(No doubt as you go into this New Year, you've noticed many saints struggling with their attitudes, marriages, faithfulness in assembling, ability to win souls, and their relationships with each other.  What I think is the issue, in churches where the truth is believed and taught, is the need for more individual spirituality of the Biblical type.  This lesson addresses that need, I hope.)

 MORE SPIRIT-POWER NEEDED: NEW WINE FOR NEW WINESKINS (Luke 5:29)

New wine for new wineskins.  The new wine is the Holy Spirit, and our bodies, as Christians, are the new wineskins.  New wine will expand within the skin, and if the skin is old, it will burst.  It cannot contain new wine.  Only sanctified bodies that have been immersed into Christ can walk in the newness of life.  Christian living is not even remotely possible without the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ.  Only by His aid can we hope to put to death the deeds of the flesh and live.  Death stranglehold on all things pertaining to the physical realm, the fallen sinful world, will not be broken without supernatural power.  How arrogant to try and live one day without the Holy Spirit!! 

How many people, even those who have been born again, really focus on the fact to their absolute dependency on God within them to live as God would live in human form?  How seriously do we pursue getting filled up with the Holy Spirit first thing in the morning?  Do we sacrifice some snooze time sleeping in our comfy beds in order to be so filled?  Do we avidly go to our prayer times, realizing that only through such close face-time with Jesus will His Spirit fill and lead us?  We are so quick to adjust the thermostat for optimum temps in our house, but not adjust our mindset (for the ideal setting on our power position with Christ at the right hand of God) to deal with the temps (temptations) in our body, God's house! 

Life just doesn't let up!  There's no time to "marshal your forces", "gather up steam" or really get ready for it.  Life just keeps coming at you.  Health issues, financial problems, family difficulties, bad weather, bad hair days, and etc, etc, etc. Thus we must have a ready way to keep taking life as it comes and more than conquer it. Not just getting by or surviving, but actually reigning with Christ, now: over all our circumstances; over our weaknesses; over all opposing negative factors to fulfilling God's perfect will in our lives; this takes a lot more power than we have to offer.  Even being a blazing success in this world as a world-class athlete or music superstar or politician doesn't take any Spirit-power.  But winning lost souls to permanently follow and become like Jesus requires such.  And this cannot take place unless we have such spiritual lives that the reality of the salvation message is clearly transmitted, up close and personal, right where we live.  Otherwise our ordinary, sin-filled lives will give lie to our claim that an all-powerful Being can save them from death and raise them up again.  Of course, sometimes some people can eventually get by even the worst hypocrisy of the messenger if they have time to get into the Word and see for themselves the truth of Christ's claim as God's Son.  Yet our Holy Spirit empowered lives and good deeds is the real bait/advertisement to lure them in.  How can one convincingly sell a product that one won't use himself?

Let's consider two things only:  We should get filled up daily with the Holy Spirit.  And then daily, in all circumstances, glorify God with our bodies.  Maximize your unlimited potential by offering up all of yourself to Christ.  We don't need more of Him... He needs more of us!  By making ourselves available through mind renewal exercises everyday where our faith focus is on Christ in glory and our sharing in that by grace is the only sure way to be filled up with Him in our innermost being. 

Strategically plan right now on how to become available to God's Spirit within by utilizing His word without.  Absorbing His Word imprints His thoughts and values into the mind, by which His Spirit has fuel to burn within you like logs in a fireplace. Then by deliberately choosing to joyfully praise Him with heartfelt songs, and communicate with total honesty in prayers, creates a spiritual blaze from He Who is LIGHT, within your heart.  Such a man is now truly filled with the Holy Spirit.

So book an appointment tomorrow morning, setting the alarm clock: 5:45 a.m(?), and then go for it.  Have some pens, a Study Bible, prayer notebook, and a cup of java or cocoa, or a class of orange juice.  Do some light morning wake up exercises for 10 minutes, and then go to a quiet place with a minimum of distractions.  (Oh, and go to bed 30 minutes earlier.) If only 20 minutes, take it and use it for the Lord with a great, expectant attitude.  Expand it more if you can, but start there.  Add a 30 minute vigorous prayer and memory recitation walk/jog, and you will be ready for a super-positive day in the Lord after a quick cold shower (stimulates the immune system).  Eat a healthy breakfast, the most important meal of the day, and head out the door or zestfully start your normal activities by faith.  What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.  Keep setting your mind on things above.  Inch by inch it is a cinch.  With such thoughts, be a winner each day, as you deliberately ask and expect the Holy Spirit to fill and guide you to total victory!  Try this without fail for 21 days, or three weeks, and see how awesome it is to walk in the Spirit instead of by your own arm of flesh that will always fail you.

