Do you want strength, health, and wholeness?
Properly discerning The Body of Christ during communion will bring about strength, health, and wholeness. Communion is meant to be a blessing to us by fully acknowledging Our Lord Jesus Christ’s great sacrifice for us when He went to the cross.
As I wrote yesterday, Paul wrote by The Holy Spirit in 1st Corinthians chapter 11:
23 For I received directly from the Lord Himself what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread,
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My Body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
27 For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in the wrong spirit will be guilty of dishonoring the Body and Blood of the Lord. TPT
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning The Body (of Christ) eats and drinks judgment on himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
Paul tells us that partaking of communion in an unworthy manner brings forth judgment including weakness, illness, and premature death. What is the opposite if we do properly discern The Body of Christ?
Strength, health, and wholeness… and we won’t suffer premature death!
Moses was faithful in administering the Old Covenant. Paul compares the Old Covenant versus the New Covenant as he recorded by The Holy Spirit in Hebrews chapter 3:
1 Therefore, Holy brothers, you who share in a Heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession,
2 Who was faithful to HIM Who appointed Him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s House.
3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses-as much more glory as the Builder of a House has more honor than the house itself.
4 (For every house is built by someone, but the Builder of all things is God.)
5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,
Consider the benefits of the Old Covenant:
Deuteronomy 2:7 For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”‘
Deuteronomy 8:3And HEe humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that HE might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every Word that comes from the Mouth of the LORD.
4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.
Deuteronomy 29:5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.
It is also written by THE SPIRIT in Nehemiah 9:
19 YOU in YOUR great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go.
20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold Your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst.
21 Forty years YOU sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
How great was the Old Covenant to the children of Israel, yet how much greater is the New Covenant because of The Body of Christ perfecting this Covenant! We ought to look at these two Covenants in comparison so that we realize the extraordinary benefits we are to receive by properly discerning The Body of Christ as we partake of communion!
Paul continues in Hebrews chapter 4:
14 So then, we must cling in faith to all we know to be true. For we have a magnificent King-Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who rose into the Heavenly realm for us, and now sympathizes with us in our frailty.
15 He understands humanity, for as a man, our magnificent King-Priest was tempted in every way just as we are, and conquered sin.
16 So now we draw near freely and boldly to where grace is enthroned, to receive mercy’s kiss and discover the grace we urgently need to strengthen us in our time of weakness.
Jesus understands us in all our shortcomings so let us focus on Him Who conquered sin rather than ourselves, especially during communion.