COMMUNION:: A Sacred Time of Fellowship with God A Way of Life

By William L. Graham

Communion with Christ is much more than a ceremony. When Adam sinned, communion, in its full sense, was lost. The entire Bible story demonstrates God’s design to reestablish communion to its fullest, ultimately bringing us to a new heaven and a new earth. My heart’s desire is that each of these communion messages will be a daily reminder of what God did for us. While one may choose to sit and read through these devotionals, this is probably not the most profitable method. They are better read as a means to stimulate daily contemplation. Communion with God and with fellow believers is to be a way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385008964

William L. Graham

William Graham attended church services his entire life. He made a profession of faith and was baptized in early adolescence. It was in early adulthood that he was asked a very simple but profound question. “Is there any part of your life that doesn’t matter to God?” It was at that moment he realized that Christianity is a way of life, not something one does. He then made a commitment to put God first every moment of his life. He will admit that he fails at this multiple times a day, but returns to confess and ask God to once again fill his life with the Holy Spirit. This was his heart his entire professional career. It was upon retirement in 2010 that he made a commitment to write COMMUNION: A Sacred Time of Fellowship, A Way of Life.

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1 January

COMMUNION:

IN THE BEGINNING

As we celebrate communion, let us consider Genesis 1:1-3:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

What does this have to do with communion? Everything. God the Father made a conscious decision to create the heavens and the earth. God spoke. Who spoke? Jesus, the Son. Per John chapter 1 verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Later in this chapter it is clear that Jesus was the one who spoke. What the Father thinks, Jesus speaks.

The Holy Spirit hovered over creation; the Holy Spirit does what Jesus says. There is but one God; He is in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in communion with one another. This one God later created man. God and man were in communion. But created in God’s image, man had a will and man decided to sin, breaking communion.

From a human perspective, we can imagine this in heaven: The Father thought, We love man so much that we need to resolve this. Jesus said, I’ll go to earth and become a man and not sin. I’ll have the Holy Spirit with Me to carry this out. Jesus, without sin, became sin. When Jesus became sin, He necessarily was forsaken by the Father and gave up communion with the Holy Spirit, suffering an unimaginable death. But the Holy Spirit resurrected Jesus from the grave, returning man’s capacity to have communion with God. Man still sins, but by God’s magnanimous grace, Jesus bears the burden of our continued rebellion. If we confess that Jesus does this, we maintain communion with God by the Holy Spirit and are ultimately perfected in heaven. Thus we celebrate communion.

2 January

COMMUNION:

TAKE UP THE CROSS

One of the more sobering texts in scripture is Matthew 16: 24-27:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.

It is a fundamental Christian principle that we are saved by grace, not by works. There is nothing we can do to accomplish our salvation (Ephesian 2:8, 9). It is not our point at this time to dwell on the principle that salvation is solely or exclusively by grace; let us just accept the principle that this passage is not pointing to a works salvation.

What this passage is pointing to is the principle as laid out in James 2 that faith without works is dead. As we prepare to partake of communion, let us dwell on the thought that we must take up our cross and follow Jesus. At the same time, we must recognize that only Jesus can take up the full burden of His cross.

Each one of us must take up his own personal cross. The cross I bear is different than the cross you bear; each and every Christian on earth has a personal cross. It is not our place to compare our burdens with others, or to judge the burdens others must bear for Christ. Our place is to have such a communion with Jesus by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we know what our burden is every moment of our lives. Salvation is free; the rewards of our salvation are based on our works. Our passage strongly implies that our rewards in heaven will be based on how well we bear our cross; other scriptures confirm this. The closer our daily communion with Christ, the greater our works. To have no communion is eternal death.

At the outset I said the text was sobering. Communion with the Origin of creation should always be sobering, but it also should be a celebration. To contemplate the principle that we are participating with the Source of creation, to redeem the only part of His creation which was created in His image from the sin that this creation committed, should move us to a state of divine exaltation. It should not just cause us to be willing to take up the cross Jesus has given us to bear; it should cause us to desire with every fiber of our being to completely sacrifice ourselves to His cause with a joy that can be measured only by God.

3 January

COMMUNION:

GO THEREFORE AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL THE NATIONS

Anyone who has been in the church any length of time at all knows the passage

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

The Great Commission passage from Matthew 28:19 and 20 is fundamental Christianity. To every evangelist and every evangelistic message, this is foundational. But let us look at this in light of what it says in Revelation 5:8 and 9. As we look in to heaven it says

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

"You are worthy to take the scroll,

And to open its seals;

For You were slain,

And have redeemed us to God by Your blood

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation...."

