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Communion Prayer Meditations

Communion Prayer Meditations

Communion Prayer Meditations.

“Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 355).

Almighty God. Our God’s power is beyond our wildest imagination. Only El-Shaddai can make something, everything, out of nothing. Only almighty God can speak an immeasurable universe into existence. Only the power and creative genius of God could design the astounding complexities of the human body. As we gaze unto the incomprehensible array of stars above, we acknowledge with wonder and awe that we are nonetheless only on the borders of His ways, the mere edges, the outer fringes (Job 26:14).

  1. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty (El-Shaddai); walk before me and be blameless.’ “ (Genesis 17:1).
  2. “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens – what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave – what can you know?” (Job 11:7).
  3. “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Revelations 4:8).
  4. “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored…Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty, and will lift up your face to God.” (Job 22:23, 26).
  5. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'” (Rev. 1:8).
  6. “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33:4).
  7. “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your Name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev. 15:3-4).
  8. ‘He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of Yahweh, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'” (Psalm 91:1-2).

All hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. The Lord has complete knowledge of every human being. He knows what we think before we think it, what we feel before we feel it. He knows more about us than we know about ourselves. We might as well be brutally honest with God, because He already knows about everything anyway. He is aware of all our desires, good and bad. Each of us is an open book before God. He knew us intimately before we even had a name.

  1. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Yahweh.” (Psalm 139:1-4).
  2. “O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36).
  3. “Yet you know me, O Yahweh; you see me and test my thoughts about you.” (Jeremiah 12:3).
  4. “If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it, since He knows the secrets of the heart? (Ps. 44:20-21).
  5. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13).
  6. “Even hell itself holds no secrets from the Lord God, for all is exposed before His eyes, and so much more the heart of every human being.” (Proverbs 15:11).

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts. Each of us has a heart that is made in the image of God, but is tainted, it is spotted and needs to be purified. The spots are so deeply engrained in the cloth of our heart that it can only be cleansed if it is hand-scrubbed by God Himself. Only the pure water from the River of Love will soak the stains out of the heart. Allowing God to cleanse our hearts will enable us to see Him clearly, since only the pure of heart are able to see God. (Matt. 5:8).

  1. “Blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins; Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow; Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51: 2, 7, 10).
  2. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” (Matthew 23:25-26).
  3. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
  4. ‘How much more then, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  (Hebrews 9:14).
  5. “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:12-13).
  6. “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”  (1 John 1:7).
  7. “God, who knows the heart, showed that He accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for He purified their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:8-9).
  8. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Inspiration of your Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit within inspires us, breathes into us the very presence of God. We inhale the Spirit and we are washed clean, and enabled to follow Jesus, to live a Christ-centered life. The Wind blows on us and fills us with love and transforms us. The Holy Fire reminds us of the truth we have experienced, the truth we have been taught. The Spirit advocates for us with the Father and the Son, fills our lungs with comfort and encouragement. The Holy Spirit inspires us as we live into our citizenship in the kingdom of God.

  1. “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your  impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my teachings and be careful to keep my commands.”  (Ezekiel 36:25-27).
  2. “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”  (Acts 2:1-4).
  3. “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:16-17).
  4. “Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us.” (Romans 5:5).
  5. “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” 
  6. ‘I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth; the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you; When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth.”  (John 14:16-17, 26; 16:13).

Perfectly love you. We have now reached the whole point of our existence, the one worthy goal of life: to love God. What a privilege, that God has made a way for created beings to love the Creator. We were made for this. We will not be satisfied, we will not be fulfilled, we will not even be happy, until we reach this purpose. God designed every human being with a Love-God gene, and until that is miraculously achieved, we’ve missed out on the joy that is our destiny. And who knew that we can love God by loving our neighbor?

  1. “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).
  2. “This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.” (1 John 5:3).
  3. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut. 6:4-5).
  4. “The love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. That is how we know we are living in Him.” (1 John 2:5).
  5. “The most important commandment,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31).

Worthily magnify your holy Name. To magnify something is to make it bigger; to take something small and enlarge it; to take something hidden and make it obvious; to take something insignificant and make it significant. Our joy as believers is to make God’s name obvious in the world, to make it more significant in the sight of other people, to make His Name bigger in front of those who have poor eyesight for things eternal. Of course, in terms of Reality, there is nothing bigger in the universe than God’s Name. but this world of ours can try to make it smaller and insignificant. To magnify it might even require us to exaggerate His Name in what we say and how we live. But the beauty of that is it would be literally impossible to exaggerate the greatness of His Name. However large we might magnify the greatness of His Name, the reality will always be beyond that.

  1. “I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Magnify the Lord with me; let us exalt His Name together.” (Psalm 34:1-3).
  2. “No matter what, I will continue to hope and passionately cling to Christ, so that He will be openly revealed through me before everyone’s eyes. So I will not be ashamed! In my life or in my death, Christ will be magnified in me.” (Philippians 1:20, TPT).
  3. “Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let such as love your salvation say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified!” (Psalm 40:16).
  4. “This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.” (Acts 19:17).
  5. “So let your Name be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of Hosts is the God over Israel.’ (2 Samuel 7:26).
  6. “And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” (Luke 1:46-47).

Through Christ our Lord. To confess is to acknowledge something, to declare a belief. The closing line of this communion prayer is a a confession that Jesus is Messiah and Lord. Confessions tend to be succinct, rather short and to the point.  To confess is to admit the truth of something, to make a declaration, often resulting in an exclamation. There were a number of remarkable confessions in the gospels attesting to the Lordship of Jesus:

  1. “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world… I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God!” (John the Baptist, John 1:29-30, 34);
  2. “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” (Nathaniel, John 1:49);
  3. “”We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God… You are the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of the living God.” (Peter, John 6:69 and Matthew 16:16);
  4. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” (Martha, John 11:27);
  5. “Glorifying God, he said, ‘Surely He was the righteous One.”‘ (the centurion at the cross, Luke 23:47);
  6. “I believe, help my unbelief!”  (a thankful father, Mark 9:24).
  7. “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name.” (John, John 20:31);
  8. “Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (Thomas, John 20:28)

One Reply to “Communion Prayer Meditations”

  1. I love the verses and the meditations that Steve gives for each line of the communion prayer. My favorite is that we may perfectly love Thee…..” God designed every person with a love God gene and until that is miraculously achieved, we’ve missed out on the joy that is our destiny.”
    Your thoughts make this prayer and the sacrament of communion come alive as never before for me, Steve. Thank you!