Matthew 20:22

“But Jesus answered and said, ‘You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ They said to Him, ‘We are able.’ “

Heaven has a plan and a pattern for those who will be promoted in the kingdom, and this is firmly tied to the life and model of Jesus. Only those who will submit to the yoke of Jesus, and willingly choose to drink of His cup and enter His baptism; only such qualify for the position of promotion in the Kingdom.

The cup and baptism includes carrying the cross of humility and humiliation, suffering and separation. It involves rejecting self-centeredness and self-exaltation. It also includes resisting sin even unto death. It means choosing silence over self-defense; and living in total obedience on God, irrespective of personal feelings or preferences. While James and John were quick to say that they were able, even in that answer they had failed, because no man is able to drink of the cup of Jesus without the enablement of God. May God grant us the same enablement granted Jesus so that we may likewise enter into His place of exaltation.

“O Father, if Jesus needed heavenly strengthening in order to make it through heaven’s protocol, I need it much more. Strengthen me with divine grace to walk the walk of Jesus; that I may thereafter enter into the promotion earmarked for those who walk with Him. This I pray for, in Jesus name. Amen.”