New Wine

But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” Acts 2:13 (ESV)

I read the account of the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 this morning and the verse above stuck out like a sore thumb, and I know why. Remember when Jesus asked if new wine should be poured into old wineskins? That portion of scripture always intrigues me anytime I read it:

Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:14-17

Jesus, knowing that his disciples at that time were not ready for the full experience of the spiritual, indirectly referred to them as old wineskins that new wine couldn’t be poured into. But He knew that the time would come when they would be transformed into new wineskins, after they had walked diligently with Him and seen Him fulfil all that was written about Him; only when they understood who He really is and why He came would they be able to accommodate the full measure of new wine – The Holy Spirit. And the day came when, after they had become new wineskins, the new wine was poured.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:1-4

New Wineskins with New Wine

So were those who mocked them saying they were drunk and filled with new wine wrong?

Physically speaking, of course, they were, because the disciples weren’t drunk. But what about in the spirit? Those who mocked them would never have realised that they were witnessing and confirming the fulfilled promise of Jesus to fill His followers with something new: the disciples were indeed filled with new wine!

I think about this season of intentionality and realise how much God desires to make me a new wineskin that will accommodate all the new wine He wants to fill me with. Old habits, old beliefs, old fears, old securities and insecurities, old anointing, even old grace and mercies (wonder why His mercies are new every morning), every old thing must give way for the new, and I must be intentional about it.

. . . to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

Jesus, make new wine out of me!