HONOR
Leroy Blankenship is an evangelist and Grammy-Award-winning songwriter and singer who has become a valuable part of River Worship Center's family. A few days ago he was ministering in Yakima and there was a gentleman in one of his services who shared the following testimony.
This man was driving on Interstate 90 headed to Seattle when he spotted a woman who was standing outside her car looking rather dispiritedly at a very flat tire. They were in a section of the highway where no cell phone reception was available, so there was no way the lady could call for roadside assistance. He felt prompted to stop and help the woman. He quickly changed her tire with the spare and put the flat tire back in her trunk.
She offered to pay him for his services, but he declined. She convinced him to at least give her his name and address; he then drove away feeling a sense of joy at having been able to provide some small assistance to this woman in distress.
A couple of weeks later he went to the bank to make his mortgage payment. When the teller pulled up his account she said to him, "Sir, you have no more payments due. Your mortgage is paid off. You should be receiving title to your home in the mail shortly." The man was flabbergasted and stammered out, "But how......who.....who did this?" It took the teller a few minutes to verify the payoff and reported back to the man, "The signature on the payoff of your mortgage is, Melinda Gates." (In case you don't know, Melinda Gates is Bill Gates' wife.) He had not asked for the name of the woman whom he stopped to help and had been reluctant to even give his name.
We've been hearing more and more stories like this of folks who've been receiving unusual gifts, loans being paid off, cars being paid for and credit cards with miraculous zero balances (when they formerly had amounts due between $20,000 and $40,000). God is doing some rather spectacular things for His people these days, and it is happening to those who are faithful to Him in every circumstance -- those who are in active pursuit of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives. People are being set free from financial encumbrances that restrict their ability to move about and minister as the Holy Spirit directs.
Leroy was pretty wound up when he shared this testimony. This isn't third person or word of mouth: the man to whom this miracle happened was in Leroy's service.
A couple of weeks ago we had four young people -- late teens, early twenties -- who showed up for one of our evening worship gatherings. They were in dire need of personal ministry, and a couple of them were addicted to some pretty heavy duty drugs. What made this event interesting was the fact that the father of one of the young men had come into our place a few years ago when we were still in Sunnyside. He had been an alcoholic and drug addict for 25 years. Treatment programs had failed and he was desperate. We ministered deliverance to him and recommended that he come each evening and just "soak" in the presence of the Lord during our spontaneous praise and worship gatherings. The Lord delivered him totally and for the past nearly four years he has lived victoriously and free from those addictions.
When the son came looking for the same kind of deliverance for himself, we were extremely blessed to see change come into his life as well. We ministered to the rest of the young people, and can say with certainty that their freedom is likewise manifesting. I was personally introduced to this realm of ministry when working with the Teen Challenge ministries in San Francisco and Los Angeles more than 45 years ago, so this is just a continuation of that same thing. Not less than one-third of all Jesus' ministry recorded in the Gospels involved the ministry of deliverance from evil spirits. As ministers of the Gospel and representatives of the Kingdom of God, this realm had better be operational in us or we are very poor representatives.
OK! Good Morning! Had to share those things with you. Coffee's on. We're doing very dark roasted Rwandan today. Wow! What an aroma!
Honor is a concept that has been more and more swept aside in our western culture. We use the word in two different sense in our current terminology.
(1) If I say to you that "I expect you to honor your word," it means that I expect you to act with integrity and truthfulness and to keep your promise. In this sense, the word "honor" is defined as" a sense of what is right, just and true; having dignity and respect for character springing from honesty, principle and moral strength.
(2) If I say that "I honor you," it means that I am giving you high estimation, reverence or veneration. In this usage, Webster's Dictionary defines "honor" as: the esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; a testimony or token of esteem.
It is this second usage that we find prevalent throughout Scripture and each time we see this word appear in its Hebrew usage, it denotes something we have for the most part lost sight of.
Two Hebrew words appear in the Old Testament that are translated "honor." The first of these is hod: meaning: grandeur, beauty, excellence, glory, majesty. The second word translated "honor" is: kabod. Its direct meaning is: weight; but this word is used in a figurative or metaphoric sense meaning: to give weight or high respect to; splendor; copiousness; glory.
This word, kabod, is interesting in that it is rooted in kabad, which means: weighty, to be heavy, numerous, rich, honorable, abounding with, glorious -- overflowing with wealth. Thus the word "honor" also brings with it a sense of wealth, position, dignity, power, magnificence.
Take this meaning now in the light of the following scriptures:
(1) Revelation 4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
(2) Revelation 5:11-13: And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.
See the connection? Do you understand why we give honor to the Lord? Do you think there is weight and high respect given to the Lord in this worship? How about abundance and wealth? Do you believe that we can properly associate and ascribe abundance and wealth to the Lord? Is He wealthy? Is He deserving of dignity? Is He all that is magnificence?
Good! I see that you are following me. (Chuckle) I doubt there is any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who would argue against any of these descriptions of God.
Now, let's take this the next step.
Consider something that the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans.
"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
“To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God." (Romans 2:1-11
)
Whewww!! Now there's a mouthful!
Let's break out some very important principles revealed in this passage.
1. Judgment of another (brother or sister in the Lord) results in condemnation being heaped upon the one who judges. The motivation of the heart being revealed is that those who judge another person -- either their motive, their heart's intent, or their actions [and in the case of a leader in the body who in all honesty and sincerity teaches something which is in error] -- are guilty of the very thing for which they judge their brother or sister.
2. Paul goes on to say that the judgment of God is according to TRUTH against those who judge; and he makes clear that those who judge another member of the body of Christ harshly will most certainly NOT escape the judgment of God. We'll come back to that after a bit.
(I know by now you must be wondering where in the world I'm going with all of this, and how this can possibly relate to "honor" or glory. Stand by.)
3. Then Paul equates this same attitude of judging with despising the "riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering." OUCH! At the same time he says there is a willful ignoring of the fact that the "goodness of God leads to repentance" and a reversing of one's attitudes and decisions.
4. Those who stubbornly and unrepentantly store up to themselves violent passion, indignation and purpose punishment against those whom they judge wind up storing it to the day of God's wrath and judgment against themselves. Paul makes clear that it is God's righteous judgment they endanger themselves with because of their attitudes and hardness of heart, and God's righteous judgment against them is eternal wrath.
5. Next he takes the opposite side of this picture to show that those who by endurance and constant contending in well doing seek for glory, honor and immortality, His judgment to and for them is eternal life.
Before we continue the breakdown of these verses, let me pause to say that this phrase "seeking for glory and honor and immortality" taken by itself out of context almost sounds like being self-absorbed. The glory and honor Paul is referring to, however, is framed within the context of what Jesus said to the Pharisees when He said,
"I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" (John 5:44-45)
Again Jesus says (see John 8:54), "Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me;" and again, (John 12:26) "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour."
