The Table of the Lord X
The Bread of Life, Part 2
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, folks! Barring a little more free time before this next week comes to an end this will likely be the last post of this sixth year of publication. I'll be doing another couple articles in this series before taking a break from it to deal with several other topics -- some of a highly controversial nature. We will return to this subject, however, in a few months to deal with more revelation concerning the Table of the Lord.
Have you ever considered the significance of the Syrophenician woman who came to Jesus, and the response that Jesus gave her? (This event is recounted in Matthew 15 and in Mark 7.) Jesus gives us a picture of the Bread of Life like no other. (I originally meant to move on to the power in Jesus' blood today, and maybe we'll get started with it yet, but there are some fascinating pictures in the Word concerning the importance of the Bread that are important for us to consider.)
Take a quick look at the account recorded in Mark's gospel.
"But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet (kalos) to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." (Mark 7:27)
This word in the Greek translated "meet" is the word kalos. We can translate it more effectively as: appropriate, honest, valuable. Thus, "It is not honest to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." Or, we can render it, "It is not appropriate to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."
Hey! Children's bread? What are we talking about?
OK. Let's revisit a couple of Jesus' statements.
"For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John 6:33, 35)
"Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you." (Luke 22:19)
Are we not the children of God? Are we not heirs and joint-heirs of the Kingdom with the Lord Jesus Christ?
Then folks, healing and deliverance are "the children's bread."
Why do you think that Jesus refers to it this way? Think about it for a minute! Jesus is the "Bread of Heaven." He is the "Bread of Life." In Him there is no sickness or disease. In Him there is no weakness or infirmity. In Him there is no death, no dying, no affliction from evil spirits, no addictions, no fears ....... you get the idea!
Jesus said, "Take, eat....." Why? Because His objective is to rid us of the contamination of sin, the contamination of this world, the contamination of Satan and -- most importantly -- the contamination that comes from eating of the wrong diet: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Jesus served Himself at the Last Supper with His disciples, but He wasn't cutting pieces of His flesh off; He was giving the disciples the Living Word. When He said, "This is my body which is given for you," He wanted to ensure that they understood that He was giving them all that He was.
For the sake of some who are confused by seemingly synonymous terms like "The Table of the Lord," or "The Last Supper," or "The Table of Communion," lets clarify this. The Table of the Lord has existed virtually from the very beginning of Creation. Adam and Eve had the Table of the Lord from which to eat while they were in the Garden, and it was exemplified in the Tree of Life.
The "Last Supper" was the last Passover. How do we know this? Because while they were all eating of the unleavened bread (azumos) and the Passover lamb, Matthew (26:26) records the following:
"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread (artos), and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples..." Mark records virtually the same thing (14:22), and in Luke 22:20, Jesus takes "likewise also the cup after supper.."
Jesus was the Passover Lamb! This would literally be the complete fulfillment of the Passover which had been kept (up to this time) for some 1400 or so years. With Jesus being the Passover Lamb -- "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8) -- He finished all that Passover had prophesied when God commanded Moses to institute this as a commemorative and prophetic feast.
Passover -- the original when God delivered Israel from the death angel as he struck down the firstborn of Egypt -- became a feast. It commemorated Israel's deliverance from death and from bondage in Egypt. It also looked forward prophetically to the coming of the Messiah Who would deliver Israel and the entire human race -- that's to say, whosoever will accept Jesus' as the Passover Lamb, His once-and-for-all sacrifice, and His cancellation of the sentence of death.
The Table of the Lord, however, has become what we more often refer to as "Communion" or "The Table of Communion" since it is an intimate time with the Lord Jesus Christ. We eat, we partake, we share agape Love together in this act of Communion. When Jesus spoke to His disciples as He instituted the Table of the Lord and Communion as the replacement for Passover, Luke tells us the following:
"And he said unto them, With desire (epithumia) I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15)
That word, epithumia, translated "desire" in our English translations, denotes great passion, a longing, a thirst in one's being. This word is an intimate word. There was nothing casual about Jesus' Last Supper with the disciples, and -- by the same token -- there is nothing casual or ordinary about our sitting to eat with Him at His Table. He gave Himself totally for us. He held nothing back. All that He was, is, and is to come He has made available to us. Let's see if I can illustrate this another way.
Ever notice how different things are when you sit with someone at a table and eat together? There's a level of fellowship you can't quite put into words. Conversation takes on a different dimension. There's a place of sharing together that really is very personal, very close and intimate -- a level of communication that surpasses the actual words exchanged.
Every single morning, Monday through Saturday, Della and I gather with a small group of folks for prayer and intercession. But we don't limit our getting together to just prayer and intercession. We break bread together and drink of the cup of Communion.
Every Wednesday night following our time of Bible Study, our family of believers here at River Worship Center break bread together and drink of the Cup. Every Sunday following our time of teaching and sharing together, we gather at the Lord's Table to break bread and drink of the cup. There is something that is happening in our midst that defies rational explanation.
There is a level of impartation that takes place, revelation that flows by the Spirit into our spirits. There are times when we visually see angels in our midst. There are times -- actually quite frequently -- when people have visions of the Lord Himself, or the Spirit of God speaks to them things that change their lives.
George, you won't mind if I share what's happened to you, will you?
George Roberts is and has been a Coffee Break reader for most of the past six years. I'll never forget the day he called me on the phone some 5 1/2 years ago in such a state of depression and heaviness as to border on suicide. George and Vivian had just lost their only daughter at age 23. It was a crushing blow. There's a lot to this story that I don't have and won't take liberty to share, but suffice it to say that George needed deliverance from the spirit of the Fear of Death. We ministered that deliverance and continued our sharing and counseling throughout the years over the telephone. George was living in Stillwell, Oklahoma at the time (he's since moved to Tulsa) and Della and I were living in Mission, Texas.
We've yet to meet George and Vivian in person, but there is a bond of love and fellowship that has grown between us -- and Mary Ellen Olnick (who participates with us daily from Red Deer, Alberta) and Warren Bogart who lives next to us and is part of our ongoing fellowship. Depending on Robert's (Storer) work schedule, he and Sandy join us as often as possible for the time of prayer, intercession and eating and drinking at the Table of the Lord.
When George moved to Tulsa, his work schedule changed so that he was able to participate with us in our early morning prayer and intercession. For much of the past year he has been with us on the telephone every morning, but not just praying and interceding. He's also been breaking bread and sitting at the Table of the Lord with us. The change that has taken place in him is nothing short of dramatic! The impartations and revelations are flowing almost daily. And that's true for each of us. There's not a one of us who haven't changed -- and changed so much that you'd scarcely associate us with who we used to be in years gone by.
Life is flowing into us as we eat of the Lord, eat of His Word, and drink of His Spirit. The Cup is not blood, but typifies the life that was in Jesus' blood; and that blood was exchanged for the Spirit when God raised Him from the dead. Thus, we drink of the wine of the Spirit -- both by drinking of the Cup, and also by allowing the Holy Spirit to flow through us in other tongues.
That may seem like a contradiction in terms, and it is paradoxical. We drink of the Cup, but we also drink by virtue of the Holy Spirit using our mouths and our tongues to glorify God and to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. The more we speak in tongues, the more we drink. Strange, I know, but does it ever work!
One last thing and I'll quit for today.
We talk about the Table of the Lord often in a commemorative fashion -- and there is that element to it -- but I've come to the conviction that we've made it more commemorative than life-giving and life-transferring. That, more than anything else, is a byproduct of the phrasing that our KJV and other English versions use in translating Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians (see I Corinthians 11:26).
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come."
That word, "show," comes from the Greek, katangello: to promulgate, to praise, to proclaim publicly, to demonstrate, to teach, to declare.
Katangello is a contraction of two Greek words: kata and angellos. The word, kata, means to lay down, to set forth -- often in the midst of opposition or resistance. Angellos, of course, is the same word for angel, heavenly messenger, one who declares and shows the Word of God.
Perhaps you are seeing the significance of this compound word. In the face of opposition, in the face of resistance, we are demonstrating and showing forth the fact that Jesus Christ kept our appointment with death. He died in our place. We no longer have to die. We no longer have to suffer from the death-process in our bodies; and that means disease, sickness, infirmity, ill health, etc., etc., etc.
The resistance and opposition to this demonstration comes within our own beings as much as it does from without. We've grown up in a society and culture that breeds death, thinks death, is afraid of death and focuses its existence on avoiding it or putting it off as long as possible. The battle is in our own minds -- as much as anywhere! The Table of the Lord is as much for our benefit as it is the world's. We eat and drink at the Table constantly in order to remind ourselves that we eat health, we eat life, we eat eternity; we drink of the life, the authority and the power of the Holy Spirit.
OK, let me put it another way. We are eating of the Word and we are drinking of resurrection life! Understand? Resurrection Life! That same power that raised Christ from the dead.
But we have to do it by faith. Once again, there is nothing common, or ordinary, or casual about this. The Table of the Lord is transformative -- and we are shouting it from the housetops!
One more time: if you aren't already, begin eating of the Lord Jesus Christ daily at His Table. Eat of His Word. Drink from the Cup of Blessing. Drink of Resurrection Life! Receive the life-changing and metamorphosing Bread of Heaven: the rhema!
"Power in the Blood." Almost all of us have sung that old hymn. That's where we'll go next.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD IX
The Table of the Lord IX
The Bread of Life
Comments that I made in the previous Coffee Break obviously were misunderstood and taken to mean something I wasn't saying so let me do some clarifying to being with.
And before I get too far along, Good Morning! Have the most blessed day of your life thus far! (There are even better ones in store.)
The past Coffee Break began with my sharing the fact that I have walked with the Lord for virtually every day of my life, and that I cannot think back to a day or time when I haven't known the Lord. When I stated, "I can say with full assurance and conviction, and yet in deep humility, that I have not walked a sinful life," some folks didn't read the following addition. "That's not to say that I have not committed sin." I went on to say that I have indeed failed the Lord miserably at different times. In fact, I have committed sins. That's not the same as walking or living a sinful life.
The apostle Paul wrote, "For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Yup. Absolutely. Me included. What many folks fail to understand is that they've been erased. Those sins don't exist any longer. When I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me of my shortcomings and failures, He did just that. What's more, He erased them completely from existence by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't find them anywhere.
The fundamental difference between committing sins and walking a sinful life is one's personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If out of 67+ years of walking with the Lord, a sum total of three months of that time (and I'm just picking an arbitrary number) have been engaged in some kind of missing the mark, that's a far cry from "a sinful life." Let's see..... how was it that John put it?
"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him .......... Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (I John 3:6, 9)
What is missing from many of our English translations is the tense that occurs here in the Greek text. It should be translated like this: "Whosoever abides in Him does not willfully and repeatedly sin. Whosoever is born of God does not willfully and habitually commit sin because God's seed remains in him: and he cannot willfully and repeatedly commit sin, because he is born of God."
Do you see the difference? Good. Now you understand the context of my statements. Let's move on.
One more thing that needs clarification is my statement in The Table of the Lord VII concerning what happens when we eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup. There is a doctrine known as "transubstantiation" which teaches that the Bread actually becomes the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Cup actually becomes His blood. That is not what I am saying, nor should it be inferred in any way, shape or form. There is a supernatural thing that occurs when we eat and drink at the Table of the Lord, but the supernatural change and transformation is that which occurs in us -- NOT the Bread or the Cup!
Again, let me clarify: change -- transformation -- in us and of us takes place at the Table of the Lord ONLY when we believe the Word that Jesus spoke, and ONLY when faith is exercised as we eat. Jesus commanded us to eat of His Table (and there is a commemorative aspect to this act) for the same reason that He commanded water baptism: there is an act of submission on our part to Him, to His Word, and to the cleansing, redeeming and restorative nature and character He seeks to accomplish in us.
Now, was that clearer?
OK! Let's talk about the Bread of Life.
Seems like I've mentioned this before, but let's go there anyway. Take a look at Matthew 26. Jesus and His disciples have gathered for the Passover -- the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They all eat and drink together of the Passover supper, after which Jesus takes whole bread (Greek: artos: raised or whole bread) instead of the unleavened bread (Greek: azumos: flat bread -- no leaven added) of which they've just been eating, and says, "Take, eat; this is my body (Greek: soma < sozo: whole, sound, healthy, complete body)." Luke adds the phrase (see Luke 22), "which is given for you."
And what was Jesus giving? He was instructing them to eat of all that He is -- wholeness, soundness, perfect health, completeness in every sense of the Word. Consider what Jesus said when He was preaching to the multitudes (see Matthew 6:25, 30-33).
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
You're seeing it, I'm sure. This is what Jesus was distributing at the Table: Himself: "All these things."
The apostle Paul put it like this: "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)
Let's get to some basics concerning what Jesus said (and is still saying today). "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John 6:32-33, 35)
Question! Why would Jesus make such a point of "life" in His teaching? It's simple really. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they brought death upon the human race. Because man was never designed to die in the first place, the imposition of death in our genetic structure created an opening for the spirit we know as "the Fear of Death."
In his general epistle to the Hebrews, Paul says, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:13-14)
It may seem like I'm getting off-track here, but there is a point to this. Jesus gave us Himself at the Table. Because death is so ingrained into human thought processes and into the expectations of nearly every person, it is necessary that we receive deliverance from a "death mindset." I'll come back to this momentarily.
Returning to Jesus' discourse with the disciples in John 6, He continues: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Sounds a whole lot like our discussion on death cancellation, doesn't it? And Jesus made statements like this often in His teaching and sharing. Watch what He says next! (John 6:53-58)
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
Wow! How do you like that doctrine? If you struggle with it, you're not alone. This was intolerable when viewed through the words (not the Spirit) of the Levitical Law.
"Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
The next thing we see among Jesus' disciples is the same thing we see among religious people today. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."
