Breaking bread with the right desire

As we come to break bread, the Lord asks us if we are able to keep a right attitude towards our brethren. If we can’t do that, we need to cry out to the Lord and submit ourselves under the mighty hand of the Lord. He will save you. We read in Psalms 34:17, the righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.  What is the need for the righteous to cry out? Why can’t the righteous be happy and go on with their life? The righteous need to cry out because they want to stay holy. The righteous cry out because they want to stay away from sin. They want to have a right attitude towards their brethren.

1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” It says clearly that when you take part in the breaking of bread, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death. In Romans 06:02,03 we read, “ ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” As we break bread, we proclaim the Lord’s death. But what part of the Lord’s death are we proclaiming? What are the things that we need to die for? We read in 1 Peter 2:24, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed”. We need to die to sin & live righteously. Why did the Lord die?  To take away our sins.  We were all in a state where we couldn’t free ourselves from sin; we were under the burden of sin. The one who had no sin had to become sin for us.

This is where there is a cry in our hearts – Lord, I am unable to live a life free from sin; I am not able to please the One who gave His life for me. If that cry is there in our heart, the Lord will surely hear us and help us. As we read in Romans 06:12-14 “¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³ and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin [as] instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” May this be the desire and cry of our heart – that I want my hands, my eyes, my tongue to have victory. The Lord is waiting eagerly for us to have this victory and the Lord will hear and give an answer.

In 1 Corinthians 11, we read that we need to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Why does the Lord insist that we break bread often? Because, in our journey in this world, we may tend to forget what we should cry for. Our hearts may be entangled by the things in this world and not cry out enough for freedom from sin. May the Lord help us this day to cry out for victory. In verses 23-32, we read of the instructions for communion. We read in verse 27, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord”. We are reminded to make sure that we judge ourselves rightly. We must check to see if we are worthy to take part in the bread and cup. But always remember, it is the Lord who makes us worthy and not anything that we do. Let’s pray that the Lord cleanses all our thoughts, motives and deeds.

May God bless all of us.

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