LIVING
BY THE "FRUIT" OF THE CROSS
COMMUNION TO GO
November 18, 2012
MF Blume
· The Eucharist or Communion Supper is the repetition of what
Jesus instituted at the Last Supper. He told the disciples to repeat
that supper in remembrance of Him.
· Paul explained that we are meant to do this until He comes
again.
· Communion literally means fellowship or mutual participation.
1 Corinthians 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?
· We fellowship with the blood and body of Jesus. This means
that we participated in His death as though our bodies were slain with
Him and our own blood was shed when His was.
· It was our deaths! We are displaying the Gospel of our deaths,
burials and resurrections with Christ when we partake of this
Communion. It’s as though we are putting the emblems of His slain
body and shed blood into our lives in order to indicate that His
experience of death is inside our lives. It is our experience! We are
what we eat! What happened to Him is indicated by putting it within us
so that we can
show everyone that genuinely believe that His experience was our own.
· We are actually acknowledging that we died and were
resurrected with Jesus when we engage in Communion (Fellowship) Supper.
Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made
conformable unto his death;
· We often order food to go when we take-out a meal from a
restaurant. While we physically eat bread and win in this Communion,
spiritually speaking we are meant to take-out this meal and live it in
our everday lives! We must live lives that reflect this truth! We need
to lives though we actually believe we mutually participated in His
death and resurrection.
· No bones of Jesus body were broken in fulfillment of the
prophecy that stated this would occur in His crucifixion. However, the
term broken in reference to His body referred to the brokenness of
simply the experience of death. His Life was broken.
· The truths of the work of the cross actually feed us in a
spiritual sense. Some feel that the bread literally is the body of
Jesus by what they call the miracle of transubstantiation. But that is
not the case. It symbolizes a spiritual reality.
· It’s like eating the Fruit of the Tree of Life in the
Garden of Eden.
· Fruit Trees were created on the third day of Genesis Chapter
1.
Genesis 1:11-12 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose
seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought
forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree
yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw
that it was good.
· No other element of creation apart from man had so much detail
in its description as the fruit tree.
· That was for good reason!
· It would be a fruit tree that would ruin man’s entire
relationship with God!
· Man’s entire plight in sin was caused by eating the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
· It was also another Fruit Tree of Life that was intended to be
the focus of Adam and Eve in the Garden.
· The cross became a veritable Tree of Life for us.
· It was not a picture of cannibalism, as critics of the
Christians accused them of in the first few centuries.
· The communion supper was a picture of drawing from the
spiritual work of salvation accomplished by the death of Jesus.
· His body broke in death.
· His blood was shed in death.
· We receive eternal Life by believing the truths of the purpose
of the cross and obeying the Gospel, as though we were eating the flesh
and drinking His blood in order to obtain eternal life.
· Jesus hanged on the tree of the cross much like the fruit of
Life clung to the branches of the Tree of Life.
· Jesus is the Son of God – the offspring, or fruit from
God. That is what saved us.
· However, we must carry out our entire Christian lives by
reliance on the Spiritual Life of Jesus.
· We face circumstances in life that simply require the Life of
Jesus within us to empower us.
· We cannot handle all of life’s problems in our humanity
alone.
· We need communion to go!
· Taking the truths of the cross and applying them to
life’s situations as we have described in this series of books is
kind of like taking communion to go.
· Feasting on bread and wine is actually what we are doing when
we hear and believe the truths of the cross of Jesus.
· We are what we eat!
· We’re meant to utilize the truths of the cross that we
hear preached in our daily lives.
· Live by these truths!
· Believe them so much that you actually do something about them
when you are in a predicament.
· If you believe Christ’s blood was shed for our healing,
then lay your hands on the sick and command healing, in the name of
Jesus Christ!
· So many believers never do these things!
· They do not take communion to go.
· Throughout the Book of Acts the apostles baptized people in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
· “Through Jesus Christ” relates the concept of our
union to Jesus’ power and authority.
· Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ displays that same truth.
· When we genuinely believe these truths, we can say that we are
feasting on the bread and the wine!
· We’re making these truths a real part of our lives.
· We won’t be hearers only and not doers.
· If we hear them and never really do anything about them in our
practical experience, then we simply have not actually feasted!
· Through Christ we can do all things (Phil. 4:13).
· In other words, by His empowerment obtained by our unions with
Him in His death and resurrection, we have the power of resurrection to
give us victory over any circumstance.
· It is what is also called identification with Jesus!
· Invoking the Name of Jesus Christ is not speaking a magical
incantation that affords supernatural power.
· We need to understand the authority of Jesus Christ that is
upon our lives due to our inclusion into His death when we invoke the
Name.
· The faith in that authority upon our lives is what causes God
to supernaturally intervene and work on our behalves.
· We boost our faith when we are in dire circumstances by
reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ.
· As we identify with Jesus in His death and the power of His
resurrection, we realize there is supernatural power on our lives to
overcome life’s battles.
GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN
· I recall the Popeye cartoons I used to watch as a child.
· Popeye was a sailor who loved a woman named Olive Oil.
· His arch nemesis was Bluto, named Brutus in later episodes.
· Brutus wooed Olive Oil into his arms only to capture her.
· Popeye became enraged and sought to rescue her, but fought and
was beaten up by Brutus every time, until…
· In the midst of sure doom, Popeye suddenly declared,
“That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands any
more!”
· And I knew what was coming when he said that!
· By either walking to a vegetable stand, or pulling out a can
form his pocket, he grabbed himself some spinach!
· Sometimes he squeezed a can of spinach until it streamed into
the air sending a cascade of the vegetable leaves into his open mouth.
· He chewed it and then stretched out both arms.
· Power coursed through his body into his arms like basketballs
moving through his tiny arms towards his fists!
· One fist turned into an anvil for a brief second, and the
other into a huge hammer.
· He then chased Brutus and threw him around like a cat playing
with a mouse!
· Finally, when he was ready, Popeye launched a punch into the
man and send Brutus into orbit!
· (My mother never had a problem getting me to eat spinach as a
child!)
But I always wondered why he simply didn't just always eat spinach to
be ready any time he had to deal with his enemy.
· He waited until he was half-dead before he resorted to the
spinach to defeat the enemy.
· That is a lot like Christians who face the devil and the
hardships he throws upon us.
· We need COMMUNION TO GO.
· Feast on the bread and wine continually!
· Be “up on” the truths of the cross.
· Let’s not wait until we are half beaten by life until we
remind ourselves who we are in Christ.
· What is worse is that some believers never rely upon their
unions with Christ when they face battles.
· They have simply never learned these truths at all.
· Live by faith.
· Apply this to your everyday world.
· Have faith in your union to Christ’s resurrection.
· Have faith that His power is all over your life and inside
your very being!
· Rely upon those facts in your trials.
· As Popeye sent Brutus in the sky with one final punch, when
you are ready to get rid of your enemy tell him to get behind you in
the name of Jesus Christ!
· Incorporating these truths into our daily lives is living by
faith, and not simply thinking by faith.
· What do we have to bring with us on order to motivate God to
strengthen us when we come before Him in the midst of our perils?
· We have our unions with Christ!
· Keep that in mind as much as you are able to, more and more.
· Meditate upon these truths until they are as familiar to you
as the back of your hand.
· Be able to instantly recall them whenever you find yourself in
a challenging situation.