My heart guys, as we keep delving into this, is not looking like I have this all together. I’ve put this study together in love and trembling, because this year I’ve been looking at my faith like an insurance plan. What exactly does my faith mean and what is included? There’s so much more than what we realise. Just like when we sign up for whatever type of insurance plan, we don’t always check out what cover is included until there’s a disaster; and then we can be disappointed. I can assure you we will always find what we need in our ‘Biblical Insurance Plan’ but to activate it requires faith, and I would rather be building my faith now in every area of my insurance plan than to have to wait until I’m desperately ill, broke or in fear of my life before I activate. I would rather have confidence in God’s Word, because I know it in my heart, from studying it.
The line of a song that my sister wrote is flowing through my head now, “So wake me up if I’m sleeping, don’t let me get away, don’t let me get away, I’m falling in love with You.”
It’s written to Jesus, because sometimes in the business of life we are ‘asleep’ to some of the promises in His Word.
Today I’m studying the chapter in Joseph Prince’s book, ‘Health and Wholeness Through the Holy Communion’, titled Don’t Be Afraid to Partake, which is very relevant, because this has been an issue in pretty well every church I’ve attended, and has stopped many people from partaking. One Sunday I didn’t partake of communion because I’d downloaded a non Christian song onto my computer. Hmm, not sure that’s exactly what God meant, but let’s have a look what He did mean by this verse:
1 Corinthians 11:29-30
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgement to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you and many sleep.
I was taught that unless you have repented of all your sins, you should not partake of communion, and I’m not advocating holding onto your sins here, but unless God is showing you something right then and there, we are doing ourselves a disservice by not partaking.
Joseph Prince talks about how the words unworthy manner here actually refer to way in which the Corinthians were doing it and getting drunk and disorderly, not about the person doing it.
They were taking unworthily because they didn’t realise why they were doing it, and it wasn’t doing anything for them, because they didn’t realise it was for their healing, sometimes we don’t either. We need to claim in faith healing through the Holy Communion. I’ve even written a specific list of health issues I’m claiming healing for.
We should examine ourselves to see if we are claiming what God gave us communion for, our health and thanking him for our forgiveness. Being afraid to take communion because we are too messed up, isn’t that like not having a bath because we are too dirty? The more we focus on our sin, the more it drags us down, the more we focus on our righteousness through Christ, the more sin falls away. Of course, we confess and repent of it, and this is part of healing,
Confess your sins to God and you will be forgiven 1 John 1:9
Confess your sins to one another and you will be healed James 5:16
Has this given us some nuggets to think on?
