the church at Corinth to enjoy the benefit of the grace that Jesus Christ offered, the love of God the father and communion with the Holy Spirit. This verse also reminds us that God exists in trinity and has played an important role in the development of Christian Theology. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit refers to communion with God which is made possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit enables us to experience and enjoy God whilst we are on earth as he gives us insights into the Kingdom of God. In John 14 Jesus comforted his disciples by saying that he would send them the Helper, who would abide (commune) with them and teach them all things and remind them what Jesus had taught them. The Holy Spirit continues to play this role to date. The church picked up the habit of saying the words of the grace very likely because it was a great prayer as well as a loving blessing to pray over each other. When Paul said it, he used the language of benediction, a pronouncement of a blessing on the church. See similar wording in Numbers 6:24-26. But there can be no doubt that he expected God to be the one to make his benediction come true and so in that way it was also an indirect prayer at the same time. The church today says the grace both as a direct prayer or as a benediction towards others and there is no reason to discredit any of them provided there is the understanding that ultimately, it is God who will make the words of the Grace come true in anyone’s life. Although the words of the grace are grand and powerful when understood, there is, of course, no rule that you must say them.
Good morning, I have 2 questions that I have been striving to understand:- 1. Does the Holy Spirit ever leave a believer once he/she sins or continues to sin? 2. Is there difference between the spirit of God(that was hovering over waters in Genesis and the Spirit that led Jesus to be tempted by the devil) and Holy Spirit? I will appreciate your take on this... Thank you.
Thank you for those incisive questions. We will tackle the second question first. Although there are many spirits (see the admonition to test the spirits in 1 John 4:1), there is only one Holy Spirit – the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is fully God in the way that God the father and Jesus Christ are fully God. He is therefore the Spirit of Holiness and the only spirit referred to in the Bible as the Spirit of God. Genesis 1:2 refers to the Spirit of God who is the Holy Spirit who was there from the beginning and who created the universe. When Matthew 4:1 speaks of Jesus being led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, it is making reference to the Holy Spirit. However, please note that it was not the Holy Spirit who was tempting Jesus but the devil. God may lead you into trying circumstances but he does not tempt any man (James 1:13). One should also bear in mind that the Spirit of God was with Jesus in the wilderness sustaining him during his fasting and preparing him for the temptation. In fact, Dallas Willard, a respected Bible teacher says that it is because the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and spent time in solitude with God and fasting that he was able to overcome when he was tempted. With respect to your first question I suppose the thing to bear in mind is that the Spirit of God is God himself. And he acts as God would. God is not pleased by our sin but he does not shrink away from us when we sin. Instead, he offers forgiveness and reconciliation. Sin affects our relationship with the Holy Spirit in the same way we understand it to affect our relationship with the father because the Trinity works through the Holy Spirit. It muddles the relationship we have with God. However, God does not reject us for our sin. He continues to pursue us with his grace and once we repent, the relationship is restored through his forgiveness. We must not think of the Holy Spirit as something that is poured in and out of us like a liquid, or like something that possesses us in the way demons do. The Holy Spirit is a person. He is God and he acts like God. And since the Bible says that no one can say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3), provided one still recognises the lordship of Christ, the relationship with the Holy Spirit is alive. However, the same verse says that no one speaking by the Holy Spirit can say “Jesus is accursed”. Continuing in sin persistently, knowingly and without caring about the effect it has on your relationship with God hardens your heart and may cause you begin opposing the message of the Holy Spirit. But in this case it would be you who has walked away and not the Holy Spirit who has rejected you.
Dear Roy, Quite a packed question that is! But it is a great question. Being one of the fundamental beliefs of our faith, it is important that we try to understand it. Many people have feared the topic of the Trinity because they have heard that we cannot understand it fully (Which is true. It is after all a description of a God much higher than us). But the fact that we cannot understand something fully should not stop us from knowing what we can. We cannot know God’s love and grace fully, or understand the way he works fully but we still try to understand as much as we can. The doctrine of the Trinity is the concept that God is one being in 3 co-equal and co-eternal persons. These persons are God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit. These 3 persons are in a relationship of love. The Bible teaches that God is love. And for there to be love, there has to be the person loving, the person being loved and love flowing among them. If God is one in the way the Muslim concept of Tawhid tells us, then who was he loving before he created the universe? How could he have been love eternally? If we embrace Tawhid we end up with a God who needs his creation in order to be love. But the Christian God is Trinity and was not dependent on his creation in order to love because there was already love within the Trinity. In John 17:24 Jesus declares that God loved him before the foundation of the world. This is only possible if God is Trinity so that man was created, not because God needed us, but out of the overflow of love in the Trinity hence the words “Let us make man in our image”. Here are some resources: http://dallaswillardcenter.com/ken-boa-the-trinity/ http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity We hope this is helpful. Thanks for writing!
Is it the same God(Yaweh) we worship, our ancestors sacrificed to say when in need of rain and rain came? I need reference from the bible.
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