I cannot help but believe there is a connection between the church being sent into all the world, God redeeming men …Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation…, and …the golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. It all resulted in a new song, declaring Jesus worthy to open the seals of the scroll.

Prayer is man’s means to communicate with God. Communicate, communion, and community are all of the same English root. When our prayer is submitted to the Holy Spirit, we are in communion with God; it is a two way communication; it brings about community.

Think about this, our prayers are cherished in heaven. Our prayers are integrated into saints being gathered from all places on earth and in to bringing worship to Jesus. As we are in Christian communion, we are exalted to a place by God which brings eternal glory to Christ. This concept should ingrain in us the unfathomable privilege we have to serve God on earth. The Christian communion is not limited to some simple ceremony. It is a way of life which integrates all believers on earth and in heaven in an eternal bond with God. The Christian life is not centered on what we have to do for our sake or for God’s sake. It is a life of exaltation centered around enjoying the privilege of prayer offering, bringing glory to Christ, thus providing a pleasing aroma in heaven. There are prayers we offer in response to blessing, persecution, or trial, and there are prayers we offer concerning our relationships with one another. All these prayers are our community relationship with God and the communion of the saints. This is the foundation of discipleship. Evangelism does initiate the communion of discipleship, but prayer is the communion which fulfills discipleship.

4 January

COMMUNION:

THE FLAME OF FIRE FROM THE MIDST OF A BUSH

Excerpts from Exodus chapter 3, verses 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 state

And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but was not consumed….

Then He said, Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover He said. I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob….

And the Lord said: I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey….

Moses and God had communion here. God was about to commission Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses was about 80 years old. Moses had lived and learned in king’s palaces and had herded sheep on the back side of the desert. He, at first, resisted God’s direction. But with God’s encouragement, Moses came to have a vision for God’s people.

Moses was mature; Moses was humble; Moses had a vision. These are traits of genuine godly leadership. In the ensuing 40 years, as Moses led the people of Israel to the blessing, he would have to deal with the peoples’ insecurities, insubordination, rebellion, idolatry, lack of vision, and cowardice. He was not perfect in his efforts, he had his failings. But he was diligent in his effort and in his communion with God.

Unlike the Children of Israel in Moses’ time, in the New Covenant church we are all able to have communion with God. This does not negate the responsibility to godly leaders. In Moses’ time, the people who followed his leadership were greatly blessed; those who did not follow him suffered greatly. Communion is an integration of leaders and followers with God. If we are to have the greatest blessing in God’s Kingdom on earth and in heaven, we will at once submit to those God has called from among us and to the Holy Spirit within us.

It is God’s purpose to bless the church with the gift of godly leaders; this is no less important to us than the gift of Moses was to the children of Israel. Even with the advantage of the indwelling Spirit, this in no way diminishes our responsibility to mature, humble, visionary leaders. In fact, with God dwelling in us, our responsibilities and opportunities to follow our leaders are even greater. With the guidance of our leaders our communion with one another and with God is enhanced, empowering us to overcome the plots of the enemy as we move toward the new heaven and the new earth. This brings about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. Let us remember this as we have communion.

5 January

COMMUNION:

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS HIS DELIGHT IN THE LAW OF THE LORD

Psalm 1: 1-3 says

Blessed is the man

        Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

        Nor stands in the path of sinners,

        Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

    But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

        And in His law he meditates day and night.

    He shall be like a tree

        Planted by the rivers of water,

        That brings forth its fruit in its season,

        Whose leaf also shall not wither;

    And whatever he does shall prosper.

What is this? What word would we come up with if we wanted a single word to describe what these verses are talking about? If we had time for discussion, we might come up with a number of words which describe this passage. A most appropriate word is the word communion. These verses are certainly about communion. Right in the middle of this passage it says …But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. Meditation on God’s law is an integral part of our communion with God. One might argue we are no longer under law but under grace. It is true, we are saved by grace. It is also true that we no longer perform the sacrificial ordinances of the Old Covenant. But one thing which has not changed is right and wrong. When it comes to morality, God has not changed. God absolutely wants us to understand the difference between right and wrong; He wants us to do what is right. That is law.

If anyone should know what is best for man, it is God. There are two categories, right or wrong; there are no gray areas with God. How better to know what God wants than to meditate in His law day and night. Lest you think that I am promoting a form of legalism, exactly the opposite is true. We are to be so in love with God that we are to be consumed by meditation on what He desires. There are blessings with this: we will be planted by the rivers of water; we will bring forth fruit in its season; our leaves will not wither; whatever we do will prosper. Only a fool would not want this.

