31. As Bread Together
Audio Only31. As Bread Together - for Notes
31. As Bread Together - PP
“I am the bread of life” Jesus – in John 6.
Bread is sustenance; it includes everything meant inside the concept of nutrition supplied through eating and drinking for the nourishment and operation of the body. “Eat of Me” and “Drink of Me” are referring to our partaking of Jesus as Word causing ourselves to be Christ as us.
Then, inside the gathering together, this same eating and drinking causes us together to be Jesus walking this earth. As bread together means as Word together, means as Christ together.
A Spirit Word. The Bread and the Light are the only two parts of the Tabernacle that are positioned side by side. The reason is that Spirit and Word, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, cannot ever be separated. The two are utterly entwined together.
We do study them in the classroom as distinct, and we know each one as it is, nonetheless, in the laboratory and in real life, we know Word and Spirit only as together. A Spirit Word – Word is the subject, “Spirit” is a description of the Word.
Speaking together, then, is the real sustenance of the Body.
Defining Bread. (From Symmorphy IV: Covenant) “Let me define bread. Bread, the Bread of Life, is the enjoyment of Christ in one another, enjoyment meaning every benefit gained by walking together. At the same time, we place the fire, the Energeia of God coming entirely through our faith, as the ONLY power causing our breaking bread together in community to be sustenance for all.”
In fact, to “eat of Christ” is to partake of all the good things that are Christ in and as one another.
Benefiting from sharing one another in committed Church life is the essence of being bread together. We are each other’s sustenance, Christ as us.
Sharing Word Together. The thought just came to me that, when we gather together in Christ Community, it would be a wonderful thing to rotate the daily devotions so that each one could share.
And then, to have each one pick a statement of faith from The Jesus Secret II and share first what that word means personally to them and second how they now see the family through that word. This is the meaning of living as Bread together.
Bread is the sharing of Christ as word in the anointing and light of the Spirit inside the family of God. We live by every Word that Jesus is.
No False Definitions. The concept of being bread together was taught in the communities in which I lived right from the start. And we shared a knowledge of Christ in one another. Yet we also defined one another by the flesh. Thus, Philemon 1:6, acknowledge the good things of Christ in one another, would have been considered “fleshy.”
In our minds then, to point out the false things of the flesh in one another was the “Christ” thing to do; whereas pointing out the good things of Christ would have been the “fleshy” thing to do.
This incredible contradiction is common to all Nicene thinking, not just to that particular fellowship.
From Source to Substance. I bring that contradiction into this picture to underline why it is that I insist that each individual member of the Church MUST KNOW Jesus Sent into them as their own Bread of Life before each can share with all.
There can be no Body of Christ except each member be filled with the knowledge of Christ as their own life. The eating of bread is daily. The acknowledgement of the good things of Christ in one another is daily.
Travailing with Father for one another is the source, sharing inside the anointing of the Spirit is the means, but the word that is Christ among us is the substance.
All Our Conversation Together. The Word is everything. – The Word of Christ dwells in you richly (Colossians). – The energeia inside the sharing from every part (Ephesians 4:16).
We must never think that this Bread of Life that we share with one another is limited to Bible words or to statements of faith, however.
Every conversation of fellowship, sharing, and encouragement, laughing around the dinner table, sharing one’s difficulties or ideas or questions, all these things are fundamental parts of the Word that is the wealth of Christ. Think of how familiar and normal food, eating, and conversation are to our human lives – so also is Christ.
The Expectation of Faith. Sharing Christ together is the expectation of faith. When we say, “Let it be to me,” towards every word God speaks, knowing by faith alone that it is becoming Christ inside our hearts, so we turn that same faith towards every interaction together as the Church.
We expect that our interaction, as we give to one another in the sharing of life, is becoming Christ as us together.
When you eat bread, you do not give thought to how your body turns that bread into the sustenance of life, it just does. So it is with Christ, we know that sharing life together turns into the substance of Christ, just because it does.
The Transfer of Substance. Truly, the word “transubstantiation” fits here, the transfer of substance. As we partake of one another’s lives in honor and regard, valuing one another’s hearts and persons, so the very substance that is the Lord Jesus Christ in glory becomes our interaction together.
Where two or three of you are gathered together inside of My name, there I AM in the midst of you.
This is not an idea; it is a transfer of substance, with Jesus’ Person very much a part of that substance. Yet the appearance remains humans walking together.
Two Aspects of Word. I want to look, now, at a different, but critical view of what it means to be as bread together.
Sustaining all things by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). – His voice was as the sound of many waters (Revelation 1:15). He who has this hope [of being the same Word with Jesus] in Him, purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure (1 John 3:4).
The Word that is Christ is a corporate Word, that is, many speaking as one. At the same time, the Word that is Christ is a pure Word, unmixed with anything not-Christ. How are these two aspects of Christ-Word fitted together?
