For the one who has read the sentence a hundred times and never heard what it says.
The scene is a low room at night, with a man at a table under a lamp, and an open book in front of him at the same page it's been open at for three weeks.
He has read that verse perhaps a hundred times. He can say the whole of it without the page in front of him. And every single time, the part of it that catches him is the last clause, because the last clause is the instruction and the instruction is the thing he isn't doing.
This do in remembrance of me. He reads those words and hears an accusation in them, or a requirement he has not met, or a door with a list of conditions pinned to it.
He has never once, in a hundred readings, stopped at the middle of the sentence.
That's the part that says this is my body which is given for you. He goes past it at speed, every time, on the way to the clause that troubles him, and he has been doing it under that lamp for three weeks.
The sentence is about His body given for you, and it was never about the correctness of the room. The written word puts the giving at the center of it, and the Spirit is the one who holds it there.
What You Read the Sentence For
Notice what you have been going to that verse to find out, because it isn't what the verse is for.
You have been reading it as a procedure. Looking for the conditions, the qualifications, the part that says who may and who may not, and the part that specifies where it is permitted to happen.
None of those clauses exists. You know that, because a hundred readings is more than enough to establish what a sentence does not contain.
None of that's in it. You've read it a hundred times, so you know that better than anybody, and you keep going back anyway in case something was missed.
What you're actually doing is checking a rule book that turns out to be a declaration. The sentence isn't giving you a procedure. It's telling you what the bread is, and it says so in the middle, at the place you have never once stopped.
That's an easy mistake and a common one. A man who has been refused something, or believes he has, will read every relevant text for the conditions, because conditions are what he expects to find. He can read a declaration a hundred times and see only the clause with a verb in it.
You've been reading a declaration as though it were a procedure. The written word states what the bread is, and the Spirit points at the middle of the sentence rather than the end.
This Is My Body Which Is Given For You
Here's the verse, and the middle clause is the one to stop at.
And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.Luke 22:19 (KJV)
This is my body which is given for you. Given. For you. Two words that between them settle the question you've been taking to the lamp for three weeks.
If it's given, it isn't being withheld pending arrangements. If it's for you, then it's for you, in a low room, at a table, under a lamp, at eleven o'clock at night.
Those two words do not have an asterisk after them. There's no clause anywhere in the sentence that narrows who the you is, and Luke had every opportunity to put one in.
He said that to men who would all abandon Him inside six hours, one of whom would deny Him three times before morning, and it reaches past that room to a man with the book open at the same page.
It is given, and it is for you, which settles the question you keep taking to the lamp. The written word says so in the middle of the sentence, and the Spirit has been pointing there the whole time.
The Instruction Follows the Gift
Look at the order, because the order is the whole argument.
The giving comes first. This is my body which is given for you. Then, and only then, comes the instruction. This do in remembrance of me.
That order means the instruction rests on the gift rather than the gift resting on the instruction. You aren't being told to do something in order to receive something. You're being told what you already have, and then told to remember it.
Which means the clause that's been troubling you for three weeks is the easier half of the sentence. It's the response to a gift that was already handed over, and a man who has been given something is not in a difficult position when he is asked to remember it.
Remembering is what you have been doing under that lamp for three weeks. You have simply been doing it without the bread, which is the only part of the instruction still outstanding.
The instruction rests on the gift rather than the gift resting on the instruction. The written word puts them in that order, and the Spirit does not reverse it.
I Am Not Telling You the Instruction Is Optional
Be honest, because a man who reads carefully will spot a cheat and you'd be right to.
This do is a command. I'm not softening it into a suggestion, and I'm not telling you it doesn't matter whether you obey it. It does matter and you should.
Nor am I saying that how it's done is of no consequence. Paul has a good deal to say about doing it carelessly, and none of that is being waved away here.
What I want off you is the reading. Not the seriousness. Not the care you've taken over three weeks with an open book.
The Page Has Been Open Three Weeks
Here's the turn, and it's in the lamp rather than the verse.
The book has been open at that page for three weeks. You haven't moved it. You've come back to it, most nights, and read the same sentence, and gone to bed.
A man who'd concluded that the door was shut would have closed the book. He'd have moved on to another passage, or stopped reading at night, or put the whole subject down, and people do all three of those regularly.
You left it open. Three weeks of coming back to the same page is not the behavior of somebody who has been refused. It's the behavior of a man standing outside a door he already suspects is unlocked.
A man who believed the door was shut would have closed the book. The written word has been open at that page for three weeks, and the Spirit is the one who keeps bringing you back.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so what follows is not a claim made out of your own authority. It is agreement, said back to God in His own words, while the Holy Spirit carries it. How He orders the rest of it is His to decide, and He answers in His own way and in His own time.
Christ in you is the entire warrant for this. Nothing in it has been worked up, the Spirit carries it, and what God does with it afterwards is left where it belongs.
Say it out loud once and stop there.
The sentence is about His body given for me, and it was never about the correctness of the room. The Word says that He said this is my body which is given for you, and then this do in remembrance of Me, which puts the gift first and the instruction second. The Spirit has been pointing at the middle clause for three weeks. I am not reading a procedure. The book has been open at the same page for three weeks, which is not what a man does when he believes he has been refused. I stop at the clause that was always the answer.
Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.
This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.
Luke 22:19
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
