1 Peter 1:17-23

¹⁷Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. ¹⁸For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

²²Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. ²³For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

            We are about to partake of a memorial to our Lord, remembering the blood that He shed on our behalf.  We are going to have a small cup of “fruit-of-the-vine”.  Grape juice.  This represents and reminds us of the blood that Christ shed.

            Sometimes folks don’t pay much attention to the communion service.  It is like this is “ho-hum” blood.  It is not.  This represents “the precious blood of Christ.”  Holy and pure, and sacrificed out of love for us.  If we can grasp the precious nature of this, it will move us to live here in reverent fear.  It will move us to purify ourselves in obedience to truth, and it will move us to love one another, deeply, from the heart.

            Pray with me;  Father, open the eyes of our hearts so we can fully realize how precious is the blood by which we were bought.  Teach us to live lives of thankfulness for what we have received through Christ.  Help us to live pure and godly lives and to serve one another from the heart, out of love, that you may be glorified.  Amen.