Firstfruits. How can a pure Word be a corporate Word? And how can a corporate Word be a pure Word? The path of firstfruits is God’s solution.
Let me make this personal to you and to me. I have no danger of becoming boastful in myself, for my continued inability is all God needs to trip me onto my face in the mud on a regular basis. Rather, I rejoice in the goodness of Jesus towards me.
A pure Word must begin in me as a firstfruits of Christ. Yet it came into me through the speaking of many over many years and through great trial of my own desperate inability.
Limiting Your Hearing. God has caused me to know the mighty difference between His pure Word of Christ and the pure word of the serpent, and to perceive how the two are mixed together. My autobiography is an attempt to discover how God did such a wondrous thing for me.
Many of you, then, have heard the Heart of your Father coming to you through the things that I share. As a result, you have chosen to hear that Word coming through me as your present teacher.
In doing that, you have set aside, for a season, hearing other words, until you know Jesus as every Word God actually speaks all through your own heart.
You Are Free of Me. Because I never bind you to myself, you are safe to receive me as your teacher, as a brother alongside of you who shares with you what God means by what He actually says. Yet it is always Jesus showing Himself to you, and I have nothing to do with that.
Nonetheless, I cannot be all that a Word of Christ to you must be, for Christ IS a many-membered Body and His voice is as the sound of many waters.
Indeed, if I were not constantly pointing you towards the Church, towards Christ revealed through us together, then no word coming through me could ever be pure.
A Sifting. The Holy Place IS a place of sifting. Some, even, who rejoice in union with Christ, keep one foot out in the in-part Holy Place of spiritual superiority over others.
During my early years of sharing Christ our life, I attempted to place two writers alongside of me because I believe in a corporate word. Yet neither of these two had placed me as their teacher. It was a stunning shock to me, then, as I saw how mixed the word they were sharing really was. Yet this mixture was more than word, but also the expression of heart.
No sufficiency in one’s self is a rare quality, known only by a few. If God offers it to you, embrace it with all your heart.
My Commitment. KNOW, KNOW, KNOW, all through the shuddering of your soul and body, just how INCAPABLE you are of ever pleasing God or of doing anything worthy of knowing Him. Then turn around and be the firstfruits of Christ for others.
It has been five years, now, since I went through that season of trying to join a mixed word with the Word I must know. My commitment to a Corporate Word remains unchanged. And so, as your teacher, I would turn you to receiving the same pure Word from one another as the speaking of Christ.
In the remainder of this lesson, then, I want to define a Pure AND Corporate Word, the Church as bread together.
A Shared Honesty. Each one who shares a pure Word are honest about themselves, that “I cannot ever please God of myself.” They are real with one another, saying, without self-exaltation or put-down, “I was wrong, please forgive me.”
They never place blame or obligation upon their hearers, neither do they ever speak against the leaders of God’s house, regardless. They regard each person as better, as the Lord Jesus to them, and they joy in the release of each into liberty.
They know that they cannot invent God through them, and so they walk in all the confidence of rest inside of Father.
A Word as Spirit and Life. Each one who shares a pure Word knows word by the Spirit and as the Lord Jesus alive inside each heart hearing that Word. They are never turned by any letter of the word to impose obligation on God’s people.
As they know Word as Spirit, so they allow God to shape them by His Words, not by imposition, but by expectation. As they share Word as Christ already in the heart of each, so they expect the demonstration of the Spirit to confirm and to establish that Word.
They align all their thinking with a Spirit Word of Life.
A Biblical Word. Each one who shares a pure Word treats the Bible with utmost respect, yet without making it a false idol. They find the Lord Jesus Christ on every page and use God’s Word as intended, that is, to show Christ to each.
They place the Blood and Atonement of the Lord Jesus at the center of everything.
They know the ruling verses of the gospel all through their own hearts and minds. They use the ruling verses of the gospel to shape their understanding of the entire rest of the Bible. They place Paul’s gospel of Christ our life above all.
A Separated Word. Each one who shares a pure Word lives life with no heart connection with anything of this world. Their identity is Christ, not human associations. They do not wave the flags or march in the causes.
They do not build their own kingdom or pursue their own agenda or plant their own false seed in the hearts of others.
They are committed to the Church of Christ, not as to a worldly group, but as to the Lord Jesus as He lives inside of and as each one. They give themselves to Father with them for her sake. They commit themselves to their local assembly in the leading of the Spirit and in love.
A Pure and Corporate Word. Consider this list as representative. There is nothing in it that does not rule my own sharing of Word, yet not by obligation, but in joy.
And so as each one of you share one with the other that unique expression of Word that is Father through you, we together become a level of Word in the knowledge of God that cannot be known by any one individual teacher.
The Bread of God, the Christ of God, is a many-membered body; God reveals Himself through the speaking of many. A Corporate Word, spoken by many together, that is Pure in its source and expression, is Father speaking.