04/15/2022
Our faith in God grows in the lessons we learn during the trials and tribulations we face in our lives with the Lord, but the real foundation, and engine that drives it, and ultimately leads us to believe, is trusting in God’s Word. Unless we lean on God’s Word, and take it as truth, then we don’t actually believe, we have simply based our imagined religion on a golden calf we have constructed for ourselves… a fantasy.
“… for I trust in your word.”
Psalm 119:42 ESV
As I write today it is Good Friday, and I think about the passion of Christ. I think also about the first communion that Jesus offered His disciples, and realize that on this day long ago he made that bread and wine come alive for us as He lived out this day of suffering, and death. I think of us now as true believers, and recall the faith that it must have taken the first disciples as they ate the bread, and drank the wine. What they were doing was based on His spoken Words alone, and hadn’t yet been proven to be truth by His painful lashes, stumbling along the Via Delarosa, or upon the cross at Calvary. This first communion required that they exercise faith. We see clearly today that the events which unfolded on that day long ago were not meant to be fantasy, allegory, or a well-constructed metaphor used to apply emphasis to His life, but the announcement of an absolute truth that was about to occur. What the first disciples took on faith was made real, and is now a remembrance, not simply a thought, or an act of pure faith. Today we remember Him as often as we do these things and know that they are truly foundation stones of what we believe.
“And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
Luke 22:19-20 ESV
On this day in His life Jesus took what had once been an act of faith for his disciples, and made it a remembrance; not only for them, but for all who were to follow. If we believe, that his gospel, and the Word of God are true, then the bread becomes His flesh, the wine in the cup becomes His blood, and it also means that His request for us to always do this in remembrance of Him is more than a nice story… it is a commandment.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
1 Corinthians 11:26 ESV
The Word of God is truth, and as we live in it, lean on it, and it is revealed to us, then our hope in it becomes reality, and our faith becomes belief. Suddenly we look at the communion bread and see the flesh of Jesus, and we look into the cup of the New Covenant, and realize that it contains the blood of Christ.
Today is Good Friday, do we see that the truth in communion has come alive? Is our hope in Christ made real? Do we read God’s Word, and believe that it is more that an exciting story, or spiritual entertainment, but truth, reality, and our gateway into eternity with our loving Lord.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, and your Holy Word. Thank you for revealing to us in the first words of the book of John that you are the Word, and the Word is you. Thank you further Lord that you teach us that you are truth, and cannot lie. In these things we come to believe in you, trust completely in you, and in accept all that is written. It becomes our unwavering belief. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who sent your only begotten Son to redeem us from sin, give us eternal life, and to teach us how to worship you in spirit and truth. Merciful are you who loves us so completely, that your grace is poured over us through Jesus, and your Holy Spirit is breathed onto us. Open our eyes to your Word, and on this day, which we call Good Friday, reveal the truth of the New Covenant to us. Let us see how it has been established through the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Wash us clean in His blood Father, and make us worthy through him. Call us your children and give us eternal life with you. Praised be your name now, and forevermore!
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He [Jesus] was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:1-5 ESV
“I [Jesus] have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
John 17:14-23 ESV
Rich Forbes