The Seventh Vessel

John 2: 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine…6 And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece 7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim 8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

This story speaks to me about God’s divinity in comparison to our own ability. You see, there were six earthen vessels waiting for Jesus, and He commanded that those six vessels be filled to the brim. The number six represents man or flesh, and in this scripture I see this number six as my own ability. We are earthen vessels, and we do not come into this world empty, God fills us up with ability, potential, talents and so on, we even inherit some traits from our parents. Either way, we are filled to the brim by God, just like the six water pots were. Then comes the seventh vessel, nothing like the six earthly vessels, this one isn’t just filled with potential, ability or talent (all raw materials!), it is filled with the finished work, and the raw material has already been processed. It is filled with life changing power, filled to the brim with the Spirit of the living God.

In this story, Jesus was that seventh vessel, When He got to the six water pots, they were there ready, waiting to be used to glorify God and touch the hearts of many and what did this seventh vessel do? He poured Himself out into those six water pots, and turned their water into wine. He turned their potential into accomplishment, the water they had was the raw material for greatness, and when Jesus touched the water in the pots, the water became wine. The wine glorified God and blessed the party crowd. After His touch, their greatness was seen by all.

You see, it is not until Jesus touches us and fills us up with the Holy Spirit that we can become who He created us to be. Many of us measure our lives based on our ability and sometimes we really have achieved a lot, but do you know what? Even those great achievements are nothing compared to what you can achieve if you are filled and led by the Holy Spirit, if you allow Jesus to pour Himself into you. Those water ports could have been there to give water to the thirsty; they could have remained filled with just water, but why have just water when you can have sweet wine?
Where our own ability ends, this is where God’s divinity begins, because we surrender to God and say you know what, I can’t possibly do it without you, I have done the best that I can do, please intervene, and then His divinity kicks in, and you wonder why you didn’t surrender much sooner.
This is truly what I call the supernatural; where our own ability is lost in God’s divinity and it becomes apparent to those around you and the whole world that you couldn’t have achieved this without God’s divine intervention.

I believe that this story wasn’t just written in the bible to give an account of Jesus’ first miracle, I believe it was recorded as the first miracle for a reason, and I strongly believe that it was to make us aware that Jesus is the life and soul of the party, it all starts and ends with Him, if you surrender to Him first, He will bring such joy into your life (sweet wine) and people will be touched by that joy. When the master of the ceremony drank the wine, even though he did not know where it came from, he was so impressed that he called the bridegroom to praise Him. Do you see that? Let me bring it home to you; Matthew 5: 16 (KJV) "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven". The people at the party including the master of the ceremony (Men) enjoyed the wine (good works) and they praised the bridegroom (glorified the father).

Let’s face it; we can achieve nothing except Christ does it through us and with us.

Be all that He has called you to be, surrender to Him today and let Him pour His Spirit into you, so you can pour into others and glorify His name.

(Written by Yewande Erinle 2009© All rights reserved.)