Please understand this is not about material wealth, social prominence, or worldly power. This is about bringing God’s will into fulfillment on earth as it is in heaven. The other option is to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, to stand in the path of sinners, and to sit in the seat of the scornful.

As we participate in the sacrament of communion, we are to meditate on the sacrifice Jesus made for us as He is the Christ; we are to meditate on the cleansing Jesus provides for us in His blood. This will enable us to be molded into His will as we are comforted by the commandments of His law, to meditate upon these things day and night.

6 January

COMMUNION:

MOUNT UP WITH WINGS LIKE EAGLES

One of the most popular and most inspiring verses in the Bible is the last verse in Isaiah 40. Verse 31 says

But those who wait on the LORD

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

If one takes a few minutes and reads the entire chapter of Isaiah 40, he will find verse 31 even more inspiring. Isaiah 40 is a monument to the glory of God. It is also a comfort, a prophetic comfort to God’s elect as they were to become exiles in Babylon.

For our purpose, we can look at Isaiah 40 as a statement of God’s desire to have communion with His people. Let us be reminded, communion is not a ceremony we perform as a ritual; rather is a relationship with God where we can share our heart with Him and God will instill His heart into our being. Isaiah 40 talks to us about our sin, about our flesh being but withering grass. It talks about the judges of the earth being made useless. God is completely aware of our struggles as we walk the earth. But God desires us to look at Him and His power and authority and glory. God has His reward which is beyond anything we comprehend in this life. When we look at our life, we need to see it from the perspective God desires to provide us as He communes with us. Verses 12-15 of Isaiah 40 gives a bit of that perspective. These verses speak of God when they say

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

Measured heaven with a span

And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

Weighed the mountains in scales

And the hills in a balance?

Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,

Or as His counselor has taught Him?

With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him,

And taught Him in the path of justice?

Who taught Him knowledge,

And showed Him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket,

And are counted as the small dust on the scales;

Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.

This is but a sample of what is available in Isaiah 40. So, what does it mean to wait upon the Lord? We are to perpetually have a confident expectation for what God is going to do in us as a people and as individuals. I am not trying to second guess the time of God’s return, but I do not expect in my lifetime to see the fullness of glory God has for His church. At the same time though, our hearts are to be in communion with God to bring about His will on earth as it is in heaven. I am to always be waiting on the Lord as I am perpetually at work to see His glory fulfilled. My heart’s desire is to see the church come to the fullness of its glory, as a bride fully adorned for her groom. Some Christians seem to have a small God attitude of just hiding away until God comes to rescue us from the mess this earth is in. God knows there is a mess on earth, but He did not waste the life of Jesus for us to just hide out waiting for His rescue mission. Yes, we are waiting on the Lord; yes, we are having our strength renewed; yes, we are mounting up with wings as eagles. God has a mission for us, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us (Matthew 16:18) as we wait on God to accomplish His glory in us. Let us remember these things, as we remember what Jesus the Christ did for us.

7 January

COMMUNION:

SON*

Yesterday Karen and I attended the funeral of my long time pastor, Frank Jones. Brother Frank, as we addressed him, was our spiritual leader through the years we lived in Lubbock, Texas. He baptized all three of our children and tended to many of our needs over the years. During his retirement he lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex so as to be close to his children and grandchildren. For the last few years he suffered from Alzheimer’s. His youngest son, Eric, lived very close to Brother Frank and took exceptional care of him. In a text message a few days ago Eric said, I miss my Dad so much. Eric had been extremely close to his mom, who died a number of years ago, as well as to his dad. As many of us can testify, it is extremely difficult to see our parents’ bodies degenerate, leading to death. But this is the normal course of things in our fallen world.

But what does this have to do with communion? This demonstrates our need for one another. It is by the communion of the saints that our hearts can be steadied and support can be given. It is our place to show compassion to one another in all of life’s trials. It is to have the shoulder to cry on and just have someone listen to you as you grieve.

Back to Brother Frank, he was not perfect. Even though he was a spiritual giant, I saw his failings at times. None of us is perfect. That is why we need Jesus. No matter how good we are, we all fail in our relationships with one another. Only Jesus can handle every burden we ever have.

But let us consider God the Father. It is not the normal course of things to see our children die. We all know John 3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. I have never grieved the loss of a child; I hope I never have to. Not only did the Father love us so much as to sacrifice His Son, the Son loved us and His Father so much that He sacrificed Himself.

