Cup of Salvation
Cup of Salvation
(#312 from Suffer Well Devotional Series©)
www.sufferwell.org
“I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon Your Name, O Yahweh.” (Psalm 116:13)
The cup, a container that holds something together, but figuratively, a portion of something. A portion of salvation; why just a portion? What is this salvation? In Hebrew it is deliverance, health, help, saving health, welfare, and prosperity. The Greek idea of salvation also indicates the same: welfare, prosperity, deliverance, preservation, and safety. Conspicuously missing is the word redemption. Yet, this cup of salvation is so often misunderstood and its true meaning so freely interchanged with redemption. Redemption, however, paints a very different picture in both languages. Redemption indicates the release caused by the payment of a ransom. You can’t do anything about it through your own efforts, desires, or capabilities. A very different picture, indeed, from the declaration: “I will take the cup of salvation.”
This sloppy misuse of language supports a flimsy (loose sand) doctrine, which inevitably leads to an identity crisis for those who practice such. How does flimsy doctrine cause identity issues? Let’s take look at what is being said and how the error leads to a shaking of the sandy ground you have built your hopes upon. This instability fragments the mind that cannot reconcile the certainty that the price of redemption was paid once and for all, with the insecurity caused by the ever-changing external circumstances that seem to require continuous sacrifice. You’ve heard it said; you’ve said it yourself; “Oh, I got saved on…,” or “When were you saved?” This fragile doctrine suggests you are “saved” already, but is then impossibly contradicted by scriptures like, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) Loved one, a house (totality of thoughts) divided cannot stand (Mark 3:25). A house divided has identity issues.
This is another crossroads in your spiritual maturity. The “what and when” of salvation is so very pertinent to your mental stability and your spiritual fortitude. No greasy grace, but instead fierce conviction. The cup is the intellectual ability to receive and decipher spiritual wisdom in your conscience; the allotment of supernatural intuition placed into your thoughts, an ever-increasing portion. But, you must remember it grows from the fierce desire for it. “I’m saved” is not that fierce desire loved one. “I’m redeemed and I’m working out my salvation with fear and trembling” is! Consider posing this question to the next person who tells you they are saved: “If you’re saved, it means your portion is full, you’ve reached sinlessness, correct?” That is exactly what salvation is; it is a mind that sins no more! A saved mind, a perfect mind, a holy mind, the full cup of salvation!
But he who endures to the end shall be saved. (Matthew 24:13)