The empty cup

1Corinthians 10:16 This cup of blessing which we bless…the communion of the blood of Christ
The good thing about an empty cup is that it can be filled. We can have three cups and pour water over all of them. One is filled and the others are not. Why? One is turned upside down and one is filled up with so much matter that it cannot receive water. It is about being willing to receive, being emptied of what doesn’t matter, and always willing, always receiving. The supply does not stop, just our receiving, or being filled up with other matters.

Ephesians 5:18 … be (being) filled with the Spirit…
Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Luke 11:13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
There are many doctrines concerning the Holy Spirit (The baptism, anointing, intercession). We do not need more doctrines of the Holy Spirit, we just need more of the Holy Spirit.

God wants us to receive the Spiritual blessings and they have already been given.
Ephesians 1:3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

Compare the blessings to Jacob and Esau. They represent to two sides of us, our Jacob self and our Esau self. They each wanted different types of blessings. Jacob felt empty until he reached out hungrily for the heavenly blessing. Esau reached out hungrily also, but for a worldly blessing. Jacob was filled and ended up walking with a limp, to remind him of his struggle to go through anything and to wrestle with everything, even God, to receive the blessing. (Isaac/Ishmael, David/Saul, Jesus/Adam.
People cannot relieve the stress of the emptiness of their lives by focusing on emptiness and seeking to fill it with things to have, or things to do, or things to know, but only by having the emptiness filled up with God Himself in the fullness of His Spirit.
How do we deal with evil in the world around us - can we eradicate it? No, we simply do not focus on the evil but we fill our world with the presence of God and his goodness. 
In a similar way, the experience of salvation is not the absence of sin in us but the presence of God. Light removes darkness.
In the same way problems and difficult circumstances exist and are always with us. But they do not dominate our inner being. He does not always take our problems away but gives us the Emmanuel answer. 

How does this make the problems lose their power over us? They simply have to move over because we are not focussing upon them but upon a reality, the greatest reality – the Emmanuel reality. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. We cannot have our focussed attention on the two arenas of activity at the one time. It is from the place of realized Emmanuel presence that we receive wisdom to address the problems with faith and not with fear or unbridled imagination.

Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The empty cup