Am I trying to pour the Spirit of Christ (new wine) back into any of my old ways or legalistic religion (old wineskins)?

36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'"

INSIGHT:   In this parable Jesus and His Spirit are the "new wine" and the Old Covenant Law of Moses are the "old wineskins".  Jesus is saying first that we can't pour His Spirit into dead legalistic religion.  But this also implies that we can't go back to our old ways and attitudes, or the Spirit of Christ will be grieved.   This would be the same as turning away or shipwrecking our faith (Heb 6:4-6, 1 Tim 1:19, 6:10, 21, 2 Tim 2:18).

It was still early in the divorce from my first unfaithful spouse, and it had only been six weeks since I moved away from the children in FL, and back into my parents’ house in AL.  I was getting very anxious to get my life back in order.  One day a friend said, “Michael, I don’t think you are going to be happy until you are back out there doing your sales training and motivational speaking.”  I started thinking she was right and I began seeing that as my way out of this wilderness. I started planning but then said to myself, “Maybe you should check with God first before you just move forward.”  I had been seeing the number 222 for days but didn’t know if it meant something. On June 28, 2011, I was sitting on the porch praying about this and I got up to get some water.  As I passed by the digital clock, it was 2:22pm.  I stopped in my tracks and said, “Ok, God, what does this mean…are you trying to tell me something?” I sensed in my spirit it was a Scripture, so I started in Matthew.  I got to Mark 2:22, the same teaching as today, and as I read it, the Holy Spirit applied the Living Word specifically to my situation, and I heard in my spirit, “We are not going to take the new wine of Christ in your heart and pour it back into the old wineskins of sales training or motivational speaking.” 

He was letting me know that part of my life was over.  I had now put my hand to the plow and there was no turning back (Lk 9:62).  God was no longer just warning me of trouble with 666’s, He was now using another number to point me to a specific verse of His guidance, which would forever change the direction of my life.  At first, my flesh didn’t like the message because this was going to be the sacrifice of a 20-year career, but I was amazed by receiving such specific guidance directly from His living word.  (Ps 25:12, 32:8, Jn 10:4)

What if I did not have the faith to believe God was speaking to me through this “burning bush”? Imagine a movie scene of me having this internal dialogue: “I can’t find this in the Bible and Google says it’s numerology, I think this is Satan trying to deceive me.” Suddenly there is a loud POOF…the John 7:17 book and the website disappears, Trusting God in the Wilderness, the 777 day divorce, the prophetic warnings, the miraculous marriage in India, the lessons of the apostate bride,  my sharing in the sufferings and persecutions of my Lord, picking up Tyler, the tiny house miracle, the $44k miracle, God delivering me from every evil attack in court, 12 years of God providing my finances by faith alone, God’s miraculous timing of every event, all the blessings, Lisa in my arms, Kealey baptized in Cocoa Beach, our land in NZ, 12 million views on YT, thousands of “my eyes have been opened” testimonials, the suicide preventions, men and women all over the world freed from their spiritually dead spouses, thousands now hating their sin and living in the obedience which comes by faith, now hearing God speak and no longer on track to hear, “Flee from me, I never knew you.” POOF…it is all gone…none of it ever happened, and I’m still just a sales trainer, keeping people in bondage to the god of Mammon, because I was afraid and I doubted God was speaking to me!  Let that sink in!

This entire ministry resulted because God did exactly what it says in Job 33:14, He spoke to me in “another” way and the Holy Spirit gave me the inner witness to obey.  But only a few can believe it. (Mat 6:5-6)