Luke 5:37-39 (NIV)
37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.
38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" 

 

This week's devotional we will look at an all important subject that many have missed or overlooked unintentionally, which has only fallen out to more frustration within the body of Christ. What is it that I am referring to? It is simply that many believers have settled and gotten very content in the old wine. The people of God seem to get satisfaction in recalling the moves of God of old, and thereby forfeiting what they could have today. I'm not arguing against whether people want more; I'm just pointing out where most eventually end up in their expectancy for what God would do today. 

 

I'm not sure about you, but I do not want to just hear about what is happening within some city in my country, or some other place around the world that is experiencing a move of God. I do not want to be standing at the opposite side of the river bank hearing about what is happening on the other side. I am looking to position myself to receive an outpouring in my city, better still, in my life personally so that it can affect my city. I believe we can position ourselves for this outpouring irregardless of the many churches that are perfectly content with what they have going on right now. I'm not attacking these other churches when I say this, I am just saying that I am not willing to settle for business as usual as so many will.

 

We need a divine stirring that will ignite the fire of passion for the lost within our regions through Christ, more so than what we are pretending to be doing for Him at present. We as a church body can create a number of programs to keep us busy thinking that we are doing a great thing for God. It's the presumptions of man that has him thinking that if we have a little group serving in this particular area and another group serving over there that everything is satisfactory within the camp. Yet, I believe there ought to be a great deal of preparation on the part of us all that will usher in a widespread revival around the world beyond anything ever seen. I'm not talking about a popcorn revival either when I say this. Because there are a number of places where God is doing some incredible things; yet the demise of this will eventually prove that man will want to harness it to confine it to his own location for selfish reasons that he might remain one of its main leaders as long as it lasts. I believe its termed a window of opportunity or milking it for all its worth. 

 

Over the years we have witnessed speaking in tongue revivals, healing revivals, laughing revivals, drunken revivals, and animal impersonating revivals. There has been the faith movement, the Pentecostal movement, the money cometh movement, the gold dust & ruby movement, the Word movement, the Law movement, the Shepherds movement, and even now we are currently experiencing an awesome grace movement. Whereas, I am not advocating that I am promoting or being a critic of any of these particular seasons within the churches history here within this devotional, however I do wonder if the church doesn't appear to look a little uncertain of where its true identity is. For one church will call themselves a Protestant, while another proclaims to be Pentecostal; another declares they are a nondenominational group, while another is an evangelical church. There's the Word church, the grace church, the Spirit-filled church, the Apostolic church; I think I'll stop listing these now because its wearing me out to do so. I believe you get my point here.

 

Let me draw your attention back to the opening Scriptures pertaining to the water and the wine that we read above. Everything that has to do with wine has to do with grapes. If you were to go into any wine shop around town you would not find a bottle of wine dated with this years date. Not if it is real wine. I believe God has been preparing a vintage that is about to hit the shelf. In other words, the pruning has already taken place! The vineyard has already been harvested. The grapes have been plucked from the branches and the juice has been extracted from the crushing of those same grapes. They have been

going through the fermenting stages and have been placed in the vats awaiting the proper time to serve; and let me remind my reader that it is the winemaker that determines when the wine is ready to go to the shelf.

 

God has been preparing a wine that He is about to put out on the shelf here in the Dallas and surrounding parts of the world. However, God does not put the new wine in old wineskins or else they break and the wine spills all over the ground. God will not put something in you that will cause you to break or be destroyed by it. There is a vintage wine that is ready to be poured out, but God is looking for a wineskin that can handle it. God is looking for a people that He can place His label on them and declare that what is in them is a sweet vintage wine like no other. Sadly, if the wineskin is not conditioned than the wine stands to be lost and the wineskin destroyed.

 

Let me share with you where we are in all of this: people today mostly want a different version of the old. Yet, if God decides to press us a little bit we get all bent out of shape and complain that's not how we want it. The culture to which our Scriptures speak from took old wineskins and restored them into new ones. They did this by three steps which was to immerse the skins in water, rub them with oil, and under severe cases the skin might need to be beaten with a rock to regain the elasticity of the skin. These particular steps have a great deal of symbolic significance regarding you and I as believers that have been renewed in Christ Jesus. We don't have to have a rerun of yesterday. With God every day can be a new outpouring of fresh wine. However, God will not pour His vintage wine in yesterday's skins. 

 

Psalms 104:10-15 (KJV)
10 He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. 11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. 

Now what is God saying here in this passage? I believe this Scripture is telling us that unless He had sent the rain there could have been no oil, wine or bread. God sent rain to water the fields, which watered the vineyards; and from the rain came olives to produce the oil, grapes for wine, and wheat for bread. Now some of you are probably thinking that I have gotten off topic somewhere here, but consider this for a moment. The title of this devotional is beyond the water to the wine. The water represents the life giving source to all living things on earth. Therefore, people who are wanting the wine will need to become new wineskins in order to receive that new wine. The problem that so many have is they continue to be full of the old giving no room for the new. Religion is much like that, it makes no room for the new thing that God desires to do in a person's life.

