Friday, February 11, 2011

John 2

John 2

*** I need to warn you, you may find this devotional a little controversial.

I will be reading John 3 and 4 this weekend but not commenting on them. I will return on Monday with a devotional for John 5!


In Israel, there we few celebrations as joyous and exciting as a wedding; it was a time of celebration not just for the bride and groom but the entire extended family and village which in most cases were synonymous. Laughter, dance, food and wine flowed for many days. Everything was placed on hold so the happy couple was completely satisfied. Before I go further here I do need to clarify something. The wine Jesus drank was real wine. Our puritan ethic in America has kept many from drinking wine. Some from the pulpit have condemned drinking wine but that is not what scripture says. Scripture is clear that we should never allow anything to control us except His Spirit so we are not to get drunk. Please do not get me wrong, I do not drink and I am not promoting drinking here, however I do know there are some Christians who drink and as long as they are within the bounds of true faith it is OK. That being said allow me to add this, Paul said we have freedom to do all things but there are some thing which I do not do because of love of the people (Tim paraphrase), Romans 14:14 – 23. I choose not to drink not because I don’t have the freedom to do so but because I love others enough and want to be example to them of living free from anything controlling me but His Spirit. My love extends to the place where I would never want someone to see me drinking and assume that it is OK and he or she intern stumble in his or her walk with Christ. It also goes beyond drinking to the way I control my anger, my eyes, attitude, and my general love for people. All of these things and more are witnesses of our life in Christ. Being a Christian is not for sissies!

Back to the story.

This was an important occasion. God knows what is important to us and regardless how trivial it may seem to others, if we care, God cares. People were starving in places in the world, there were wars, they were gross injustices in the world but Jesus took the time to create new wine for (by all accounts) an insignificant nameless couple. Don’t put God is a box. Are there very critical and important things in the world? Yes! God is big enough to handle the wars and starving children around the world and your problem. He has enough love for it all because He is love.

When God does something it is always the best. The wine Jesus created was not just good wine; it was the best, and most flavorful, full bodied wine they had ever had. When we pray and as we believe, God will make the best happen. Our God is a big God. He is far more powerful and amazing than we can imagine. Our challenge is to always believe him at that level and learn not to settle for anything less.

Jesus won’t have anything man creates stand in the way of people getting to know the Father. The problem in the temple was not the selling of things but that they were selling things that the people needed to purchase for their sacrifice and placing premium prices for second-class merchandise. In Leviticus God set up the order of sacrifice and made it so everyone would be able to give. You see God is not more proud of a large gift than a smaller gift. He is not interested in equal giving but equal sacrifice. A tithe, ten percent of your income is a base level of giving, then offerings go beyond the ten percent and those should be based on equal sacrifice not equal giving. The money changes made the cost for the sacrifice so high or were stealing from people by selling defective merchandise thus making it nearly impossible for the people to come to God according to the law. Jesus anger was over the religious leaders cheating the people from being able to come to the Lord. God set up the rules of the sacrificial giving so the giving was not wrong, but like the wine drinking example above, the love in the process was missing.

Everything Jesus did in this chapter and the entire Gospel was based on love, as everything that God does today is as well!

Tomorrow John 3

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