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Tag: love

  • The Last Supper + Communion + a Family Meal

    The Last Supper + Communion + a Family Meal

    Maundy Thursday – The Last Supper

    The following is an UPDATED post from Maundy Thursday of Holy Week in the year of our Lord 2015 about the Last Supper of Jesus and the Twelve and communion of the saints of the Church. - RH

    Even my close friend in whom I trusted,
    who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me. 

    Psalm 41:9
    The Last Supper scene staged by Rembrandt. Actually the Twelve Apostles in customary 1st century Jewish custom were 'reclined at table.'

    Institution of the Lord’s Supper

    As a Christian you may have your own name and picture of Maundy Thursday.

    It is a celebration of the Church commemorating the LAST SUPPER of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Twelve Apostles, His friends and followers for previous three years.

    Many Christians and Messianic Jews will also recognize that these Jewish men were also celebrating the Passover meal.

    Yet this meal both commemorates a covenant of old and establishes a new covenant by the BODY & BLOOD of the Savior who serves it.

    In Paul’s letter to the CHURCH at Corinth the ‘apostle to the gentiles’ describes our commemoration of the NEW COVENENT of Communion:

    1 Corinthians 11: NKJV

    23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you:

    that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,

    “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

    25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying,

    “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.

    This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

    26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

    +

    Commemoration of the First Covenant

    Deuteronomy 12:

    7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

    8 “You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes— 9 for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.

    Joshua 5:11-12

    And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

    Communion: OUR Family Meal

    • How important is your ‘christian’ and biological family to you?
    • Is Jesus head of your family?
    • Do we not need the intimacy of the love and time together in relationship and meals?

    As WE COMMEMORATE the LAST SUPPER OF JESUS let the saints called into His CUURCH remember that Communion is NOT an Old Covenant, but a New Covenant renewed in the ever-lasting family of Christ Jesus.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com + Thursday April 6, in the year of our Lord 2023

    We have forgotten the communion of relationship and intimacy of sharing our joy, our sorrows and our meals. We have forgotten to leave a place for the Lord at the head of our table and a time for all to partake in His righteousness and love.

    LORD, we have not even invited you and each of our loved ones to enjoy your peace, your love, your compassion, your teaching… LORD we have lost the family in our home… LORD we have lost the family in your church. Lord help us.

    Prayer of the original A.D. 2015 post. – RH

    Communion

    Holy Communion and the Passover Seder which Jesus commemorated on the night in which He was betrayed are much more than just a ritual.

    Do you realize that Jesus, our Lord and Savior said:

    “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

    In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” – 1 Corinthians 11:25

    It was after supper. It was a toast, as we would properly identify the proclamation over the wine this close family of Jesus was about to share.

    Yes, the Twelve were Jesus’ close family.

    They shared meals — almost all meals together. They broke bread together. They prayed together. They discussed Jesus’ teaching of the day and the day’s events.

    These were regular times of communion — intimate familial community — fellowship still familiar to members of the first century church and most familiar to families.

    Yet it is a communion, a fellowship of love, even an eventful love feast; which Christians in this century and  our Christian families have sacrificed to the leaven of this world.

    • Communion is fellowship with God
    • Communion is between Christ and the church by the Spirit
    • Communion is the fellowship of believers with one another

    Ephesians 4:

    Once again, encouragement from Paul to the CHURCH in Ephesis where the apostle had by example spent much time.

    Unity in the Body of Christ

    I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

    4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

    The communion and fellowship of believers in your family, of your church and in the body of all faithful believers is even more than this.

    We remember by Christ’s blood that He IS and we are joined to one another in Him.

    Unbelievers have no part in this. Those separate from Christ Jesus have no LIFE of His saving Blood.

    +

    The New Life

    17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

    18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.20 But that is not the way you learned Christ! +

    Do you not find this true?

    Are beloved family members even callous to your love for them and our love for Christ Jesus?

    And if like Christ we are hated by the world and even those of our own household, how much more important is communion and fellowship of His body the church.

