Photo by: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pegasusleaders&action=edit&redlink=1
“The LORD is my inheritance and my cup;
you support my lot.”
Psalm 16:5
When I read this, I wondered what inheritance
and cup might mean in a spiritual sense. After looking up some Bible commentaries
on Bible Hub, I could see how significant and wonderful these words are.
An inheritance is of course, what you
receive from your father or mother when they die. The Bible tells us God himself
is our inheritance. Through the death of Jesus, we can become one with the
trinity. As Jesus said, “I in you and you in me.”
"The LORD is my portion
(inheritance)," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him." Lamentations 3:24
As for the cup, it is an important image
strewn throughout the Bible. Jesus used it when talking about his coming death.
Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword
into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” John 18:11
This expresses both the feelings which
struggled in the Lord's breast during the Agony in the garden—aversion to the
cup viewed in itself, but, in the light of the Father's will, perfect
preparedness to drink it. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
A cup is also a symbol of the lives of
the wicked.
For in the hand of the LORD there is a
cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked
of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. Psalm 75:8
The reader will observe, that this
expression, the portion of their cup, is a proverbial phrase in Scripture: God’s gifts
and dispensations, whether pleasing or painful, consolatory or afflictive,
especially the latter, being ordinarily expressed by a cup, poured
out and given men to drink. Benson
Commentary
Jesus used the cup to represent the
lives of the cruel priests of his time.
"Now then," said the Lord,
"you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are
full of greed and wickedness. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside
of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Matthew 23:26
The cup is, “…a synonym for “condition
in life.” Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
“The
condition in life.” In other words, what happens when we are alive on earth;
what illnesses we will contract, what family we are born in, how we look, our
genetics, our strengths and weaknesses. Our “lot in life” so to speak.
How many of us
hate our “cup?” How many hate what happened to us in our childhood when we were
weak and vulnerable? How many hate their jobs, their spouses or their
struggles? How many resent the “cup?”
I started
hating my life when I was in my mid-forties. I felt cursed, foolish, a joke,
embarrassed by my mental illness and unloved by everyone. I was angry at God
for my life; angry he let terrible things happen to me and others; angry at
what I saw as his injustice. I was terrified what the
future held for me.
I have
written before how God, “drew me out of the mire and muck;” how he has filled
my life with happiness, so I won’t repeat that here. What I want to tell you is
how fast I can descend back into my old way of thinking and not trusting God
about my “cup.”
I got up one
morning this week, and as I stood in front of the microwave to heat my coffee,
I couldn’t remember how to work it. I stared at the buttons and drew a blank.
It finally came back to me and I heated the coffee, but now I was frightened. I’m
69, so I know it is possible for me to have dementia or alzhiemer’s disease.
To me, I
would rather die than have those two things happen to me. My sister and I have
talked about this subject and we agreed how horrible it would be and how we don’t
want people taking care of us, even family members. My sister said she would
kill herself. Stupidly, I said the same thing, knowing God wouldn’t like it.
I talked
with God that morning, pleading with him not to let me get that way. (My old
style of praying.) Instead of leaving it with him, I began to think of ways to
handle this, none of them good. I knew what I should do. Accept whatever
came into my life. It took awhile. Then I told God I would accept anything that
happened in the future. If it happened, then fine. Maybe he could use me even
in that mental condition. Trust is the real issue. Do I trust God? I want to,
and I pray I will for the rest of my life on this crazy planet. There is a good reason Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow.
Here are
some more verses on the “cup” we are to drink. We have Jesus as our example on
accepting the cup of our life.
You prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5
I will lift the cup of salvation and
call on the name of the LORD.
Psalm 116:13
