How to Start

 

    When we look around at what is undone or not right in the world around us, we know what needs to be done or needs happen to produce wanted change.  However, getting started can be tricky.  Getting motivated to start a big project can be difficult because it may be overwhelming, time consuming, or you just don't want to do it.  The best way is to just start.  Maybe write out a plan.  Break the thing down into small projects, but just start doing something.

    Jesus was not procrastinating.  He has to grow from a baby, to a boy, to a young man, into a mature man that people would listen to.  He needed to give the world time to be prepared for him.  He had John open the doors, but once they were open he strategically worked nonstop for all of man kind for about three years.  He had already began his ministry, subtly, when he performed his first public miracle.

    I believe that he may have done a few very small miracles all his life.  The kind of things where a people looking would just think the person has incredible luck or someone that can just make things happen.  I say this because his first recorded public miracle happened at a wedding at the request of his mother to fix a situation: they ran out of wine.  Jesus turned water into wine.  It was not the cheap kind either.  He gave the people the best wine to make his mother happy.  

    His mother expected him to be able to make these things happen.  We know that she was always aware that Jesus was the Messiah, but it seems obvious that she was used to him doing things like this.  Before Jesus even performed the miracle she ordered the servants to do as he commanded.  She knew that he would make everything right.  He gave them orders, so that there is no question that it was a miracle and not a scam.  

    He revealed his glory and the disciples that had doubts no longer doubted.  The point of miracles was to show the world that he was Messiah, not a magician.  When he turned the water into wine, he created pure wine.  That is why it was the best.  It didn't have anything to taint it.  That is the part that is usually over looked.  Miracles are cool, but the point and motivation behind them is so much better.

    Shortly after the wedding Jesus traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover.  He would never overlook a holy holiday like this one.  The Passover represented his life.  He would become the sacrificial lamb whom blood would cover Christians to not be taken by the angel of death. 

    When he got to God's temple, his father's house, he discovered that it had become a market of sorts.  He was rightfully angry.  He over threw the tables and probably looked like a crazy man, but that is a risk worth taking at times to honor God.  He cleaned his house.  When he was confronted he basically declared that he was the sacrificial lamb and who are they do this to his home.  Of course they didn't understand that he was comparing his body to the structure of the temple.  

    Jesus started small.  He worked slowly, but steadily.  It began before anything was ever recorded.  It actually began before the world was even created.  His life was for one purpose and that was to save our souls from our inevitable doom.  He never backed down or stopped teaching us even today.

John 2