    • How important is daily communion and fellowship in your Christian home?
    • Where is the place of Christ at your table, with husband and wife as one with Him?
    • Do our children come to commune with the Lord in our ‘christian home?’
    and here I confess that 'I am the chief of sinners.'

    At the table of the last supper sat Judas, as ALSO sits the one (maybe, if you insist) who hates Jesus and will betray you.

    At the table of the last supper sat Peter, as ALSO sit ones you may have to forgive three times (or seventy times seven) when they deny your love and Christ’s way to take up the cross and follow Him.

    Lord help us. Help us to commune with you and to love one another as You have loved us. Bring our beloved ones to your table of communion and fellowship and eternal love.

    Amen.

    To READ MORE about COMMUNION click HERE.
  • My Love – 7 – Love never ends…

    My Love – 7 – Love never ends…

    1 Corinthians 13

    The Way of Love (agape)

    7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

    8 Love never ends.

    Once again, the ‘love‘ we proclaim though scripture from this letter of Paul to the church at Corinth is the agape love of God. Christ’s love and perfect earthly example should permeate every kind of love relationship we have with others, including of course, the love of a husband for his wife and a wife for her husband.

    You can never love too much.

    You can love in the wrong way,

    but never too much.

    Suppose we take the famous scripture of the ‘love chapter’ and put it into the context of ‘The Four Loves’ described by C.S. Lewis of the four Greek words for love. And let’s take this a step further for a moment and begin with the way the world first thinks when the word love is mentioned:

    Eros bears all things, Eros believes all things, Eros hopes all things, Eros endures all things.  Eros love never ends.

    Is this true?

    I can testify by my own divorces that eros love (romantic love) often bears little, believes only at first, hopes less and less and indeed Eros love does end. This, of course, is why our vows before God are so important to our Christian marriages.

    The same could be said of friendship love or affectionate love. Friendships certainly end and so all-too-often does the affectionate love of a parent for a child or child for parent. These tragic endings fill counseling offices and psychiatrist couches.

    Love frequently does end; the other loves fail.

    Therefore I caution us that we can indeed love in the wrong way. We often do not, as sinful and unfaithful human souls, look at love from the perspective of God.

    We think that we have only so much love we can give – only so much friendship we can give – only so much love for one child or for our mom or for our dad to give – only so much we can endure and hope and believe for the love of our life, the wife or husband of our vows. After all, ‘we are only human.’ We are limited in the flesh; we are limited in our love for one another.

    All this would be true, except for the one love for which we were created by God – agape love, which permeates our very being and relationships to every other.

    You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind. (Sound familiar?)

    Other loves only become timeless in the overflowing love of Jesus Christ when the deep well of God’s love pours forth from our sinful hearts into the love-starved souls of others.

    We are made for Him and we are made for each other. We are created to love each and all; but only in the right way and with the love of God pouring from us.

    When we are empty, God will give us more.

    When we have given all, God will give us more.

    When we cannot bear this soul, God will give us more.

    When we can no longer believe, God will give us more.

    When we have lost all hope, God will give us more.

    When we cannot endure, God will give us more.

    When we think our Eros romance

    or our Philia friendship 

    or our Storge affection

    will end;

    God will give us more.

    For Agape love is not only unconditional,

    the Agape love of God is eternal.

    Agape love never ends.

    The King James English actually encourages us in God by assuring:

    Charity never faileth.

    And the NASB & other versions translate agape: Love never fails.

    Yes, Paul points out that other signs of God working in the lives of the church may fail at times. (We are just a gathering of His imperfect sinners.)

    God gives us His gifts to use in His way in our mortal time.

    Pour forth the unfailing love of Christ Jesus. Embrace every soul in His love.

    (Love one another, as I have loved you, our Lord commands.)

    The love of the church may be evident through varying gifts to different saints (Christians) as different times. Yet Love never fails. God’s own love and charity towards us never fails His purpose.

    It is appropriate reminder to us as I conclude this 7-part series on My Love, to remind us of the love of God for me, a sinner, and for you.