Now consider this. In a Godly marriage where two individuals have been completely committed to one another for life, it is more difficult to lose a spouse to death than it is to lose a parent or a child. God the Father made a sacrifice beyond our understanding; Jesus made a sacrifice beyond our understanding. But through His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and return Jesus gains a bride who has no sin and never dies. He defeated our sin so as to have the perfect bride which He never loses. This is what gives us hope. I hope to see all of you as members of the bride who never dies. I hope to see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, John, and Paul as members of the bride who never dies. I hope to see Brother Frank, Brother Frank’s wife Barbara, and Eric as members of the bride who never dies. I hope to see my parents, my wife Karen, our children and their spouses, our grandchildren, and all of our descendants who come after us as members of the bride who never dies, and this list could go on. But most of all I hope to see Jesus and His Father by the power of the Holy Spirit because they made it possible for Jesus to have a bride who never dies.

*As I typically do not make these communion messages to be as personal as this, I am leaving this message as presented at Believers Church 7 January 2018 in memory of Frank R. Jones; 1937-2017.

8 January

COMMUNION:

THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

2 Corinthians 13:11-14 states

Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

These are the last words the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church at the end of his second letter. At the same time, this was a prayer he uttered for them as a people. This short passage holds multitudes of sermons, but I want to emphasize one particular point when Paul prays that …the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Leading up to this comment, Paul states in verse 11 for them to Become complete. After telling them to become complete, he gives them a list of things to do: first, Be of good comfort…; second …be of one mind…; third, …live in peace…. This is for …the God of love and peace… to be with us. These are essentials. God wants us to be comforted, unified, and to live in peace. It is preposterous for us to want anything else.

We are continuously afflicted and persecuted as a result of the ways of the world. What better way is there to live than in comfort, in unity, and in peace in the church? If we really think about this, these are not separate principles. Completeness, comfort, unity, peace, and the God of love and peace are all inseparable. When we are in genuine communion with God and His people, all of these things are present and we cannot be separated from these things by any power on earth, or of the devil, or of his hell bound demons. This is available by the grace of Jesus Christ and by the love of God the Father. But there is only one way this can come to pass in the individual, in the local body of believers, or in the church universal, and that is by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Communion celebrates what Jesus did for us; it celebrates the love of God. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to accomplish His will on Earth. This is the only means by which we have the communion God desires on earth or with heaven. Our religious efforts are pointless without Him.

9 January

COMMUNION:

MY SERVANT

Isaiah 42: 1-4 is a Messianic prophecy, a prophecy which points directly to Jesus Christ. Isaiah wrote this roughly 700 years before Christ came to Earth. These verses say

"Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,

My Elect One in whom My soul delights!

I have put My Spirit upon Him;

He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,

Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed He will not break,

And smoking flax He will not quench;

He will bring forth justice for truth.

He will not fail nor be discouraged,

Till He has established justice in the earth;

And the coastlands shall wait for His law."

This is the Father’s promise to us, to all men, concerning what He has in store for us. This prophecy is a work in progress. Portions of it have been fulfilled, and portions are yet to be fulfilled. The servant spoken of here is, of course, Jesus Christ. The Father upholds Him. He is the Elect One. He has the Holy Spirit. He brings judgment to all.

Verse 3 states A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench…. God has a plan for the most damaged among us; He has a plan for the one who has the least amount of faith. That plan is not going to be wrapped up until He is finished with His work. We are going to wait until He is done. Nothing will discourage Him, and He will not fail. I am not one who gets wrapped up in end time theology, but I can tell you when all of this is going to come about. According to verse 4, this is not going to happen …Till He has established justice on the earth….

This should be an unfathomable encouragement to us. Why? Because this is what the Father wants and this is what the Holy Spirit upholds. We are the body of Christ, empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is to give us communion with Him who came to establish justice on earth at the Father’s will. Our work is before us; our work is a work that will not fail. As Christ’s body, we are God’s servant. Our work as a body has God’s promise of success. All other works are doomed to failure. Our communion is an eternal covenant.

10 January

COMMUNION:

MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU

Before Jesus went to the cross, He had much to say to His disciples to prepare them for His death. They seemed to not understand any of these things until after His resurrection. They continued to grow in that understanding at Pentecost. Let us read the words of Jesus as He speaks to us about this as recorded in John 16:12-15:

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you."

