Happy Valentine's Day
Oh, Happy & Most Romantic of Days, the day which inspires the sharing, even the writing, of poems, songs, and all manner of loveliness... I am no less swayed by you today than ever I've been in more connected times - in fact, I may be even more so today. How can this be the best Valentine's Day yet? How could I have spent every one I've been aware of so far reaching, longing, settling for something when all along THIS was waiting, so patiently, for my attention & delight? For today we have yet another chapter in the book that is being written in my life - the book I've so long feared - of this place I'd have always called "empty" - but which turns more full than anything I've ever known.
Mark 2:22
No one, least of all the God of Heaven, pours this new wine into old wineskins. If He did, the wine would burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins would be ruined. The wine of this Valentine's day - the wine of a right relationship to my God & to myself, the wine of passion for the things I was made to be passionate about, the wine of focus and accomplishment, and even the wine of grace when focus & accomplishment are lacking - this wine would have positively burst through the skins of Valentine's Days past. Both this delicious wine, and the old wineskin which would try to hold it would have been ruined.
No, He pours new wine into new wineskins. Even when it means that the old wine is poured out - emptied out to the last painful drop - and the old wineskin burnt on the altar of His will. Even as He caused me to be poured out, even when it burned a purging fire, even when it was everything I ever feared, even then - especially then - He drew closer to me than I ever knew possible, and a work which should have begun the day I entered into His grace - a work which my stubborn heart and stiff neck precluded for so long - this work began to happen:
Ezekiel 11:17-20
'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again. They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."
A new heart - undivided. Not the old dry cracked one which was full of the old wine - the old wine of vile images & detestable idols, of dysfunction and fear of abandonment & an addictive personality. No - new wine. The wine of this day, pouring slowly into a heart that is being healed & reshaped by His own hand.
Jeremiah 18:4 - For the pot He was shaping from the clay was marred in His hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to Him
Malachi 3:3-4 - He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
Ephesians 5:18 - Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Phillippians 1:6 - being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Jude vv 24-25 - To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Amen. And Happy Valentine's Day.
With Love,
JennySue
Mark 2:22
No one, least of all the God of Heaven, pours this new wine into old wineskins. If He did, the wine would burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins would be ruined. The wine of this Valentine's day - the wine of a right relationship to my God & to myself, the wine of passion for the things I was made to be passionate about, the wine of focus and accomplishment, and even the wine of grace when focus & accomplishment are lacking - this wine would have positively burst through the skins of Valentine's Days past. Both this delicious wine, and the old wineskin which would try to hold it would have been ruined.
No, He pours new wine into new wineskins. Even when it means that the old wine is poured out - emptied out to the last painful drop - and the old wineskin burnt on the altar of His will. Even as He caused me to be poured out, even when it burned a purging fire, even when it was everything I ever feared, even then - especially then - He drew closer to me than I ever knew possible, and a work which should have begun the day I entered into His grace - a work which my stubborn heart and stiff neck precluded for so long - this work began to happen:
Ezekiel 11:17-20
'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again. They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."
A new heart - undivided. Not the old dry cracked one which was full of the old wine - the old wine of vile images & detestable idols, of dysfunction and fear of abandonment & an addictive personality. No - new wine. The wine of this day, pouring slowly into a heart that is being healed & reshaped by His own hand.
Jeremiah 18:4 - For the pot He was shaping from the clay was marred in His hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to Him
Malachi 3:3-4 - He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
Ephesians 5:18 - Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Phillippians 1:6 - being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Jude vv 24-25 - To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Amen. And Happy Valentine's Day.
With Love,
JennySue
posted by JennW7773 | 7:24 PM
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