Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
This is a further look at the topic of communion, in light of the fact that Easter is this coming Sunday. I am taking this from my book The Seven Eyes of Grace, Chapter 6. This is part of the audiobook:
It is for the sake of the living testimony of the Body of Christ that we seek to find our divine placement in the house of God. We are the temple of His Holy Spirit and together we express the fullness of His habitation. He is the High Priest over the house of God, and we are the house of God. This is why we seek to come together. This is why we seek to build one another up in the faith. We live to stir one another up to love and good works as members of the Body of Christ.
Heb. 10:21 …and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
The very essence of true communion is to draw near with a true heart. It is to seek to come together, knowing that our bodies are living sacrifices one for another (Rom.12:1). We don’t just hold fast to the confession of our hope for ourselves, we hold fast for the sake of one another. Our aim is to consider one another, and our goal is to stir one another up to love and good works. Our communion is to love God and to love one another. The more we see of His coming, the more we come together to give one another the life of His presence. Our lifeblood is found in exhorting one another. We love God and we love people! When we choose to live together by the life of His Spirit, we confirm that we no longer live according to the flesh. We seek to live according to the Spirit. The cup is a sharing of His blood and Spirit. The bread is a sharing of His Body.
1 Cor. 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17 For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. 18 Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
The bread of Christ is not the bread upon the communion table. It is the bread of the communion table, called the Body of Christ. “The bread which we break is the communion of the Body of Christ!” We are the “one bread” that Jesus put into reality through the mercy given by His death and the grace given by His resurrection. We must live for one another and not for the life of our own flesh. When we fellowship darkness, we defile the table of the Lord. We do so because we are members of one another. If we seek darkness, we also seek to defile the bread of Christ. We are not properly discerning the Body of Christ.
1 Cor. 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.
The “cup of blessing” mentioned in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 10 is the life of God’s Spirit among us as believers. The blood covenant that Christ made at Calvary enables all human beings to come into a personal relationship with God by His Spirit. True communion is to drink of the cup of God’s Spirit as members of a new flesh known as the Body of Christ. In Christ we have the life of His Spirit within us, and our bodies are members of His Body that we might serve one another with a living sacrifice of life (Rom.12:1). This was made possible through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The wages of sin is death and Jesus paid the wage of our sin that we might find life in Him. The life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11), and Jesus poured out the life of His sinless flesh to become atonement for the sins of our sinful flesh. His sacrifice has opened a door for us to commune with God and one another through the “cup of blessing” as living members of the Body of Christ. Our cup of blessing is the cup of Praise. It is the cup of His resurrection life made possible by His partaking of the cup of Redemption on our behalf. He died for us that we might live in Him! Because we are members of the Body of Christ, we must seek to drink the cup of the Spirit, the cup of blessing, that we might fulfill the desires of God’s will and not the desires of our flesh. The cup of the Lord is the life of God’s Spirit that edifies one another (1 Cor. 10:23, 24).
We live for God and one another and to fulfill God’s purposes in the earth. We are the Body of Christ. We must be seekers of God and not seekers of self. If we live self-seeking lives, we despise our place as a member of the Body of Christ and we provoke the Lord to jealousy. There is one Body and one Spirit, and we are partakers of and contributors to both.
1 Cor. 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
2 Cor. 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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