Why is that? It's because they heard what He said through carnal, death-oriented thinking -- the same thinking molded and shaped by the Serpent in the Garden when he deceived Eve.
Remember how John began his gospel? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. ....... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-3, 14)
Let's see if I can rephrase this so that it becomes clearer.
"In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things were made by The Word; and without The Word was not anything made that was made. In The Word was life; and the life was the light of men."
To this we add Paul's revelation in Hebrews 1:2-3: "[God] hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son [The Word], whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He [The Word] made the worlds; Who [The Word] being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by The Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
That's the same Word that was made flesh. That's the same Word that was Jesus! That's the same Word that Jesus invited us to eat of at His Table. That's the Bread of Life. That's the Bread of Heaven.
This is that whole bread -- artos -- that Jesus gave us at His Last Supper. Jesus finished Passover. He brought to us the leaven of the Kingdom of God. (See Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20-21) He was the "Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world." (See Revelation 13:8)
Jesus came to do more than simply cancel our appointment with death and remove the curse of death hanging over the human race. He came to bring life, health, wholeness, deliverance, salvation, safety, prosperity, success, ruling and reigning in life -- and one of the primary ways He has made it available to those who will receive it by faith is by our eating of Him. We see Him demonstrating this in two separate miracles, and I'll come to those momentarily.
I just referenced this Scripture, but take a look at Matthew 13 where Jesus is speaking of the multiplication that takes place with leaven. "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."
This parable should have been clear to all -- especially in the light of Jesus' previous parable where He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."
His parable of the leaven was intended to demonstrate the multiplication that takes place when we eat of Him. There is multiplication in every aspect of the Kingdom of God -- and that takes place when we eat at the Table of the Lord.
Remember Jesus statement to the disciples as they sat at the Last Supper? "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you." Jesus wanted His disciples -- and all of us who eat of Him -- to understand that He was multiplying all that He was to all who would partake. This is fundamental to the whole principle of the Table of the Lord.
Jesus had already demonstrated this multiplication twice. In Matthew 15:29-39 Jesus is ministering continually for three days to the lame, the blind, the dumb, the maimed -- not to mention a host of other diseases and infirmities -- healing them all. There were some four thousand men, not counting women and children. We can readily estimate a crowd conservatively at 15,000 - 20,000.
Healing and restoring virtue is flowing out of His being, and He is suffering no depletion as a result. Seeing that the multitudes were beginning to faint for lack of food, Jesus asks His disciples how much food they have on hand. They tell him that they have seven loaves of whole bread and a few small fishes. He instructs the disciples to seat the multitude in an orderly fashion and proceeds to break apart the bread and the fishes.
There's an interesting word that occurs in the Greek text of verse 38 describing how the people ate. The word is chortazo, which literally means: to gorge oneself, to satiate to the full. Folks, these people who ate from the broken bread and fish weren't just hungry; they were famished, and they gorged themselves on the food to the point where they had no more room to eat another bite. THAT's the kind of multiplication Jesus was demonstrating.
The event repeats itself not long thereafter just prior to Passover when Jesus is ministering to a crowd of 5,000 men -- not counting women and children -- a crowd easily numbering 25,000 - 30,000. This time the only food available is five loaves of barley bread and two small fishes belonging to a young boy in the crowd, who gladly offers it to Jesus. Again Jesus breaks the bread and divides the fishes, and the disciples distribute to the people. John 6:11 tells us that the people took as much food to eat as they wanted -- without reservation or concern for there being enough food. Matthew (14:20) tells us once again that the people gorged themselves -- like young calves going after fodder -- until they were totally satisfied.
That's precisely what Jesus wants to give us at His Table: utter, complete and total satisfaction. This kind of satisfaction (the kind that nourishes completely) doesn't come by any other means than by eating of the Lord Jesus Christ -- the Word made flesh, the Word made digestible, ready for assimilation into our beings, spirit, soul and body.
This kind of satisfaction is the kind that lasts and lasts and lasts -- through eternity! There's no such thing as too much of Jesus in us. By the same token, He can never run out of distributing Himself, His character, His likeness and image into our beings. The more we eat of Him, the more change takes place. The more we eat of Him, the more we are transformed into the very essence of who He is!
If you aren't already, begin eating of the Lord Jesus Christ daily at His Table. Eat of His Word. Receive the life-changing and metamorphosing rhema!
Next: Power in the Blood.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
The Bread of Life
Comments that I made in the previous Coffee Break obviously were misunderstood and taken to mean something I wasn't saying so let me do some clarifying to being with.
And before I get too far along, Good Morning! Have the most blessed day of your life thus far! (There are even better ones in store.)
The past Coffee Break began with my sharing the fact that I have walked with the Lord for virtually every day of my life, and that I cannot think back to a day or time when I haven't known the Lord. When I stated, "I can say with full assurance and conviction, and yet in deep humility, that I have not walked a sinful life," some folks didn't read the following addition. "That's not to say that I have not committed sin." I went on to say that I have indeed failed the Lord miserably at different times. In fact, I have committed sins. That's not the same as walking or living a sinful life.
The apostle Paul wrote, "For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Yup. Absolutely. Me included. What many folks fail to understand is that they've been erased. Those sins don't exist any longer. When I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me of my shortcomings and failures, He did just that. What's more, He erased them completely from existence by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't find them anywhere.
The fundamental difference between committing sins and walking a sinful life is one's personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If out of 67+ years of walking with the Lord, a sum total of three months of that time (and I'm just picking an arbitrary number) have been engaged in some kind of missing the mark, that's a far cry from "a sinful life." Let's see..... how was it that John put it?
"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him .......... Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (I John 3:6, 9)
What is missing from many of our English translations is the tense that occurs here in the Greek text. It should be translated like this: "Whosoever abides in Him does not willfully and repeatedly sin. Whosoever is born of God does not willfully and habitually commit sin because God's seed remains in him: and he cannot willfully and repeatedly commit sin, because he is born of God."
Do you see the difference? Good. Now you understand the context of my statements. Let's move on.
One more thing that needs clarification is my statement in The Table of the Lord VII concerning what happens when we eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup. There is a doctrine known as "transubstantiation" which teaches that the Bread actually becomes the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Cup actually becomes His blood. That is not what I am saying, nor should it be inferred in any way, shape or form. There is a supernatural thing that occurs when we eat and drink at the Table of the Lord, but the supernatural change and transformation is that which occurs in us -- NOT the Bread or the Cup!
Again, let me clarify: change -- transformation -- in us and of us takes place at the Table of the Lord ONLY when we believe the Word that Jesus spoke, and ONLY when faith is exercised as we eat. Jesus commanded us to eat of His Table (and there is a commemorative aspect to this act) for the same reason that He commanded water baptism: there is an act of submission on our part to Him, to His Word, and to the cleansing, redeeming and restorative nature and character He seeks to accomplish in us.
Now, was that clearer?
OK! Let's talk about the Bread of Life.
Seems like I've mentioned this before, but let's go there anyway. Take a look at Matthew 26. Jesus and His disciples have gathered for the Passover -- the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They all eat and drink together of the Passover supper, after which Jesus takes whole bread (Greek: artos: raised or whole bread) instead of the unleavened bread (Greek: azumos: flat bread -- no leaven added) of which they've just been eating, and says, "Take, eat; this is my body (Greek: soma < sozo: whole, sound, healthy, complete body)." Luke adds the phrase (see Luke 22), "which is given for you."
And what was Jesus giving? He was instructing them to eat of all that He is -- wholeness, soundness, perfect health, completeness in every sense of the Word. Consider what Jesus said when He was preaching to the multitudes (see Matthew 6:25, 30-33).
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
You're seeing it, I'm sure. This is what Jesus was distributing at the Table: Himself: "All these things."
The apostle Paul put it like this: "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)
Let's get to some basics concerning what Jesus said (and is still saying today). "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John 6:32-33, 35)
Question! Why would Jesus make such a point of "life" in His teaching? It's simple really. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they brought death upon the human race. Because man was never designed to die in the first place, the imposition of death in our genetic structure created an opening for the spirit we know as "the Fear of Death."
In his general epistle to the Hebrews, Paul says, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:13-14)
It may seem like I'm getting off-track here, but there is a point to this. Jesus gave us Himself at the Table. Because death is so ingrained into human thought processes and into the expectations of nearly every person, it is necessary that we receive deliverance from a "death mindset." I'll come back to this momentarily.
Returning to Jesus' discourse with the disciples in John 6, He continues: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Sounds a whole lot like our discussion on death cancellation, doesn't it? And Jesus made statements like this often in His teaching and sharing. Watch what He says next! (John 6:53-58)
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
Wow! How do you like that doctrine? If you struggle with it, you're not alone. This was intolerable when viewed through the words (not the Spirit) of the Levitical Law.
"Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
The next thing we see among Jesus' disciples is the same thing we see among religious people today. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."
Why is that? It's because they heard what He said through carnal, death-oriented thinking -- the same thinking molded and shaped by the Serpent in the Garden when he deceived Eve.
Remember how John began his gospel? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. ....... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-3, 14)
Let's see if I can rephrase this so that it becomes clearer.
"In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things were made by The Word; and without The Word was not anything made that was made. In The Word was life; and the life was the light of men."
To this we add Paul's revelation in Hebrews 1:2-3: "[God] hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son [The Word], whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He [The Word] made the worlds; Who [The Word] being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by The Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
That's the same Word that was made flesh. That's the same Word that was Jesus! That's the same Word that Jesus invited us to eat of at His Table. That's the Bread of Life. That's the Bread of Heaven.
This is that whole bread -- artos -- that Jesus gave us at His Last Supper. Jesus finished Passover. He brought to us the leaven of the Kingdom of God. (See Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20-21) He was the "Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world." (See Revelation 13:8)
Jesus came to do more than simply cancel our appointment with death and remove the curse of death hanging over the human race. He came to bring life, health, wholeness, deliverance, salvation, safety, prosperity, success, ruling and reigning in life -- and one of the primary ways He has made it available to those who will receive it by faith is by our eating of Him. We see Him demonstrating this in two separate miracles, and I'll come to those momentarily.
I just referenced this Scripture, but take a look at Matthew 13 where Jesus is speaking of the multiplication that takes place with leaven. "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."
This parable should have been clear to all -- especially in the light of Jesus' previous parable where He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."
His parable of the leaven was intended to demonstrate the multiplication that takes place when we eat of Him. There is multiplication in every aspect of the Kingdom of God -- and that takes place when we eat at the Table of the Lord.
Remember Jesus statement to the disciples as they sat at the Last Supper? "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you." Jesus wanted His disciples -- and all of us who eat of Him -- to understand that He was multiplying all that He was to all who would partake. This is fundamental to the whole principle of the Table of the Lord.
Jesus had already demonstrated this multiplication twice. In Matthew 15:29-39 Jesus is ministering continually for three days to the lame, the blind, the dumb, the maimed -- not to mention a host of other diseases and infirmities -- healing them all. There were some four thousand men, not counting women and children. We can readily estimate a crowd conservatively at 15,000 - 20,000.
Healing and restoring virtue is flowing out of His being, and He is suffering no depletion as a result. Seeing that the multitudes were beginning to faint for lack of food, Jesus asks His disciples how much food they have on hand. They tell him that they have seven loaves of whole bread and a few small fishes. He instructs the disciples to seat the multitude in an orderly fashion and proceeds to break apart the bread and the fishes.
There's an interesting word that occurs in the Greek text of verse 38 describing how the people ate. The word is chortazo, which literally means: to gorge oneself, to satiate to the full. Folks, these people who ate from the broken bread and fish weren't just hungry; they were famished, and they gorged themselves on the food to the point where they had no more room to eat another bite. THAT's the kind of multiplication Jesus was demonstrating.
The event repeats itself not long thereafter just prior to Passover when Jesus is ministering to a crowd of 5,000 men -- not counting women and children -- a crowd easily numbering 25,000 - 30,000. This time the only food available is five loaves of barley bread and two small fishes belonging to a young boy in the crowd, who gladly offers it to Jesus. Again Jesus breaks the bread and divides the fishes, and the disciples distribute to the people. John 6:11 tells us that the people took as much food to eat as they wanted -- without reservation or concern for there being enough food. Matthew (14:20) tells us once again that the people gorged themselves -- like young calves going after fodder -- until they were totally satisfied.
That's precisely what Jesus wants to give us at His Table: utter, complete and total satisfaction. This kind of satisfaction (the kind that nourishes completely) doesn't come by any other means than by eating of the Lord Jesus Christ -- the Word made flesh, the Word made digestible, ready for assimilation into our beings, spirit, soul and body.
This kind of satisfaction is the kind that lasts and lasts and lasts -- through eternity! There's no such thing as too much of Jesus in us. By the same token, He can never run out of distributing Himself, His character, His likeness and image into our beings. The more we eat of Him, the more change takes place. The more we eat of Him, the more we are transformed into the very essence of who He is!
If you aren't already, begin eating of the Lord Jesus Christ daily at His Table. Eat of His Word. Receive the life-changing and metamorphosing rhema!
Next: Power in the Blood.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD VIII
Table of the Lord VIII
Eating and Drinking "Unworthily" -- Part 2
Blessings, Revelation and Impartations to you! (Now there's a different greeting for you -- but this one has special meaning.)
