the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come. 1 Corinthians 11:24-26.
It was a matter of great importance to our Savior so to imprint Himself upon our hearts and memories that we should never forget Him. He therefore gave what no one before Him has given and no one after Him will give in remembrance of himself: His flesh and blood, even Himself. Who is it that gives his friend himself as a remembrance and as a token of his love? The Lord’s Supper should not only be a memorial meal to us, not only a solemn remembrance of His death, but something still more, namely, a means of nourishment, a close communion with the life and death of Jesus and a renewal thereof in the inner man. He that vividly realizes and confidently believes: "This body which is given for you; this blood which is shed for you," is a pledge of the life of Jesus in me, a pledge of my eternal life in and with Him in His Kingdom; my food and sustenance on this earthly pilgrimage; this Supper is a living and visible token of my reconciliation with God; of the forgiveness of my sins; of my fellowship with Christ and the Father; of my brotherhood with all the elect members of the body of Jesus "for as we many eat the one bread we are all one body;" this manna which comes down from heaven gives me eternal life and sustains it in me; this bread of life preserves me from eternal death and shall once quicken my body: he who in a living manner thinks and believes all this and even more for no one can utter all that is contained in this testament he who has eaten and enjoyed it and transformed it into pith and substance how rich, blessed, and strong his soul becomes thereby!
Lord, grant me that thus strengthened
With heavenly food, while here
My course on earth is lengthened
I serve with holy fear
And when Thou callest my spirit
To leave this world below,
I enter, through Thy merit,
Where joys unmingled flow.
