"this do in remembrance of Me"

sunday evening i had the privilege to partake in communion, known also as the eucharist, a holy sacrament of particular--even paramount--importance and significance. in 1 cor. 11:23-34, paul reminds the church of the institution of the Lord's Supper, established the night He was betrayed.

taking part in communion is something we are blessed to do. to some degree, it's also something Jesus commands. concerning the bread and the cup, He instructs His disciples in matt. 26 to "take, eat," and to "drink all of it." this sounds more like a command than a suggestion to say the least :-) paul notes that by partaking in communion we are remembering Christ's broken body and His shed blood.

i think Jesus' instruction to eat and drink has a threefold purpose: it reminds us of what He did in the past; it symbolizes our present relationship with Him; and it is a promise of what He will do in the future. through communion we become aware of what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do through us and for us. this intimate interaction with the body and blood of Christ provides us with the recognition that we, our circumstances, our families, etc., can be changed.

with respect to the broken body of Christ, represented by the bread, we are reminded that Jesus took stripes on His body for our healing--not just physical, but emotional, psychological, and spiritual. is. 53:5 says that Jesus "was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." i believe this applies to our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. we can be made healed and whole. as for the precious shed blood of Jesus, represented by the cup, we are reminded that Jesus shed His blood for our salvation. 1 peter 1 tells us this: "God paid a ransom to save you...and the ransom He paid was not mere gold or silver as you very well know. but He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God." Jesus says in matt. 26, "for this is my blood..."it is poured out to forgive the sins of multitudes." Jesus' blood indeed has the power to save to the uttermost, but we must partake in its entirety.

a final note on the power of the blood is this, from lev. 17:11, God speaking: "for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given you the blood...as an atonement for your souls; it is the blood that makes atonement because it is the life." in other words, the blood is equated with life. we can experience new and true life with Christ because of His shed blood. after all, He came to die so that we could live. atonement is the reconciliation of God and humankind, especially as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ. i once had atonement explained to me as 'at-one-ment,' meaning we are made one with Christ through His shed blood. col. 1:19-20 makes it clear that God sent His Son "to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the blood of His cross" (col. 1:19-20). the application of the blood to our lives will indeed bring reconciliation, salvation, and peace.

the observance of communion has a powerful effect, both personally and corporally. we can experience deep healing, and it makes us one with Christ and each other. and i think that's the point, as we reflect on what Christ did, is doing, and will do...and the point is healing and unity. one final point comes from Jesus' prayer to His Father, in john 17 (a beautiful prayer worth reading). here's the passage that i think is of acute relevance: "13 And now I am coming to You. I have told them many things while I was with them so that they would be filled with my joy. 14 I have given them Your commands. and the world hates them because they don’t fit in with it, just as I don’t. 15 I’m not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from satan’s power. 16 they are not part of this world any more than I am. 17 make them pure and holy through teaching them Your words of truth. 18 as You sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world, 19 and I consecrate myself to meet their need for growth in truth and holiness. 20 I am not praying for these alone but also for the future believers who will come to Me because of the testimony of these. 21 My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as You and I are, Father—that just as You are in Me and I am in You, so they will be in Us, and the world will believe You sent Me. 22 I have given them the glory You gave Me—the glorious unity of being one, as We are— 23 I in them and You in Me, all being perfected into one—so that the world will know You sent Me and will understand that You love them as much as You love Me."

i'm thankful for the power of communion!

learning through suffering

job is a book about human suffering...it's a great study on suffering that's designed to bring us to God, not drive us from Him. God orchestrates it all. in fact, the writer of the book of job explains that satan isn't even allowed to test job without God's permission. God even puts constraints on how satan can test job's devotion to God and his deep faith. God tells satan, "do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don't harm him physically" (job 1:12). job's suffering, granted by God's permission, reminds me of a verse in isaiah 45. God says, "I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the Lord, am the One who does these things" (45:7). the king james version actually says this: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

though it's frustrating to try and understand why bad things happen, it's encouraging to think that satan, the prince of darkness, isn't even in control of his own domain! hell ain't got any power over anything...period :-) God is in control. the mystery of suffering is meant to bring us to this awareness, even if we can't make sense of all the pain, loss, and devastation; suffering is designed to bring us to a God who is in control. even when it doesn't make sense, we need to find God in our suffering: “people cry out when they are oppressed...yet they don’t ask, ‘where is God my Creator, the one who gives songs in the night?'" (job 35:9-10). our suffering should bring us to a place of learning, just like elihu tells job: "those who learn from their suffering, God delivers from their suffering" (job 36:15).

i recently heard this statement: "living through suffering." within this statement is the notion that you're going to make it through...you're living 'through' it. life continues, no matter how challenging or complicated, but you're living it through and you will come out the other side. there's also the notion that while enduring a great deal in the 'through' process, you're still living. you're living through the suffering. from now on, instead of saying i'm just living with it, i'm going to remind myself that i'm living through it and God will certainly be there on the other side...and of course He's with me in it. in spite of there being no pat answers, and there being the guarantee of suffering in the world (john 16:33), job shows us how God entrusts us with difficult things to position us--to bring us to a place of decision of whether or not we are going to trust Him--because His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 cor. 12:9). when we are at our weakest point, that's when God is at His strongest.

