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 “No man also having drunk old wine immediately desires new: for he says, ‘The old is better.’” Luke 5:39

The traditions, concepts, preconceptions, misconceptions, and paradigms that people hold in their minds and hearts are very strong indeed.  I have noticed that the strongest ones are the ones dealing with religion.  When you try and get people to see new truths, deeper truths, or just simply the truth…their hearts and minds are blinded to this.  And depending on who they are and their personal history they will have on one of two veils (some people wear both veils).  They will have a veil on their mind that closes their minds to the word.  They can only hear or see what goes with their own personal set of paradigms.  Some have the veil on their hearts; and these are the hardest to get through.  The veil on the mind can be pulled away, but the veil on the heart has to be taken away.  It completely binds and blinds a man to anything of spiritual strength dealing with God’s righteous requirements of them according to His word.  I see it everywhere.

At first I struggled with it (especially in the older Christian generation).  As I began to seek the Lord on it for answers, He caused me to see and to understand some reasons behind this phenomenon.  People put so much trust in their teachings that they’ve heard (whether good or bad) that it seems that they cannot hear the Spirit speaking to them today.  God is always speaking to us to come “a little further into the garden” (Luke 22:41).  It seems as if they have put on armor against God’s word and what His word requires from them.  They put so much trust in their armor that they fail to become a little child again and believe.  They are so proud of the principles of their faith that the God of their faith has been pushed out.

It’s because the word of God has deep requirements concerning our living, our conduct, and our believing His word.  This touches the conscience of man, and the moment, the very moment, a man’s conscience is touched he is brought to a spiritual crossroads (a decision if you will) to believe and to change.  A man’s conscience is his adversary in Matthew 5:25¹ (Paul brings out this truth most beautifully in Romans 2:15²).  I have learned from God’s word in the last year to go after a man’s conscience immediately when ministering to him, because it is at this place that God’s word begins to work and to separate the soul from the spirit according to Hebrews 4:12³.

God is pouring out new wine in these last days.  It has a different flavor.  It has a better taste.  The making of the new wine, the dispensing of the new wine, and the “bottling” of the new wine began 2,000 years ago.  The new wine is the New Testament.  And if someone wants to live under the law in any area, then they are still drinking the old wine…which is the law.  If any man desires to please God with anything other than faith, he is drinking old wine.  If any man desires to work or earn any part of God’s favor or grace, he is drinking old wine.  And the reason he is drinking old wine is because his wineskin (his heart, and his mind) has not been renewed to the word of God.  You cannot patch an old wineskin.  You have to be given a completely new wineskin.  According to the word of God, your heart is the wineskin.  And here we are…back to the heart again.

I’ve said it a thousand times and I’m going to say it 10,000 more times…it’s a heart issue with God.  It’s all He’s concerned with, and has ever been concerned with.  “My son, give me your heart” He said in Proverbs 23:26.  He didn’t say, “Give me your time” or “Give me your money” or “Give me your body”…because if He has your heart then He has everything else by default.  For where a man’s treasure is, there shall his heart be also.

It’s very hard for some to drink new wine “immediately“ because they are so used to the taste of the old.  A man has to acquire a taste for something new.  Spiritual things are an acquired taste.  It comes from much “drinking” and this “drinking” is just simply communing with the great God and Savior Jesus Christ. The more tender and teachable your heart, the quicker this divine exchange can take place.  God is trying to download kingdom technology and dynamics into the hearts of those who can just simply lay everything aside and believe again.  Many are still struggling over mere words and what they mean and miss the entire theme of the book.  Just believe again.  Lay it all down, throw it all away, seek after Life; and believe again as a little child.

Let us go on into perfection and leave all these silly childish ways and beliefs behind.  Life, Light, and Love is all that really matters in the end.  Did you seek after Life (or just mere knowledge), did you embrace Light (or did the veil cover up the candle…your soul), and did you really Love Him with ALL your heart, soul, mind, and strength?  Only you know, and only the Lord really knows.