Reflecting over this past year and all the years of my life prior (nearly 68 in all), 2009 has easily been the most revelatory of any recent years -- and perhaps of my entire life. I cannot think back to a day in my life when I have not known the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not always true that folks who grow up in Christian homes avoid knowing the depths of sin, but I thank God for the way in which He has led me and kept me from my birth. I can say with full assurance and conviction, and yet in deep humility, that I have not walked a sinful life. That's not to say that I have not committed sin -- there have been times when I failed the Lord miserably, yet He has quickly and readily forgiven me -- but my life has been one filled with the constant presence and awareness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have memories that go back to age two, standing in my crib and seeing angel wings overhead. Then there were all those experiences from age four to age seven of waking up in the middle of the night or early morning hours to see angels in my room, capped off with waking up one morning at age seven to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. At age nine, He took me to Heaven for what to me was a span of three days (although there was never any nighttime there) for a series of experiences and revelations that are still unfolding for me more than 58 years later.
In the years since, there have been numerous experiences with the Lord, the audible voice of God speaking to me, travels in the Spirit, angelic manifestations and one three-month continuous daily experience with the Lord in which He took me back into the past to witness His development of and foundations for the Bride of Christ, and then to the Cross to witness the crucifixion, and then into the future to see the literal Kingdom of God on earth (during the thousand-year reign); and finally past the thousand years to see the release of Satan from the pit and the final war between Satan and the people of God. Friends have urged me to write about these experiences and share them -- and perhaps that day will come -- but because revelation continues to unfold, I am reluctant to share prematurely.
Meeting folks like Steven L. Shelley, Paul Keith Davis, Bob Jones and Neville Johnson during the past few years has been a real source of encouragement since they share experiences in God similar to those I've had. Steven's recent Day of Atonement visitation brought revelation that is both breathtaking and sobering for believers in Christ, and his willingness to share has been a blessing for Della and me -- and our fellowship as well. (We played a CD of his sharing of this visitation for our fellowship from a meeting where he spoke in Richland, Washington a couple of weeks ago.)
Anyway, I've said all that to say this. Since Della and I began 13 or 14 months ago meeting every morning, Monday thru Saturday, with friends and brethren for prayer and intercession and partaking of the Table of the Lord, the amount of revelation coming from and through the Holy Spirit has been nothing less than astounding. A Messianic Rabbi once said that there are not less than seven layers of revelation and truth hidden in every Scripture; and I believe it! The past months have been a continuous peeling back of layer after layer of truths I'd never seen before despite having been through the Word from cover to cover more times than I can count.
As I shared on my Facebook page, I used to think I knew a few things in God. The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I realize just how little I do know! There is so much that awaits the believer who will contend for the continual presence of the Lord in their life!! As Steven, Paul Keith, Bob and Neville will undoubtedly attest, the experiences we've had in God are not about us; they are for this last generation. I get excited every so often when these things take place, but realize at the same time that it's not because I'm something so special. The apostle Paul recognized the same thing and he describes it like this in his second letter to the Corinthians.
The apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."
That's it exactly! These experiences are not given so that we receive praise from folks but rather that the excellency of the power may be recognized as of God.
All that is to say that much of what I've been sharing in this series on the Table of the Lord is a part of the peeling away of layers of truth and revelation contained in this command from the Lord. The Table of the Lord is not just a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is an experience -- a daily experience for those who will see it -- of impartation, intimate communion and the growing sense of the tangible presence of the Lord.
I was sharing something in our Sunday fellowship this past Sunday relative to eating and drinking at the Table of the Lord "unworthily" and thought I'd add to our last discussion on this.
Let’s begin by taking a look at a couple of verses that we never think of in connection with the Table of the Lord. The first one comes from the apostle John as he writes concerning the Revelation:
Revelation 12:10-11: And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
The next verse is in Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews:
Hebrews 1:1-3: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
These verses may seem to be totally unrelated to this topic but bear with me. The Table of the Lord, as we well know, consists of two things: The Bread (The Word), and The Cup (The Blood).
In previous discussions we’ve already noted the fact that when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples, his comment to them was that a “spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” He didn’t say to them, “a spirit hath not flesh and blood, as ye see me have,” and the reason was that Jesus had already spilled His blood as part of the act of redemption.
Blood was replaced in Him as the source of life and power by the Spirit.
Consider again the fact that when God breathed first life into Adam, he became (according to the Hebrew context) “a living, speaking spirit.” When Eve was taken from Adam’s side, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” (See Genesis 2:23)
It is my growing conviction (and I can't prove it yet) that Adam and Eve lived and breathed by the Spirit when they were first created, and that the Spirit was replaced with blood when sin came. Whether that is true or not is debatable, but it is certain that from the moment Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, blood contaminated with death was flowing in his veins. Consider now the statement John makes when he says,
“And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”
We sit at the Table of the Lord. Each time we eat the Bread and drink the Cup, we take into ourselves the Word. That Word is made alive, energized, put into force and sustained by the same Life Force that raised Jesus from the dead.
The Greek word that Paul uses in Hebrews 1:3 where he writes “upholding all things by the Word of His Power” is phero. This word parallels the Greek energko — the two words having the same root. The word phero means: to carry, to sustain, to bear up, to bring forward, to activate, to move from one place to another, to apply, to endure [in the sense of lasting and lasting and lasting]. Phero also means: to bring forward in or by speaking, to activate by the speaking of a thing. (You probably already are seeing another application, but we’ll come back to this word a bit later.)
Its companion word, energko, means: to energize (we get our English word “energize” from this word), to put into force, to activate, to bring to life.
Again we return to the apostle Paul’s phrasing in Hebrews 1:3: “upholding all things by the Word of His Power.” Notice that he doesn’t say, “upholding all things by the power of His Word.” We know that the Word of the Lord has power, but that’s not the right emphasis.
This is the same power — the same energizing force — that existed at Creation. This is the power that was behind and energized the words, “Light BE!” Light WAS because there was an activating power and force that caused those words to have creative manifestation.
That activating and energizing force was faith. Faith is that creative force. Faith existed as substance before the first words of Creation were spoken.
Thus Paul writes (see Hebrews 11:3): Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Faith — in and of itself — is invisible to the natural eye. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have substance. It does. It is! Faith is a spiritual force, a creative and substantive energizer which brings into this natural realm the reality of that which is spoken.
That’s why Jesus said to the disciples, “Have God’s faith!” (Mark 11:22) Again we go back to Scriptures we used in a previous illustration.
Romans 10:17: So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
The Greek text actually spells it out more clearly. “So faith is (and comes into being) by audible report; but the report is the rhema [the spoken and audibly delivered Word] of [and from] God.”
Are you now seeing the distinction?
Faith IS substance in the same way that the worlds came into being. God spoke. With His spoken Word came the creative substance which caused the earth (and all the planets, stars, galaxies, etc.) to suddenly appear. Behind God’s Word was the power, the energizing force, the activating substance that gave life and impetus to that Word. THAT, folks is what we partake of each time we eat and drink at the Table of the Lord!
We are not eating of the logos — the all-encompassing body of all that God said. We are eating of the rhema — the direct, empowered, activated and placed into force Word by Jesus command! We are eating of His body. We are eating of the very faith substance of the Lord Himself.
The Word is becoming OUR flesh because there is sustaining power and force to make it so! The life force that makes it so is in the Cup. Each time we drink, we bring to remembrance the fact that Jesus shed blood that was filled with death, disease, sickness, weakness and poverty. What we drink of, however, is the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus. (See Romans 8:2)
There is no death in the Cup. There is no disease or sickness in the Cup. There is no poverty in the Cup. There is no weakness or infirmity of any kind in the Cup.
The Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus literally embodies that energizing force which “upholds all things.” THIS is the power — the dunamis (explosive power and force) — that sustains, that makes effective, that puts force to the Word. We are eating of the Word Himself. We are drinking of the power that makes the Word come alive in us. We are being changed from Glory to Glory.
Transformation is taking place. Change is occurring in our spirits. We are metamorphosing into eternity-based beings. We are being restored to the very image in which God first made Adam.
Now we have the ability to overcome Satan “by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the Word of our Testimony.”
THIS IS THE TABLE OF THE LORD!
Here's the issue that gets so many folks in trouble, and the reason why they don't seem to gain any victory in their lives over sickness, infirmity, weakness, disease, poverty or the attacks of Satan.
We've already looked at these verses before, but here they are once again.
"Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:27-30)
Now let me amplify these verses from the Greek text.
"Therefore, whoever eats of this bread and drinks of this cup of the Lord, treating them as commonplace, ordinary and incapable or unfit, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man place himself for examination in the crucible by eating of that bread and drinking of that cup, because he that eats and drinks treating the bread and the cup as commonplace, incapable and unfit to accomplish in him [that for which Christ died on the Cross] eats and drinks judgment to himself, not separating or discriminating between that which is ordinary and the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak, sickly, infirm, diseased and poverty-stricken, and many die prematurely."
You see it, don't you? OK, back up for a minute.
The Bread is the Word. Jesus made it clear that He was the Word, and that we are to eat of Him. Paul makes abundantly clear that all things are upheld, energized, made effective and sustained by the Word (rhema) of His [Jesus'] Power. And what is His Power?
Jesus put it like this to the disciples: "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father (the Holy Spirit: see John 14:16-17) upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."
The Holy Spirit is that power. It is the force which makes the Word alive and effective. It is the energizer of the Word. It is the explosive power of God which causes the Word to blow sin, sickness and disease apart. God's purpose is for that Word to become as much our flesh as it did in Jesus.
When we treat the Table of the Lord as ordinary, as just crackers and juice, as simply bread and wine and fail to recognize what the Word seeks to do in us, we not only do NOT receive the benefits that Jesus made available with His death and resurrection, we effectively crucify Him all over again. And folks wonder why even though they quote Scriptures and talk "faith talk" they fail to see the results. Their "faith talk" is just words. There is no faith at work. There is no discernment of what Jesus really did for them, nor is there any understanding of what and why Jesus was so clear on the importance of eating and drinking of Him.
You can have the right confession from now until Jesus comes, but if you don't believe what you say -- and you know in your heart whether you do or not -- it is impossible for faith to be energized and activated substantively. It requires faith to believe that change takes place, and that Jesus IS accomplishing change in you by means of eating at the Table of the Lord. Without that faith, you're simply treating the bread and the wine as unfit and incapable of change -- just ordinary .... another religious routine.
Chew on that for awhile, my friends. (pun intended) Meditate on this. Let the Word do its work in you.
See you again, soon.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Eating and Drinking "Unworthily" -- Part 2
Blessings, Revelation and Impartations to you! (Now there's a different greeting for you -- but this one has special meaning.)
Reflecting over this past year and all the years of my life prior (nearly 68 in all), 2009 has easily been the most revelatory of any recent years -- and perhaps of my entire life. I cannot think back to a day in my life when I have not known the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not always true that folks who grow up in Christian homes avoid knowing the depths of sin, but I thank God for the way in which He has led me and kept me from my birth. I can say with full assurance and conviction, and yet in deep humility, that I have not walked a sinful life. That's not to say that I have not committed sin -- there have been times when I failed the Lord miserably, yet He has quickly and readily forgiven me -- but my life has been one filled with the constant presence and awareness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have memories that go back to age two, standing in my crib and seeing angel wings overhead. Then there were all those experiences from age four to age seven of waking up in the middle of the night or early morning hours to see angels in my room, capped off with waking up one morning at age seven to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. At age nine, He took me to Heaven for what to me was a span of three days (although there was never any nighttime there) for a series of experiences and revelations that are still unfolding for me more than 58 years later.
In the years since, there have been numerous experiences with the Lord, the audible voice of God speaking to me, travels in the Spirit, angelic manifestations and one three-month continuous daily experience with the Lord in which He took me back into the past to witness His development of and foundations for the Bride of Christ, and then to the Cross to witness the crucifixion, and then into the future to see the literal Kingdom of God on earth (during the thousand-year reign); and finally past the thousand years to see the release of Satan from the pit and the final war between Satan and the people of God. Friends have urged me to write about these experiences and share them -- and perhaps that day will come -- but because revelation continues to unfold, I am reluctant to share prematurely.
Meeting folks like Steven L. Shelley, Paul Keith Davis, Bob Jones and Neville Johnson during the past few years has been a real source of encouragement since they share experiences in God similar to those I've had. Steven's recent Day of Atonement visitation brought revelation that is both breathtaking and sobering for believers in Christ, and his willingness to share has been a blessing for Della and me -- and our fellowship as well. (We played a CD of his sharing of this visitation for our fellowship from a meeting where he spoke in Richland, Washington a couple of weeks ago.)
Anyway, I've said all that to say this. Since Della and I began 13 or 14 months ago meeting every morning, Monday thru Saturday, with friends and brethren for prayer and intercession and partaking of the Table of the Lord, the amount of revelation coming from and through the Holy Spirit has been nothing less than astounding. A Messianic Rabbi once said that there are not less than seven layers of revelation and truth hidden in every Scripture; and I believe it! The past months have been a continuous peeling back of layer after layer of truths I'd never seen before despite having been through the Word from cover to cover more times than I can count.
As I shared on my Facebook page, I used to think I knew a few things in God. The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I realize just how little I do know! There is so much that awaits the believer who will contend for the continual presence of the Lord in their life!! As Steven, Paul Keith, Bob and Neville will undoubtedly attest, the experiences we've had in God are not about us; they are for this last generation. I get excited every so often when these things take place, but realize at the same time that it's not because I'm something so special. The apostle Paul recognized the same thing and he describes it like this in his second letter to the Corinthians.
The apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."
That's it exactly! These experiences are not given so that we receive praise from folks but rather that the excellency of the power may be recognized as of God.
All that is to say that much of what I've been sharing in this series on the Table of the Lord is a part of the peeling away of layers of truth and revelation contained in this command from the Lord. The Table of the Lord is not just a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is an experience -- a daily experience for those who will see it -- of impartation, intimate communion and the growing sense of the tangible presence of the Lord.
I was sharing something in our Sunday fellowship this past Sunday relative to eating and drinking at the Table of the Lord "unworthily" and thought I'd add to our last discussion on this.
