Episode 312: I’m Talkin. . .Communion

I’m Talking, episode 312 for April 7th, 2024.

This is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week, we’re talking communion.

In my opening weeks of 2024, I’m doing church words for my little microcast, and while communion is definitely a church word for me, it, along with all the other words I guess I’ve been using, are actually words that have definitions in what we might call the real world.

It’s interesting, I’ve never really looked up the word communion in a dictionary because I have a use for it, and the only use I have for it is in the biblical realm, in the face of religion and what I believe about Jesus Christ.

But the definition was interesting, so I think I’ll share that with you to start.

So the definition says, the exchange of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially on a mental or spiritual level.

And I’ve never looked that word up before, it’s an interesting definition, I think it makes sense.

I’m not sure how much it ties to how we use it as Christians, and I think therein lies the challenge.

As Christians, what does communion mean?

And the challenge, I guess, is basically how we represent that to the world in which we live.

The reality is that communion is one of the ordinances of the church, the other is baptism.

And it’s just something that is commanded by God, and it’s something both things, in this case we’re focusing on communion, but both things are important and carry a lot of weight.

And I think as Christians, we have to recognize that and take it seriously and know that Jesus Christ set that up for us to have a deep relationship with him.

So maybe the dictionary got it right, but it really is different.

We talk about it being on a spiritual level, and that is true, and we talk about being intimate thoughts and feelings, and that is true as well, but it carries a different weight for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

It’s our challenge then to make it always carry that weight, to always take it seriously, to always be aware of the deep meaning of communion.

It is Christ sharing his body and his blood with us.

It is a deep, committed relationship that Christ is asking us to have with him.

It is only for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

Communion is only for us.

And it signifies a different level of commitment than the world’s definition.

It signifies our oneness with Christ.

It signifies our desire to be linked to Christ in his body and his blood, meaning with him through the death on the cross, with him through his resurrection, with him for eternity.

It means we recognize that the work that Christ did in his body with his blood for us, for the salvation that he has provided, for the redemption of sins, for everlasting life, all of those things are wrapped up into that communion that we take on a regular basis, depending on the church that we attend.

And so it is something that we need to be aware of, and our approach to communion needs to be proper.

We need to have the proper ideas.

We need to have the proper stance before a perfect God in heaven.

And we need to recognize that we are coming as sinners, as imperfect, and that we need to make sure that our relationship with people is correct, so that when we commune with God, our relationship with him is correct.

And so it is something that is super important to us as Christians, and our challenge is to take it that way all the time.

Every time we take communion, to not be distracted, to not be thinking of anything but our relationship with God, to not be in a state that is not full of worship.

And that’s a tough challenge to always be in that.

But you know what?

If you find yourself in that state, if you find yourself not in the correct, what’s the word I’m looking for, the correct status, stature, body language, whatever it might be, I can’t think of the correct word at the moment, it’s okay not to take it.

It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to have a communion relationship with Jesus Christ.

It just means at the moment, we are not prepared within our body, within our hearts, within our minds, to enter that relationship properly.

And that is a challenge, because we think people are watching.

But that’s the idea of communion.

It’s not multiple people wondering what you’re doing, watching what you’re doing, judging you.

It’s a one-to-one.

It’s a communion between us and Jesus, so that we have a relationship with God, the perfect Father.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast.