When the cup is found in your possession

What do you do when the cup is found in your sack? What happens when the Almighty God allows you to be as guilty as charged. allowing you in your circumstance to turn out just the way people  predicted. Some times it turns out not for any fault of yours but be that as it may, the Almighty God has allowed that you be at the place of your crucifixion with the evidence of your crime staring you in the face. Meanwhile, you are busy shouting your innocence to high heavens and receiving silence for an answer. This topic is so close to my heart because in my  Christian journey I know what it is to find the cup in my bag; to be as guilty as charged. I am led to sharing these thoughts to the intent that maybe the Lord will minister to you.  You may have been labeled a loose good-for-nothing girl who is not serious with her studies and suddenly, you fail in your exams.. How do you instance.. You say you did not enter the scene of the crime but your fingerprint is on virtually everything… how did the evidence fit you so well? In Jn.9:1-3 the disciples of Jesus asked Him concerning a man blind from birth; “Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” If Jesus understood their question, and He did, they were insinuating that either the man is a sinner or his parents were. But Jesus answered that there was another dimension that they had not considered. “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him..”  So what if Jesus hadn’t spoken up? The impression would have been that the blindness was as a result of the man’s sins or his parents’. So there was a smoke  without fire.  Assuming that the disciples will believe their Master, what about the  people who do not care what the itinerant unschooled Rabbi says-what do you do when the cup is found in your possession and you are screaming your innocence but everyone looks the other way?

The Jewish law says that, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” and there was Jesus crucified on a tree. So how do you expect the Jews to believe in him? A cursed man. They saw Him  hung on a tree and you are saying  that it is the will of God that He be made a curse and sincerely want them to believe you? “If you are not wayward, how come you are pregnant” they queried “after all good girls don’t come home with illegitimate children”, the society says; even if it means killing the unborn babies. So you decided not to kill the innocent child and flush him out, bearing the consequences of your misconduct, the only evidence required by the courts of society. So? What is a nice man  doing in a prison cell; how come you are so innocent when the whole state judiciary thinks otherwise? What about when you are as guilty as charged, and all the witnesses are ready with their evidence? We are looking at both sides of the coin; when you are not as guilty as charged and when you are. The  snag is that when most people are guilty, their misinformation does not let them see facts. They believe that the other party is wrong. The truth of the matter is that if the person does not come down to basic reality, he will be confounded by his guilt. There is a remedy whether you are guilty or not; a broken and a contrite heart, the Lord will not despise.

We are going to look at just three examples; the first is the children of Israel and their brother Joseph. The sons of Israel think that they were innocent. They did not steal the Prime minister’s cup. But we know they were as guilty as charged. They were criminals, who broke the bond of the covenant of  brotherhood; driven by jealousy and envy they almost killed their brother, old him into slavery. Yes we  did not steal the cup they claimed… but wait my friend, that does not make you innocent, “things don’t just happen, they justly happen and are caused..”  sometimes because you do not have all the information or because you decided in ignorance to sidestep some facts, looking at the narrowed dimension of circumstances you begin to believe that you are innocent. Nothing can be as deadly as being guilty before God and man and not knowing it. The sons of Israel were innocent of the immediate charge, but were they innocent before God? Not! So, God knows  how to catch the crafty in their craftiness and that summarizes our first  story. In verses 1-2 of Genesis 44, Joseph instructed his stewards concerning his brothers, “..fill the men’s  sack with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the month of his sack, AND PUT MY CUP, THE SILVER CUP, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest , with his money for the grain.”  Shortly after  they had left, Joseph sent his men after his brothers. When they were caught, their charge was for stealing Joseph’s divination cup. A treasonable offence. Listen to their response before  the cup was found in their sack; “why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants that they should do such a thing! Behold, the money which we found in the mouth of our sack, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan; how then should we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? With whomever of your servants it be found, let him die and we also will be my lord’s slave.”  They were so sure that even if the cup was made of gold that none of them would touch it. In their perceived innocence, they passed a harsh judgment upon themselves.

Nothing can be as terrible as practicing SELECTIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS; simply because you do not steal, when one is caught who stole, your reaction is “kill him.” But you lust and are greedy. Because you have not been caught in adultery or fornication when you hear of one who murdered by abortion, you are very harsh. The Bible says, “..For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point  has become guilty of all of it. for he who said, do not commit adultery; said also, do not kill: if you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.” Because they thought that they are not common criminals, cup thieves, they passed such a harsh judgment upon themselves. Does the fact that you did not seem to have committed the particular crime for which you are charged make you innocent before God?... It is God who justifies. Some of us in our selective appreciation of issues, selective understanding of what holiness is, in our selective pursuance of our conjectural piety we promote ourselves to be Supreme Court Judges of heaven. Selective righteousness can be a snare, a slow but deadly poison. I can imagine you lowering your sack in your self-importance and innocence tainted with a pinch of arrogance; and before your very eyes the cup is staring you in the face. The sons of Israel lowered their sacks too and when the cup was found, they rent their garments. I hope you rent not only your garments but also your heart. The brothers of Joseph not only rent their garments, they also fell to the ground, thus fulfilling scriptures. They were looking at a silver cup, but God had his attention somewhere else. They were seeing a cup but God was interested in fulfilling a drama. He authored years ago. We  need to have our eyes of understanding open. Some of us are so stone-blind in the spiritual that we rarely see the hand of God in any circumstance around us.  All we see is just the Cup, Money , Cars, Houses and People to manipulate. Spiritual blindness is a crime for a child of God for God has offered to guide and instruct us in the way we should go

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