These are my thoughts that I shared this morning at church before we shared communion this morning.
There’s a popular Bible verse often quoted at the start of the year. You might have already read it on YouVersion, on some other Bible app or in your daily devotion. It’s Isaiah 43:18 ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!’
It’s a great verse, but it must be read in context and understood correctly. It doesn’t mean that we have to get rid of everything and start afresh, with everything new. It’s not all out with the old and in with the new. We should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I’ll tell you a very short story to illustrate what I’m trying to say here. On Friday morning while I was praying, a verse popped into my head: “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” I thought, Oh wow! That’s a great verse, I think it’s from Psalm 119. So, I promptly looked it up on my YouVersion app. I quickly found Psalm 119:32 which started with the words, ‘I run in the path of your commands,’ but no matter which version I looked at, the second half of the verse was different. That’s ok I thought, I must have remembered the verse incorrectly, but it’s a great verse. I run in the path of your commands. That’s what I’ll do!
But then, I sensed the Lord saying, “Go get your old Bible off the shelf.” So I went into the spare room and took my 1985 NIV Bible off the shelf. (It’s the one in the picture below). It was the first Bible that I owned after I had given my life to Jesus as a teenager. I turned to Psalm 119 and there in verse 32, with the words underlined with blue Biro (I used to highlight my Bible in those days, although I don’t now) “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” I had remembered the verse from my Bible 40 years ago! I didn’t even know that I knew that verse but the Lord wanted me to remember it now, this year, 2026.
And so we come to the Lord’s table: Communion. Communion is something that the Lord wants us, His Church, to remember, to retain and not throw away. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 11: “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” We are to continue frequently to share communion (breaking bread, coming to the Lord’s table) together. It unites His Church and reminds us of all that Jesus has done for us, so we continue until He comes again.
If you enjoyed this blog, please request below to be notified next time I post a new blog. Happy New Year – Here’s to 2026!
Leave a Reply