New Wine Skins
In our current situation I’ve had a little more time to ponder and listen to God’s spirit speaking to me. I’ve had so much rumbling around in my heart lately it’s been hard to decipher and put down into intelligent words. When you sense something prophetically it often is difficult to articulate. But I will try to convey what I believe I have sensed…
Most times when I’m not purposely listening God will speak through an object or something I hear. I caught the words “new wine skin” the other day in something I was listening to. It stuck with me sending me on a research journey. Google is a beautiful thing.
In Luke 5 the Pharisee’s ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast like them or John’s disciples. On the surface his ensuing answer seems odd. He gives a parable about wine/wine skins and new cloth patches being placed on old garments Luke 5:33-39. “They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into oldwineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”
In those days’ grapes were crushed into juice that was stored in a container to ferment. When it was partially fermented it was transferred to a wine skin. This was the skin of a goat which had been dried and rubbed with oil to then be able to contain the wine as it continued to ferment.
As it sat in these skins it further fermented, expanding the skins. After some usage the skins would become worn and brittle so new wine could no longer be placed in them for it would expand and burst the brittle skins. It had to be placed in a new wine skin. What in the world was Jesus analogy about? He saw himself and his message as the new wine and the new cloth. It could not be placed on an old covenant or religious belief system. Their inflexibility would burst the skin and tear the garment. #selah
In the Hebrew new wine means “freshly pressed, squeezed, expelled and trodden out.” Wine is produced under pressure and then poured out. Follow me…we the Body of Christ are in a season of being pressed, squeezed and trodden out; a season of becoming new wine to then be poured out to those around us.
1. New wine is from grapes that have been though a recent crushing (I’m feeling that one)
2. New wine needs new containers that are flexible and able to hold a new anointing.
3. New wine represents promises fulfilled, a season of miracles. John 2:10, “but you my friend, you’ve reserved the most exquisite wine until now…”
4. New wine is God coming in a new way, like we’ve never seen before to do something he’s never done before,
I wrote in my Blog “2020 What is God Saying” that we have entered into not just a new year but a new era. Era meaning “It’s a period begun or set off by some significant or striking quality, change or series of events. It suggests a period of history marked by a new or distinct order of things.
This pandemic or as I’ve called it the “divine pause” has affected the body of Christ in I believe a good way. It has forced us to learn to do church differently but also caused us to have the time to get before God in prayer and solitude like we probably haven’t in a long time. It has been a series of events marking a new or distinct order of things.
We have been forced to build a new wine skin to hold the new that is coming. If we had stayed the same holding onto our old wine skins, when God then poured out the new, we would not have been able to contain it. I don’t know fully what the new is, but I know it will be amazing! Things are coming we need to be ready for. Business as usual will not be the order of the day.
To gain the traction or momentum we needed we have been experiencing the friction that was necessary. Friction causes traction. Just like when you want to shoot an arrow to hit a target you must pull the arrow back to cause the momentum you need for the arrow to go the distance. We have been pulled back, slowed down and made to rest. While we have been fighting against this God has been trying to get us to lean into it.
Minister James Goll posted an article and in it he shared an experience where he was praying and heard God say…"I will speak in unusual ways in this season. I have been waiting for such a long time for My people to slow down in order to listen. I have many things to say in these days concerning new ways, new beginnings, fresh alignments, new wineskins for the new wine. I want to share My heart on seed time and harvest, sowing in tears and reaping with joy. Will you turn aside as Moses did? I AM there waiting."
We must stop resisting what God is using to refine and remake us. Lean into his pruning work. Let him speak to you in the quiet. He longs to reveal his plans to those who are listening…are you listening?