New Wine, Anyone?

 

“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” - Matthew 9: 16-17 KJV

This is Jesus talking, so it must be important. Right?

I recall thinking, “Okay, what is this supposed to mean? Why is this even in the Bible?”

Enter my friend, Kaye Lamkin. She was expounding on the Spirit of Might the other day. She understands the Bible on a level few will see, though it’s available to all of us. In the midst of her thoughts, she mentioned something that grabbed my attention like a hook snags in the unsuspecting mouth of a hungry fish. The powerful Fisher of men, Himself, was reeling me in.

I have friends who don’t yet know Jesus. Some may have professed to be a Christian at one point in their lives, but they simple consider Christianity another religion. They may even have read the Bible, but they don’t understand what they’ve read. If you don’t understand the Bible, it’s not your fault.

When we’re born into this world, we’re born into a body of flesh, with a carnal mind. We’ll keep living in that flesh until we leave this world, but that carnal mind cannot comprehend the things of God.

Is a carnal mind a bad thing? No. It simply means that our minds perceive what’s around us using only our five senses. If we can touch something, we know if it’s soft. If we can hear a song, we know whether we find it pleasant or not, etc.

Try as we may to understand God’s Word, we cannot comprehend His love letter to us until we have His Spirit living inside of us. The presence of His Spirit unfolds His Word.

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” – 1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV

That’s the reason we need to be born again. When we turn our back on a sinful way of living and ask Jesus to come into our heart and clean us up, we can have eternal life with Him. Once we receive His Spirit (our choice), then we can BEGIN to understand His love for us. We do not instantly become perfect, but we are perfected in Him.

That’s what the Bible is all about, despite what may feel like a roundabout way of getting to that message.

In Romans 12:1-2, we read that God doesn’t want us to live our lives with the mere capabilities of our natural, carnal mind and the strength of our flesh. He wants to empower us with His power and might. He wants us to submit our bodies to Him, and to renew our minds by spending time with Him, and in His Word.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:1-2 ESV

The more we learn of His love for us, the more we’ll want that love, and the more we’ll pursue knowing Him intimately; for ourselves.

But what does this have to do with new wine and old wineskins?

God can’t pour His Spirit (new wine) into our old way of thinking (our old wineskin) so, at our invitation, He creates a NEW wineskin. We become an entirely new creation! One capable of containing His Spirit and receiving His love!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV  

Simply put, without Jesus, we cannot become the temple of the Holy Spirit, He’s just too big – too much.