Let’s begin by taking a look at a couple of verses that we never think of in connection with the Table of the Lord. The first one comes from the apostle John as he writes concerning the Revelation:
Revelation 12:10-11: And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
The next verse is in Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews:
Hebrews 1:1-3: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
These verses may seem to be totally unrelated to this topic but bear with me. The Table of the Lord, as we well know, consists of two things: The Bread (The Word), and The Cup (The Blood).
In previous discussions we’ve already noted the fact that when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples, his comment to them was that a “spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” He didn’t say to them, “a spirit hath not flesh and blood, as ye see me have,” and the reason was that Jesus had already spilled His blood as part of the act of redemption.
Blood was replaced in Him as the source of life and power by the Spirit.
Consider again the fact that when God breathed first life into Adam, he became (according to the Hebrew context) “a living, speaking spirit.” When Eve was taken from Adam’s side, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” (See Genesis 2:23)
It is my growing conviction (and I can't prove it yet) that Adam and Eve lived and breathed by the Spirit when they were first created, and that the Spirit was replaced with blood when sin came. Whether that is true or not is debatable, but it is certain that from the moment Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, blood contaminated with death was flowing in his veins. Consider now the statement John makes when he says,
“And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”
We sit at the Table of the Lord. Each time we eat the Bread and drink the Cup, we take into ourselves the Word. That Word is made alive, energized, put into force and sustained by the same Life Force that raised Jesus from the dead.
The Greek word that Paul uses in Hebrews 1:3 where he writes “upholding all things by the Word of His Power” is phero. This word parallels the Greek energko — the two words having the same root. The word phero means: to carry, to sustain, to bear up, to bring forward, to activate, to move from one place to another, to apply, to endure [in the sense of lasting and lasting and lasting]. Phero also means: to bring forward in or by speaking, to activate by the speaking of a thing. (You probably already are seeing another application, but we’ll come back to this word a bit later.)
Its companion word, energko, means: to energize (we get our English word “energize” from this word), to put into force, to activate, to bring to life.
Again we return to the apostle Paul’s phrasing in Hebrews 1:3: “upholding all things by the Word of His Power.” Notice that he doesn’t say, “upholding all things by the power of His Word.” We know that the Word of the Lord has power, but that’s not the right emphasis.
This is the same power — the same energizing force — that existed at Creation. This is the power that was behind and energized the words, “Light BE!” Light WAS because there was an activating power and force that caused those words to have creative manifestation.
That activating and energizing force was faith. Faith is that creative force. Faith existed as substance before the first words of Creation were spoken.
Thus Paul writes (see Hebrews 11:3): Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Faith — in and of itself — is invisible to the natural eye. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have substance. It does. It is! Faith is a spiritual force, a creative and substantive energizer which brings into this natural realm the reality of that which is spoken.
That’s why Jesus said to the disciples, “Have God’s faith!” (Mark 11:22) Again we go back to Scriptures we used in a previous illustration.
Romans 10:17: So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
The Greek text actually spells it out more clearly. “So faith is (and comes into being) by audible report; but the report is the rhema [the spoken and audibly delivered Word] of [and from] God.”
Are you now seeing the distinction?
Faith IS substance in the same way that the worlds came into being. God spoke. With His spoken Word came the creative substance which caused the earth (and all the planets, stars, galaxies, etc.) to suddenly appear. Behind God’s Word was the power, the energizing force, the activating substance that gave life and impetus to that Word. THAT, folks is what we partake of each time we eat and drink at the Table of the Lord!
We are not eating of the logos — the all-encompassing body of all that God said. We are eating of the rhema — the direct, empowered, activated and placed into force Word by Jesus command! We are eating of His body. We are eating of the very faith substance of the Lord Himself.
The Word is becoming OUR flesh because there is sustaining power and force to make it so! The life force that makes it so is in the Cup. Each time we drink, we bring to remembrance the fact that Jesus shed blood that was filled with death, disease, sickness, weakness and poverty. What we drink of, however, is the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus. (See Romans 8:2)
There is no death in the Cup. There is no disease or sickness in the Cup. There is no poverty in the Cup. There is no weakness or infirmity of any kind in the Cup.
The Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus literally embodies that energizing force which “upholds all things.” THIS is the power — the dunamis (explosive power and force) — that sustains, that makes effective, that puts force to the Word. We are eating of the Word Himself. We are drinking of the power that makes the Word come alive in us. We are being changed from Glory to Glory.
Transformation is taking place. Change is occurring in our spirits. We are metamorphosing into eternity-based beings. We are being restored to the very image in which God first made Adam.
Now we have the ability to overcome Satan “by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the Word of our Testimony.”
THIS IS THE TABLE OF THE LORD!
Here's the issue that gets so many folks in trouble, and the reason why they don't seem to gain any victory in their lives over sickness, infirmity, weakness, disease, poverty or the attacks of Satan.
We've already looked at these verses before, but here they are once again.
"Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:27-30)
Now let me amplify these verses from the Greek text.
"Therefore, whoever eats of this bread and drinks of this cup of the Lord, treating them as commonplace, ordinary and incapable or unfit, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man place himself for examination in the crucible by eating of that bread and drinking of that cup, because he that eats and drinks treating the bread and the cup as commonplace, incapable and unfit to accomplish in him [that for which Christ died on the Cross] eats and drinks judgment to himself, not separating or discriminating between that which is ordinary and the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak, sickly, infirm, diseased and poverty-stricken, and many die prematurely."
You see it, don't you? OK, back up for a minute.
The Bread is the Word. Jesus made it clear that He was the Word, and that we are to eat of Him. Paul makes abundantly clear that all things are upheld, energized, made effective and sustained by the Word (rhema) of His [Jesus'] Power. And what is His Power?
Jesus put it like this to the disciples: "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father (the Holy Spirit: see John 14:16-17) upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."
The Holy Spirit is that power. It is the force which makes the Word alive and effective. It is the energizer of the Word. It is the explosive power of God which causes the Word to blow sin, sickness and disease apart. God's purpose is for that Word to become as much our flesh as it did in Jesus.
When we treat the Table of the Lord as ordinary, as just crackers and juice, as simply bread and wine and fail to recognize what the Word seeks to do in us, we not only do NOT receive the benefits that Jesus made available with His death and resurrection, we effectively crucify Him all over again. And folks wonder why even though they quote Scriptures and talk "faith talk" they fail to see the results. Their "faith talk" is just words. There is no faith at work. There is no discernment of what Jesus really did for them, nor is there any understanding of what and why Jesus was so clear on the importance of eating and drinking of Him.
You can have the right confession from now until Jesus comes, but if you don't believe what you say -- and you know in your heart whether you do or not -- it is impossible for faith to be energized and activated substantively. It requires faith to believe that change takes place, and that Jesus IS accomplishing change in you by means of eating at the Table of the Lord. Without that faith, you're simply treating the bread and the wine as unfit and incapable of change -- just ordinary .... another religious routine.
Chew on that for awhile, my friends. (pun intended) Meditate on this. Let the Word do its work in you.
See you again, soon.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD VII
TABLE OF THE LORD VII
Eating and Drinking "Unworthily"
Hiya, Folks! This is the best day of your life! Sure it is. Yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow isn’t here yet. Fact is, if you were any better, you’d be dangerous! Hohohohoho…….
Now wouldn’t you rather start Monday like that instead of some old cranky, wheezy, whiny, “I jus’ don’t know if I oughta get outta bed t’day or not! My bones are jus’ so tarred! Reckon, I gots to, though. Won’t get nuthin done in bed…..groan….”
See. Get your spirits livened up. Get your mind alert. Grab a good cup of that dark roasted Columbian or some French Roast, or somethin’ like that! Wake up, sleepy!
We recently learned of something that happened with some longtime very close friends of ours, Clif and Kristi Shannon, who live in Anchorage. We've known them for nearly 25 years, and in fact Kristi was my secretary when I was in international banking. She also worked with Della at Zales Jewelers when we first met them. Anyway, Clif has had diabetes for many years, and this past year suffered with kidney failure and required daily dialysis treatments. He has been on a transplant list for a new kidney.
I'm not sure what prompted it but Kristi decided to see if she could be a donor for Clif. Turns out she was a perfect match. Seven or eight weeks ago, the transplant operation was conducted in Seattle. Kristi gave one of her kidneys to Clif, and the operation worked! Clif is now free of the dialysis treatments and is recovering just fine, thank you very much. So is Kristi. We had the pleasure and blessing of their company this past week as they drove over for a four-day visit.
We hear of kidney transplant operations regularly, but the idea that a wife could donate one of her kidneys to her husband is really cool! I'd never seen that before.
The recent death of a relative prompted some of our children and grandchildren to come from Alaska for a visit. Our youngest son, Joshua and his wife, Michelle (and their kids), came from Anchorage as did our daughter, Danielle. Because they needed to get back home before Thanksgiving (both Danielle and Josh had to be back at work), we decided to have an early pre-Thanksgiving dinner. Four of our eight children were here, along with spouses, grandchildren and two of our great-grandchildren. I think I counted 21 at the dinner table -- and that's about half of our tribe. We'll have an actual Thanksgiving dinner later this week, but the gathering will be somewhat smaller.
Let's see....what was it that David wrote? "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."
Yup! David had it right! And we've got "a quiver full."
(Anyway, in case you're wondering, we've had a busy time for the past few weeks -- hence no Coffee Breaks got published.)
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians about the Table of the Lord he wrote this,
"Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?
"What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:23-30)
Let me once again phrase verses 29-30 for you in some contemporary amplified terminology. "He that eats and drinks [at the Table of the Lord] treating it as just another commemorative act and "one more religious thing to do," eats and drinks of the same judgment and decree God made [when He said to Adam, "In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die"], not differentiating between this Table and any other table. Because they treat the Table of the Lord as commonplace, many people are weak and infirm and suffer the various sicknesses and diseases that afflict human flesh; and many die -- most prematurely."
If you grew up in church like I did, you most likely heard the instruction to "examine yourself" more times than you can count. The problem was that we were "examining ourselves" introspectively to see if we had any sin in us. There may be a sense in which that could be applied, but that's not the whole picture of what Paul was talking about.
The Greek word in the original text is dokimazo, which means: to test, to prove, to scrutinize and to recognize as genuine after examination; to approve, to deem worthy. This was a word originally "coined" (if you'll excuse the unintentional pun) among numismatists who put metals through the fire to test their genuineness.
The word, dokimazo, describes the process by which the purity of coins were established -- putting gold, silver and other precious metals into a crucible and applying heat to the place where any impurities would come floating to the surface. Those impurities would be scooped off, and what remained would be classified as 99.9% pure. The .1% difference was always left as the possible margin of error in which some undetectable impurity might remain.
Just as an aside, Paul also uses this same word in writing to Timothy when he says, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (II Timothy 2:15 KJV) The King James Version really misses the essence of what Paul wrote to Timothy.
This verse should really render like this: "Be instantly responsive to the Lord, diligently making yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."
Quite a different picture, don't you think? That word, dokimazo, (or actually its root, dokimon, which describes the smelting process itself) is what Paul is using to indicate how approval comes following examination.
And what is it that we are examining, proving or testing at the Table of the Lord? It is quite simple, really. Look at the context of the examination. "For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself because he doesn't discern the Lord's body."
Are you seeing it?
Discernment, in this case, is the ability to differentiate between what is taking place when you eat at the Table of the Lord and when you simply eat a piece of bread or drink a cup of wine. Let me explain.
The phraseology that Paul uses is very revealing. Immediately after saying "Let a man examine himself," he uses the Greek word, houtos, which means: in this way, in the manner spoken of, like this, in such manner. Talk about an illustration!
What Paul is literally saying is, "Let a man place himself for examination in the crucible BY eating of that bread and drinking of that cup." The examination comes by the Word being allowed to do His work in us by the power of His blood.
Let's look at this one more way. Consider how Paul put this to the Philippians.
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)
Work out your own salvation? Huhh? How do we do that?
Again it is quite simple. We permit the Word to do His work in us. We permit the Word -- the Bread of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself -- to reveal things in our lives that need change, correction, modification, elimination, etc. We permit the Blood of Jesus to finish the work of redemption, to destroy death, to rescue us from the Curse, to minister freedom from sickness, disease, infirmity and weakness.
And how do we permit the Word to do His work in us? How do we permit the power of the Blood of Jesus to accomplish His purpose? By eating at the Table of the Lord! By eating of the bread and drinking of the cup. You see, there is nothing common about this. There is nothing ordinary about the broken bread and the cup of the Lord. There is a supernatural act that is designed into the very nature of the partaking.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. My Roman Catholic brothers almost have it right. Although they believe that the bread actually becomes the body of Jesus and the wine actually becomes His blood, that's not quite true, but almost. There IS a supernatural thing taking place here. The bread and the wine are accomplishing in us -- as long as we permit it -- to do exactly what Jesus' body took, and what His blood accomplished -- literally!
The key is, AS LONG AS WE PERMIT IT! There is a process taking place. Consider once again the fact that Jesus gave us two ordinances -- specific commands -- to keep as believers. The first, of course, was water baptism. Water baptism (when it is done by faith) establishes our legal basis as sons and daughters of God, as heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, as having been freed from the Law of Sin and Death.
The Table of the Lord, on the other hand, is the walking out of our freedom, the partaking of the substance of faith, the enabling in a practical sense of what Jesus accomplished by His death and resurrection, the transforming of us from corruptible (and corrupted!) beings to incorruptible. Each time we eat of the bread and each time we drink of the cup more of Jesus gets imparted and implanted in our being and more change takes place in us.
This is where the Word of Truth becomes proven in us.
Remember Paul's statement to Timothy? "[Make] yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."
