More than half full

I have realized we have three main enemies as Christians: the world, the flesh, and Satan who uses others as his tools. These are things that we can all have mighty battles with sporadically, or even frequently at times. The best way to protect ourselves is to accept the overflowing cup that Christ provides for us to drink from.

I am listening to a new sermon series that takes me verse by verse through Psalm 23. Pastor Levi Lusko does a great job of using various quotes, cultural references and related scripture to really bring forth the relevance of the Bible to our world today. In the series he speaks on Verse 5 and the fact that Middle Eastern shepherds during David's time would give their sheep a cool refreshing drink of water from a cup before they would bed down for the night. When you think about a sheep's muzzle you can understand that if a cup was only a quarter or half of the way full the sheep would not be able to reach far enough in to get much water so the shepherd would always offer a full cup. The blessing that we are able to proclaim is that Christ has a refreshing, marvelous cup for us to drink out of that is overflowing. Just think about the fact that when we trust in Jesus we have more than we could ever need in life.

I am a natural worrier. Some of my favorite and most dwelled upon verses are Philippians 4:6-7 and Matthew 6:25-34. These verses are so reassuring to me. I especially love in Matthew 6:25 when Jesus states, "is not life more than food and clothing?" I feel like the world encourages pettiness and materialism because the continue feeding into themselves. The Christ centered equivalent I see is that when I read God's word I hunger for it more and more. I would love to say that this is where I naturally turn when I'm worried. Sadly, though, I tend to listen to the world and stress even more. When I think about all the things I want and think I need in this world rather than trusting these verses and knowing that I am God's precious child whom I know he delights in taking care of.