The picture of one seeking after honor, therefore, is the intense seeking after the Lord and following Him absolutely without compromise or question. The consequence of that contending for the presence of the Lord IS honor -- and it is God doing the honoring.
The same is true of glory and Jesus makes it clear when He says, "And I seek not mine own glory: there is One that seeketh and judgeth." (John 8:50) Seeking after glory is seeking and earnestly desiring the Glory of the Lord to be revealed in us. When that happens, He is the recipient of the Glory! People see His Glory at work and manifested in us and their instantaneous reaction is, "Glory to God!"
The rest of Paul's phrase on "glory and honor and immortality" -- immortality -- goes with the package. When we seek after the honor of the Lord and His Glory being revealed in us, immortality -- eternal life -- is the judgment God gives!
John sums it up for us as he records Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper. "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:1-3)
6. Getting back to Paul's comments in his letter to the Romans, he reemphasizes again the consequences that happens to those who act in dishonor -- "them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but [rather] obey (Greek: peitho: pacify, assent to, act conciliatory towards) unrighteousness (Greek: adikia: injustice, moral wrongfulness, [dishonor]), indignation (Greek: thumos: fierce passion) and wrath" -- God's judgment, and their end is "tribulation (Greek: thlipsis: great pressure and trouble) and anguish (Greek: stenochoria: calamity) upon every soul of man that doeth evil."
7. Paul finishes this discourse by again emphasizing that the judgment of God is that "glory, honor and peace" will come to those whose objective is good (Greek: agathos: that which benefits [God's objectives and purposes]."
There's another side of honor, however, that I want to deal with, and that is the honor of one another -- and particularly the honor God expects us to give to those who labor in the Gospel. Because it will take up a fair amount of time, I'll save it for our next Coffee Break which we will title Honor and Dishonor. See you soon.
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (II Corinthians 3:17)
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
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD XII
The Table of the Lord XII
Power in the Blood, Part 2
Thought I was going to move on for awhile to another topic, but realized we hadn't quite wrapped up this revelation yet -- or at least that part the Holy Spirit has downloaded in me. (Grin)
The next Coffee Break is already written, but I needed to delay its posting until we at least finish up this part of the discussion on the Table of the Lord. There's still lots more revelation to share on the Table of the Lord, but I will take a break for a few weeks following this post to deal with a prophetic outlook for the next year that needs to be shared.
This past Wednesday morning, following our early morning time of prayer and intercession, a fire and smoke alarm next to the kitchen began to sound off. There was no smoke in the house, and nothing was on the stove in the kitchen. After looking around for some cause and finding none, I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and began waving it in the air next to the alarm thinking there might be some pollutants in the air that I couldn't see. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The thing kept chirping and occasionally sounding off.
Minutes later, the fire and smoke alarm in the guest bedroom (only a few feet away) began to do the same thing. Now I WAS puzzled! Did the same thing with the towel with the same results. The alarm kept going off. Now there were two alarms sounding. It couldn't have been five minutes later when the alarm in our theater room (set up with a large HD flatscreen, seven-channel surround sound system, satellite receivers and Internet capability – in other words, lots of electronic components) also began to chirp and sound off. My first thought was that maybe some component was failing and creating fumes or pollutants triggering the rest of the alarms. We have five alarms throughout the house, by the way, but only three were sounding off.
A careful check of the equipment in the theater room made clear that there were no issues there. Finally, I gave up, got a ladder out of the garage, climbed up and began to remove each of the backup batteries from each of the alarms. The same three alarms continued their chirps and beeps. Della looked at me and said, "Honey, I want to study and spend time with the Lord, but I can't continue to put up with these alarms."
The next process was to disconnect each alarm from its electrical wiring and set it on the island in the kitchen with its appropriate backup battery. The alarms continued to sound off! NO, that's not a typo. The batteries are removed. The alarms are disconnected from the electrical wiring and physically removed from their mounts. All three are sitting beside each other on the island in the kitchen, and they are continuing to sound off! And they continued to sound off for the next two hours! Any of you readers who are electricians or electrical engineers know that what I'm describing is simply not impossible. There's just no way for an electrical device to work without electricity or some kind of electrical supply source.
Almost at the same moment, Della and I looked at each other, raised our arms up in the air and said, "OK, Lord! Are you trying to get our attention or something? Are you trying to give us some kind of warning?"
Earlier in the day I'd printed a prophetic word out from the Elijah List (http://ElijahList.com). It was a Word given by Bobby Connor (a brother in the Lord whom I originally met more than 30 years ago, and whose ministry is well proven, and whose prophetic words have proven throughout the years to be extremely accurate), and it began: "Dread Champions, Arise to to Contend and Defend! Do you hear the battle alarm? It is ringing loud and clear! We are entering a very serious season -- a season of confrontation. Our lukewarm "business as usual" attitude must die.
The Spirit of God is awakening and arousing the Church, prompting us to arise and take a strong stand for Divine Truth! The war is raging and we must prepare for battle."
I strongly recommend that you go to the following link and read the entire prophetic word. It is a critical word for this hour. http://www.elijahlist.com/words/textonly.html?ID=8428. Let me also recommend to you that you subscribe to the Elijah List in order to receive these prophetic words that come from various parts of the Body of Christ.
That said, getting back to the alarms, and the Word of the Lord that came through Bobby Connor, we were certainly put on alert. God is doing these kinds of extraordinary things to get the attention of Christians and let them know we are living and functioning in a most critical hour. The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is sooner than most folks think, and He's not coming back for lukewarm, "name only" Christians. He's coming back for a people Daniel described like this: "And such as do wickedly (rasha': violate, condemn) against the Covenant shall he [the king of the north] corrupt by flatteries; but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits." (Daniel 11:32b)
"Such as do wickedly" incorporates a whole lot more than just those who are not believing-Christians. Sadly, there are many folks who call themselves Christians who in fact violate the Covenant that Jesus made with us and for us. They cash in on the name "Christian" but live to please their flesh and their own personal desires rather than entering into a real love-relationship with Jesus Christ.
Anything that represents "cost" to them, their personal relationships with family or friends, their "good name," their reputation -- and/or their pocketbooks they justify in setting aside or pretending that the Lord is not requiring it of them. Those who enter into a real intimate relationship with the Lord, contending for and striving after His best and His heart's desire are the people whom Daniel describes as "the people that do know their God."
OK? 'Nuff said. Let's see what we can do here to fill out the picture of Jesus' Blood.
In the last Coffee Break I posed the question, “Why would blood have to be shed in order for forgiveness to take place?”
Let’s revisit a picture taken from the Encarta Encyclopedia (I won't reprint that article here, but you can go back to The Table of the Lord XI).
Consider Jesus’ statement to the disciples as they sat at the Last Supper:
Matthew 26:26-28: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
We know from the Encarta explanation that blood serves many purposes.