When we permit God to do in us and accomplish in us what Jesus finished with His suffering, His death and His resurrection we become systematically and methodically transformed into a new creation. As a side note here, when we repent of our sin, accept and acknowledge and confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our spirits are instantly transformed. We spiritually become new. But we are not only spirit-beings.
Created as triune beings, we are spirit, soul and body. Transformation begins in the spirit, but change must also come to our soul -- our mind, our thoughts, our thinking processes, our character and makeup, our identities. By the same token, change must come to our bodies as well. In case you hadn't noticed, Jesus paid the price for our physical well-being also.
The apostle Paul expressed it like this. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Thessalonians 5:23)
See the picture?
What has happened throughout history is that the implications of the Table of the Lord have become so watered down as to become a religious rite, something "we have to do," something that lacks force and power for change in us; in other words as Paul puts it: anaxios: commonplace. That's the word that gets translated as "unworthily."
So long as we treat the Table of the Lord as "commonplace" or as some religious act, we not only do not receive the benefits Jesus intended for us to receive by eating and drinking of Him, we eat judgment to ourselves. We are treating something that is holy -- something that is supernatural, something that has force and power for change in us -- as expendable and unnecessary.
And the result, as Paul notes, is that "many are weak (astheneo: diseased and impotent) and sickly (arrhostos: unhealthy) among you, and many sleep (koimao: die [prematurely])."
It is time that God's people wake up and realize what they have available to them in the Table of the Lord. How was it that Jesus put it?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:53)
Now you're beginning to get the picture. Life -- Zoë life -- the light, the life, the energizing force of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus is what we receive every time we partake at the Table of the Lord. Della and I do this without fail every single day! And we do this with every single gathering -- both Sunday worship and teaching gatherings and Wednesday nite Bible study gatherings -- at River Worship Center. And it is making a difference for everyone!
Our youth is being renewed like the eagle's because Jesus is satisfying our mouth with good things. (Psalm 103:3-5) He heals all of our diseases, He redeems our life from the destruction that comes from the Curse, and He crowns us daily with His lovingkindness and His tender mercies. And it is all made available at the Table of the Lord.
I repeat. There is nothing commonplace about the Lord's Table. Let me counsel you to begin to eat of the Table of the Lord every single day. Don't do it because I say so. Do it as an act of faith. Use the Table of the Lord as a point of contact between you and the supernatural impartation of life, health, strength and wholeness given and made available to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Stop moaning and groaning about your aches and pains and begin taking advantage of the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing.
I'll be back.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Eating and Drinking "Unworthily"
Hiya, Folks! This is the best day of your life! Sure it is. Yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow isn’t here yet. Fact is, if you were any better, you’d be dangerous! Hohohohoho…….
Now wouldn’t you rather start Monday like that instead of some old cranky, wheezy, whiny, “I jus’ don’t know if I oughta get outta bed t’day or not! My bones are jus’ so tarred! Reckon, I gots to, though. Won’t get nuthin done in bed…..groan….”
See. Get your spirits livened up. Get your mind alert. Grab a good cup of that dark roasted Columbian or some French Roast, or somethin’ like that! Wake up, sleepy!
We recently learned of something that happened with some longtime very close friends of ours, Clif and Kristi Shannon, who live in Anchorage. We've known them for nearly 25 years, and in fact Kristi was my secretary when I was in international banking. She also worked with Della at Zales Jewelers when we first met them. Anyway, Clif has had diabetes for many years, and this past year suffered with kidney failure and required daily dialysis treatments. He has been on a transplant list for a new kidney.
I'm not sure what prompted it but Kristi decided to see if she could be a donor for Clif. Turns out she was a perfect match. Seven or eight weeks ago, the transplant operation was conducted in Seattle. Kristi gave one of her kidneys to Clif, and the operation worked! Clif is now free of the dialysis treatments and is recovering just fine, thank you very much. So is Kristi. We had the pleasure and blessing of their company this past week as they drove over for a four-day visit.
We hear of kidney transplant operations regularly, but the idea that a wife could donate one of her kidneys to her husband is really cool! I'd never seen that before.
The recent death of a relative prompted some of our children and grandchildren to come from Alaska for a visit. Our youngest son, Joshua and his wife, Michelle (and their kids), came from Anchorage as did our daughter, Danielle. Because they needed to get back home before Thanksgiving (both Danielle and Josh had to be back at work), we decided to have an early pre-Thanksgiving dinner. Four of our eight children were here, along with spouses, grandchildren and two of our great-grandchildren. I think I counted 21 at the dinner table -- and that's about half of our tribe. We'll have an actual Thanksgiving dinner later this week, but the gathering will be somewhat smaller.
Let's see....what was it that David wrote? "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."
Yup! David had it right! And we've got "a quiver full."
(Anyway, in case you're wondering, we've had a busy time for the past few weeks -- hence no Coffee Breaks got published.)
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians about the Table of the Lord he wrote this,
"Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?
"What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:23-30)
Let me once again phrase verses 29-30 for you in some contemporary amplified terminology. "He that eats and drinks [at the Table of the Lord] treating it as just another commemorative act and "one more religious thing to do," eats and drinks of the same judgment and decree God made [when He said to Adam, "In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die"], not differentiating between this Table and any other table. Because they treat the Table of the Lord as commonplace, many people are weak and infirm and suffer the various sicknesses and diseases that afflict human flesh; and many die -- most prematurely."
If you grew up in church like I did, you most likely heard the instruction to "examine yourself" more times than you can count. The problem was that we were "examining ourselves" introspectively to see if we had any sin in us. There may be a sense in which that could be applied, but that's not the whole picture of what Paul was talking about.
The Greek word in the original text is dokimazo, which means: to test, to prove, to scrutinize and to recognize as genuine after examination; to approve, to deem worthy. This was a word originally "coined" (if you'll excuse the unintentional pun) among numismatists who put metals through the fire to test their genuineness.
The word, dokimazo, describes the process by which the purity of coins were established -- putting gold, silver and other precious metals into a crucible and applying heat to the place where any impurities would come floating to the surface. Those impurities would be scooped off, and what remained would be classified as 99.9% pure. The .1% difference was always left as the possible margin of error in which some undetectable impurity might remain.
Just as an aside, Paul also uses this same word in writing to Timothy when he says, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (II Timothy 2:15 KJV) The King James Version really misses the essence of what Paul wrote to Timothy.
This verse should really render like this: "Be instantly responsive to the Lord, diligently making yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."
Quite a different picture, don't you think? That word, dokimazo, (or actually its root, dokimon, which describes the smelting process itself) is what Paul is using to indicate how approval comes following examination.
And what is it that we are examining, proving or testing at the Table of the Lord? It is quite simple, really. Look at the context of the examination. "For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself because he doesn't discern the Lord's body."
Are you seeing it?
Discernment, in this case, is the ability to differentiate between what is taking place when you eat at the Table of the Lord and when you simply eat a piece of bread or drink a cup of wine. Let me explain.
The phraseology that Paul uses is very revealing. Immediately after saying "Let a man examine himself," he uses the Greek word, houtos, which means: in this way, in the manner spoken of, like this, in such manner. Talk about an illustration!
What Paul is literally saying is, "Let a man place himself for examination in the crucible BY eating of that bread and drinking of that cup." The examination comes by the Word being allowed to do His work in us by the power of His blood.
Let's look at this one more way. Consider how Paul put this to the Philippians.
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)
Work out your own salvation? Huhh? How do we do that?
Again it is quite simple. We permit the Word to do His work in us. We permit the Word -- the Bread of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself -- to reveal things in our lives that need change, correction, modification, elimination, etc. We permit the Blood of Jesus to finish the work of redemption, to destroy death, to rescue us from the Curse, to minister freedom from sickness, disease, infirmity and weakness.
And how do we permit the Word to do His work in us? How do we permit the power of the Blood of Jesus to accomplish His purpose? By eating at the Table of the Lord! By eating of the bread and drinking of the cup. You see, there is nothing common about this. There is nothing ordinary about the broken bread and the cup of the Lord. There is a supernatural act that is designed into the very nature of the partaking.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. My Roman Catholic brothers almost have it right. Although they believe that the bread actually becomes the body of Jesus and the wine actually becomes His blood, that's not quite true, but almost. There IS a supernatural thing taking place here. The bread and the wine are accomplishing in us -- as long as we permit it -- to do exactly what Jesus' body took, and what His blood accomplished -- literally!
The key is, AS LONG AS WE PERMIT IT! There is a process taking place. Consider once again the fact that Jesus gave us two ordinances -- specific commands -- to keep as believers. The first, of course, was water baptism. Water baptism (when it is done by faith) establishes our legal basis as sons and daughters of God, as heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, as having been freed from the Law of Sin and Death.
The Table of the Lord, on the other hand, is the walking out of our freedom, the partaking of the substance of faith, the enabling in a practical sense of what Jesus accomplished by His death and resurrection, the transforming of us from corruptible (and corrupted!) beings to incorruptible. Each time we eat of the bread and each time we drink of the cup more of Jesus gets imparted and implanted in our being and more change takes place in us.
This is where the Word of Truth becomes proven in us.
Remember Paul's statement to Timothy? "[Make] yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."
When we permit God to do in us and accomplish in us what Jesus finished with His suffering, His death and His resurrection we become systematically and methodically transformed into a new creation. As a side note here, when we repent of our sin, accept and acknowledge and confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our spirits are instantly transformed. We spiritually become new. But we are not only spirit-beings.
Created as triune beings, we are spirit, soul and body. Transformation begins in the spirit, but change must also come to our soul -- our mind, our thoughts, our thinking processes, our character and makeup, our identities. By the same token, change must come to our bodies as well. In case you hadn't noticed, Jesus paid the price for our physical well-being also.
The apostle Paul expressed it like this. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Thessalonians 5:23)
See the picture?
What has happened throughout history is that the implications of the Table of the Lord have become so watered down as to become a religious rite, something "we have to do," something that lacks force and power for change in us; in other words as Paul puts it: anaxios: commonplace. That's the word that gets translated as "unworthily."
So long as we treat the Table of the Lord as "commonplace" or as some religious act, we not only do not receive the benefits Jesus intended for us to receive by eating and drinking of Him, we eat judgment to ourselves. We are treating something that is holy -- something that is supernatural, something that has force and power for change in us -- as expendable and unnecessary.
And the result, as Paul notes, is that "many are weak (astheneo: diseased and impotent) and sickly (arrhostos: unhealthy) among you, and many sleep (koimao: die [prematurely])."
It is time that God's people wake up and realize what they have available to them in the Table of the Lord. How was it that Jesus put it?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:53)
Now you're beginning to get the picture. Life -- Zoë life -- the light, the life, the energizing force of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus is what we receive every time we partake at the Table of the Lord. Della and I do this without fail every single day! And we do this with every single gathering -- both Sunday worship and teaching gatherings and Wednesday nite Bible study gatherings -- at River Worship Center. And it is making a difference for everyone!
Our youth is being renewed like the eagle's because Jesus is satisfying our mouth with good things. (Psalm 103:3-5) He heals all of our diseases, He redeems our life from the destruction that comes from the Curse, and He crowns us daily with His lovingkindness and His tender mercies. And it is all made available at the Table of the Lord.
I repeat. There is nothing commonplace about the Lord's Table. Let me counsel you to begin to eat of the Table of the Lord every single day. Don't do it because I say so. Do it as an act of faith. Use the Table of the Lord as a point of contact between you and the supernatural impartation of life, health, strength and wholeness given and made available to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Stop moaning and groaning about your aches and pains and begin taking advantage of the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing.
I'll be back.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD VI
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: The Table of the Lord VI
Death Cancellation, Part 3
With all of the hype and hoopla concerning the H1N1 "Swine Flu," you'd think the Black Plague had struck the nation and the world. What the fear-mongering media hasn't said or reported is the fact that the numbers of deaths from this flu are actually less than those one might expect in a "normal" flu season. What we have instead is more fear talk and less flu! (chuckle)
I have a personal issue to take with folks who promote this as some kind of thing to be afraid of. Sad to say, but a whole lot of Christians -- or at least folks who call themselves "Christian" -- put more faith in the flu than they do in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have more fear of the flu than they have faith in the healing that Jesus paid for them. We just can't live like that and call ourselves "believers."
Two weeks or so ago, our seven-year-old granddaughter Jessica (of whom I have written on numerous occasions) tested positive for the H1N1 virus. She called Della on the phone and said, "Grandma, I don't like feeling like this. I don't like being sick." Della promised she'd come and pray for her. Della had other business in the Tri-Cities area anyway, so she drove to Pasco to check on the rest of Rebekah's family. After talking and sharing with the rest of Becky's kids (they were all home from school sick) she was getting ready to leave when Jessica said, "Grandma, you promised to pray. You haven't prayed yet!"
Della immediately took Jessica's hands and rebuked the fever (103.9) and commanded the flu virus to depart. The rest of the kids joined hands in prayer as well and Della prayed for them all -- along with a neighbor boy who stopped by to check on Andrew. The fever lifted quickly from Jessica. Before the day ended, it was gone completely and Jessica had nothing but a few sniffles. Her mother kept her home from school the next day, "just in case," but within 48 hours Jessica was back in school -- along with her brothers and sisters, whom the Lord also healed.
See what I mean? We need to stop giving so much credit and power to sickness and disease and begin declaring and decreeing the blood of Jesus as our authority. Consider what Jesus said (see Matthew 10:8 and Luke 10:9, 19);
"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."
"Heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you..............Behold, I give unto you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
The power over all disease and sickness, along with all authority over the power of Satan, has been given to us. Why waste it? Let's use it, folks! The world needs to see that Christianity isn't simply just "another religion." Christianity is a real, living relationship with a real, living Jesus who has commissioned us to show and grow the Kingdom and demonstrate Heaven in the process.
