The great danger to God’s people is always prosperity and
yet it is preached all over the world as that which God promises. Moses is deeply concerned, and rightly so,
about the effect prosperity will have on the people when they are in the
land. He sees the danger in forgetting
all the Lord has done for them to get them safely through the trials of the
wilderness, and here he mentions all those things I noted yesterday. The danger is that they will take credit for
all they have in safety, security and health and wealth. They may remember what He has done for them
in some way, perhaps the way of Cain, stingily acknowledging that they have
worked hard for their money and that the Lord surely had some hand in it
through providing opportunity. Our
attitude towards our stuff, particularly the giving of the tithe, much less
more than that, is incredibly telling about the truth of the state of our
soul. Generosity is the mark of a person
who knows that truly, all things come of Thee O Lord and of Thine own have I
given Thee. It is easy to say man
doesn’t live by bread alone and a harder thing indeed to live it.
When Jesus provides the wine he does so abundantly. If all the water in the jars were turned into
wine, there would be over 120 gallons of wine and not just wine, the best wine
yet! It may be that the water turned to
wine as it was dipped from the jars, used for the purposes of drinking not for
ceremonial washing. Like the question
yesterday about fasting, the old order of things is being overturned in the new
era of Jesus presence. Something
remarkable is happening, something not magic but pointing to who He is,
overcoming the natural order of things to provide the best in abundance. What pointed to piety now points to
presence. Can you imagine the surprise
of the servant when the master of the feast drank and praised the contents of
the dipper as the best wine? He had to
have thought this wasn’t going to end well and instead got the shock of his
life.
The writer argues that we are brothers of Jesus, the one who
sanctifies is made like the ones He sanctified.
Does that make you uncomfortable to think of Him as brother? It is awkward and we must always remember
that He has a dual identity, fully God and fully man and not presume on our
relationship with Him but also not shrink away in fear. We live in a time when suffering is no longer
thought to be Christian, we should be blessed and not suffer unless there is
sin in our lives. In Hebrews, a common
theme is the suffering of Jesus makes Him the perfect savior for the very
reason that there is suffering here in this life. We know we have not only an advocate but a
sympathetic brother who knows temptation and suffering because he endured
it. He could have had it all, it was
offered by satan, but turned it down for our sake and for the sake of love for
the Father. We need such a savior who
kept the main thing the main thing, no matter how tempting the alternative may
have been.
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