Before the new wine can fill our new skins - our cleansed bodies through our immersion into Christ - the"lens" of your spiritual eyes must be cleansed and focused in the right direction.  This primarily takes place through your own private, personal and devoted attention communion with God by  reading, meditating, memorizing, praying and sharing that Word with complete sincerity.  You must believe!  It must not be by rote or ritualistically.  The brain must be engaged.  This can be ... well.. it can be, ah, it can be some... some work.   Brain training is required.  Like any other thing, practice makes perfect.  Our weak attention spans must be extended from the typical 30 - 45 seconds (typical TV advertisement length) or whatever they are, to at least 15-30 minutes of real concentration.  As in strength training or aerobics, it is intensity that counts.  Plus a reasonable time.  20 minutes of intense training will do, if consistently done.  God knows that we have family, work, church assemblies, social obligations, and so forth.  Yet by putting Him first each day, we can reset our minds at the ideal setting - our being seated with Jesus in glory - and then effectively be led by His Spirit for the rest of the day.  By adding some helps throughout the day, like a luncheon date with God in 10 minute prayer time; a coffee break where we review our memory verses; and by listening to godly music; and engaging others in spiritual talk, especially in a Bible study with someone, we can keep that focus all day long.

Before anybody can expect to be filled with new wine, they must become new wineskins.  This means adopting a repentant, humble attitude without any pride or  clinging to this world's value system.  We must let go to let God fill us with His influence. We must die to live, and give up to get.  No idols!  No false gods! This can include dreams of success in business, politics, our pet hobby, or whatever side streets Satan would like to shunt our drive and ambition towards.  Those who want "the best of both worlds", or to have their cake and eat it too, cannot hope to be led by the Holy Spirit.  They are not properly positioned.  In such a compromised position, they cannot ever receive anything.  So says James:  The double-minded get ....nothing! (From God, as regards truly heavenly wisdom or any other heavenly commodities that only God can give.) (Jam.1:6)

Trying to live without the Lordship of Christ in all areas of our life is like trying to run race car without using all top quality parts.  Head caskets will blow.  Spark plugs won't spark perfectly at speeds of 200 mph.  Tires will blow out on dangerous curves.  The race will be lost.  The Christian life is a race, not a plod or crawl. (Heb.12:2)  It simply cannot be lived without a total retooling of ourselves into the image of Christ.  Our emotions, affections, evaluations, motivations... everything must be presented happily to Christ for His inspection and approval or dismissal.  Line them up today and invite the Lord to see what is in your heart.  He must help us eliminate the defective and strengthen the good.  The race is not to the swift but to the faithful.  An ounce of Spirit-power is worth a pound of physical human power in all things pertaining to righteousness and holiness.

This means that 10 minutes of real prayer is worth 10 days of trying harder to be good.  It means that a minute of truly believing and assimilating the truth of God's promises concerning us personally and the church corporately is worth a day trying to do something of our own invention and by our own strength.  Mental focus, on the right things, (Phil 4:8) brings a far great return than the initial investment.  Spiritual immune deficiencies will be eliminated and spiritual strength accentuated far beyond what we could ordinarily expect.  This is because we are accessing heaven and the real source of all strength, the Mighty One Himself, God.  God can do beyond what we would expect or even imagine.  Mountains move, rain stops, kings topple and the sun stands still at our personal Ajalon. Like a small seed that becomes a matured fruit, our efforts to add spirituality to our lives multiplies many times over.

In the end, anyone who really wants to live like Christ will long for His help.  And He will come to realize that the Holy Spirit is a gift.  He can be cherished or abused, used or lost.  He is Jesus in our house, our business, or life.  And He will always communicate His concern for the lost through us.  This will entail, like Abraham, that our faith will move us in a new direction than before.  We will need to make winning the lost our only main priority.  This will take real effort and willingness to put all other things on hold if necessary.  In the end, we will have our lives totally transformed - for the better! - by the need to be God's light in a lost world and His spokesman to those blinded in sin.  It will entail new associations, new hobbies, habits, speech patterns, family, life styles, and so forth.  All will change as we seek to save the lost.  Some family members will reject and hate, or ignore and disdain us.  Jobs will be lost, new ones found.  We will follow the leading of the Spirit by going where the doors open up for us to win more souls with a concentrated, collaborative effort with a team (local church) to provide lifetime follow-up for making disciples for Christ.  Those who seek to save their lives, to maintain the status quo as is, will lose them for eternity.  New wine is active, it will burst the old skins entirely.  Only man ready for absolute change, for transformation not conformation, will be able to contain the new wine of the Holy Spirit, as revealed by the radical, revolutionary teachings of Jesus Christ.

Make it your ambition to please God this year, in all things.  Make it your goal to be like Jesus.  Be filled with the Holy Spirit, and out!, the adventure begins!!!