In the lesson on the Gifts of the Spirit, I included 1 Corinthians 13, what’s known as the love chapter. It calls love the greatest gift. We are commanded to love God. We are also commanded to love others. These are called the greatest commandments.

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

If we would just do these things, we’d be obeying all the Bible teaches us to obey. Later in the course we’ll talk about the different “one another” commands and how we are to show love to one another more specifically. I put this here as a foundation because love truly is a foundational principle of Christianity. If God’s Spirit has been given you, people should see love in your life.

John 13:35 “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Later in the Bible, we’re repeatedly told that loving others is the one thing we need to do.

1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Romans 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Galatians 5:14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We also have warnings of the opposite.

1 John 3:15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Loving others goes hand in hand with forgiveness. Read these verses and take them to heart!

Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

I believe the Christian sacrament of communion (also known as the Lord’s Supper) is about this love for each other. A sacrament is a religious practice that Jesus gave us as a church to practice as a holy act to God. Do you see the root word of communion? Commune, community, communication…do you see what communion is about? It’s about this one another-ness. It’s about unity. It’s about the many coming together.

Jesus started the practice of communion during what we call The Last Supper, the Passover meal before He died, where He took one loaf of bread and one cup of wine and shared it among those at the table with him.

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 has most of our direction about communion. It’s too long to share here, but you can go read it. Paul is rebuking the church for not being in unity. There are divisions among them. And they don’t all join together in the meal; some are left hungry while others over-indulge themselves.

Communion seems to be a local body of believers gathering and sharing what they have in a sacred, holy act of recognizing the mystery of becoming one with Christ and one together in Christ. Believers are the one body with Jesus as the head.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

Romans 5:31b-32 the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

When we take communion, we remember that we were by nature children of wrath, destined for destruction, all on equal ground before God. BUT, by God’s grace, His merciful love sent the perfect sacrifice in Jesus Christ, who was obedient even to death on the cross. We acknowledge Him as our Savior and receive His forgiveness, recognizing that we receive undeserved mercy and so choose to show mercy and offer forgiveness even where undeserved. We love each other as equals in Christ Jesus. We recognize we are one, which is only true if each is united with Christ. We share as one what we have before us as a symbolic act uniting us and recognizing the fellowship of the Spirit between us.

There is a stark warning about taking communion. We need to be forgiving and loving.

1 Corinthians 11:27-30 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

Lesson Point: We are not Christians if we aren’t loving each other. To be part of the Body of Christ, we need to love all the other parts of the Body of Christ.

Challenge Question: Is there anyone you are not forgiving or not loving? Confess, ask God to cleanse you from your unrighteousness, and ask for His help to love and forgive.