When you wake up with a pounding headache, a ringing ear and a sore mouth, you may be tempted to be a grumpy little person — until your eyes open to notice the beauty that’s all around you – the gift of God’s grace lavished on your one single life…
I wrote this in the company of a wonderful little old lady who tapped me on the shoulder and chatted me away into the beauty of growing older with God on your side. The truth is that, your soul’s vitality isn’t dependent on your age, your circumstance, or how you feel when you wake up in the morning….because the thing is that — we all need an infilling, and a new one for every new day.
Why not come to Him just as we are, and not waiting; until all the stars line up, until the baby’s sleeping through the night, until you have the perfect solitude of an hour, until all your problems disappear, or you have the perfect moral life…why not, just for today, allow Him to simply refresh your heart, wherever you are…
Guest Post by the Husband
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” Mark 2:22
Here Jesus is explaining that the Holy Spirit is going to fill hearts that have been made new. The wineskin – our hearts, need to be destroyed first, put to death, in order that new wineskins can be formed.
What does it mean to be “new”? Just like how Paul called us “new creation”.
New things have a wonderful feel to them. They have never been touched by people, or been used or abused. Think about the new car – who doesn’t love the smell of the new car? Or the new home? Beautifully painted – untouched. Used homes have a history – people used to live there, there may be a water damaged wall, there may be deterioration of the roof and paint work. The used home may not be quite to your liking – wrong colour, wrong number of rooms, wrong configuration of the layout. A new home is made for a specific owner – designed for the needs of that one owner. A well-built new home doesn’t have maintenance issues, things aren’t going to fall apart. Everything works as intended.
Wouldn’t it be great if our hearts were like that? Completely new. There’s no history of hurt, pain, disappointment. No history of being used and abused. Designed for a specific person — Jesus. Every part of our hearts working perfectly, beating as it should. Oh how I want my heart to be configured for the Lover of my soul. I want my heart to have the right amount of space, the right shape, the right number of rooms, the right interior and exterior. Designed specifically for The Holy Spirit. Untainted, undamaged. There’s no room for cynicism, disappointment and unbelief in a new heart.
And … FRESH.
Fresh food is always better than stale food. Fresh coffee is better than stale coffee. A freshly toasted croissant is going to taste better than one toasted an hour ago. Fresh things have JUST been taken and made ready for the subject.
Notice that the whole idea of fresh is relative to the person about to consume the item. It’s fresh because the person about to use it gets it at just the right time.
I want to be fresh for God. I want to be ready for God. Not stale, not disillusioned.
It’s easy to be disillusioned and stale. I just have to read the news for 10 minutes, and it’s pretty easy to get into a “stale” state. The world is constantly in crises (according to the media), people are evil, and there’s nothing I can do. But I refuse to be stale. I want to be fresh.
Fresh and ready for the in-filling of the Spirit.
“Oh Lord – how I long to be that new, fresh wineskin for your Holy Spirit. Fill me I pray. Fill everyone reading this I pray. Let them be made new and fresh for your Spirit to fill them. Remove the disappointment, the unbelief and the disillusionment. Let them be fresh and new – designed and ready for your use. In Jesus Name, Amen.”