SID: John teaches on a word that I read in the Bible. But I think many people don’t understand the word, “communion,” communion with the Holy Spirit. What does that mean to you?
JOHN: Well you know, Paul said that to the Corinthian church, and interestingly, it’s the last thing he wrote to them on the face of the earth. He said, “May the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.” Now as a former Catholic boy, you say “communion” to me, I think the little wafer the priest puts on people’s tongue and the wine I snuck as an altar boy at the end of the service. Communion is koinonia. Okay. It’s a Greek word that has three major definitions. Number one, would be fellowship. Number two, would be partnership. Number three, would be intimacy. So what he’s saying is “May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.” If you look at the apostles in the Book of Acts, they had great fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So what does fellowship mean? It means companionship, sharing together. If you look at the Apostle Paul he talks about the Holy Spirit speaking to him in city after city in Acts, chapter 20.
SID: You what I’m thinking, now when I hear the word “companionship”, do you have dialogue with the Holy Spirit often?
JOHN: Yes. Because you know, the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing” and prayer is not a one-way conversation. Prayer is a dialogue, not a monologue. So if God tells us to pray without ceasing, that means He’s willing to communicate with us without ceasing. Now don’t always look for words. Okay. I mean, my wife can give me one look and I can write three pages on what she just said.
SID: Me, too.
JOHN: But now 30 years ago, if my wife gave me that one look, I’d go, huh? And the whole room, awkward. Right? So the thing is in order to have intimacy with Him, and I’m jumping to intimacy now, because intimacy goes to the desires, the intentions, the thoughts of the heart, we have to know the one we want to have intimacy with. You know, I look at these guys in the early church and what I started seeing, and this all started on a fast last year. God spoke to me and said, “I want you to read the Book of Acts, and I started reading it. And realized what was normal for the church back then is not normal for us today, because they completely depended on the Holy Spirit. He was a vital part of it all their life. He was literally with them and partnered with them in everything they did. If you look at the apostles, they wrote a letter and they said, “It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit.” They’re actually representing His view and their view. But what I love about that is they’re so intimate with Him. They said, “It seemed good.” They didn’t say, “The Holy Spirit said and so do we.” You understand that they were so intimate with Him that God allowed them to represent Him without Him speaking. Now that seems odd right now, but it’s not. Last year my wife and I are doing a national conference in Canada. Right? I speak the first night, she speaks the second night. The soundman comes around. He’s got [??] ear mic. Right? My wife’s in worship, her hands are up, tears are coming down. I stop the soundman. I said, “No, no, no, no, she doesn’t want that. She wants a wireless hand mic.” He went back and got the wireless. I was able to represent Lisa without her saying what she wanted because I know her so well. So this is the thing people have to understand. You and I could be together for a year. Depending on how we interact will determine how close we become. We could be perfect strangers after a year. I can tell you husbands and wives that are complete strangers, and they had been married for 30 years. Why? Because they don’t interact and intimately go to those levels. So I know Christians that the Holy Spirit has been with them for years, yet they really don’t know Jesus that well, because he’s the one that reveals them. If you look at the Apostle Paul, he never walked with Jesus. Right?
SID: Right.
JOHN: Okay. So how many times you and I, and your people say, “Oh man, I wish I could have walked with Jesus on the shores of Galilee.” I don’t think they’d have any different of a life. And to be honest with you, I think they wouldn’t even be as close because Jesus said, “There are things about me I can’t tell you. Only the Holy Spirit can tell you.” So here’s Paul. He never once walked with Jesus. Never, not once. Right? And he comes to know Jesus so intimately that Peter, who walked with him for three and a half years finally writes and says, “This guy Paul knows Jesus so well, some of his letters are hard for me to understand.” So now why is that? Because the Holy Spirit can bring us to realms that Jesus couldn’t even do himself personally, here, because he communicates to our spirit. Our spirit has the capacity of housing so much more of the presence and knowledge of God. However, so many people want to know God in their minds. So you know, my greatest, greatest adventures in life are when I’m in interacting with Him, but it’s a level that’s deeper than just the soul. Now don’t get me wrong. The soul comes with it, but it’s deep.
SID: Now just tell me about a time you were interacting with the Holy Spirit in Malaysia, briefly.
JOHN: I’m doing a national conference. I believe it was the largest Bible school. People were there. It was a tent meeting. And I remember they had the women up front. And all of a sudden, all of the women said they were called to the ministry. Malaysia is a Muslim state. All of a sudden, the Spirit of our Father came in, the Spirit of God in the most loving way. And these women started laughing hysterically and they all collapsed all over the floor. Nobody caught them. Nobody touched them. And they were on the ground literally laughing hysterically. And so—
SID: No one is touching them.
JOHN: No one touched them.
SID: They fall over.
JOHN: Every one of them had fallen them. Nobody caught them and they were now laughing hysterically. Right? So I just sit down on the platform because I’m out of this. Right? So I’m enjoying this and I’m literally seeing these Asian women, because they’re very quiet and reserved, on their backs rolling back and forth with their hands on their guts, laughing hysterically. And I go, that must be where holy rollers came from. I’m just a Catholic boy that got saved. Okay. So I’m just like, wow. Well then all of a sudden this loving presence lifts and an awesome presence comes in, and the most wonderfully terrifying, if this makes any sense. Okay. And I remember when this presence came in, I thought, oh my goodness, something has changed. And all of a sudden all these women, at the same time, without even saying a thing, stop laughing. And within seconds, they started screaming like they were on fire. Now it wasn’t demonic. They were like on fire. Right? So I’m walking back and forth on the platform and I’m going oh my God. And that’s when I thought there’s a difference between our soul and our spirit. Because my head was going, I can’t handle this, and my heart was going, God, please don’t lift, please don’t lift. It was amazing. Okay. I remember I’m walking back and forth and I thought, you say one wrong word, you’re dead. Now I’m not saying necessarily it might have happened. But Ananias made a wrong move in that environment, and that’s New Testament. That presence, it was like Daddy didn’t come in. Daddy was in there before. The King came in. And I remember out of my mouth came these words: “This is the Holy Spirit of the fear of the Lord.” That’s what came out of my mouth. And all of a sudden I thought, that’s it. Isaiah said, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon the Jesus.” The spirit was the counsel, knowledge, might, understanding—and the spirit of the fear of the Lord delights in the fear of the Lord. Remember, after the meeting, this Indian couple, they were from India, they were students in the Bible school. She was one of the ladies who was getting nailed. She looks at me and she goes, “I feel so clean inside.” And the husband goes, “I do, too.” And I said, “I do, too.” Well the next morning I’m in my hotel room and the Holy Spirit says, “Read Psalm 19.” I had no idea what I’m going to read, Sid. I know you probably know, but I didn’t. And I read to verse 9, and verse 9 says, “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.” And God spoke to me and He said, “Lucifer led worship at My throne. He didn’t fear Me. He didn’t endure forever.”
SID: You know, that’s a hidden word, “the fear of the Lord’. I want to find out about this. It is hidden from modern day Christianity. We’ll be right back.
