◄ What Does 1 Corinthians 10:17 Mean? ►

As members of the fallen race of men, we have fairly short memories which can cause us to become careless, neglectful, forgetful, or even critical in our Christian walk. This is why partaking in the bread and wine together as a memorial of Christ's sacrificial death on our account... is a precious way to keep our faith alive. It helps to maintain our hope in Christ and encourages us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength and soul - with thanksgiving.

The institution of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion as it is sometimes called, is one of the ways to keep us from becoming cool or disinterested in our Christian walk. The Lord's Supper encourages all who have been born again by grace through faith in Christ, to look back and reflect with grateful wonder and praise on Christ's immense sacrificial offering of Himself on Calvary's Cross for the sin of the whole world. It causes us to reflect on the love of God and what Christ's crucifixion and resurrection means for our own eternal salvation... and own lives, personally.

When two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, He is there in the very midst of them. When we join together to partake of the bread and wine in memory of Him and to reflect on the enormous sacrifice Christ made on our account, and when we recognise that His bodily resurrection guarantees all who trust in Him eternal life, it is a thing most wonderful to ponder upon as we rejoice together.

The collective worship of believers around the broken bread and communion cup is an expression of communal Christian unity and oneness in the Body of Christ. It is a demonstration of the fellowship of all believers and helps to divert our own, centralised focus, away from ourselves. It helps us to keep in mind the true meaning of the Cross of Christ and all that He suffered for our sake and for the sake of the whole world. It also realigns our focus on what we, as members of His mystic Body, should be doing in our daily lives - as we present our own life as a living sacrifice, holy unto the Lord.

Though there are many members in the Body of Christ we are ONE new man in Him, and Christ is the Head of that one Body, which is the Church. Christ is the Bread of Life upon Whom we each, individually feed - and He is the Hope on which our eternal future is founded.

Although we are many in number, we are united together in Christ... in that we all partook of the saving grace of God, by faith, when were born from above. And since Christ is the one bread upon Whom we feed, we have all received the same benefit from our singular source of our strength - the Lord Jesus Christ - our living Bread.

Heavenly Father, thank You that I am in union with Christ and a member of His mystical Body, which is the Church. I pray that we may be united together in love and truth, knowing that we have all partaken of the one Bread, which is Christ. Thank You that His body was broken for me and His blood was spilt to pay the price for my sin. To Him be all honour and glory, and in His precious name I pray, AMEN.