When Jesus spoke these words, He was speaking to the Apostles at the Passover meal after He had instituted the Lord’s Supper. He promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this promise, Jesus talked to them about their not yet being able to bear all He had to say to them, guidance to all truth, and preparation for things to come. Jesus also told them about the glory He would receive from the Father. In this, Jesus declares the Holy Spirit would not speak on His own authority, but only on the authority of Jesus. We should give special consideration that this took place at the Passover meal.

Passover was a special Jewish celebration of their nation being spared from the death of the firstborn during the last plague, before Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. The Passover lambs were offered as a sacrifice by the Jewish people, so they could be freed from Egyptian slavery; Jesus was the Passover lamb for all His people, so they could be delivered from the slavery of sin.

Pentecost, on the other hand, was a Jewish festival which was celebrated 50 days after Passover, to celebrate harvest. As the Jewish people celebrated their harvest of grain, Christians celebrate the harvest of the followers of Christ on earth. What Jesus told the Apostles as they celebrated their Passover meal shortly before His crucifixion is the same message He had for the churches at large, as would be initiated by the Apostles at Pentecost. On that first Pentecost Sunday after the resurrection of Jesus, it becomes clear that the gift of the Holy Spirit was not just for the Apostles to lay the foundation of Christianity, but was for all believers, for all generations to follow.

In their writings and teachings the Apostles gave us the inerrant word of the New Testament, and confirmed in many places in that word, the activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.

We do not know all that Jesus has prepared for the church, we are not ready to bear that information. Jesus will guide us into all truth; He will let us know in advance, if needed, how to operate in that truth as it unfolds. We shall know these things only by the presence of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus still has many things to say to His church. Lest any man thinks he knows all God has to offer to His people, he would be claiming to have the omniscience of God. It is to God’s pleasure that we, as believers, continuously commune with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate, as a community of believers, what Jesus provides through His death, burial, and resurrection, we keep the door open for us to move into the glory the Father has to offer for his Son, the Christ.

11 January

COMMUNION:

YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH

Due to our temporary housing in mortal bodies, we, as Christians, continue to deal with flesh issues. Because of that weakness, we need to be continuously reminded that our place is not in the flesh. One of the best known scripture passages which serves this purpose is Romans 8:9-11, which states

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

If we are Christian, a primary point of our profession of faith is that we believe Christ rose from the dead. Two points this passage makes perfectly clear is that the Spirit raised Christ from the dead, and that same Spirit dwells in each of us. It also makes it clear that if Christ is in us, our body is dead because of sin. The indwelling Spirit is something we can never explain in the natural, but we accept by faith. This is the key stumbling point for nonbelievers. Nonbelievers do not accept anything about Christ when it is based on faith. No amount of persuasion will ever get such a person to cross the line into Christianity. No amount of persuasion will ever convince anyone of the empty grave. Thus we come to the importance of the phrase …He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Jesus came to earth to dwell in a mortal body. We accept, again by faith, that He did so without sin. We came to accept this by seeing the life other mortals lived, with no explanation of their morality, other than their faith. This may have been a parent, teacher, coworker, youth leader, pastor, neighbor, or combinations of multitudes of people. We must come to the conclusion that to serve God with our mortal bodies, we necessarily see that dead body operate under the authority of the Spirit …who raised Christ from the dead…. This is communion with Christ through the Spirit. This is life without explanation.

12 January

COMMUNION:

YOUR DESIRE

Eve blamed the serpent for deceiving her when she ate the forbidden fruit. Adam heeded the voice of Eve and willingly partook of the forbidden fruit. God pronounced curses on both of them. These curses point the finger directly back at man as being responsible for these curses.

One of these curses is recorded in the last part of Genesis 3:16 where God said …Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Thus began the battle of the sexes. Men tend to practice tyranny in their relationship with women, and women tend to try to usurp authority in their relationship with men. This is not what God desires for the relationship between men and women in marriage, but this is what happened when man tried to usurp God’s authority.

Yes, it is God’s curse, but it is man’s fault. God has a solution, as He has a solution for every curse man suffers. Men and women tend to not like the solution because the solution is contrary to the fallen nature. Ephesians 5:22, 23 states Wives, submit to your own husband, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and He is the savior of the body. Ephesians 5:25, 26 states Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word…. We could easily launch into a teaching on marriage from here, but this is not our point at this time. Our point is communion.

If we look around just a bit, we can confidently say that the principles in these verses are absolutely contrary to the thinking of secular society. Not only has the American society in general discarded the fundamentals of Christian marriage as antiquated and sexist, but has also discarded the fundamentals of Christian culture as antiquated and irrelevant. To be effective in promoting the cause of Christ, we must be conformed to the principles of authority and submission. This brings sanctification and cleansing to the body. This is a primary principle behind the sacrament of communion. In communion, we see Jesus completely submitted to the Father in the process of giving Himself for man.

