Don't Sour The New Wine

The Lord is saying to us, "Don't let sour grapes spoil the new wine".

On hearing this I realised we likely haven't considered the fact that we could spoil or sour the new wine of the Spirit of God He is pouring out for us in this era. I think there's still a large assumption in the body of Christ that the new wine will happen to us, rather than through each us. If we can understand that the new wine, the outpouring of the Spirit of God in fresh ways, requires our participation and partnership where the Holy Spirit's transformative power in our life then flows out into the world around us - with intentionality, then we can also understand the word of the Lord on this matter.

How do we spoil the wine and what are the sour grapes? In viticulture sour grapes are considered the underripe grapes and are not used for wine making as their acidity ruins the wine. Maturity of the grapes is very important. Try eat a sour or unripe grape and it will set your teeth on edge, it will not taste great.

The sour grapes the Lord is referring to is multifaceted.

* Where there is lack of individual and relational maturity. Allow God to bring us fully through the development processes He has us in and not jumping the gun prematurely. We are all constantly growing and maturing, but at times we can tend to skip ahead of the process in desire of results, but in doing so we are not producing anything other than a bad taste because we have missed the development that actually produces the flavour. Ask the Lord, where am I in the development process? Am I getting ahead of myself? Or do I need to catch up because I stopped growing and maturing in areas? There is also a lack of relational maturity in the body. The wine is in the clusters, not the singular. We need to be growing in greater relational intelligence and ability than we are currently operating in.

*The Lord is also applying the lack of maturity to ministries. Where some understood the reset of 2020 and took heed, but in eagerness, responsibility and being uncomfortable in the in-between spaces,