Job 37:1-13 (HCSB)
1 My heart pounds at this
and leaps from my chest.
2 Just listen to His thunderous voice
and the rumbling that comes from His mouth.
3 He lets it loose beneath the entire sky;
His lightning to the ends of the earth.
4 Then there comes a roaring sound;
God thunders with His majestic voice.
He does not restrain the lightning
when His rumbling voice is heard.
5 God thunders marvelously with His voice;
He does great things that we cannot comprehend.
6 For He says to the snow, “Fall to the earth,”
and the torrential rains, His mighty torrential rains,
7 serve as His sign to all mankind,
so that all men may know His work.
8 The wild animals enter their lairs
and stay in their dens.
9 The windstorm comes from its chamber,
and the cold from the driving north winds.
10 Ice is formed by the breath of God,
and watery expanses are frozen.
11 He saturates clouds with moisture;
He scatters His lightning through them.
12 They swirl about,
turning round and round at His direction,
accomplishing everything He commands them
over the surface of the inhabited world.
13 He causes this to happen for punishment,
for His land, or for His faithful love.
God has a way of telling us, as a nation, “Listen to me.” I pray that we are listening to Him, and that we acknowledge His presence. There is nothing that takes place that He is not aware of.
What should draw us near to Him is His love for us. He wants to have a relationship us, and He wants us to live in such a way that we remain steadfast in Him and to live according to our purpose for His glory and His praise.
The Body of Christ
This month, we will focus on the body of Jesus Christ. It has its purpose in acknowledging that Jesus really did exist as a man. It is proof that He lived as a child that grew into manhood. While some of us may deny His deity, there is no denial of His existence in bodily form.
His body was not different from the body that we had. He experienced hunger and thirst as we did. The difference between Him and us is that He was without sin.
Jesus often spoke in such a way where He showed each of us that we are dependent on something. The body needs food and water, and sustenance in order to live. In comparison, Jesus Christ showed us that our life in Christ required a dependance upon Him. Jesus declares that, without Him, a Christian cannot live the Christian life. He is to be involved in our lives on a daily basis. The food and drink that we take in sustains our bodies. As we take on Jesus Christ, He sustains us.
Matthew 5:6
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, for they will be filled.
John 4:13-14
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
Matthew 26:26-29
The First Lord’s Supper
26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take and eat it; this is My body.” 27 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way in My Father’s kingdom with you.”
Luke 22:14-20
The First Lord’s Supper
14 When the hour came, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. 15 Then He said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
20 In the same way He also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant established by My blood; it is shed for you.
When Jesus broke the bread with His disciples (as He did in Matthew and Luke), He demonstrated that the breaking of bread was a way in which we can have fellowship with Him.
Scripture points out that those who have eternal life with the abundance of the presence of Jesus Christ. Those who do not follow Christ will experience the loss of fellowship with Jesus Christ, and be subjected to the punishment of failing to acknowledge Him.
John 6:53-58
53 So Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54 Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, 55 because My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your fathers ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
The bread that Jesus speaks of as a provision by God for His people. God is the one who gives us what we need to live. Don’t miss that our Heavenly Father desires to provide everything that we have need of. In the midst of our rebellion, we often miss God’s provision, and even His protection.
Exodus 12:1-11
12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 “This month is to be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. 4 If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat. 5 You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. 6 You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. 7 They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. 8 They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling[b] water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. 10 Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning. 11 Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.
Note that this sacrifice was to be eaten in its entirety. Jesus Christ became, through His unblemished body, the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and transgressions. We are to embrace HIm in His entirety as our Lamb of God.
1 Corinthians 6:13
“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will do away with both of them. The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
John 6:32-35
32 Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the real bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always!”
35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again.
John 6:48-51
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
The flesh that Jesus speaks of is His body, which He gave up for us in order for us to be able to receive eternal life. The Lord’s body was given up for us for the purpose that our bodies to grow and be sustained for His will and purpose. Our bodies are intended to be for The Lord and nothing else. Note what Jesus accomplished for us with His sacrifice on the cross…
2 Corinthians 5:21
He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Man cannot do anything with His own sin. There has to be an atonement for our sin that we cannot achieve on our own. Christ had to be the intercessor for our sin with His body, where He took our sin upon Himself because of His love for us.
Matthew 27:45-46
The Death of Jesus
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over the whole land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
When we take communion, we are to be mindful that all of our sins…past, present and future, are accounted for by the bodily sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
When you look at the goodness and mercy of God, He readily invites you to seek Him and look to Him–first, for eternal life, and then for the abundant life of the believer. He is worthy to be praised for His sacrifice for us.
Psalm 34:8
Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Akron Alliance Fellowship 