The Cup We Drink

When Jesus was accosted in the Garden of Gethsemane by a mob led by Judas, Peter lashed out with the sword and sliced off the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest.  John 18:11 tells us, "So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?"  I find the response of Jesus revealing and inspiring.  Jesus knew without a doubt His betrayal, arrest and ultimate death on a cross was ordained by God and would be redeemed for God's good purposes.

It is a common tendency in troubles to place blame on others.  God confronted Adam about his sin in the garden and he blamed God for giving him Eve as wife; she blamed the serpent for tricking her.  They did this to avoid responsibility for their sins, a vain attempt to justify themselves before God--or to suggest others ought to bear more guilt than them.  Because Jesus had not sinned, He could have justly blamed the devil for taking possession of Judas, Judas for his greed in agreeing to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver, or the high priest and Pharisees for their pride, envy and malice.  Yet Jesus did not do this:  this cup was given Him by His Father in heaven.

Perhaps there is no time easier since the creation of the world to share our opinions with others with comments through all manner of media.  Blaming God or others (or even ourselves!) is so ingrained in practice that we may not even realise how quick we are to stoop to this tactic.  Pointing out who is in the wrong--even when it is true--cannot right wrongs or change others.  Rather than passivity and hopelessness, we ought to follow the example set by Jesus who viewed His suffering as a cup given Him by the Father knowing He would rise from the grave.  Jesus went to the cross for the joy set before Him, knowing the plan of salvation He had orchestrated since the beginning.  God would redeem the wickedness of man to make a new and living way for eternal glory in God's presence.

It is good for us to humbly submit to God, knowing He is good even though He allows evil.  One day He will put an end to it forever, but now He employs it wisely to accomplish His good ends.  He can redeem something like death that was not His will--to do His will and bring eternal life.  Even in disaster we can know God is not absent, for He will accomplish His redemptive purposes.  God said in Isaiah 45:7, "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things."  God is able to use a calamity like the cross to make peace with mankind.  That's how good God is and how excellent His plans are.  Often we cannot see or know what God is doing, but knowing and trusting God guides us to submit to circumstances He allows.  Job received evil from Satan as from God, and he was enabled to persevere to receive blessing God intended to give from the beginning.

God's Eternal, Glorious Love

Most people who have sung "Jesus loves me, this I know" have much to grow in our appreciation, acceptance and giving of God's love.  How can we comprehend the eternal, infinite love of God in a moment of time?  God's love is not like the love of mankind which is limited by degrees and according to personal preferences.  Like there can only be one winner of a grand final, our love is doled out in a complex pecking-order based upon loyalty, sense of obligation, consideration of a person's relationship to us, and what we know of them.  We are limited in what we can say and do with the time we have, fettered by geography and availability.  In contrast, God's love is eternal and infinite.  Being one God revealed in three Persons, He is able to completely love an infinite amount of people--and demonstrate fullness of love all at one time.

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:22-24 and revealed God's will:  "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: ²³ I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world."  Jesus began this prayer by saying before the world was created, He was glorified with the Father.  The glory Jesus had before He created the heavens and the earth He gave to all those who trusted in Him.  Because born-again Christians are in Jesus Christ and Christ is in the Father, we have been loved by God the Father as Jesus is loved.  Jesus and His Father are one God.  Jesus was loved before the foundation of the world, and thus we who are members of the Body of Christ, the church, are partakers of this everlasting love that remains in full force today and throughout the eternal state.

God's love is an active love that seeks our good at all times offered freely by His grace.  We should not limit the benefits of God's love only in a judicial sense, that because God loves Jesus He loves us.  God so loved the world He sent His only begotten Son, not because we were in Christ or worthy of His love, for at one time we were all enemies of God and deserving of eternal damnation.  It would be a distortion to view God as still intending to smite us for our sin, yet relenting only because He looks at us through the lens of the work of Jesus on Calvary.  The reality is Jesus has washed us clean by the atonement He provided on the cross, and the righteousness of Jesus has been imputed to us by grace through faith.  He loves us, not because of Jesus, but because He loves us.  God is love, and Jesus demonstrated His love for all by dying for lost sinners.

The basis of God's love was established in the Old Testament on the basis of His goodness and faithfulness and not in the worthiness of the object, as expressed in passages like Deuteronomy 7:7-8 to His chosen people:  "The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; ⁸ but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."  God set His love on His people because He loved them, simple as that.  This remains true under the New Covenant established by the shed blood of Jesus, for He loves completely and fully all the sheep of His pasture.  While He loves all people, those who respond to His call in faith are His elect and chosen who receive all that pertains to life and holiness, redeemed from sin and reconciled to God.  Jesus cried out to whosoever was thirsty, and He is the open Door to all who place their faith in Him and receive Him.

God loves every Christian completely as He loves Christ, and He loves you because He loves you.  Having received Christ by faith, we are to demonstrate our love for Him by keeping His commandment:  to love one another as He has loved us.  It is a big step to tell a person out loud you love them, and God's love was shown by more than words.  Jesus did this by His patience, rebuked those who erred, encouraged the downcast, held little children, washed His disciples' feet and carried His cross for the joy set before Him.  God has kept His covenant and redeemed us by the Gospel, and now we are the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and empowers us to walk in God's love today and always.

