FILL MY CUP, LORD

Fill My Cup, Lord
A few weeks ago, I was introduced to the latest phenomenon. This phenomenon is the Free-Fill cup from Race Trac. Everyone should know by now how much I LOVE Dr. Pepper. Since the age when my parents allowed me to have carbonated drinks, I have been drinking Dr. Pepper. About 5 years ago, I had to change up a little bit and go to the Diet Dr. Pepper. Sugar has a way of catching up with you. In fact, if Malia would let me, I would have Dr. Pepper as my only drink ever. I know for all you health nuts, you are cringing at the thought. Knowing this about me, you can understand why the Race Trac free-fill cups have been a huge excitement for me. Free refills of Diet Dr. Pepper for two whole months! COOL! Do I long for Christ more than I long for Diet Dr. Pepper? Do I want to be filled up with the Holy Spirit? Do I seek to draw from Christ’s well that will never run dry?

There is a free-fill cup that won’t run dry after two months. This cup will never run dry. It is talked about by Jesus in John 4. You all are probably very familiar with this passage. This is the story of Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus left Judea on His way to Galilee and had to pass through Samaria. By the time He got to Samaria, He was tired, so He stopped off at the well to rest. It was not by chance that He met the Samaritan woman. He knew that He would meet her and introduce her to the “living water”. This encounter happened around 12:00 noon in the heat of the day. She probably came at that time because she did not want to meet people. Later in the story we read that she had lived a bad life. She had been married to several men. Now she was living with a man who was not her husband. Perhaps no one would talk to her, but Jesus spoke to her. He asked the woman for a drink. It surprises us that she did not refuse Him. It surprised her that a Jew would ask this. She told Jesus that she did not expect His request. Jesus replied “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water (John 4:10).” This statement confused the Samaritan woman. She came to the well seeking to fill her physical need, and Jesus took her straight to her spiritual need. He told her that water from Jacob’s well would simply leave her thirsty again, but water from the “living well” would satisfy her completely forever. Jesus, through His power, can fill us until we are full, but first we must want to be filled. We must come to a point where we realize that we need Jesus and that we need filling. So often we try to fill ourselves with temporal things. These things will bring immediate satisfaction, but that will always leave us longing to be satisfied by something else. Jesus comes into our lives to completely fill our emptiness. Will we let Him?

Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;
Bread of Heaven feed me ‘till I want no more—
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!

Aaron Hodges