You Can't Put New Wine Into Old Wine Skins
Matthew 9:16-17
Yahweh uses life's transitions to grab our attention and remind us of who He is and what He wants to do with us. He challenges us to trust Him as we find ourselves outside our comfort zone en route to the unfamiliar. He stretches us and molds us. As Tasha Cobb says, He gracefully breaks and rebuilds us with a new perspective and a deeper appreciation of His presence in our lives.
As we will see in our study of Israel’s transition from Egyptian bondage to the Promised Land of Canaan, Yahweh provided them with various commandments, rituals, and worship opportunities. He appeared before them as a cloud by day and fire by night.
Why? What good would the Promised Land have been if spiritually, the Israelites were still in Egypt? The same truth applies to us today.
What good is a new house if spiritually, we are still in Egypt?
What good is a new car if spiritually, we are still in Egypt?
What good is a new spouse if spiritually, we are still in Egypt?
What good is a million dollars if spiritually, our walk with the One who has created and redeemed us is not where it needs to be?
As we saw in the William Bridges quote
To become something else, you have to stop being what you are now; to start doing things a new way, you have to end the way you are doing them now, and to develop a new attitude or outlook, you have to let go of the old one you have now. (William Bridges and Susan Bridges, Transitions (40th Anniversary Edition): Making Sense of Life’s Changes (New York, NY: Balance, 2019), 81.)
Or as Jesus says, we cannot put old wine into new wine skins.
But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. (Matthew 9:16-17)
We gotta prepare ourselves to receive the new wine the Holy Spirit has for us. We cannot place holiness into unholy spaces. We gotta get our spiritual house in order.
We grow in holiness as we say no to our fleshly desires and yes to Him. We prepare ourselves to hear from Him as we turn off the distractions of the world. We demonstrate that we can be trusted with the house, car, and financial blessings as we make the sacrifices necessary to cleanse and purify ourselves.
We must be consecrated to reach and be all that the Lord has created us to be in 2025. That’s when the transformation Paul references occurs, as we put new wine into new wineskins.
