New Wine - Day 9

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

A new heart has been promised to us, which is a new wineskin. 

My wife and I have had issues with our hearts, but hers was much more pronounced than mine. She had a hole in her heart when she was born, so she had to have heart surgery when she was about four years old. It was pretty traumatic, but it was fixed and hasn’t been an issue ever since. 

My issue was a lot less severe. It turned out not to be an issue at all. I just had a weird-shaped chest that somehow resonated in a way that made doctors think I had a hole in my heart. So, I guess I didn’t have an issue at all. 

But our hearts have been beating consistently our whole lives. So has yours. It makes sense that it is stretched, brittle, and sometimes thin. In fact, where has your heart been feeling a bit thin and brittle lately? Could you use a new one? 

This new heart holds all of the new wine we receive from Jesus when we meet him and recognize that what he is offering us is much greater than we ever thought. And we need this new heart to be flexible, with the ability to grow to the size it needs to contain all of this new wine Jesus has for us. As new creations, we have to be supple, pliable, and able to grow as God would have us grow. When we recognize this and accept the new wineskin, then we can really grow for and in God. 

When was the last time you received a new heart? Is it time for you to ask for one and to receive what has been promised? We can push this too far, but there is something that we need to recognize here. 

God wants to renew your heart, spirit, life, and everything you hope for and give you a new reason for living. Your call to follow Christ, to sit at his feet, to live in his overflow has been prepared from the very beginning of time. He had you in his thoughts when the world was created and he never stopped loving you and never will stop thinking and working toward the best for you. Whether you feel like this is true or not, you can be safe in the arms that Jesus wants to wrap around you. 

1. Where do you feel stretched or thin like you are trying to put new wine into old wineskins? 
2. Where are you struggling to release old wineskin? 
3. What does holding on to old wineskin really get you? What is it costing you? 
4. What would it look like to put new wine into your new wineskin?