We all have different needs to be strengthened through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we remember in this ordinance.
To eat His flesh and drink His blood is a striking way of expressing how completely we must bring the Savior into our life—into our very being—that we may be one.
But figuratively eating His flesh and drinking His blood has a further meaning, and that is to internalize the qualities and character of Christ, putting off the natural man and becoming Saints “through the atonement of Christ the Lord.”
Partaking of the Savior’s flesh and drinking His blood means to put out of our lives anything inconsistent with a Christlike character and to make His attributes our own.
Jesus, on the other hand, understood that both inalterable justice and mercy would be required for His brothers and sisters to progress. With the Father, He was seeking not to coerce and dominate us but to free and lift us so that we might “be above all” and “have all power” with the Father (Doctrine and Covenants 132:20).