Izzy in 2010: July 2010

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Drink From This Cup!

So many "cups" to choose from in life, on a daily basis. Don't you agree? Or do you even relate to those words?

Passover? Easter? Resurrection Sunday? What true meaning does the "cup" bear?

Oh, the "cup!"

Oh, the "cup" enjoined to Jesus!

Years ago as a songwriter attracting many other songwriters unto myself, I had the privilege of working for a very short time with a young Christian man who had written freshly, a song titled "The Real Thing." The hook-line in this particular song (as all songwriters relate to as being the essential for a successful song) went like this, "Everybody wants the real thing. No one thrives upon illusion. Everybody wants the real thing, the real thing."

That tune comes to me now, as I ponder the "communion of the cup" that Jesus spoke of within Biblical text. I believe that there is, as every subject creates an opportunity for, much misinterpretation and much Holy Spirit Word based enlightenment, missing from this (if you will) religiously upheld and practiced ceremony within the Church.

So, what is the truth surrounding Jesus and the cup?

The "cup" in scripture:

There are fifty-nine verses in the Bible which speak of a cup.

Izzy Herriette & Co/Ginger Renken

Scriptures ...

These scriptures begin in Genesis 40:11 and ...

... are scattered throughout the Bible, with the last verse being found in Revelation 18:6.

Their Hebrew and Greek definitions are as follows:

... bowl, cup, pot

... original sense of containing; door, threshold, bason, posts, bowls, gates, cup; a spreading out, basin, goblet, bowl; sill, door-keeper

... doorkeeper; to stand at or guard the threshold

... root meaning to hold together; a kind of owl

... bag; purse; variant; for weights, money

... a drinking vessel; metaph. one's lot or experience, whether joyous or adverse, divine appointments, whether favourable or unfavourable, are likened to a cup which God presents one to drink; so of prosperity and adversity

... to drink; figuratively, to receive into the soul what serves to refresh, strengthen, and nourish it unto life eternal

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It all began in a “new way” for me when I turned 50 years of age. Suddenly the Lord was giving me a “new vision” of the earth; difficult to put into words but let me try. I was seeing this wonderful place from a bird’s-eye view. Comparable to looking into the childhood school globe, the one that turned on the pedestal and sent our minds reeling into orbit, just to ponder the idea that we actually lived on such a planet as that. At this particular time, interestingly, my perception had gone beyond that elementary stage. Now I found myself seeing the earth in a type of “reality” (I know that doesn’t make much sense) that plunged me so deeply, as to even smell the ground/dirt. The “earth” was a habitation I’d been a part of (meshed to) for a very extended period of time! Then at once, yes, I experienced the feelings literally, of being removed from, snatched away and torn apart from this land that I had existed in for over 50 years.

An overwhelming sensitivity to that line of thinking was birthed in me and continued to grow: “This world that I had all this time been so intricately integrated with, would someday now become a place that I would find myself entirely and indefinitely separated from!” This dwelling, where six billion other folk, mammered about along with me, would no longer know of me, remember me, or bear imprint or similance of me. There would be no living testament, to speak on my behalf, to remind those remaining that I had truly passed this way at one time – “And please, now that I’m gone, could you just not forget all about me?” Most certainly, inevitably, generations enough would begin to come and go and my “once having been” would leave not even a smear or smudge of a trace, of who Ginger Diane Carothers/Neil/Renken was! Nothing would remain to even ratify “that” I was.

To start off the New Year, the Lord, on this 4th day of 2010 (as strange as that sounds to my ears), has brought me into a type of “sentimental journey” - to my surprise.

I don’t know if any of you had time during the busy Christmas season to read my blog http://izzy-herriette.blogspot.com/, but if perhaps you did, you would maybe have gotten far enough along on the site to read the section titled “Sentimental Journey.” There I shared how that old song played such a part in my family’s past and the memories connected.

This journey that the Lord has begun in me over the past twenty-four hours is in a way a trip down memory lane; however, not one of a sentimental journey but rather a “sedimental” one.

I know as a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, desiring to follow Jesus ever so closely that I might live that deeply devoted and obedient life-style with Him, I can “take on the world” without knowing how much of it I have in reality taken on.

This “world” and its way of thinking, acting, talking and believing will never usher me into the Kingdom of God. As a matter of fact, it is completely contrary to the life that is birthed into the Kingdom of God! This Kingdom is “of God” and operates “after God” who created it and knows how it functions.

So, tying this all together. Each and every time we “partake” of Him … every promise we live in … every victory we gain in Him … in all that we do heartily, as unto Him … you see? I want to have a special cup made for my friends and family, one that, every time they drink from it, it will cause them to stop and “remember me”! When we take the cup of salvation to our lips and drink from it – we do this in remembrance of Him! I never want to “forget – Him”! Neither do you, I’m sure of it.

Psalm 116:12,13 – What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.

Another Cup

‘Tis sweet to drink
From cups like these
My mind would ne’re
Have thought

That I would e’re
Own cups like these
But look what the Lord
Hath wrought

His blood, His love
His knowing all
Hath given these
To me

These be some of mine
Deep heart’s desires
That only He
Could see

I drink with pleasure
From the earthen cup
I savor its content
As I Lift
It up

But O, I’ve a cup
Eyes cannot see
Its contents e’re flow
This cup
Lifts me

Earthen cups, desired blessings
From Him I have received
But blessings richest, desire complete
Him whom I
Have believed

He comes and brings me earthenware
We sit and drink and things He shares
His presence envelops
The cup you can’t see
He’s fillng and pouring out
All over me

I ne’er imagined
That I’d e’re see
A cup like this e’re
Offered to me

What He’s brought in this cup
I’d ne’r trade for the rest
For this cup alone
Is the “One Cup” Blessed

Beyond desire
Imagination weak to foresee
O, what things this cup
Brought unto me

This cup will go with me
From this earthen place
This “One Cup” lifted
Brought Smile
To my face

Ah, this “One Cup”
I pass on to you
Praying with my whole heart
You’ll drink deep from it too!

In Loving Memory of:
Ginger D. Renken
Daughter
Granddaughter
Great Granddaughter …
Friend
Wife
Mother
Co-habitor of this “earthen place”
Having “earthen” things in common

Copright 2005

2 Corinthians 4:7-But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.