WHY COMMUNION ?
It was commanded.
It is mandatory.
It is needed for a healthy church.
How often is it to be celebrated ?
I said, not done, but celebrated .
We must remember it is to be a
celebration, not a mindless ,
boring ritual done out of duty .
Otherwise it would
be better not to be done at all.
It is a time for rejoicing , for celebration, not indifference .
We have a tendency to resist the humdrum.
Perhaps that is why many churches avoid having communion regularly.
We must be careful to keep our focus on Jesus and the fellowship
that Communion is to create between Him and the saints.
The unity of purpose , the lively hope we have in our resurrection
and eternity spent with Him, along with the present and immediate
fellowship with Him and the brethren ,
should be the purpose of celebrating the Last Supper together.
A supper is for family.
The Lord's supper shows us we are part of His and our Father?s family.
It is done to promote fellowship with Him and remind us of what
He sacrificed to give us the privilege to participate in this supper.
This Supper points ahead to that great banquet we will enjoy with Him
and all the saints in heaven one day.
Why would we want to relegate it to just a few times a year
in disobedience to the Lord ?
Why would we want to relegate it to a meaningless ritualistic
exercise when it was meant to energize us ?
This is to be both a reflective and a joyful celebration .
One that brings us to the point of longing for
being visibly in His presence soon.
The elements of the Supper point poignantly
to the blood that was shed
and the body that was crushed for on our behalf.
The blood points to the new life and the new covenant
that was created thru it shedding ,
which was done with great, supernatural power.
It changed everything for mankind.
No more in our own strength or righteousness
do we come to God, for that never worked.
Now we come in His power and righteousness
working in us and thru us
to accomplish supernatural things on His behalf.
That is what we celebrate thru this observance.
His body was crushed in our place.
He suffered for our sins on the cross.
We are not celebrating continually what He has done on our behalf.
He wisely told us to remember what He has accomplished
on our behalf through communion,
because He knew how forgetful we are and how ungrateful we are .
He told us to celebrate what He accomplished at the Cross
so we would not forget and so the Father would receive praise.
We celebrate His name
when we celebrate the Last Supper.
We celebrate His character
whenever we celebrate the Last Supper.
We also enter more fully into fellowship with Him
when we truly celebrate it
and we enter into a special fellowship
with one another when we celebrate it.
These are the things we are missing when we neglect
so great a work of salvation on our behalf.
We must remember that we are called Christians ,
because Christ is what it is all about. It's all about Jesus !
The Lord's Supper is not only to remind us
what Jesus did on our behalf ,
but to reunite us with Him. It is called Communion ,
because it relates to community and is meant not only
to bring us into fellowship with Him , but one another.
