Before The Fire
From The Message: The Prologue To Pentecost
The great poet one said “we must die to one life before we enter another”. This echoes Jesus’ words that new wine cannot be poured into old wineskins. The truth is that for something new to open, something old must close, very rarely are you able to have both. If you’d like to live your new, transformed, life in Christ, then the things that God pruned off of your life can’t stay.
For decades the Church has been crying out for revival and a fresh move of God. It is often overlooked though what must come first. If we look throughout history the greatest revivals are all preceded by one common denominator: repentance. In essence, repentance is the method by which the old man dies and the new man is brought about. It’s recognizing that our way is not the right way and must be surrendered to God’s way.
The Pharisees are a prime example of this principle. For hundreds of years they’d been waiting and crying out for the Messiah to come and rescue them. Their pitfall was that they were so attached to their old way- legalism, traditions, & piety- that when He came they rejected Him. A new covenant could not be brought about unless the old one died.
All throughout Paul’s epistles you see him fighting off growing heresies that tried to throw God’s people back into legalism. Time and time again, believers in Christ would get chained into false messages proclaiming that they had to be circumcised or justified by works. Because the old way was all that they knew, when the new way came it was hard to step into it.
All of these examples underscore one thing: new and old are mutually exclusive, they cannot coexist. We all want a “new thing ” in our lives, the question is what old do you need to get rid of so that the new can come about?
• Before revival we must first have repentance
• Old and new are mutually exclusive, they cannot coexist
• What “old things” must you get rid of so that your “new things” can sprout up?
