The Angels of Heaven Rejoice over Sinners that Repent

The angels of heaven rejoice over Sinners that repent: saints of God, will not you and I do the same? I do not think the church rejoices enough. We all grumble enough and groan enough: but very few of us rejoice enough. When we take a large number into the church it is spoken of as a great mercy; but is the greatness of that mercy appreciated?~C.H. Spurgeon

 The Fellowship of the Cup seeks to experience that joy. We are small in number but our hearts are large for the Lord. In just six weeks we've grown fourfold, not because we particularly know what we're doing, but because from the start we desired to become believers who express faith, not talk about it. That spirit of service to the Lord is infectious, and we believe that is what is drawing people to us. 

We are spending time planning on how we can carry the message of Jesus into the community around us through expressions of love, whether it be food drives to address the enormous growth in hunger in America, prayer outreach at local community events, starting Bible studies to better prepare us for evangelism and personal growth in our walks with the Lord, and personal commitments to become a blessing to others who come into our lives. 

Missions is the engine driving the Fellowship of the Cup, the members of this fellowship are wholly committed to the Great Commission and seek to become workers in the Harvest. We're just regular folks with jobs  and families and we are simply doing this out of gratitude. Thanks be to God!!

One Christian can't make much of a difference.

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can and as long as you can.~John Wesley

That's a tall order, and doing good doesn't even get you saved! But then again, saved people do good. Times are hard, and at no time since the Great Depression has there been a greater need for service, one person to another. The social safety net is strained to the breaking point and we need to act. 

One Christian can't make much of a difference you say? Should David have stayed home and avoided Goliath? Did Paul really make a difference on those missionary journeys? Get up out of your pews and  ask the person sitting next to you to go with you. Don't ask the pastor for permission, just go. Help one person today, see if they think you made a difference.

Are You Kidding Me?

"Despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." Hebrews 12:5
 
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1Thessalonians 5 16-18

Are you kidding me, who can do that stuff? I'm not all that fond of punishment or discipline, and I'm certainly not grateful for everything going on in my life. The thing is, I can't do that stuff, and the Lord knew that when He gave me those directions. He knew ahead of time that I was simply not capable of following those instructions, and to make matters worse He went and filled up the Bible with all kinds of stuff like that.

Fortunately He also filled the Bible with all kinds of examples on how to accomplish the impossible. Moses facing down the Pharaoh, David whipping Goliath, Daniel safe in the Lion's Den, Ruth saving the Jews from extermination. Over and over again, simple men and women are assigned impossible tasks, and then God provides the power necessary to accomplish them.

I know that the Lord did not need Moses to defeat the Pharaoh, but I did. When life seems impossible, when the difficulties facing me have broken my spirit and I despair of ever vanquishing my foes, I can think of those men and women in scripture who, when faced with overwhelming odds, simply said, "Lord , Help me." and rose triumphant over their woes.

Faith

I often think that if my faith isn't rock solid 24/7 I'm doing something wrong. But Jesus own disciples doubted he could feed multitudes not once, but twice. Did he send them away looking to replace them because their faith wasn't consistent? No, he just sent them out to change the world! I guess maybe the Lord can use even a guy like me.

Called

The call of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone...Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. When our Lord called His disciples there was no
irresistible compulsion from outside. The quiet passionate insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the Spirit of God bring us face to face with God, we too shall hear something akin to what Isaiah heard, the still small voice of God; and in perfect freedom will say, "Here am I; send me."~Oswald Chambers

Called. It's a word used over and over in scripture. And I've always felt a wistful envy of folks, particularly missionarys, who experience a distinct call, clearly discernible and with no ambiguity. "You!! Go to Africa!!" And off they go. 

With me, it has more of the flavor of being led. My experience with The Fellowship Of The Cup is a case in point. My friend Travis and I sat for months drinking coffee, talking about reaching those around us who might be open to the message of salvation but would never think about darkening the doors of a church. One day we just got sick of talking about it and decided to invite friends to a coffee shop and just start talking about Jesus, and the experience has been remarkable. I guess that's "called." But it sure doesn't feel like it sometimes.

God As I Misunderstood Him

I was raised in a church going family. Twice on Sundays, Wednesday Bible study, Friday night youth groups, boy did we go to church.
So in 1968 I went away to college. It was the height of the Vietnam War and campuses were filled with rock and roll, radical politics, and free love. Drugs were the new path to spiritual enlightenment and alcohol flowed like a river. At least that's what I saw. So I looked around and knew that this was no place for a devout, God-fearing boy such as myself. So I stopped going to church. People all around me were gleefully sinning and I wanted in.
Turns out my faith was a mile wide and an inch thick. I abandoned the principles I was raised with and gave it no more thought than I would devote to changing socks.
That didn't work out to well.
By early June of 1989 I was homeless, drinking a 1.75 liter of vodka a day, shaking like a leaf, throwing up blood, passing blood through my bowels, and I wanted to die. But apparently I had been in preparation to receive a gift, for within a few short days I was snatched from the jaws of the monster by the God of second chances and delivered into the hands of a group of Good Samaritans, not all of them Christians. And they taught me one of the most important lessons about God that I have ever learned outside of scripture.
There is a God and I'm not Him!
Today I try to live by the words of the Psalmist in Chapter 20, Verse 7
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God".

Choose Joy

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Speak

“First they came for the communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unions, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And then they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We can stand up for the rights of others without being in agreement with them. 

A Community of Believers

"Satan watches for those vessels that sail without a convoy.~George Swinnock"

Many Christians have fallen away from attending church, some from sloth, but many from resentment both real and imagined. The point isn't necessarily whether you attend a traditional church, but whether you remain connected to a community of believers.

On my own resources my faith remains stagnant, perhaps even weakening over time. I need to be surrounded by believers whose collective faith will lift me up and strengthen my walk with the Lord.

"A Christian who lives in isolation from other believers will fail to receive the blessings as well as the maturity resulting from godly interaction".~Joel R. Beeke

It is our fervent hope that The Fellowship of the Cup will provide that community to believers who have rejected the traditional church. We're not about church bashing, rather we are for Christian fellowship.

"Those who live in the Lord never see each other the last time." ~German Proverb

What If

I found this beautiful post titled "WHAT IF" on the blog Peripheal Musings

What if there is a God? ONE God, not many. Not the cosmos, not the "spirit of oneness", not the awareness ofn amorphic, noncommittal "higher power, but the ONE GOD: The Alpha and the Omega - Almighty God. The creator of the heaven and the earth. The LORD.

What if Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life?
What if Jesus is the only way, like He said He is? Our ONLY way to eternity - to heaven - what if He is telling the truth?

What if we CANNOT be fully whole without accepting His gift? What if our life ends here without Him?
Read More