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Chapter 3 3: And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine. John 2:3-5 Mary really started the whole thing. She somehow became aware of the need for wine. She said to Jesus, "They have no wine." I don’t know if she had just observed something that indicated they had run out, or if she was helping in the kitchen and saw for herself the empty containers or if someone just came and told her. We don’t know how she became aware of the need but somehow she did. Mary saw the need and stepped in and interceded for them. She simply said to Jesus, "They have no wine." Jesus said something to her about it not being His time yet. But Mary saw that it was their time. It was time for their need to be met. Why was she so persistent? Because she was motivated by love. Love made it time. She knew that Jesus could spare them the shame and humiliation they were about to face and because of a love motivation for them she approached Him with the need. Mary in this story represents Love. Intercessory Love. Notice that Mary didn’t look at those who ran out of wine with a critical or judgmental eye. She |
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looked with love. She looked to help. She looked to intercede for them.
There used to be a saying that the Christian army is the only army that
shoots their wounded. We need to quit shooting those who are wounded
around us and intercede for them instead. This is what Mary did. But notice what she did next. This is very important. After Jesus said it wasn’t His time yet she didn’t argue with Him. She didn’t try and control or manipulate Him. She didn’t try and make God her servant and obey her. She showed respect. She didn’t beg and plead with Him either. She submitted to Him. But she said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you—do it." Mary recognized that deliverance would come through what Jesus said. She knew the power of the words Jesus spoke. Remember this is the woman who said to the angel, "Be it unto me according to thy word" and then she conceived. She knew the power of words from God. Notice that she didn’t say to the servants, "O.K. now you go and fill up the waterpots." Or "Go to so and so who has a storage of wine and see if he will give you some." She didn’t try and come up with the solution to the problem. She didn’t try and perform the miracle. She left it up to Jesus. Mary is a representation of true Love. True love will demonstrate a love for the Lord first. The Bible tells us that we love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19). To demonstrate the true love of God to people you must first love God Himself. If you love people more than God then you will try and use God as simply an instrument to serve people with. You must keep your priorities straight and love God first and foremost. You must keep your love for the Lord greater than your love for people. Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Notice the order here. You must love God first and you |
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| <<Bible Seed Home The New Wine: Chapter 3 , Mary | ||
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can’t love Him until you receive His love for you. You love Him
because He first loved you. If you try and love God before you have
received His love for you then you are simply
performing a religious act out of a sense of religious duty.
When you truly see God’s love for you then you will respond with love
for Him in return. Notice that God’s love for you is not dependent on what you do for Him. It’s not responsive or conditional. Some of His blessings or favor may be, but not His love. We sometimes confuse approval with love. If you are seeking God’s approval before you receive His love then you will be a miserable person. You can never meet God’s standard of approval apart from Jesus Christ and when you try to do so you will end up in a cycle of religious works and duty and have no joy in your relationship with the Lord—striving for something you can never attain to. God’s love did not wait for you to love or please Him first. He took the initiative. Jesus didn’t expect anyone to do anything for Him first before He spoke the words that turned the water into wine. Love motivated Him. Human "love," on the other hand, is conditional upon whether or not I
feel like loving you or have made the choice to love you based on what you
do for me and continue to do for me. Because we have made human "love" our
standard for love is the reason we have such confusion in the area of love
in our society. |
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Each person has their own "love rules" which means they will have their
own conditions and reasons for when, why and how they will love a person.
As a disciple, you need to learn to replace your own human "love" with
God’s love. You can do that once you receive His love for you. His love is
shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, (Romans 5:5). When you
receive Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit then you receive the
love of God in your heart and your love towards God and people can be more than simple human love. In order to really love people with the true love of God then you must do so because you are obeying Jesus’ command to love others as He has loved you. (John 15:12). You love people not because you love people, but because you love God and His command to you is to love people as He loved you. His command to you is to love others as He has loved you. How did He love you? He loved you when you were ungodly and still a sinner. He loved you when you were "unlovable". If you are going to love others as He has loved you then that means you are going to have to take the initiative to love people. And you’ll take the initiative to love them before they are loveable—while they’re still ugly, mean and rude! And it also means you’ll love and intercede for those in need. Mary understood she had to love God first before the people. She loved Jesus more than she loved those who had run out of wine. She interceded for them and presented their need to Him, but she also submitted to Jesus and didn’t argue or plead with Him and try to manipulate how He would respond. There’s something to be said here about the fear of the Lord. God didn’t owe His love to us. God was not indebted to us to send Jesus because He had to pay off a debt to us. It was His mercy that sent Jesus to us. He could have let us go to hell. But He chose to love us. He didn’t owe it to us and the more we understand that the more we will appreciate His merciful love towards us. |
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To build a life of wisdom
you will need to build on the fear of the Lord. Not just a fear of
consequence, which is really self-preservation. To walk in the ways of the
Kingdom you will need to walk in the love of God and not do what you do
because you’re afraid of what will happen to you if you don’t. I
think Eve simply had a fear of consequence that kept her from eating the
forbidden fruit before she did. Because as soon as she touched it and
nothing happened she was no longer afraid of the consequences of eating.
