Now, I read something, write it down and think on it a lot. It might be just a phrase. I talk when I read. I listen.
Today, as I am approaching Friday and the weekend exhausted and hurting and overwhelmed with all that is going to be happening in the next few days, I am thinking on "new wine in fresh wineskins" from Matthew 9.
Jesus says in verse 17, "Nor do men 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."
Old wineskins could be old ways of thinking, old ways of doing things, the routine that has been embraced as faith.
New wine could be the new work God is wanting to do in us, in our churches, in our communities.
I am going to copy and paste something from Mirror Net. Here's what part of it says (which I think is quoted from Set Our Hearts On Fire):
"Who ever heard of a stale revival? One of the primary marks of a revival is its life, its immediacy. Suddenly everybody is conscious that God is among us. Jesus, the Crucified, is risen and alive in our midst! His word is convicting our hearts, bringing us to repentance and breaking chains that have held us captive for years. But will this freshness last? After all, everything in our world seems to harden and crumble with the passing of time. Our bodies age. Our bones become brittle.
When Jesus pours new wine into fresh wineskins, as he does in every revival, he expects the wineskins to remain fresh. The new wine of his word never ages . . .
Paul's wineskin remained fresh because he knew how to participate in a daily revival. He allowed the word of his Master to renew him day by day. And our wineskins will do the same as long as we make sure they are filled only with new wine‑- Jesus' word.
But what happens to many believers is that after a while they begin mixing a bit of old wine with the new. Old wine is any religious idea or practice that we substitute for a personal, obedient relationship with Jesus. For instance, if you find yourself evaluating believers on the basis of their view of the rapture, the formula they use to baptize people or whether their approach to prayer is the same as yours, you have begun mixing old wine with the new. And that old wine (of fleshly religion) will cause your wineskin to harden. If you can look at a woman and identify the depth of her commitment to Jesus by her jewelry, you have begun mixing old wine with the new. Your wineskin is becoming brittle."