A wineskin was a container made of goat skin. Let me share this scripture passage in Matthew 9:16,17 (NIV). In my previous post I said that I did NOT want to be an “old wineskin”, and miss the Promises of God: “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

New wine is strong and active. It is placed in a new wineskin to age and mellow. That wineskin ages with it and cannot be used again because it is no longer supple. It cannot stretch to accommodate the activity in the new wine.

I was talking to a young woman this morning, and telling her that even though I am 67 years old, I want to be vibrant and accessible to the will of God until He calls me home. My maternal grandmother died moments after attending a church gathering. My mother said that she couldn’t remember a time that my grandmother had enjoyed a meeting as much as she enjoyed that meeting. I had an paternal aunt who died after washing all the communion cups and trays. She took this task very seriously and with reverence cleaned up the kitchen and left the church building for the last time.

Whatever the Lord would have me do, big, small or somewhere in between, I want to do it with excitement. There is scripture that says Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrew 13:8). How true, but He doesn’t always do things the same way. The religious leaders of that day didn’t understand this, and were offended with and resisted Him at every turn (John 1:9-14 NIV). I want to finish the race marked out for me, and I want to finish it in a way that glorifies God (2 Timothy 4:7,8; Hebrews 12:1-3; Philippians 2:12-16 NIV).

In the world, the first one across the finish line is the winner, but not so in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God, whoever crosses the finish line is a winner (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:12-14 NIV).