Taking, Lifting & Drinking the Cup

May 16, 2019

Taking, Lifting & Drinking the Cup

And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many.

Matthew 26:27-28

In most churches, the members of the congregation do not have an opportunity to personally handle the cup, or communion chalice. However, as a part of your own spiritual disciplines, you can certainly have your own communion chalice, and you can partake of the bread and wine as a part of your personal devotional practices. I encourage you to do so and to take time to ponder the significance of taking, lifting and drinking from the cup.

As you take your personal cup, think of it as a metaphor for your life. The vessel containing the wine is symbolic of the sacrifice of Jesus which gave birth to your new life in Christ, and it is also symbolic of your life. All of your regrets and sorrows as well as all of your celebrations and joys of life are within the cup. As you take the cup you are taking ownership of all of your life.

As you lift the cup to heaven, give thanks to God for your new life in Christ, as well as for your mortal life. You are what you are by the grace of God who is forevermore at work within you. (1 Corinthians 15:10, Philippians 2:13) Your Abba Father does not have buyer’s remorse for adopting you.  

Drinking the cup is our way of fully appropriating and internalizing both our new life in Christ as well as our mortal life with all its joys and sorrows. As we take time to allow God to speak to us through each step in this process, taking, lifting and drinking, we position ourselves before the transformative hand of our Abba Father. Through His loving touch, we become the fully-authentic human being He created in His very own image.

My Takeaway: It has been my experience in life that the more time I practice this spiritual discipline of meditating on the significance of the cup of new life in Christ, the more visible Christ becomes in my mortal flesh.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.