Skip to main content

Do you Drink the Cup?

I wanted to write something encouraging us to pray for France today. When I received this note from Lorrie, who is one of the people who edit my devotions the week before, I decided to send this one anyway.  Please pray for my church’s missionary in Paris, Noemi Aguirre, that she can be a light in the spiritual darkness.  Pray for spiritual revival in that city to come to know the true light!

This devotion is so poignant in relation to the killings in Paris. For me, the cup this week has been the willingness to pray for those who kill to stamp out freedom and Christianity. But now I understand this cup releases the Holy Spirit into the world and touches the hearts of those who are hardened against our savior Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for this devotion of remembrance and the call to drink the cup that God offers us, the cup of salvation, love, and peace.

Blessings,
Lorrie

Do you Drink the Cup?
            This past Sunday I had the honor of assisting in the Communion table for our church.  I prayed over the cup.  I asked the Lord to give me words to say about the cup of Salvation that represents the blood of Christ.
            In answer to my prayer I found a whole new way of looking at the cup.  God led me to think about Jesus’ prayer in the garden pleading that the cup would be taken away from Him.  I thought about the cup that God asked Jesus to drink.  It was not Jesus’ idea to drink the cup.  God asked Jesus to drink it.  Anyone could understand why Jesus longed for another way to redeem mankind.  Although none of us can fully comprehend the mystery of His death, burial and resurrection, we can conceive that it is a spiritual and physical horror none of us could or would want to endure. 
            The only reason that Jesus drank the cup that brought about our great salvation was because God asked Him to drink it. 
            Compare what God asked of Jesus to what Jesus asks of us. One the same way that God asked Jesus to drink the cup, Jesus asks me to drink the cup.  When I drink the cup that Jesus asks me to drink I have little reason to fear because drinking the cup symbolizes the blood that covers my sin and the way I have been cleansed from all unrighteousness.  It is a cup that frees me from the power of sin, not a cup that forces me to cleanse the world of sin.  It is a celebration, not the greatest challenge of all time.  When Jesus asks me to drink the cup, He doesn’t ask me to give my life on a cross; rather, He asks me to remember that He gave His life for me.
            The contrast is stunning.  Jesus drank the cup that poured out his blood for my salvation.  I drink a cup that remembers His sacrifice for me.
            But the truth is that sometimes I have drunk the cup and shared in communion with little attention to the great sacrifice of Christ.  Rather than remember Him as I take, eat, and hold the bread and then the cup (the Baptist way,) my mind drifts to how I like that woman’s dress or the fact that I need to remember to talk to that person, or even what I need to add to the grocery list.
            God asked of Jesus more than we can even imagine.  It was a sacrifice that challenged Him to the very core of what it meant to be Divine and Human.  We can understand the human side of Jesus in His suffering, but we can only imagine the Divine mystery of Jesus’ sacrifice and what that meant.
Psalm 116:13 says: I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  What little Jesus asks of me compared to what God asked of Jesus in drinking the cup of salvation!  For Jesus it was the total emptying of Himself (And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Philippians 2:8) For us it is the emptying of our sin and drinking full of its remedy—the blood of Christ.  Drink it in humility and praise.  Drink it in remembering and consenting to participate fully in the Divine mystery of God’s love!

Copyright © 2015. Deborah R Newman. Teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lenten Devotions

First Monday in Lent: Lent—Winter/Spring I took a weekend Silent Lenten Retreat and learned how special the season of Lent (which means Spring) really is. Being in the lovely setting where winter-spring becomes its own season; I discovered that the transformation from winter to spring reveals the transformation of our souls in Lent. We had an absolutely gorgeous weekend to enjoy solitude with God. Lent is a perfect season to see in nature what God is drawing out of us through the spiritual disciplines we focus on through penitence and preparation for Easter. It is the in-between season that shows us a lot about what we are doing spiritually through our focus on confession. From a distance winter can seem stark and ugly. I feel the same way about confession. But if you take the time to see the winter you can see that the winter season reveals realities that get masked over by the growth of summer. In winter you become aware of what needs to be cleared away. In the same way the confessio…
Post a Comment
Read more

The Same Spirit

Jesus knew the experience of the Spirit of the Lord resting on Him as He has made possible for all Christians today.When He preached at his home church, He read from Isaiah 61:1-3: The Spiritof the Sovereign Lordis on me,because the Lord has anointedmeto proclaim good newsto the poor.He has sent me to bind upthe brokenhearted,to proclaim freedomfor the captivesand release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favorand the day of vengeanceof our God, to comfortall who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crownof beauty
instead of ashes, the oilof joyinstead of mourning, and a garment of praiseinstead of a spirit of despair.The chapter goes on and on filled with hope and restoration from the Spirit of the Lord.It is really good stuff—beauty from ashes kind of descriptions.Believe me, if you could actually conceive of the gifts of the Spirit available to you while living in a chaotic world, you would only want God’s Spirit in yo…
Post a Comment
Read more

Fifth Monday in Lent through Palm Sunday

Fifth Monday in Lent: Righteousness Needed Jesus is all about bringing us righteousness yet we are too worldly focused to think we have much of a need for righteousness. Most of us think we need healing or exciting miracles. We might try to get a little righteousness by going to church on Sunday and giving some spare change to a beggar. God sees the bigger picture and knows that there is nothing which we are more bankrupt than righteousness. He sees that we are totally incapable of getting the righteousness we need through our own actions, so He sent Jesus to give us His righteousness through His sacrificial work on the cross. Lent is a season of repentance and preparation for the Easter celebration. No matter how sacrificial your Lenten fast, it could never be enough to earn your righteousness. I have been practicing Lent foryears, and every year at the end of my fast I come face to face with how far I am from righteousness. Some of the first recorded words of Jesus in the gospels are …
Post a Comment
Read more