Within biblical context, wine is a representation of joy, celebration and festivity, expressing the abundant blessings of God. For the sake of this verse, the joy aspect will be the main focus. First of all, what is joy? Joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness, but in biblical terms it is something so much more. Happiness and great pleasure come out of circumstance, but we all know that those circumstances aren't always around when we need them to be. When we are afflicted, how can we be happy? When our hearts are hurting, where is that great pleasure? It is nowhere to be found. This is because true joy flows only from the Lord. Joy is something we either have or we don't have, and it's all dependent on our relationship with our Father. When we are rightly related to Him,abiding in Him as the branch abides in the vine, we will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, one of which is the fruit of joy. It's something natural that grows within our life when our minds are set on the Spirit. Joy is what helped Christ to endure the cross, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) Joy is what will get us through our afflictions as James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” (James 1:2) Joy is what’s acquired by the anticipation, acquisition or even the expectation of something great or wonderful. Joy is knowing that what lies ahead, the glory which shall be revealed to us, the heaven that awaits us, is so much greater than the trial we face now. The joy of the Lord is literally our strength to get through anything. As Nehemiah said, “...do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)
We understand what joy is now, how we make it our own, but what takes it away? If we are living joyless today, especially in our dark hours, how come we have lost that joy? There can be a number of things, but from my own experience I would like to share. In John 16:22 Jesus says something interesting, and seemingly contradictory “...no one will take your joy from you.” Well then where is my joy? No one took it from me, therefore there's only one way I lost it… I lost it. By my own doing I have lost my joy. Has the joy been magically evaporated, never to be found again? No. I simply have to go back and find out where I left it and put it back on. When we lose our joy, it can be a number of things, but it boils down to one thing, we took our eyes off God. We stopped intentionally focusing our gaze upon Jesus and His goodness and started looking to our own troubles, fears, unhappiness and pains. I love the way Paul puts it when he says “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6) When our mind, our heart, our soul is set upon Jesus, we will experience life and peace. The things of this world are so trivial, so passing, and we do wrong to set our minds upon them. Surely we have responsibilities, but it becomes an issue when we are looking more at what we have on our plate, rather than who we are in Christ.
Let us not mix our wine with water. Water serves only to dilute that which we are meant to take in its fullness. At a certain point, we can have so much water in our life that we won't taste the effect of the wine! What water are you mixing with your wine today? There is something that is diluting your joy, somewhere you left your joy; remove the things which dilute, go back and find the joy. It make take time and discipline, and the longer you've been missing your joy, the longer it would take to regain it, but spend time meditating upon the word of God. Remembering His promises and implanting His goodness in our hearts is the quickest way to fullness of joy.
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