A Challenge To Aim For Maturity

Habukkuk 2:14 tells us,

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” 

If we understand the context of this scripture, this is an end-time prophetic word.

I think about how the oceans cover 71% of the planet, and yet 80% of the oceans are still the least explored. I don't know about you, but I love watching Shark Week on Discovery Channel. I enjoy watching marine biologists search after undiscovered territory in the ocean. There are so many species that are undiscovered!

One of Brent’s friends had a vision of Jesus on an ocean shore of crystal blue sand. Jesus held a hand full of sand in one hand, and He held one grain of sand in the other. Jesus told the young man that His hand full of sand is the knowledge of God that is available to man. But the grain of sand Jesus held in His other hand, is what man has tapped into!   Isn't that just incredible to think about!

What is your wineskin able to hold? 

“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

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.” Matt. 9:17

Courtesy of The Abbey Mission

How can we steward the new wine of God’s glory if our wineskin is not prepared for it? If there is not a new wineskin to hold new wine, Jesus said the wine will spill and the wineskin will burst and  both would be rendered useless! One thought on this, the wineskin can be us. You. And Me. Our mindsets, belief systems and views of God (whether accurate or not). How do our concepts of God and His character influence what we expect from Him and how we receive from Him?

What we believe about God impacts what we believe about our identity, and what we believe about our identity will impact how we live our lives.

One example of this was when God showed me that revival and spiritual renewal would and could take place outside of the walls of the church, not in them. And I am not saying it won't happen at all (in the church), but there has been a common belief that the Christian must invite the unbeliever to church and let the Pastor do the job of saving the person or preaching the gospel. The belief that, "If I can just get them in the church, maybe they would experience God." But what about the fact that YOU (if you're a believer) are the temple of the Holy Spirit? YOU carry the Living God, and YOU very well could be the next encounter they have with Jesus!! How you carry yourself, how you listen to the Spirit and obey and what you do in your daily life could very well be the impact someone needs to experience God and know He is real!

Through a holy frustration, I was seeing the same people every week at church-Christians ministering to Christians, but hardly any lost people getting saved. Maybe that is the missional part of me that burns for the lost to be saved, but God began a stirring in my heart that I couldn't become a spiritual glutton. I became frustrated seeing Christian's prophesying to Christians. Christians praying for healing over each other. Christians ministering among Christians and not Christian's ministering to the lost or truly discipling unto maturity! And please don't get me wrong, the former is necessary and helpful. But at what point should Christians be mature enough to stop needing the ministering and start doing the ministering? I am not talking necessarily, about formal ministry in which you as a believer, need to be ordained. Not everyone is called to that, but every believer is called to the Great Commission.

During the season that Brent and our family went to minister on the road, it was very exciting how many people we were able to minister to and share the gospel with! It was invigorating! The responses we received from people who formally had bad experiences with "the church", shared a differing view of God after we interacted with them. We provided a sense of hope that not all Christians are hypocrites, that God still loves them even if they don't go to church (yet ;) ) and a renewed sense that Jesus wants their hearts most of all!! There were many people we came in contact with and make friends with, that we were able to minister to. By the obedience of the Holy Spirit, we met practical needs for people and families at campgrounds, but also through radical spontaneous generosity or planned giving when God told us to bless people. There were many people we spoke with, that said they haven't been to church in years because they haven't seen true Christianity, but when they had interactions with us they said they felt God. I had one woman constantly trembling when she was in my presence. Every time I saw her and worked with her, she ended up repenting and crying and we always ended our visits in prayer. It was amazing, and in the end after a few weeks of interactions, she rededicated her heart to the Lord! It was the most beautiful thing ever! There was another young woman my husband and I did something for that the Holy Spirit told us to do, she later texted us that she's never had a stranger show that kind of love to her before, and she knew that God heard her prayers when she met us because she knew no average person would do such a thing.

I don't say any of these things to boast on ourselves, but there were a lot of old mindsets God had to break for us to get to the point that we were willing to sell everything and GO. And that missional mindset, the think outside the box- look for God opportunities every where you go mindset, I still carry that with me even though we aren't on the road anymore. There were a lot of lessons we learned along the way that would lead us to where we are now. I boast in the Lord to encourage YOU. What are you holding back? What wineskin are you right now? Is God wanting to pour new wine? Will your wineskin burst if your not ready for what He wants to pour out? Let Him give you a new wineskin if you need it.

I believe God is inviting his people into a maturing process. There is an invitation to go deeper with the Holy Spirit and in the knowledge of God. You don’t have to go deeper if you don’t want to. But there are only some things we will know, see and understand as we mature in our walk with God.

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Corinthians 2:14

Later on in the same book, Paul told the Corinthians, "By now, you ought to be on meat, but I am still feeding you milk." (paraphrase)

1 Cor. 3:2 “Brothers, I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to worldly, even as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with solid food. For to this day you were not able to endure it. Nor, are you able now, for you are still worldly. Since there is envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not worldly and behaving as mere men?”

Hebrews 5:12 “For though by now you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and have come to need milk rather than solid food. Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby. But solid food belongs to those who are mature, for those who through practice have powers of discernment that are trained to distinguish good from evil.”

I think we will really begin to see revival happenings, when we realize that revival must begin in us. Revival will break out, when you let it break into you. 

I read a prophetic word that said, “The Body of Christ needs stature and strength to begin walking in the next level of commissioning and deposit of anointing He wants to release. A new level of destiny requires that us to ask the Lord, search me, try me. It demands that we walk not by our ability but the very character and stature of Christ as mature sons and daughters." 

That was confirmation to me that we are in a maturing season and God is preparing the capacity of His people, so that we can contain and steward, all of what He desires to bring to us.

Prayer: Dear God, I ask that you would prepare my wineskin to contain all that you have for me in this next season of outpouring. Prepare my heart. Align me with you and give me a hunger and a thirst to go deeper with you than I have ever gone before. Mature my character to match the anointing you want to release into my life. In Jesus name, Amen.