Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:28
“Each person should take a moment and reflect upon the motives of their heart before eating the bread or drinking from the cup.” (1 Corinthians 11:28, The Remedy)
“Look into your own hearts before you eat the bread and drink the cup.” (NCV)
Many of us grew up hearing this verse as a warning: examine yourself, or else. But listen to how the translators put it. Look into your own heart. Reflect on your motives. Look carefully at yourself. The Lord isn’t asking us to look inside so we can be found wanting. He asks us to look honestly so He can help us see our true motives, and then heal what we find.
Know yourself. Embrace all parts of who you are. It is not a sin to want to be appreciated and understood. It is natural to want to be recognized for who we are and for the gifts we freely give to the people in our sphere of influence. The trouble comes when pride demands recognition before the gift is given; then pride, not love, has become the reason for our good works.
The Lord knows every part of you and loves you deeply. His only wish is that you be happy and reach the highest potential possible. This He wants to help you with. He will heal the damage sin has done in your heart and mind.
What Does It Mean to Be Free?
Jesus gave us the best advice ever given to humanity, and it has never failed to be valuable: “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The problem is, do we understand what it means to be free? Those are just words on a page until we attach a meaning to them. How does truth set us free, and what are we being set free from?
When we believe a lie, any lie on any subject, we are limited to the fiction that lie places over our life. Reality will not change because you honestly believe, in the depths of your heart and mind, that something is true when it is not.
Take something as simple as a watermelon seed. When you were a child, an uncle told you, all in jest, that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, a watermelon would grow in your stomach. You believed him. You carefully picked every seed out of every bite so nothing would sprout inside you. Because of that belief, you grew to dislike, even fear, watermelon, and anything else with seeds you might accidentally swallow.
You have long since forgotten what your uncle said. But believing that lie has limited your enjoyment of a great many healthy foods. You watch others eating them and enjoying them, while the lie keeps you chained to a narrow diet, always checking that no seeds get in.
Then one day the truth of digestion is made clear to you. You can honestly examine the reasons behind your aversion, and you are free to enjoy all those delicious foods God gave us for our health.
Believing lies about God works the same way. We misunderstand His leading in our life—that His intent toward us is only Love and healing, not judgment and condemnation. We come to His table picking out seeds that were never going to hurt us, rejecting the very opportunities the Lord is providing for the growth we need.
Prison Doors We Shut on Ourselves
Truth, when it is accepted and understood in our minds and hearts, will unlock prison doors, and most of them are doors we have shut on ourselves. Be a student of truth. When something feels off, or you notice something in your life that keeps you from what is natural, good and life-expanding, look into yourself and discover why. Ask of every choice: why do I do this, or why this way?
Examining yourself is not hunting for things to condemn. Sometimes there is no answer except that you are an individual and that way works for you. We are not cookie-cutter people who all like the same things and do everything the same way. How boring would that be? You are one of a kind, and that is a good thing.
Embrace all parts of yourself. To embrace yourself is to love yourself, even with the flaws and the things that still need to be healed, knowing that Christ is still doing a work in you. It does not mean saying, “I am completely myself, and there is no room for improvement.” It means allowing yourself the journey you are on and continuing to face the truth about yourself as the Lord brings it to you. He doesn’t open all the curtains at one time and let the light shine completely in on us; it would blow us away. He brings it to us one piece at a time, peeling back the layers of the onion, until at some point in time we will stand with Him, and we will know ourselves and be known by Him (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will be healed. The truth will be what we understand and know.
Learn to be comfortable with your choices and the reasons you make them. This is growing up—becoming a mature adult, a mature Christian, a person others can count on: the same steady soul each time they meet you, not up one day and down the next. When others do things a bit differently, we can be the warm, loving soul who says, “This is just the way I do things; there are other ways that work too.”
Coming to His Table
We all come to the Lord as we are. He is not wanting us to be like everyone else. He truly enjoys all His children exactly as they are, so long as they are happy and flourishing. It is when something we have accepted as truth is limiting or hurting us that life stops making sense and the things we do don’t add up.
As you come each day to your time with the Lord, to His table for the spiritual food you need to flourish through another day, allow the truth about your heart to open to you. Be willing to follow where He leads. The journey of understanding will not be too hard for you to bear. The One who loves you most and knows you best is right there with you.
Set yourself free. Let the truth you discover each day settle in your heart and become part of who you are. You will find you are more, and the freedom that comes will open doors you never even knew you would walk through. This life is a journey, and each day is a chance to learn and grow a bit more.
