When Does Communion Become CommunionFire?

When you come to the Lord's Table and eat the Blessed Bread of His Flesh and Drink the Blessed Wine of His Blood, "The Holy Spirit will reveal My presence, bring My thoughts and words into your memory and show you things to come". That is why Jesus said, "Do this to remember Me." If you don't you may forget Him and you will not have His life in you. (John 6 and John 14-16)

In these latter days our experience with CommunionFire has provided a fresh way to see God’s purpose in renewal and revival through the personal, regular practice of having Communion with Jesus when we "do" as he asked. There is more to communion than a piece of bread and sip of grape juice.

Consider: Communion is something we do to give ourselves more fully to the Lord by celebrating His Supper, receiving the Eucharist or Qurbana. 

Some have never been to the Lord’s Table.
 Some have come once in their lives or even once or twice per year and on special occasions. 
Some practice quarterly or monthly if that is the tradition of their denomination but most practice it weekly or daily.  

I say most because Roman Catholics represent 1 Billion members worldwide, the Protestants, Evangelicals and Charismatics represent 800 Million world wide and the Orthodox represent 300 Million believers in the world today. 

So, 1.3 Billion Christians practice Holy Communion Daily and Weekly because these traditions build their worship and liturgies around the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ as the true means the Lord provided for us to enjoy Communion with Him until He returns. We believe that part of the glorious matrix of signs and wonders pointing to His imminent return is a global Revival of the Central place the Lord’s Table has as the cornerstone dynamic to the faith of martyrs. 

There has been more martyrdom in the past 4 years since the days of the Early Church. What will give the individual believer that kind of poise and strength of faith to choose Jesus over life?

Among a handful in South Carolina, there is a dimension to Communion that is changing lives and lifestyles where the miraculous is a daily experience. It is where the Lord Jesus Himself walks among us. So we have a very special reason to respond to the Savior’s invitation to “Do this.” (Eat His Body and Drink His Blood at His Table.)

John Wesley's polemic for Constant Communion in Sermon 101 (or as he also says ‘constant communication’) is that whether you ‘get’ something from it or not, you are at least ‘obeying the command of Christ. So, whether you understand it or not, you are better off ‘doing’ than ‘not doing’. But there is more.

Communion to most is a self-inflicted obedience in response to the Lord’s command. We think it is something we do as a Christian sacrament as a holy responsibility or good for our faith. We come to share ourself with the Lord. We come to receive the holy bread and grape juice or wine (to 'make Jesus happy'). And as Mr. Wesley would agree, if that is all it is enough!

But for the past 2 years, we have been experiencing something new.  Our experience is that Jesus invites us to His table not just to dine with Him but to dine on all He has prepared for us. There is a Holy Spirit dimension that takes place when:

1) I believe. 
The Bread and Wine 
Become the Flesh and Blood

 2) I do what He has invited me to do..
By eating and drinking

 3) He opens my eyes and to see His image.
He opens our eyes to recognize Him

 4) He speaks and I hear. 
He speaks to us

 5) I understand. 
Then share what He gives me with others

We come to Him not to give Him something but rather because He has so much He wants to share with us. We come to receive all that He has for us. He ‘makes us to lay down at his Table. We close our eyes and ears for a moment to our world to see and hear from the world to come. He wants to give us a taste of our eternal inheritance! He wants us to know his love, peace and joy now. In the process He transforms us in His glory from glory to glory.

 2 Corinthians 3:18

“The veil is removed as we look into His glory (as though looking into a mirror or flat screen’s darkness) where suddenly we see His image and we are transformed by what we see in His glory from one degree of glory to another by the Spirit who is the Lord.”

That word ‘image’ is the same word used at the Mount of transfiguration. They were changed by what they saw. In Communion. It is the word "Eikon". There are thousands of Orthodox Ikons - Holy Spirit inspired paintings of images of Jesus and His angels and saints. We call this 'an encounter' with the Lord in His CommunionFire! 

We thought maybe this was an oddity until we met St. Ephraim of Syria from 350 AD – an early Church father who calls it the same thing. The Body of Jesus, when we eat, ignites us with the fire of medicine and revelation. (Turn on the light and you see what’s in the room.) Drinking the Wine there is Fire in the Blood of Jesus that is the quickening agent that raised Jesus from the dead. “If the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body,” 

In short – Eating the Flesh and Drinking the Blood of Jesus awakens us, quickens us and makes us alive to a personal relationship with Jesus making the Kingdom of Heaven a greater reality than this world that we live in. This is all temporary. What Jesus shares with us in CommunionFire is what eternity is going to be like. When you know that you know then His Love transcends anything this life has to offer.  

Over the years of his long pontificate, Saint John Paul II’s personal fascination with the Holy Face of Jesus became a pastoral imperative. Already in 2001, he drew the eyes of the Church to the Face of Christ. At the closing of the Holy Door on January 6th of that year he said: 

“Christianity is born, and continually draws new life from this contemplation of the glory of God 
shining on the face of Christ.”

The Miracle of Veronica's Veil is interesting in light of this post. Just consider - the Miracle of the appearance of Jesus image in "on the veil not hidden behind it!" Just a further demonstration from heaven about the need we each have to encounter His image while feasting on His presence at His Glorious Table.

Other CommunionFire Encounters

Abraham having Communion with Melchizedek
Moses and the burning bush
Jesus at Transfiguration Mountain
Jesus at the house of Cleopas and Mary in Emmaus
Jesus in the Upper Room a few hours later
Jesus in the Ascension
The Day of Pentecost
Stephen the 1st Martyr while being stoned to death
Knocking Saul off his horse by the power of His glory
Jesus coming to Paul and explaining Communion to him
John on the Island of Patmos

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to manifest His presence when we come to His Table and eat the Bread of his Body and Drink the Wine of His Blood. Upon eating the veil of this world, the temporal, is pulled back by the power of God so that we can spend a moment with Jesus. We see Him. He shares His presence with us. He shares His love and blessings with us. He speaks with us. It happens quickly but feels like eternity. We have fed on His presence and because we have we are no longer the same. We experience the miracle of transformation. He is always there. He will never leave us or forsake us. Come to the Table - I want to urge you! I want to compel you to come and just do as He asks. Bread to become His Flesh of revelation and Wine to become His Blood of salvation. Until He returns this is the place the Good Shepherd has prepared for you to spend some time with Him personally.