Invest in New Wineskins!

Invest in New Wineskins!  

God knows what we need when we need it.  On Friday October 7, I said farewell to my beloved Labrador, Samson who had been with me for 13 years.  He was truly a gift from the Lord, who knew I needed an extraordinary, faithful, joy-filled companion during some challenging years.  I was in my mid-30s when Samson came into my life, which was past the time I had planned to get married and start a family.  Each year I expected to meet my handsome prince, and gallop into the sunset with him.... and Samson.  

The cycles of hope and disappointment enlarge and wither our hearts. It is like an expanding and shrinking wine skin.  After the wear and tear of life, that heart becomes dry and brittle, and the old wine skin cannot contain new wine.  

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled and the wineskins are ruined.  But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”   (Mark 2:22)

The old wineskins represent our hearts in the past relationships containing the love given and received.   It might have been very fine wine that is rare and irreplaceable, or good wine, but....  

New wine is coming!  Be expectant!  

We are preparing for God’s best, and we need a fresh clean heart to contain the new love that is coming.   When new wine is poured into the wineskins, it expands, which is the reason a NEW wineskin is needed.   We need soft, supple, forgiving hearts - free from the past.  Offer your old wineskin to the Lord, and allow Him to do His transformational work, so that your heart can contain the new love that will bless and expand your life.  

“God, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart.... freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul, and live, really LIVE!”  (Deuteronomy 30:6-7, The Message) 

  “ And the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with all your being, that you may live....    And you shall return and obey the voice of the Lord and do all His commandments which I command you today.    And the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in every work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, of your cattle, of your land, for good; for the Lord will again delight in prospering you, as He took delight in your fathers,” (Deuteronomy 30:6-9  Amplified)

Declarations:  

Father God, we come to You today to ask for a transformation of our hearts and the hearts of other men and women called to Kingdom marriages.  Replace the old brittle wineskins, and use your loving scalpel to do a good work on our hearts. We all have a past, full of disappointments, hope deferred, love that faded, heart-break, and images of our ideal spouse, but we place it all on your operating table, the altar.

• We agree with Isaiah 43:18, and declare the Lord is doing a new thing!

• We declare that our hearts are circumcised by Your Holy Spirit. 

• Cut away the calluses of our past; and demolish the walls of protection around our hearts.

• We declare all old wine skins of the heart, and the taste for the old wine (relationships, and the image of the ideal or idols) to be left in the past.  

• We choose “not to remember the former things; nor consider the things of old.”  

• Fill our hearts, with fresh love for You Lord, our first love; and we declare that we will love You with all of our hearts, mind and being.

• We declare LIFE over areas of the hearts that are withering. Supernaturally defibrillate our hearts today!  

• We receive the NEW wine skins!  and declare that the new, expanding LOVE is coming!  

• Thank you that Your Word promises that as we love you, and follow Your commandments, You will make us abundantly prosperous in the work of our hands, and the fruit of our bodies.  

• Thank You Lord, that you delight in prospering Your children!  

• I love You Lord, my God..... 

CHEERS TO THE NEW WINE!!!


Expecting to be amazed ~


Barbara

© Barbara Nelson – 2011