A New Wineskin - Flexible
The new wineskin is a word we have heard in All Nations in the last 2 years many times and I believe we are continuing to enter the new wine skin.
This symbolic parable of Jesus can be found in 3 places of the Gospel: Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, and Luke 5:37-39. All 3 authors thought that this is a very significant teaching of Jesus that it needs to be included and we need to pay attention to it.
Sometimes you can read the scripture and wonder why Jesus used the illustration of a wine skin and not a static house or a solid rock. I think one of the reasons is the attributes of a wine skin and that it is flexible. A wine skin can expand and shrink, it is not static or inflexible.
Showing flexibility is so crucial and important when we enter into the wineskin. There are 3 ways we can do this.
Every new is daunting and scary at first, but it is worth it. When we see the billion-soul harvest all over the world and the UK, let us be prepared for the wind of the spirit and being flexible to get there.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for inviting us to partner with you in advancing your Kingdom. We pray, help us to be people who are flexible with our lives, our minds and with one another so that we can go when you say go and do what you want us to do. Help us to be people who move with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
- Manuel Heinke
This symbolic parable of Jesus can be found in 3 places of the Gospel: Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, and Luke 5:37-39. All 3 authors thought that this is a very significant teaching of Jesus that it needs to be included and we need to pay attention to it.
Sometimes you can read the scripture and wonder why Jesus used the illustration of a wine skin and not a static house or a solid rock. I think one of the reasons is the attributes of a wine skin and that it is flexible. A wine skin can expand and shrink, it is not static or inflexible.
Showing flexibility is so crucial and important when we enter into the wineskin. There are 3 ways we can do this.
- Flexible with our life: Often, we have a pre-planned life, from school to job to retirement, with smaller achievements along the way, but I believe that the new wine skin asks from us to be flexible with our life. The shots are called by God and not us. When God calls us to a country, ethnic group, occupation, or any other specific mission, we need to obey and be flexible instead of saying “I am not deviating from my blueprint of life.”
- Flexible in our mind: New wine skin means it is something new. Something we don’t know. Something we may not know all the details from the start. Doing and living many years has established “highways” in our minds of “how it should be done”, but the new wine skin means to exit these highways and explore bumpy, uncomfortable, and unknown territory and it all starts in our mind.
- Flexible with one another: Everyone learns and develops at different speed. The unity of believers is the highest and most important goal in the new wine skin. We need to be flexible with other believers, listening to their viewpoints, growing with them side by side and exploring the new, together as one body.
Every new is daunting and scary at first, but it is worth it. When we see the billion-soul harvest all over the world and the UK, let us be prepared for the wind of the spirit and being flexible to get there.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for inviting us to partner with you in advancing your Kingdom. We pray, help us to be people who are flexible with our lives, our minds and with one another so that we can go when you say go and do what you want us to do. Help us to be people who move with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
- Manuel Heinke
No Comments