Making the Communion a Personal Act: Why taking Communion at your Own Home can Tremendously Change your Relationship with God

Pastor Art Snow • May 2, 2022

Making the Communion a Personal Act: Why taking Communion at your Own Home can Tremendously Change your Relationship with God

Communion, the Eucharist, The table, The Lord’s Supper, whatever you call it, it is a feast of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. When you ingest the bread and wine, you are receiving the mystery of the ages, you are partaking of healing, strength for your body and mind, power and grace fill your heart, mind, and body. It as if you had been invited to a love feast with a table miles long, with servings of grace, mercy, love and provision for every one who takes a seat. 

It as if you had been invited to a love feast with a table miles long, with servings of grace, mercy, love and provision for every one who takes a seat.

When I take the Eucharist (which means thanksgiving) every day I thank God for His sacrifice and I receive healing and health to my natural and spiritual body. It may be in my office, or in our special place at home with my wife or it may be in a hotel room while on the road, the space doesn’t matter, God is always present in a magnificent way. This is actually the most intimate time of my day with the Lord, when I eat His flesh and drink His blood it is perfect union with the lover of my soul. 

So allow me to address what I think is an obstacle in the Christian Church when it comes to the Lords Supper. In many churches the Eucharist is only celebrated once a month and even then it becomes Perfunctory. It is often seen as an obligatory and has lost its power, mystery and significance.

In my study in recent years I discovered that for 1500 years the Church of Christ believed that the bread and wine were actually the real blood and flesh of Jesus. In fact even Martin Luther the great reformer  believed this to be true, but a fellow reformer named Huldrych Zwingli began the idea that the elements were only symbols. And much of the Protestant Church followed Zwingli’s approach. Below I am providing for you how the early Church Fathers viewed communion……

“They abstain from the Eucharist and from order because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  The Eurcharist 

St Ignatius of Antioch 110 AD

“Flesh which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in his goodness raised up again.” St Ignatius of Antioch 110 AD

Ignatius Bishop of Antioch, 107 AD  wrote 7 letters to 7 churches as he was on his way to Rome to die for his faith, he said this of the Eucharist “The Eucharist is the medicine of immortality “

“The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine. But the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ” St Cyril of Jerusalem  350 AD

“Perhaps you may be saying I see something else ! How can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ? It but remains for us to prove it, and how many are the examples we might use. Christ is in that sacrament because it is the Body of Christ.” St Ambrose of Milan 390 AD

“What you see is the bread and the chalice. That is what your own eyes report to you, but what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the Body of Christ and the chalice is the Blood of Christ.” St Augustine 396 AD

“Of all the fathers, as many as you can name not one has ever spoken about the sacrament as these fanatics do. None of them use such an expression as it is simply bread and wine or Christ’s body and blood are not present. Yet this subject is so frequently discussed by the, it is impossible that they should have not at some time have let slip such an expression as it is simply bread o not the body of Christ is physically present or the like. None of them use such a expression as ‘It is simply bread and wine’ or ‘Christ’s body and blood are not present.” Martin Luther 1517 AD

“I didn’t know that for the first 1500 years of church history everyone saw communion as the literal body and blood of Christ and it wasn’t until 500 years ago that someone popularized a thought that it is just a symbol and nothing more.” Francis Chan 

“ Throughout the writings of the fathers, there is unbroken agreement that the consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ and that the Eucharist is a sacrifice.” Daryl Stone 

“Eucharist teaching should be understood at the outset was in general unquestionably realist. That is the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be and treated and designated as the saviors body and blood.” J N D Kelly

Allow me to close this blog by addressing the word that most Protestants trip over, Transubstantiation. This is the word that the Roman Catholic Church created to explain the mystery of the belief of the literal body and blood of Jesus is present in communion. The mistake you made was trying to explain the unexplainable, to hang a word on a mystery. This in indeed a mystery, and can not be explained in human terms, like most of the Kingdom of God is a mystery. It was the Church Father Dionysius who said “Most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not knowing.” 

So today let me encourage you to get alone with God today and experience His glorious mystery. 

Pastor Art Snow | May 15, 2022

Edited and Adapted for Web Use by: Eric Muñoz Jr.