Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
I hope you are enjoying your summer months. We have had some great weather here in the Northwest and we are enjoying the immunity boost of summer sunshine. Yesterday we had a great time of gathering as Alife Church in Bellingham. Pastors Jonathan and Danie did a great job of refreshing us all in how to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. There was lots of connection to one another as the family of God in our spiritual living room in Bellingham.
Last week, I posted a portion of my book, The Seven Eyes of Grace – Empowered to Live, concerning communion and the present grace of the Spirit of Knowing in the earth. I want to post another segment of this today. This book is available in Print and in E-book on Amazon. It will soon be available in audiobook on many sources.
Chapter 6.2 – The Sixth Eye of Grace; Pages 182-184:
Have you ever been in one of those condemnation services where the minister challenges you to examine the works of the flesh in your life around the elements of bread and juice? Truly there is a truth presented in the act, but many times the act ends up being a tool of condemnation in the hands of men in their ministry. Many people become condemned at what they believe to be the “communion table”, but fail to consider the other times they gather together as the Body of Christ. They fail to see the importance of living their daily lives for the purposes of God and one another. They may practice religiously the partaking of the bread and the drinking of wine as symbols upon a sacred tray, but they are spiritually, emotionally, and physically cursed for despising the true bread of the Body of Christ and for rejecting the cup of being led by the Spirit.
Communion can be described in the act of “breaking bread”, but communion itself is also an act of truly “breaking bread”. It is not just the natural bread of communion, but rather the spiritual bread of life that each of us represents as members of the living Body of Christ. I believe this is what was testified of in the practices of the early Church.
Acts 2:42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
True communion was initiated in the fulfillment of Passover. Jesus became the true Passover Lamb, who took away the sins of the world. In preparation of that sacrifice, Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples. He had eaten that meal with them before. He had most likely eaten the bread of Passover and drank the cup at least twice before with His men. He had experienced the physical elements of bread and wine at numerous settings of his 331/2 years of human life. As the Word of God, He had observed the Passover meal hundreds and hundreds of times from the realm of heaven. However, this meal was different. This is the one Passover meal that He had longed to see. This was the one that would fulfill all of the previous meals leading up to that moment. This is why Jesus said, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk. 22:15). This was the one that would reveal the truth of the Passover meal. At that meal there was the Passover bread and the cups of the Passover wine.
The first cup of the Passover meal was a cup of Thanksgiving (Kiddush), for bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. This cup is sometimes referred to as the cup of Sanctification. The second cup of the Passover meal was a cup of Telling or Testimony (Maggid), for stories of deliverance from Egyptian slavery. The third cup was the Cup of Redemption or Blessing (Birkat Hamazon), to demonstrate God’s redemption power for all who believe in Him. It testified of the death of the flesh of Egyptian inheritance and the protection unto new life for the believer in Israel. The fourth cup was the cup of Praise (Hallel) to testify that God had acquired His people as a Holy nation unto Himself (Ex. 6:6, 7). Jesus had come to the world as the Word made flesh. He was born as flesh to proclaim that all flesh could be born-again in Him. We can be thankful that He lived a natural life for 30 years that we might all live our everyday lives as new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). He Himself had fled to Egypt to free all who were bound to the bondage of sin. He was born as the cup of Thanksgiving to God. He lived his life as the cup of Telling. When He was baptized by John the Spirit of God came upon Him in full measure and He went about demonstrating the deliverance power of God in Israel. He healed the sick, cast out devils, multiplied bread, and even raised the dead as a testimony of deliverance for all people. His life in the flesh set precedence for all who would follow Him to become the living testimonies of God’s story in the earth. The time had now finally come for Jesus to take the unleavened bread of the Passover and the third cup of Passover wine (the cup of Blessing or the cup of Redemption). Jesus finished its symbolism in the presence of His disciples. He proclaimed to them that He was about to give His life as a ransom for all men. The cup to follow the cup of Redemption would be the cup of Praise.
Jesus has become the resurrection life within the Body of Christ that we might drink the Cup of Praise anew with Him (Mt. 26:29). That cup is not a cup of earthly wine. It is a cup of heavenly wine! It is the cup of resurrection life given to all who believe in Jesus Christ. It is the cup that testifies that the cup of Redemption and Blessing has been drunk once for all men through the shedding of the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. To drink that cup of resurrection life one must first be a partaker of the Bread of Life. By drinking the Cup of Praise, we proclaim the fulfillment of the Cup of Redemption for all mankind. We proclaim that Jesus was the testimony of the cup of Thanksgiving, the cup of Testimony (Deliverance), and the cup of Redemption for all men. In sharing the cup of the Spirit, we experience the intimacy of the Body of Christ. In experiencing the intimacy of the Body of Christ we proclaim the death of Jesus Christ for all men.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson –
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