OOPSS!! Almost forgot! Howdee!
Sorry I haven't been with you for the past three weeks or so. Between a harvest period that has run (for us, anyway) much longer than usual, and a ministry trip to Gaston, Oregon -- not to mention the normal daily ministry activities that surround River Worship Center -- our days have been busy, and that's putting it mildly! Della canned 39 quarts of pure grape juice from just one Concord grape vine, and she's preparing to tackle some more vines later this week. A number of apple growers here in the Yakima Valley chose not to harvest their apples because of the costs of harvesting and getting to market. They would have actually lost money on the harvest, so they let their apples remain on the trees. One of those growers also takes care of the orchard our oldest son, Chris, and his family own. All of a sudden we've had apples coming out of our ears.
Della has been cashing on on the surplus of apples, making applesauce, drying apples and making apple chips (I couldn't tell you how many she's done so far), along with making cinnamon apple pie filling and apple topping for Belgian waffles. We still have ten crates of apples to process, so this is something that will go on yet for another couple of weeks before this process ends for this year. We've given away hundreds of pounds of Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Fuji and Granny Smiths to people in our fellowship, as well as visitors who have stopped by. In case you've never picked apples before, let me warn you. You'll discover muscles you didn't know you had, and they will complain loudly for a few days. (Hehehehehe........................)
In our last two Coffee Breaks, we've talked about a statement that Jesus made (See John 6:50-51, 53) and it is one that many folks have struggled with.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ......... Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
Hopefully you've been able to at least grasp some of what I've shared thus far of the revelation the Lord has given concerning this statement. I'll try to wrap up this portion of our discussion on the Lord's Table today.
It was my intention to talk about the 53rd chapter of Isaiah today, and the revelation of the Table of the Lord associated with it -- and maybe we'll get there -- but I need to take a different track today than I'd originally planned.
Revisiting God's command to the Jews in Leviticus 17:11, we are told, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth, reminded them of what Jesus said (I Corinthians 11:24-25), "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." Jesus also said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."
"As oft as ye drink it?" Drink what? The Cup -- not blood! Jesus wasn't asking them to drink blood. In fact, drinking blood was forbidden under the Law of Moses, and that's not what Jesus was making a point of. The Cup was illustrative of the fact that His blood was going to be shed. In fact, there wasn't going to be enough blood left in Him to sustain life.
I was reading a medical doctor's analysis recently of the wounds that Jesus suffered from the scourge of 39 lashes with the cat-o-nine-tails (Greek: phragello = Latin: flagellum), coupled with the secondary beatings and the crown of thorns. The Scripture tells in (the Hebrew text of) Isaiah 52:14 that His appearance was so disfigured and marred that he was barely recognizable as a man with only his form or outline to say that He was. There was virtually no place on Jesus' body that wasn't a bloody mass of pulp. The loss of blood and the weakened condition resulting made the hardship of having to carry the Cross more than He could physically tolerate; and the Roman soldiers had to compel Simon of Cyrene to carry it for Him.
The medical doctor's report and analysis of Jesus' physical condition was such that He was bleeding to death. By the time the soldier pierced Jesus' side and blood and water exited the wound, there wasn't enough blood in Him to have kept Him alive.
So why was that important? What does that have to do with Jesus' command?
Let's go back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the entire DNA of the human race was contaminated with the curse of death. Every generation born to the human race following Adam and Eve's eviction from the Garden had death in the blood. God had warned Adam "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:17)
I've shared before that Adam and Eve were never designed to die. They were created in the image and likeness of God -- and God is eternal. There is a rather obscure reference in Ecclesiastes 6:6 to a man living "a thousand years twice told" (2,000 years) which I believe is a reference to Adam's having lived in the Garden for 2,000 years (the sixth and seventh days) prior to his sin on the eighth day. (See also II Peter 3:8) There are folks who will disagree with me on this, but can I help it if I'm right! (Grin)
Considering the fact that Genesis 5:5 tells us that Adam lived to 930 years (following his eviction from the Garden, and after time began to be measured as we determine it today), he died "in the (thousand-year) day that [he] ate thereof." One little side note to this picture: Adam died on the third day, having eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus died on "the Tree" and rose again on the third day.
[That's a little something for you to consider in your spare time.] Jesus effectively reversed the curse of death, undoing in exact reverse order and sequence curse of death.
What's the point of all this? Just this: blood -- all human blood -- was contaminated with death and the dying process from the moment Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a part of reversing the curse of death, Jesus poured out His human blood. He literally poured out death as He died. That may sound strange worded that way, but in dying on the Cross, Jesus also poured out the death that had contaminated human DNA.
When God the Father raised Him from the dead, He didn't raise Jesus by restoring human blood: He replaced human blood with His eternal Spirit. When we drink of the Cup at the Table of the Lord, therefore, we are drinking of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. When Jesus said, "as oft as ye drink it [this do ye] in remembrance of me," He was letting us know that our act of drinking the Cup was done in remembrance of the fact that His blood was poured out, along with death itself, and that we are drinking of His life!
There's one more aspect of this that we can consider. Take a look at Paul's discourse on this in his first letter to the Ekklesia in Corinth.
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."
Next Paul writes, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:42-50, 53-57)
Are you seeing it? OK, let me describe it like this.
Every time we eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup, "corruption" is putting on "incorruption" and "mortality" is putting on "immortality." I know lots of folks will think for sure that I've gone off the deep end into La-La Land, but let's revisit the two verses that I left out in the above quotation.
"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
Take the first half of those statements: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Change takes place each time we partake of the Table of the Lord. Hmmmm ....... Maybe I'd better qualify that. Change takes place for those do not "eat and drink unworthily [Greek: anaxios: to treat as commonplace]" -- for those who eat and drink at the Table of the Lord in faith, understanding that they are partaking of something absolutely supernatural!
There is nothing commonplace about this. This is not some kind of symbolic act. There's nothing "spookey-pookey" about this. My Roman Catholic brethren have a doctrine they call "transubstantiation" in which the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as we eat and drink. Although that's not quite true, they're a lot closer to the truth than most folks give them credit for. There is something absolutely supernatural that takes place -- but the change that is taking place is in us! It is a change, however, that only works where and when faith drives our eating at the Table of the Lord.
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians about this he made the statement, "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:29-30)
Let me phrase this for you in some amplified terminology. "He that eats and drinks [at the Table of the Lord] treating it as just another commemorative act and "one more religious thing to do," eats and drinks of the same judgment and decree God made [when He said to Adam, "In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die"], not differentiating between this Table and any other table. Because they treat the Table of the Lord as commonplace, many people are weak and infirm and suffer the various sicknesses and diseases that afflict human flesh; and many die -- most prematurely."
There is no reason for folks to be sick, weak or infirm! There is no reason for people to die prematurely. There's no reason for people to die, PERIOD! But this realm of faith is exactly the same realm of faith that is activated when we first believe and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, for deliverance, for healing, or for any other thing. It takes faith to believe for your healing if you suffer from some sickness or disease. But it takes no more faith to believe "preventatively" to walk and live in perfect health! It likewise takes no more faith to believe that you can live and be around to see the physical return of the Lord Jesus Christ instead of dying.
Why die in the first place?
Death has only one appointment with us, and if Jesus kept that appointment on our behalf, will you please tell me why His keeping of our appointment wasn't good enough? Will you please tell me why we have to still keep an appointment that isn't there anymore?
Chew on that for awhile. I'll be back.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.CapenerMinistries.com.
Death Cancellation, Part 3
With all of the hype and hoopla concerning the H1N1 "Swine Flu," you'd think the Black Plague had struck the nation and the world. What the fear-mongering media hasn't said or reported is the fact that the numbers of deaths from this flu are actually less than those one might expect in a "normal" flu season. What we have instead is more fear talk and less flu! (chuckle)
I have a personal issue to take with folks who promote this as some kind of thing to be afraid of. Sad to say, but a whole lot of Christians -- or at least folks who call themselves "Christian" -- put more faith in the flu than they do in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have more fear of the flu than they have faith in the healing that Jesus paid for them. We just can't live like that and call ourselves "believers."
Two weeks or so ago, our seven-year-old granddaughter Jessica (of whom I have written on numerous occasions) tested positive for the H1N1 virus. She called Della on the phone and said, "Grandma, I don't like feeling like this. I don't like being sick." Della promised she'd come and pray for her. Della had other business in the Tri-Cities area anyway, so she drove to Pasco to check on the rest of Rebekah's family. After talking and sharing with the rest of Becky's kids (they were all home from school sick) she was getting ready to leave when Jessica said, "Grandma, you promised to pray. You haven't prayed yet!"
Della immediately took Jessica's hands and rebuked the fever (103.9) and commanded the flu virus to depart. The rest of the kids joined hands in prayer as well and Della prayed for them all -- along with a neighbor boy who stopped by to check on Andrew. The fever lifted quickly from Jessica. Before the day ended, it was gone completely and Jessica had nothing but a few sniffles. Her mother kept her home from school the next day, "just in case," but within 48 hours Jessica was back in school -- along with her brothers and sisters, whom the Lord also healed.
See what I mean? We need to stop giving so much credit and power to sickness and disease and begin declaring and decreeing the blood of Jesus as our authority. Consider what Jesus said (see Matthew 10:8 and Luke 10:9, 19);
"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."
"Heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you..............Behold, I give unto you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
The power over all disease and sickness, along with all authority over the power of Satan, has been given to us. Why waste it? Let's use it, folks! The world needs to see that Christianity isn't simply just "another religion." Christianity is a real, living relationship with a real, living Jesus who has commissioned us to show and grow the Kingdom and demonstrate Heaven in the process.
OOPSS!! Almost forgot! Howdee!
Sorry I haven't been with you for the past three weeks or so. Between a harvest period that has run (for us, anyway) much longer than usual, and a ministry trip to Gaston, Oregon -- not to mention the normal daily ministry activities that surround River Worship Center -- our days have been busy, and that's putting it mildly! Della canned 39 quarts of pure grape juice from just one Concord grape vine, and she's preparing to tackle some more vines later this week. A number of apple growers here in the Yakima Valley chose not to harvest their apples because of the costs of harvesting and getting to market. They would have actually lost money on the harvest, so they let their apples remain on the trees. One of those growers also takes care of the orchard our oldest son, Chris, and his family own. All of a sudden we've had apples coming out of our ears.
Della has been cashing on on the surplus of apples, making applesauce, drying apples and making apple chips (I couldn't tell you how many she's done so far), along with making cinnamon apple pie filling and apple topping for Belgian waffles. We still have ten crates of apples to process, so this is something that will go on yet for another couple of weeks before this process ends for this year. We've given away hundreds of pounds of Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Fuji and Granny Smiths to people in our fellowship, as well as visitors who have stopped by. In case you've never picked apples before, let me warn you. You'll discover muscles you didn't know you had, and they will complain loudly for a few days. (Hehehehehe........................)
In our last two Coffee Breaks, we've talked about a statement that Jesus made (See John 6:50-51, 53) and it is one that many folks have struggled with.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ......... Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
Hopefully you've been able to at least grasp some of what I've shared thus far of the revelation the Lord has given concerning this statement. I'll try to wrap up this portion of our discussion on the Lord's Table today.
It was my intention to talk about the 53rd chapter of Isaiah today, and the revelation of the Table of the Lord associated with it -- and maybe we'll get there -- but I need to take a different track today than I'd originally planned.
Revisiting God's command to the Jews in Leviticus 17:11, we are told, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth, reminded them of what Jesus said (I Corinthians 11:24-25), "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." Jesus also said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."
"As oft as ye drink it?" Drink what? The Cup -- not blood! Jesus wasn't asking them to drink blood. In fact, drinking blood was forbidden under the Law of Moses, and that's not what Jesus was making a point of. The Cup was illustrative of the fact that His blood was going to be shed. In fact, there wasn't going to be enough blood left in Him to sustain life.
I was reading a medical doctor's analysis recently of the wounds that Jesus suffered from the scourge of 39 lashes with the cat-o-nine-tails (Greek: phragello = Latin: flagellum), coupled with the secondary beatings and the crown of thorns. The Scripture tells in (the Hebrew text of) Isaiah 52:14 that His appearance was so disfigured and marred that he was barely recognizable as a man with only his form or outline to say that He was. There was virtually no place on Jesus' body that wasn't a bloody mass of pulp. The loss of blood and the weakened condition resulting made the hardship of having to carry the Cross more than He could physically tolerate; and the Roman soldiers had to compel Simon of Cyrene to carry it for Him.
The medical doctor's report and analysis of Jesus' physical condition was such that He was bleeding to death. By the time the soldier pierced Jesus' side and blood and water exited the wound, there wasn't enough blood in Him to have kept Him alive.
So why was that important? What does that have to do with Jesus' command?
Let's go back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the entire DNA of the human race was contaminated with the curse of death. Every generation born to the human race following Adam and Eve's eviction from the Garden had death in the blood. God had warned Adam "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:17)
I've shared before that Adam and Eve were never designed to die. They were created in the image and likeness of God -- and God is eternal. There is a rather obscure reference in Ecclesiastes 6:6 to a man living "a thousand years twice told" (2,000 years) which I believe is a reference to Adam's having lived in the Garden for 2,000 years (the sixth and seventh days) prior to his sin on the eighth day. (See also II Peter 3:8) There are folks who will disagree with me on this, but can I help it if I'm right! (Grin)
Considering the fact that Genesis 5:5 tells us that Adam lived to 930 years (following his eviction from the Garden, and after time began to be measured as we determine it today), he died "in the (thousand-year) day that [he] ate thereof." One little side note to this picture: Adam died on the third day, having eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus died on "the Tree" and rose again on the third day.