    God has not failed us.

    The Cross of Christ Jesus never fails.

    We are saved by the grace of the sacrifice of our Lord, Christ Jesus.

    As we near the end of these last days I appeal once more to your faithfulness to the Lord Who IS faithful to those who love Him. Be faithful to God in every kind of love God so richly gives to you from the deep spring of His eternal love.

    Have you failed in your love? Have you failed God? Have you failed your beloved to whom you are wed? Have you failed a friend? Have you failed a parent or a child who needs your unconditional love?

    ekpiptō – to fall out of, to fall down from, to fall off; to fall from a thing, to lose it; to perish, to fall: from a place from which one cannot keep,  from a position, to fall powerless, to fall to the ground, be without effect of the divine promise of salvation

    In Christ Jesus, we have God’s unfailing love. By grace we cannot fall. God’s love never fails.

    Peter reminds the faithful of the importance of us not failing Christ Jesus, if indeed He IS our LORD.

    2 Peter 3: NKJV

    10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?

    17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand,

    beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;

    18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

    To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

  • My Love – 5 – Sex

    My Love – 5 – Sex

    The lure of eros…

    as a bird rushes into a snare;
        he does not know that it will cost him his life.

    – Proverbs 7:23b

    When a Man Loves a Woman

    heart when a man loves a woman

    Then the LORD God said,

    “It is not good for the man to be alone.

    I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

    Genesis 2:18 NLT

    23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”
    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

    25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. – Genesis 2 ESV

    Eros: sexual love of a man for a woman and of a woman for a man; often misleading us into sin, though God intends this most intimate love exclusively for a man and his wife to join them together as one.

    By sexual intercourse we become one in the flesh and in the spirit with another human being. It is a great and wonderful mystery.

    Genesis 4: Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” And again, she bore his brother Abel… 25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

    In the beginning, a husband and wife and children.

    Do you recall that the controversy between Cain and his brother was over worship of God? Two kinds of love both dependent on the love of God.

    It’s all relational and Genesis continues with these themes of interconnected types of love which all affect our relationship not only to God, not only between a husband and wife, and not only between parents and sons and daughters; but all relationships within families and beyond the love and boundaries of family.

    These intimate relationships all become quickly complex. (Just take the love of Jacob for Rachel, for example.) At the middle of many intimate controversies we will often find eros, the sexual attraction between a man and a woman.

    We remain united in spirit to one we have engaged and known in the flesh. It is an unknowable mystery. The awesome connection of sex becomes even too weighty for our own hearts when we stray outside of God’s will.

    Yet Love Is a Many Splendored Thing within the boundaries, commitment and vows of marriage.

    Let your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife of your youth. – Proverbs 5:18

    Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
    be intoxicated always in her love. 5:19b

     

    He who finds a wife finds a good thing
    and obtains favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22

    Man adam, and woman taken from man and given to man by God that they might be one. A godly wife for a godly husband to bear godly children, to keep boundaries of godly families… from this we have strayed far in these last days.

    Eros is a sensual soft linen of the marriage bed, perfumed with the nectars of passion between a man and a woman in love.

    How lightly does the world of the flesh misrepresent this beautiful love given to us by God.

    Song-of-solomon engagementThe Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

    The Bride Confesses Her Love

    She

    2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
    For your love is better than wine;
    3     your anointing oils are fragrant;
    your name is oil poured out;
        therefore virgins love you.
    4 Draw me after you; let us run.
        The king has brought me into his chambers.

    Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

    He

    8 If you do not know,
        O most beautiful among women,
    …

    9 I compare you, my love,
        to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.
    10 Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments,
        your neck with strings of jewels.

    song8_6-7Do you not know how the stallion and the mare mate in passion?

    The love song of Solomon for his bride becomes as sensual as any erotica or story of sexual love you will ever read. I commend it to you, lovers betrothed, husband and wife. God has intended our love for good and for our pleasure.

     Song of Solomon – read by Max McLean