Choose The Right Cup

This morning I am thinking of a Pastor I knew who started drinking and stopped ministering. He died that way.

1 Corinthians 9:25-10:6 ESV - "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did."

It is Monday and we have good spiritual food to eat. We are running a race and there are people that need us to keep running it. I plan to find strength in God and not seek to escape reality. We can face challenges with courage. God is faithful. If we are renewed in our mind we will see the provision.

Psalm 116:12-13 ESV - "What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD"

If we drink out of God's cup we will win this week. God puts it in front of us so we will partake of it. There is no Earthly substitute.

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Fellowship That Is Eternal In Ephesians Chapter Five

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:15-16 ESV

Are the days evil? Are they? In a comparative way they are.

"Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." - Ephesians 5:17-21 ESV

Ephesians chapter five is about marriage and partnership. Chapter four was about individual integrity and living in the position that God has given us in Christ. Chapter six is about family and the corporate (group) dynamic.

Time works against us in partnerships. We must understand that God's will is eternal as well as temporal. Each moment is eternal. Wine can be a substitute for spiritual songs, hymns and thanksgiving in our hearts for the work Christ has finished.

Fellowship is the best use of our time. Fellowship is a Christ centered thing and not a wine splashing in a cup kind of thing.

"But others mocking said, 'They are filled with new wine.'

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: 'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'" - Acts 2:13-21 ESV

People thought that these believers were drunk but they weren't. These people weren't drinking to escape. They had escaped and they were living in the joy that freedom brings.

Time can be a prison for relationships. Married people can have a marriage that is outside of time. We can have friendships outside of time. We can use time instead of it using us when we practice God's presence and live in a mission instead of drifting from party to party.

I see grandparents with their grandchildren and they treasure each moment they have with them. Maybe they wish time would freeze.

Let's fellowship and live in a mission. The days are like waves. They will keep coming but if we know the eternal One we can live in eternity right now.

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Butter On Our Shoes

"And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." - Ephesians 5:18-21 ESV

The Greek word translated debauchery there is Asotia (Strong's G810) it is a negation of Sozo (G4982) a word for safety or salvation. Very simply put being drunk with wine does not save a person. It does the opposite. It puts them in danger. But just as a person drinks a glass of wine and then loosens up to have another and then another God want our life to be filled with the Spirit the same way. This drink is heady drink indeed. It intoxicates a person until they are drunk with thanksgiving and reverence.

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." - Proverbs 20:1 KJV

Wine or strong drink is a dangerous substitute. It mocks a person in it's Godless release leaving a person empty. Spirit filling does the opposite. It leaves a person full. It makes them poetic and melodic. There is an interchange of creative expression and of awe.

"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding," - Colossians 1:9 ESV

Filled with the Spirit and filled with truth.

Here Job recounts his glory days.

"Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me, when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil! When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square," - Job 29:2-7 ESV

God was bringing him to a deeper place. Job was to be a witness in the angelic contest but here we see a man who drank of God and churned the milky mixture straight from the source into butter in his thinking. His thinking would spill over into his walk like butter from the churn getting on our shoes.

We can be full of God today. We are placed in Christ at the moment of our salvation but have we opened the door for The Spirit to fill us? Are we drinking of the cup of salvation taking sip after sip until thanksgiving fills our hearts? We can. We can chew the cud of the Word of God. We can churn the butter until it gets all over our shoes and relinquish control of our lives to the Holy Spirit who thinks in love and honor towards people.

That is not dangerous it is glorious. That adds something eternal instead dissipating and dissolving. Those who are filled with the Spirit have their actions written in God's book instead of just photos with glasses lifted in smoky dark venues. It is not the raised glass that will get us through the dark times. It is the Word hidden in our heart and the butter on our shoes that directs our steps to God's safe pathway.

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Redemption Or Soulish Substitutes

Truth is the antidote for error and love is the antidote for fear... but there are counterfeits out there.

"Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God." - Ephesians 5:17-21 NKJV

Dissipation is Asotia (Strong's G810). A negation of the word for being saved Sozo (G4982). In other words non-redemptive... there is no redemption in drinking wine. It is a counterfeit because is produces a feeling that saves no one and buys nothing back. Yes, There can be joy and relaxation... it is used in the Hebrew scriptures as a symbol for joy. But, Now that the Spirit of God has come to indwell individuals we are to be wise and not drunken.

The filling of the Spirit has an impact on each area of our soul. The mind, emotions, will, consciousness and conscience. He restores balance. God creates a clean heart in us with a new identity.

"My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!" - Psalms 119:25 ESV

The counterfeits energize the old identity stimulating or depressing our natural man... counterfeit ideas, counterfeit emotions, counterfeit decision making, a counterfeit self image and a counterfeit value system... drunkenness that is non-redemptive... some translations use the word debauchery for Asotia.

Our pleasure is now rooted in a poetic interaction, in a musical ministry, in a thanksgiving that submits one to another in awe of God. All those things have redemptive value. Fun is redemptive fun. Pleasure is redemptive pleasure. Decisions are made in wisdom... not as a means of escape but as a means of investment... a strengthening... a buying back of time.

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:16 KJV

Yes.

There are times when our soul will gravitate towards the dust and the counterfeit will look attractive... Those are the moments where by grace we find our way of redemptive escape. Jesus Himself is that doorway. We can walk by faith in those moments knowing that the integrity of faith in the finished work of Christ is the antidote for hopelessness and death. Faith in the resurrected ever living one is why we were created.

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