[That's a little something for you to consider in your spare time.] Jesus effectively reversed the curse of death, undoing in exact reverse order and sequence curse of death.
What's the point of all this? Just this: blood -- all human blood -- was contaminated with death and the dying process from the moment Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a part of reversing the curse of death, Jesus poured out His human blood. He literally poured out death as He died. That may sound strange worded that way, but in dying on the Cross, Jesus also poured out the death that had contaminated human DNA.
When God the Father raised Him from the dead, He didn't raise Jesus by restoring human blood: He replaced human blood with His eternal Spirit. When we drink of the Cup at the Table of the Lord, therefore, we are drinking of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. When Jesus said, "as oft as ye drink it [this do ye] in remembrance of me," He was letting us know that our act of drinking the Cup was done in remembrance of the fact that His blood was poured out, along with death itself, and that we are drinking of His life!
There's one more aspect of this that we can consider. Take a look at Paul's discourse on this in his first letter to the Ekklesia in Corinth.
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."
Next Paul writes, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:42-50, 53-57)
Are you seeing it? OK, let me describe it like this.
Every time we eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup, "corruption" is putting on "incorruption" and "mortality" is putting on "immortality." I know lots of folks will think for sure that I've gone off the deep end into La-La Land, but let's revisit the two verses that I left out in the above quotation.
"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
Take the first half of those statements: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Change takes place each time we partake of the Table of the Lord. Hmmmm ....... Maybe I'd better qualify that. Change takes place for those do not "eat and drink unworthily [Greek: anaxios: to treat as commonplace]" -- for those who eat and drink at the Table of the Lord in faith, understanding that they are partaking of something absolutely supernatural!
There is nothing commonplace about this. This is not some kind of symbolic act. There's nothing "spookey-pookey" about this. My Roman Catholic brethren have a doctrine they call "transubstantiation" in which the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as we eat and drink. Although that's not quite true, they're a lot closer to the truth than most folks give them credit for. There is something absolutely supernatural that takes place -- but the change that is taking place is in us! It is a change, however, that only works where and when faith drives our eating at the Table of the Lord.
When Paul was writing to the Corinthians about this he made the statement, "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." (I Corinthians 11:29-30)
Let me phrase this for you in some amplified terminology. "He that eats and drinks [at the Table of the Lord] treating it as just another commemorative act and "one more religious thing to do," eats and drinks of the same judgment and decree God made [when He said to Adam, "In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die"], not differentiating between this Table and any other table. Because they treat the Table of the Lord as commonplace, many people are weak and infirm and suffer the various sicknesses and diseases that afflict human flesh; and many die -- most prematurely."
There is no reason for folks to be sick, weak or infirm! There is no reason for people to die prematurely. There's no reason for people to die, PERIOD! But this realm of faith is exactly the same realm of faith that is activated when we first believe and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, for deliverance, for healing, or for any other thing. It takes faith to believe for your healing if you suffer from some sickness or disease. But it takes no more faith to believe "preventatively" to walk and live in perfect health! It likewise takes no more faith to believe that you can live and be around to see the physical return of the Lord Jesus Christ instead of dying.
Why die in the first place?
Death has only one appointment with us, and if Jesus kept that appointment on our behalf, will you please tell me why His keeping of our appointment wasn't good enough? Will you please tell me why we have to still keep an appointment that isn't there anymore?
Chew on that for awhile. I'll be back.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.CapenerMinistries.com.
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD V
Table of the Lord V
Death Cancellation, Part 2
Greetings and Salutations!
I'd intended to get this Coffee Break out earlier, but here it is the 25th and the date of the expected massive Islamic prayer vigil.
Your prayers have paid dividends. The news media reported that somewhere between a thousand and 3,000 people gathered on the lawn in front of the Capital. That's a tiny fraction of the organizers' expected assemblage of 50,000-plus. The Washington Post editorialized that most of the anticipated "pray-ers" stayed away because they feared a Christian backlash, or that they were simply afraid of a confrontation with Christians. Interesting, huh? "Afraid of a confrontation with Christians?" What does that tell you about their confidence in their god, Allah? Hmmmm.... Come to think of it the prophets of Baal had to acknowledge that "The Lord, He is God!" when Elijah confronted them and fire fell from Heaven. Since Allah is a modern incarnation of Baal, that spirit has good reason to be afraid of confrontation.
We've been participating here at River Worship Center in a conference in Spokane (by streaming video) hosted by Cal Pierce and the Healing Rooms. Bill Johnson was sharing last night and made the statement that we all needed to be praying for a real visitation of the Lord in the midst of this Muslim gathering. We did just that! More than that, we prayed that the wind of the Spirit would blow through their midst with a revelation of the Lord Jesus. I'm sure that we'll receive many reports like this, but Beni Johnson (Bill's wife) shared a live report this morning from some people she knew who were just leading some of the Muslims who did attend this event to the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God! Our united prayers are paying dividends!
(September 29) I've mostly been offline for the past few weeks because of an incredibly busy schedule. Della has been canning fruits and vegetables, doing dried apple chips and all that, and we've been picking several hundreds of pounds of apples. There's more ahead during the next week or so, but things should begin to slow down. We'll harvest some Concord grapes later this week and I'll help Della do her annual juicing. From just one vine, we get enough real grape juice to last through most of the year. I can promise you that this kind of grape juice is not the watered-down variety you buy in the stores. This stuff is powerful. We frequently use this for Communion.
Anyway, on with the day. Coffee's on. Both the French Press and the Expresso machine are full. If you're in the area, stop by and have a cup! Kathryn King Marquis was talking a couple days ago about a coffee she's been buying called "Freakin' Good Coffee." Comes from a Canadian company (http://www.equator.ca/). Haven't had a chance to try this coffee out yet, but I will. I'll give you my "educated taste-bud" (grin) opinion when I do.
(By the way, while I'm talking about Kathryn, visit her website. You can find her at: http://users.bandzoogle.com/kathrynmarquis/fr_index.cfm. This lady knows how to worship!)
Once again, here's the apostle Paul's statement (and a most-misunderstood and applied statement) in Hebrews 9:27.
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
In our previous Coffee Break, I shared with you something that Jesus said (See John 6:50-51, 53) that really shook up the religious world.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ......... Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
The life Jesus speaks of, of course, is eternal life. But there's more. There is a revelation here that people need to see. We live at a unique time in all of history -- a time when most of those now alive will see the end of this age and the beginning of the thousand-year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth -- that period often referred to as "the Millennium." Throughout the years, I've shared a very personal word from the Lord Jesus with a very few individuals, but for the first time in sixty years, I have the liberty to share it openly.
I've shared in past Coffee Breaks my early experiences of growing up with angels and seeing them on a continual -- almost daily -- basis for some three years. When I was seven years old, I awoke one morning very early to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. He unfolded many things before me that day -- one of which was a picture of the restoration of the nation of Israel and the ingathering of Jews from all over the world, along with the recognition among the Jews of Jesus as their Messiah.
Perhaps the most singular thing He spoke to me that day -- and one that has rung in my ears continually since (especially during times when the Enemy has tried to take me out) -- was this: "You'll never die or know death as men know death. You will be here to see my return in Glory."
When I shared it over the breakfast table with my parents later that same morning, their first reaction was, "Hmmmmm......" From that point, though, the discussion centered around the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a recognition that His return could well be within their lifetimes as well. (The Lord did come to receive them, but not after the beginning of the millennial period as they had hoped.)
Because of my parents' initial reaction to my sharing what Jesus said in spite of the fact that they overcame their natural instinct, it was obvious to me that this was not something I could freely share. Throughout the past sixty years, I've perhaps shared this with a few dozen folks at most.
Because of the somewhat confrontational nature of the realm of ministry God called me to, it seems that I've often been the focus of controversy and -- at times -- real persecution where people have tried to take me out. Then there have been the deliberate attempts of evil spirits to kill me in "accidents": car accidents, airplane crashes, fires, so-called "close calls," etc.
Della and I were just talking this morning about some angelic deliverances we've both known.
I remember a time when I was flying from Fairbanks (Alaska) to Kotzebue on a Wien Airlines Fairchild F-27. We were seriously overloaded with freight (all but a little over a dozen seats had been removed to accommodate all the freight) and the seats were full. Just past the halfway mark, we lost an engine. The pilot was unable to restart the engine and began to slowly lose altitude. Although I didn't actually see the angel(s) holding up the aircraft, I was very much aware of the fact that we were experiencing supernatural deliverance, and an angel of the Lord was holding the plane aloft. By the time we made Kotzebue, the aircraft was barely 500 feet above the ground. We all arrived safe and sound.
Then there was that time when I was driving in the Santa Cruz mountains on my way to a Teen Challenge meeting with David Wilkerson. We hit a loose patch of gravel in a turn and I lost control of the car. Screaming "JESUS! at the top of my voice as the car headed over a cliff, I heard the audible voice of the angel of the Lord as he spoke peace into my being with the words, "Nothing is going to happen to you." Sure enough, although the car was totally demolished, I walked away without so much as a scratch -- maybe a little loose glass in my hair from the broken windows.
At age 41, I dropped dead in the shower from a massive heart attack. Della was well aware of God's promise to me, and she wasn't about to put up with this. She knew it was nothing more than an attack of Satan to take me out. She dragged my body from the shower into our bedroom, heaved me up onto the bed and began to speak life back into me in the name of Jesus. About 15 minutes went by before I returned, but when I came back, the Lord had healed previous defects in my physical being and a medical doctor who gave me a thorough going-over a few days later told me I had the health of a 20-year-old.
These are but a few incidents (there are literally dozens -- a quick count tells me of some 36 separate occasions) of events like this in my life) where Satan has tried to kill me and prevent the plan of the Lord from coming to fruition. But you see, I have the specific promise of the Lord! It was and is to this day a rhema in my being that no one can take away, or talk me out of.
The Table of the Lord has become a reality to me in the sense that Jesus kept my appointment with death. I have no more appointments with death. If the Enemy tries to take me out, Jesus simply cancels out anything that he does.
One of the statements that Jesus made that same day when He was talking to His disciples about eating and drinking of Him was this: "And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40)
Now I know this verse has more applications than this one, but are you seeing how it was applied in my life when the Enemy sought to take me out? Jesus has the last Word! He has the final say. Satan thought he snuffed out my life and successfully thwarted God's promise to me. But it didn't work. Yes, Della spoke the Word that brought me back from the dead, but it was the Word -- the Lord Jesus Christ -- who had the final say. He raised me up "at the last day." I know that's not how we normally view Jesus' statement, but the essence of what He is saying is that He has the final Word; He has the final say in the matter. The curse of death has been broken. We just have to believe it!
There's another application I'd like for you to consider.
Every sickness, every disease, every infirmity and every pain is rooted and founded in the death process. Although our bodies were designed to replenish every cell every seven years, the curse of death means that not all cells are replenished or replaced. There is a dying process taking place. Every sickness derives its existence from the imbalance that occurs when certain cells in our body fail to rejuvenate or replace. Every infirmity gains its existence when muscle cells, tendon cells, joint-lubrication cells (or some other set of cells) become damaged or fail to rejuvenate.
All of them are based in death and in the curse of death. Yet there is a revelation that takes place at the Table of the Lord that God's people need to receive. Jesus made clear the fact that when we eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, we eat and drink of eternal life. Jesus IS the Bread of Life. But He is more than that!
Think about what Jesus said (See Luke 24:38-39) when He appeared to the disciples following His resurrection. "And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."
WHAT? What did He just say? "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Why didn't He say, "a spirit hath not flesh and blood?" Because the life that was in Him following the resurrection was not blood any longer: it was spirit! That is how the apostle Paul could say the following:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)
Get it? The life that now exhibited in Jesus was the life of the Spirit. And now we have an understanding of why the Table of the Lord and Water Baptism were the only two commandments that Jesus gave. The two ordinances exhibit the same thing!
With the Table of the Lord, we eat of the Word of Life in Christ Jesus and drink of the Spirit. With Water Baptism, we show to demonic principalities and demonic powers that the flesh they once had access to is now dead. That which comes forth out of the water is a resurrected person, raised to new life in Christ Jesus, resurrected from the dead by the Spirit. The life that we now live is by the Spirit -- NOT the flesh and blood.
If Christians could just get this revelation, it would radically transform the way they think and the way they live. Folks, as believers in Christ, we are free from the Law of Sin and Death. Jesus kept our appointment with death.
The problem in today's world is that we are programmed continually with the necessity to protect ourselves from death, from premature death, from "accidents" and a whole host of sicknesses and diseases. It's a funny thing, but I've lived most of my life without life insurance or health insurance. When I worked for the television networks (FOX, NBC, Telemundo, etc.) they provided me with some pretty spendy life insurance and health insurance. Honestly, the only time I've ever really gotten sick to the place where I was out of commission for several days (and once for a couple of weeks) was when I had health insurance.
Maybe you've never thought of it like this, but you gamble every time you purchase life or health insurance. The insurance company makes you pay them to gamble. They gamble that you are not going to get sick, and you gamble that you will. They gamble that you won't die prematurely, and you gamble that you will. Insurance companies make billions of dollars every year from people who gamble that they will lose their home, their automobile, their health, their life, or whatever. The medical industry makes billions of dollars from people who -- because they believe they are subject to disease, sickness and infirmity -- gladly pay out their life's earnings in order to gain or preserve what Jesus freely provides at His Table.
Is there something wrong with this picture? YES!!! God's people are supposed to be the picture of life and health and strength and vitality. It has been provided by and through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. Why are Christians today suffering from heart attacks? Why are Christians suffering from tumors, from cancer, from stress, from nervous conditions, from every disease known to man?
