The Necessity of Renewal

The Necessity of Renwal

Luke 5:36-39 KJV - And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. [Emphasis added are mine]

Reading this recently the Lord brought to my thoughts a few things I would like to share.

His-tory is cyclical. There is in the scriptures, what a very dear brother of mine calls, a progressive repetition revelation. And each time a repetition comes around it seems to crescendo greater than the last repetition.

Life is cyclical. To grow, you must constantly be shedding the old to mature in the new. Some of us may not know this, but we shed old skin, which makes up a lot of the dust around our homes and washes off when we shower. Like a snake must shed off it's old skin as the under skin grows, so must we shed off our old skins in order to receive and move in the new things of the Lord.

Jesus spoke of this in these passages shared above. We see from verse 36 that we are instructed to not mix the old with the new. Why?

They will not be in accord or as the Jesus said the, "new agreeth not with the old".

I see a principle in these verses that instructs us that to start a new thing, you must start everything afresh. You must start new.

The remaining verses I believe bear this out and He speaks this to me today.

To be ready to move with a fresh anointing (a new thing), you must be made anew as well to walk in it. If you remain as the old without being renewed, you will not be in accord with the new and you will burst and the anointing will be lost.

If you remain as the old, you'll end up deceiving yourself into thinking that the old is better than the new.

When we were nearing our born-again experience we need to be renewed. Repentance is renewal. Baptism in water and in the Spirit is a renewing and regeneration (Titus 3:5). Every step forward to Jesus Christ necessitates a renewal of some kind.

Paul had to put away childish things (1 Cor. 13:11) as we all do in order to mature. Eph. 4:31 and I Cor. 5:13 teaches us to put away certain other things.

Renewal must be a constant, progressive and repetitious in our lives: renewal of the inward man (2 Cor. 4:16) and renewal of the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23).

This constant shedding of the old will keep us ready, willing, and malleable to move in with the new.

I remember speaking of this in the past with my wife. God comes in a way that we declare revival is at hand. Mighty moves of the Spirit are evident to those in and out of the Church. Getting caught up in the moment, as we all do, gives rise to a familiarity and comfortably of that move.

The enemy tries to put a stop it, not by stopping the move of God (because he can't!), but by deceiving us into believing, "This is it. This is all there is. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread and cannot be bettered. So lets stay in our boat and enjoy the ride."

Lulled into the false sense of security in this new move of God, we become complacent. We stop hungering, thirsting, asking, seeking, knocking - everything that God responded to to begin this move of God. After a time, we continue on in this move of God and don't even realize God departed and moved on and we never followed.

It's like a small kayak or canoe or boat in a river and it's rushing and we're seemingly out of control flowing with the river. What a thrill! But then we somehow get caught in an eddy and we start swirling around and around and we're really going nowhere. Still in the water, but not going anywhere or accomplishing anything.

Can you see this in our (your) past? We're flowing in the move of God and it's spectacular and then after awhile of enjoying the move, its seems like God has stopped. What happened? Where'd he go?! He moved and you got left behind enjoying the eddy of old things.

God is constantly moving and we need to be as the wind, "...wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

I tell you that the more we listen to men and those who set ministerial offices higher than that of listening to the Spirit of God, the more, we as a people of God will remain immature and not produce the fruit of the Spirit.

We continue to tap ourselves into men (of fame, popularity, position) rather than the true vine, the Spirit of God, and we continually get misled.

It is pertinent for all of us to find those humble ministers of God that never stop hungering and thirsting for the Living God. If we as individuals, then partners, then small groups and then communities can remain ever vigilant hungering and thirsting after the living God we will continue to be renewed for the next new thing God is doing.

We will not be left behind...