Like Paul, this gospel is becoming “my gospel” (Romans 2:16⁴ & 2^nd Timothy 2:8⁵); it’s becoming very personal to me.  I am coming to understand what it means to be entrusted with the stewardship of it.  I’ve been “drinking” the new wine; and the new wine makes everything new.  You’ll see everything differently.  Understanding begins to come from within.  Seeing comes from within and not from any external source.  A spiritual authority, and assurance from within begins to develop.  Some will, and do, mistake this for pride; just as they said to the Lord Himself.  In the book of John, they said He was proud – making Himself out to be somebody.  When in all actuality all that He was doing was walking in kingdom authority and power.  And the proof of it was in His living (see John 8:46⁶ & Matthew 9:2-6⁷).

Many are waiting for a “word from the Lord” before they do anything.  I have news for you…the “word’ has already come.  It’s in the four gospels.  T.L. Osbourne once said that he never received any great word or revelation, he just simply read in the gospels “go ye into all the world⁸.” And he said that he just believed what it said.  See his book entitled: The Gospel According to T.L & Daisy.

In summary…be a man of two worlds.  Live and walk in that one out there, and function and love in this one here.  Let the gospel become “your gospel” and let your living become blameless as His was.  Then, and only then will authority and power begin to be yours for the blessing of others.  Don’t be one of the many (the majority) who just talk of these things but yet never enter into the fullness of it; and also don’t live your life out and die never having seen or experienced the power of God in your life.  I’ve met men who because of their religious teachings have never cast out devils or laid hands on the sick or walked in the deep glories of God.  They are very content where they are.  It’s very sad…downright heartbreaking.  But this is the norm it seems.  They have an escapism mentality.  They just want to “go to heaven.”  They’re more concerned with the house God lives in than the God who built the house.  Jesus said that He was going back to the Father and that He was going back to where He was before He came down.  And just where did He say He was before He came down?  Last time I checked, He said He was in the bosom of the Father.  Hmmmm…just a thought.  Just let a man speak for a few minutes and you’ll see exactly where he is at.  They forget that in Amos 5:18 God rebukes men for desiring the day of the Lord to come.  There’s a difference between Jesus coming and His Father coming.  When the Lord comes HIs saints will be blessed – but when the Father comes great judgement is following with Him and the earth and its inhabitants are cursed.

Don’t you want more?  Aren’t you hungry for more?   Don’t you want to see God use you to heal others, bless others, and win others for the Lord?   Then rise up, be a salmon, swim upstream, beat the bears at their own game on their own territory, and then sow your life away so that these truths can continue on with the generation following.  The sum of what I am saying is this: like David in Acts 13:36, let us also “serve our generation” with compassion, empathy, and great conviction.

Mark 1:22-25: “They were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. JUST THEN there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” And Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!”

I texted the following text to a friend of mine just this last Saturday while I was in Kansas City: “We need to be teaching as ones who have authority!!! And not as the scribes (religious ones of our day) see Mark 1:22.  When we teach with authority (and revelation) expect to be persecuted…and by those who know you!!  When you teach by revelation and not by knowledge, the religious devils are going to come out of the woodwork.  My heart has truly been enlarged to see this deep truth of speaking from revelation and NOT from personal study or knowledge.  This is from the wrong tree.  Revelation comes from inspiration, whereas knowledge (from what we’ve read or heard with our natural ear) comes from personal works.  When did the devil in the synagogue (church) cry out?  When His (Jesus’) authority was RECOGNIZED!!  See Mark 1:23 and notice the first two words…”Just then”.  This follows the previous verse of them seeing, speaking, acknowledging, and recognizing His authority.  This is a very deep truth indeed.  We have to see that authority is given, it is not earned.  God’s blessing of authority on our lives is His stamp of approval on our living.  And His authority is to back up His word (to prove His word true).  Jesus PROVED that He had authority on earth to forgive sins by doing what?  He healed the paralytic.  And scripture bears out by His own words that he did this to prove His authority.  I’m really beginning to understand that healing and casting out devils only has a little bit to do with gift or grace…it has everything to do with authority.”

See you on the front lines

1. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.
2. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.
3. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
4. On that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
5. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel.
6. Which one of you convicts me of sin?
7. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”  And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
8. Mark 16:15