“Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 11:27
Did you know that it is possible we may be taking communion and yet fail to meet the requirements needed for us to fully experience its power in our lives? This is why it’s truly important that we understand what communion requires from us so that we will not fall short and sin because of our lack of knowledge.
For years, religion may have taught us several misconceptions about the Lord’s meal. Today, we want to share these truths with you so that you can have a proper understanding of what God is saying in His Word. We must know these so that we may know what kind of power we are dealing with – the power of the Lord’s table. This will help us assess how we take the Lord’s meal. If we are not doing it correctly, knowing these truths can help us set things right.
Here are 3 important requirements we need to know before we take communion:
1. You must be born-again.
“But a person must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” – 1 Corinthians 11:28
We need to examine ourselves — Whether or not we’ve had the blood and the bread apply to our lives. Were we born again? It’s important to know if we have or haven’t been born again. When we were born again, the blood was applied to us. That means we have already examined ourselves and we are worthy because of the blood, the blood has been applied to us. If we have not been born again yet, then we should not partake of the Lord’s table.
When we come to the Lord’s table, it’s very important to discern which body we are dealing with — spiritual or natural. Which body carried our sickness and disease? It’s the body of Jesus that was on the cross. The body of Jesus that was resurrected did not carry our sickness, sins, and poverty. So we have to know which “body” we are dealing with when taking communion.
The good news is: We died with Christ positionally when we became born again. Here’s the thing: When Satan tries to put sin, sickness, and poverty in us, and we have been born again then we can say: “WAIT A MINUTE! You can’t do this to me Satan, I’ve already died! I come to the table recognizing that my sin and sickness were in that body that died on the cross and I died with Him.” We have already been delivered from sickness, sin, death, and poverty if we have been born-again, and therefore, we can take that word and use it against Satan whenever we come and take the communion.
2. You must know your rights.
“Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 11:27
When taking communion we must know our rights and our true identity in Christ. We are more than conquerors. We are righteous in Christ Jesus. We are children of the most high God and it has nothing to do with whether we are worthy or not.
In this verse, Paul doesn’t say whoever is an unworthy man or whoever is an unworthy woman. Religion has taught us that we have got to be worthy before we can take communion, but that is not what the Bible is saying at all. The Bible says “if we do it in an unworthy manner to Jesus”. And what does that mean? To do it in an unworthy manner means to do it with the wrong understanding of who we are. The truth is we have been made worthy by the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and each time we take the communion, we are partaking of that worthiness of what Jesus did for us. That means when we partake of the communion we are partaking of even more worthiness. The communion has nothing to do with whether we are worthy or not. It has to do with what Jesus did that makes us worthy. We need to understand that when we are coming to the throne of God we are coming in the robes of righteousness of Jesus Himself, so much so that when the Father looks at us, He sees the Son.
Religion teaches us that we have to work to be worthy but no. We were not born again because we were worthy. It was because of the grace of God that was extended toward us. Therefore, no believer should ever, ever be afraid to take communion no matter what sins we did. Truth is, communion is the way out of the sins that we did.
3. You must Have a True Biblical Understanding of What Communion is.
When we take communion, we’re actually taking it to escape sickness and disease, sin and poverty. This is one of our rights as the children of God, as believers of Jesus, as born again. We’re coming to the table not only to celebrate what Jesus did for us. We are coming before the table to escape conditions that the enemy has tried to put on us through the spirit of oppression. But if we do it without understanding then we will be judged for the lack of our understanding because we are sinning against the body and the blood of Christ. Remember that we are destroyed because of lack of understanding.
When we eat or drink without revelation of what is happening in the communion it will cause us to be liable to the condition or the penalty that we should be escaping from. When we take communion we are taking it to escape penalty, to escape the conditions that the enemy has tried to put on us like sickness and disease. We take communion so we can avoid sickness and disease. But if we eat and drink without the understanding or the revelation of what communion is then we’ll still be liable to the sickness that we should have been delivered from. We become liable to the demonic attacks that were designed to stop us. This is why many people don’t receive their gate from sickness or disease or oppression or anything– because they have no understanding of what they’re doing.
With these truths, let’s not do communion as a ceremony. Every time we partake of the Lord’s table, let’s do it with an understanding of what we’re doing so that we can escape from sickness or disease and not be prone to the penalty.