Without Excuse

In the ancient world, the Jewish nation was unique because of their God and His laws delivered to them through Moses.  They exerted themselves to keep His commands and even went beyond the letter of the Law with traditions embraced for millennia.  The lives of the people were governed in ways foreign to many people today, impacting everything from the clothing they wore, how they harvested their crops, what was considered clean and unclean foods, marriage, the observance of feast days and the Sabbath.  The Law contained blessings and curses, directives for necessary worship of God and the punishment of evildoers.  The Jews who kept the Law were very particular about avoiding anything unclean and maintaining a blameless image according to their traditions.

When Jesus ministered in Israel, He preached about the kingdom of God and did countless signs to show the truth of His claims.  For instance, after a paralysed man was brought to Jesus He said to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."  The scribes and Pharisees bristled at the statement, for they knew only God could possibly forgive sins.  Who did this man think he was?  Jesus answered the secret thoughts of their hearts by miraculously healing the paralytic.  So they would know the Son of Man (Jesus) had the power to forgive sins (and thus was God in the flesh), Jesus said in Mark 2:11-12, "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." ¹² Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"  Perhaps some of them were more amazed by the sign than what it pointed to:  that God Himself put on human flesh and walked among them in the person of Jesus.

The teaching and miracles demonstrated by Jesus had another effect mentioned in the Gospel of John.  It exposed the truth concerning the hearts of people who were blameless under the Law:  it revealed they actually hated the God they professed to love.  Their self-righteousness and condemnation of others covered up the fact their hearts were distant from God.  Jesus said in John 15:22-24, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father."  The rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was actually a rejection of God Himself, for Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him.  The words of Jesus are also relevant concerning people today who are law-abiding citizens, generous, considerate and thoughtful people who refuse to trust in Jesus as Saviour.  Their refusal to believe Jesus is God is inexcusable because Jesus has spoken and done mighty works no one else has ever done.

It was ironic the Jewish rulers who believed the Law of Moses was the word of God refused to believe the Jesus Whom Moses wrote about.  Jesus said the people of Nineveh would rise up in judgment against the Jews for their unbelief in Him, for the Ninevites repented at the words of Jonah.  One greater than Jonah preached repentance to them, yet they refused to repent.  The Queen of Sheba would also stand in judgment against them, for she traveled a great distance to hear the wisdom of King Solomon--and One greater than Solomon stood in their midst they refused to hear.  Paul wrote people are without excuse concerning belief in the existence of God Who created all things because all creation displays His glory.  The words and deeds of Jesus have exposed all those religious and decent people who reject Jesus for what they truly are:  haters of God, without excuse and under judgment.  It is not the "good" people who receive Christ in faith, but those who realise they are wicked and sinful.  It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, and having been convinced Jesus is God in the flesh we worship, love and obey Him.  We too are without excuse to do our joyful duty before God.

For Christ's Sake

The command of Jesus to His disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow Him is vital to this day.  By faith in Christ we can deny our fleshly feelings, desires and identity, and in doing so we embrace being the new creation God has designed us to be.  No longer is our primary loyalty to our own family, friends or feelings but to Jesus Christ our LORD we seek to follow, glorify and please.  For much of our lives we were slaves to sin and ourselves, and coming to Jesus for salvation, forgiveness and righteousness ought to shift our allegiance and identity to Him.

Sam Allberry expressed this necessary shift in the lives of those who are born again.  As someone who has experienced same-sex attraction, Allberry realised he was more than his sexuality and Christ's command was for him and all other believers.  He wrote:

"And as someone in this situation, what Jesus calls me to do is exactly what he calls anyone to do.  Take another well-known saying of Jesus:  "Then He called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said:  "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)

It is the same for us all--"whoever."  I am to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him.  Every Christian is called to costly sacrifice.  Denying yourself does not mean tweaking your behavior here and there.  It is saying "no" to your deepest sense of who you are, for the sake of Christ.  To take up a cross is to declare your life (as you have known it) forfeit.  It is laying down your life for the very reason that your life, it turns out, is not yours at all.  It belongs to Jesus.  He made it and through his death he has bought it.

Ever since I have been open about my own experiences of homosexuality, a number of Christians have said something like this:  "The gospel must be harder for you than it is for me," as though I have more to give up than they do.  But the fact is that the gospel demands everything of all of us.  If someone thinks the gospel has somehow slotting into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all." (Allberry, Sam. Is God Anti-Gay?: And Other Questions about Homosexuality, the Bible and Same-Sex Attraction. The Good Book Company, 2015. Pages 11-12)

Christians are called to love one another, to forgive, serve and speak the truth for the sake of Christ.  Instead of rallying around political, social or even moral issues, we are to identify ourselves as the followers and servants of Jesus.  All careers, hobbies, relationships and pursuits are to bow before our LORD, and He leads us to navigate all the situations of life with grace, mercy and righteousness.  It is impossible to earn or live up to the standard of the Gospel by the efforts of our flesh, but being born again by faith in Jesus changes us from within by the Holy Spirit.  Knowing Jesus is our life, we are enabled to deny ourselves and experience the abundant life He promises.