The first sermon I heard in my first Sunday Service as a Christian was about the new wine taken from the book of Matthew chapter 9. This new wine was illustrated as the new things that God is going to do in our midst and since it is a new thing, nobody will be able to tell what this new thing is about. It can be bad thing and it can be good thing but it will be a new thing…
It took me three years to understand this message through revelation from the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, there are still many who do not understand what this new wine means. Of course, this new wine is the grace of God and we are the wineskin. Hi wineskin!
When grace started to revolutionize my life, I miraculously began to understand the truth according to the knowledge of God. The veil has been taken away; and I realized that the conducts in my environment were totally contradicted to the revelation I have received. We were all constrained under the same church environment, receiving the same messages from the same pulpit, but the revelations were totally different. I was somehow Christ conscious while they were self conscious.
The condemning nature of this old wineskin (me) started to manifest by inwardly judging others, criticizing about everything like, people’s intellectual, behavior, the sermons from the pulpit and everything that are not inline with what I have received. I was eager to make clear what the truth should be but to no avail; nobody could understand me. Even my Pastor said I was diverted and not flowing with him in the same spirit. To them, I was a sheep that has gone astray; I had become a goat, and a child who eat the neighbor’s food. I was brought to the “Jerusalem Council” a few times by my immediate leaders for not being obedience.
This is why the Bible says the skins will burst and the wine will run out. I felt like I was under such a “bursting” situation because I was using the law that is inside of me to magnify the grace that I received. My Lord is always faithful. He revealed to me that I need to balance myself; just like a car with its front wheels off-balanced would cause the steering wheel to vibrate vigorously. These wheels need to be balanced by replacing the leads of the same weight. My Lord even went to the extent of causing the wheels of my car to be off balanced and shown me the truth he wanted to bring across. I needed to balance myself through the renewal of my mind. If not, this wineskin will be ruined.
The Lord affirmed me that He understood my situation and He is always pleased to help me to renew my mind. He wanted me to see from His Heart that He is gracious and full of love for every one. He is full of love for you and me. He is full of love even to those who are against His grace, or even against Him. He loved the Pharisee but not the Pharisaic spirit. He is just full of love… He loves Saul as much as Paul and He is the One who transformed Saul into Paul. He has times for all of us…
We are to continuously receiving "new wine" as we grow in grace. We need to continuously letting the Spirit to renew our minds so that we will not be an old wineskin and we can continue to contain the new wine.
Matthew 9:17b …. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment