New Day, New Year, and New Beginnings - 31 Days of Fresh StartsSample

New vs. Old Wineskins...

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins.
Luke 5:37-38 NLT

Here, Jesus communicates that we can’t keep doing the same old and familiar things we’ve been doing and expect a different result. Yes, indeed. We need a paradigm shift in how we think—repentance—or a turnover from what we may have inherited generationally, our upbringing, location, perceived abilities or inabilities, and finally—our comfort zones.

The new wine of the Holy Spirit’s overflow is always looking for willing and available vessels to pour through. That’s all He asks. Yes, we all desire to see His miraculous and divine intervention that precipitates revival, not only in ourselves but in others. Yet a problem arises when we prefer our cozy and secure ways of living that hinder His moving.

When we prefer the old and comfortable to venturing into a paradigm of something new in Jesus, my friend Wendy Nolasco likes to say, Well, at least the street signs in hell are familiar. How true. How sad.

To live in something new, whether it is a habit or behavior change, a new direction in vocation or location, no matter how big or how small, something will have to give. Literally, it will be us—we will have to take a risk. We must risk the familiar for what Jesus has in store. Risk being stretched so far that the only way we’ll make it is by total dependence upon Him. Let’s consider that maybe our thinking, training, peer group, or you name it, may be an old wineskin that needs the boot!

Let’s surrender to Jesus in a fresh new way. Placing everything on the table to unwrap the new thing He wants to do in and through us. It may not be comfortable at first—but guaranteed—it will be extraordinary and worth it.