Luke 5:36-38 – “He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old garment.  If he does, he will have torn the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.  ³⁷ And no one pours new wine into old wineskins.  If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸ Instead new wine must be poured into new wineskins.”

As I read, prayed, and pondered today, a spirit of heaviness like a weighted blanket enveloped me.  Luke 5:36-38 poured into my mind. That is the account of old wineskins and new wine.  I remember a story I heard decades ago that opened my eyes and explained my heavy heart.

A young boy was sleeping in bed and suddenly fell out. His father heard the noise and ran to the room to check on him. The father asked what happened. The lad said, “I guess I stayed too near where I went into bed.”

The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart about the American church: We live too near where we got into the kingdom. We have stayed too near the world and live with one hand on the world and the other on the kingdom. We have failed to die to ourselves. We have become comfortable in the system, routine, ritual, and idea of Christianity rather than dying to self.

We have embraced the old wineskin and become old wineskins.  If God were to pour out the new wine of revival, renewal, and restoration, it would destroy us. God’s fresh flow transforms. Transformation stretches our wineskins, and if we are old, rigid, stiff, and stuck in routine, ritual, and form, the new wine destroys us.

The Last Day Move of God cannot be poured out upon rigid, brittle old wineskins.  It stretches us beyond imagination. It requires us to be pliable and reshapable.  It requires us to empty out of self and be filled with Him. It requires us to make a 100% commitment to God.

Multitudes today are living too near where they got in.  They love the world in the sense that they seek and embrace the gratification of the flesh.   They go to church but have never become the church.  They pray for stuff rather than for Him.  They find time for pleasure but not intercession.  They labor for wages to purchase possessions, attain status, or pleasure rather than invest themselves into pursuing God’s purposes.

Jesus said that to follow Him, we had to die to self.   Are we dead to ourselves or just dead on the inside?  If we die to ourselves, we discover that we are continuously remade and provide God a container to house His outpouring.

Today’s call is, “Come out from among them and be separate.”   The call is to give our all to Jesus totally.   The call is to allow Him to live through us. He cannot and will not share His glory with the world.   He won’t fill us with what would destroy us!  He seeks pliable hearts to inhabit and manifest Himself through.

Are we staying too near where we got in?   Do we want God’s outpouring and infilling?  Then there is only one solution: die to self, release the world, and surrender fully to Jesus!  A move is happening all over the world.   The only question is, will we be a part of it?   What kind of wineskin is our Wineskin?  Make us new, Lord. Make us new!

May we all become newly made wineskins of the Holy Spirit and receive the New Wine of God for this Last Day’s Move!