Status Updates From Take and Eat: Recovering th...

“Fire is of great use, great help, and even great comfort to us.
Fire can also burn the skin off your bones. Fire destroys houses, levels cities, and is a weapon against enemies. Fire can be dangerous.
This dual potential for fire as a blessing and a threat explains why Hebrews calls God a consuming fire. Hence, we cannot be presumptuous when we come into God's presence.”

This is going to be great.

“Some ask, since the Supper requires such genuine repentance, is it better not to take the Supper as often? Yet this reverses our true priorities. Rather than avoiding the Supper because it requires repentance, we should inculcate a regular posture of repentance so we are always ready to come to the Supper.”

—Harrison Perkins, Take & Eat: Recovering the Regular Celebration of the LORD’s Supper

“GOD’s treatment of Ananias and Sapphira shows that GOD cares that we take every aspect of worship seriously … Although the Supper contains risk as we approach the table, the whole of worship contains that same risk at least in some measure. We cannot escape the risk of coming before the LORD simply by avoiding the Supper. Worship itself entails that risk.”

“The LORD’s Supper is the meal that lifts our heads to know we are accepted into GOD’s presence … Every week, our heads ought to be lifted as we come before the presence of CHRIST, our King. Every week, our eyes ought to be opened as we experience the grace to see HIM clearly, made known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

I appreciated the way Perkins handles the tension of coming to the LORD’s Supper rightly. There is clearly a responsibility to examine ourselves, but that responsibility is not meant to become a crushing burden. We are not striving to reach some imagined level of holiness before we are allowed to come. The Supper is primarily a gift of grace for needy sinners, not a reward for spiritual perfection.

“I sometimes wonder how it might affect preachers if every sermon had to end in the Lord's Supper. Would it give a healthy new dimension to the way our sermons develop and conclude? Would it force us back to the central things of the gospel? ... Might not our Church life be strengthened by frequent communion?" - W. Robert Godfrey

I have always thought about the manna as GOD’s active provision, but I love the deeper meaning as well: not only was HE providing for HIS people, but the manna was also a reminder of HIS presence among them.

“At one level, manna was physical nourishment. At another, it carried a spiritual significance that GOD was present among them and caring for HIS covenant people.”