One customer of mine knows nothing else more than to come in and say "Venti coffee." I tell him the price, he gives me the exact change and leaves without comment. This is his routine. One day though, he changed his attitude and I felt it to the point of taking it on.
Sadly, when I see that most people walk in the store in a bad mood, I ususally ignore it and move on. I won't respond to hate with hate, but this time it bit me and hard.
He had ordered something different and was having to wait in line for it. Something that he is not a regular too. As my friend was making drinks, I turned around to help her. From that point on, I sipped of the cup of hate. He started yelling at her from the other side and was wondering where his drink was. He went as far as saying "if you will take time from your social schedule to make my dam drink, that would be great." That made me mad because he hurt my friend. My anger had started to rise and boil within me.
Now, I know it was over a cup of coffee, but we are all angered by something either so small or so big because of someone or something else, that we literally "wear the hate on us" and we use it against other people. It's our way of justifying the hate. Jesus never had hate in His heart, but He did say something about it.
In 1 John 3:15 it says "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."
Noticed how John compared hate to the same as murder. Jesus said "that if you hate your brother, you are committing murder." What? How is that possible?
Hate is the root to murder. But even the root starts with a seed that was planted. Somewhere in life, we have been seeded and planted with a type of hate in out heart. But Thank You Jesus, that when we recieved His sacrifice and His ressurection, we were up-rooted and replanted into a new cup. I love what Jesus asked when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26:36, he says "My Father, if it is possible, let this CUP pass from me, but nevertheless, let your will be done." Noticed how Jesus referred to the Cross as a CUP. He knew that the Cross was going to be filled with sin, sickness, lack and so much more. But He also took on the "wrath of His Father." The anger or hate of the Father. In Isaiah 53:10 "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
Why would it please God to bruise His own Son? Because He wanted the rest of His children to know how much He loves us. John 3:16 "For God so loved the World, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
God loves us so much, that He sacrificed His only Son, to have a relationship with me. A relationship of love and peace. Not anger or hate. When we take communion, we drink and honor the death and ressurection of Christ from a CUP. Instead of drinking in the hate, we are drinking in His love for us and remembering what Jesus did for us. So many times, we drink from other people's lives that are filled with hate, discontent or anger. When we get to this point, we have to learn to "let this CUP pass." We have the most powerful being living within us, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. We have to power to throw that cup back into the devil's face at anytime. But we have to recognize first that hate comes from the enemy.It doesn't come from man, but the evilness of Satan.
How do we overcome the weapons of the enemy? Simple.......Walk in Love!!!
The Cup of the Heavenly Father is filled with the sweetness, the aroma and the love of Jesus and the Father.
Wanna learn how to defeat that anger? Read Part Two of "Drinking from the Cup of Hate.......
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