E-mail Questions Answered by Ken Smith:
12/11/06  Eucharist:
Be assured that when I celebrate the Eucharist, I have the highest expectancy for the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and His healing ministry.  But I look to the supernatural and spiritual rather than the elemental.  Man can add little to nor take from what our Lord Jesus did for us on the Cross.  And I fully understand that unless we assimilate Christ, we have no life in us.

You can pick up our Lord's train of thought concerning traditions from Matt.12:4  concerning the physical.  Also the same attitude holds in the writings of Mark 2:25-28 & Luke 6:3-11 concerning the elemental.   Man looks on the outward appearance, God ponders the heart.  As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.  Hebrews 9 & 10 carefully lay out the essentials of the matter and concludes with the ineffectiveness of outward forms and the need of the laws of God to be written in the heart, Heb.10:16  by a new and living way, Heb.10:20.

In Chapter 11 of Corinthians our dear apostle Paul covers the essence of the "Lord's Supper" (20) and clearly sets the tone of the relationship as a "Remembrance" (24).  In verse 26 the Lord's Supper is considered a memorial and a time of personal examination (28).  These passages assume that St. Paul fully understood the teachings of John 6:32-35, 48-58. 

So it would seem that our Lord was trying to impart the seriousness of the Holy Spirit being allowed to infuse our lives with His life as in His Body & Blood.  John further impacts the essence of the true here in 1 John 4:17 in writing, "Herein is our love made perfect,  that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world."  So the issue is not in the "elements" but in us spiritually ingesting Christ Jesus in this world. We must ingest His essence and His life in order to make the transition from death to life to be found to be worthy to enter into His Kingdom with Him.

Most Sacramental people feel that the "church" will save them as they hold to the traditions of the "church."  And they go to the Eucharist each week, some with confession, but for most, it is only blue sky,  there is little change into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ came to bring deliverance and heart change.  Traditions can modify the truth and give a false sense of comfort.  Many that I have talked to are not even confirmed in their salvation,  Romans 10:9-10.   And most Sacramental people know little or nothing of the empowering of the Holy Spirit.  I do love the Orthodox Catholic Church that I see in the Holy Scriptures and on earth as it mirrors that Holy Church that our Lord sent His Holy Spirit to establish.  But there is much to do for the two to become one.

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