New Wine

The Law of Process says that leadership develops daily, not in a day. This truth is sometimes hard for us to swallow because we are accustomed to instant gratification in our everyday lives. We eat fast food, we have instant answers to questions with our friend Siri, and we can shop at the click of a button. Bottom line, our modern-day culture has made us expect instant results and a quick, easy fix to our problems.

Most of us assume growth will happen that way as well, instantly. But, unfortunately, that isn’t how life works. True, lasting, kingdom change happens over time. It’s a process, a process that involves patience, as well as a willingness to let go of the old so we can embrace the new.

Jesus taught on this idea in Luke 5:37: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.”

If you’re familiar with making wine, when the grapes go through the chemical process of fermenting, it causes the liquid to expand. If you put new wine into an old wineskin that had already been stretched to its limit, it would burst. People living in the culture that Jesus was teaching to when he told this parable would clearly know that if you tried to reuse an old wineskin it would end in disaster.

Jesus was trying to tell us that He wants us to be willing to go through a process in order to be made into new wine. He wants us to ferment and expand in our knowledge of Him.

Part of this process and the secret of our spiritual success is found in our daily discipline: being in the Word, being involved in prayer, spending time alone with God so we can hear what He is speaking into our lives, giving the Holy Spirit a chance to be heard. God desires us to enter into and trust the Law of Process so we can develop and mature daily.

The biggest struggle most of us have with this process is patience. We think we should be farther along than we are, so we get discouraged and give up. We lose sight of the fact that spiritual strength does not develop overnight but is deepened over time.

And in order for the process of our spiritual growth to not end in disaster, we have to throw away the old wineskins, the ways that don’t work. We have to remain pliable and open to the life-changing message Jesus has for us. We have to keep our hearts from being rigid like old wineskins, unable to accept a new way of thinking.

If we endeavor to live a life of honesty but still tell those “little white lies,” we are not releasing the old wineskins. If we dig in our heels and don’t accept discipline from God, our hearts are not pliable and willing to expand and grow.

I will be the Voice with Women of Faith Ambassadors for the month of June. We will be digging deep into the subject of New Wine. We will look at the ways God wants to deepen our faith and our influence by inviting us into the process. The Good News is, God is ready and willing to pour His new wine into us. Our job is to simply be ready and willing to receive it by trusting the process!

My prayer is that by the end of the month we will identify the old wineskins in our lives and throw them away, that we will become open vessels for God to pour into.

Let’s become New Wine together!  Please join me as a Women of Faith Ambassador!

Hugs and love

Jill Miller

Voice with Women of Faith

A living “Energizer Bunny,” Jill has a zest for life that is contagious! With humor and honesty, she shares her personal struggles and how God showed up in the midst of them. Through her songwriting, speaking and writing, she is simply a friend telling her story, hoping it will touch your heart, encourage you in your struggles, and inspire you to keep reaching for your full potential. Her spiritual insights are relatable, insightful, and can be practically applied to your life.

Jill realized a dream when she was named one of the new Voices with Women of Faith and serves the ministry by leading worship, teaching, speaking, and writing.

Jill is a Nashville recording artist and recently released her 6th CD entitled “Twelve, the Freedom Soundtrack.” She has opened for the legendary Loretta Lynn and Brian Littrell (of the Backstreet Boys), performed a duet with NewSong, and sang the national anthem for President Bush and 11,000 people when he was in Sioux City. Jill has also performed at the legendary Bluebird Café in Nashville.

Jill is also a certified speaker, coach and teacher with the John Maxwell Team and has written the first ever theme song for the John Maxwell Team.

Jill also writes a weekly blog and has written her first book, “Grace Finds Wings – A Journey in Song.” In her book, Jill shares the stories behind the songs on her CD, “Grace Finds Wings,” and finds ways to touch your heart and help you discover grace in things like infertility, adoption, divorce, financial struggles, marital infidelity and loss.

Jill and her husband, John, have four grown sons and live in the cornfields of Iowa with their two male rescue dogs. Jill is anxiously waiting for some daughters-in-law and grandbabies so she can get a little estrogen in her family!