1. Blood carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body.
2. Blood washes the body of waste products, (a) dispersing carbon dioxide out of the body through the exhaling of breath from the lungs, and (b) sending urea and uric acid to the kidneys where they are converted to urine and eliminated.
3. Blood serves as a means of transporting life throughout the body.
4. Blood becomes the vehicle by which chemicals and hormones are moved throughout the body to regulate the function of the various organs.
5. Blood fights disease, resists infection and keeps the body’s immune system operating properly.
6. The flow of blood throughout the body keeps one part of the body from becoming overactive and overheated by triggering the enlargement or shrinkage of blood vessels in order to regulate our body’s temperature and keep things in balance.
Now are you seeing the spiritual parallels?
1. The Blood of Jesus carries with it the breath of God to all parts of the Body.
2. The Blood of Jesus washes our spirits and our souls of those things that contaminate our daily walk with God. Consider these following Scriptures for a minute:
Revelation 1:5: And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Revelation 7:14: And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
3. The Blood of Jesus – when shed on the Cross for our sins – canceled out the curse of death and restored eternal life for us.
Hebrews 9:27-28: And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
4. The Blood of Jesus is the means by which we as believers in Christ Jesus become one Body. The Blood of Jesus regulates the development of the Body through the transport and movement of “spiritual chemicals and hormones” and ensures proper growth and development.
Let me pause in this illustration to remind you of a point that we’ve discussed in previous times of sharing – namely, that when Jesus shed His Blood and died, He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God. Paul, writing to the Romans, said:
Romans 8:11: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Notice that when Jesus rose from the dead it was because He was raised by the Spirit. There was no fresh infusion of blood to make Him alive. He was alive now by the Holy Spirit. We, likewise, are made alive in Christ Jesus by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit – replacing the Blood, and acting in the place of the Blood – that flows through the Body of Christ.
That same Spirit regulates the growth and development of the Body of Christ by His choice – not ours. That same Spirit appoints and moves throughout the Body, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds) and teachers for the regulation and upbuilding and strengthening of the Body as a whole.
Ephesians 4:11-16: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
“From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
In this sense, the Holy Spirit becomes the blood-flow of the Lord Jesus Christ – the life-flow – that regulates and stimulates growth through the five facets of Jesus’ ministry character and makeup.
5. The Blood of Jesus provides the legal means by which we fight off the infection of sin and iniquity. The Blood of Jesus legally provides us our immunity – both from Satan’s contamination and in a literal sense from disease, sickness and infirmity, weakness, poverty and everything that renders us powerless against the infection of sin.
The apostle Paul put it like this: Romans 8:1-2: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
6. Just as blood in a natural sense regulates the body’s temperature by increasing its flow when certain parts of the body become too overheated, and restricting its flow by shrinking the size of the blood vessels in order to cause the body to warm, the Holy Spirit regulates the temperature of the Body of Christ by moving throughout with what we’ve come to refer to as “moves of the Spirit.” The regulation of the body’s temperature – in a natural or physical sense – enables us to walk and live healthy lives.
As we all know from history, the Body of Christ became extremely ill – virtually dormant – for centuries. The Dark Ages, with religion that had all but snuffed out the flow of the Holy Spirit, was very properly named as such since it was a dark and sick time for God’s people.
(a) The Reformation was the beginning of a new flow of life within the Body as the Holy Spirit began to transport some life and heat back with the revelation that “the just shall live by faith.” (b) The Reformation was followed by several sequential “moves” as the sovereignty of God was revealed, water baptism by immersion, and then a crack in the Nicolaitan doctrine of “power over the people” by an elite few began to widen into a complete break with “high church” structure.
(c) A “Great Awakening” to salvation through Jesus Christ by grace and faith began in Ireland and England and came to full flower in America just as the United States became a reality. (d) That was followed by a second “Great Awakening in the 1800’s in which evangelism began to flourish as never before in history. (e) At the turn of the 20th Century, we saw Azusa Street and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Spirit in full manifestation.
(f) By the 1940’s and 50’s, the Latter Rain movement took hold with miracles on display such as the world has never known. (g) During the 1950’s and 60’s and 70’s we saw great evangelical moves with individuals like William Branham, A. A. Allen, (both of whom were intrinsic to the Latter Rain movement) Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, T. L. Osborn and others. Mass evangelism began to be seen on a scale the Body of Christ had not previously seen.
(h) The early 60’s and throughout the 70’s brought the Charismatic Renewal, and in the 1980’s, there began to be heard a depth of teaching and a flowering of understanding of “the five-fold ministries. (i) The late 1980’s saw the development of ministries such as IHOP and Morningstar with an accent on the Tabernacle of David and 24-hour praise, worship, prayer and intercession. (j) At the same time folks like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price and Charles Capps emerged as powerful teachers and proponents of God’s people being restored to prosperous living.
(k) In the past decade and a half we have seen prophetic and apostolic ministries flourish as the Body of Christ has once again begun to come alive and assert the anointing and authority of the Kingdom of God in the earth.
Throughout the ages there have always been a tiny remnant of God’s people keeping the blood-flow of the Lord Jesus Christ alive and moving; and despite numerous attempts of Satan to snuff out the life of the Spirit, the flame of the Holy Spirit has continued to burn and move from place to place.
There have been teachers, preachers, evangelists and missionaries throughout the centuries who have had personal visitations from the Lord and have been faithful to the Word God has given them in order to keep the blood-flow and the life-flow of the Holy Spirit alive and moving throughout the Body of Christ. Many of them have been virtually unknown “no-names” whose faithfulness in sharing the life and revelation of the Holy Spirit has led to other, more prominent teachers and leaders – apostles and prophets and evangelists – restoring the life-flow of the Holy Spirit to the body at large.
We’ve seen an ebb and flow, but the life of the Body of Christ has continued to grow, mature and take hold in the world as the original vision and purpose of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit has been being brought to fruition.
The Body of Christ IS growing up into HIM – a whole body, a living body, a ruling body; and it all began to happen when Jesus shed His Blood for us.
Jesus' Blood did a whole lot more than simply remitting our sins. It forever restored our access to the same relationship with the Father that Adam and Eve once enjoyed. It restored our access to the Heavenlies. It took away the penalty for death and restored eternity.
Jesus' Blood eradicated death and the dying process. Along with the dying process went all sickness, all disease, all bondage to Satan (no matter what form that bondage takes), and all weakness or infirmity.
Jesus' Blood restored the Abrahamic Covenant -- and the Blessing of Abraham.
Jesus' Blood canceled the curse of the Law.
Jesus' Blood canceled poverty. Jesus' Blood canceled the need to work for a living and redeemed work so that we can now "work for a giving" instead -- just like He did.
We'll come back to this topic in a few weeks when we talk about The Table of the Lord and the picture of Multiplication.
"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.
