Friday, April 29, 2011

Sacraments, Covenants with Biblical Sense

The sacraments of the Christian faith as very special and not to be taken or experienced in any trivial manner.
The sacraments are the ‘Sacred” acts or a rituals that changes someone’s social status or renews ones present status in the Christian faith and among the community of believers.

So when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ we are to fulfill or continue in the Covenant of God the Father with those adherents of the faith of Abraham fulfilled in and through the grace of Jesus Christ. 

1. Baby Dedication: This ritual has a historical association with offering a new born life to being raised in a godly community by both the parents and the larger body of the cooperate family. 

2. Baptism: This sacred ritual is to be a one time physical expression through water of a changed heart with the outward symbol for witnesses to observe the public confession of a new life that was born again through repentance and forgiveness.

3. Marriage: is the sacrament that is also intended to be entered into once, unless it is interrupted by the death of one of the covenant partners therefore releasing the other to marry again. Marriage is an optional covenant to enter and not required for all. It has spiritual significance of being lived out in the flesh between two people to fulfill a command according to Genesis 1:28. When two people begin to walk as one in unity then much of their lives should become reflective of how two individuals can live and walk in unity as was and is the relationship of Christ and the Father as can we and Christ be. 

4. Communion: This ritual can be experienced as often as one might want to experience it, but its original context was the annual observance of the Passover. Christ gave his last annual Passover a new meaning and noted that as often as they observed that Old Testament Holy Day they were to remember Him and his sacrifice as a new covenant fulfilling the foreshadowed Old Covenant. Many have taken that observance and have extracted just the new meaning out of the entire Passover celebration and participated in it as much as weekly and as seldom as quarterly or monthly. 

These 4 sacraments are Holy observances of the relationship between Christ and men and community. Three of them should be seen as a rite of passage in social changes in the life of God. Communion is an annual reminder of this special covenant relationship God offers each man who walks by faith with His Son Jesus.

All 4 sacraments point to the Abundant Life we have now in Christ. Those who profess Him as Lord, Savior and King should thoroughly enjoy the Passover every year and as often as they might commune with Him with those two elements that are to jolt our remembrance of the significance of his life, passion, death, resurrection and promised return. Marriage is expression of two people becoming one in heart & unity. Baptism publically displays the death to self and identify our ones life that is to be raised in Christ. Communion is for the overall community as well as the individual & family to remind each other and to renew our faith in Christ as Redeemer, Savior and coming King. Dedication is the formal public act of committing  the next generation into the covenant of God and life of a believer from the youngest of ages.

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