Communion with Jesus

Before you start todays devotional, ask the Lord to use it to grow you up in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

How do you come before God?

He is holy and we are not. Do we bow? Do we cover our heads? Our faces? Our knees? What’s the answer that transcends culture?

God looks at our hearts. He expects us to come before Him in humility and reverence. In simple ways, we acknowledge God as He deserves.

In Corinth, they wrestled with the issue of whether or not to cover your head when you worship. The Old Testament taught when you serve, you cover your head—anything less is to be irreverent. But Paul is teaching now that a man should not cover his head when he prays or prophesies. When he is praying, he is speaking to God for others. When he is prophesying (teaching), he is speaking to others for God. Whenever he is standing in either of those two sacred positions, his head should be uncovered.

Women, on the other hand, were to cover their heads during prayer and worship. In Christ, they were free not to, but in their culture and time, it was the only way to distinguish between them and a temple prostitute. Unless a woman covered her head, it could be assumed she was living an immoral life.

God ordained order in His church, Christ’s body, that is pictured in the marriage design. A husband and wife are to serve and submit to one another, but each has a unique, God-given role to fill.

The woman’s role is to help her husband; she is to be the other part of him. No man is complete without a woman except where God has given special grace to a man for a special work. They are to honor and serve one another and provide loving and nurturing support, protection, and grace. That is God’s design and purpose.

A man and woman are inseparable. Man is not a sphere, but a hemisphere; woman is not a sphere, but a hemisphere. It is nonsense for either men or women to talk about liberation. The man needs the woman, and the woman needs the man. This is true liberty in the glorious relationship of marriage.

When it comes to order in the church, celebrating the Lord’s Supper is the highest expression and the holiest exercise of Christian worship. Christians all over the world celebrate the death of Jesus in this most solemn and meaningful act of worship.

But in Corinth, people were apparently abusing the tradition of the agape feast (the fellowship meal before communion) and using it to stuff themselves instead of caring for the hungry guy beside him. This meal was supposed to be about loving each other. Sadly, when the Corinthian believers came together, their undisciplined lives were on full display.

The Lord’s Supper is a sacred time of worship. It symbolizes Jesus’ ultimate gift. On His last supper on earth, just hours before the Cross, Jesus took bread and broke it as a symbol of His body being broken for us. Paul described the moment as if he had heard it from Jesus Himself!

Celebrating the Lord’s Supper is profoundly personal for us, too. We need to take our attitudes toward it seriously. Our heart matters to Jesus. Again and again, God’s Word reminds us our sins can be forgiven because of His body broken in suffering and His blood poured out on the cross.

While you observe the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is present. Yes, He is! This is not just a symbol. That is what it means to discern the body of Christ.

Do you take celebrating the Lord’s Supper seriously? Some in Corinth didn’t, and it cost them their health, some even their lives.

The Lord’s Supper represents the essence of our relationship with God—fellowship with Him by way of Christ’s death on the cross. Makes you want to praise Him, doesn’t it? Go ahead—thank Him right now. Let Him hear your voice.

1. What does it tell us about God that showing Him reverence may look different in different cultures?

2. Why does God tell the church in Corinth that the Lord’s Supper is so important to Him?

3. When Christians observe the Lord’s Supper they are looking back to the sacrifice of Christ, but why do you think how they observed mattered?

Additional Resources

Listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s complete teachings on 1 Corinthians 10:23—11:4, 1 Corinthians 11:4-16 and 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.