We have this awful desire in our hearts to make ourselves appealing to God by our own power, and in our flawed thinking, we want to move others to our standard of righteousness. Submission to Christ has nothing to do with these things. The analogy is that a wife should unconditionally submit to her husband, but she can only do this as her husband is unconditionally submitted to Christ. As we mature in our faith we become more deeply aware that we are completely at the mercy of God. Jesus is not a tyrant. His love causes Him to shape us into exactly what we are designed to be. We are to be wholly conscious of this in His death for our sin as we are cleansed by His blood.

13 January

COMMUNION:

THE SPIRIT SEARCHES ALL THINGS

1 Corinthians 2:9-12 says

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

Probably all Christians have at one time or another longed to know the deep things of God. The truth of the matter is that the deep things of God are at our immediate disposal. When Paul wrote the passage we just read, he used an analogy. He said …what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Each one of us is unique; God, in His creative power and authority, made each one of us different. No one of us comprehends the full depth of thinking of any of the rest of us. Each one of us knows in his own heart the depths of his own thinking in a way no one else can comprehend.

We then must look at this curious statement by Paul, that the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God; it is written in the same context. Thinking about the Holy Spirit being a member of the Godhead, He must necessarily be omniscient; He knows everything. So why, then, would He be searching the deep things of God? The answer is in the last verse we read where Paul says it is so …we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. What Paul is sharing with us is that we have the full depth of God’s knowledge at our disposal, as God sees that we have need. The Holy Spirit is in a perpetual search to provide everything every believer everywhere needs to know at each moment so that we have the capacity to do God’s bidding every moment of our lives.

Since each one of us is a unique creation, each one of us has a unique calling in God’s will. It is the devil’s ploy to make all of us think we should be behaving like everyone else as we seek to improve our own stature according to our own will as we compare ourselves with others. It is God’s will to develop each one of us, so that we are incomparable. Completed, we individually are conformed to contradict nothing in scripture as each does his own thing. This is what Jesus bought for us when He gave up the Holy Spirit on the cross. This should inspire us to seek perfect communion with God at all times.

14 January

COMMUNION:

GREETINGS FROM FRIENDS

The Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome before he ever visited Rome. Paul would eventually be imprisoned in Rome and then be put to death there. The point is, he had a vibrant relationship with people in this church before he ever met them in person. This letter confirms the heart he had for people he had never met. With this in mind, let us read what Paul had to say to these people near the end of his letter. Reading from Romans 16:21-24:

Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my countrymen, greet you.

I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord.

Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, and Quartus, a brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

There were eight of Paul’s fellow workers and friends who sent their greetings to the church at Rome through Paul’s letter. Some of what I say about these men is a bit speculative, but most is absolutely accurate. Paul personally discipled Timothy for many years, set him in as a senior leader in the church at Ephesus, and wrote two letters to him which are now the scripture of 1st and 2nd Timothy. Jason hosted Paul in his home in the past, was persecuted with Paul, and had posted bond for Paul. Sosipater had accompanied Paul on missionary work. Tertius was Paul’s personal secretary and had actually penned the words to the church as dictated by Paul. Gaius was a man Paul baptized, Paul lodged in his home, and his home served as a meeting place for the church. Erastus, who was the city treasurer for the city of Ephesus, had been sent by Paul on a missionary trip to Macedonia. We do not know any more about Lucius and Quartus except they were friends with Paul.

What is my point in all this? My point is that the work of the Apostle Paul was not just his work. Out of all these men, evidence is that Timothy was the only one who was ever involved in what we would call full time vocational ministry; he was the only one on full time ministerial staff at a church. Looking at this whole picture, this is genuine communion.

Jesus died for the church, which is His body. When we see Paul in action with his fellow Christians, we see the church doing what Jesus gave life to. As we are involved in the communion ceremony, we need to see ourselves wholly involved in the activities in our local body to bring about God’s total kingdom purpose. The Apostle Paul could never have done what he did by himself. Paul likely did not know he was writing scripture when he wrote his letter to Rome. He could not have known the impact he would have on the church through the centuries. He could not have known the impact he is having on us today as we read these words. This was made to work by some close friends of his, as they supported him in his ministry.

By communion with the saints, we can have an impact on people in places we never know, which brings about development in the church that we do not now begin to comprehend. This is the kind of thing it is appropriate to ponder as we participate in the formality of the sacrament of communion. It is our place and our purpose to be individually involved in the ministry of the church. We are not only having communion with Paul and his friends but also with the generations to come and into eternity.

