Good morning everyone! I am excited about church this Sunday. We have Kenny Evans coming to sing and share the gospel with us. If you have never been blessed by Kenny's gifted voice and awesome testimony you should come join us. I am writing the second part of yesterday's devotion and I hope you can take from it what I did while writing it. This is going to be a little longer devotional than normal but, a very important one. It is very important that we partake of it in the right manner. I hope you can take something from it. Examine yourself and let's dig in...........
Bible verse: Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the lord's body.
Let me go back to the representation. The bread, represents the flesh of Jesus, is separate from the wine, which represents His blood, and the separation of the blood from the flesh indicates death. A bleeding away of life in the most intense agony. It cost the Lord an immeasurable amount of pain to redeem us from going down into the pit of hell. We take these in remembrance of the death of Christ. Now, what right does an unrepented person have to come in remembrance of the death of Christ. If our eyes have not cried tears of repentance, if we have not truly repented, how can we remember Him who veins cried blood to redeem His people from their sins. It is a grieving heart and a broken spirit that Christ wants at the communion table. Taking communion is an ordinance, an ordinance from God. God wants us to think of Jesus always. We should speak of Him often, we should share witness to the death of Jesus Christ all the time. This is what makes this communion to be the best of ordinances to point us to Christ on the cross.
Before taking communion we should examine ourselves. Here are five ways to examine ourselves.
1.Examine ourselves concerning our knowledge- our saving knowledge, a living knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2.Examine ourselves concerning our faith- trusting alone in the Lord Jesus Christ without hesitating, that our Savior lived, died, and rose again for our sins.
3.Examine ourselves concerning our repentance- Is our heart broken and melted or is stone and hard? Are we broken because of our sins? Have we truly repented all?
4.Examine ourselves concerning our love- Do we truly love our Lord? Ask the Lord " Lord, you know the deepest feelings of my heart, you know all things, you know all my faults, you know that I truly love you." You will know you are worthy to eat at this table is this is true what you say.
5.Examine ourselves concerning your obedience- We must obey the commands of Christ. If we truly love Him, we will keep His commandments. We should desire to sin less and less everyday. Is there any sin which you try to hide away from God? He knows all. We should do our best to become more Christlike everyday. We will never be perfect. But, we can be perfect in weakness and rely on God's wisdom.
After we examine ourselves and if we find we are worthy to take communion. We should ask God to clear our minds and let us focus entirely on Christ's life, death, and resurrection while taking communion. We should keep our thoughts on Christ. We should ask God to help us strap or thoughts to the cross. We should take communion service reverently, humbly, and sincerely to show Christ's death.
There is law from God on how often or when we should take communion. The Lord leaves it up to us to search our hearts on how often we should break bread and drink the blood of Jesus. After studying the subject I believe we should take it more often.
Here is the thing, don't let superstition be the reason you take communion. It is far worse to take communion and not be saved and know the true reason for doing this. In remembrance of our dear Lord and Savior. We shouldn't feel because we are church members that we should come to the communion table or because others are doing it. We need to come after serious thought. We need to prepare our hearts to take part in this ordinance from God. We need to have fellowship with Christ.
I know this has been a long devotional but, I have studied on this great subject and learned so very much. God has opened my eyes and my heart. I hope this will help do the same for you. Have a great day, I love you, and God bless!
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