The Eucharist is a true participation in Christ’s body and blood (1 Cor. 10:16). So to fake communion with Christ while having no saving interest in him is sacrilegious. We must examine and judge ourselves, respecting church leaders who either invite us to the Supper or insisting that, for now, we abstain (1 Cor. 11:28, 29, 31). Scripture requires us to heed warnings about the Lord’s Supper. But we mustn’t only focus on the negative. There are several things we must do to receive what Christ wants to give us in this meal.

After three years of walking with Jesus the disciples were about to face their greatest trial. God would strike the Shepherd and scatter his sheep (Matt. 26:31). Spiritual darkness would place the disciples under extreme pressure. They would not completely fail. But they would falter.
Knowing all this, how did Jesus prepare them for this dark hour? He instituted a special meal meant to remind them of who they were in him. This meal, called the Lord’s Supper, is also for us. The apostle Paul received from the Lord and delivered unto the church, the same institution that the first disciples received from Jesus shortly before his death (1 Cor. 11:23). Until he comes Jesus intends this meal to preserve our bodies and souls unto everlasting life.
What Is the Lord’s Supper?
The Lord’s Supper is “the sacrament of his body and blood.” “Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace” (WCF 27.1). This sacrament reminds believers of Jesus’ shed blood, and assures them that they possess all the benefits which his sacrifice secures. The Supper takes the place of the Passover which confirmed to believing Israelites that God had graciously spared them from the angel of death (Ex. 12:7–13). Since we, like the disciples, often suffer from many doubts and weak faith, the Lord’s Supper must be a regular part of congregational life. John Calvin thought the Supper so important, much like ordinary eating, that it should be celebrated “very often, at least once a week.” He thought that “no meeting of the church should take place without” it. [i] His conviction is worth our consideration. But however frequently we celebrate the Supper in terms of the its role in the Christian life we should think of it less like a birthday celebration and more like a family meal.
Scripture teaches us how to observe this meal. First, the church must hear Jesus’ words of institution. About the bread and wine we hear, “This is my body, which is for you, do this in remembrance of me. …This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:23, 25).
Second, the minister follows Jesus’ example and prays for the Lord to “bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use.”
Third, the bread is broken and the wine poured, and both are distributed to the professing members of Christ’s church. The result is a congregational celebration of the real, gracious presence of Christ among his beloved people. The Supper is not a mark of our obedience or personal worthiness but a testimony to the inherited riches that believers have in Christ.
Because this meal is so sacred we must approach it with care. 
How Might I Misuse the Supper?
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 11 to correct the church’s table manners.
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Jesus knows temptation and testing.  Jesus fights to obey his Father’s will.  And so when we’re struggling to obey we can run to him for help in prayer because he knows what it is to fight to obey. Because Jesus knows and overcomes temptation and testing we can let go of our pretended heroism and run to him which wins for us. It is liberating. It is where rest is found.

One of the things that always strikes me as I read the passion narratives in any of the gospel is the extent to which Jesus knows what he’s facing that week.  He’s repeatedly told his disciples what is coming in more and more detail.
And as he leads them to that garden again, a place they and Judas are familiar with, Jesus enters into a cosmic spiritual battle.  This is a battle on an epic scale – this is Jesus’ Marathon, Waterloo, Stalingrad, and D-Day.  In the garden Jesus fights for the salvation of every believer throughout all of time and for the kingdom of God and the faithfulness of God to his promises.
In an echo of Eden the Son of God enters a garden where he’s tempted to turn his back on sonship and doubt and disobey his Father’s will.  The consequences of this battle will be just as cataclysmic as the first.  But it isn’t a battle fought with sword and clubs, it’s not a battle fought, with joysticks or drone, with wealth or influence. This is a battle fought on his knees in prayer wrestling to obey his Father.
Of all the ways we think of prayer I think this is the one we miss most.  Prayer is a vital part of waging the war to obey God, it is a vital weapon in our arsenal for fighting temptation. Sometimes prayer is war! .
And as Jesus goes to battle he doesn’t want to go alone.  He takes all 11 into the garden, and then Peter, James and John a little further and begins to be sorrowful and troubled.
There are lots of good things that have flowed out of the focus in the last 30 years on personal times of reading the bible and prayer.  But one of the negatives is that we’ve lost the importance of praying together.  If you read the Bible with an eye to it I think you’ll find people praying together more than individually, especially in the early church.
Here Jesus in his hour of greatest weakness, when he feels the burden of what he is about to do most keenly, doesn’t withdraw alone to a mountain top, he takes his disciples with him.  When we’re fighting to obey God, when we’re in the white-hot heat of battle with sin, when we are feeling weighed down with the burden God has laid on us, we need brothers and sisters around us.  When we’re struggling to pray that’s not the time to withdraw from others but be with and around others.  Do you see that need?  If Jesus has it we have it to, it’s not a sign of weakness but how we are live as God’s people together.
But this is a prayer like no other.  (38)Jesus tells his 3 friends that he’s overwhelmed with sorrow.  Have you ever got in trouble swimming in the sea?
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When the Lord Jesus Christ does a saving work in the life of a sinner, he or she is not only concerned with being free of guilt in the presence of God; but also being holy in the presence of God. The power of sin is broken and one is able to be well….The power of sin is broken and we are able to look to Christ and say, “Be of sin the double cure; save from wrath and make me pure!”

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.Romans 8:4
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy wounded side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Save from wrath and make me pure….
As Christ’s secured salvation for sinners, he freed us from the wrath of God; freed us from sin and death; condemned sin; and after the Spirit, fulfilled the righteousness of the law in us. What does Romans 8:4 mean by fulfilled in us? Thomas Manton in his exposition of Romans 8 raises the question concerning the words, “in us.” He asks, “How is this to be understood? Of justification or of sanctification?” (Manton’s Works, 11.430.)
Through the grammar of “for” versus “in,” Manton begins with demonstrating that the words are unable to be understood as related to justification. He says, “The words will not bear it [as justification], for the apostle does not say that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled for, but fulfilled in us.” (Ibid.) This is a very important distinction as Manton considers what this fulfillment looks like in the life of the Christian. Surely, the Apostle Paul, according to Manton, meant that Christ’s work was not only a justifying work, but a sanctifying work: “Christ came not only to redeem us from wrath, but to renew and sanctify us.” (Ibid, 11.431.)
Before giving his readers four biblical reasons for this qualification, Manton tells them that the sanctification of the Christian is the “constant drift and tenor of the Scriptures.” Manton, like a skilled roper, strings together several texts from the Scripture to show that this was always God’s intentions in the life of the Christian: “And you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21.) “…God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” (Acts 3:26.) “Him God has exalted to His right hand…to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 5:31.)  “And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” (I John 3:5.) Each of these show that the constant drift and tenor of the Word of God is that Jesus would provide the double cure of saving from wrath and making pure.
From the tenor and drift, Manton then turned his attention to the fact that from the Scriptures, this fulfillment of the law in us has to be sanctification. He says, “It must needs be so.” (Manton’s Works, 11.432.) Manton gave four reasons for this.
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