Passover - Antidote for Self-Reliance

In I Corinthians 11:27 we read regarding the Passover observance that many of us are soon to partake, "Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup."

Self-examination. It's a solemn exercise in which we, as members of His body, are to be engaged in preparation for taking the symbols of the Passover.

But just what are we to examine?

Paul, in II Corinthians 13, provides the answer. He writes, " Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified."

So we are to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith, whether Jesus Christ is in us.

How do we do that? What does it mean to be "in the faith?"

Gal. 3:26 tells us "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

In Phil 3:9 Paul writes, "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;"

Some key phrases jump out of these passages related to faith: "...sons of God through faith..." and "...righteousness which is from God by faith..."

So being "in the faith" refers, then, to being in a state of complete trust and dependence on the righteousness of Christ Jesus applied to me by my acceptance of his broken body and spilled blood upon the cross.

There's a key principle woven throughout all of this self-examination we are to be doing this season. It's a principle of reliance on His righteousness, not my own. In short, self-examination should draw my attention upward, not further inward.

It's simply a matter of focus.

Perhaps the greatest weakness we have as humans is self-reliance. That was the sin that got Satan cast out of God's presence; it's the reason Adam and Eve were banned from the garden and cut off from a relationship with God; and it's the reason so many of God's children become discouraged, hopeless and defeated in their Christian walks, the inevitable result of a fruitless dependence upon the self.

God gave us this season, in a sense, as a yearly booster shot, an antidote for self-reliance.

Self-examination is the syringe, if you will, that delivers that needed medicine. Self-examination should bring each of us into remembrance of our reliance, not on our own righteousness, but upon His righteousness applied to us, by our complete acceptance of His spilled blood and broken body on the cross for our sins. It's the degree to which we acknowledge our need and dependence on Him which determines whether or not we are "in the faith."

Only by having examined ourselves, having been reminded and convicted of our need for Him and complete reliance on His sacrifice, can you and I take of the symbols of this Passover in a worthy manner. Only in recognizing our need for Him do we find the antidote for self-reliance.