Tell God You Love Him by Remembering What Christ Did for You

“And anyone who is ashamed of Me and My message in these days of unbelief and sin, I, the Messiah, will be ashamed of Him when I return in the glory of My Father, with the holy angels”

(Mark 8:38 LB)

You can’t say you love Jesus Christ and be ashamed of Him at the same time. In Mark 8, Jesus’ words could be summarized this way: “If you’re ashamed of Me on earth, I’m going to be ashamed of you in heaven.” We need to publicly identify ourselves with Christ. That’s how we show our love for Him.

Jesus gave us two very powerful symbols that help us publicly declare we belong to God. The first one is Communion, which helps us identify with what Jesus Christ did for us:

• He saved us from the penalty of sin. Everything you’ve ever done wrong was paid for on the cross so you get to go free and forgiven.

• He saves us from the power of sin. He breaks its grip in our lives. He gives us a new power to be able to make changes so we’re not the same anymore. He can do new things in our lives that we always wanted to do but never thought we could do on our own.

• Eventually He saves us from the presence of sin in heaven where there will be no sin, no sorrow, no suffering, no pain, no grief. That’s good news.

What should my attitude be when I take the Lord’s Supper? Should I sit there feeling guilty, remembering all the wrong things I’ve done in my life? No. They’ve already been paid for by Jesus Christ and forgiven. When I take Communion, should I feel grief, thinking about all the torture and suffering that Jesus Christ went through for me? No. Because He didn’t stay dead; He came back to life.

So what should be my attitude when I take the Lord’s Supper? It should be the attitude of gratitude. Gratefulness for all that God has done. That God loves me so much He sent Jesus to save me from my sins. We can be grateful because we are a forgiven people.

As we take Communion we do several things. We publicly identify our faith in Christ. We publicly identify our love for Christ. We publicly state that we want to be closer to Christ.

When you participate in the Lord’s Supper, you worship God because it requires you to “examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe” (1 Corinthians 11:28 MSG).

Rick Warren