Power in the Blood, Part 2
Thought I was going to move on for awhile to another topic, but realized we hadn't quite wrapped up this revelation yet -- or at least that part the Holy Spirit has downloaded in me. (Grin)
The next Coffee Break is already written, but I needed to delay its posting until we at least finish up this part of the discussion on the Table of the Lord. There's still lots more revelation to share on the Table of the Lord, but I will take a break for a few weeks following this post to deal with a prophetic outlook for the next year that needs to be shared.
This past Wednesday morning, following our early morning time of prayer and intercession, a fire and smoke alarm next to the kitchen began to sound off. There was no smoke in the house, and nothing was on the stove in the kitchen. After looking around for some cause and finding none, I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and began waving it in the air next to the alarm thinking there might be some pollutants in the air that I couldn't see. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The thing kept chirping and occasionally sounding off.
Minutes later, the fire and smoke alarm in the guest bedroom (only a few feet away) began to do the same thing. Now I WAS puzzled! Did the same thing with the towel with the same results. The alarm kept going off. Now there were two alarms sounding. It couldn't have been five minutes later when the alarm in our theater room (set up with a large HD flatscreen, seven-channel surround sound system, satellite receivers and Internet capability – in other words, lots of electronic components) also began to chirp and sound off. My first thought was that maybe some component was failing and creating fumes or pollutants triggering the rest of the alarms. We have five alarms throughout the house, by the way, but only three were sounding off.
A careful check of the equipment in the theater room made clear that there were no issues there. Finally, I gave up, got a ladder out of the garage, climbed up and began to remove each of the backup batteries from each of the alarms. The same three alarms continued their chirps and beeps. Della looked at me and said, "Honey, I want to study and spend time with the Lord, but I can't continue to put up with these alarms."
The next process was to disconnect each alarm from its electrical wiring and set it on the island in the kitchen with its appropriate backup battery. The alarms continued to sound off! NO, that's not a typo. The batteries are removed. The alarms are disconnected from the electrical wiring and physically removed from their mounts. All three are sitting beside each other on the island in the kitchen, and they are continuing to sound off! And they continued to sound off for the next two hours! Any of you readers who are electricians or electrical engineers know that what I'm describing is simply not impossible. There's just no way for an electrical device to work without electricity or some kind of electrical supply source.
Almost at the same moment, Della and I looked at each other, raised our arms up in the air and said, "OK, Lord! Are you trying to get our attention or something? Are you trying to give us some kind of warning?"
Earlier in the day I'd printed a prophetic word out from the Elijah List (http://ElijahList.com). It was a Word given by Bobby Connor (a brother in the Lord whom I originally met more than 30 years ago, and whose ministry is well proven, and whose prophetic words have proven throughout the years to be extremely accurate), and it began: "Dread Champions, Arise to to Contend and Defend! Do you hear the battle alarm? It is ringing loud and clear! We are entering a very serious season -- a season of confrontation. Our lukewarm "business as usual" attitude must die.
The Spirit of God is awakening and arousing the Church, prompting us to arise and take a strong stand for Divine Truth! The war is raging and we must prepare for battle."
I strongly recommend that you go to the following link and read the entire prophetic word. It is a critical word for this hour. http://www.elijahlist.com/words/textonly.html?ID=8428. Let me also recommend to you that you subscribe to the Elijah List in order to receive these prophetic words that come from various parts of the Body of Christ.
That said, getting back to the alarms, and the Word of the Lord that came through Bobby Connor, we were certainly put on alert. God is doing these kinds of extraordinary things to get the attention of Christians and let them know we are living and functioning in a most critical hour. The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is sooner than most folks think, and He's not coming back for lukewarm, "name only" Christians. He's coming back for a people Daniel described like this: "And such as do wickedly (rasha': violate, condemn) against the Covenant shall he [the king of the north] corrupt by flatteries; but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits." (Daniel 11:32b)
"Such as do wickedly" incorporates a whole lot more than just those who are not believing-Christians. Sadly, there are many folks who call themselves Christians who in fact violate the Covenant that Jesus made with us and for us. They cash in on the name "Christian" but live to please their flesh and their own personal desires rather than entering into a real love-relationship with Jesus Christ.
Anything that represents "cost" to them, their personal relationships with family or friends, their "good name," their reputation -- and/or their pocketbooks they justify in setting aside or pretending that the Lord is not requiring it of them. Those who enter into a real intimate relationship with the Lord, contending for and striving after His best and His heart's desire are the people whom Daniel describes as "the people that do know their God."
OK? 'Nuff said. Let's see what we can do here to fill out the picture of Jesus' Blood.
In the last Coffee Break I posed the question, “Why would blood have to be shed in order for forgiveness to take place?”
Let’s revisit a picture taken from the Encarta Encyclopedia (I won't reprint that article here, but you can go back to The Table of the Lord XI).
Consider Jesus’ statement to the disciples as they sat at the Last Supper:
Matthew 26:26-28: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
We know from the Encarta explanation that blood serves many purposes.
1. Blood carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body.
2. Blood washes the body of waste products, (a) dispersing carbon dioxide out of the body through the exhaling of breath from the lungs, and (b) sending urea and uric acid to the kidneys where they are converted to urine and eliminated.
3. Blood serves as a means of transporting life throughout the body.
4. Blood becomes the vehicle by which chemicals and hormones are moved throughout the body to regulate the function of the various organs.
5. Blood fights disease, resists infection and keeps the body’s immune system operating properly.
6. The flow of blood throughout the body keeps one part of the body from becoming overactive and overheated by triggering the enlargement or shrinkage of blood vessels in order to regulate our body’s temperature and keep things in balance.
Now are you seeing the spiritual parallels?
1. The Blood of Jesus carries with it the breath of God to all parts of the Body.
2. The Blood of Jesus washes our spirits and our souls of those things that contaminate our daily walk with God. Consider these following Scriptures for a minute:
Revelation 1:5: And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Revelation 7:14: And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
3. The Blood of Jesus – when shed on the Cross for our sins – canceled out the curse of death and restored eternal life for us.
Hebrews 9:27-28: And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
4. The Blood of Jesus is the means by which we as believers in Christ Jesus become one Body. The Blood of Jesus regulates the development of the Body through the transport and movement of “spiritual chemicals and hormones” and ensures proper growth and development.
Let me pause in this illustration to remind you of a point that we’ve discussed in previous times of sharing – namely, that when Jesus shed His Blood and died, He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God. Paul, writing to the Romans, said:
Romans 8:11: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Notice that when Jesus rose from the dead it was because He was raised by the Spirit. There was no fresh infusion of blood to make Him alive. He was alive now by the Holy Spirit. We, likewise, are made alive in Christ Jesus by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit – replacing the Blood, and acting in the place of the Blood – that flows through the Body of Christ.
That same Spirit regulates the growth and development of the Body of Christ by His choice – not ours. That same Spirit appoints and moves throughout the Body, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds) and teachers for the regulation and upbuilding and strengthening of the Body as a whole.