If she would have had a deeper love for God then that love would have kept
her from eating the fruit. A fear of consequence wasn’t enough to keep her
from the temptation. A true fear of the Lord will lead you to the love of
the Lord because you will develop an appreciation for His goodness. Mary represents Love. Love for God first and then love for people. And Love simply presented the need to Jesus. Love wanted to spare the people shame and humiliation. Love interceded on their behalf. Also, Mary was able to ask the Lord from a more peaceful heart then the servant’s. If you are full of anxiety and you go to the Lord looking for help, often you won’t be able to hear His words because wisdom springs from a heart of peace. You may be looking for God’s wisdom to give you instruction so you can have peace in your circumstances. But God’s wisdom comes alive in a heart that is already flourishing with God’s peace. The peace inside of you is what will bring peace to your circumstances, not the other way around. You won’t get peace in your heart from having peace in your circumstances. James says that the wisdom that is from above is first pure and then peace loving. (James 3:17). When you release the Kingdom from within it will change the natural world around you. There’s another thing we need to see about Mary’s actions here. Mary did not tell the servants how they should express their faith in the Lord. The servant’s actions were a key to getting the |
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need met. Yet the only thing she said to the servants was to do whatever
Jesus told them to do. She didn't tell them what to do. She didn’t tell
them how they should express their faith in the Lord. She allowed Jesus to
tell them how they were to express faith in Him. One disciple can’t tell another how they should express their faith in the Lord. The Bible says if you have faith you should have it to yourself before God. (Romans 14:22). You shouldn’t try and tell other people how they are "supposed" to express their faith in God. You can’t tell another person what their convictions should be. You can’t tell them how to act, how to talk, how to dress etc. The Word speaks to their heart and will produce the fruit of their behavior and confession. If someone says something or does something simply because you have told them that if they really had faith in God then that’s what they would do, then it’s not an expression of their faith is it? The same is true of love. If someone expresses their love to God, or to me, who am I to judge their expression of love? God desires for all of us to be true to His conviction in our heart. It’s not right to think that everyone needs to think and act and talk just like you do. In our diverse expressions of faith will come great unity. This miracle of turning the water into wine was the beginning of miracles that Jesus did and it was Mary, one who lovingly interceded that said, ‘Yes it is time for the Lord. It is time for a miracle. It is time for deliverance. It is time for hope!’ Mary gave birth to more than the physical life of Jesus. She gave birth here to a whole new wave of the Spirit—the new wine—where otherwise it would have dried up. Through her loving intercession she moved the very heart of God to bring in the new wine. And because the disciples believed after seeing this miracle, this Love also gave birth to a faith in them from which the church would be built. Notice that Jesus didn’t initiate this miracle. We don’t see Him taking notice of the lack of wine, |
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| <<Bible Seed Home The New Wine: Chapter 3 , Mary | |
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calling the servants over and telling them what to do. An intercessor was
required. Someone needed to ask Jesus and present the need to Him. In this
case, it was Mary. Just like God used the faith of Abraham to establish
the Old Covenant, God wanted someone to take a step of unselfish love to
usher in the New Covenant. We’ve often been afraid to give Mary any credit for anything because of some religions that worship Mary. But we do need to see that she played an instrumental part here. Throughout Jesus’ ministry we often see Him leading His disciples into acts of faith and teaching them how to trust God. But here we see Mary initiating the first miracle of Jesus. She had spent time with Him. She had known from the beginning that He was the Messiah. She knew the potential that was in Him. And she knew that because Jesus was present there was hope in a hopeless situation. Mary, in a sense was saying, "I’ve brought something with me! I’ve brought hope!" Remember the scripture "experience (produces) hope"? Well Mary had experiences with Jesus. She raised Him from a child and because of the experiences she had had with Him she knew that His presence in the room brought hope. And she lovingly interceded so the hope could become a reality.
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