Eucharistic Glory and the Presence of God – Purity 1591
Purity 1591 02/25/2025 Purity 1591 Audio Podcast
Purity 1591 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a white rocking chair and the side view from the front porch of my former home comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene back on January 1st, 2015.
Well, It’s Tuesday and as I have a shifted work tour this week, I will be enjoying a day off from work today and will seek to use it to rest and reflect on where God has brought me and where He is guiding me. Spoiler alert: God’s calling me into eternity – we are all going to die! But it’s okay if you know Jesus as Lord and Savior. In Christ, we are accepted, significant, and secure.
I recently came across a Catholic devotional book (33 Days of Eucharistic Glory – Blue Sparrow Books) in the “free books” shelf at a local library and even though I am a former Catholic and have issues with the Catholic church’s doctrines and practices in many areas, I felt called to go through it as part of my daily spiritual practice as I had just completed the materials I had been reading through devotionally. Even though I have certain ideas and convictions about the doctrine of the Eucharist that I believe are contrary to the Catholic Church’s stance, I can’t with any degree of certainty proclaim that I am 100% correct in my stance, and quite frankly am trusting God to guide me to not be outside of His will on this.
Honestly, I just want everyone in “the church” to get along but the varying views of the Eucharist can’t all be true. I do not have God’s perfect knowledge but because I can see how the Catholic view of the Eucharist has been abused as a means of control and looks a lot like idolatry, I trust the Lord to not lead me astray or to condemn me to hell if I am wrong about the Lord’s Supper. I try to keep an open mind regarding communion, but I see that I can’t really staddle the fence of the three main positions.
While I don’t believe that the bread and wine, literally become the body and blood of Jesus and are therefore worthy of elaborate adoration practices, I think that communion is more than just a remembrance of what Jesus did. I do think there is something holy happening in communion so I tend to side with Martin Luther’s “middle ground” of sacramental union – that “that Jesus is present in the Eucharist (in some mysterious way that we can’t understand) , but that the bread and wine do not literally change into the body and blood of Christ.”
Anyway, I have decided to see what this devotional has to say about Christian discipleship and am taking the verbiage for Eucharistic adoration as a general call to be in the presence of the Lord, within us without our practice of the Lord’s Supper. The things that stand out in the Catholic call to reverence the Eucharist to me is a call to be in the presence of Jesus and the testimonies that they give about lives transformed by God’s presence are not specific to being in the presence of communion elements. Life transformation through our faith in Christ and living in His presence is testified to across all Christian traditions and are not exclusive to the presence of communion elements or Eucharistic adoration practices. We don’t need bread, wine, or fruit juice to be God’s presence. We need God’s Spirit and our hearts to be seeking His presence and His will for our lives.
So even though I am taking this devotional with a grain of salt or a bone of contention, I am already being blessed by what it says about our devotion to follow the Lord earnestly.
Today’s offering included verbiage about The Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell and how these ultimate things are the subjects of study during Catholic retreats. Catholic pilgrims take breaks from the world and reflect on these things to bring them closer to the Lord. By contemplating our deaths, judgement, and final destination, we gain a godly perspective on life that tells us that our lives are valuable and that being right with God is the only way to live because it is the only way to be with God.
A fun fact that this devotional shared is that the average life span is about 4,000 weeks (80 years) and it impressed upon us to “live like we are dying” because we are. Rather than answering the world’s call to a pursuit of fleshly delights, God calls us to draw close to His presence and live out His mission for our lives and that is where we will find peace, joy, meaning, and purpose.
So don’t waste a week of your life. Live like you are dying. Get right with the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ and follow where He leads. God is with us, and He wants you to know His presence. Regardless of the way you do the Lord’s Supper or think about that sacrament, He wants to have communion with you all the days of your life, from here to eternity.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Loving and Serving Others.
1 Peter 4:8 (NASB) Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
Today’s verse is the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the second point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Loving and Serving Others.
2. Love one another deeply.
Today’s Bible verse encourages us to be fervent in our love for one another, regardless of our disagreements, and to let love cover the multitude of our sins.
Just to be clear, it is the love expressed by Jesus on the cross that covers the multitude of our sins. We don’t just “love on people” and excuse or turn a blind eye to their sins because “nobody’s perfect”. ‘
No, the love that we receive from God, which gives us forgiveness, is what is to drive us to fervently love one another. We can love others because God loves them. We can forgive others because God has forgiven us.
While we should never severely judge anyone for their sins, we should lovingly encourage them to take their sins to Jesus for forgiveness and to repent of them.
Its this love -born of God and sustained by God, that we are to share and be fervent in doing so.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 90
to protect you from the evil woman, from the alien woman’s smooth tongue. -Proverbs 6:24
In this context, the protection is from the “evil woman” with her “smooth tongue.” But while Gods’ commandments certainly do that, they also protect from every evil into which we might possibly fall. There is nothing in life that can hurt or harm a believer’s spiritual life if he follows the commandments of Christ, which He summed up as loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Think it through. If these two great commandments are followed by you, where can you go wrong? How could anyone really harm you if you fulfil them? They could kill you, of course. But if you die because you obey God, the ultimate issue of that would be a greater eternal reward. So, do you find your protection from evil in God’s commands or are you seeking it elsewhere? There is no other safe place or person to whom you may turn. Follow Him. He will protect and bless you. His protection alone is foolproof. Why try any other?[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 98.
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