Ephesians 4:11-16: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
“From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
In this sense, the Holy Spirit becomes the blood-flow of the Lord Jesus Christ – the life-flow – that regulates and stimulates growth through the five facets of Jesus’ ministry character and makeup.
5. The Blood of Jesus provides the legal means by which we fight off the infection of sin and iniquity. The Blood of Jesus legally provides us our immunity – both from Satan’s contamination and in a literal sense from disease, sickness and infirmity, weakness, poverty and everything that renders us powerless against the infection of sin.
The apostle Paul put it like this: Romans 8:1-2: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
6. Just as blood in a natural sense regulates the body’s temperature by increasing its flow when certain parts of the body become too overheated, and restricting its flow by shrinking the size of the blood vessels in order to cause the body to warm, the Holy Spirit regulates the temperature of the Body of Christ by moving throughout with what we’ve come to refer to as “moves of the Spirit.” The regulation of the body’s temperature – in a natural or physical sense – enables us to walk and live healthy lives.
As we all know from history, the Body of Christ became extremely ill – virtually dormant – for centuries. The Dark Ages, with religion that had all but snuffed out the flow of the Holy Spirit, was very properly named as such since it was a dark and sick time for God’s people.
(a) The Reformation was the beginning of a new flow of life within the Body as the Holy Spirit began to transport some life and heat back with the revelation that “the just shall live by faith.” (b) The Reformation was followed by several sequential “moves” as the sovereignty of God was revealed, water baptism by immersion, and then a crack in the Nicolaitan doctrine of “power over the people” by an elite few began to widen into a complete break with “high church” structure.
(c) A “Great Awakening” to salvation through Jesus Christ by grace and faith began in Ireland and England and came to full flower in America just as the United States became a reality. (d) That was followed by a second “Great Awakening in the 1800’s in which evangelism began to flourish as never before in history. (e) At the turn of the 20th Century, we saw Azusa Street and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Spirit in full manifestation.
(f) By the 1940’s and 50’s, the Latter Rain movement took hold with miracles on display such as the world has never known. (g) During the 1950’s and 60’s and 70’s we saw great evangelical moves with individuals like William Branham, A. A. Allen, (both of whom were intrinsic to the Latter Rain movement) Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, T. L. Osborn and others. Mass evangelism began to be seen on a scale the Body of Christ had not previously seen.
(h) The early 60’s and throughout the 70’s brought the Charismatic Renewal, and in the 1980’s, there began to be heard a depth of teaching and a flowering of understanding of “the five-fold ministries. (i) The late 1980’s saw the development of ministries such as IHOP and Morningstar with an accent on the Tabernacle of David and 24-hour praise, worship, prayer and intercession. (j) At the same time folks like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price and Charles Capps emerged as powerful teachers and proponents of God’s people being restored to prosperous living.
(k) In the past decade and a half we have seen prophetic and apostolic ministries flourish as the Body of Christ has once again begun to come alive and assert the anointing and authority of the Kingdom of God in the earth.
Throughout the ages there have always been a tiny remnant of God’s people keeping the blood-flow of the Lord Jesus Christ alive and moving; and despite numerous attempts of Satan to snuff out the life of the Spirit, the flame of the Holy Spirit has continued to burn and move from place to place.
There have been teachers, preachers, evangelists and missionaries throughout the centuries who have had personal visitations from the Lord and have been faithful to the Word God has given them in order to keep the blood-flow and the life-flow of the Holy Spirit alive and moving throughout the Body of Christ. Many of them have been virtually unknown “no-names” whose faithfulness in sharing the life and revelation of the Holy Spirit has led to other, more prominent teachers and leaders – apostles and prophets and evangelists – restoring the life-flow of the Holy Spirit to the body at large.
We’ve seen an ebb and flow, but the life of the Body of Christ has continued to grow, mature and take hold in the world as the original vision and purpose of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit has been being brought to fruition.
The Body of Christ IS growing up into HIM – a whole body, a living body, a ruling body; and it all began to happen when Jesus shed His Blood for us.
Jesus' Blood did a whole lot more than simply remitting our sins. It forever restored our access to the same relationship with the Father that Adam and Eve once enjoyed. It restored our access to the Heavenlies. It took away the penalty for death and restored eternity.
Jesus' Blood eradicated death and the dying process. Along with the dying process went all sickness, all disease, all bondage to Satan (no matter what form that bondage takes), and all weakness or infirmity.
Jesus' Blood restored the Abrahamic Covenant -- and the Blessing of Abraham.
Jesus' Blood canceled the curse of the Law.
Jesus' Blood canceled poverty. Jesus' Blood canceled the need to work for a living and redeemed work so that we can now "work for a giving" instead -- just like He did.
We'll come back to this topic in a few weeks when we talk about The Table of the Lord and the picture of Multiplication.
"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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Sunday, January 24, 2010
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD XI
The Table of the Lord XI
Power in the Blood
And a Fabulous, Prosperous Happy New Year, folks!
The other day, Della went to pray for her aunt, Nita, who was just released after having knee-replacement surgery. There were other cousins, nieces, nephews and some grand-nieces (is that what you call them, or do they become "cousins" instead?). Savannah is Nita's great-granddaughter. (We seem to have a bunch of Savannahs in our family -- a granddaughter, a niece, and this "grand-niece," or however she is classified.) Anyway, Savannah is not yet three years old. She was quite taken with Della and the presence of the Lord in her.
When Della went to lay hands on Nita and began to pray, Savannah came over to began to stare at Della's hand. She somehow sensed the power of God flowing but didn't understand what was taking place. Finally, she began picking up Della's hand and looking underneath to see what was there. It was both funny and revelatory at the same time. Della stopped and asked Savannah if she'd like to pray for Grandma Nita too. She nodded her head vigorously and put her hand on Nita's leg right next to Della's hand. Della placed her hand over Savannah's and began to pray in the Spirit.
The prayer became rather strong -- and long -- lasting between five and ten minutes. (Grin) Savannah didn't wriggle or move her hand even once during the prayer like most two-year-olds would do.
When Della finally lifted her hand, Savannah looked up at her and seemed to reluctantly withdraw her hand. She liked what she felt and experienced. It was both humorous and refreshing to see her reaction. When young children experience the power of God flowing like that and see the visible results of healing (Nita has astounded the doctors with her rapid recovery and full mobility without pain or after-effects.) it builds faith in them to do the same.
We've shared in the past how our granddaughter, Jessica, experienced the same thing when she was three years old and went around praying for her brothers and sisters whenever they experienced pain or the onset of a cold or flu or whatever. The manifestation of healing was instant -- so much so that whenever they have gotten hurt or felt bad for one reason or the other the automatic response has become, "get Jessie to pray for you!"
