The moment you encounter the presence of Jesus something happens. You are calmed not startled. You are peaceful and free of anxiety. You sense His overall presence embracing you. It is subtle. It is kind. It is real.
With the flip of a switch a light goes on. It is similar when you encounter JESUS. Communion is the switch and the light is His presence. In His presence the Psalmist says, "Is life forever more." (Psalm 16:11) and "This life is the light of humanity." (John 1:4) Light allows you to see what is otherwise hidden by darkness. The life of JESUS is given to us in Communion and that gives us light to see Him. He shares His life with us physically and spiritually and the temporal is displaced for a moment by the eternal.
It is there that the Holy Spirit leads us into all "truth". A better way to understand the word truth is to replace it with this phrase, "Reality of JESUS". By Communion the Holy Spirit brings us into the real presence of JESUS! The reality of His presence is found at His Table. It is the centerpiece of His House, Domain and Kingdom. In effect the word "Truth" is knowing "The Reality of JESUS" in an ongoing personal way.
See what Jesus prophesied about when He was preaching to the miraculously-fed multitudes who followed Him to the synagogue in Capernaum. He stood to preach and made about 17 declarations connecting eternal life, His Body and Blood to the tangible elements of Communion. Basically He said we will encounter Him as we feed upon His presence just by doing what He asked when having Communion. (John 6:32-66)
Read each line as though you are among the multitudes and He is speaking just to you.
Pause and then read the next line.
1) Whoever comes to me will never go hungry
2) Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
3) You have seen me and still you do not believe
4) For this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
5) For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
6) “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day."
7) I am the bread of life.
8) Here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
9) I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
10) Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
11) This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
12) I tell you the truth: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
13) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
14) For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
15) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
16) Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
17) Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirite and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Once we begin our relationship with JESUS it is by continually feeding on His presence through the bread His flesh and the drink His Blood that we are continue to receive His life by the Holy Spirit. By this we live lives sustained by Him. Communion brings us into His presence. We call that the CommunionFire.
With the flip of a switch a light goes on. It is similar when you encounter JESUS. Communion is the switch and the light is His presence. In His presence the Psalmist says, "Is life forever more." (Psalm 16:11) and "This life is the light of humanity." (John 1:4) Light allows you to see what is otherwise hidden by darkness. The life of JESUS is given to us in Communion and that gives us light to see Him. He shares His life with us physically and spiritually and the temporal is displaced for a moment by the eternal.
It is there that the Holy Spirit leads us into all "truth". A better way to understand the word truth is to replace it with this phrase, "Reality of JESUS". By Communion the Holy Spirit brings us into the real presence of JESUS! The reality of His presence is found at His Table. It is the centerpiece of His House, Domain and Kingdom. In effect the word "Truth" is knowing "The Reality of JESUS" in an ongoing personal way.
See what Jesus prophesied about when He was preaching to the miraculously-fed multitudes who followed Him to the synagogue in Capernaum. He stood to preach and made about 17 declarations connecting eternal life, His Body and Blood to the tangible elements of Communion. Basically He said we will encounter Him as we feed upon His presence just by doing what He asked when having Communion. (John 6:32-66)
Read each line as though you are among the multitudes and He is speaking just to you.
Pause and then read the next line.
1) Whoever comes to me will never go hungry
2) Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
3) You have seen me and still you do not believe
4) For this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
5) For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
6) “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day."
7) I am the bread of life.
8) Here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
9) I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
10) Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
11) This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
12) I tell you the truth: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
13) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
14) For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
15) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
16) Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
17) Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirite and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Once we begin our relationship with JESUS it is by continually feeding on His presence through the bread His flesh and the drink His Blood that we are continue to receive His life by the Holy Spirit. By this we live lives sustained by Him. Communion brings us into His presence. We call that the CommunionFire.