The simple answer is that most do not have a revelation of the Table of the Lord. Most "believers" don't realize that the thief (and, brother, is he ever a thief!) is stealing what Jesus freely provides. This is why Della and I have come to the place where there is not a day that goes by without our partaking of the Table of the Lord. We do so with the understanding that each time we eat of the Bread of Life, we eat of the health, the vitality, the wholeness and the provision that Jesus has in His very Being! Each time we drink of the Cup, we drink of the Cup of Life that Jesus offers.
When Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth, he reminded them of what Jesus said (I Corinthians 11:24-25), "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." Jesus also said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."
Are we doing this in remembrance of Jesus hanging on the Cross? Are we doing this in remembrance of Jesus shedding His blood? Nope! And yet, we do to a certain extent. The remembrance is not the Cross, nor the blood that was shed as much as what Jesus accomplished by His sacrifice. The real picture is that a new covenant was made for us -- a covenant between the Lord and us -- a covenant of total provision, a covenant of death cancellation, a covenant of health and life, a covenant that provides complete healing when Satan seeks to steal from us our health, a covenant that replaces whatever provision Satan has stolen from us in an effort to keep us in poverty and continual need.
But this covenant requires something of us. It requires believing that Jesus is a covenant-keeping God, that He will give us and do for us exactly what He said He would! Satan has sold much of the body of Christ the lie that sickness is the will of God for us. How insane is that? He has also sold many Christians the lie that a life of poverty and need is true humility, and that it is more "spiritual" to have barely enough, or not quite enough, than to have an abundance of resources. Brother! What a lie! What a canard!
But this revelation of the Table of the Lord grows even more once we begin to understand the significance of Isaiah's prophecy (Isaiah 53) as it relates to eating and drinking of the Lord.
That's where we'll go next. There's more to this revelation, lots more!!!
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.CapenerMinistries.com/.
Death Cancellation, Part 2
Greetings and Salutations!
I'd intended to get this Coffee Break out earlier, but here it is the 25th and the date of the expected massive Islamic prayer vigil.
Your prayers have paid dividends. The news media reported that somewhere between a thousand and 3,000 people gathered on the lawn in front of the Capital. That's a tiny fraction of the organizers' expected assemblage of 50,000-plus. The Washington Post editorialized that most of the anticipated "pray-ers" stayed away because they feared a Christian backlash, or that they were simply afraid of a confrontation with Christians. Interesting, huh? "Afraid of a confrontation with Christians?" What does that tell you about their confidence in their god, Allah? Hmmmm.... Come to think of it the prophets of Baal had to acknowledge that "The Lord, He is God!" when Elijah confronted them and fire fell from Heaven. Since Allah is a modern incarnation of Baal, that spirit has good reason to be afraid of confrontation.
We've been participating here at River Worship Center in a conference in Spokane (by streaming video) hosted by Cal Pierce and the Healing Rooms. Bill Johnson was sharing last night and made the statement that we all needed to be praying for a real visitation of the Lord in the midst of this Muslim gathering. We did just that! More than that, we prayed that the wind of the Spirit would blow through their midst with a revelation of the Lord Jesus. I'm sure that we'll receive many reports like this, but Beni Johnson (Bill's wife) shared a live report this morning from some people she knew who were just leading some of the Muslims who did attend this event to the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God! Our united prayers are paying dividends!
(September 29) I've mostly been offline for the past few weeks because of an incredibly busy schedule. Della has been canning fruits and vegetables, doing dried apple chips and all that, and we've been picking several hundreds of pounds of apples. There's more ahead during the next week or so, but things should begin to slow down. We'll harvest some Concord grapes later this week and I'll help Della do her annual juicing. From just one vine, we get enough real grape juice to last through most of the year. I can promise you that this kind of grape juice is not the watered-down variety you buy in the stores. This stuff is powerful. We frequently use this for Communion.
Anyway, on with the day. Coffee's on. Both the French Press and the Expresso machine are full. If you're in the area, stop by and have a cup! Kathryn King Marquis was talking a couple days ago about a coffee she's been buying called "Freakin' Good Coffee." Comes from a Canadian company (http://www.equator.ca/). Haven't had a chance to try this coffee out yet, but I will. I'll give you my "educated taste-bud" (grin) opinion when I do.
(By the way, while I'm talking about Kathryn, visit her website. You can find her at: http://users.bandzoogle.com/kathrynmarquis/fr_index.cfm. This lady knows how to worship!)
Once again, here's the apostle Paul's statement (and a most-misunderstood and applied statement) in Hebrews 9:27.
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
In our previous Coffee Break, I shared with you something that Jesus said (See John 6:50-51, 53) that really shook up the religious world.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ......... Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
The life Jesus speaks of, of course, is eternal life. But there's more. There is a revelation here that people need to see. We live at a unique time in all of history -- a time when most of those now alive will see the end of this age and the beginning of the thousand-year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth -- that period often referred to as "the Millennium." Throughout the years, I've shared a very personal word from the Lord Jesus with a very few individuals, but for the first time in sixty years, I have the liberty to share it openly.
I've shared in past Coffee Breaks my early experiences of growing up with angels and seeing them on a continual -- almost daily -- basis for some three years. When I was seven years old, I awoke one morning very early to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. He unfolded many things before me that day -- one of which was a picture of the restoration of the nation of Israel and the ingathering of Jews from all over the world, along with the recognition among the Jews of Jesus as their Messiah.
Perhaps the most singular thing He spoke to me that day -- and one that has rung in my ears continually since (especially during times when the Enemy has tried to take me out) -- was this: "You'll never die or know death as men know death. You will be here to see my return in Glory."
When I shared it over the breakfast table with my parents later that same morning, their first reaction was, "Hmmmmm......" From that point, though, the discussion centered around the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a recognition that His return could well be within their lifetimes as well. (The Lord did come to receive them, but not after the beginning of the millennial period as they had hoped.)
Because of my parents' initial reaction to my sharing what Jesus said in spite of the fact that they overcame their natural instinct, it was obvious to me that this was not something I could freely share. Throughout the past sixty years, I've perhaps shared this with a few dozen folks at most.
Because of the somewhat confrontational nature of the realm of ministry God called me to, it seems that I've often been the focus of controversy and -- at times -- real persecution where people have tried to take me out. Then there have been the deliberate attempts of evil spirits to kill me in "accidents": car accidents, airplane crashes, fires, so-called "close calls," etc.
Della and I were just talking this morning about some angelic deliverances we've both known.
I remember a time when I was flying from Fairbanks (Alaska) to Kotzebue on a Wien Airlines Fairchild F-27. We were seriously overloaded with freight (all but a little over a dozen seats had been removed to accommodate all the freight) and the seats were full. Just past the halfway mark, we lost an engine. The pilot was unable to restart the engine and began to slowly lose altitude. Although I didn't actually see the angel(s) holding up the aircraft, I was very much aware of the fact that we were experiencing supernatural deliverance, and an angel of the Lord was holding the plane aloft. By the time we made Kotzebue, the aircraft was barely 500 feet above the ground. We all arrived safe and sound.
Then there was that time when I was driving in the Santa Cruz mountains on my way to a Teen Challenge meeting with David Wilkerson. We hit a loose patch of gravel in a turn and I lost control of the car. Screaming "JESUS! at the top of my voice as the car headed over a cliff, I heard the audible voice of the angel of the Lord as he spoke peace into my being with the words, "Nothing is going to happen to you." Sure enough, although the car was totally demolished, I walked away without so much as a scratch -- maybe a little loose glass in my hair from the broken windows.
At age 41, I dropped dead in the shower from a massive heart attack. Della was well aware of God's promise to me, and she wasn't about to put up with this. She knew it was nothing more than an attack of Satan to take me out. She dragged my body from the shower into our bedroom, heaved me up onto the bed and began to speak life back into me in the name of Jesus. About 15 minutes went by before I returned, but when I came back, the Lord had healed previous defects in my physical being and a medical doctor who gave me a thorough going-over a few days later told me I had the health of a 20-year-old.
These are but a few incidents (there are literally dozens -- a quick count tells me of some 36 separate occasions) of events like this in my life) where Satan has tried to kill me and prevent the plan of the Lord from coming to fruition. But you see, I have the specific promise of the Lord! It was and is to this day a rhema in my being that no one can take away, or talk me out of.
The Table of the Lord has become a reality to me in the sense that Jesus kept my appointment with death. I have no more appointments with death. If the Enemy tries to take me out, Jesus simply cancels out anything that he does.
One of the statements that Jesus made that same day when He was talking to His disciples about eating and drinking of Him was this: "And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40)
Now I know this verse has more applications than this one, but are you seeing how it was applied in my life when the Enemy sought to take me out? Jesus has the last Word! He has the final say. Satan thought he snuffed out my life and successfully thwarted God's promise to me. But it didn't work. Yes, Della spoke the Word that brought me back from the dead, but it was the Word -- the Lord Jesus Christ -- who had the final say. He raised me up "at the last day." I know that's not how we normally view Jesus' statement, but the essence of what He is saying is that He has the final Word; He has the final say in the matter. The curse of death has been broken. We just have to believe it!
There's another application I'd like for you to consider.
Every sickness, every disease, every infirmity and every pain is rooted and founded in the death process. Although our bodies were designed to replenish every cell every seven years, the curse of death means that not all cells are replenished or replaced. There is a dying process taking place. Every sickness derives its existence from the imbalance that occurs when certain cells in our body fail to rejuvenate or replace. Every infirmity gains its existence when muscle cells, tendon cells, joint-lubrication cells (or some other set of cells) become damaged or fail to rejuvenate.
All of them are based in death and in the curse of death. Yet there is a revelation that takes place at the Table of the Lord that God's people need to receive. Jesus made clear the fact that when we eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, we eat and drink of eternal life. Jesus IS the Bread of Life. But He is more than that!
Think about what Jesus said (See Luke 24:38-39) when He appeared to the disciples following His resurrection. "And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."
WHAT? What did He just say? "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Why didn't He say, "a spirit hath not flesh and blood?" Because the life that was in Him following the resurrection was not blood any longer: it was spirit! That is how the apostle Paul could say the following:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)
Get it? The life that now exhibited in Jesus was the life of the Spirit. And now we have an understanding of why the Table of the Lord and Water Baptism were the only two commandments that Jesus gave. The two ordinances exhibit the same thing!
With the Table of the Lord, we eat of the Word of Life in Christ Jesus and drink of the Spirit. With Water Baptism, we show to demonic principalities and demonic powers that the flesh they once had access to is now dead. That which comes forth out of the water is a resurrected person, raised to new life in Christ Jesus, resurrected from the dead by the Spirit. The life that we now live is by the Spirit -- NOT the flesh and blood.
If Christians could just get this revelation, it would radically transform the way they think and the way they live. Folks, as believers in Christ, we are free from the Law of Sin and Death. Jesus kept our appointment with death.
The problem in today's world is that we are programmed continually with the necessity to protect ourselves from death, from premature death, from "accidents" and a whole host of sicknesses and diseases. It's a funny thing, but I've lived most of my life without life insurance or health insurance. When I worked for the television networks (FOX, NBC, Telemundo, etc.) they provided me with some pretty spendy life insurance and health insurance. Honestly, the only time I've ever really gotten sick to the place where I was out of commission for several days (and once for a couple of weeks) was when I had health insurance.
Maybe you've never thought of it like this, but you gamble every time you purchase life or health insurance. The insurance company makes you pay them to gamble. They gamble that you are not going to get sick, and you gamble that you will. They gamble that you won't die prematurely, and you gamble that you will. Insurance companies make billions of dollars every year from people who gamble that they will lose their home, their automobile, their health, their life, or whatever. The medical industry makes billions of dollars from people who -- because they believe they are subject to disease, sickness and infirmity -- gladly pay out their life's earnings in order to gain or preserve what Jesus freely provides at His Table.
Is there something wrong with this picture? YES!!! God's people are supposed to be the picture of life and health and strength and vitality. It has been provided by and through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. Why are Christians today suffering from heart attacks? Why are Christians suffering from tumors, from cancer, from stress, from nervous conditions, from every disease known to man?
The simple answer is that most do not have a revelation of the Table of the Lord. Most "believers" don't realize that the thief (and, brother, is he ever a thief!) is stealing what Jesus freely provides. This is why Della and I have come to the place where there is not a day that goes by without our partaking of the Table of the Lord. We do so with the understanding that each time we eat of the Bread of Life, we eat of the health, the vitality, the wholeness and the provision that Jesus has in His very Being! Each time we drink of the Cup, we drink of the Cup of Life that Jesus offers.
When Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth, he reminded them of what Jesus said (I Corinthians 11:24-25), "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." Jesus also said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."
Are we doing this in remembrance of Jesus hanging on the Cross? Are we doing this in remembrance of Jesus shedding His blood? Nope! And yet, we do to a certain extent. The remembrance is not the Cross, nor the blood that was shed as much as what Jesus accomplished by His sacrifice. The real picture is that a new covenant was made for us -- a covenant between the Lord and us -- a covenant of total provision, a covenant of death cancellation, a covenant of health and life, a covenant that provides complete healing when Satan seeks to steal from us our health, a covenant that replaces whatever provision Satan has stolen from us in an effort to keep us in poverty and continual need.
But this covenant requires something of us. It requires believing that Jesus is a covenant-keeping God, that He will give us and do for us exactly what He said He would! Satan has sold much of the body of Christ the lie that sickness is the will of God for us. How insane is that? He has also sold many Christians the lie that a life of poverty and need is true humility, and that it is more "spiritual" to have barely enough, or not quite enough, than to have an abundance of resources. Brother! What a lie! What a canard!
But this revelation of the Table of the Lord grows even more once we begin to understand the significance of Isaiah's prophecy (Isaiah 53) as it relates to eating and drinking of the Lord.
That's where we'll go next. There's more to this revelation, lots more!!!
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
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