17

17

But we are closer together than even being partners, for all

those who are in the fellowship are bound together into one

body. The Holy Spirit is dwelling in each one, and we are all

baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12: 13).

How close this brings us to each other! We are all members

one of another, just as your hands and eyes and feet are

members of your body. You know that if you hurt your finger or

your foot it makes your whole body hurt. It is the same in this

wonderful spiritual body. If one member is sick or in sorrow we

all feel the sadness; and if anyone is joyful it makes us all glad.

One thing that the loaf at the Lord’s supper suggests is this

one body. You have often come into the meeting and looked at

the bread and the cup, and perhaps they did not mean much

to you. But now they speak to you. The loaf speaks of the

precious body of the Lord Jesus given for His own, and the

cup speaks of His precious blood shed for them. That makes

us love Him. That is why we break bread, to show our love for

Him.

But the loaf speaks of something else too, and that is the one

body that is made up of every one of His own bound to Him by

the Holy Spirit. “We,

being many, are one loaf, one body”. Paul, tells us (1

Corinthians 10: 17). So that when we eat the Lord’s supper we

are not thinking just of the few in the meeting room, or even

those in all the meeting rooms; we are thinking of all those all

over the world who belong to Christ.

Most of them do not know they are part of the one body; they

have never heard of the assembly. That is why we are not all

together.

You have often heard these words, the assembly, but I wonder

what they mean to you? What could you say about the

assembly? You are part of it so you should be able to say

something.