another point is that job was doing what he knew to do in going through the motions and routine of life, but he needed to learn what God needed him to do. job 12:13 says, "true wisdom and real power belong to God; from Him we learn how to live, and also what to live for." and what is this you might ask? well, i would offer an answer from the very end of the book: "when job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. in fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!...so the Lord blessed job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning" (job 42:10 & 12). God needs us to be present and available in people's lives...praying for them, listening to them, loving them. in the midst of our own suffering, we need to pray and live for the people around us.

after God Himself confronts job in job 38-41, pressing job to pull himself together and reminding him that He sees our suffering and shares our pain, job begins to see that through suffering life can be transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness in remarkable ways that could have never been anticipated before the suffering. from this we can see that even when we feel alone in our suffering, unsure of what God wants us to do, we must realize that the same God who came to job in a whirlwind is the same God who will come to us in our time of need. like job, we will be able to say, "i'm convinced: You can do anything and everything. nothing and no one can upset Your plans" (job 42:2).

job caught a glimpse of this earlier in the book--after outlining everything he had been through--when he says, "still, i know that God lives--the One who gives me back my life" (job 19:25). still further, in job 23:8-10, job says, "i go east, but He is not there. i go west, but i cannot find Him. i do not see Him in the north, for He is hidden. i look to the south, but He is concealed. but He knows where i am going. and when He tests me, i will come out as pure gold." even when we don't know where God is in our suffering, He knows where we are!

salt and light

the other day i was thinking about the relevance of matthew 5:13-16 in our everyday lives. the message bible puts it this way:

13 “let me tell you why you are here. you’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. if you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? you’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. 14-16 “here’s another way to put it: you’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. we’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. if I make you light-bearers, you don’t think i’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? i’m putting you on a light stand. now that i’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! keep open house; be generous with your lives. by opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

the passage is pretty direct, eh? "let me tell you why you're here." quoting Jesus, matthew highlights 2 principles: we are here to be the salt of the earth, and we're here to be the light of the earth. in other words, we're not here to do our own thing. we're here to do a God thing. God has a very specific work for us to do that only we can do as we represent God here on earth. He is counting on us to share and spread "God-flavours" and "God-colours."

consider some of the uses of salt. it seasons, preserves, cleanses. and what about light? well, it illuminates, warms, energizes. most significantly and encapsulating, i think, is that salt and light influence and penetrate their surroundings. once introduced to an environment, the environment changes. this is what Jesus intends for us to do in our world...to influence, to penetrate, to change. we do this when we show God-flavours and God-colours, the most notable of which is love, because when we love other things like forgiveness, humility, kindness, generosity, etc., will most certainly be easily exercised in our lives.

being salt and light is a lifetime exercise. as with exercise, we need to extend ourselves. it's something we need to keep going back to, over and over. and, just like salt is spread and light radiates, we need the world to taste and see God in us. by doing this, we can say with the psalmist david, "open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see--how good God is" (psalm 34:8).

practicing holiness

1 peter 1:13-25 provides some invaluable teaching from which we can glean a great deal. peter writes to the early church (and to us) that we need to "think clearly and exercise self control" with a "deep consciousness of God" and His Word. when we allow ourselves to be "pulled into a life shaped by God's life" and His Word, God will give us a future unfettered by "sloppy living." that's not to say we won't have bad days or that we won't make mistakes or that we won't find ourselves in a mess on occasion; it means that God, by the sacrifice of Christ, will guide us step by step on our journey because His Word is a map. we don't have to be bound to our old life before Christ; we can be free to live a life of praise to God for all He has done...for giving us the privilege to live for Him.

peter is very clear that when we follow the truth of God's Word, our new lives are not like our old lives; our new birth comes from God's living Word, and God's living Word was/is literally Jesus: "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...so the Word became human and made His home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness" (john 1:1 & 14). peter also instructs us to "love one another as if [our] lives depended on it." and that's fundamentally what the world needs and is the greatest evidence of God in us.

peter provides a challenge that we can only meet by applying God's Word to our daily living so that we can work and walk and worship in this world. essentially, it's an injunction from God Himself that lovingly forces us to be aware of Him...to clean up our lives by pursuing truth. the challenge is this: "so you just live as God's obedient children. don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. you didn't know any better then. but now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. for the Scriptures say, 'you must be holy because I am holy" (1 peter 1:14-16). peter is referring to verses found in leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, and 20:7 where God instructs His children to be careful to keep all of His commands by putting them into practice, and to set themselves apart to be holy because He is holy.

and that's the key. holiness is not about perfection. it's about practice. the most basic meaning of the words holy and holiness is to be set apart TO God and FROM the world. It's about dedicating yourself to God so that in your new life "the way you live will always honour and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. all the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better" (colossians 1:10). in this way, God's Word--literally, Jesus--will come alive in us so that we can grow, honouring God with our lives, and producing good fruit. holiness ISN'T about perfect conduct; it's about practical awareness that we are His and He is ours. it's about a commitment to strive for holiness in our lives.mbecause of that application in our lives we can live productive, maybe even exemplary lives of God at work in us, working through us to love, and forgive, and trust, and show compassion, and spread joy...

i know. i need to stop :-) but, i like how the apostle paul wraps up the fruit of the spirit which i think is one way we can practice being holy--being set apart to God and from the world. after he lists them in galations 5:22 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control) he says, "there is no law against these things." in other words, there is no cap or limit. practicing those qualities in our ordinary, everyday lives, we will certainly live lives "energetic and blazing with holiness" (1peter 1:15).

"so roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready" (1 peter 1:13) to practice holiness!