Are you experiencing a difficult time in your life right now? Is your job, family, finances, church (or lack thereof), friends, or your walk with God (again, lack thereof) under fire?

I want to share with you something really amazing that I believe will help you greatly (probably within 10 minutes of doing these two things).

Before I go any further, I need to use a couple verses to act as my foundation. Then, I can build on that to reveal some really interesting things.

Matthew 9:17
Neither do men 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.

Mark 2:22
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.

I don’t know if any of you have seen the kind of wineskins they use in the Middle East, but they are quite large and ugly! Ever seen the Princess Bride? Remember the large rodent of unusual size in the forest? Picture that – but dead. Yeah, pretty disgusting when you consider that they would drink the stuff coming out of it.

Now picture the same thing all dried up! When wineskins were not being used, they would toss them outside usually by the side of their houses (or tents). As the wineskin would sit outside in the weather, the sun beating down on it, it would dry up and would become hard. The material or outer shell of a good wineskin would be flexible, but if it sat outside in the hot sun and not being used, then it would dry up and get really hard.

The problem starts when they want to use this wineskin again. If they pour new wine in the wineskin, the new wine would start to ferment. And if the wineskin is dry and hard, then it won’t expand – it would only crack – thus damaging the wineskin and causing the new wine to pour out of it. Ruining both.

As some of you know, I like picking words out and looking up the original Hebrew & Greek meanings to the English words in our Bible. In this case, it was the Greek translation of the word “New” that was interesting.

When we look at the phrase “New Wine” – the Greek word actually means something that is “Brand New” (neos) – however when we look at the Greek word for “New Wineskin”, it is referring to something that has been renewed (kainos).

So how do you take an old wineskin and renew it? Simple…really it is. They would take the old dried up wineskin and submerge it under water for a while. They would bring the wineskin out of the water and they would start to rub olive oil on the wineskin. They would repeat this process until the wineskin was soft and flexible. This was their way of making a “new” or “renewed” wineskin.

So how can this help you where you are right now? When I’m battling issues in my life, whether it be in my job, finances, my family, or even my walk with God – I find that there seems to be one common factor in all of these things. A lack of “joy” in my life.

I’ll be honest, there are times when I go to church during worship time and I do not feel anything. I know that I should be feeling joy and happiness, but I don’t. It’s like the joy comes in and then goes right back out. I don’t retain it. I can’t retain it. And I leave church feeling just as worse or sometimes just plain worse than how I felt when I got there. It has nothing to do with the church, the preacher, the worship leader, the songs being sung, the atmosphere. It’s about my spiritual body being dried up and not used.

Let’s just say for example that our spiritual bodies are like the wineskin. If we are not using our spiritual lives, then we are like the unused wineskin. And over time we allow all of life’s troubles to beat down on us and dry up everything that was once joy.

The problem is, we go to church expecting the church to fix the problem. When sometimes, it simply can’t be done. It’s something that you alone have to do yourself.

So what’s the process? Simple….really it is.

Submerge yourself into the Word of God (Water). Refresh yourself. Just open up the Bible and start reading. You don’t have to find the perfect verse to read. Just begin to read.

The next thing to do is the oil. Now, don’t physically start rubbing oil all over your body (especially in public as this causes unnecessary embarrassment both for you and the viewer) instead use something that is commonly referred to as oil in the Bible – the Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit by how? Praying! Just start praying. You don’t have to come up with the perfect words to say. Just start asking God to allow the Spirit to move in you and to make you flexible and soft again. So that when joy does enter into you – you will be able to capture it and retain it.

Sometimes I have to do this several times during the day. If you only do it once, it won’t last forever because your physical and spiritual bodies are constantly under fire. Submerge in the Word of God and cover yourself in Prayer. It works – try it!