New Wineskins
New Wineskins
(#171 from Suffer Well Devotional Series©)
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Throughout the 16 attributes of love, you have been reminded again and again that you cannot fail at any of them and still succeed at love. You have also been shown that there is NO SUCH THING as human love. All love is from Yahweh; all else is an imposter. Each of the devotions ended with the same verses from John: I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another… (John 13:34-35)
It’s time to unveil what is “new” about this new commandment to love! In a later letter, John sheds some revelation on this “new” thing.
1 John 2:3-8
Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the LOVE of Yahweh is PERFECTED IN HIM. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
Brethren, I write NO NEW COMMANDMENT to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. [The Old commandment was the simple reminder that the LOVE of Yahweh is perfected in you when you obey Him]. Again, A NEW COMMANDMENT I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. [The new commandment is that you COULD NEVER LOVE UNTIL YAHSHUA SHOWS YOU HOW! And more so, you cannot love until His Spirit invades your mind [heart] and roots out every last bit of you (self, ego)].
“What does that look like; when will that be?” you might ask.
· When the Messiah is formed in you (Galatians 4:19)
· The Messiah in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)
· When you have the Mind of the Messiah (1 Corinthians 2:16)
Loved one, we are approaching the season when the declaration of Isaiah the prophet will be fulfilled. It is happening in you even now! “I have made you hear NEW THINGS from this time, even HIDDEN THINGS, and you did not know them. THEY ARE CREATED NOW and not from the beginning; and before this day you have not heard them, lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them.’” (Isaiah 48:6-7)
The culmination of this process is Galatians 2:20 when it is finally the Messiah who lives in you and not you who lives! No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:16-17)
Wine in the Hebrew means “vitality or spiritual essence;” and skin means “that which contains.” New wineskins means new vitality contained within! New love contained within! The Messiah formed in you; the hope of glory; the mind of the Messiah. All things will be made new loved one. All things made new!