The New Wineskin

“Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.” Mark 9:23
*Your own thinking can keep you from God’s best.
*You must conceive it in your heart and mind before you can receive it.

As Christians, we shouldn’t try to “improve” our self-life…that’s psychology! We don’t want to fix self, we want to SET it aside so Jesus can live His Life through us.

* “Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out…but they put new wine into fresh wineskins…”
Matthew 9:17
*We are the new wineskins! Jesus pours new ‘wine’ fresh ‘wine’ (life, passion, love) into us and both us and what he is pouring into us is preserved and then able to LIVE for him, to be used by him and for His glory!!

*If you are not renewing your mind(Romans 12:2), God can’t pour into you something new, like new wine and wine skin.
God’s not gonna give you something that will destroy like new wine would burst an old wine skin.

I wonder how often American Christians are trying to force fresh movements of God into an old paradigm.
* We want God to move, yet all too often we don’t want to do anything different.
* We hold too strongly to our traditions and NOT tightly enough to God’s Word and Holy Spirit’s Leadership!!!!

God may be trying to do a new work and we may be resisting it by holding on to an old way of doing things.

We get in the mindset that God cannot move in any other way so we have to do this particular thing.

*We forget that it was NOT the “Method” which had the power, it was and still is God!!!!
*When we trust in Methods-traditions-religion we will inevitably miss God and fail.
We serve a creative God who is doing new things in the world today. If we want to see God move through us, we have to seek Him. We have to find where He is working and join in.
*Isaiah 42: 9 The things I predicted have now come true.  Now I will tell you of new things  even before they begin to happen.”
*Sometimes hurts cause us to be stuck. We can’t use religion to bury your head from hurt.
*Church is not a fantasy get away. *Religion has become an escape.
** Let go of those things from the past. It will hinder your relationships.
*Heal and Move Forward… You can’t live in hurt, don’t rehash the past. No pity. *Understand God. He is the God of our present situations.
God will not leave me broken. He will restore the years we thought were lost. God will say don’t worry I’ve taken the pain. He goes back to heal yrs of brokeness. Remember no more. Walk into your future. Let the former things go. God will do a new thing in the New You!

We can’t force God into our ideal way of doing church and ministry. Instead we must Conform to the way He is calling us to do things.
The work of God is bigger than us. If we try to force Him into a box, the box will never contain Him. Let us not try to force new wine into old wineskins.

Stop complaining and start praying, stop crying and start rejoicing, stop griping and start Speaking Life, the word of life into your situations. Have FAITH and BELIEVE God.

It’s hard for us to grasp that what Jesus has done and is doing is really a new thing.
It’s not that he discredits or throws away the old. Jesus simply has Fulfilled it, allowing him to bring what it better, what is actually the fulfillment of all the old was preparing for.
It is new that a person brought to have his paralyzed body made to work again would be forgiven of sins.
BUT what good is it to make outward things work when everything flows from the inside.

*** We need Hearts that are new so that our outward actions will continue to be like Jesus’ actions.

Revelation 21:5 Then the one who sits on the throne said, “And now I make all things new!”
* Faith isn’t activated by looking back but by what God is doing Right Now.

Refuse to be overwhelmed by the circumstances and situations that you are now facing and having to deal with.  Maintain your peace and stay calm, for the Lord will certainly take you through this time with great grace.  Know that you are well able to accomplish what is before you to do even when you doubt your abilities.  Put your confidence in  the Lord.  Jesus can do what you cannot.
Mark 10:27 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

Remove every hindrance Lord- I want to be ever so close to you. I want to know you Lord. I will look to you Lord I will keep my eyes fixed on you Lord Jesus. I will not turn to my left or to my right but I will look to you and wait upon you and while I wait Lord I will pray, I will read your word, I will talk with you and I
will walk with you, I will rejoice in you. I will walk by faith believing that you Lord will teach me, you will instruct me, you Lord will guide me in what to do and how to do and when to do. I will trust you In Jesus name I pray. Amen