Sermon Journal Notes: Fill My Cup
If you have a cup of milk and someone bumps into your arm, the cup will spill the milk right? Whatever’s in the cup will come out when the cup’s jostled or shaken…..In the same way whatever you’re filled with will pour out when you’re shaken, jostled or disturbed. Have you ever gone through a situation and things seemed to be hitting you from all sides, and before you know it, you’re reacting, you’re saying things, thinking things, doing things that you don’t have time to process and guess what comes out? Anything that’s in you….if you’re thoughts/ spirit “ is dark and tainted, hurt and bruised, the thing that comes out is dark, tainted, hurt and bruised:” ( Leslie Pace) ….this message today is for those of us who said it, lingered too long in it, did it and regretted……….thank GOD for Jesus that even in those moments we don’t have to carry the brunt of the guilt, with repentance we can be set free, but there’s a place in our Christian walk when we want more, when we know we need more, when our soul craves more, when we want the change, not just on our “trying to be good days” but even on our “trying days, our hard days”….
Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
A Living Sacrifice
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As Paul wrote to the Romans, he writes to us, we are so loved by GOD that HE gave Jesus as a living sacrifice. Because as we all celebrated last week for Easter, knowing Christ is Risen and we too can rise above the life situations, the incidents and also we can rise above our attitudes….too many times our responses to the issues that surround us, that happen in this world is too much like the world….as GOD’s ambassadors we need to do better, but how can we? Some folks think only certain people are “good”, they think in families, there’s the black sheep or bad one, they think there’s those who because they’re so nice they are good, and only good things happen to good people, we as humans have a lot of ideas about good and evil, and those who think this way often feel like “ this is just the way I am” they look at their lives as hopeless and forgotten. Here’s the issue, when we think like the world we only see the world, we don’t see the power and faithfulness of GOD when we only see things this way. That’s also what Paul was trying to explain in his letter to the Romans, letting them know GOD’s salvation is opened to the gentiles as well…GOD s faithful, what does that mean to us? GOD’s salvation is open to you just as you are, right here, right now, today….it’s not earned, its not credited because of your natural birth, parents or DNA…it’s because of Christ’s birth, our heavenly Father HIS spirit in us, as we accept Him as savior we’re given His power….giving our lives to Christ is the sacrifice. We refrain from following the ways of the world, we give up on trying to prove our power by putting others down, we stop trying to “act good” and rest in “God being good and His good within us feeds our soul and nurtures our hearts and minds filing us with the fruit; the fruit of the Spirit…that should pour out as we go through life experiences. (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV) 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
