As we prepare for this Sunday’s Holy Communion, allow me to share what God reminded me recently.
In his book, The Prodigal God on pages 127, 128, and 129, Timothy Keller shared the following.
“A meal fuels growth through nourishment. The Lord’s Supper, also called Communion or the Eucharist, represents ongoing growth in God’s grace. In order to survive and grow, individuals must eat and drink regularly. That’s what we must do with the gospel of the grace of God. We must personally appropriate it, making it more and more central to everything we see, think, and feel. That is how we grow spiritually in wisdom, love, joy, and peace.
Religion operates on the principle of “I obey – therefore I am accepted by God.” The basic operating principle of the gospel is “I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ – therefore I obey.” As we have seen, believing the gospel is how a person first makes a connection to God. It gives us a new relationship with God and new identity. We must not think, however, that once believing it, the Christian is now finished with the gospel message. A fundamental insight of Martin Luther’s was that “religion” is the default mode of the human heart. Your computer operates automatically in a default mode unless you deliberately tell it to do something else. So Luther says that even after you are converted by the gospel your heart will go back to operating on other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel mode.”
Allow me to encourage all of us to be continually be “feeding – eating and drinking” on our Lord Jesus Christ and the good news He brings, The Gospel. Let’s have our daily holy communion with our Lord Jesus Christ and come together to celebrate holy communion together on Sunday.