Tun with me to 2 Corinthians 1. We are going to read the first part of verse 4. “[God] Who comforteth us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.”
In one of his messages last year, my brother read an illustration from “Barbara O’Neill Health Tricks” that caused me to think about what I want flowing out of my life in 2025. She writes:
“You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Why did you spill the coffee? ‘Because someone bumped into me!!!’ Wrong answer. You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea. Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.
“Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you are rattled. So, we have to ask ourselves... ‘What’s in my cup?’
“When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratitude, peace and humility? Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting tendencies? Life provides the cup; YOU choose how to fill it. Today, let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.”
Reading this reminded me of what Jesus says in Matthew 12:33-35.
(33) Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
(34) O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
(35) A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Our hearts are our cups ...
... and just like the cup from the illustration, when we are bumped or shaken, whatever is in our hearts, whatever is in our cups will come spilling out.
I drink coffee every morning and have a collection of cups to choose from. But I have one favorite cup. Even if that cup is dirty and I can choose a clean one, I will wash my favorite cup and use it. Why? Because it is my favorite cup! I know exactly how much coffee, honey and half and half creamer to use. With my favorite cup I am on automatic; I know what will fill it and I can make my coffee without thinking about it.
Before we were born again, when someone or some situation “bumped into us” and caused us to spill what was in our cup, most of the time we wouldn’t know what our cup was holding until it came out.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus changed our tree. Jesus changed our cup.
When we face inconvenient or unpleasant situations, what flows out of us should be what we received because of the spiritual life that lives inside of us. We are now good trees thanks to Jesus. We are now good cups thanks to Jesus. When we are bumped what comes out of us should reflect what God has placed on the inside of us and for that to happen, we must yield to who we have become as God’s sons and daughters and fill our cups (hearts) with something different than what we had before Jesus.
Let’s talk about our lives “Before Jesus.”
My spiritual cup was filled with what we would call vegetable soup, which contains different types of vegetables. Before Jesus, my spiritual cup was filled with anger, bitterness, love, hurt, jealousy, envy, regret, lust and every emotion present in this world. On any given day, if you bumped into me, whatever emotion was at the top of my cup was going to spill out on you. If anger was at the top, it came spilling out. If jealousy or envy was riding high, that is what came spilling out.
Whatever our cups, our hearts are filled with will come flowing out of us when we are bumped. So, I had to reassess what was in my cup. Even though there is a lot of good in my cup, there were still some lingering things that needed to be removed. So, I asked God to help me remove them and I smiled when He said, “My grace is sufficient.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) And with that word of comfort, two passages came to mind.
The first was Romans 2:13-15.
(13) (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
(14) For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
(15) Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
We have God’s law written in our hearts. God’s law is in our cups. When our conscience accused us when we were bumped – when it pointed a finger at us – what spilled out of our cups was not good. But when our conscience excused us when we were bumped – when it didn’t point a finger at us – what spilled out of our cups was good.
But I do have a question: why does our cup sometimes not spill out what God has put into it? I believe the second passage, Romans 12:1-2 gives us the answer.
(1) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
(2) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
You see, every day, we must choose how we will fill our cups.
When we were born again, our spirits were renewed but our bodies and minds were not. Each day the body and mind wage a war against the spirit to see who will dominate, to see who will rule, to see who will call the shots – to see who will fill the cup.
And that is why this passage is so important. It says we must present our bodies as a sacrifice to God and renew our minds. To what are we to renew our minds? We are to renew our minds to always yield to our spirits, which is another way of expressing the latter part of Romans 2:15 – and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;).
Our desire must be to be cups filled with the fullness of God. Turn with me to Ephesians 3. We’re going to read verses 16 though 19.
(16) That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man;
(17) That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
(18) May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
(19) And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (
When we are filled with the fullness of God, what spills out of our cups will be the fruit that we see in Galatians 5:22-23.
(22) But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
(23) Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
In 2025, I want my cup filled with love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. When my cup is filled and overflowing with the fruit of the spirit, then my life will be a mirror image of Jesus’ life and His love for people.
I want to share these verses from the Amplified Bible.
(22) But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
(23) gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
What else do I want to fill my cup in 2025?
? Colossians 1:9 says, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” I want my cup to be filled with the knowledge of His will so that I will have access to His wisdom and spiritual understanding for my life and to benefit the lives of those I encounter.
? Ephesians 3:19 says, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” I want my cup to be filled with the fullness of God so that the love He has placed in me flows freely to others.
? Romans 5:13 says “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” I want my cup to be filled with all joy and all peace and abounding in hope.
? First Corinthians 2:16 says, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” I want my cup to be filled with a continuous flow of the mind of Christ so much so that my ears are always waiting for His instructions.
? First Corinthians 9:19 says, “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I may gain more.” I want my cup to be filled with a servant’s heart so that nothing will hinder me from seeking and saving the lost.
? Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” I want my cup to be filled with thankfulness and gratitude for the price that Jesus paid for me, and I want that to be evident in my interactions with people.
? Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” I want my cup to be filled with speech that is filled with the truth of God’s Word and ministers grace so that I can share the gospel message boldly and with love.
We must fill our cups with more of Him and here’s why.
We are living in a nation and a world that needs Jesus. The lost and some in the Body of Christ are battling physical and emotional attacks including anger, bitterness, depression, guilt, and unforgiveness and this is where we come in.
Let’s read 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, first from the King James Version (KJV) and then from the Amplified Bible (AMP).
(3) Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
(4) Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (KJV)
Now the Amplified.
(3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),
(4) Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God. (AMP)
The word comfort in verse 3 is paraklesis (Gk #3874). It’s an act of exhortation, encouragement, or comfort. Here it refers to the comfort that we receive from God so that our cups are filled with Him. Although a different word is used for comforteth and comfort in verse 4, it refers to what we do for others after what God has done for us. Parakaleo (Gk #3870) means to aid, help, comfort, encourage. We can parakaleo because God has already paraklesis us (comforted in verse 4).
God has comforted us so that we can comfort others with His love and compassion because that is what fills our cups. Ladies and gentlemen, Godly comfort and everything it includes is what the world needs, and we are the ones our Father is depending on to supply it with cups filled to be spilled on purpose!
So, what is filling your cup?
I want to go back to my example of drinking coffee every morning. It’s the same routine. I wake up, make my coffee, get my favorite cup, pour my coffee, add honey and half and half.
Now this is what I want you to remember.
Every morning, if I am going to drink coffee, I must decide to fill my cup with coffee. The cup will hold whatever I put into it, but if I want coffee, I must fill it with coffee. The same applies to what I want to fill my cup in 2025. In 2025, I choose to fill my cup with the things of God. What about you?
Here’s to having cups filled with God and overflowing in 2025!
