Matthew 9: 14-17
This passage contextually is dealing with fasting but beyond the surface I believe there is so much more. Part of the more I believe is in there is a teaching on paradigms.
Jesus says, “You can’t put new wine in an old bottle”. New wine is going to go through changes, it is going to aerate, ferment, within the skin it will develop pressure and because the old wine skin is no longer malleable, it is no longer flexible the pressure causes a problems, it will bust and both are wasted. New wine has to be placed in something flexible, malleable, something that can handle the changes and pressures that will take place through the stages, something that has the ability to make adjustments.
Jesus is telling them that the problem they were having with Him is that He came to bring new wine but their religious framework of thinking is so antiquated and outdated that it would burst them to receive what He was getting ready to say and do. There is no pouring without a new paradigm. The only way to experience new wine and not burst is to change the wineskin, or to change the way you think.
Every year during this time there are always lots of decrees and proclamations made. I remember that I was suppose to “Get more in 04”, “Come alive in 05”, “Get it fixed in 06”, “Manifesting heaven in 07”, Go through the gate in 08”, etc...
What happens is that many people gather together, they talk, they even pray the new things being said, they are hungry, ready to receive a new slogan in hopes that this year will truly be different than the one they just went through yet 1 month, 2 months into the new year they discover that they still needed more in 04, nothing came alive in 05, it didn’t get fixed in 06 and we look bewildered and disappointed that these things did not come to pass as we had thought.
For many it is because they have faith in the wrong thing. Faith cannot be in a watch night service, stroke of the clock, or the latest slogan it has to be in the Lord whom the bible says, “daily loadeth us with benefits”, every day is an opportunity from the Lord if we would sieze it, if we would maximize the moment and stop waiting for a certain day, time always placing in our future that which God has for us today by the renewing of our mind!
There is no need of us having a new year, with a new slogan if were going to go into it with an old mindset. If it is going to change its not because of a calendar day or a clock, if your going to come out from where you have been and experience something new, you have to come out head first! True Resolve will come from true repentance which is a change of mind. If He can get our heads out everything else will follow!
