A New Wineskin For The New Wine
Fresh container for living water, a picture of Jesus forming a people who can carry His lively life.
Devotional Credit: eManna, Witness Lee
Photo Credit: Unsplash
New wine does not belong in hardened containers. Jesus used that picture to show that His living life cannot be squeezed into rigid systems that prize form over fellowship. The point lands with love. He is not scolding. He is inviting. His life is active, fermenting, expanding with the joy of the Spirit. It calls for hearts and communities that can stretch with Him.
Witness Lee’s reflection helps us look beyond rituals that once served us but now limit us. He reminds us that Jesus within us is not a concept. He is a Person whose life enlarges into a people. The church is not a club we attend. It is a living body in which Jesus, our Head, shares His life through many members.
As we receive this, we rest again in our identity in Jesus. We were placed into His death and raised into His life. He is our life. From that center, our gatherings, habits, and service become fresh wineskins, flexible for His movement and full of His joy.
Thank you, Witness Lee, for stirring our affection for Jesus and for Christ’s body. Your words nudge us away from stale containers and toward the living reality of Jesus in us, and Jesus among us.
Journal Entry - Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
I live in you, and I join you to others in one body. I do not pour the life of Jesus into old patterns that cannot stretch. I give you a new heart, and I write My ways within. As you yield to Me, I shape you together with many brothers and sisters into one living body where Jesus is Head and you share one life.
You were baptized into one body by one Spirit. You are members of one another. The life of Jesus is not a private storehouse. It is a shared table. I dwell in you as the hope of glory, and I pour out rivers of living water through you. As you look to Me, I knit you together in love, I cause you to grow up into the Head who is Christ, and I supply each part so that the whole body builds itself up in love.
Do not fear change when I stretch you. The new wine of the kingdom requires fresh trust. Old containers crack under living pressure. I am not calling you back to self-effort. I am calling you to abide. Jesus is your life. Walk as those who have been raised with Him. Set your mind on things above where your life is hidden with Christ in God. In Him you are one loaf, one body, many members, yet one life. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.
Real-Life Analogy
Imagine pouring sparkling water into a flimsy paper cup that has been used too many times. The fizz is lively. The cup is brittle. Before long, the seams give way and the drink runs everywhere. Now picture a fresh, sturdy tumbler. Same water. Same bubbles. The container can flex and hold what is living and active.
This is how the Spirit of Jesus works in us and among us. His life is lively, not static. He does not ask us to harden up so we can contain Him. He gives us a new inner life and then forms us into a people who can flex together. Today, when a conversation at work needs grace that you used to force with rules, pause interiorly before the Lord and yield. You might quietly say, Lord, I trust You to express Your patient, present love through me in this moment. Then let Him carry the tone, the timing, and the words. Watch how His life holds what your old patterns could not.
Prayer Of Confidence
Father, thank You that in Jesus I am made new. Thank You that Your Spirit lives in me and has joined me to a real body, one people in Christ. I agree with You that the life of Jesus is living and abundant. I receive Your fresh wineskin life today, flexible and available for Your movement. I thank You that I already have everything needed for life and godliness in Christ. I rest in Your provision, and I welcome Your flow through me and through us, for Your glory and our shared joy in Jesus.
Scripture References for the Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture Section
Matthew 9:17. Luke 5:37-38. Ezekiel 36:26-27. Jeremiah 31:33. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13. Romans 12:5. Colossians 1:27. John 7:38-39. Colossians 2:19. Ephesians 4:15-16. John 15:1-5. Colossians 3:1-4. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. Colossians 3:15. Ephesians 1:22-23. Galatians 2:20. Romans 6:4-5. 2 Corinthians 3:6.