15 January

COMMUNION:

MOSES, YOU SPEAK WITH US

When God communicated with Moses on Mount Sinai, the people were warned to stay away from the mountain upon the penalty of death. After Moses received the Ten Commandments, reading from Exodus 20:18, 19, here is what transpired:

Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

Moses was a man who heard from God. He heard from God at the burning bush. He heard from God when he warned Pharaoh of the plagues: when the water turned into blood, when the land was smitten with frogs, when the dust of Egypt became lice, when the land swarmed with flies, when the pestilence struck all the livestock of the Egyptian people, when boils broke out on man and beast in Egypt, when great hail fell on all the land, when there was thick darkness in the land of Egypt for three days, when death fell on all the firstborn of all the Egyptian people and their animals. Moses heard from God when the Red Sea was parted so that the Children of Israel, who were pursued by Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, were allowed to cross on dry land; the parted waters were then allowed to fall on Pharaoh and his army to drown every member of Pharaoh’s army. Moses heard from God when the Children of Israel were provided manna and water in the desert. Moses heard from God when God gave him the Ten Commandments.

So, whose shoes would you rather be in: in the shoes of Moses, or the shoes of the Israelite people? If you were in the shoes of the Children of Israel, all you had to do was listen to Moses. If you were in the shoes of Moses, you had the privilege of listening to God, but then you had responsibility to God. Moses had the responsibility of laying down God’s law to the people.

I assure you, the law of God is a frightening thing. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments as well as the rest of God’s moral law. God gave Moses all the civil law, the criminal law and the punishments for breaking the criminal law, and all the law of the sacrificial ordinances the people had to perform for breaking any of God’s law. The people were rightfully afraid to approach Mount Sinai when God was speaking to Moses.

The interesting thing about God’s law is that it inevitably brings death. His law is perfect, and to break His law is to break communion with God; to not have communion with God is death. Only one man fulfilled God’s law perfectly, but it still caused His death. When Jesus died He displaced law with grace.

Law is still around, but grace is the governing force for all who belong to Jesus. We do not want to face God on His legal terms any more than the Children of Israel did at Mount Sinai. But we do not need Moses or any of the priests of the Old Covenant as an intermediary. We are in much better shoes than was Moses or the Children of Israel. The authority we have in Jesus is far beyond what we can begin to comprehend; it is an incomparable privilege. We are a friend with Jesus and we approach God on Jesus’ terms. We have an even greater responsibility than Moses had and that is to love God, and to love our fellow man in the same way God loves us. When we fail in that responsibility, grace is still there. Thus, we have communion with God.

16 January

COMMUNION:

THIS IS A HARD SAYING

Is Christianity a hard thing? In some respects it is. There is persecution. There is discipline. There are works. There are laws. There are sacrifices. But, there is a blessing of worship. The persecutions, disciplines, works, laws, sacrifices, and worship are, at their core, different than those of any other government or belief system in the world. Let us read selected verses from the sixth chapter of the gospel of John.

⁵³ Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

⁶⁰ Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can understand it?

⁶³ "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."

⁶⁶ From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. ⁶⁷ Then Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away?

⁶⁸ But Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

These are indeed hard words, and Christianity is indeed a hard thing. This is why so many people reject Christianity. If this is carried a bit further, this is also why so many people seek to discredit the church, persecute Christians, and are even afraid of what the church wants to do.

Really, all we want to do is see the world ruled by God. Really, all we want to do is to Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations… (Matthew 28:19). And the world is afraid of that? Why? Why is the world afraid of that? Because it is a spiritual thing. The unbelieving man wants to promote flesh; he has nothing else to promote. Even the religions of the world which accept a spiritual life, promote some sort of fleshly means to appease their god to gain spiritual acceptance. Only Christianity promotes the concept that it is only by the Spirit of God in Christ that spiritual worship is gained. As is stated in verse 63, It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. Nothingness is nonexistence.

Yes, in our physical being we will be persecuted, have discipline, do works, obey laws, make sacrifices, and worship. If these things are done by any means other than the action of God’s Spirit within us, then they are nothing. If we eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, we accept that even though He was in a body of flesh, He operated solely by Spirit. He counted His flesh as nothing when He took our sins to the cross, and bore those sins spiritually to the grave.

17 January

COMMUNION:

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO DO HIS COMMANDMENTS

After the original sin of Adam, God placed a cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden. He had a flaming sword which turned every way; this was to guard the way to the tree of life, thus preventing man from eating the fruit of that tree and allowing him to live forever (Genesis 3:22-24). But now let us consider what it says in Revelation 22:12-15.