 

If you have had an incredible outpouring sometime way back in your past that you reminisce and wished that you could experience again you are still containing the same old wine of that era. The old should already be gone. You should have already drank it and shared with others. If God has put something in you 10 years ago it should be gone. Your vessel right now should be empty, and having you crying out to God to come fill you again with the new wine. Unfortunately, God can't fill you with the new when you are still full of the old! What God gave you last year was perfect for last year; what He gave you ten years ago was perfect for ten years ago; but God is saying something fresh right now and if you are going to receive it you will have to empty yourself out of that old in order to make room for the new.

 

Mary and Jesus along with His disciples were guests at a wedding in Cana. The wedding ceremony in that culture and time was considered very sacred; not like the liberal view here in America where we change partners like changing clothes. When the wine ran out at this wedding feast there was the potential disaster of embarrassing the groom and his entire family. When Mary saw what had happened she inquired of Jesus to do something. Keep in mind here that Mary and Jesus were just guests at the wedding. But when Mary said this to Jesus He spoke back to her that it was not His time to go public. Even though it was not time for Him to go public, it didn't stop Him from doing what needed to be done for that moment. When God caused the earth to blossom and bud, what did He use? Rain! What is rain? It is water!

 

When Jesus told them to fill up the jars with water it was symbolic of the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I keep thinking that if the servants had not believed Jesus to actually go and fill the jars with water there would have been no activity to His command; the need would have not been met. Therefore, it would have remained just water. But what does the Scripture tell us? That they in fact did as He said, and filled them to the brim with water. They acted on what He said to do and the miracle manifested as they took Him at His Word. The next thing He instructed them to do was take the jars to the governor of the feast and let him judge. As you probably remember the story, when the governor of the feast took a drink of that water which had now been turned to wine, he declared that it was unusual for the best to be saved until the last. I noticed something else in this for all of the leaders that might be reading this. Jesus gave it to the person in authority to judge and it was up to him to decide if it would be served.

 

As these men carried the jars of water to the governor of the feast as they were instructed by Jesus; that water could not meet the need unless it was transformed into wine. Otherwise, the wedding feast would have been a total disaster and the family of both the groom and the bridegroom would have been terribly embarrassed before their guests. Therefore, to parallel this story to a spiritual truth to which I am trying to draw out of here; if John 3:16 remains in word form only, and that word does not manifest salvation by the hearing of those words of someone lost, then the need is not met. The same thing can be said about Isaiah 53:5 which speaks that we were healed by His stripes. If that water of the word remains in word form only, than the need is not met! Everything requires faith when it comes to God and His promises.

 

Of course, holding on to the Word or filling up the jar of our heart with the Word is not a bad thing, we are instructed to do so; but to have a word that has been memorized or added to the knowledge base of what you know about the Bible does no good for anyone, and the need will remain unmet. In other words, if all we have is a book full of words and no results to what those words declare; we are not going to be any different than anyone else. I think there is much revelation in the fact that Jesus' first miracle had to do with water turned to wine, and His last sermon which had to do with grapes. Something is coming and most are unaware of it. It must be prepared for, otherwise, we will not be able to contain it or take part in it. The church that I pastor is filled with as much ritualistic activities as any church in town and if God begins to do something outside of the box people tend to get nervous. We must break this lockin thinking that does not allow God to move.

 

It's much like the many people you find in church that have this internal clock in them and when it goes off they start getting edgy. Folks wonder why so many pastors are so mindful of the clock in their services, its because those alarms can be heard going off. Some of the people have a certain capacity that they can receive and if you go beyond that capacity they want you to wrap things up or else they cop an attitude. Yet, these same people don't want 2011 to be like it was in 2010, or 2009, or 2008. These folks ought not to pray that prayer then; because if they do the Lord will require them to be immersed in the water of the Word, rubbed down with the oil of the anointing, and if they remain stubborn still, there might even have to be a little pressing of the stone against the flesh to soften them up where their skins can hold the new wine. In other words, if you really want it, than He will have to get your wineskin prepared for it! That require your yieldness.You can't expect things to be different than what you have been experiencing if you are still in love with the old things that have come and gone. 

 

To have a prophetic house without a prophetic manifestation is like a jar of water that never turns to wine. Hearts can't be merry drinking just the water; God's Word has a divine infusion to it, but the only way you will get to it, is through faith that its been changed into what it says it is. Otherwise, it will just be a good sounding word, but little evidence that its real. I believe this is where a great deal of believers are camped out and why so many are falling away or in constant search of the next new thing, because they are so discontent with just the water. The Bible teaches us that hope deferred makes the heart sick; but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life! I believe this is exactly why so many are vagabonds roaming around town as if they do not know where they are going in this life. Purposeless people have no true course in life other than what they can beg for from others. That will never promote a right perspective on life. 

 

God is looking for a people that will prepare themselves for what is coming, you will need to have the elasticity in your wineskin; because the things of God always stretch us beyond what was, into what is to be! It's a daily process of preparation on our part that should not end until the desired blessing has arrived. Have you received so many prophecies to date that you have gotten used to the water and have now forgotten the taste of wine? All of us have these monumental experiences of sometime back where God did something incredible in our life; that to think on it, is to re-live the sweetness of its taste again within the memory. It is here, where it has become the demise of many Christians; because for them the best was back then and everything today has just gotten bitter and sour leaving many feeling their hope deferred where now they feel sick inside. We need to "believe" on the water of the Word without compromise, and watch it change into that which will satisfy and make the heart merry.

 

Psalms 51:10-13 (KJV)
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.