New wine needs new skins!
Mark 2:22 And no man puts new wine into old wineskins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine perishes, and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.
I am not a wine connoisseur but by reading and meditating on this scripture I can easily find a few truths that can change my life, and I hope yours as well.
First of all new wine speaks of blessings. I have no problem understanding that the very nature and heart of God is to bless His children. We have to decide what we want to believe. God is good and God does good things. He wants to bless us and give us something new and fresh.
- Thus says Jehovah, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it…..
What Jesus is trying to teach here is the fact that for change to, new wine, to happen and to be effective we need to be prepared to be able to contain it differently than we did in the past. What has worked in the past might not be enough to handle what we will face in the future.
In Egypt Israel never had to face giants. They only had to face slavery. Once they left Egypt and inherited the promise land they had to face a different enemy. Now there were giants to fight with. Slaves are not soldiers. So God had to teach them to fight and make war. They had to understand that they needed to change some thinking. They had to become new wine skins so that they could contain the current move of God amongst them. Slaves don’t own property and if they stayed slaves they will never understand the blessing of owning your own land.
This past debrief with our squad we had some team changes. You might wonder why would we change the teams up if they just started to work well together. The answer is simple. What God did in the last four months on the race will not work in the next four months of the race? We changed the wineskin so that they can get some new wine, a new move of God, and a new touch from the Holy Spirit.
We are training five new Coaches at this next training camp, which will launch five new squads in July. God is giving us new wineskins to fill. Does that mean that the existing Coaches are no longer needed? Absolutely not as we challenge them to keep on receiving the new thing that God is doing. If they refuse to change and be renewed they will become redundant and no longer usable. God has blessed us with Coaches that wants to see God do a new thing with these young people.
New wine also needs something that can expand. The fermentation of the grapes releases gas that will expand the wineskin. The truth in this is simply that what God pours into us effects us as it works a process in us. Do we have room for the things of God? Is it okay for Him to stretch our thinking? If you are stuck in a mindset you will feel the loss of losing what He was trying to do in you. Old mindsets struggle to understand the new thing that God is doing. The religious wineskin had no room for the expression of the son of God. His new way of showing who God is did not fit their wineskin of interpretation.
Through the ages people rejected truth because it came in a wineskin that didn’t fit their expectation. On the day of Pentecost they were accused as being full of new wine. I am sure they didn’t behave like the status quo dictated one should behave in the temple. It is a good thing they were in the upper room when He poured out His new wine.
Wine will alter your behavior. Like a friend of mine used to say. One glass and you are still in control. Two glasses and you think you are in control. Three glasses and you know you are no longer in control. The more we have of this new wine the more He will be in control. Paul says that we must not get drunk with wine, natural, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit, supernatural.
Can we bring today what we have and if it is not suitable for the next move of God, can we ask Him to give us a new wineskin. A wineskin that can receive and contain the new thing that He is doing? We challenge our racers to expect change. They live for the unexpected. They are hungry for a move of God. Our Coaches will fly anywhere in the world and give of their time and treasure to facilitate this move we are praying about. Can you help us with prayer and support.
The promise still stands. I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. God started in Acts chapter two but he is looking for some more wineskins to fill. Are you up to it? Pray with us as we are looking for more Coaches that can help us fulfill this dream of sending radical young people into the world to bring what God is doing to all the different nations.