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last."

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

We are so ever continuously reminded by preachers and teachers about grace, the free gift of salvation. There is nothing we do to earn it, but our flesh nature still wants to prove to God how worthy we are. We have no right to salvation; to claim the right to salvation is to deny the sovereignty of God. But note what we read from verse 14 where it says, "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life…." I read this from seven different Bible translations; they all stated we have the right to the tree of life.

Revelation 22:14 is difficult to translate. Some translations will tell us that we are blessed because we do God’s commandments, and some will tell us that we are blessed because we have washed our robes, but all of them tell us of our right to the tree of life. To shed light on this, let us look at those who do not have the right to the tree of life: dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, liars.

Here is what we can absolutely understand. If we belong to God, we have the right to the tree of life, to be able to live forever. We have that right because of the way we lived our life. Whether we gained this right because we washed our robes or because we kept God’s commandments, it all means the same thing: we do God’s will. I know that we all sin. I sin, you sin. Even though we are saved by grace through faith, we still sin. We sin by failing to do what God calls us to do, and we sin by doing what we should not do. But here is the difference: our way of life is not that of the dog, the sorcerer, the sexually immoral, the murderer, the idolater, or the liar. We work at keeping the commandments of God; we work at keeping our robes clean. We are given the right to the tree of life. Notice, I said we are given the right; God gives us a reward; it is still a gift. We do not enter upon the opportunity to gain this right by our works, but God will pay us back for those works which we do. Now this is a bargain. There is nothing we can do to gain God’s favor; we have absolute debt, but He gives our lives back to us and rewards with interest for obedience.

Verse 12 states it is God’s reward …to give to everyone according to his work…. We are better off than if we had never sinned. We are fed eternally from the tree of life for the works we do in this life. This is how much God loves us; this is Christ on the cross. To see this, is to continuously have our hearts enlarged to do His will.

18 January

COMMUNION:

LORD OF THE SABBATH

Let us read Luke 6:3-5:

But Jesus answering them said, Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat? And He said to them, The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.

Have you seriously considered what it meant for Jesus to be Lord of the Sabbath? First, consider the showbread. This bread represented the presence of God in the temple, was changed out every Sabbath, and was to be eaten only by the priests. David and his men ate this bread at a desperate time as he was fleeing from Saul. Second, consider the Sabbath. The Sabbath, of course, was ordained by God in the Ten Commandments to be a day of rest. What I am about to say is in no way intended to imply that we are to take God’s commandments lightly and disobey God for nominal reasons. Jesus’ lesson to the Pharisees here is that the law is to be submitted to the greater cause of accomplishing God’s purpose. David’s escape from Saul with his life was of greater relevance to God’s purpose than was the Old Covenant ordinance restricting the eating of the bread representing the presence of God. David ate the bread of God’s presence as he fled for his life. That bread gave life.

Now let us read Luke 23:55-Luke 24:3:

And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

You see, it had been the Sabbath; Jesus had been very busy. While the women rested …according to the commandment, Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:35), was in the midst of His death and raiding the bowels of Hades (Acts 2:23-32). He had taken man’s sin to the grave. He would not be left to be corrupted in Hades. He was waiting to be resurrected. I would suggest His comment as recorded in Luke 6:5: The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. was prophetic of what was happening while He was in the grave, with His resurrection being the consummation of this work. His being the Lord of the Sabbath gives the redeemed rest from the sting of death and defeats the strength of sin in the law (1 Corinthians 15:56, 57).

19 January

COMMUNION:

YOU ARE MY FRIENDS

Have you ever had a friend? Even the most socially deficient of any of us has friends. We have friends at the workplace, in our neighborhoods, in our social circles. We can probably count every person we know in our congregation as a friend. Just by our personality differences, some of us have more friends than others. Some friends are closer than others; there is nothing wrong with that. I am a closer friend with my wife than I will ever be with any of you. Excluding your spouse, do you have a really close friend? It is sad to say, some of us do not have close friends. That leads to the question, how do we develop these kinds of friendships? The answer is very simple. We develop friendships through communication. If these friendships are to be genuine, this communication is born out of love. The truth of the matter is that some of us are better at communication than others. That is not necessarily bad. God made us all different. I, personally, am a bit socially awkward. I have accepted that, but I communicate as best I can and let that land me where I should be. Now let us read what Jesus said about His ability to have friends. Reading now John 15:11-15:

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to