Today my preacher husband preached on "The Cup of Suffering". Jesus willingly suffered for us...he took upon himself the sin and guilt of all the world. He physically suffered a brutal death. He did it ALL because of His great love for us and because he wanted to do the Father's will.
As Christians, we nod our head when we hear that we need to be willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. We agree that we need to drink from the Cup of Suffering, when and if that is ever required of us. Truth is...most of us Americans have no idea what that really means. As my preacher husband said this morning, "Americans don't do suffering well." Most of us (and I include myself in that "us".) are pretty spoiled.
How about the cup of costliness? Would we drink that? Would we be willing, for example to go on a mission trip even though it cost us our beach vacation? Would we willingly cut back on sports activities or eating out so that we could support an orphan across the ocean? What about trading the time you would normally spend relaxing to attend a Bible study?
Or maybe we should start with drinking the cup of "inconvenience." Would we drink even that? Serving God is rarely convenient. Most of the time it requires us to go out of our way, get up early, go to bed late, practice patience, get dirty, receive criticism, make a change to our schedule...or even do something we'd rather not do.
What cup are you willing to drink from?
Matthew 20: 17-23
Or maybe it requires us to open our homes. Good points.
ReplyDeleteChristy...so true! We need to "practice hospitality".
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