New Wine is Here!
Several weeks ago during worship I heard the Lord speak the phrase, "The New Wine is Here". With excitement, I released this word to our church that day. After the service, an artist friend who happened to be visiting our church graciously offered to let us borrow and display a beautiful wine cork art piece she had created. The piece depicts wine being poured out and the words "New Wine" at the center of the piece. Since that day, God has continued to highlight the phrase "new wine" several times in a number of different ways.
God is preparing us to receive the new as the new wine is already beginning to flow. What is different about the new wine? What does it mean for it to be new?
The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines new as "having recently come into existence." The Free Dictionary defines "new" as "not previously experienced or encountered".
We often have a hard time grasping "new" when it pertains to spiritual realities. We might tend to think that God is just doing a redo of something already done. We may think of a makeover, or even fixer-upper. But, new means NEW! New means it has never happened before.
The wine that God is pouring out now and in the coming days has never been poured out before. It is a flavor and vintage never tasted, known, or seen on the earth before.
Amos spoke of this day in Amos 9:13, "The days are coming", declares the Lord, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains, and flow from all the hills..."
God reveals in this verse a Divine acceleration that will occur alongside the flowing of the new wine. As the new wine flows a momentum will continue to build and grow revealing the majesty and glory of our King.
I have had an urgency in my spirit for several months about the importance of preparing ourselves to receive and encounter the new. There is a preparation process in making room for the new to come. If we are enamored with or focused on the old things, we may not have eyes to see the new.
Have you noticed that when you get a new car, there are suddenly lots of other cars like it on the road? What you are experiencing is a type of "selective vision" where you tend to "see things" based on your particular frame of reference.
God is inviting us in this new season to lay down our selective vision or our previous frame of reference to prepare to see and receive the new. I have felt led to pray over my eye and ear gates for many months, consecrating them to Him afresh and asking Him to bring me into the upgrades that He has destined for this season. I don't want to waste my time looking through old lenses when He has new and upgraded ways of seeing for this new season.
I believe God is asking us to position ourselves to be ready to receive the new wine. He is our good Father who has promised to pour out His Spirit in the coming days in unprecedented ways. We are to lay down our preconceived ideas and old grids and ways of perceiving and receiving and position ourselves to receive and embrace the new. We do this with a childlike faith and trust. We believe in His goodness and that He is always faithful to fulfill His promises. We offer our hearts as His very own to make and shape as He wishes.
"Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Isa. 43: 18-19
Father, we delight to receive Your new wine! We open wide our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our mouths to drink deeply of all You are pouring out now and in the coming days. Immerse us in the river of Your love and baptize us with Your fire. Out with the old and in with the new! Pour out the New Wine in all the Earth, Lord! May every nation, tribe, and tongue drink deeply! We make way for the King!
