The best wine….
John 2:10”And he said to him, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!"
In general, the best wines come from the best quality grapes! Weather also strongly impacts the quality of a given wine and another important marker of wine quality is a heady aroma. When you swirl and sniff wine, the better it smells to you, the better it will taste. When you are swirled, tossed and hurled, would you give out fresh aroma? The best comes out when crushed! Do you sneer and jeer when taunted and attacked by harsh jargons or do you calmly accept? I am speaking to someone out there! You need to hear this today!
Jesus changing water into wine at a marriage in Cana of Galilee was the first miracle in the opening of His public ministry. Jesus requested His disciples to fill the six water pots with water and then almost immediately, He commanded, ’draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast.’ Observe here, Jesus did not say, ‘let me check it out’ neither did the disciples say, ‘let us check it out’; we see absolute harmony and obedience, as they go about doing things. Team work, humility and obedience are key factors for ministry. Jesus did things perfectly. He sent the ‘manufactured wine’ to the master, whom He knew would take good care of it. Today my focus would not be on the miracle but on the words of the master of the feast to the bridegroom: ‘you have kept the good wine until now!’
When the master tasted the wine, he was amazed at the quality of the wine, I guess it was of superb and excellent quality, compared to the ordinary wine sold in the market. Whatever Jesus touched and produced are always good and the best! As I kept pondering over this scripture, the words ‘good wine’ got stuck in my mind. Friends, not only the wine in Cana, but aren’t we all also products of Jesus Christ? Psalms 139:13 says; ‘For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.’ Let me quote the words of the apostle Paul here: 2 Corinthians 5:17 ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’ When we belong to Christ, the Bible says that we are new creation! All the old garbage in our life are removed and yes, we become fresh, sweet smelling best quality wine! In the above text, we see that the quality of wine does not deteriorate; it remains strong and fresh until the end.
Let me speak with you now! Why is that we are inconsistent in our spiritual life? We jump on Sunday inside the church but frown on Monday, why is that? Why not be able to take the pressures from Monday to Friday and smile through all circumstances? The reason is that we lack substance and quality. We lack spiritual energy. During my initial days of salvation, I was shocked to hear one elderly believer state this about her sister-in-law: ‘I hate her and cannot get along with her.’ How could any born-again believer in Christ, say such a thing? These are the flavorless, tasteless wine - Christians. They are hypocrites without any testimony in their life. After a crusade, there are people who flame for a while and then fade away like the mist……….Heart-rending! My heart aches to see Christians of ‘Joseph-caliber’, who endure mockery, humiliation and pain with an excellent spirit! You’ve got to be perpetually connected to Jesus, the Vine, in order to be good wine!
