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Author
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Topic: Are You Drinking of the Master's Cup?
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Carol Swenson
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Member # 6929
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posted
quote:
Part of what Jesus' cup entails is suffering. When we drink of His cup, we are saying we are willing to suffer with Him and experience with Him whatever He ordains for us. We symbolically pledge that we are willing to walk down the same path He walked, with similar consequences.
"You will indeed drink from my cup" - the cup of suffering. In Gethsemane we identify with Jesus for each of us goes through his own private Gethsemane. Jesus prays, "Let this cup pass from me." That's our prayer too.
The cup of suffering is one all of us must taste. It is a part of life. It's inescapable. Our suffering may differ. For some people it is physical pain; hard, unrelenting, pain. For some people it is mental suffering. What decision will I make? Which road shall I take? For others it is the suffering we call heartache; that deep pain that goes to the innermost part of our being. The kind of suffering may differ, but every one of us must taste the cup of suffering.
This cup, which all of us must taste, Jesus drained. He drank of it more fully than any of us ever can or ever will. You can see that in Gethsemane. "He sweat as it were great drops of blood." I don't know exactly what happened in the garden of Gethsemane. I don't know the physical explanation for that, but I know the meaning. Jesus suffering was intense. It was intense because He suffered as man suffers and He suffered as God suffers. We do not ordinarily think of God suffering. That's because we fail to understand God. If you understand God, you know that God suffers.
He suffered as man suffers. He was nailed to a cross. These days when we execute a criminal we try to do it as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Society moved from the guillotine to the firing squad to the electric chair to the gas chamber and now to the lethal injection. We have reckoned that execution ought to be done as quickly and painlessly as possible . In Jesus day it was just the opposite. They wanted it to last as long as possible and be as painful as possible. They invented crucifixion. Jesus died on the cross and suffered as man suffers.
But He also suffered as God suffers. For on the cross Jesus could look down into the future. He could see that some of the people for whom He was dying would be totally indifferent to His death. He could know that He was dying for people who would never care, for people who would make fun of His cross and spurn His sacrifice. That made His suffering all the worse. He suffered voluntarily. We don't do that. We shrink back from suffering. We try to avoid it whenever we can. Jesus walked into it with His eyes open and His head high. He said, "No man takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself." He had the power to stop it. He could have shrunk back from it. He could have refused it, but He let it happen. Voluntarily He went to the cross.
Suppose the cross had never happened. Suppose Jesus had lived to be an old man, drifted into senility and died in His sleep. Would there then be any such thing as the Christian religion? You know the answer to that. It's "No." For Jesus took the cross and turned it into a hammer. He battered down the gates of Hell. He took the cross and turned it into a lever and moved the world. He took the cross and turned it into a bridge so that you and I might pass over from darkness to light and from death to life!
2 Corinthians 4
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Hello, becauseHElives, interesting Topic. The Topic said quote:
According to tradition, when a young Hebrew man and woman were to be betrothed, the groom poured wine into his cup and invited the woman to drink of it. It was up to her. If she drank from it, she was considered betrothed to him. If she did not, no marriage would take place. [...]
We do not just drink the wine at Passover—we drink "of the cup" of Passover, meaning we are proclaiming our willingness to share in similar trials as Jesus did. We proclaim we are willing to endure whatever He has appointed for us as our lot.
Our Lord Jesus died for us, but we do not have to die on the cross WITH Him; HE did the suffering FOR us.
That is, by drinking the cup with Him we became betrothed into marriage with Him, but that does not mean that we are now in lockstep with all the things that happened to Jesus during HIS lifetime.
But rather, as the bride of Christ which was formed AFTER Jesus did His work, we are now betrothed to Him in that from heaven Jesus now counsels/guides the steps of His bride here on earth.
We live our daily lives and our Husband and Lord Jesus guides our daily steps here on earth. For most of the bride, the suffering is over and she is now living the abundant life on earth with Him in control of the marriage. It is a marriage mostly of abundance and glorious living BECAUSE Jesus has already done the suffering to obtain His bride; and His bride enjoys the benefits of His hard work.
So, when you say in your title, "Are you drinking of the Master's cup"?, that should mean for us the same as "are we listening to our Husband in heaven or are we listening to ourselves"? Am I drinking what Jesus counsels me to do from moment to moment? Then I'm "drinking from the Master's cup"; but that does not have to mean a "bitter drink"; to the contrary, it means "nectar for living from Jesus".
love, Eden
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becauseHElives
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Member # 87
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The Berean
Matthew 26:28
(28) For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
According to tradition, when a young Hebrew man and woman were to be betrothed, the groom poured wine into his cup and invited the woman to drink of it. It was up to her. If she drank from it, she was considered betrothed to him. If she did not, no marriage would take place. Paul tells the church in II Corinthians 11:2: "For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." When the bride drank of the cup, she drank of the marriage covenant or contract, accepting it.
Understanding this symbolism, it is no wonder that Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 26:28, "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." As we drink of His cup, we accept His invitation to be betrothed to Him and to be forgiven of our sins so we can be like He is—sinless, spotless, and without fault in His presence at the Marriage Supper.
Yet it means far more! Remember that "drinking the cup" meant to accept whatever that cup represented. When the mother of James and John approaches Jesus with her request to have her sons sit on each side of Jesus when He came into His Kingdom, Jesus replies with a question:
But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you [James and John] able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able." (Matthew 20:22)
They do not take the cue from Jesus that they may have to drink more than they care to swallow! They answer affirmatively before they realize what Christ's cup contained. Jesus continues in verse 23:
So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."
What happened to them? James the son of Zebedee was the first apostle martyred, early on by Herod (Acts 12:2). Though John was the longest-lived of the twelve, apparently living nearly 100 years, he certainly suffered greatly at the hands of persecutors. Not only did he spend many years in exile on the Isle of Patmos, one tradition says he miraculously survived being boiled in oil! Beyond this, he had to watch the church disintegrate through apostasy and persecution.
Part of what Jesus' cup entails is suffering. When we drink of His cup, we are saying we are willing to suffer with Him and experience with Him whatever He ordains for us. We symbolically pledge that we are willing to walk down the same path He walked, with similar consequences.
We do not just drink the wine at Passover—we drink "of the cup" of Passover, meaning we are proclaiming our willingness to share in similar trials as Jesus did. We proclaim we are willing to endure whatever He has appointed for us as our lot.
We are also identifying ourselves with Him exclusively: We are cupbearers to the King of kings and to Him only. Psalm 16:5 says, "O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; you maintain my lot." The Eternal is our cup! Do we grasp the meaning of this? We cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). We cannot simultaneously identify with Christ and Satan. Our lives, our actions, our words, our thoughts, continuously announce which is our father, God in heaven or Satan. Drinking of Jesus' cup means to live His way of life and renounce Satan's ways.
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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