Measuring Up

saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done." (Luke 22:42 NAS)

When it comes to recipes, a cup is often used as an instrument of measure. One cup is equivalent to 16 tablespoons or 240 milliters in the United States, 12 if using Australian tablespoons, 200 milliters if using a Japanese cup. A quarter, a third of, or half a cup are ways we sometimes use to specify how full or little an ingredient is needed for a dish.

When it comes to perspectives in life or how we view things, however, a cup is a measure of our responses to positive or negative thinking. Half a cup full or empty is how we perceive the challenge moving forward to run the race or give up (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).

Just hours before He was crucified on the cross, our Lord at the Garden of Gethsemane prayed, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done" (Luke 22:42). The cup Jesus was referring to was not just His death on the cross but also the agony and sufferings He had to go through for our sake.

As a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, Jesus was despised and forsaken of men, and like one from whom men hide their faces, crushed for our iniquities, chastened for our well-being, scourged for our healing (Isaiah 53:3-5).

As the Son of God, however, He had a choice not to take up the cup and die for us. Yet He chose to go through the pain to do the will of His Father out of His love for us. Jesus knew beforehand what was in the cup, yet He did not give up but went on to run the race and fulfill God’s purpose.

What about us? How do we measure up and perceive the cup? Is it half empty of blessings filled full with sufferings that we are thinking of or feel like giving up? May it never be our choice to give up the faith because of a hard life or tough times! For if we do, we will lose everything, just as we would have lost our salvation if Christ our Lord had given up on us and walked away from the cup of sufferings.

Let us be wise and choose life in Christ, for He came that we may have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). If we should desire to give up, then let us give up holding on too tightly to our own life. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever gives up his life for Christ’s sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).

Dear Lord, help us not give up our faith too easily just because of a hard life or difficult times, but to hold fast and run the race till the very end. Do not allow us to become rooted in the entanglements of this world O Lord that we may not hang on too tightly to our own way of life. Renew in us our first love for You Lord that we may willingly give up our all for Your sake, just as You have given up Your all for our sake. We are forever grateful to You Lord for not giving up on us, but willingly take up the cup of sufferings and die on the cross to save us. Take us Lord as we are and correct us as You will, for we belong to You.