New Wine, part 3

Best of the new wine…Numbers 18:12

The first time ‘new wine’ appears in the Bible is in Numbers 18:12: All the best of the oil, all the best of the new wine and the grain, their firstfruits which they offer to the LORD, I have given them to you.

The offering of firstfruits to the Lord was the responsibility of the priests serving in the Tabernacle. To show their appreciation of coming into their land of promise and of the first fruits of the harvest, the people were to bring the best of the oil, new wine, and grain to the Lord. They were not to bring what they didn’t want, the culls. They were to bring the best. 

Nothing has changed. God still deserves our best. We donate what we don’t want to charities so they can pass the blessing to those who cannot afford new. We give our best to God. We do this because God gave us His best—He gave us His only begotten Son. 

As God gave them their inheritance, the land, and the crops therein, God gives us our inheritance, grace in abundance. Grace upon grace means we are new. To follow the imagery of the new wine, we are the new wineskins in which God pours His new wine.

In the words of Jesus, no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine sis spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved, Matthew 9:17. This statement is a part of Jesus’ answer to the question: why don’t Your disciples fast? Answer: Friends of the bridegroom do not mourn while he is with them. You do not sew new cloth to patch old cloth. You do not put new wine into old wineskins. 

Jesus is making people new. He made you new. You are now ready to receive new wine, which is the Holy Spirit of God. Share what you have with others. Freely give what you have freely received!