Day 212: Water to Wine

John 2; 1 Chronicles 10-11; Zechariah 1

It is interesting that Jesus' mother approaches him and simply says, hey, they are out of wine. She doesn't say that he needs to do something about it, but certainly implies it. How would she know that he had that kind of power since this was his first miracle? Nonetheless, she assumes that Jesus can and will do something. I'm sort of bugged by that, but maybe I shouldn't be. I don't want to simply assume what Jesus will and won't do in my life. He's God, he doesn't have to listen to me. He's not room service, a bellhop, a waiter. And yet, he performs the miracle anyway.

The second thing about this story that I find applicable is that Jesus takes plain water and turns it into the best wine. He is capable of the same with us: he can take our plain selves, our average abilities, and multiply them into something great and meaningful. The servants didn't do anything except obey; they didn't need special abilities in order to help with the water-to-wine process. God did that. But they did have to follow Christ's instructions. We too, if we want to see the water of our lives turned into something valuable, we need to obey.

Jesus saw (and sees) into people's hearts. It says that many put their faith in him, but he didn't give them any kind of power (like the Holy Spirit) because he knew they weren't ready for that yet. Jesus sees our hearts, he sees the struggles and insecurities, but he also sees the God-given potential. If we give him our hearts, he can do spiritual surgery on us and make us less like the world and more like him.

Chronicles talks again about David and Saul. Saul died because he disobeyed The Lord. He took his own life possibly because without the hope of The Lord, he knew he was lost. On the other hand, David was blessed by The Lord, mainly because he was obedient to God.

Zechariah is talking to the people of Israel and said, don't be stubborn like your ancestors. We too have past generations to learn from. God wants to bless with good things, but if we are too stubborn to obey, accept him as the leader of our lives, then we are going to struggle through the same things that our ancestors did. Let's make the choices that the selfish people in our past didn't. Let's love The Lord with all of our hearts, let's serve him with devotion, let's have real compassion on the orphans, widows, and the hurting.