New wine in new bottles 2
God is trying to teach us: “You cannot have victory
in your own strength.” As long as you are under the
law, you will be ruled by sin. The chief work that God
seeks to do in each of His children is to break down
the strength of self totally. Jesus waited for the old
wine to run out, at Cana, before He did His miracle.
He is waiting now for our strength to come to an
end. All our failures and defeats are meant by God to
bring us to the end, for He can manifest His power
perfectly only in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
We can see the strength of self in the moments of
temptation and provocation, when we react with
bitter words, angry expressions, self-justification,
criticism and judgment of others, unforgiving attitudes, a grabbing-love for material things, fighting
for our rights and our reputation, seeking vengeance
etc. These and other similar attitudes show how
strong self still is in us – the old wine has not yet run
out; and Jesus waits on the sidelines doing nothing
for us.
If only we allow God to break us, if only we would
humble ourselves and gladly accept death to our
rights and reputation, how quickly He could lead
us into life under the new covenant! All the trying
circumstances, frustrations and disappointments,
heartaches etc., that we go through are meant by
God to bring the strength of our self down to zero.
This was how God dealt with Job. Finally Job
reached that zero-point where lying on his face in
the dust, he said, “Lord, I am nothing. (I am zero.)
… I lay my hand upon my mouth in silence. … I had
only heard about you (second-hand) before, but now