That, my friends, is the way it ought to be! We're bringing up a new generation of young people. They need to be brought up in an environment of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll multiply over and over and over again -- just like the loaves and fishes -- and the power of God to heal, save, deliver and make whole will spread like fire!
Well, Good Morning, folks! This Coffee Break begins our seventh year of publication and sharing the things God has been speaking and doing in our lives. At the same time, here at River Worship Center, we've been sharing around the Table of the Lord and a continually unfolding revelation concerning the bread and the cup for the past year and a half. I remember hearing Juan Carlos Ortiz share a number of years ago how the Holy Spirit wouldn't let him off the subject of God's Love in his church in Argentina for more than a year; and wondering how in the world one could stay on the same topic without saying the same thing over and over and over again to extreme boredom. Now I know! There's nothing boring about it, and the continual flow of revelation and impartation is nothing less than life-changing!
Let's begin by laying a few foundations.
We know by virtue of God's statement to Moses "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." (Leviticus 17:11)
Then God goes on to say the following: "Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off." (Leviticus 17: 12-14)
This is a critically important principle for us to get hold of. If the life of all flesh is in the blood, then the blood has both the power of life and death as it flows through our bodies. So long as the blood renews itself and is renewed by breath (breathing) [We'll come back to this momentarily] it carries the power of life throughout our bodies, bringing health to our minds -- or more specifically, our brains -- and keeping our bones, our organs, our muscles and our tissue continually renewed. If the blood, however, is not renewed and reoxygenated, it loses its life-giving power and our bodies begin to suffer the consequences with disease, infirmity and weakness as the immediate results, and -- given enough time -- death as the final result.
Blood becomes diseased when its cells begin to die or to replicate in unbalanced fashion. Anemia, leukemia and hemophilia are good examples.
Encarta Encyclopedia gives us the following description: Blood carries oxygen from the lungs to all the other tissues in the body and, in turn, carries waste products, predominantly carbon dioxide, back to the lungs where they are released into the air. When oxygen transport fails, a person dies within a few minutes. Food that has been processed by the digestive system into smaller components such as proteins, fats, and carbohydrates is also delivered to the tissues by the blood. These nutrients provide the materials and energy needed by individual cells for metabolism, or the performance of cellular function. Waste products produced during metabolism, such as urea and uric acid, are carried by the blood to the kidneys, where they are transferred from the blood into urine and eliminated from the body. In addition to oxygen and nutrients, blood also transports special chemicals, called hormones, that regulate certain body functions. The movement of these chemicals enables one organ to control the function of another even though the two organs may be located far apart. In this way, the blood acts not just as a means of transportation but also as a communications system.
The blood is more than a pipeline for nutrients and information; it is also responsible for the activities of the immune system, helping fend off infection and fight disease. In addition, blood carries the means for stopping itself from leaking out of the body after an injury. The blood does this by carrying special cells and proteins, known as the coagulation system, that start to form clots within a matter of seconds after injury.
Blood is vital to maintaining a stable body temperature; in humans, body temperature normally fluctuates within a degree of 37.0° C (98.6° F). Heat production and heat loss in various parts of the body are balanced out by heat transfer via the bloodstream. This is accomplished by varying the diameter of blood vessels in the skin. When a person becomes overheated, the vessels dilate and an increased volume of blood flows through the skin. Heat dissipates through the skin, effectively lowering the body temperature. The increased flow of blood in the skin makes the skin appear pink or flushed. When a person is cold, the skin may become pale as the vessels narrow, diverting blood from the skin and reducing heat loss. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
My apologies for this rather academic explanation, but the objective is to make very clear how and why "the life of the flesh is in the blood." We could get much more technical from a purely physical standpoint, but this ought to suffice. The spiritual significance here is that while natural blood flows through our veins to bring life-giving power to every part of our physical bodies, the Holy Spirit has been given to us to flow through our beings to give life to the Word. Without repeating much of what has already been written in this series of Coffee Breaks, we know from John's gospel that Jesus was and is The Word. He described Jesus as "the Word ... made flesh" and dwelling tangibly, physically in their midst.
But Jesus described the Word as also being manna -- bread from Heaven. At the Last Supper, Matthew records, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:26-28)
Question. Why would God say to Moses, "I have given [the blood] to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
Why was it so important that blood be shed on the altar in the first place "to make an atonement" or, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews, "almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission"? This word, "remission" is a translation of the Greek, aphesis, which comes from aphiemi; and it essentially means: to dismiss, to send away, to cause to disappear, to omit. In short it means: to erase from existence, to make as though it never was.
As a side note to the above, we see the word "forgive" often used as a translation of this word, aphiemi, through the NT. There are actually two other Greek words which more accurately translate to "forgive" and the picture would better be described from either of those words: to pardon, to give or extend grace towards one who has offended. The singular difference is that "forgiveness" defines pardon or grace without the utter erasure of the attending penalty; whereas "remission" describes not only full pardon but total erasure to the point where both the offense (or sin) and the penalty for that offense no longer exist. When Jesus spoke of it (and our English versions translate it "forgive," Jesus NEVER used any other word than the word aphiemi for total erasure. THIS is the description for "the remission of sin."
The Hebrew word, kaphar, parallels the Greek, aphiemi, and -- with the other meanings from the Greek -- adds: to cancel out, to cover (specifically with bitumen). That ought to be graphic enough!
Back to our question. Why would blood have to be shed in order for forgiveness to take place?
Consider this. Life was taken from Adam and Eve when they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The poison of humanly-acquired knowledge (in place of receiving divinely-given knowledge and revelation) caused a spiritual separation between mankind and God and introduced death and the dying process into the human genepool. Although I tend to believe (but I can't absolutely prove it) that blood replaced Spirit in Adam and Eve's frame, it is certainly true that from the moment Adam and Eve were cut off from their intimacy with the Lord, the blood that flowed through their veins was contaminated with death. If, therefore, death and dying replaced eternal life -- and it was the blood that flowed in their veins that gave them life -- it follows that there had to be the death of blood as legal compensation. (Del or Rifkah, if you have any further light on this, I'd appreciate your input.)
Under the Mosaic Law, the penalty for taking someone's life was the life of the one taking it. "Life for life," in other words. When sin was committed -- sin being defined as erring from the keeping of or fulfilling the commandments God gave -- that sin could be remitted or atoned for by the shedding of blood. Hence the sacrifice of innocent sheep or oxen as an interim substitute for human life. Because animal sacrifice only provided for the remittance of the sin, and not the return of eternal life or intimacy with the Lord God, it became necessary that a once-and-for-all sacrifice take place where innocent human blood was shed.
The trick was that there was no human being on earth who qualified as "innocent" under the Law. Paul, in writing the Romans, (5:12) said, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." It became necessary, therefore, for someone who qualified as "human" and as a member of the human race who had NOT yielded to sin, and was not born with the DNA of sin in his genes (and resulting slavery to Satan) to die as the innocent sacrifice for the sins of the human race.
