Remembrance & Resemblance

This Sunday at church we went over the meaning of Communion. It was really special and revealing. Our pastor encouraged us to remember and resemble Jesus and His sacrifice. He asked us to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross, remember His grace, and remember the history of Jesus, in that, before the cross, the words of God were spoken to prepare us for that moment, and after the cross, the words of God were spoken to reflect that moment and encourage us to resemble that kind of grace. Pretty powerful stuff.

Remembering what Christ did for us seems to be the easy part for me. It is automatically so humbling and reassuring that we do indeed have a GREAT lover of our souls. It's the resemblance part that gets a little tougher. So, after the sermon, I had to ask myself, "Am I resembling Christ?" And that's a tricky question. I know that I don't make Him look bad, but do I make him look good? That's the stinger.

I told Adam last night that I am trying to find my "element". That place where I know that I am living my life how God intended me to; my thoughts, my actions, using my God-ordained gifts, and my ministry. I firmly believe that God made each of us so differently because each of us will have a unique way of sharing both the gospel and His grace with others. I don't think that I am made to do it just like the person next to me, nor do I want to.

So, back to resembling. I want to resemble Christ in the way He made me to do it. And to answer my question (above), I don't really think I make Him look good as often as I'd like. In listening to that sermon, something was revealed to me. Lately, I have been judgmental. And I haven't been feeling much conviction about it. I have almost felt ok with it by justifying it, in thinking that it's NOT a judgment, it just an obvious observation. And what really is getting to me about that is looking at it from someone else's perspective. How would I feel if they made those "obvious observations" about me? It would be terrible because I could not defend myself at all. Nor do I ever want to have to defend myself around my friends or anyone else.

This brings me to my TPA ( Text, Principle, Application). By the way, I am sharing these things with all of you because for one, it helps me to remember to write things down, two, because I want accountability, and three, because this is what is happening in my heart, and I believe that God has called ME to be a particularly transparent person. But that is not to say that I will share everything here, just some things that I feel safe telling you all about :)

Text: 1 Corinthians 11:17

¹⁷But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.

Principle: God calls us as believers to come together for the better.

Application: My application to this verse is to Choose Grace. That is the phrase I will remember when presented with a situation where I can choose to be ungraceful, unmerciful, or unloving.


*My other application to this sermon is to memorize this verse this week:

1 Corinthians 11:24-25

And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." ²⁵In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."