Why Would We Put New Wine into Old Wineskins?

 "And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” 

Mark 2:22

When we think of a grape vine, we know that it bears grapes. And what is the process of the grape? We could eat it as is, off of the vine, or we can press it to make juice, or we can make sweet wine.

To create wine, first you would need to grow the grapes, then harvest, crush, process, ferment, pressurize, filter...it’s a meticulous process!

The best wine is aged so you also need to add patience to the list of steps. Once you are done with this process, wouldn’t you want to protect this wine you just made?

Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5).

When we bear fruit, we bear these grapes and God Himself takes the time to process us. Jesus states, "Why would we put new wine into old wineskins?"

Why would we take the chance of losing the wine He worked so patiently to make?

An old wineskin would break as soon as the new wine is poured in as the weight of this new wine would be too much for the old.

A new wineskin can bear the weight by stretching and making room for it. Often God takes the time to prepare us for a new glory, a new anointing, but there are things we need to renew within ourselves in order to be able to contain it.

Because when we are stretched under the new thing in which God is trying to pour into us, we need to be able to hold it! But here is the beautiful thing: an old wine skin was once new. It was just used to the capacity it could hold, so this new wine, or new thing God is doing in you, it needs a new wineskin.

We find ourselves praying and asking God for more. And there may be times where God shows us or tells us the next season we are headed into or gives us a vision of what our future may hold but we get so impatient that we want it now.

We think we can handle it now.

But God is such a gentle Father and He is saying, "Be patient as I am with you. At this current level, you can’t handle it. I don’t want to break you, I want to stretch you. I want to fill you with what you can hold, I want to prepare you for what it will take."

Patiently waiting on the new,

Janice Crespo

Soul of Worship Ministry Team Leader