When Jesus took the Cup at the Table with His disciples and said, "Drink ye all of it; for this is the blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins," He was referring to the New Covenant that would replace the Law -- the Old Covenant with its animal sacrifices. Notice that He did NOT say, "This is the blood of the new testament which is shed for ALL for the remission of sins."
Had it been for ALL, there would have been no conditions for men and women to be restored to their relationship with God. Jesus' Blood was shed for the "many" who would come back to the Father THROUGH Jesus Christ! There would be no other way for salvation. There would be no other path to relationship with God.
Hence, Jesus made it abundantly clear when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) Pretty clear, don't you think? And He didn't leave it there.
Jesus also said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10:9)
Thus the apostle Paul again writes -- this time to Jews who clearly understood the significance of the Law and the sacrifices commanded by Moses: "Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." (Hebrews 9:23-28 NASB)
NOW you can see why Paul said (I Corinthians 11:25), "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come."
Show who? Satan, of course! He's the one who holds the Law over our heads. He's the one who constantly says, "You're my slave. You're not even a person. You are my property and I can do with you whatever I please." And THAT, folks, is a lie! Because he shed innocent blood -- the Blood of Jesus -- he became a murderer and stands judged of that crime. With that crime, he relinquished his right to hold in bondage those who receive the remission of sin through the shedding of Jesus' Blood. But Jesus' Blood did a whole lot more than simply remitting our sins. It forever restored our access to the same relationship with the Father that Adam and Eve once enjoyed. It restored our access to the Heavenlies. It took away the penalty for death and restored eternity.
Jesus' Blood eradicated death and the dying process. Along with the dying process went all sickness, all disease, all bondage to Satan (no matter what form that bondage takes), all weakness or infirmity. Jesus' Blood restored the Abrahamic Covenant -- and the Blessing of Abraham. Jesus' Blood canceled the curse of the Law. Jesus' Blood canceled poverty. Jesus' Blood canceled the need to work for a living and redeemed work so that we can now "work for a giving" instead -- just like He did!
Once more, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come."
And to repeat what we said in the last Coffee Break, that word, "show," comes from the Greek, katangello: to promulgate, to praise, to proclaim publicly, to demonstrate, to teach, to declare.
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!
Therefore, 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! Show the world what Jesus has done in you. More than that, shove it in Satan's face! Show him that he no longer has power over you! You are no longer his slave or his servant. You are free!
John 8:32, 33, 36: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ... If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed!"
"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.
Power in the Blood
And a Fabulous, Prosperous Happy New Year, folks!
The other day, Della went to pray for her aunt, Nita, who was just released after having knee-replacement surgery. There were other cousins, nieces, nephews and some grand-nieces (is that what you call them, or do they become "cousins" instead?). Savannah is Nita's great-granddaughter. (We seem to have a bunch of Savannahs in our family -- a granddaughter, a niece, and this "grand-niece," or however she is classified.) Anyway, Savannah is not yet three years old. She was quite taken with Della and the presence of the Lord in her.
When Della went to lay hands on Nita and began to pray, Savannah came over to began to stare at Della's hand. She somehow sensed the power of God flowing but didn't understand what was taking place. Finally, she began picking up Della's hand and looking underneath to see what was there. It was both funny and revelatory at the same time. Della stopped and asked Savannah if she'd like to pray for Grandma Nita too. She nodded her head vigorously and put her hand on Nita's leg right next to Della's hand. Della placed her hand over Savannah's and began to pray in the Spirit.
The prayer became rather strong -- and long -- lasting between five and ten minutes. (Grin) Savannah didn't wriggle or move her hand even once during the prayer like most two-year-olds would do.
When Della finally lifted her hand, Savannah looked up at her and seemed to reluctantly withdraw her hand. She liked what she felt and experienced. It was both humorous and refreshing to see her reaction. When young children experience the power of God flowing like that and see the visible results of healing (Nita has astounded the doctors with her rapid recovery and full mobility without pain or after-effects.) it builds faith in them to do the same.
We've shared in the past how our granddaughter, Jessica, experienced the same thing when she was three years old and went around praying for her brothers and sisters whenever they experienced pain or the onset of a cold or flu or whatever. The manifestation of healing was instant -- so much so that whenever they have gotten hurt or felt bad for one reason or the other the automatic response has become, "get Jessie to pray for you!"
That, my friends, is the way it ought to be! We're bringing up a new generation of young people. They need to be brought up in an environment of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll multiply over and over and over again -- just like the loaves and fishes -- and the power of God to heal, save, deliver and make whole will spread like fire!
Well, Good Morning, folks! This Coffee Break begins our seventh year of publication and sharing the things God has been speaking and doing in our lives. At the same time, here at River Worship Center, we've been sharing around the Table of the Lord and a continually unfolding revelation concerning the bread and the cup for the past year and a half. I remember hearing Juan Carlos Ortiz share a number of years ago how the Holy Spirit wouldn't let him off the subject of God's Love in his church in Argentina for more than a year; and wondering how in the world one could stay on the same topic without saying the same thing over and over and over again to extreme boredom. Now I know! There's nothing boring about it, and the continual flow of revelation and impartation is nothing less than life-changing!
Let's begin by laying a few foundations.
We know by virtue of God's statement to Moses "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." (Leviticus 17:11)
Then God goes on to say the following: "Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off." (Leviticus 17: 12-14)
This is a critically important principle for us to get hold of. If the life of all flesh is in the blood, then the blood has both the power of life and death as it flows through our bodies. So long as the blood renews itself and is renewed by breath (breathing) [We'll come back to this momentarily] it carries the power of life throughout our bodies, bringing health to our minds -- or more specifically, our brains -- and keeping our bones, our organs, our muscles and our tissue continually renewed. If the blood, however, is not renewed and reoxygenated, it loses its life-giving power and our bodies begin to suffer the consequences with disease, infirmity and weakness as the immediate results, and -- given enough time -- death as the final result.
Blood becomes diseased when its cells begin to die or to replicate in unbalanced fashion. Anemia, leukemia and hemophilia are good examples.
Encarta Encyclopedia gives us the following description: Blood carries oxygen from the lungs to all the other tissues in the body and, in turn, carries waste products, predominantly carbon dioxide, back to the lungs where they are released into the air. When oxygen transport fails, a person dies within a few minutes. Food that has been processed by the digestive system into smaller components such as proteins, fats, and carbohydrates is also delivered to the tissues by the blood. These nutrients provide the materials and energy needed by individual cells for metabolism, or the performance of cellular function. Waste products produced during metabolism, such as urea and uric acid, are carried by the blood to the kidneys, where they are transferred from the blood into urine and eliminated from the body. In addition to oxygen and nutrients, blood also transports special chemicals, called hormones, that regulate certain body functions. The movement of these chemicals enables one organ to control the function of another even though the two organs may be located far apart. In this way, the blood acts not just as a means of transportation but also as a communications system.
