On Wineskins 07-17-2023

A dear brother asked me a question yesterday that I’ve been pondering ever since.  He has operated in a strong prophetic gifting for many years.  But, since coming into a deeper awareness of grace, he has been challenged by how the gift fits in alongside his improved understanding of our in-Christ union with Father, Son, and Spirit.   And with so much of what passes for prophetic ministry being rooted in a mindset of separation, it’s a great question to consider.  


With the lavish new wine of pure grace springing forth like an oasis in a dry desert, it can be quite tempting to try and consolidate this into old paradigms.  After all, that always worked before, ‘don’t reinvent the wheel’, and ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’!  But not so with this new awareness.  It refuses to bend itself to our preconceptions nor will it modulate itself or round its edges to fit the slot in which we attempt to file it away amidst our impressive collection of theologies, doctrines, programs, and sundry other ‘spiritual things’.  Nope.  Because it is something entirely new to our awareness, the experience we’ve had with less mature variations will prove meaningless.  Only in laying down each and every one of our methods, formulas, and habits can we discover the new-and-improved wineskin that has been prepared for us all along.  


For you see, an attribute of God is that He always sends the provision before the need.  In forming all that is, He set forth everything that was necessary to sustain human life and only then brought forth mankind on the sixth, and final, day of active creation (for in the seventh day, He rested).  Likewise, before releasing ‘new wine’, He first fashions a suitable new wineskin  capable of stewarding it. 


Beloved, we are the wineskin!  We have been perfectly fashioned in advance of each wellspring of revelation.  But like a cluttered house, we cannot appreciate the new until we first make room and surrender the old.  


Let me make this plain: What worked before will not work now.  It’s not just our understanding that has shifted, but our methods, the ‘wineskins’ through which we steward the ‘wine’, have as well.  Throw the playbook away.  Discard your well-worn operating manual.  Behold, He does a new thing, both in-and-through you! 


So what then exactly will these new methods look like?  I honestly don’t know.  But what I am certain of is that they will look like Love Himself and this must be gentle, kind, patient, encouraging, and rejoicing! 



————————————-


Passages to Ponder:


Matthew 9:17 (BSB)

“Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” - Jesus 


Philippians 4:8 (NASB95)

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.


1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (NASB95)

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails…


noexceptionsministries.org 




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