The blood is more than a pipeline for nutrients and information; it is also responsible for the activities of the immune system, helping fend off infection and fight disease. In addition, blood carries the means for stopping itself from leaking out of the body after an injury. The blood does this by carrying special cells and proteins, known as the coagulation system, that start to form clots within a matter of seconds after injury.
Blood is vital to maintaining a stable body temperature; in humans, body temperature normally fluctuates within a degree of 37.0° C (98.6° F). Heat production and heat loss in various parts of the body are balanced out by heat transfer via the bloodstream. This is accomplished by varying the diameter of blood vessels in the skin. When a person becomes overheated, the vessels dilate and an increased volume of blood flows through the skin. Heat dissipates through the skin, effectively lowering the body temperature. The increased flow of blood in the skin makes the skin appear pink or flushed. When a person is cold, the skin may become pale as the vessels narrow, diverting blood from the skin and reducing heat loss. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
My apologies for this rather academic explanation, but the objective is to make very clear how and why "the life of the flesh is in the blood." We could get much more technical from a purely physical standpoint, but this ought to suffice. The spiritual significance here is that while natural blood flows through our veins to bring life-giving power to every part of our physical bodies, the Holy Spirit has been given to us to flow through our beings to give life to the Word. Without repeating much of what has already been written in this series of Coffee Breaks, we know from John's gospel that Jesus was and is The Word. He described Jesus as "the Word ... made flesh" and dwelling tangibly, physically in their midst.
But Jesus described the Word as also being manna -- bread from Heaven. At the Last Supper, Matthew records, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:26-28)
Question. Why would God say to Moses, "I have given [the blood] to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
Why was it so important that blood be shed on the altar in the first place "to make an atonement" or, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews, "almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission"? This word, "remission" is a translation of the Greek, aphesis, which comes from aphiemi; and it essentially means: to dismiss, to send away, to cause to disappear, to omit. In short it means: to erase from existence, to make as though it never was.
As a side note to the above, we see the word "forgive" often used as a translation of this word, aphiemi, through the NT. There are actually two other Greek words which more accurately translate to "forgive" and the picture would better be described from either of those words: to pardon, to give or extend grace towards one who has offended. The singular difference is that "forgiveness" defines pardon or grace without the utter erasure of the attending penalty; whereas "remission" describes not only full pardon but total erasure to the point where both the offense (or sin) and the penalty for that offense no longer exist. When Jesus spoke of it (and our English versions translate it "forgive," Jesus NEVER used any other word than the word aphiemi for total erasure. THIS is the description for "the remission of sin."
The Hebrew word, kaphar, parallels the Greek, aphiemi, and -- with the other meanings from the Greek -- adds: to cancel out, to cover (specifically with bitumen). That ought to be graphic enough!
Back to our question. Why would blood have to be shed in order for forgiveness to take place?
Consider this. Life was taken from Adam and Eve when they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The poison of humanly-acquired knowledge (in place of receiving divinely-given knowledge and revelation) caused a spiritual separation between mankind and God and introduced death and the dying process into the human genepool. Although I tend to believe (but I can't absolutely prove it) that blood replaced Spirit in Adam and Eve's frame, it is certainly true that from the moment Adam and Eve were cut off from their intimacy with the Lord, the blood that flowed through their veins was contaminated with death. If, therefore, death and dying replaced eternal life -- and it was the blood that flowed in their veins that gave them life -- it follows that there had to be the death of blood as legal compensation. (Del or Rifkah, if you have any further light on this, I'd appreciate your input.)
Under the Mosaic Law, the penalty for taking someone's life was the life of the one taking it. "Life for life," in other words. When sin was committed -- sin being defined as erring from the keeping of or fulfilling the commandments God gave -- that sin could be remitted or atoned for by the shedding of blood. Hence the sacrifice of innocent sheep or oxen as an interim substitute for human life. Because animal sacrifice only provided for the remittance of the sin, and not the return of eternal life or intimacy with the Lord God, it became necessary that a once-and-for-all sacrifice take place where innocent human blood was shed.
The trick was that there was no human being on earth who qualified as "innocent" under the Law. Paul, in writing the Romans, (5:12) said, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." It became necessary, therefore, for someone who qualified as "human" and as a member of the human race who had NOT yielded to sin, and was not born with the DNA of sin in his genes (and resulting slavery to Satan) to die as the innocent sacrifice for the sins of the human race.
When Jesus took the Cup at the Table with His disciples and said, "Drink ye all of it; for this is the blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins," He was referring to the New Covenant that would replace the Law -- the Old Covenant with its animal sacrifices. Notice that He did NOT say, "This is the blood of the new testament which is shed for ALL for the remission of sins."
Had it been for ALL, there would have been no conditions for men and women to be restored to their relationship with God. Jesus' Blood was shed for the "many" who would come back to the Father THROUGH Jesus Christ! There would be no other way for salvation. There would be no other path to relationship with God.
Hence, Jesus made it abundantly clear when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) Pretty clear, don't you think? And He didn't leave it there.
Jesus also said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10:9)
Thus the apostle Paul again writes -- this time to Jews who clearly understood the significance of the Law and the sacrifices commanded by Moses: "Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." (Hebrews 9:23-28 NASB)
NOW you can see why Paul said (I Corinthians 11:25), "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come."
Show who? Satan, of course! He's the one who holds the Law over our heads. He's the one who constantly says, "You're my slave. You're not even a person. You are my property and I can do with you whatever I please." And THAT, folks, is a lie! Because he shed innocent blood -- the Blood of Jesus -- he became a murderer and stands judged of that crime. With that crime, he relinquished his right to hold in bondage those who receive the remission of sin through the shedding of Jesus' Blood. But Jesus' Blood did a whole lot more than simply remitting our sins. It forever restored our access to the same relationship with the Father that Adam and Eve once enjoyed. It restored our access to the Heavenlies. It took away the penalty for death and restored eternity.
Jesus' Blood eradicated death and the dying process. Along with the dying process went all sickness, all disease, all bondage to Satan (no matter what form that bondage takes), all weakness or infirmity. Jesus' Blood restored the Abrahamic Covenant -- and the Blessing of Abraham. Jesus' Blood canceled the curse of the Law. Jesus' Blood canceled poverty. Jesus' Blood canceled the need to work for a living and redeemed work so that we can now "work for a giving" instead -- just like He did!
Once more, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come."
And to repeat what we said in the last Coffee Break, that word, "show," comes from the Greek, katangello: to promulgate, to praise, to proclaim publicly, to demonstrate, to teach, to declare.
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!
Therefore, 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! Show the world what Jesus has done in you. More than that, shove it in Satan's face! Show him that he no longer has power over you! You are no longer his slave or his servant. You are free!
John 8:32, 33, 36: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ... If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed!"
"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
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD X
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.
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.
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
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